I am experiencing an academic crisis of conscience. If you are here because you appreciate my stories about falling on my ass or my inability to learn French, this post will disappoint. GET OUT NOW!

A few months ago I wrote a long rambly post about how I wanted to be able to help others share their stories. I no longer know if this is true. I want to hear as many stories and learn as many things as I can, but I’m not sure what I am supposed to do with it after that.

I am not sure because I am uncomfortable with trying to tell stories that are not mine to tell. On the one hand, I hate the number of times that I use the word “I” on this blog, or anywhere else. I would prefer to talk about other people.

But even here, when I sit down to write stories that heavily involve other people, I often resist. The fact that I am not anonymous effectively reduces or eliminates the anonymity of those in my life, as “characters” in a story. And do I really want to reduce people that I know and love to characters? That, however, seems to be all that I manage to do, because I am so ill-equipped to tread the line between what I can and cannot say about anyone else in my life.

In fact, if you have been reading this blog for a while, but do not actually know me personally, I can’t help but wonder if you’ve been able to piece together anything significant about anyone else in my life. This partially makes me sad because the people around me are essential to who I am as a person, but again: they are themselves so much more than props in the Nicole Sweeney show. The thought of reducing anyone to that makes me a little ill, so I tend to leave them out.

Somehow I started talking about what appears to be a Blogging Problem, rather than the Academic Problem that I started with. I didn’t mean to do that, but I suppose the two problems are related.

The Academic Problem is that many of the things that I would like to take up in my research make me feel wildly uncomfortable because I do not know how I can expect to speak to them with any real authority or in a way that does not strike me as inappropriate.

What I am about to share might be a bit of a breach of trust, but I tell myself that conversations between bloggers are always subject to the possibility of being shared with the rest of the internet. I recently wrote a paper for a class called Identity Formation in a Transnational World. We had to interview someone who had “migrated” internationally. (I put scare quotes on that for my own sake; I don’t feel like venturing down the rabbit hole of Why Every Word Ever Is Actually Totally Loaded.) I interviewed Risha from you can read me anything.

First of all: this paper was a hot fucking disaster to write. It’s the first time the professor has given this assignment, and I have never felt so completely lost while writing a paper. Admittedly, I brought it on myself by procrastinating because I assumed it would be easier than it was.

One of the great things about having this conversation with Risha was that when she was expressing the way she felt about certain things (as in, any time that she wasn’t being asked to recite And Then I Moved There details) I kept thinking, “THIS! SO MUCH THIS!” (Sidebar: it’s insane how thoroughly internet speech as embedded itself into my thought processes because I’m only sort of kidding when I quote my thought bubble in that way.)

She said something, though, about her work that I couldn’t shake the whole time I was writing the paper. It’s not that she said it and presented me with this new intellectual obstacle; rather, it was hearing someone else say this thing that I had been thinking. She explained the fact that in her work, she often has to speak and advocate on behalf of different marginalized populations, and that this is a rather complicated part of her own negotiations with identity. “Who am I to advocate?” she asked. “So you get to sit there, take people’s real life experiences and make them this academic, I don’t know, chatter, that I get to deliver to others.”

Oh. Right.

I wanted to write my entire paper on the fact that I could not escape the feeling that we were being asked to tell stories that weren’t ours in ways that made me wildly uncomfortable. I also feared, while writing this paper, that I was going to have to scrap the research project that I planned to do for this class, because I was going to have the exact same problem.

The short version: I have written (academically, not here; I’m fairly certain that nobody here would care) in the past about the politics of language use (particularly in literature) in post-colonial nations. What does it mean to speak and write in the language of he colonizer? The power dynamics embedded in that conversation are intense if you just stop to think about it, even without all of the “academic chatter.” I was going to take up this idea from the framework of this class. I had played with different examples, but I had ultimately decided that I was going to use a couple internet memes as a way of exploring this. (Yes, my major involves YouTube videos and memes. It’s awesome.)

BUT. This goes back to that question that I felt obnoxious as hell trying to talk about how other people talk. I don’t know how/where to situate myself in this conversation.

The case studies that I most appreciate reading are those that include some conversation about how the author is situated. This sort of thing is always tricky with academic writing because we’re supposed to pretend that the inscrutable work of academia has been almost pre-ordained, until some privileged asshole in an ivory tower committed the words to paper. It is for this exact reason that I think it is profoundly inappropriate to discuss the identity of others without contextualizing the author. Trying to veil that is an affront to the autonomy of whomever is being discussed.

Right now I am debating how much I should elaborate on all of this, because I suspect only my grad school friends are still reading at this point, so a lot of what I’m saying will have a very, “Well, obviously,” feel to it.

The counter-argument to all of this is that it is equally if not more dangerous to simply ignore these conversations. The idea, in theory, is that it is better to offer full disclosure and misrepresent than to blatantly ignore. I am actually inclined to agree with this view, for the most part.

It doesn’t keep me feeling uncomfortable, though. Nor does it keep me from feeling like a bit of an ass for obsessing over all of this in the first place, as if anybody but me gives a rat’s ass what I write in a paper, or even here on this blog.

Blah, blah, blah, #gradschoolproblems are like #firstworldproblems on steroids.

Speaking of, I have to finish packing. I am so glad spring break is here.

I wrote this last fall and for reasons I can’t identify, I never posted it. Since I will be returning to Ghana for spring break in a few short weeks, it seems especially appropriate now, even if it is a bit different from the vast majority of posts on this blog.

–

“Morning is the worst idea ever.” I send this tweet out from bed before I pull my new duvet tighter around me. I can hear the courtyard being hosed down through my window and sifting through my front door are the sounds of people conversing in this language I still don’t understand as they exit the elevator.

The joys of living on the ground floor.

Fine. I’ll wake up. I scroll through my Twitter feed a bit before emerging from my bed. I haven’t gotten used to the fact that all of my friends are anywhere from six to nine hours behind me.

I turn on my spastic coffee maker and take a quick shower. The quick shower turns into a long one because I get distracted watching the steam rise and drift out the window. I amble about the kitchen in my towel, drinking my first of many cups of coffee for the day, and scramble two eggs for breakfast.

I poke around Twitter and Facebook a little more over breakfast, seeing what everyone is doing and reading back home. I turn on my computer and start drafting an assignment for one of my classes.

At ten till noon I start gathering up reading assignments, pens, and my notebook for class. I still haven’t figured out how to lock my door without a bit of a fight. I hurry past cafes and a creperie along Rue Saint Dominique, getting to Avenue Bosquet just as the light changes for me to cross.

Late at night, almost four years ago, I was sitting on a train to New York where I would board a flight to London and then another to Accra, Ghana. After months of relative calm over the distant prospect of my semester abroad, I suddenly felt butterflies made of steel punching my insides. I got out my brand new travel notebook and struggled to find the right words. I wrote for half the ride but everything felt ridiculous. I was nervous as hell, but equally as excited. It struck me all at once that I was starting an adventure, and that it would be a big one.

A rare breeze filters through the classroom. We are discussing responses to development theory in communications. Kwame Nkrumah’s name is mentioned and I get a little giddy at the reference to Ghana’s first president, and the feeling of possessing some sort of special knowledge. I write the name in my notebook with an exclamation point as though this is all that needs to be said on the subject of neo-colonialism.

On a typically blistering day in Accra, a guide at the Nkrumah memorial tried to explain to us the way in which his country’s relationship with Nkrumah’s memory changed over the years. The subtle way in which time changes perceptions. Then, too, I was distracted by the fountains. I wished I could get away with running through them. It was only much later that I actually thought about what he was saying.

As class ends we are reminded that we will have to submit our research proposals soon. I still haven’t decided on a topic. I walk home mulling over different ways to analyze communications and media theory in the so-called developing world. Graduate school still feels like a shock to my system, even five weeks in.

The sun peeks through the trees as I cross Avenue Bosquet again. I trade my reading assignments for my laptop and head back out, navigating my way past shoe shops and boulangeries towards Rue Amelie and our graduate student lounge.

Armed with a cup of Nespresso loaded with milk and sugar, I turn on my laptop. Another few minutes is devoted to trolling the digital lives of faraway friends before getting back to coursework. A former coworker has a thousand questions about Paris. I appreciate the reminder that I am here, that I am traveling. But grad school in Paris is still grad school; I have emails from professors and I need to double-check the syllabus for one of my classes. The red items in my calendar – DUE! EXAM! – seem frighteningly close on the horizon.

The days of hauling my suitcase on and off of planes, trains, automobiles, and a couple buses were marked by that unrelenting tension of those over-caffeinated butterflies in my stomach. For a little over a week after that moment on the train, I had this ever-present feeling that something was happening and that there was some greater significance I just wasn’t getting. Something big was starting.

Through the grad lounge window I can see that the light outside is waning, beckoning me home to my little appartement. The end of another day in my little adventure.

Yesterday it snowed in Paris. After giving up on my plan to go running, I decided to out and look at the pretty and take pictures and try to appreciate it for about four minutes before I go back to my standard routine of loathing the existence of snow.

Behold, a short (and incredibly shaky) vlog!

So I had to go run today. Or jog, really. I’m not sure my speed can fairly be termed “running.” In addition to the misery generally brought on by running jogging when you can see your breath, I was in constant terror that I was going to slip and fall and compound the humiliation brought on by the thick, bright red sweatpants I wore. (Proper layers > dignity.)

As you can see, the brief truce I called with snow has ended and it’s back to business as usual. Still, there is a short list of people who never dreamed they’d see the day when I was actually appreciative of snow. There it is. Don’t expect it to happen again any time soon.

I didn't write this, of course. Let's not get too crazy here.

Somewhere in the sea of the thousand things that have happened in the last two weeks, I decided to participate in a vlog ring. I also changed the colors on this blog about a dozen times, and while I think this iteration is my favorite, I will still probably change it a few more times. Thoughts?

Enough of my blogging-about-blogging. This lovely little vlog ring is the brain child of Jas from Smile Big & Pretty. We got together and answered those ridiculous surveys that we filled out on livejournal back in the day, because now that we’re 20-somethings, we get to talk about “back in the day.” I have been paired with Jes from Jes Getting Started. Her fantastic video is below, and my hot mess can be found over at her blog.

Enjoy!

It has been an insane few weeks. I was ill to the point that I was rendered a barely-functional-human-being when I flew back to Paris. A friend I have known since freshman year of college was also arriving around the same time. Since my disease-addled brain got in a brawl with jetlag, my reaction to her arrival at my apartment was mostly, “Huhhh? WHO YOU? WHY YOU IN PARIS?” …even though I had been planning for/awaiting her arrival for months.

Since I was trying not to die and also had things to do that consumed what little energy I had, my hostess skills consisted of, “Well, you have a map. You know where I live. See you tonight.”

I also had this whole crisis moment surrounding my courses for this semester and only 3 out of my 4 courses are the same ones I was enrolled in last Friday. I still haven’t finished the various projects I tasked myself with for the first two weeks back in Paris, even though those two weeks are rapidly coming to a close. Oh, and I’m starting an exciting new work study job this week.

In short, things have been manic and stressful in a way I didn’t see coming. Part of the problem is that there are just so damn many things to do, I keep losing track of all those things. I keep adding to this problem by insisting that I have heaps of time because the semester has just gotten started, so I have nearly nothing to do in the way of coursework right now. This last part of that is true, but somehow I have acquired a life here. I don’t really know when that happened, to be honest.

Right now I should be getting dressed for a theme party that has my name written all over it because it is a rare moment where my pink feathered eyelashes are appropriate to the situation, hosted by the glorious Erin of The Post-Modern Talko. All I want to do is curl into bed with some coffee or tea and maybe finish just enough productive work to justify reading until I pass out. And when I say, “All I want to do,” I mean, “This is what I am going to do.” (Then I’ll live vicariously through Erin’s pictures, pretending I’m there and out and about and not being a loser who sits in bed to read for fun on a Friday night.)

Last weekend, when I finally did venture out with my friend, I got a little reprieve from the mucus holding my body hostage in this adorable little cafe that proved well worth the trek out into the cold. Sitting there, I kept thinking, “I live in Paris and I am drinking what might just be the world’s greatest hot chocolate in a cozy place whose cups and decor can best be described as What Anthropologie Wishes It Looked Like. Life is good.”

Newly added to my list of Favorite Places In Paris (& probably the rest of the world too)

Other great things this week included winning 20sb’s “Best of the 2011 Featured Bloggers” award and getting feedback on a paper from last semester that was so positive and encouraging that I reread it about a dozen times and I might just have to tape it to my wall so that I can cope with the inevitable moments where graduate school seems to exist only to destroy me.

In spite of this nagging feeling that I have a thousand things to do, I have a lot to be grateful for and excited about this year. 2012 is off to a shit start for several people that I care about, which makes it that much more important for me to appreciate all of the amazing things that are happening right now… even if it does feel impossible to sort through and stay on top of everything.

I keep drafting posts and abandoning them — posts about my new year’s resolution to “Be A Better Person” or the identity crisis that has accompanied living in a place where I don’t know the language, a place where I have suddenly lost my words — because of this whole thing where I can’t keep track of everything that is happening right now.

This is the kind of problem that I will happily accept.

Last week 20sb announced the nominees for this year’s Bootleg awards and I came home to some awesome emails and @replies because (1) Childhood Trauma was unopposed for Best Group Blog (!!!) and (2) I was personally nominated for a few things. Taking a look at the full list, I was a little bit excited. All right, I was a lot excited. It’s good to be in such great company.

A while back Risha suggested that the nominees record VOTE FOR ME VIDEOS. Ginny did just that and hers is fantastic. I am too sick and awkward for that, so instead I just flailed, repeated words like “awesome” and “cool” to excess and gushed over how much I love everyone and want to bake a cake with rainbows and sprinkles so we can all just eat it an be happy. Or something like that.

You can check out the full list of nominees on the 20sb blog. (And vote too!)

Again, major thank you to everyone.

It isn’t really the holiday season until the Sweeney family piles into the car with a bunch of suitcases, a few canvases, and some gigantic frames for a minimum of six hours. My little sister is about to be seventeen, and we are not exactly a tiny family, so we get some real quality bonding time in during these trips. By which I mean, we mastered the art of the I’M NOT TOUCHING YOU game.

As the four of us kids have been crammed in the back for the last few years, my parents sit in front and inform us that we can totally fit a few more suitcases, boxes, or thirty pound frames. In the back. Where my parents won’t have to deal with it from the comfort of their front seat thrones.

My poor little sister has the stigma of “baby” status to haunt her forever, so everyone insists that she won’t mind having the paintings piled on top of her head because she’s little. We just need to carve out a little cubby hole for her in the back and she’ll be fiiiine.

This year was a bad year for Sweeney family vehicles, unfortunately, so we had to rent a car instead of piling into my mom’s SUV. There are six of us, plus the suitcases and the inevitable art haul we make on the return trip (my mom owns an art gallery) so my parents requested a minivan.

As it turns out, there was a mix-up with the rental car company and they were out of minivans, but they offered us, for the same price, a fifteen passenger van. After years of sitting nearly in each other’s laps for hours on end, contorting our necks under the new ceiling of canvases, this was the greatest mix-up ever.

The trip took a little longer as we had to make a lot of stops to pass out bibles...

Stretched out in the comfort of our own rows, not kicking each other in the face, it is a lot easier to appreciate my fantastic family. After everything that Derrik put us through this year, we all got an extra special lesson on perspective.

Without the easy distraction of harassing everyone else in the car, there is also a lot of time to think about the year that is now coming to an end.

(See what I did there? That was a totally not awkward transition into the year-in-review nonsense that you totally knew was coming because it is December 31st and what the hell else am I going to talk about?)

On the whole, 2011 was a good year. I applied to graduate schools, and actually got acceptance letters. I decided to go to American University of Paris. I had the best birthday month imaginable going to New York, California, and of course, Coachella (lots of Coachella). I drove to the middle of a corn field to stay with an internet friend who I had never met before, but is probably one of my favorite people on the face of the planet. In addition to substitute teaching, telling kids not to drugs, and selling art, I picked up a job involving my social media skillz where I had a whole team of awesome new coworkers. I got to go to spend my last weekend in America at the 20sb Summit and hang out with one of my other favorite people and revel in the general awesomeness of the internet.

I had a debacle of a time getting a visa (both before and after leaving for Paris). Once I survived the pre-departure jitters, I arrived in Paris, found an apartment, started graduate school, and then found a new apartment. I realized that graduate school closely resembles drowning, and strugglebused my way through Paris. I took trips to London, Budapest, and Poland. I made amazing new friends, who provided an invaluable support system when my little brother’s insane drama festival turned my family upside down for a little bit. Then, without my even realizing it, I actually managed to get through my first semester of graduate school (with the help of a lot of coffee).

2011 was pretty fantastic and I have nothing but high hopes for 2012. A thousand thank yous to everyone who made this year as wonderful as it was. Extra thank yous, of course, to my family for being the best group of people I could ever hope to be saddled with for life. Thank you for being awesome and keeping the laughter and SRSLY faces at a minimum when I brought internet friends into our home.

Oh yes, I just had internet friends stay at my house. That story is for another day.

Of all the shit I have purchased since my arrival in Paris, the €20 coffee maker was probably the best. (In perhaps a bit of a contradiction, I would say that splurging on a nice duvet was probably the second best purchase.)

I have very little to report on life in Paris because I spend most of my time injecting coffee directly into my veins and staring at Word documents, or, rather, finding ways to avoid staring at Word documents. I’m now FourSquare mayor of my school’s library. (Where I continue to get my espresso on for 40 cents.)

These are my life's grand accomplishments...

This is kind of the way graduate school works, I know. I knew this was how it was going to be, but knowing that in a rational way is a different thing entirely from experiencing it firsthand.

I got out with two of my favorite people to go see Yelle and I kept calm with a magical recipe-experiment involving Nutella and coffee that I will share at some later date.

But if I’m being honest, I’ve been glad to have this valid excuse to hibernate. Even when I’m accomplishing absolutely nothing (see also: now) I have been terribly anti-social. I have very little desire to talk to anyone but my family, and even when I called home, it was bittersweet. My older brother’s return home today leaves me as the last member of the family overseas.

After spending my semester being obligated to adhere to a twice a week blogging schedule for the sake of a class, I have also had a hard time finding a way to make use of this space, now that I don’t have to do that any longer.

In part, I’m trying to reclaim the blog — knowing that my professor was now my most dedicated reader made me hold back and change things. I don’t quite know how to go forward from that.

Mostly, it’s that this blog has now become another social space. Since I’m trying to bury my head under that glorious duvet until it’s time to fly home, that doesn’t really motivate me. In spite of the fact that caffeine-fueled all-nighters interrupted by the occasional sleep-all-day-recovery have dominated my existence for the last couple weeks, I have had plenty to say. My drafts queue is getting out of control. I just don’t know who I’m trying to say it to.

Everything that happened with Derrik has made me hyper-aware of that too — this idea that my words should be tailored to specific people, lest they be somehow used against me.

This was never strictly for me, I suppose. It’s not a diary; it’s public. However, it was for me to say whatever I felt like saying, put it out there, and wait to see what happened. The irony is that I am more concerned about the prospect of being judged and measured by the products of this somewhat careful thought than what came before.

I’m not sure how I got off on this blogging-about-blogging tangent, because what I really meant to say is that I’m exhausted and ready to go home. Life is good here in Paris, and I can’t wait to return in January, but for now… I’m tired.

You know that moment when you see someone you know and immediately change directions, hoping that they didn’t see you? How about when after doing that, you realize that you actually like this person and you’re an asshole, but you’re mostly glad you did it? That has been me in every possible way — people I actually run into, Facebook… this blog.

I am terribly sorry if you have either been the victim of my snippy outbursts, or blatant friend-neglect while I hide in my hole and wait for the end. (Tuesday night at 10pm. 3 days, 5 and a half hours from now… not that I am maintaining a mental countdown clock or anything.)

Except I’m not actually “waiting” for the end, because seeing the time remaining written out like that has a panic-inducing effect. So I have get back to work now so that I don’t have a nervous breakdown in the next three days.

I remember sitting in my back yard with a bucket of chalk, long after the sun had set, drawing nonsensical things and trying to make jokes about my impending move. At 14, being told to leave LA for a small town in Missouri was roughly equivalent to my life coming to an end.

My best friend sat there, creating chalk drawings of the farm I would soon have (because everyone in small towns has a farm) and promising to eventually join me in this rural farmer existence. Having lost all of my friends when I switched middle schools, I was certain this was going to be the end of this friendship too.

But she promised me that I was wrong and made me laugh. If nothing else, I was able to laugh about it a little. These are the things that best friends do. She has visited my non-farm-house several times since then, usually falling around major life events like summer school in Chicago, leaving for college, or going to Ghana.

For one of her birthdays in high school I wrote this insanely long livejournal post that listed, in short, non-elaborated form, every inside joke reference I could think of at the time and filled it with pictures. I don’t really know what happened to that, and to be honest, I don’t think I could recreate a list like that either; now that more time has entered the equation, the list is just too long.

smiles & socks!

I spent the better part of high school with 1800 miles between myself and my best friend. (At 15 I happily rounded that to 2000 so I could make my life a Spitalfield song. This, coupled with the reference to livejournal is just about everything you need to know about me at 15.)

Between the fact that we haven’t lived in the same city in nine years and the fact that on paper there are about a thousand reasons that we are incredibly different, it’s a little strange that we are such good friends. But I can’t really imagine my life any other way.

Geography or answers to a basic survey tell nothing of how great it is to have a friend who shares in my weird antics and puts up with all of my nonsense. There is no way to quantify having someone who just gets it.

But it would look something like this.

Instead of rehashing a list of flashback moments like the time I crawled on the floor of your van because I was cold before we eventually gave up and let our mothers stand there and talk for two hours, or late night trips to Santa Monica before we were old enough to realize just how creepy Santa Monica is at night, or the time you opened my car door in the car wash, or, you know, any more of the list that I am producing right now, I’ll just share an old gem that I was able to find:

So for the millionth time today: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

My phone rings and I know it’s my mom – she’s the only one who has my house phone. Well, her and the automated French recording that calls every so often.

“Derrik was arrested in Cairo.”

“Wait, what!?”

It was a short phone call – she wanted to make sure that I heard it from her. My cousin was watching the news and three boys appeared. Two were named, the third was identified only as a Georgetown student, but she recognized him right away and called my mom.

A mental image that is likely to haunt me for some time.

As soon as I hung up, my first response was to take to the internet. I asked Google for “americans arrested cairo.” A flurry of news stories popped up. Step two: turn to HootSuite and add a feed for “Derrik Sweeney” and “derriksweeney.” Minutes later I watched the tweet roll in that first IDed the third student – my brother.

During this time I called my dad and there was some uncertainty as to how we should respond. Should we call Georgetown – see if anyone there can help? Should we start alerting the media? Will we be getting him in more trouble? It didn’t occur to me just how intense the media frenzy would become.

Then I saw a tweet alerting Barbara Boxer that her constituent was in need of her assistance.

“Oh. All right. Well now we’re playing with something I understand.” I corrected that tweet – he’s a Missouri resident – and sent some out to both of our Senators and our representative. Within minutes the media emails commenced. There was the initial hesitation – how should we respond to this?

My feeling, the reason I chose the just-keep-talking route, was that there was a real possibility that he could just sort of disappear. It seemed our best ally was the combination of the always-on media and the political pressure that Egypt has to keep getting a ridiculous check from the American government.

Things from his Facebook appeared in news stories within the hour of his name being made public. Given how little we knew at that point, this seemed like a problem. How many stories are there of people being incriminated less by facts than by the character witness represented in their social media profiles? Derrik’s roommates pointed this out to me and I spent about 45 minutes trying to get it taken down.

Blogger friends suggested flagging his profile – which they, and some of Derrik’s friends, did. I don’t know how long that would have taken; I managed to get in first. Don’t keep a Hotmail account connected to your Facebook. True, there is a sidebar to this story (involving my internet-media-producing-11-year-old self and AOL’s spam policy) that makes this an unfair indictment on Hotmail’s security, but it wasn’t all that difficult for me to convince Hotmail that I was Derrik.

My first interview was a terrifying over-the-phone with CNN. I wasn’t sure which was the greater danger: that I would start sobbing or that I would vomit. My blogger friends started posting the CNN story all over Facebook and started a hashtag on Twitter. (Although, real talk, #BringDerrikSweeneyHome is a really long hashtag. And nobody got the odd spelling on his name right.) The 20sb admin team even put up a post on my behalf. I cannot say enough how much I appreciate all of the support during that terrifying week.

The media circus was unrelenting. Calls home were frequent but always short; my parents were dealing with the press calls and the cameras. In addition to the “What is going to happen to him?” agony there was the stress of ever-changing information. If I mapped it out, the developments were mostly positive, but every two steps forward were accompanied by another step and a half backwards.

My mom on CNN.

There was just so much ambiguity, so many things we didn’t know. Yet we were being asked endless questions in the middle of that anxiety and mis-information. My parents said some things that they’d like to take back, but I understand the place those comments came from.

I understand the fear and the feeling that all you want to do is see this kid and give him a hug and OH LOOK, here is a person who wants to talk to me about him and I feel like my entire world is exploding but maybe if I just keep talking to you I can keep it together so that’s fine I’ll just. keep. talking.

It’s kind of like that. Word vomit is inevitable.

One of the harder pills to swallow was watching everyone develop an opinion on my family. I blog about my life. I am pretty “out there.” But I walk a fine line when it comes to the other “characters” in my life; even when I give them aliases, it doesn’t give me free reign over their stories or the ways in which I represent them. Putting my shit out there is a choice that I made, and that doesn’t give me the right to impose it on everyone around me.

Because this is my blog, I’ll come out and say it: it seems to me that they were arrested for the sole purpose of being paraded about Egyptian television in order to convince people that this wasn’t their cause — that Americans were instigating this (violently, no less). There’s a certain irony to that portrait when you consider the actual relationship between the American government and Egyptian politics, but things like facts weren’t really important here.

Cue reactions back home, falling mostly into two camps: “Serves ‘em right for leaving the USA! ‘MERICA’S THE GREATEST. ISOLATIONISM IS AWESOME.” -and- “War mongering Republicans throwing bombs in the Middle East! Let them hang!” I can’t say I found it surprising that few people seemed to entertain the idea that the claims of the Egyptian authorities were bullshit. Unfortunate, sure, but not surprising.

I felt the reality of my family’s newfound out-there-ness during class on Monday night. My professor pointed out questions he felt journalists should have been asking of Derrik – how is it that he got arrested when there are plenty of other Americans in Cairo right now who aren’t?

I was in an awful mood for the next day or two (this is part of why I didn’t know what to write about all of this sooner) until I finally realized what was bothering me: I was furious. Last week I was consumed by an oppressive sense of fear. Fear and anxiety trumped all other emotions. When he was released, I had a couple days of incredible gratitude and happiness.

I got a little excited on Twitter. Just a little.

After that I was brought back to the emotion that underpinned the entire week – anger. One of the most basic rules of sibling relationships is that I can say whatever I want about my siblings, but I will obviously have to fight you if you say anything about them. Over the course of a week, I watched as half the world was given license to berate my little brother. That’s a lot of people to want to fight all at once. I can handle myself, sure, but…

It doesn’t matter that nothing the Egyptian authorities said was true – down to the very location where they were arrested. It doesn’t matter that their backpacks had been brought to Tahrir filled with medical supplies for the makeshift hospital areas set up to care for protesters wounded by the very violent police. It doesn’t matter that arresting them made for very convenient propaganda. None of that is important to the mobs of angry comment trolls who saw his face – his terrified face – set behind a caption about molotov cocktails.

The thing is, none of that matters all that much to me either. For me, there is one basic fact: he is my brother. My parents made some stupid comments in interviews and we have already joked about a few of them. My frustration with derisive responses to those comments doesn’t come from my feeling that they’ve been taken out of context (though I believe they have), it comes from that basic fact that they are my parents.

I’ve been putting my life on public display for a while, but to a minuscule, safe “public.” More importantly, it has been on my terms. This? What just happened? Above and beyond anything I could have prepared for.

But the lesson of last week was ultimately about perspective. On Thanksgiving, when he was ordered released, I was elated. The idea that something so simple – “Your brother is coming home.” – could afford that much happiness? Awesome.

Then there are the countless people who reached out on Facebook and Twitter to spread the word or just remind me that they were keeping my family in their thoughts. I haven’t thanked everyone individually because there are seriously too many. Having too much to be grateful for is a nice problem to have. So for that thank you. Thank you to 20sb, and everyone who tweeted at Congress members, and just everyone who guaranteed, if nothing else, that he would not be allowed to simply vanish in that system. If I’m being honest, that probably even includes the citizens of Trolldom.

Given the choice between taking the poorly articulated vitriol of a thousand avatar heads or my little brother disappearing behind the curtain of a military regime, I happily accept the former.