Five year anniversary

Demetra says that she wouldn't be able to recognize herself from the person she was this time last year. We were graduating from Gonzaga then. It was before Bali, before Pokot, before Nakuru, before an awful lot. I agree but would push it even farther. I wouldn't know myself one year to the next going well back to high school. I started college. I lived in Munich for five months and traveled a not inconsiderable portion of Europe alone. I served at the House of Charity for one and a half years. Priorities shifted. Interests and tastes changed. New experiences were had. And that's really why I'm glad I started Spice of Life just a month before graduating from Lake of the Woods High School and kept it reasonably well maintained since then. It's allowed me to keep tabs on my life, on my growth.

So I'm glad to announce the five year anniversary of Spice of Life. In celebration I offer this list of my favorite posts from the past two years, the last time I looked back over this oeuvre.

Learning Argentine Tango: Astor Piazzolla's "Tango: Zero Hour"

I don't only dance the Argentine Tango. I like a little Salsa. I like a little Cha Cha. I like a little West Coast Swing. I never listen to those songs outside the dance floor, though. Tango I do listen to. Gotan Project, Hugo Diaz, Osvaldo Pugliese, Benito Calvez, Astor Piazzolla I listen to. Their compositions, their performances floor me. To move with them is something else.

Vegetarianism

I like to think that I chose to become a vegetarian for the right reasons. I like to think that so much that I shared with the greater public in a fairly permanent forum. I still agree with those reasons though they seem a bit sillier after my time in Kenya and seeing that butcheries were fairly common. To be more in line with the solidarity thought, maybe it would be more appropriate to move toward a highly limited meat stance instead of a no meat stance.

Considering "Outliers: The Story of Success"

Know what's more fun than writing about things you enjoy? Writing about things you abhor. Know how to make yourself superior? By taking down someone that so many others seem to think so well that they send every single one of his stupid, stupid books onto the best seller lists. It's such a cathartic hatred.

Considering "Fix" and "Kirschblüten - Hanami"

Thank everyone for the Spokane International Film Festival. No debate, the two best movies I saw in theaters in 2009.

More flash fiction

What? Someone enjoyed Christopher F. Heinrich's scribblings in fiction enough that they invited him to compete in an eight-person tournament? Oh yes. Just ignore the part where he went out in the first round.

A Year (or Two) in Kenya: Bribes

It's less fun to write about things you hate when they are actively screwing over you and those you care for. I managed to avoid deportation, though. That's good.

A Year (or Two) in Kenya: Fourth journey into Pokot

It's nice to think that it's simple. You give someone a few ladles full at a soup kitchen. You give someone else some scoops of maize flour and a quarter of a cabbage. They go through the line and say thank you. It's not always that way. You get through it.

A Year (or Two) in Kenya: White

Turns out racism sucks, even when a large portion of it involves getting sucked up to. Who'd have thought?

A Year (or Two) in Kenya: Rugby

Turns out I enjoy rugby. Who'd have thought?

Nine and a half months in Kenya: Departure

Nine and a half months of the most different, challenging months in your life cannot help but matter to and change you. I fail but try to capture some of that here.

Please, if you have any favorite posts of your own, mention them and link to them in the comments. I'm always interested to hear what you has interested you and provoked the most thought and response.