Guam - Where America is Testing the Next Generation of Unmanned Surveillance Drones
I apologize for the lack of posting recently I've been sick and trying to finish up my quarter. I'm turning in a research paper for one of my classes and its supposed to be 15 pages but is slowly sprawling out of control. I may have to make it half-ass just to finish it by its due date tomorrow.
For those who don't know yet, part of my stress is me preparing to head back to Guam next week. When I arrive there it'll have been 495 days since I left. Holding my breath near drowning in diaspora for that long, seems insane, but somehow I did it.
It'll be so nice to see my family in particular my grandparents that I've missed so much and can't keep in regular touch with over the phone since puru ha' mantangga ham, and our conversations are constant "hah? Hafa ilek-mu?" I'll also get a chance to see my cousin and her kids that I love to death and make me pine for the day when I get to stress over, abuse, and fatta' over my own kids. I'll also get to hang out with the people I can't seem to keep in touch with over email, because they aren't my email friends and so emailing them feels like I'm one of those participants who is trying to confuse the test subject as to whether I'm a computer or a human being.
"Hello....Francis...Are you Well?....I am Well...We must email more frequently...Are you still Fat like a Rancid Eclair?...I am only Joshing You...I mean Jonesing You...Or is it Jeffing You?...We must email more often...I Hope You Are Well...Keep in Touch...Goodbye..."
Then there's the food! I can't wait to eat at Shirley's and King's. Am I the only person in the Diaspora who wants to return to Guam and not eat my ethnically appropriate food (nengkanno' Chamoru?) but instead eat just plain old Americanzed diner food? I'm sure I'll eat plenty of Chamorro food too, but I miss desperately not just the food at these places, but also just kicking back, humahaggan, with my friends, sharing crepes, sharing fries, overcompensating when the bill arrives and therefore making the waitress very very happy.
Oh, ya i tasi! Lana, taimanu na maleffa yu' put Hagu? I can't wait to swim in water which doesn't threaten to make me sterile by dropping the temprature of the lower half of my body to absolute zero. I mean, the beaches out here in the states that I've been to are okay, but by okay I mean, hellishly freezing and discomforting. I can't wait to get back to my marginally polluted, litter strewn beaches of Guam. I'm really looking forward to doing again one of my favorite extreme sports, that's right spearfishing alone at night. Whenever I tell people on island that I do that, they react like I've just told them that I raided the U.S.S. Haole currently stationed in Apra and then sailed it to some mythical pirate island where I sold the ship for scrap and turned the crew into some twisted reality TV show on the military and its disavowed yet very obvious homosexual economies. If there was a reality show on this, what would its name be anyways?
In addition to all this, it will be nice just to leave this country for a while, even though people will no doubt remind me politely, patrioticly, and patronizingly that I'm not really leaving the United States when I go to Guam. But I don't buy any of that. Unlike most Chamorros and people on Guam, what I love about that island isn't because of the United States. I don't love it because its America in Asia or because its Where America's Day Begins, or even Where America Will be Testing the Next Generation of Surveillance Drones. I love it for other reasons which naturally predate and often conflict with the United States, so for me becoming entangled in the colonizing consciousness of my island again, where life seems so determined to strangle the local, to kill or deny the existence of the Chamorro, attempting to inhabit that space which the United States and its representatives cannot get rid of, is why it is my home and why Guam does not belong to the United States. Although some may claim that this kernel that resists is small, is located far back in the past, is practically nothing, it is not in my view. It is huge, and it is what I fight for and what I seek to show to others.
For those who don't know yet, part of my stress is me preparing to head back to Guam next week. When I arrive there it'll have been 495 days since I left. Holding my breath near drowning in diaspora for that long, seems insane, but somehow I did it.
It'll be so nice to see my family in particular my grandparents that I've missed so much and can't keep in regular touch with over the phone since puru ha' mantangga ham, and our conversations are constant "hah? Hafa ilek-mu?" I'll also get a chance to see my cousin and her kids that I love to death and make me pine for the day when I get to stress over, abuse, and fatta' over my own kids. I'll also get to hang out with the people I can't seem to keep in touch with over email, because they aren't my email friends and so emailing them feels like I'm one of those participants who is trying to confuse the test subject as to whether I'm a computer or a human being.
"Hello....Francis...Are you Well?....I am Well...We must email more frequently...Are you still Fat like a Rancid Eclair?...I am only Joshing You...I mean Jonesing You...Or is it Jeffing You?...We must email more often...I Hope You Are Well...Keep in Touch...Goodbye..."
Then there's the food! I can't wait to eat at Shirley's and King's. Am I the only person in the Diaspora who wants to return to Guam and not eat my ethnically appropriate food (nengkanno' Chamoru?) but instead eat just plain old Americanzed diner food? I'm sure I'll eat plenty of Chamorro food too, but I miss desperately not just the food at these places, but also just kicking back, humahaggan, with my friends, sharing crepes, sharing fries, overcompensating when the bill arrives and therefore making the waitress very very happy.
Oh, ya i tasi! Lana, taimanu na maleffa yu' put Hagu? I can't wait to swim in water which doesn't threaten to make me sterile by dropping the temprature of the lower half of my body to absolute zero. I mean, the beaches out here in the states that I've been to are okay, but by okay I mean, hellishly freezing and discomforting. I can't wait to get back to my marginally polluted, litter strewn beaches of Guam. I'm really looking forward to doing again one of my favorite extreme sports, that's right spearfishing alone at night. Whenever I tell people on island that I do that, they react like I've just told them that I raided the U.S.S. Haole currently stationed in Apra and then sailed it to some mythical pirate island where I sold the ship for scrap and turned the crew into some twisted reality TV show on the military and its disavowed yet very obvious homosexual economies. If there was a reality show on this, what would its name be anyways?
In addition to all this, it will be nice just to leave this country for a while, even though people will no doubt remind me politely, patrioticly, and patronizingly that I'm not really leaving the United States when I go to Guam. But I don't buy any of that. Unlike most Chamorros and people on Guam, what I love about that island isn't because of the United States. I don't love it because its America in Asia or because its Where America's Day Begins, or even Where America Will be Testing the Next Generation of Surveillance Drones. I love it for other reasons which naturally predate and often conflict with the United States, so for me becoming entangled in the colonizing consciousness of my island again, where life seems so determined to strangle the local, to kill or deny the existence of the Chamorro, attempting to inhabit that space which the United States and its representatives cannot get rid of, is why it is my home and why Guam does not belong to the United States. Although some may claim that this kernel that resists is small, is located far back in the past, is practically nothing, it is not in my view. It is huge, and it is what I fight for and what I seek to show to others.
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