we have a new color today. brown. ish.

procrastination is the name of today's game. i have many exams on my desk but cannot find the motivation to do anything more than stare back at them. damn grades. students dont like them, and honestly, neither do teachers. i have a friend at a university here who said at the end of her classes (not at the school where i teach), the teacher asked the students, as a whole, what grade they thought they deserved. that was the grade they received. my friend did a lot of work, perhaps more than all others, but she said she deserved a 90. others, who did nothing, said they deserved a 10. they got what they wanted. is that a wise system?

do grades really matter? can you put a number on someone and evaluate them? iq tests are quite stupid in general, but so are sat's, toefl, gre, gmat, etc. what can you memorize? how good are you at following a system and answering questions based on knowledge of how test's are made. mr kaplan made a lot of money this way by simply instructing his friends, later on private clients, about how to take a standardized. if courses such as this work, and they do, then what does that tell us about testing?

of course i would be a liar if i said that such testing is not helpful. it all depends on what kind of help is needed. the people who receive the results are looking for something. what? will they get a fair judgment of a student's ability?

in the end, i have to grade these damn things. i might as well start now.

one more just for fun. if you have never had paella (seafood, rice, meat), it is unbelievable. get someone who is of spanish decent to make you some pronto.

i think this might actually be from last summer. nevertheless, here is the paella group. the two white people bookend the others. the guy next to me is from mexico, the other three guys are from spain (well, not actually, they are from here, but less than one generation removed, so they like to be from spain). fun group. especially as the three in the middle quickly regain their spain spanish accent and lingo- hilarious actually. the food took nearly 3 hours to prepare (too many cooks).

the thrill, like my beard, is now gone. for those who have never had a bushy beard, i can describe it as like losing a friend. a warm, cushiony, thoughtful, supportive friend. it keeps the wind from biting your face too hard. when laying on a hard surface, it provides support like a small, face-shaped pillow. when you drink something, it retains a little bit of it, allowing you enjoy the flavor seconds after your mouth has emptied (ok, this can be annoying at times, but you get used to it). finally, the abundant beard is supportive as it allows you to rest your head on your hand without actually touching your face and it also allows you store small items, like pencils, in the beard (like putting it behind your ear but more fun and variable).

this is a day of mourning in many senses.

jimza- when the lady was removing my 3 months of growth yesterday, she stopped at the stache and asked if i wanted to keep it. many thoughts ran through my head, not the least of which had to do with the oft cited pornstars who sport, well, porn staches. at the end i let it go. sweet sorrow my friend. sweet sorrow.

timmay- chinstrap? well, well. color me bad. or perhaps 3rd bass? if you are sporting a bald dome, then you absolutely need to send me a picture. if not, can i search the color me bad archives online and find a match?

hand loss. rape. armed robbery. dear god. and they are writing songs called ¨send'em back¨? are they referring to themselves and juvey? that is quite a list of misdemeanors/felonies. oc would be proud.

chavez is still the flavor of the month in many places down here. however, he is (appearing to be) a loud windbag who stirs up trouble by railing against foreign (mainly us) involvement in anything central/south american yet failing to produce policy that adequately supports/benefits his own people. in that sense, he is no different from so many other politicians in general. castro's exit (or at least his switch to only one hand on the wheel) creates a socialist gap in the caribbean which he is more than willing to fill. what the long term effects of that would be should be of concern but with that guy, well, i am not sure he thinks much beyond his next interview or public appearance.

pennsyltuckians? that is fucking hilarious. hooray for hillbillies.

by the by, are you married yet timmay? shotgun?

ah timmay, if it were only that simple. perhaps it is the genes and the change of environment. but, i prefer to blame students. in either case, i am feeling better finally.

first the florist, then the sorocies? interesting. i assume these are sisters of your girlie. tri-delt by any chance?

the pa woods. turn anything loose up there and death will soon follow. if the critters dont get you the inhabitants will. sounds like a challenge.

spring break is less than 2 weeks away. i still have no plans. i will most likely stay in mexiland; there are tons of places i have never been to. of course, cancún would be interesting, but i might be too old for that place now (señor frogs, dear god). panama is an option, but the price of flights is outrageous. i might just chill out in town, go to a bull fight, catch a baseball game (if they are already playing) and save for a trip later. colombia is my first choice for vaca. unfortunately, that jackass chavez has to be an asshole about everything. well, i think colombia will get through it unscathed. hopefully chavez will not. lost it.

not too much exciting here. i am applying for jobs in the states, but that might turn out to be nothing (fucking criminal record).

a friend of mine is in contact with the taiwanese attaché (mexiland does not recognize them as a country because, well, china is bigger than we are), and he claims the government is throwing money at foreigners to come study there. he wants me to apply. there is a meeting next wednesday (goodbye burly beard, scraggly hair) and i will attend to see what the deal is. a few years ago i was set to go to taiwan. there is much that interests me about learning mandarin chinese, but there are practical issues to deal with before that could happen.

anyway, that is the deal this side of the wall. is that even still in the news up there? many of my students were defending the wall today. they said that if mexico could fix their problems, then it would be necessary to have the wall, but until then, well, it makes sense.

i will leave you with that.

abundant. that was how my student this morning described my beard. unprompted, unsolicited but amusing. she just saw me and said, ¨william, your beard is (pause) abundant.¨ i applauded her on the use of the word.

then she said: ¨but i don't like it.¨ crestfallen, as you might imagine, i smiled magnanimously and told her that she was not alone in her feelings of aversion toward what i consider not only a simple act of laziness (i hate shaving) but also a symbolic gesture. it is (was) winter. humans grow beards for a reason. winter is cold. hence, perhaps the reason humans grow beards is to protect from this chill. i am simply hearkening back to a time before patagonia jackets and north face caps.

she was quickly joined by a few other (female) voices explaining to me the error of my ways.

¨you would look better without it¨
¨it makes you look old¨
¨why do you want to look like that?¨

undeterred, i responded that it pleased me. and at once i felt like charlie kane responding to susan's insistance that she stunk at singing and did not understand why she had to continue.

what does not please me, however, is blowing my nose with said beard. if you have never had a beard, or mustache at least, then let me fill you in on some finer aspects. first, you the hair is a literal barrier to the skin of the lips. this is obvious, but the implications are important. when you blow your nose, a seal is created, otherwise snot goes everywhere. well, this is seal is impossible with a mustache, so inevitably you fail to catch all the mucus in the tissue. which leads to having to blow your nose and then wipe the stache. no one likes that. certainly no one else wants to have to see it. unpleasantness ensues.

my friend from texas, happy remember the alamo day by the way (timmay we will have to talk about history from a mexi view one day), gave me his opinion of the beard last night. he said that the beard, combined with the longish hair, gave me that certain je ne sais quoi. actually, that is not true. he knew exactly what it gave me.

¨you look like a redneck.¨

now we're getting somewhere.