Well-Matched Mismatcher

Not a bad little Friday. First, passed Arabic exam. Second, ran off to a courthouse with a lovely little lady. Third, realized I was wearing a pair of pants that did not match my jacket. Finally, celebrated the evening away with a remarkable gathering of friends and family. :-)

surprise headlines

decision-making

Thought of the day: I'm too finely tined at yes-or-no decision-making...maybe i need to re-learn how to make the more qualitative, the "which is the best of many answers or possibilities" type of questions and decision making.

I'm having a hard time picking a quote of the week...

"You have missed the whole of the world if you have not kayaked."

vs.

"You're a little more wifehunt than I think you think you are."

vs.

"I've been reading Fifty Shades of Grey and a few things about him remind me of you."

Hmm.

The Messenger, Not the Message

Sometimes being a ghora in India is such a damn novelty that they have a hard time continuing about their business without stopping to take a picture or listening to what you're saying...

Case in point?

A day-long media blitz promoting advanced studies in the US and giving Indian students good information about the process. The public affairs people paired me with the US-India Education Foundation country coordinator, a Syracuse grad who sent her son to study in the US, too. We spoke with four newspapers, two english, two telugu. She did most of the speaking, as she's the professional advisor. I chimed in on the visa perspective: do your own personal research, don't rely on agents to do everything for you, prove that you're a credible student, separate yourself from the students who are more interested in working than getting a good education, don't rely on fake documents, etc. We ended the day with a televised session with a (small but cute) live audience.

The first article to come out?


"American Official...A Speaker of Pure Telugu"

The article starts off by bemoaning how Telugu-vallu go off to America and forget all their Telugu or come back with a poor accent, but here's an American who learned Telugu for 6 months by reading our newspaper (they were a bit boastful) and he speaks perfect Telugu.

This article may or may not win a Pulitzer Prize for truthfulness...

And how much of the article is dedicated to the student issues we were trying to present? Uh, none. But we're hopefully it might be included in a special section at a later date. Whoops.

Oh, and yeah. That IS my business card scanned into the newspaper of the second-most-widely-read telugu newspaper...

Turning 31

Turning 31 is less exciting than turning 30, but more exciting that turning 32, I would imagine.

A delicious dinner at N, complete with gentle seasonal breeze and chocolate cake, even if my likely-to-be-stunning rendition of the French National Anthem was hushed just a few stanzas into the song. And check out this guest list of VVVIPs:

Matt and Kim
Benny and Amy
Liz and Steve (and Julia)
Andrew
Testafe
Guest of Honor: Janani Ramachandran
Chief Guest: Jeremy Jewett

Sadly, the “You and I” paparazzi must have missed the invitation...

You and I

celebrating american independence: jeremy "with a friend." no big deal.


oh, and the cover title of this week's edition of "You and I?"

TIMELESS BEAUTIES

by any other name

a far-off friend charmed me by e-mail a few or two back, wondering aloud what name she could call me. i thought about it, smiled, and offered a rough draft of the etymology of my name over place and time, which has changed as much as I have.

Jeremy Ryan Jewett – So I was named on July 14th, 1980. But it's more than that, I’ve got a complex relationship with my name...

Jeremy – My most common answer to the question "What's your name?" I’ve never really been able to decide, though, whether I prefer the three-syllable or the two-syllable pronunciation and I’m not sure it matters. Je-re-me? Jer-me? It depends on context, as any good answer should.

Zermi – a good family friend, born just a few months after me, couldn’t master the intricacies of Jeremy at an early age. Every since, and to this day, I remain “zermi” to Amy and her family.

Germy - my sister's babytalk version. Usually paired with "Germy did it." Still in occasional use.

J.J. – A dream of days gone by. In second grade, I wanted nothing more than to be called J.J. I wanted this desperately, mostly related to how much B.J. Surhoff was my favorite Brewer. But on the first day of class, when the teacher went around and asked everyone what they wanted to be called, I chickened out. I couldn’t do it, I wimped out. A dream died a slow death. To this day, the only people that call me J.J. are my godmother and godfather.

j – The longest story: I learned a lot, my freshman year of college, at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. And in truth, I had a lot to learn. The first lesson I learned? It’s fun to be friends with girls. (this was a sort of newsflash to me.) The first of the bunch – and best (until my crush on her roommate flopped) – Meredith. A month into our friendship, I asked if I could call her Merd. She agreed, but only if I let her call me “j.” The single letter j. It stuck, as I suppose it should have.

That summer, I marched off to YMCA Camp Nan A Bo Sho, a time and place that molded me as much as my freshman year of college. They asked, on a small sheet of paper tucked inside an application packet, what I wanted my nickname to be. I gave it no more than a little thought before writing down “j.” Fate was cemented.

I wore the nickname through four years of YMCA Camp Nan A Bo Sho, rising from lowly new-comer to program director, the name evolving alongside me to “Jay,” “J-Rod,” and “Rodman” over the years. To a thousand kids, though, I was “j,” just a single letter. (Clearly the best letter, I would add.) My friend brian tells a great story of his first impression upon meeting me at Trueman’s camp in North Carolina. “Hi! I’m j! Like the letter, except lower case!”

And at the same time, the name followed me to Madison, although not immediately. The first to pick it up were Adventure Learning Programs. It was my camp-like outlet in Madison, so it’s fitting that as I was more j-like, the ALPs staffers grew to know me as much as j as Jeremy. The trend doubled as I started to bring NABS friends into ALPs. By the end of my stay in Madison, you could tell how I knew someone, just by the name they used for me. If they knew me from camp or ALPs, j. If they knew me from class, jobs or some other chunk of the real world, Jeremy.

J-Ryan – There’s one girl in the world, a second Megan Leigh, who calls me J-Ryan. And it’s a fair trade. I refused to call her Megan, only Megan Leigh, as she shared the first and middle name of my sister, and that tickled me pink.

J. Jewett – But when I went off to Colorado after graduating, I ran into a problem: a camp that wasn’t comfortable with nicknames. Nope, CCO is on a first-name basis. It didn’t feel right being a Jeremy at camp, so I held fast until Marty agreed I could be J. Jewett. To this day, I’m J. Jewett to the CCO folks, even if that’s never made much sense to me, squeezing my naming-scheme into a hole it doesn’t necessarily fit into. best used in an e-mail in the wondrous phrase "...your laughter and your general JJewettness make me smile..."

J-Squared – Preferred by assorted schmucks.

Herr Jewett, Herr, Jewett – When I took to teaching in Fond du Lac, right after coming home from North Carolina, I had to become a bit more professional, lest I be confused for a pupil in the hallway. Herr Jewett I became, the German for Mr. Jewett. (A name already taken, of course, by my dad who taught just down the hall.) The kids would often shorten that to Herr, which was fine, or Jewett, which I didn’t mind as much as perhaps I should have.

Jah-rah-mee – But in Hungary, the more formal cultural was surprisingly less formal with my name. Teachers and students alike called me Jeremy – even if they couldn’t pronounce it. And never even Mister Jeremy, just always Jeremy. It’s almost like they know that I had a last name. And even in the end of the year program, all the teachers are listed in all their full-name glory, and I was listed only as “Jeremy.” As if I was a one-name celebrity. The best part? There’s a Hungarian song by the title of “Jeremy.”

Jer – Two fellow American teachers in hungary, though, decided that they like “Jer” best of all. Kat and Liz, in a way we were three amigos in a three-letter-name club.

J.R. Jewett – And then in law school, I picked up the legally J.R. Jewett as a preferred moniker of sorts in written form. In addition to the handy e-mail handles, the name captured the happier memories of my pre-law past, while blending it with a slightly stoic signature that carries an air of importance and apathy, all rolled into one.

jrj – A current favorite. A great way to sign an email. A great way to sign an acknowledgement. Curt, crisp, unique. And best of all? Symmetric. I’m a big fan. Never cursived. Always either all lowercase or all uppercase.

Jem – Only one person goes with Jem, an old law classmate Charlie. A tribute to To Kill A Mockingbird

two-hundred-and-nine years later

But it's not like i'm the first to struggle to find myself adjusting to Hyderabad. Borrowing from William Dalrymple's "White Mughals," the best book about Hyderabad's princely mughal history:

"Since I came to this country, I cannot begin to recount all that has happened to me by way of suffering, deception and diseases, with no one intelligent to talk to...Alas, how could I know that matters would come to this present sorry state - broken and stuck in the hellish climate of Hyderabad!"

-- Abdul Lateef (1802)

And it will certainly improve over due course, as my mom has confessed that she is praying to St. Anthony, the patron saint of matchmaking, on my behalf. He's also, of course, the patron saint of lost things. Hopefully not lost causes.

...And The Other.

So those ups and those downs, those extremes? Tough. (even though our hardship differential just went down from 25% to 20%.) And apparently, I'm not doing a very good job of masking the difficulties and celebrating the successes, based on recent unsolicated feedback from a variety of friends watching from afar:

"I feel an agitation and restlessness in your words, but at the same time maybe a subtle frustration and confusion? Like you were so sure of everything and you are for the most part happy, so you don't know why you are feeling a little down? that could be way off - I just feel like the enthusiasm for things isn't here today - and it's a much more apathetic tone."

"I have to admit, i'm a little worried about you over there in india....I wonder why you keep jumping around from country to country if doing so is leaving you unfulfilled. You always seemed content with it before, but now it seems as if all these people that you meet and all the amazing places you see aren't filling your deepest need...What is it you hope to discover?"

"I think I liked it better when you were in the US and not in India. I say this not for selfish reasons but because I felt that were happier, more your totally fabulous self stateside."

"You sound different....less upbeat than the usual."

"I have a question: are you enjoying India?"

oops. i'm probably happier than I let on, even if i am starting to wonder if i'm some sort of perma-malcontent, which would be odd to anyone who has known me at my happiest. maybe it's just that it's easy to complain in india: it's loud, it's hot, it's crowded, it's noisy, it's chaotic, it's slow, it's smelly, it's hectic. it's dirty. in short, it's incredible... there are less than diplomatic admissions, but sometimes it feels like one of the more difficult place on the planet to live. maybe that's what makes it so interesting? fascinating? amazing? i'm looking forward to travelling more, exploring more, even if travelling here is fairly difficult.

as for the job? grinding, but occasionally good. i'm less content in total than imagined i would be...after all it's my dream job in a long-held dream location. part of that's the institution. part of that's the circumstances. part of that might just be me? only time will tell.

Strengths Found

My new doorknob hanger...

Bastille Day Birthday Bonanza XXX

it started as a wednesday night trip to the french-maid-dress-race, but it devolved instead into just a wonderful evening with the perfect kalaidoscope of friends.

rj the father-to-be from the hometown, from the freshman year of college.

childhood friend amy and her bridesmaid demetra

Thanksgiving Elli, still alive after Hungarian/Romanian adventures

Four Winds Amelia, a Washington Stater turned Washington Districter

Lilly, Melanie and Lara, Wisconsin Law ladies

diplomats Richa, Alison, and Anne dropped by, not an unreasonable turnout as our numbers slowly dwindle

and of course Andhra Andrew and Goppadi Gloria

Thanks friends. :-)

ONE of FIVE by THIRTY

turning 30’ss kind of a big deal. As proof, see, for example, these arguments:

1. it’s a round number.
2. it starts with a 3.
3. in telugu it’s pronounced “muppai,” which is way sweater than “irravaithommidi.”
4. your free-wheeling twenties are over.
5. I’m eligible to run for the United States Senate.

Maybe that number four is the most important. A number as some sort of transition point between a decade of wandering/growing/exploring/learning/developing/discovering/experimenting/etc toward a decade better steered toward
accomplishing/earning/refining/developing/achieving/planning/settling/cultivating/etc.

In that spirit, a few years back, a young lady by the name of Rachel threw down a gauntlet. She thought it was funny, as a bright eyed undergraduate, to be living with a man just a few years from 30. So she set forth a challenge. By my 30th birthday, she expected at least one big-boy accomplishment. Something to prove I was headed in the right direction. Something to suggest that the best darn decade of my life hadn’t been a solely self-indulgent sojourn. She was kind enough, though, to give me a choice in the matter. Achieve ONE of the FIVE following:

1. Own a home.
2. Get married and/or propose the same.
3. Have a child.
4. In lieu of a child, have a pet with four legs and fur.
5. Get a real career.
At first I was a bit intimidated by the abrupt reality of the challenge. Just a few years to do something big. I tried my darndest to expand the list, to sneak something easily achievable for a guy with my inclinations on the list. Something like: 6. Earn a professional degree or 7. Publish a book or 8. Buy a shiny car or even 9. Sign my own two-year cellphone contract. No dice. Rachel held firm.

So I’m proud to report, on the eve of my 30th birthday, success. Huge wild success. I have accomplished one of the five.

Progress Report:

1. No. Headed down the diplomacy path, there’s at least a marginal chance that I might never own a home in my life. A bit of a strangely sad thought.

2. No. And not really all that close, either.

3. No. (Applause.)

4. No. (Thank you.)

5. Check.

game set match

One year ago, I learned how to play tennis. In some ways, it's just another sport, but I've take to the game. Maybe not as a way of life, perhaps, but certainly something more interesting than just a passing hobby.

Mallory taught the game to me from scratch last summer at the ripe ole age of 28, approximately 27 years after a Madden would learn the sport. She beat me repeatedly, as you'd expect a former high school number one single to do. But every once in a while I took pride in taking her to Deuce or even stealing a game. I got so good at losing with grace that my first victory -- Mallory and I wore her parents out -- came as a surprise.

This year, Hyderabadi Andrew is my most frequent cross-court opponent. He claims some genetic proclivity to tennis, so he regularly beats me, too, but i'm getting way more competitive. Seems like half our games go to Deuce, sometimes repeatedly.

In commemoration of a year of tennis, here's a statistical analysis of my performance:

2009 (approximately 4 months of game play)

11 "matches"
19 sets (2 wins, 17 loses)
46-107 game score

2010 (approximately 2 months of game play so far, 5 months remaining)

9 "matches"
19 sets (2 wins, 17 loses)
47-107 game score

So I know what you're saying. "Jeremy," as you roll your eyes,"that's not very impressive improvement. You've improved your game win percentage from 30.07% to 30.52% over the course of a year. That's not even half-a-percentage better. Did you, in fact, get an better?"

Three impressive statistics, though, lay buried in the numbers, as I suppose all good statistics do:

A. Stamina. I play more sets per match this go-round. Last year's "matches" averaged 1.73 sets. This year, I average 2.11 sets before going home. That's a 22% increase in the length of play once I step on a court.

B. Gettin'-on-the-Board. In 2009, I was shut-out 4 times. That's right, Mallory held me without a game in 4 of our sets. This year, though? Andrew's managed the feat only once.

C. Frequency. Last year, I played tennis approximately 2.75 times per month. This year, though, I'm averaging 4.5 - almost double the old rate of play!

But the tennis lessons aren't limited to on-the-court. Some nuggets of tennis wisdom are applicable in the world at large. Among them, a tennis adage I learned playing a random Spanish-only speaking gentleman (probably Nadal's cousin) in Fond du Lac last fall: Broke at love...a bad way to go in tennis and life.

telugu telesu

huge breakthrough. for the first time, i made it through an entire Telugu morning without leaving at 12:30 in pain. this is either a good sign...or an indicator that they take it easy on us on Mondays...

baby-steps in telugu:

my name is jeremy.
na peru jeremy.
న పేరు జేరేమి.

i am a telugu student.
nenu telugu vidyarthi.
నేను తెలుగు విద్యార్ధి.

that pen is under this table.
adi kalam idi pustakam kinda undi.
అది కలం ఇది పుస్తకం కింద ఉంది.

blue

Recently certified as the greatest moment of my parents' life:

Jeremy gets a health insurance card.

ENTP

I've never actually gotten around to taking the Myers-Briggs before...

According to 90-odd questions answered, I'm inclined toward:

Extroversion
iNtuition
Thinking
Perceiving

Only 3.2% of the U.S. population's an ENTP, but it was the most common category in our orientation group. We're likely to be labeled an "inventor." MBTI describes our "type" as creative, imaginative, clever, enterprising, resourceful; theoretical, conceptual and curious; good at seeing opportunities and possibilities in the outer world; adept at generating possibilities and then analyzing them strategically; stimulated by difficulties; quickly devise creative responses and trust ability to improvise; likely to value competence, intelligence, precision and efficiency; usually seen by others as independent, outspoken, enthusiastic, assertive and outspoken.

Boom, now you know how to deal with me.

The Eagle Summit Tribute: Memories

Eagle Summit Casette-Based Theme Song:

(tie) Here I Go Again - Whitesnake

(tie) Back in the High Life Again - Steve Winwood

Most Valuable Passenger:

N.J. Ruys most likely logged the most passenger miles in the beaut. One trip to Colorado, 2.5 years of roommatesmanship during the Eagle Summit years? That kind of longevity is tough to beat.

Last Passenger:

R.M. Jones. Fitting.

Most Bittersweet Taxi-Runs:

(tie) N.V. Csabay and ORD.

(tie) M.L. Madden and MSN.

Worst Commute:

2004-05. 5:30 to morning teacher basketball league.

Top Five Eagle Summit Moments:

Spring 2004 Beach Party Shuttle with D.S. Lund.

Driving to/through/from North Carolina with a faded yellow mattress in the backseat, and Brian/Emmaline/Aaryn/et al riding shotgun.

Barreling through the 100-Year Floods in Fond du Lac on June 12th, 2008.

Driving my worldly possessions from Madison to Fond du Lac, one last time, in the summer of 2009...with my right-hand turn signal going off the whole damn way.

Sleeping inside the Eagle Summit, bathing in Lake Mendota and brushing my teeth in the public library - Fall 2009.

Trips Where the Eagle Summit was Vetoed as a Mode of Transportation:

Outer Banks 2004
Alabama 2004
Iowa 2006
Virginia 2007
Arkansas 2009
Colorado 2009
Virginia 2009
Lakewood 2009
Minnesota 2009
Washington DC 2010

The Eagle Summit Tribute: Crunching the Numbers

I bought my first car, a 1995 Eagle Summit, on Nov. 10th, 2003, for $1,800. Soon - this weekend, to be exact - that sweet, sweet ride will come to an end. Here’s a numeric breakdown of the Eagle Summit’s goodness:

2,287 days of ownership. (Although that mark is punctuated by two long stays in Hungary totaling just more than 365 days.)

And over the course of those more than six years? 56,569 miles driven. To put that income-esque figure into perspective, 56,569 miles is equal to:

= 350 round-trips between home and Madison’s capital square.
= 18 one-way drives across the breadth of America on U.S. Route 50.
= more than 2 trips around the world at the equator.
= more than 1/4th of the way to the moon.

(Do NOT doubt the Eagle Summit, yo!)

Doing some math, that’s 24.7 miles per day. The equivalent is one round-trip drive to the St. Vinnie’s on Fond du Lac’s southwest side each and every day. It also equals just about one mile per hour of ownership. Surprising.

At a purchase price of $1,800, minus the sales price of $1, I paid $1,799 for my 2,287 days of membership in the Eagle Summit club. The breakdown? 78 cents a day. 3 cents a mile.

Where’d the Eagle Summit go? 13 States. Not the original colonies, but WI + CO, IA, IL, IN, KY, MN, NC, NE, SD, TN, VA, WY.

And the null set? Zero is the number of Eagle Summit-related:
Accidents.
Speeding tickets.
Roadhead.
Border crossings.
Hitchhikers.
Animals hit.
CDs played.
Cigarettes lit.

The Eagle Summit Tribute

Goodbye my friend!


A multimedia tribute to a beloved ride, to come in parts.

(NOTE: Even seven years later, the Eagle Summit is still a little ambiguous. Puzzle-ingly androgynous. To this day, I have never really determined if the Eagle Summit is a man-car or a lady-car. Therefore, I’m uncomfortable using the gender-based pronouns “he” and “she,” and the inanimate pronoun "it" would detract far too much from the Eagle Summit’s obvious humanity, so instead I use no pronouns to describe THE Eagle Summit.)