Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth, that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning.
Emerson

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Latress On The Menjay

Hello from Vientiane, Lao!
Rather than say goodbye to this blog- or not so much good-bye but See you later, or Until we meet again,  or perhaps just, Latress on the menjay, I am proposing a split- you could consider it an extra credit assignment if you choose to follow both, or simply a good old American stock split, or a choice to appeal to shifting demographics. 


For a variety of reasons, my next iteration needs a fresh face and a new title (which I will get to momentarily).  I settled on PeterInPeterOut before heading out to Thailand in 2010, a silly, last minute concession to my failure to come up with anything else. I assayed cute and clever, erudite and philosophical, heartwarming and sincere, and then in a hurry to get on with it, more or less took an odd phrase with my name in it and said F**k it. 


In retrospect PeterinPeterout has been fitting, since the blog, and my experience, was at times floundering, weird, and connected to a personal rupture/reconnection. I left my friends, family, wife, habits, hobbies, job, language, country- to step beyond.  I like the notion of trickling associated with the title, because that is how learning seems to happen for me- it eeps in, over time, through experience. I also like it because I feel, even at 53, as if I am discovering what it means to be a human being, and seeking a righteous ethic of living.

I hadn't anticipated the blatant sexual overtones of PiPo. Like the Oh ho ho! Thailand eh?Bangkok! Nod, nod, wink, wink. Yes, I find a good fart, toilet, penis joke as endearing and timeless as the next eternally adolescent male, but sometimes a Peter is just a Peter (I won't go so far as to say it would smell as sweet by any other name).


In my new blog, the students and the Liger Learning Center endeavor will be in the spotlight (in fact, I tried several title combinations with the word endeavor in it), while this will separately track my groovy ramble.


Tricky business, names and titles.  I went to the stalwarts- Shakespeare, the bible (already heavily mined)- and then to personal touchstones (Four Quartets, Housekeeping, etc). With the millions of bloggers out there, it is easy to see why anything remotely catchy or memorable is already snagged. Approached conceptually I ran into much of the same- hope, heart, promise-  the results were ill-fitting or taken.



Eventually, with Conor's help I arrived at Bright Uprising which I loved for both its sound (the repetition of the long i and the br followed by the pr) and  its sense. I like the multiple connotations of Bright- fitting since my Cambodian students have been chosen after an intensive, far reaching search, chosen for their motivation as well as their leadership and academic promise, and Uprising since optimism is one of Liger's 5 core values (+ integrity, stewardship, ingenuity, determination). I also dig the edgy feel of the word uprising, since the world feels in need of a new paradigm going forward, and these are kids of little means, rising up in the world. So see you there  brightuprising.com  and here, when you have a moment.








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