Forgive my regression into collegial jibber-jabber. I hate it just as much as you do.
  Once, there was a time when I imagined myself quite the anthropologist. In those bygone days, I was very fond of the concept of the liminal. Anytime before a person transitions from one part of his/her life into another is what academics call a liminal period. Essentially, it is anytime when you might have found yourself looking into an unknown future anxiously.
The following are a list of examples:

• All and any coming of age activities including but not restricted to hunting/killing a wild beastie and snip-snips
  
• Puberty
• Political conventions
• High school
• Purgatory
• For some of us, the last two
• should be in one category

Be careful, once someone has bothered to call you a wo/man, developed, the lesser of two evils, a graduate, or saved/damned you have left the liminal space. You are what you are at that point.
   These days, I find myself questioning who I will be-who thought that would come up again.

• COS

I am in my last few months of service, ending projects, completing trainings, and saying my goodbyes. At the same time, I am resuming the life I left behind in the States, thinking about graduate school, finding a job, and wondering what processed food I will choose to shock my system with first. All of this can be a very cerebral experience, causing either extreme euphoria or panic. It is a very delicate period, possessing immense potential either to launch me into the next phase of life or trip me up and face plant.
    It can be very comfortable, sitting very still, neither leaning forward nor backward, and just considering the crossroads. Fear of any number of possibilities makes doing nothing immensely tempting, especially when doing means paperwork. Why leave the liminal at all?
    This is when we get armchair.
    My sitemates, a guest star by the name of SuperJam and I recently put together a Body Image Workshop.

• Mənlik

There is very little that gives me as much joy as pointing to a young woman's strength and watching her run with it. I don't envy the uncertainty I see in their eyes, fighting to know themselves and make themselves known, but I can feel the tension build.
    It's the same tension I feel in our resource room, something that will become Xuraman's responsibility soon enough.

• İnam

Every week I amend my expectations, hoping that the following week will have the finished paint job, the connected electric wires, a new door and a printer that works. Xuraman smiles at me and reminds me to be patient, to remember how far we've come. With each conversation of how many more resources will be available to her and the other teachers, how often we'll meet for trainings, I see her grow nervous. When I'm gone, she'll have to protect that room.
    I feel that is the danger that many people here fear, once they 'know more'/'have more' they await a struggle. It is despite this fear that the members of the Beyləqan Youth Enlightenment and Development Public Union have started an HIV/AIDS information campaign, alongside a woman's rights education project for female IDPs.

• Maarifçilik

They are empowering educators and women with the knowledge to protect and empower others. Knowing more brings more questions and having more means giving, and still, they passionately answer and offer. It is in the momentum of those young men that I find inspiration.
    I fear my own stagnation, preventing myself from moving on, afraid of a misstep. I fear that what I leave behind won't be enough to support those who will struggle on, alone. At the same time, I am jealous of the rising tide, passing over and past me. I won't deny that some part of me wants to belay the next phase and be a part of what's changing here.
    But, therein lies an anthropologist's love for the liminal: without change, there is only static.

Your Peace Corps Lingo for the day:
COS – Close of Service, referring to all the paperwork that gets you out of all the paperwork that got you in

Your Antropologie Sprache for the day:
Armchair – a reference to the anthropologists of old, who only theorized from their armchairs without involving themselves in any of the cultures they wrote about

Your General Knowledge for the day:
IDPs – Internally Displaced Persons

Your Azerbaijani for the day:
Mənlik – confidence
İnam – belief
Maarifçilik – enlightenment