lower your expectations

2009-07-09T17:19:00.002-05:00

wow. i feel like i need to sleep for a week. but, as my next trip leaves in five days (just got home last night around 1am), that won't be happening.

suffice it say, the trip was phenomenal. i will be posting pics on here shortly, but feel free to email me if you want to me send you a link to a larger set.

hope the summer is treating you all well and will try to write more on here soon.

however, for fun, here is a list of uses for men (now that scientists can "grow" synthetic sperm, we males still are good for a few things. 101 things perhaps).

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/men/article6669807.ece

2009-06-23T17:25:00.002-05:00

these last few months have been flippin awesome, so it is sad that i have not written. i am contemplating getting internet at my house, so that may allow me to write more on here. or search for pointless information and watch old episodes of "mask" (a rockin cartoon from the 80's). by the way, if you have never seen these remakes of the gi joe public service announcements, good lord, check them out now. the consensus so far is that boys find them much funnier than girls, but i recommend them to both.

http://www.fenslerfilm.com/PSAS.htm

on other notes, i scored a job for the summer going on tours of europe. my first trip is about 12 days, and we hit london, paris, florence and rome. the second is about 21 days and covers a bunch of cities in france, switzerland, germany, austria and the czech republic. i am the "program director" in charge of academic stuff (there are 60 students on my first trip and 30 on the second). as i have never been to europe, i am incredibly stoked to have someone else pay my way and pay me on top of it. the work will be hard with long hours, but damn, i'll be in europe. rock and roll.

i also had two papers accepted to conferences for this fall, so after a full year in grad school without presenting a thing, i have two before the end of the year. pretty groovy.

also, i finally got funding! yay, no more paying for grad school. happy happy joy joy.

well, i am sure there will be tons of pics from europe (i think they are giving us two cameras to take with us for photos), so i will post them when i get back from each trip.

hope the rest of you are having a rockin summer.

2009-05-27T12:14:00.000-05:00

this from a syllabus of a course i might take this fall:

AVOID NORMATIVE TALK; This is NOT a class where you are asked for your personal opinion, feelings or beliefs. It does not value confessional or normative discourse but analytical understanding and argumentation. For affirmation go to church or a political rally or tune into your favorite television pundit. There is no place for such discourse or political/religious/nationalist
dogma in a university graduate level social science course.

i love it

2009-03-25T07:02:00.001-06:00

while looking for an itinerary template this morning (i realized my own attempt is woefully inadequate), i came across this template. that there is a template for this on the microsoft website was a bit odd. that over 22,000 people had looked for it, found it suited their needs, then downloaded it also seemed somewhat strange. way to go gates.

2009-03-20T08:41:00.001-06:00

here is an overview of some of my current job duties. not exactly as advertised, but amusing nonetheless.

• Schedule international flights
• Negotiate with hotels and apartment complexes for short-stay housing (tons o fun)
• Campus tour guide
• Driver (pick up, shuttle)
• Liaison for foreign professors, visitors
• Make introductions (to people I have never met nor know anything about)
• Direct the conversation when necessary (especially when local representative is hostile to foreign ideas)
• Create, schedule, execute itineraries with department heads, local corporate executives
• Take blame for being late, unprepared when trouble arises
• Participate in meetings well above my pay grade (program directors, department heads) and contribute in (vaguely) meaningful way
• Help visitors decompress after 5 hours of meetings (see campus tour guide, walking through campus)
• Help foreign students prepare US tax returns
• Seek internships for summer positions for foreign students (only later to learn that this is not allowed through scholarship program and a week of phone calls, emails and job searching could have been avoided if only I had been informed of this)
• “Cold call” potential partners for future partnerships (multicultural projects with our exchange students, internship possibilities, setting up meetings between foreign visitors and local executives and academics bigwigs who often have no idea why they should actually meet each other)
• Navigate US State Dept. website (a task in itself), e-mail questions that never get answered
• Co-author a journal article in field only tangentially related to my own
• Research for said journal article
• Read numerous journal papers in related fields to prepare for writing an article I would be thoroughly unprepared to write (although I enjoy reading, the 600-800 pages a week for my ma program is more than enough that I do not relish the idea of reading another 100 or so a week in a field that, actually, proposes to measure learning (quantitatively and qualitatively) in a way that I specifically decry in my own philosophy papers)
• Write a conference proposal for above journal article (10 days notice before deadline)
• Listen to streaming, vague, disconnected ideas about upper management’s goals for current programs and then create coherent questions other than, “so what do you want me to do?”
• Find new, inoffensive ways to ask: “what am I supposed to do with this information?” or “so, could you repeat that in the form of a task or coherent sentence through which I can plan a course of action?”
• Help exchange students write résumés
• Help exchange students write cover letters
• Help students get notarized copies of all their documents
• Coordinate Visa information for teachers visiting university in one month with US State Dept (zero fun, in case you had any doubts)
• Learn to accept “attitude” from public servants whom I will never meet and, justifiably so, have little patience with someone learning the process

Endure occasional mocking when one of the above is not executed in manner desired by upper management

2009-01-23T15:07:00.003-06:00

skip this post if you prefer not to read about gore and violence.

the glc. graduate life center. this is a building on campus that has conference rooms, a larger venue for big meetings, a coffee shop, a theater and stage, a tv room and adjacent study room, and then on the upper floors grad student dorm rooms. i study at this place sometimes 4 or 5 times a week. over breaks, when most students leave, the building is locked (access is gained only if you are a current grad student -key card access), but i always go there because it is quite and there are couches and comfortable places to read.

then a fellow grad student decapitated another grad student at the glc less than two days ago. with a kitchen knife.

i am not sure what to say about it. i did not know either person but the building itself is very familiar and i can easily visualize the exact location although imagining someone using a kitchen knife to cut off someone's head is horrifying.

according to an affidavit filed with police, the killer was easily identified- smeared with blood, he was holding her severed head by the hair when the police arrived. i mean, what the fuck? seriously?

i am not recounting these events to make anyone sick.

i have not gone back to the glc since (i skipped a student government meeting there last night).

i was not here on april 16th, 2007. almost everyone i know here has some link to that day however. for me, it was never quite real because i only read about it from another country. these two events are rather distinct and in no way am i tying them together. instead, i am shocked that this kind of thing would happen on a campus where i go to school. in a building where i spend a lot of time. at no time have i ever felt threatened living in blacksburg, whether from undergrad days or now. i still do not. yet, there is something chilling about this situation. not sure what to make of it.

2009-01-16T13:07:00.003-06:00

stinky socks. sweat-stained sauna boards. foot fungus. rental lockers. mirrors on every wall. gang showers. ah the gym.

i must say that the gang showers is odd but makes sense as far as room goes. i wonder if the women's locker room is the same? i imagine so.

here is a question: what is the sanitary situation in a gym sauna? i think back to millberry and all the funky people not sitting on towels, laying down on the benches and showing way too much flesh for my liking. then i look at the tech gym and see the same thing - not enough towel coverage (if any), dilapidated and super-saturated wood, too much flesh. yet i still go in and still sit there for 15 minutes avoiding eye contact, fearful that simply turning my head or shifting my glance will afford an eyeful of undesirables. but of course my first day in the sauna i had a strange experience.

i had been in, alone, for about two minutes, slowly pouring water on the rocks to heat it up when the door flies open and a naked old dude literally jumps into the sauna and brushes against me as he enters (although i am not sure what a good floor plan might entail, having the heating system next to the door seems unwise). as surprised as me, he plops down (totally towel-less) and i go back to pouring water on the rocks. i sit down (towel still wrapped around my waist) and glance over to my neighbor a few feet away. he smiles and i turn back to stare at the wall in front of me.

and that is when the questions begin. am i a student? what do i study? not sure what compels me in these situations, but i started making up lies. undergraduate student in human nutrition foods and exercise i reply. 34 years of age. i took some time off from school to raise my two children while my ex-wife worked. we lived in colorado. never taking my eyes off the wall, i spout pure bullshit for about 5 minutes until the guy finally runs out of questions. he has asked me if i know x professor or y class and i tell him no, i am new. weird.

one thing i noticed when karla was in town is that you never really learn about your own country until you try taking a foreigner around. why is the white house called that? why does everyone drive new cars? how old is the highway system (i had a fairly good answer to that - built for military reasons, extensively expanded after wwii when the country was concerned with transporting troops and weapons across the country)? how many people live in dc? why was the mall in dc built? why are there so many traffic circles in dc? why doesn't the smithsonian run all of the museums on the mall? how much money do we spend on the space program? why do we have so many rockets? did i see that person on the roof of the white house with a rifle? why is the us modeled after italian and danish architecture and not spanish like the rest of the colonies on the this continent?

good citizen that i am, i made up a bunch of lies for half of the stuff. some of it looked up on the internet on my phone.

having the map and gps function on my phone is unbelievable. we never got really lost no matter where we were in dc or new york and were able to make our way to any landmark, restaurant, apartment with barely any mistakes. we located the closest metro stops and figured out the direction to go in in a matter of seconds. phenomenal. and it looks better than sitting there with a huge map unfolded in front of you and flapping in the arctic breeze of the northeast.

i am continuing to learn just how surly i am. while shopping with karla i made the startling discovery that people are always asking for area codes, phone numbers and zip codes when you make purchases. typical situation;

them: ok, sir, that will be 10 dollars. what is your zip code?
me: no
them: oh sorry, we just need your zip code.
me (still having a conversation in spanish with karla): you dont need my zip code.
them (awkward silence while looking at me): so....
me: what is your zip code?
them: what?
me: do i need to sign the receipt? no? thanks.

what kind of crap is that? you dont need my zip code. of course the first time i just asked why they wanted it. they told me. i then told them they did not need it. strange the look on people's faces when you deviate slightly from the "normal" order of things. it makes me think of why "abnormal" and "crazy" people receive such titles. they do not follow the social norms. of course those norms are not laws (always) but tacit agreements.

on that note, i was in a bowling tournament last night. it was lawyers, judges, cops and court employees mixed together in teams of four (i was an employee of jackson, jackson and jackson law associates for the evening- ok, so there is only one jackson, but i think adding the other two jacksons makes it sound more prestigious). anyway, it was lots of fun. each team of four had to reach 440 combined in the first game to move on to the second round. about 20 teams began; twenty minutes later only four teams remained. yes, we suck. i reached scored 111, one more than the minimum needed by each contestant to gain 440- i know you all needed that quick math- but none of my teammates did. we got a 416. busted. the cops, mainly state troopers, were cracking me up. crew cuts. they loved my long hair and beard - behind while i was bowling i often heard words like "artist" bandied about, but when i scored a strike or spare, they were all quite nice and congratulatory. true, i was the only guy there with long hair, but after they realized i was not a potential perp, we all got along swimmingly.

classes start next week. i am taking 15 graduate credits and a 3 credit french class. i have 3 grad classes on one day, tuesday, starting at 1230 and ending at 9pm with about 2 hours of breaks in between. that which does not kill me

2009-01-16T13:03:00.002-06:00

well well well. peaches. i never would have guessed, simply because i never thought you might do something like that. definitely a shock. after all these years it was papa bear all along. and the peach for a christmas ornament certainly was fitting. good stuff dad.

2008-12-04T10:19:00.002-06:00

well well. peaches. i think it crossed my mind that it was you, but i dismissed it when i read about the four corners. millions of peaches. peaches for free. lookout.

on another completely unrelated note, i came across this passage in nietsche this morning and thought i would share:

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

i like that idea but admit that its implications require an unwavering constitution the likes of which few possess.

is that really all i am going to write? a huevo.

2008-11-10T16:54:00.000-06:00

mcafee's knob, late october

2008-11-10T16:52:00.000-06:00

cascades, november 2nd

2008-11-10T16:50:00.001-06:00

maryland vs. virginia tech, thursday night. and yes, i still do not own anything that actually says "virginia tech" on it

2008-11-10T16:31:00.002-06:00

so i just read a comment left by an anonymous poster. i wish everyone would write a name or a clue as to their identity, but maybe it is easier not to say who you are. in any event, i think i have an idea who it might be. in response to the post - i hope you are right that being the one left behind is easier in the long run. the leaver definitely does regret, and it makes it hard for that person to then later reach out to the person left behind. that person made a huge impact in the life of the leaver, but it is true that the leaver feels guilt. guilt for leaving. guilt for not finding a better way. guilt for not doing everything possible.

i have long been of the opinion that you cannot take it with you. if one person needs to move, for school, job, etc., then asking the partner to go with you leads to immediate and long-term problems. when you go with someone, the semantics of it already points to a problem - the choice was not yours. you would not have left of your own accord. this could lead to problems if you are not happy in your new location and eventual resentment. what happens if that is not the final move? what if right when you get adjusted you have to move again? what if you are the one who decides to move: should the other go with you or stay to finish what was started?

clearly, this is a pessimistic view. every day people make these decisions. often they are happy. there are a hundred responses to my above claims, not the least being, if you really care about someone else, then it will work out somehow. that scares me a bit though bc it implies that one or both will become unhappy and then have to work through it. unfortunate for both sides really.

either way, going with or staying behind, the challenge is to deal with that new life which is created. the challenge for me has always been that no matter where i have lived, i have always sought some other view. true, i would love to be in the mountains again (sorry, va, these are more hills than mountains), but i know it will be at least 4 years until i have that opportunity again. and then i am already considering europe or south america or australia. and yes, i am selfish. if i were asked, after 4 years, to move to kansas to be with someone else, i would have to say no. i will compromise, but only on my conditions. i realize this sounds like a 12 year old, but it is who i am. maybe i will change in 4 years. maybe not

either way, i am glad for the person who responded. i think i know who you are, but even if i am wrong, i am glad to remember this person. and yes, i am still jealous of that ride snowboard.

2008-09-29T19:02:00.002-05:00

in my excitement at finding this glorious haven, i totally forgot my whole reason for wanting to write in the first place. these were the three quotes on my homepage today (if you do not have a igoogle home page, i suggest it as it is lots of fun and you can add anything (limited) that you want.)

The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt, too.
- Oscar Levant

Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.
- Jerry Garcia

Save a little money each month and at the end of the year you'll be surprised at how little you have.
- Ernest Haskins

i think my favorite of the three is the jerry garcia line. if i could be in the white house today, i can imagine this idea going through bush's mind when considering the wall street issue (i wont use the "c" word because i think it plays into the false belief that wall st has somehow gotten itself into something it cannot get out of. bullshit. they need to suck it up.)

anywho, happy monday.

2008-09-29T18:55:00.002-05:00

ok, i have to write about something very funny. i just discovered that on the fourth floor of the library is a locked room only for grad students. you must have a student id to swipe at the door in order to get in. then, you can look, laugh and point at the "little" people who sit on the outside. with all their noise. and people walking. and books distracting them. we have lockers. of course i dont have a key to any of the locks, BUT, if i DID, well, then i would have a locker. in the library. i know. pretty fabulous.

i want to make it very clear that i am not for segregation. or putting some people above others. except in this case. and any other time that being over 30 is an advantage. yahtzee.

2008-09-29T13:20:00.003-05:00

did you know duke has a football team?

ok, before i get into jimza's comment, i have a funny story from french class. so the teacher asks - qui est-ce qui vous avez voir apres le cours. now, in spanish, b and v sound the same. so, i heard - qui est-ce qui vous avez boire apres le cours. boire means to drink. voir means to see. the second question makes no sense, but as i heard incorrectly, i thought she said "drink and after class," so i looked at the kid next to me who was obviously hung over and replied, "john va boire apres le cours." the teacher looked at me strangely until she got that i misunderstood the question. my answer to "who is going drinking after class?" was "john is going to drink after class." after explaining my mistake, the teacher and the rest of the class thought it was funny (read- i am stupid)

so jimmy d, p-bot, i definitely remember your pager. i also remember using your pager after it either stopped working or no one paid the bill. good times.

i also remember my first-year roommate stealing some dude's pager at a party. classy. also, said person was the first one i knew to own a cell phone. although, as his night shifts at wade's might not have paid the bill, i dont think he kept it long. of course, after he dropped out and remained living in my room for the next three months, he was definitely saving money (and let me tell you how much fun it was not to be able to lock my door for those three months because jackass, after dropping out of school, had to give his dorm key back, which made his comings and goings all the more obnoxious). ah, freshman year. your mention jammer of "upper quad" threw me for a second. did we know it as anything other than the ghetto? all the kids on the other side of campus called it bfe, but that is another story.

the lost boys. fidel da fish and the "burial at sea" after his untimely death where 'foul play was suspected.' how can i forget going into the bathroom late one night and seeing jesse's head sticking out from under the stall as i was myself using the urinal? dude, are you ok? to which no response meant i had to go down the hall to see "the lost boys" and inform them that one of their own needed removal before the ra, tyler i think he was, found him. i remember watching them drank the poor kid down the hall (i think it was by his feet, but i could be misremembering). i think the fourth floor of thomas saw about 20% of its residents move on to another year of school. the rest, like ol jesse, never made it back.

was the power plant that operated outside your (jimza) side of the hall a coal plant? i seem to remember you not being able to open the window.

jesse. i remember the night he entered thomas from the wrong side of the building and climbed into bed in your room because it was the third door down on the right from where he entered (the exact location of his room but the opposite of the hall). damn. how many stories do i have of jesse? and consider, these are the only stories i can actually put onto the internet (mainly bc they do not involve myself or any of those who might read this bad boy).

jim, you are a nice guy.

2008-09-24T13:29:00.004-05:00

when was the last time i updated?

ok, so i am back in school in the usa (anyone ever see the rodney dangerfield flick, i think it was called back to school?)

some lessons from school and working at a bar where 21 yr olds and even underagers like to hang out:
1. monday is a drinking night. so is tuesday, wednesday and every other day.
2. college kids are cheap as hell (we knew this one too)
3. no one does homework in undergrad classes (except me - rocking the 93 on my french exam). few do homework in grad classes
4. now that one of my grad classes is down to two people, we better do the reading.
5. walking down the sidewalk in a college town, after around 7pm, is hazardous - you might get hit by a car (evidenced by the two kids who were hit, at least one dead, about three weeks ago while walking home from the bar)
6. if you dont have an ipod, you are not as cool as you think you are.
7. no one drinks water, everyone drinks soda during the day.
8. short shorts and skirts are fashionable even when it is in the high 40's at night
9. a prom dress, cut off around mid thigh with a fat elastic band holding it to their legs is now fashionable for girls. sad really.
10. asking for the id of a woman in her thirties (in this town at least) will raise your tips by at least 30%
11. if you are a bit older (30, ahem), then customers who are also a bit older will tip you better if you talk to them. most college kids still dont tip bc they have no money (to which i can relate)
12. the percentage of people who consistently go out to bars, out of the total population of the school, is about 15%, e.g. you see the same damn people week in week out
13. redneck accents while speaking french are fucking HILARIOUS
14. 75% of people in philosophy would be considered dorks by 95% of the campus
15. we are all dorks in my program
16. except me (see 15)
17. working until midnight or so does not allow you to get bed by 1am after riding a bike home. you just cannot relax enough
18. working at a restaurant makes you stink of food.
19. not washing your work shirt enough can lead from no 18 to making your house stink of food too
20. when your over 60, retired, gregarious landlord is at the bar where you work more than you are (bc he tells you, "hey william, guess you didnt work ____ (fill in day,) i looked for you", give up trying simply to smile and wave when you leave the house in the morning. conversely, refusing a beer at 11am on a tuesday is also grounds for said landlord to eye you warily.
21. acting standoffish toward your extremely outgoing and talkative landlord at the beginning of your lease is something you will only forget to do once in your life.
22. the amount of spare time you have to write on your blog drops precipitously once you are in classes.
23. three grad classes is a full load. adding a language class to it is not recommended if you like to do things with your free time other than work or study.
24. you can no longer rent taps for kegs. you have to buy the damn thing (we bought a pony keg for our birthday dinner last weekend)
25. a pony keg of good beer is twice as much as twice as much natty lite. shocker
26. the first response to anyone who mentions an upcoming birthday is, "so, you going downtown?"
27. girls drink cheap, cheap beer just like guys.
28. skipping happy hour (which at most bars down here is four hours long every day) is like leaving your cell phone in your apt/dorm room. doesnt happen
29. not drinking soda at work (only water) makes other younger servers think you are "weird"
30. irresponsibility, when taken on a grand scale - say 70% of population- is not only disturbing but contagious.

hope one or two make you laugh.
cheers

2008-08-25T14:01:00.001-05:00

read two books this past week. one was a crime-fiction, well-schooled in murder by elizabeth george, that my sister gave me probably 12 or more years ago. found it in my room in madison. the writing is decent, not extraordinary, but with certain qualities that make it fun to read. the second, flags in the dust by william faulkner, is one of the more moving books i have read this year. dealing with the sartoris family in mississippi, as so many of his novels do, this one was not published until many years after it was written. his publishers claimed it was 3 or 4 novels without enough of a connection. if ever there was a reason not to listen to publishers and editors, this would be it. as far as a grand narrative spanning lifetimes and historical events, like a tolstoi novel perhaps, it has more of a collected short stories feel. four main story lines separated by characters but all have a bearing on another as in the end, they are all essentially family. beautifully written in faulkner's often dense and distracted prose (stream of consciousness thrown in at times), it foretells so well the coming of realismo magico or magical realism of a garcia marquez or alejo carpentier. the final 40 pages or so are densely pathetic, stirring emotion and announcing a finality through death and birth. the novel implies that no matter how hard one struggles against fate, there are certain people who are simply born into a pattern that they are doomed to fulfill. the female characters are somewhat exempt, but to them falls the difficulty of living with and outliving the arrogance, stubborness and finally tragic outcome. but is it tragedy if you seek it? although the story in many sense affirms the inability to evade fate, it clearly shows the fate as chosen as it is inevitable.

rare novels affect the reader for any appreciable time after the story ends. nevertheless this text has clearly driven the writing of a good friend of mine down in mexico (indeed he recommended it to me), and having read it i see his own work in a different light. as well, it is clear the effect that faulkner's writing had on garcia marquez and his stories cien anos de soledad y el general en su laberinto. helping my friend edit his text i have been struck by the difficulty of writing well. sounds obvious, but when you read a text so clearly and comprehensibly written that it seems easy, you thoughtlessly compare the writing of others to it and deprecatingly demarcate the failures. unfair really.

i am now about halfway through another book called "the once and future king". king arthur story but told from a rather different perspective. if you have the time, i highly recommend it (very easy read, probably intended for younger audiences in general) as it truly is fun to read.

2008-08-25T13:25:00.002-05:00

well well well. first day back at school. my first class so far has been french. here are the general course listings. 1105, 2105, then it goes higher, but those dont matter. i dont really speak french. i took a course this summer, was a total nerd (maybe i should use the present tense) and got the best score in the class. so, i decided that the 1105 was too basic (and yes, there is an 1106 offered next semester, but you know i go to a small school of only 29000 souls, so i can understand why they would not be offering any of the in-between courses).

it turns out i am not the smartest kid in my class. however, i am certainly not the worst (although as the herd thins this week, i wonder how far down i will sink as those others who only caught 70%- and yes that is a guess number- of what the teacher was saying will drop). but not me. i am in it for the semester i think. yes, it is going to be hard, but it is better than taking the wimpy course and being bored out of my mind. plus, this aint the first time i have been in a room where i dont really speak the language. all in all, it will be an enlightening, and humbling, experience.

as a matter of fact, that is one thing i like about school, first days in particular. you walk away humbled.

later tonight i am attending a class i may or may not end up taking. i will let you know how that one fares.

2008-08-17T17:19:00.003-05:00

has it really been almost 3 years without me discovering the identity of peaches? well, i am either dumb or, well, i dont know. i do know that i have no clue who it is. peaches, any help? also, how can i call or email you if i dont know your number or addy? drop me either of those and i am on it. directly.

the four corners clearly does not refer to colorado, arizona, utah and new mexico junction (because i have never been there). any other hints?

2008-08-17T17:15:00.002-05:00

living the dream. alive and well down here in blacksburg. strange to be back in the states, stranger to back in the burg, but having a great time so far. here is something i wrote the other day.

blacksburg again. new apt, old road (broce drive). new job, same old job (sharkey's). new computer, new keypad (this will take some adjustment after learning and using a spanish version of the keyboard for the past three years). the differences make the experience unique, as they all are. looked over a few notes this morning and saw some notes from my first stint in grad school- thoreau and his philosophy on life: too much group think, too much movement (with the advent of trains and faster steam ships that made access to other parts of the globe if not mundane at least feasible for a larger part of the population), not enough communication with the natural. he moved to walden for myriad reasons, but one of the things he railed against was group think. information sources abounded, but what use were they? this concept has neither died nor diminished; if anything the exponential increase has caused mroe strife and needless movement while simultaneously increasing the gap between groups and the masses in general. no one will question the gain, but why does no one question the necessity of it? we have synthesized life as we have music and the written word. programs facilitate limitation.

unnecessary movement. i would be the first to disagree with his statements in that regard, but to what end? to justify my own meandering. sinuous path was simply a circle. the trail did not double back on itself, and the view did not erase a previous vision so much as provide complimentary perspectives. riding through campus on a bike yesterday showed me what i never saw on foot or en coche. la vista, no tan diferente, los edificios han cambiado pero no tanto que no puedo reconocer el paisaje. the skyline. the sun still sets over burrus in the early fall (depending upon where you stand). my williams hall has become the psychology department and the english dept. has moved to my freshman year dorm. how can that not be seen as a step back? the humanities have been pushed uphill to the ghetto (for those in the know) or to bumfuckegypt for those on the other side of campus. a proximity to the bk lounge (did i really work there for a month 12 years ago?) does not confer a status reflecting academic excellence. chale.

listening to big head todd and the monsters (did i really go see them at mixers 16 years ago?), and enjoying it, reminds me that some changes do not imply forgetting nor that what was left behind was unwanted or loved. i loved this town 8 years ago when i left it. on many levels it has improved, or perhaps grown would be a more correct term. what is the obsession with affirming that new is tantamount to improvement? group think. of course, when segments of the population do not embrace the new, we label them old, crochety, stubborn or, and perhaps the worst, weak. unable to adapt. adapt was a word i used to describe myself for every job i sought (how strange then that when i returned to blacksburg and applied for a job i filled out no applications, had no interview and was accepted for what andi wi who i am without a word). do i know how to adapt? or do i simply write to rail against what i have lost? my new phone annoys me. i am paying more than i want for an apt far from my ideal. i have given up a steady source of income that sustains me. i have seen too many episodes of poirot and now i will have to find another to replace it.

but the title track of this disc- bittersweet- seems to fit so well. guitar, bass and drum. strong lead vocals. the rhythm, like the voice, so familiar. "are we everything we wanted?" if we are not, then how realistic were the desires? "a bittersweet surrender." at what point do we all give up and accept who, what and where we are? cynical. unfair. pessimistic. fuck it.

strange that we stopped quoting famous poets and plays and other literary works in favor of modern, pop poetry- music. are we uncultured? impossible since this is now our culture. are we in a state of decline in this country? if so, does anyone care enough to retrard the slide? unlikely on both accounts. movement on a plane has a clear rising and falling action, but in four dimensions (i wont even get into string theory with its proposed minimum of 7 to 11 dimensions), there is only movement. we are neither above or below another time, simply we are not in the same space as before. an orbit seems to imply that we are returning, once a year, to a previous point yet this description has neither spatial nor temporal validity. but the cyclical, or eliptical, orbit implies a sort of return. regression. i am always fascinated at the problem of language. each word holds too many meanings. too many implications, value judgements. vocal communication creates as many problems as non-verbal signs. if only foucoult and derrida we easier to understand, right? their work on signs and play might elucidate some sort of truth for all of us instead of those who spend their time in a world unlike the others (parallel dimensions?). i have lived 80% of my life in an academic environment. i have no desire to leave it.

patience. i wrote, and to large extent believed, that i had become more patient. it is a lie. my frustration with those things beyond my control has not decreased due to my time down south. if anything, i may have lost the patience i once had. an ongoing project then.

my apt has one window and three doors leading out. my time is divided into looking there though the scenery is unchanged. movement has been checked.

"are we everything we wanted?"

2008-07-24T11:20:00.002-05:00

i was bummed the other day to see that i was listed as an out of state resident for virginia tech. so, i consulted my sis and with her advice i wrote to the school, they re-evaluated the application and, believe it or not, granted me in-state tuition. i have to admit i was definitely sad at having to pay around 16-17000 bucks over the first year and possibly the second. at least this way the tuition is about cut in half. relief.

2008-07-24T11:17:00.001-05:00

Having to choose what is left behind creates many more challenges than what to take. I see that superficially this is a semantic game. Each idea could mean the same thing. Both situations require something to be left, but there is a subtler force at work. When deciding what to take, you look for essentials. This clearly depends on the trip and of course the person. Vacations may seem simple and clear, but what happens when you are like many of the people I have known over the past few years who are on extended stays. My friends mike and sam, who I hung out with and spent Christmas day with on the side of an active volcano, were on a vacation, but theirs was a 12 month stint. Round the world ticket, 12 months to use it. True, they spent about 6 months in Australia, but when we met them, in month 11 of 12, they were down to one backpack each. Not some giant pack people hiking the Appalachian trail use, but a book bag size pack. True they were each jammed, but damn. If you have ever taken a two week vacation (or longer), you know that when you get back things are a bit different and you are usually somewhat content to be home. Now picture that feeling on a scale immensely larger. Where is your home? Do you have any of the same clothes you started out with? Chances are the only constants are your camera (maybe) and pack.

For mike and sam, they had nothing original when they made that final flight back to England. I know bc I saw them the night before they left mexico- they and karla and I went to dinner. It was strange when karla and I descended the tunnel into the metro station and they were going to walk a bit and then head back to the hotel. When you take leave of someone in a public space, it is quite different from leaving someone in an apt or house and taking a cab from there (or getting in your car and driving away never to see them again). When was the last time you knew you were seeing someone for the last time? Coworkers (students) come and go. But chances are for most of you your friends are your friends. You know them and even if they move away, you will see them again. I have made a kind of profession of having to say goodbye to people I will never see again. College is crap, so I will throw that out. San fran, I lost a lot. Yes, I hope to see many of them again, like hulia, kristanovich, some of the boys from the mill, but in general, the vast majority are gone. Three years after grad school and where do I stand. My last email to anyone in or around flagstaff was almost two years ago. Cuban b, jam, j-rod, a few others I hope to see again, but most I will never cross paths with again. Undoubtedly I am not alone in this, and most of the people reading this have an idea what I am describing, but imagine giving up your best friends, on average, every two years. Why would you do that?

Which brings me back to the original question. What do you leave behind? How many memories, weekends, trips, promises, will you simply not pack with you? If you could perhaps you would include them all, but realistically, you know damn well you cannot. Who do you cut? Why? How do you justify it to yourself, or do you simply let them fade away and hope you either gave them the wrong email address or simply never will write you. Is there any way to make yourself stop feeling like a bastard? And girlfriends or boyfriends that get left behind? Shit. I must say though that it seems to be easier being the one leaving than the one staying. All those little reminders that stay in a place long after you leave it: restaurants, common friends, even simple things like streets you used to travel to get their house, signs or commercials you used to laugh at. They don’t change. So you have to. Or become, I imagine, incredibly thick skinned. Either way, it sounds fucking horrible.

Books and clothes are the first on my cut list. Some of the clothes I came down here with I simply wore out. Washing by hand every week took its toll on shits, underwear, socks, and even pants. The seems just give out eventually from overuse. This is why normal people have a clothes rotation greater than two pairs of pants, seven shirts, seven pair of socks and underwear, etc. but then when you get beyond that number, how do you carry it around with you when you leave? Without a car, what do you do? If you cannot carry it for a minimum of 200 yards, then you are fucked my friend. Start junking shit. Clock radio you bought six months before? Gone. A book you bought, thought you might read, never did, and weighs half a pound? Out (times 10). You literally will get to the point of: okay, I know I will need deodorant, toothpaste, shampoo and soap where I am going, but do I have take with me what I have or can I just wait and buy it when I get there (will that make my first stop a drugstore or will I simply smell for a day or so)? You start to spend long amounts of time simple staring at your belongings, cataloguing. Those three shirts- Sergio, raul, or chucho. Those pants, Emilio. The sports coat clark gave you- return it.

It says a lot about you what you are willing to shed. How important is a book to you? If you are like, you just do not even buy things for yourself anymore. I will see about 10 people over the next few months that I have not seen in quite a while and I would like to bring them all gifts, but how? I have already bought another suitcase and will now have three checked and one carry on- over the limit and probably 50 bucks in fees (damn the new airline regulations), but what else can I do? Give away gifts I bought, in some cases, 8 months ago? So you start to weigh the worth of your belongings. What value does it have? Not only that, but what value will it have in 2 years when you may pick up and do it all over again?

Ultimately, you look around your apartment and realize that maybe 15% of what you see will be with you in two weeks (if you are me you do anyway). How do you justify what gets tossed? Little things like a mug I took from sanbornes restaurant holds as much value to me as a postcard I bought in Guanajuato, but only one of them will be making the voyage to Virginia. how many times have I already done this in other places? I have had 21 roommates over the last 15 years. And, two years ago, I had still had 21. that is a lot of damn people. The last time I wrote or heard from a single one of them not named jimza? Well over a year and a half. The last time I heard from one before that? Three years or more.

How do you keep count of these things? When you add it all up and settle the account, what do you do with the paper? I guess if it comes down to carrying it or shredding, then pass the matches.

2008-07-24T11:10:00.003-05:00

back from vacation. great trip actually. i went to taxco (biggest silver mines in the americas), then zihuatanejo (beach), then uruapan (colonial town in the mountains) and morelia. lot of fun, and i visited another (inactive) volcano and saw a destroyed town. the volcano exploded about 60 years ago, burying the entire town in lava (the people got out). crazy thing is that in the middle of the lava sea is a church. 16th century cathedral survived (in part). it is wild to see miles of lava and then sticking out of the middle is 16th century architecture. i will try to get some picks up soon.

on another note, i wrote a few journal type entries which i will now add. might interest you, might not.

Have you ever given up on something you felt would have made the biggest difference in your life? Have you ever begun something and then pulled out without the finality you thought you would find? Did it burn? Or, did you simply accept it and see the new challenge involved in the unexpected change?

Leaving a country is not like leaving a town or a state. I know this sounds pedantic, and I apologize, but reflection is key. You buy a new car or a house, and undoubtedly you start to examine what led to that event. What changed in you to make this a necessity (we must careful when we confuse wants and needs)? Or was it spur of the moment? I know the latter quite well, but I think I am in denial about the former.

Quitting a country is like nothing I can easily compare. Your friends are different. Sure, most speak another language, but their world view is one you cannot truly comprehend. Empathize is what people tell you when confronted with a new world, whether it be a new economic circle or simply a new town. Has it worked for you? I find it a lie. You cannot truly put yourself in their shoes (my sister who is a psychologist might agree with me), so all you can do is attempt to understand. But you will fail. Sad but true. By definition, it is not your world you are relating to, so what within you makes it possible? Compassion is a common response. I have learned a thing or two about displacement and fitting in; hell, we all have. But there comes a time when you say, this ain’t my scene and it never will be. If it is a party, you walk the fuck out. If it is a place that does not quite fit, you accept it and leave. But what if you try to adapt? What if you try, succeed to an extent, then leave? Do you feel a sense of self-betrayal? Or do you ignore that feeling and concentrate on the future unknown? I would argue that even if you are going back to a place you know, that place is unknown, un lugar desconocido. You have a memory of it, but that is not present reality. You thought, but that thought is now outdated. You might end up right back where you started.

I know the usa better than anywhere else in the world. I have experience in seven different countries, but none of those are mine. I can honestly say that right now I am not sure if the us is mine. Reading too many of the famous ex-pats from the early 20^th century, from Gertrude stein to ezra pound, to hemingway to fitzgerald, I find more in common with them than I do H.L. Mencken who, famously, stayed. He did not give up on a country he described as disillusioned, false and economically unfeasible. Was he right? Will a country that feeds on consumerism outlast all others? I attended a lecture series down here by a self proclaimed ¨outcast¨ morris berman. I found myself more at odds with him than I did us policy. Anger? Disgust at being told a truth I found too consistent and therefore repugnant? Probably. But his own words spurred me to defend more than contribute fuel to a fire that is already consuming our country. So why do I side with those who fled 100 years ago and settled in france (they settled there, mostly, because of the favourable exchange rate by the way, and not simply because france is the capital of all forward thinking and avant garde)? Weakness? Inability to think for myself? Quite possibly.

So why did y’all stay? Why did none of you decide to quit the us and go somewhere else to ride out the storm? Did you see the storm as the eye of Jupiter? Yes, it has lasted for over 60 years, but did they tell you it is now clearing up? We have called it Cyclops for so long we might not recognize it if we were transported to the future in a hundred years and heard others discussing it. Is the us the same way. Empires are destined to fall is cliché. Clichés are accidents at first however. They spell out what we all know too well and are therefore easily dismissed as pedestrian. The Japanese effectively concurred the Chinese. Would we have seen the revival of china so easily? The Arabic and jewish nations have long heralded the coming of a new world order (no slight to george bush senior in my stealing of his phrase). Do you believe in it? Which?

Those famous ex-pats are all dead. And I am returning home. How long will home offer me the sustenance I apparently am after? Friendships span border lines; that y’all have shown me. I can reciprocate, but will that be enough to bridge the gaps we now find? What borders have been crossed that cannot be retread?

2008-07-08T13:23:00.002-05:00

although i have not heard back from scotland, i wanted to do more checking on costs, and found some very bad news.

it appears that with tuition and fees, plus living, i would be running around 34000 bucks a year. that is a conservative estimate. it seems all that time i have spent thinking about it was not worth it. no way in hell i can afford that. i could not afford it for one year, much less two. oh well. looks like i will be virginia bound for the next two years. i am not disappointed so much as sad that the dollar is so weak compared to the pound. the good news is that funding for phd's is much better- more grants and such.

i guess i'm coming home.

2008-07-08T09:28:00.003-05:00

still no word from scotland.

what would you do in my place if you were to get in? would you spend more money to go to the uk or stay in va for two years, get a master's and then go somewhere else, possibly scotland, for a phd? i am still up in the air. i want to go to scotland but money is a factor. i could just say screw it, go deep in debt and attend a school with an amazing reputation worldwide and one of the best schools in the field i want to study. if i go, there is the strong likelihood that i would stay and do a phd (in fact, if i did not stay in scotland, i would probably look for another phd program in europe). of course, once there, there is also the strong chance of me winning scholarships for the coming years.

in the end, five-six years down the road, i can definitely see myself teaching in europe somewhere. there are a few scandanavian schools that offer one year exchanges with schools in europe and from there i could get a foothold and scout a teaching position. or, i could stay in scotland or england. or, i could go to holland (there are a few schools there as well). the benefit of europe is their focus (generally) on theoritical issues, while the us school of thought is more pragmatic. i really dig theory, but maybe having a few years of the american school and then going to europe could also be good. i see advantages to both decisions. of course, deep down, i would love to go to edinburgh as it is such an incredible school and offers me the chance to keep moving (forward). also, the access to europe i would have is also a huge factor.

i have had enough of central america; i am ready (finally) to see europe. i remember five or six years ago having conversations with my sisters, and probably others, about why i did not want to go to europe. my reasons were that i did not have the money for europe (still dont), and that i may as well go to central and south america while i still dont mind sleeping on floors and living in dilapidated environs. what has changed? well, i prefer floors to bug infested beds (damn nicaragua). but, after seeing all of central america (ostensibly), i think i want to see what europe has to offer. as just about everyone and their mama has already seen europe, i wont expound upon things i dont know. simply, i want to go. plus, now that i have started learning french, i realize that, for better or worse, my mind is right to acquire new languages when it was not 15 years ago. thus, it would behoove me to take advantage of this time and go learn by exploring and talking with native speakers. that can, of course, be accomplished in blacksburg va. not saying it cannot. however, it would ideal to practice for a year, then actually go to france on a train.

anyway. rambling thoughts on a dreary, rainy and cold morning here in the valley of kings. 8500ft in altitude, sight of an ancient lake, ringed by 13-18,000 foot mountains and volcanoes, and home to the largest city in the world (i still think it is) at over 25 million people. can you believe a country boy from virginia who grew up on a farm is living here? neither can anyone else.

2008-07-07T16:11:00.002-05:00

no news on scotland.

i finished war and peace, or the never-ending story, about a week ago. i mean, how can someone read 5-600 pages in a single weekend and be barely over halfway through a book. that is cruel. i blame the author.

of course the book itself is brilliant. the first aspect that struck me was the first person usage. tolstoy is telling the story from his point of view, 50 years after the events. he gives wonderful descriptions of napolean, kutuzov (russian general), of the russian emporer and of the nobility. of course, the peasant class is there, but not really part of the story. they are a tool more than anything. like horses in a way are utilized and often have to die, or suffer some sort of bad accident, so too do these people. you feel bad about it, but then how much thought do we give to animals that died in battles long ago.

so the novel is epic in its scope, but that vision is narrow. 1500 pages, so he could not include everything, but in the end he seemed to stick to what he knows. maybe that is the best idea in general. write about what you know and not some bullshit you cant comprehend.

i just finished reading albert camus's ¨the stranger.¨ have to say i did not really like this book as much (although the last 60 pages of war and peace is an essay- part of the reason why the book is not really a novel- too much non-fictional extrapolating done by a first person author). one thing that interests me though is the use of the guilotine for executions.

is it better than hanging? electric chair? lethal injection? the guilotine seems to me the most efficient of all. the weight of the blade would remove the head in one shot. at the very least there is nothing really to feel (unless some of you know more about this than i do and can tell me i am wrong).

but, it seems more brutal than lethal injection. not sure where i stand on hanging. i do think the electric chair must be absolutely fucking horrible.

when an author writes about the mind of someone who is facing death or long jail time, do you think the author ever feels a twinge, something telling him/her that perhaps that subject should not be written about? superstition. i think i would avoid it entirely. but i dont see myself writing any novels any time soon. shocker.

2008-06-30T11:09:00.002-05:00

in light of my pending move (although not sure where that will be just yet), i found a highly amusing Mcsweeney's post. the link is here http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/27AlisonRosen.html

or, for the click-challenged, here is, in all their glory, ¨pick up lines to use while moving¨

"Nice shoes. Wanna put them in that box over there?"

"Is that a mirror in your pocket? Because the movers are going to be here soon, so we should put it in bubble wrap."

"Your father must have been a thief, because I can't find the duct tape."

"The word of the day is 'tarp.' What do you say we go back to my place and spread the word?"

"Mind if I put my junk in your box?"

"If this bed's a-rockin' ... maybe it's not worth taking to the new place?"

2008-06-25T11:54:00.002-05:00

i think this guy is my new hero. out of the 34 possibles, i have had only about 10. but, every winter is like a test track. on a side note, i have started a summer beard. never done it before, so not sure if it will last (we are at 2weeks now). will keep you updated.

http://www.dyers.org/blog/beards/beard-types/

jim and timmay you will definitely enjoy this page.

2008-06-25T11:04:00.003-05:00

oh jaim (like the mix of jim and jam?), there are many stories explaining why i should not have children. i think put together they also explain why one should never let me even hold a child. that said, if the baby were to stay in a crib and not need to be moved or anything for feeding or cleaning (this is getting less and less likely the more caveats i write), then i am definitely the babysitter of your dreams.

as far as holding children, i have avoided it for most of my life. not that i dislike children, but that i feel that if something is ever going to go horribly wrong, it will be while the child is in my care. fear is the mindkiller (weak dune reference there). i think i have pretty much convinced myself that even holding a child is bad news. what if i drop it? not likely, but what is likely is that the child might start to squirm or move around- what then? do you squeeze? that seems like a very bad idea give how small they are (not that i am competing in any strongman competitions. this year.) i mean, what if the kid kind of, you know, slips out? then you are stuck grasping at (straws) limbs. say you snag the leg, then the upper body flops down and the head jerks- all sorts of bad images conjured up on that one. or if you grab the arm you might break it (although i hear tell baby limbs are might springy, like a sapling).

to be honest, i am not sure how people hold children. it seems like a dangerous game (great short story) or a tender situation (killer ween lick). i think to avoid the stress, i best stay out of it.

that said, i have not decided where i will be this fall. i know i will be coming back to va this summer for a minimum of a few weeks. i would love to get back into kayaking, canoeing, hiking, camping, fishing, etc. va tech would not be a bad choice, but i have to say that scotland is without question my first choice. i think i am done with mexico, but i am not sure i am ready to go back to the states yet.

with that in mind i have a phone interview with a school in panama city. panama, not florida. then maybe one next week with colombia.

timmay, if you still get on this blog, when are you gettin hitched? will it be in steelcountry? hope so. if you can't marry a coal miner's daughter the very least you can do is score a pittsburgian.

germany versus turkey at 145 today. should be a killer game. of course tomorrow's will be better, russia (who stunned holland) versus spain (who finally beat the damn italians after 88 years of trying), but i have a stupid meeting i probably should not skip. i am rooting for turkey today because germany beat portugal who was my favorite of the groups. i am assuming that eurocup 2008 is big in the usa? maybe not a good assumption.

vive la turquie!

2008-06-23T12:57:00.000-05:00

i received an e-mail this morning from va tech.
here it is:

Hi Will,
I'm so sorry for the delay.  Dr. Fuhrman returned your file to me this
morning and has marked it "admit".  Congratulations!  I will send word
to the graduate school so that they can send  you official notification.


Let me know if you have any other questions.
Thanks!
Crystal

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Crystal Harrell, Graduate Coordinator
Virginia Tech
Science and Technology Studies
122 Lane Hall, Mail Code 0247
Blacksburg, VA  24061
(540) 231-7615/(540) 231-7013 (fax)

2008-06-19T09:49:00.003-05:00

no news about grad schools.

but, i think i have made a decision. i was planning on applying to school here where i currently work. there are lots of advantages: free school, get paid while going to school, i know a few of the profs. however, i think i have decided that the negatives are too great: the school is very new and at least two of their teachers just graduated from the same program; they have no international connections (no one outside of mexico is really aware that the program exists); the program is in disarray after almost being dismantled a year ago.

of course the main reason i am thinking of nixing the whole plan is that i am no longer happy where i work. i bitch about it all the time so i wont waste space here doing so, but i am ready to just say fuck it and move on. right now i am looking at some places in south america, but at this point i am open for just about anything. hopefully i will be accepted into one of the programs i applied to, but if not, i will simply wait another year and apply to more schools in the fall.

this is rather a difficult decision for me. one of my best friends here is going to be teaching in the phd program, and he and i were both excited about working together. but, the more i think about it, i dont like all the incest: you cannot simply graduate a bunch of students from a phd program and then give them jobs in the same school. the point, as far as i know, is to get outsiders, fresh blood, into the program. otherwise, you are propagating a system of education that is stagnant because though the students will naturally have tendencies somewhat different than their teachers, their perspective is limited because the program studied and the program to be taught is the same.

at least, this is what i am telling myself. nevertheless, i am nearly positive that universities in the usa do not hire from their phd programs, and this is why there is often great diversity and new ideas. there are probably negatives as well, but today i am seeing the positives.

in general, i feel like i am done with the school where i currently teach. my new boss is absolutely horrible and the new head of the high school is so bad that directors of programs in the high school (humanities, language, etc) are applying for part time teaching jobs in the university and other schools just to get away from her.

sinking ship. and i will be damned if i am the captain.

2008-06-05T11:15:00.002-05:00

started french class today. je ne comprends pas. no entiendo. pero ninguno de los otros tampoco entonces todo bien, ¿no?

right.

my class is full of high school and university kids. actually, 4 of the 10 were once my students in english class. i was a little embarrassed at first because i was going to be in class with former students. if you have not been a teacher, i think you can still imagine how this feels. although you realize that you do not know everything (indeed you know next to nothing in the large scheme of things), they do not know this. students see you and their estimation, at first, goes down. good or bad, this is how it is much of the time.

i must say that taking a foreign language with a base of another language is interesting. i am learning french, but with spanish speakers. the two languages are similar, not in any way the same, but it is interesting to hear explanations about the french in spanish. kind of like two classes at once. i highly recommend the experience if any of you have the chance. learning a third language (or fourth or fifth or sixth) through a language that is not your own is interesting. i am not sure if i am explaining this phenomenon very well, but there it is.

on another note, i am trying to catch up on books i somehow never read. last saturday i read ¨the picture of dorian gray¨ by oscar wilde. how did i never read that? it is an unbelievable book (although after the first 70 pages or so it drags for another 30) with all sorts of famous phrases and witticisms. i highly recommend it.

my next project is tolstoy's ¨war and peace¨. again, how did i never read this book? i started it yesterday and have only read 150 pages or so, of the 1500 in the version i have, but it is unbelievable. brilliant writing (the translation by ann dunnigan is superb), great characters, excellent description. i love dostoevsky, and have read five or six of his books, but somehow i overlooked this one. i read anna karenina about 7 years when i first arrived in california and had no job but lived in the house a former relative. i went to the library (internet for jobs) every day during those two months in vallejo, and read numerous books including the aforementioned and ¨the brothers karamazov¨ which i also read again this spring when my sister sent me the book in a package. russian authors are amazing. too bad i do not read russian (and probably never will).

my next project is ¨les miserables¨. again, how have i never read it or even seen the play? my education is wanting. either way, it will be at least 2 weeks, maybe 3 before i finish war and peace, so i have time to find a good english translation. and no smartasses, my french will not be good enough by then to read it is french.

2008-06-04T11:42:00.002-05:00

i, like most people, have always been adept at complaining. bitching. whatever name you want to give it. technology has not made bitching any easier, but it has made broadened the audience, which allows a single person to complain to thousands of people without having to spend hours on the phone, in someone else's office, or in other parts of the country.

that said, i emailed vtech again this morning explaining that i had a received an email about financial documents that sounded strange as i had heard no decision regarding my application. well, sure enough, the lady emailed me back within 15 minutes and gave me the news.

i have not been accepted to vtech. of course, i have not been denied admission either. it seems the head of the dept went out of town two weeks ago. and is not expected back for two or three more. right. which would mean that since i applied in april, i would be waiting until the end of june or possibly july to find out. sweet. consider this: i sent an application to scotland yesterday. i am guessing they will be able to give a yes or no before the month is out.

fucked? i think so. the system where you go on vacation for a month without deciding on the status of an application seems more than a little ridiculous. especially if you are the main person deciding whether to accept the candidate or not. if you accept late applications, then accept them and decide on them (i doubt the decision process takes more than a day). if not, then tell people before they throw down 150 bucks getting their scores, transcripts, et al sent in to you.

the secretary claims to be ¨tracking him down¨ in order to find out what the director's thoughts were before he left on his 6 week siesta.

what. the. fuck.

or maybe i am overreacting.

happy happy. joy joy.

2008-06-03T12:04:00.002-05:00

graduation was last week. i was invited by two programs to attend their graduation party, but as they were the same night, i could only go to one. i chose the smaller group, the international baccalaureate group, and it was probably smart.

first they send out these formal invitations to us. the hotel where the party will take place is in the swankiest part of the city (far from where i live obviously), called el camino real. no reference to the sweet 70's and 80's car/trucks.

i arrive around 20 minutes late and was more than a little surprised. the male students wore suits, not a shock, but the girls were wearing prom dresses. one of them had what looked to be a wedding dress. no joke. i hung out with them, spoke spanish to them (which freaked them out as they had never heard me speak their language before) and met their parents.

yes, parents. this graduation party was paid for by the parents, and attended by parents and other family members. along with the salsa band, this was more of a wedding than a grad party. the teachers had to share two tables (this was actually great as i was not wanting to talk to parents all night), but after i sat down, a professor arrived who i cannot stand. truly dislike her and everything about her. she sat next to me, ignoring the six other open seats. sweet. i spent the next hour and half trying to concentrate on the best food i have eaten in at least 6 months (4 or 5 star hotel and restaurant, so 6 months is really not true at all), while doing all in my power to make some bullshit conversation with this prof. not fun. the band was pretty loud, so not only did i have to speak, but had to pretty much yell. boo.

finally, she left. this was around 1230am. that is when the party truly began. there were bottles of wine, tequila and rum on every table (everything was free, for me at least), but the very few students were drinking. why not? well, they are mostly 18, which is the minimum age here, but they were still accompanied by parents, siblings, at times grandparents. i ended up dancing with a few profs before some of the female students grabbed me and wanted to dance. as you probably know i am a bad dancer, but at the very least it was amusing (i am talking about people forming circles on the dance floor and random students grabbing profs and pulling them to the center to dance with them). i had a great time, but was sweating profusely. reminded me in some ways of oaxaca (except that i was a wearing a jacket, there was air conditioning, and the place was super formal, along with all the attendees).

i wont bore you with the details of the whole night except that i line danced. no joke. guess the song- achy brakey heart. translated into spanish. worse, i was joined by about 45 people, all of whom new all of the steps (admittedly it was basic line dancing, although how i know what more complex line dancing looks like i will never tell). i was the only one uncoordinated to do it correctly (or it seemed like i was anyway). hilarious.

around 4am, when i found a prof with a car to give me a ride home, most of the profs had left, but 3/4 of the students, and their families were still there. no joke. the parents stayed all night. i can not imagine this ever happening in the states. can you?

still no word on tech. jackasses. i am questioning whether i would even go there if i get in now. i applied to scotland, which has a much better school. also, the program at the school where i work now opened. i also was offered a full time job teaching university (which is more prestige, but also a few thousand more dollars a year) and i could be a full time student and still make money. this is definitely tempting. however, i think if scotland offers me a place, and i can get the student loans, i am definitely going there. so many more opportunities over there. also, there is something about going to tech again that seems wrong. not sure how to put my finger on it, but it almost feels like going back. i have never lived in a place again after i left it. of course there are many great things about tech, but today at least, something is telling me it might not be a good idea for me to go back there.

as usual, any comments are appreciated. let me know what you think about it all.

2008-05-27T12:15:00.002-05:00

just realized that the day i took off, yesterday, was also a holiday for you. ya, that is not that exciting.

no word from the tech secretary. i emailed her last friday, but she never wrote back. i am guessing that she is either a. on vacation; b. down in the mouth about something and thus not wanting to talk to me; c. hating her job and trying to get fired by completely ignoring all emails; d. on a world biking tour; e. questioning her spirituality which is therefore causing her to be absentminded; f. fearful that my .mx email address implies i am mexican which may a. frighten her, b. remind her of a bad childhood experience, c. be a combination of a and b; d. reinforce a latent hatred for all things not usa; e. make her think she needs to learn spanish to communicate with me.

i am guessing there are a lot of other possibilities. feel free to leave a comment if you have any ideas what they might be.

went to a new town this past week. tepoztlan, about 45 minutes away. kind of cool. went hiking up a mountain that had a pyramid at the top dating from about 1000 years ago. i have seen a lot of pyramids now, and must say that although it was somewhat interesting, the view from about 11000 feet was much more so. you would think that living at 8000ft would make it easy to climb another 3000. you would be wrong.

syracuse won the lacrosse championship. i must say i am disappointed as both uva and duke both lost on saturday. could have been an all acc final. turned out being a half acc final four and acc-less final. bummer.

i think i am going to apply to a school in edinburgh, scotland. why not.

2008-05-23T09:13:00.002-05:00

question: you have applied to a school, albeit almost 3 months past the deadline, and after a month of waiting, you still have not heard whether you were accepted or not. do you send an email to the department secretary (with whom you have had contact during the whole process), or do you take her last email, dated april 28 that ¨we have all your information and will let you know as soon as possible¨ as final?

i dont want to be obnoxious or pushy, but i also want to know. a fine line. i think i am going to email her and just see what happens. but feel free to let me know what you think if you read this today.

2008-05-13T09:31:00.003-05:00

on another note, this site is fairly funny. if you have time to kill, check it out (this IS safe for work).

if th above link does not work, try this: http://colorwar2008.com/submissions/youngnow?page=2

and if you end up posting, please tell me so that i can laugh with (at) you.
if i post, there is not way in hell i am telling any of you.

2008-05-09T09:57:00.003-05:00

funny, to me, story.
a student, and friend of mine, who is in the undergraduate program here where i work
approached me yesterday and asked my advice. my first thought was that he had two girls and was trying to decide how to deal with both or which to stick with or something rather light (well, at least compared to what he told me next).

so, he begins the story by telling me he is working on a group project for a class outside of his major (in his words: ¨me vale¨- translated: he doesn't give a shit about it). the group of 4 kids are friends, to an extent (i doubt how tight they are, but that will come up later). as i imagine everyone at some point has done group work, you know how this dynamic usually plays out. one or two people do all the work while the rest of the group coasts, then puts their names on it. bold strategy considering that the one person who does all the work determines the grade, but laziness is key and most settle for it.

the group divvies up the work between them and a week or so later my buddy, through messenger, sends a message saying his work is done. ok, messenger, as you know, records conversations. i just want to put that out there for future reference in the narrative. he receives no response from his group. days go by and nothing. as this project is about 50% of their final grade, my friend begins to do more work. he continues sending messages, but no one responds to him.

eventually, after about a week or more, he finishes the project. at this point he makes a daring choice. my school has a slogan that translates to: creating entrepreneurs. well, my friend lived up to the billing. he sent the group a message reading:

the project is done. you have 2 options. 1- pay me 75dollars each and i will include your name. 2. pay me nothing, fail the class and pay 800 dollars to take the course again next semester.

the kid is telling me this story and i start laughing. 75 dollars does not seem like much maybe, but down here that is a good deal of money. he stands to make the equivalent of about 500 dollars off these kids. if they take the bait.

two of the three immediately agree and pay him the cash. the third person balks. she claims that 75 is too much and will pay 20. my friend laughs at her and says, ¨ok by me. now this is a three person project.¨

perhaps it was his flippant reaction to her. maybe she just felt like she was getting robbed. maybe she thought that somehow she could swindle my friend. whatever she thought, her next move was, to say the least, decisive.

she makes an appointment with her professor. after crying a bit, she then spills the story. all of it.

as a teacher, i feel i need to interject something here. i think we all know that group work is a joke. rarely do the students actually work together. one person normally does more than the others, and we all know this. in english it is especially easy to see: if the writing is continuous and has a single style, well, one person did it. three kids never write the same, and unless by some miracle they actually sat down together, there is little chance that they seamlessly blended their prose. highly unlikely. what is more likely is that one kid does the group work in english, while another does the project for history, another for science, etc. at least that is how it rolls at this school. i wont generalize and say it always happens this way, but as teachers, we know this is going down. we may not want to recognize it. we may overlook it. but, we know. it. that is how the game is played.

so my friend is busted. but so is the girl. i asked my friend if he and the others were simply going to get together and call the 4th team member a liar. he said no. he had printed the messenger records. he was going to talk to the prof and tell the truth. he did all the work. he therefore sees it as his right to sell partially rights to his project. this kid is looking me in the face, completely amazed. not that he was busted, nor that the girl told on him. he brazenly tells me that he cannot believe anyone (the prof) really gives a shit about this. he is prepared to go tell his teacher that not only does he feel justified, but that the teacher is aware of what is going on and tacitly approves of it. indeed, the prof would probably do what he did if the roles were reversed. i am a fan of john milton and my first thought was a line from ¨paradise lost¨: ¨unabashed the devil stood / and saw how evil goodness was.¨

in some ways my buddy's actions are obviously unethical and flawed. on another level, this is what professionals do every day. not all professionals, i know, but some. in many circles this would be considered quick thinking on his part. he might even get a raise because of it. where i work, this is considered standard operating procedure. the kids do it all the time (i have since asked around). affluent families, somewhat warped morals (although this last part is highly debatable) and a general dearth of positive role models (this is another post) leads to this sort of action. i am not justifying it. nor am i condemning it. this is what happens.

like it or not, we are a business. school is big money. pressure to succeed, get a better job than your peers, outshine your parents or simply pay for yourself/family all have a great impact. capitalism is the chosen route of many modern societies. this is the modern language. if we dont like the results, we have to change the rules. i dont see anyone standing up to go first.

2008-04-28T13:17:00.002-05:00

less than two weeks until the semester ends for me. this week is a short week, we have a long weekend so only work 3 days. then, next week is the last week and is also only 3 days (of course exams begin on friday). i must say i am ready for the semester to be over. i taught 3 new classes this semester and enjoyed the process, but nearly all my students are seniors, and if you remember the final weeks of your senior year, i am guessing classes are not what you remember.

i went to a baseball game this weekend. fun actually. it rained a bit, but the game was great (a few lead changes and it went 12 innings). the speed of the players and skill is roughly double a, although it is billed as triple a.

this weekend i am going to cuernavaca (a town about 30 minutes from where i live). the place is billed as land of eternal spring- never too hot or too cold (guatemala is also billed the same way). an acquaintance has a house there and two friends of mine and i are going down for a few days. my buddy is finishing up his second book, and i have been working on writing a foreword and am also writing one of the chapters. the idea is that he wants to have different styles, so i am taking a chapter that he wrote and making it into a scene from a film/play. creative writing is not something i have done for a while, and i have never tried to write a scene for a play, especially one that is not really for a play (it is prose) but that needs to at least look like. i have to say that the process is quite fun. i have done a few drafts and after each my friend and i get together and he tells me what he likes and what he does not (in the end the book is his). from there i come up with changes and then we go again. i have not been able to devote as much time to it as i would like, but that is part of the purpose for this weekend.
in the end, i do not see myself putting together a whole book by myself. but, working on a collaborative project is fun and knowing that it will be published is cool (the publisher is the owner of the house where we will be staying this weekend). i think i will leave the creative writing to others as they are better at it than i, but i am intrigued by the idea of writing a kind of introduction to the book. he and i have talked a lot about the book and i have read all the drafts and given lots of feedback. the process is fun in the sense that ideas i come up with he implements into his story (sometimes not always). so now i am going to try and place the book in a larger context and make some connections between genres and how it fits into whatever we are calling literature nowadays (postmodern seems rather done). also, i will be translating my own work into spanish so that the book will have a somewhat broader appeal down here (although the creative part will be only in english).

lots of projects are cooking. we started a philosophy seminar that meets every two weeks and i presented a few weeks ago. my presentation was the basis for an essay i wrote which i then sent to tech with my graduate application. on that note, i spoke to the secretary of the grad school today and she said they are now reviewing my app. i should know within the next two weeks what their decision is. in many ways i am nervous, but i keep reminding myself that if i do not get in, i will apply more places next time and will have more experience with the subject in general. we shall see.

2008-04-23T09:38:00.007-05:00

as i am sure y'all have to deal with constant media bombardment regarding the democratic primary season, i will make this comment brief. also, i must admit my only sources of information on the campaign are the new york times, the economist, the wall street journal and an occasional article from the washington post. certainly none of these are unbiased. indeed, i should make a whole post about what is happening at the wall street journal where the chief editor has resigned, thereby paving the way for murdoch and his own ¨supereditor¨ to take over the course of the paper, one of the most respected in the country (if not the most respected), and run it toward a more centric, mainstream media fluff line. disappointing, but what can you expect: i doubt anyone actually thought this newscorp takeover would make the paper ¨better¨ but i doubted it would move from its previously business-first slant with often surprising, though always well-funded, tangents found in its investigative articles.

ok, enough about the wsj. so clinton won by about 10%. the media claim that this is enough to keep her in the race (although i doubt the clinton campaign needs or does listen to what most media outlets purport in this area). is this a bad idea? if obama were such a strong candidate would he have not already put her away? she has lost, months ago, the edge in campaign funding and seems mainly to hold the lead with white-male middle to lower class workers. will this win her the presidency?

to flip it, would obama win the presidency with his currents constituents? are both fucked? is mccain in a better position now that they are both concentrating on each other rather than on him? the general sentiment is that as they battle each other, mccain gains support. really? would someone who was going to vote for clinton or obama switch to repub? doubtful. likewise, are there repubs watching the dems and thinking, oh yeah, i want to vote for one of those two instead? slight.

if anything, the battle keeps interest in the election. in years past we have had somewhere around 50% voter turnout. interest seems paramount.

do i think that the dems will be beat the repubs? no. but, i think that the current situation has nothing to do with it. they will lose because of a fracture; this current situation is not the rupture to which i refer. dems have a very wide range of beliefs, and making them all fit into one candidate will ultimately fail. a third candidate is bound to appear and suck up some of those votes. the repubs have a better ability, at least in recent history, to rally around one individual. my ideas on why this is (religion, group-think mentality) are irrelevant as they are simply opinion. however, i do believe a two party system is bound to screw over lots of people. in recent years it has been the dems. i doubt this will change in the near future.

2008-04-22T17:31:00.002-05:00

i might as well add a few more things.

first, i am fairly convinced that water can be addictive. i stopped drinking sodas a few years ago (my first year in mexiland) except for the occasional soda with street tacos (and really, they have nothing else to drink, so you might as well have soda to wash down the cow head). in any event, i have increased my coffee levels (but as i drink instant most of the time i feel like this is really only partially bad) and gone absolutely insane on water.

today, for example, i have drunk almost 3 liters. no shit. bathroom? yes, please.

i am sure that this has a lot to do with my body getting used to the amount of water and then simply feeling dry or parched without it, but when i go to bed at night, i cannot even keep track of the number of times i filled up my water bottle that day.

i also am not sure that i eat less because of all this water i drink. the advertisements told me (and i always listen and believe) that drinking two liters a day would reduce my appetite. that, boys and girls, is a lie. so much for filling up on water.

in other news (for me), i watched a few good movies recently. i'm not there, the bob dylan flick, was quite good. also, i liked the into the wild movie based on the book by jon krakauer. as i reread the book a few months ago, it was good to see a film be somewhat true to its roots. somewhat. that is the fun of conjecture i guess.

timmay, i did indeed see rambo. all i was hoping for really.

if i were to leave this land of plenty (mexico that is), what would i do? paying more than 1.50 for a movie (to own) seems steep. how will i get my pirate fix? bit torrent? is that even legal still? would this mean i have to pay for internet access? i have not done that since...
never really. when i was at tech i just used the passwords of other people (and most of the time i did not even know that, so it was sweet). well, i did use skip's password for a while. or was that brian rob's? curtis's? meh. the point is that i like not having to pay for internet access. maybe i can find an apartment complex and a neighbor with wireless whose signal is powerful enough to reach my apartment. mmmm. free internet. i dont think we should have to pay for that. of course, i have similar feelings about batteries, medicine and film. i digress.

school is almost over down here. this is our last full week of class. next week we have a four day weekend (labor day). the following week ends on wednesday. then final exams start. of course, i did sign up to teach summer school to make extra cash, but i will have a few weeks in between which should be cool for resting. i still have to go to work, but without students, this campus is awesome. my favorite times of the school year are just after students leave and just before they arrive for the new semester. i think i am the prototype.

2008-04-22T14:39:00.003-05:00

ruthless.

ok, so i took some time off. i had to write grad school applications, written sample, blah blah blah.

it would be easiest to say that i made a mistake when i studied an ma in literature, but that would also be a mistake. it was not an error; it will help me in the future; it was expensive.

all those statements are true. of course, i could also say i have blown off three years in mexico, but that would be incorrect. because of my time here i have figured out a better idea of what i want to do in the future. surprise surprise. it involves going back to school. nothing like 5 more years of graduate school. why have just one master's degree when you can have two? and a doctorate. i have to be accepted first before any of this happens, but i should know in the next three weeks or so.

worst case, i sit tight here and apply to more schools in january (cornell would be at the top as well as a few schools in europe). on the other hand, there is something to be said for going to a cheaper school, cornell is outrageously expensive, and simply working my ass off to make my time there worth it.

so then a question: is the name of the graduate school that important? or, can you go to a somewhat lesser grad school and simply become a prolific reader and writer as a way to advance at the next level (post doctoral degree)? i am hoping on the latter.

2008-03-13T09:32:00.002-06:00

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.

2008-03-11T16:00:00.003-06:00

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.

2008-03-11T15:56:00.003-06:00

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).

2008-03-11T11:03:00.003-06:00

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?

2008-03-06T13:09:00.002-06:00

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.

2008-03-06T12:53:00.003-06:00

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.

2008-02-26T11:26:00.002-06:00

sick. sucks.

there is definitely a problem with me. i eat lots of vitamins, have never eaten this much healthy food in my life and i still get sick (cold, not stomach) every 3 months. actually, i was sick less than 2 months ago. maybe it is all the pollution. maybe i am just weak. either way it is no fun.

timmay, i liked your comments. i will respond to them at a point where focusing on the screen is less difficult.

i applied to wyoming today. we will see if they love me or hate me. i am guessing they have already hired someone as there are probably lots and lots of people who would love to live in northern wyoming. well, i would anyway, and i doubt i am that different from, well, ok. maybe i am. either way, i hope i get the job.

2008-02-14T16:45:00.003-06:00

ok, i mentioned i need help with my cover letter. well, here it is. any comments or ideas are greatly appreciated. i wrote the first few drafts in a prosaic and somewhat long-winded style. i am going for brevity here, but feel i need to explain what the hell i am doing in mexico and why teaching english down here is still relative to teaching in the states (is it?).

here it is:

My name is William Davis and I am applying for the position of English teacher posted on the Higher Education Jobs website. I can offer to Sheridan not only skills as a teacher, communicator and creator, but also a perspective molded by international experience as I have taught in Mexico for the last three years with students of diverse social, economic and ethnic backgrounds.

My current position at the Tecnológico de Monterrey (ITESM) involves designing and developing courses based on improving student writing and communication skills. A recent set of courses I have created intertwine the study of literature and technology (my students are high level English speakers who excel in exchange programs in English-speaking nations) in an effort to remind the students that reading, writing and creativity are inclusive ideas. Focusing on activities that allow learners to participate actively rather than passively, these classes invite not only student-teacher interaction, but peer communication as well.

The areas in which I give classes are the Bi-Cultural Program, the International Baccalaureate as well as in the Humanities Division in the university. The Bi-Cultural Program requires students to take half of the course load in English and half in Spanish. As a result, the language skills of these students can easily be compared to that of a high school student in the USA. The International Baccalaureate Program offers a special opportunity as my students have studied English since primary school and read and write in English on a level of first year college students (I also taught two years and two levels of undergraduate rhetoric and composition at Northern Arizona University and one year of high school in Virginia). With the IB program, I am free to design courses that not only encourage critical thinking and creativity, but blend other areas, such as Communication, Linguistics and Technology studies. The university courses combine the study of literature with developmental writing and communication skills through texts, art and web-based applications. In short, though I have taught classes in a foreign country for three years, the proficiency of the students is on par with some of the better secondary schools and colleges in the USA and a focus is on improving writing.

In graduate school I studied Native American Literature and Chicana/o Literature and presented papers in these areas. Undoubtedly the students at Sheridan College come from disparate backgrounds and age groups, and I would utilize this variety by explaining how differing points of view and perspectives enable a writer to communicate effective arguments.

At my current school, Blackboard and other web-based programs used to record grades, attendance, feedback, etc., form an integral part of the position. In order to better utilize these services, I have attended multiple training sessions and courses detailing their numerous attributes. I also participated in a 60 hour teacher training course designed to help educators better understand the needs of students, handle a variety of behavioral and external issues and incorporate values into courses taught.

Teaching at a small college in Wyoming greatly appeals to me as I am from a small town in Virginia and understand some of the nuances associated with areas of this type. As my CV exhibits, most of my teaching background is writing based and a large percentage of that with developmental writing courses. I feel that I would be an excellent addition to your staff and welcome the challenges this post entails. Please do not hesitate to contact me at wjurdan@itesm.mx if I can elaborate further upon any details or answer other questions.

2008-02-14T12:43:00.003-06:00

two things today that i need feedback on pronto. anybody want to tell me about the best way to open a cover letter for a job? is it as simple as: My name is William Davis and I am interested in applying for the English Instructor position at Sheridan College. ?

i am sending in apps this week or next to one school in wyoming, in a town called sheridan (i would tell you its in the middle of nowhere but that describes wyoming in general). the other is in spokane, washington. not places you might choose, but places i might be quite content. plus, both are full-time and tenure track positions at community colleges and the pay is generous for the work schedule.

anyway, feel free to throw out your thoughts on this (although i am no longer sure who exactly might read this thing still). and please send any advice regarding cover letters.

of course, i may not get any position in the states and i could be back here next year. or i could be in colombia. or chile (where i have a connection now after my last trip to costa rica). or....

2008-01-31T10:58:00.001-06:00

news of sorts. first, i have been trying to reduce the amount of sugar i eat. too much time on my hands, you ask? indeed. al huevo.
either way, i have begun buying large quantities of grapefruits and orange, about 1-2 kilos each per week, and, well, juicin 'em. i bought a hand press juicer (small compartment where the cut orange or whatever goes, then a hand press that mashes the fruit against a solid wall, and small holes underneath where the goose goes out). less complex than i just explained. but, it is pretty rockin. i was thinking about how much sugar i ingest every week just from the juices that i buy, and it is a lot. yes, this way is more of a pain in the ass, as you have to juice about 6 halves by hand to get a good sized cup o goose, but the juice tastes 100 times better and i feel better about myself. part 2 of the last sentence was all i was ever really after.

continuing the saga, i have also started making smoothies. i bought a blender last fall, never used it, then finally started. i take my homemade juice, add a banana, frozen berries of whatever sort, carrots, maybe a kiwi if i have it, some flavored yogurt with meal in it, and liquefy the sumnabitch. sweet sweet action.

this is my two step process of feeling better about myself. the third step is going to the gym as often as possible, 3-4 times a week, and after the workout with weights, absolutely trying to kill myself on the stairmaster. that's right, i said it, the stairmaster. you burn calories on that thing faster than any other machine i have found. plus, at about 8000ft in altitude, it does not take long until you are entirely soaked with sweat.

in a somewhat unrelated topic, i went shopping after xmas to catch the sales. i ended up buying a lot of new clothes, which is good considering it has been a long time since i did that and some of my pants, especially, were literally wearing thin. i ended up buying two really cheap blazers. i now have 3. i wear them 3-4 days a week. imagine this. will. beard. longish hair. button down shirt. rockin blazer. i either grew up or just like looking strange. i must say my favorite part of wearing the jackets is the pockets. dude. three inner pockets? score. i love it. pens, paper, phone, keys, credit cards. it's all in there somewhere and as long i dont forget and leave it in there when i change jackets (this is happening a lot but i blame this on the transition stage), it is all good. we are talking about doubling, nay, tripling my on-person (or on-billy as i like to say) storage capacity. yahtzee.

went to costa rica last week on a business trip. that was really cool, although having to work was somewhat of a bummer. costa rica seems beautiful, but pricey. that only leaves panama and i have been to every country in central america. i met a guy who lives and works in colombia and that might be my next destination. if i can score a job at the school where he works, i could be out of here within the next year. or not. it all depends.

looks like mccain might be the man for the repubs. if that happens, i think the dems are lost. what are your thoughts on that? it is strange to go out and hear lots of mexis talking about the elections in the usa. i doubt anyone in the states was discussing the virtues and vices of amlo and calderón a few years back.

if i get a photo of me in one of the sports coats i will upload it. gq baby. keep on truckin.

2008-01-17T10:50:00.000-06:00

on the fly. i remember when i was much younger that the idea of ¨winging-it¨ was not only the means but the ends. ¨just start and figure it out as you go¨ was the motto used by me and my buddy ryan when dealing with everything from asking the rents for something to talking on the phone with a some girl to getting out of some problem. i am sure i can glorify this method and claim that it makes your mind sharp as you must remember whatever lies are spewing from your mouth for future reference but that would be, well, a lie. the point is that later whenever confronted with some bullshit we had said, we just made up some other as an explanation. there was no basis for anything other than believing what you wanted the situation to be. i used to expound the idea that if you believe it, it is true. i still feel that way in most cases, undoubtedly confirming my own opinion by not seeking that of others, and confer upon those around me such wisdom as comes to the top of my head. how grand.

in some ways i am experimenting this semester with the idea of saying fuck it and making up each day as it begins. but, that would also be a half-truth as i have a plan, even wrote it down, of where each week and semester goes. the details of the day, however, stem from whatever it is i am thinking of at the moment. i have taken to reading technology sections of the bbc, new york times, wall street journal and economist to get fresh ideas to present to my students. the class is called literature and technology, where the literature, future or science fiction, serves as the foundation, or even catalyst, of the class, and technology acts as the medium through which the students interact with the texts. frankenstein? ok, we will talk about issues of identity and what makes a person a person (cloning, human genome project), or playing god (lack of genetically unmodified fruit and vegetables, tampering with viruses and diseases). the latest, which i read this morning in the bbc, was that a governing body (possibly international but at least british) has approved the splicing of human and animal egg and sperm to create a fetus. no joke. the claim is that the combination (i am sputtering for a word to describe this offspring) will never live more than 14 days and that it will only be used to harvest stem cells and study effects of viruses and diseases in general on the fetus. strange days.

the point of this might have been simply to help me explain to myself what the hell it is i am doing here. maybe i am justifying my rationale. both.

completely unrelated idea- i highly recommend the book ¨under the volcano¨ by malcolm lowry and published in the late 1940s. set in mexico, just outside of the city where i live, the story takes place in one day and loosely follows the odyssey format. incredible story, too much feeling at times, and rather unnerving. gives a startling view into the life of a foreigner surviving (and not) in mexico.

2008-01-16T13:41:00.000-06:00

new school year started on monday. my classes are good and the workload is definitely manageable, so that is great. my good friend just became the director of the university foreign language dept. selfish of me, but this post really helps me a lot as well as he will be able to offer me classes in the university in the upcoming semesters which will help my résumé and generally improve my standing if i choose to make a permanent switch out of the high school. he will also have a lot more pull in areas like phd programs (he was the first to graduate, in december, from the program i want to enter, so i am hoping that he can also help keep the program alive and accepting new students). as we are pretty tight, it will also help me because i will be talking to him a lot and learning about his job and whether something administrative might be in the future for me as well (indeed, if he leaves in a few years and i am around working on a phd or whatever, i would be in a great position to take over the post). so ya, i am extremely pleased about this turn of events.

the director of the language dept in the university just quit; the director of the language dept. in the high school left 2 days ago. also, two other full time teachers have gone within the last 5 days. huge changes around here, which again makes me glad that a good friend is in charge of another dept in case things go south and i want out of this dept. i doubt that will happen as our new director is professional and up to the task, but with so many other external factors, one never knows. as this is the first time i have held a job for 17 months or more in the last 5 years, i guess i just assume that i will leave before anyone in a position above me does. strange to see your friends go as opposed to you be the one going. not exactly used to that, but oh well. there will always be new additions.

2008-01-03T13:11:00.000-06:00

i would have to get sick as soon as i get back into town. sucks. oh well, today is my first day back at work and i already want another vacation. on the whole i learned an incredible amount on this trip, including where i want to go back to (la antigua and lago atitlan in guatemala) and where not (managua, nicaragua). i have wanted to visit central america for years. i finally got my chance. as i will be going to costa rica for a week this month, i will only have one country (i dont count belize really) left to visit: panama. all of my friends, including many who i met on this last trip, tell me it is beautiful and well worth the visit. i have no doubt they are right.

here are 100 or so pics from the trip. let me know if this link does not work.

if you check back in a week or so i will add some comments onto the pictures so that you have an idea of where they are all taken from. the first volcano is the island of ometepe in nicaragua and the water is a lake. the second volcano pics, the ones where are within 5 feet of flowing lava, are from guatemala. the last pics are from the beach in chiapas (mexico).

i am definitely hoping to go back to guatemala at some point soon, but i may have to wait until next winter vacation. the time to go is definitely in the winter if anyone is thinking of central america because you miss the rainy season and the heat is tolerable. july? hell no.

i hope the hokies win tonight and dont live up to the nickname as they did last year.

happy new years to all.

2007-12-28T18:30:00.000-06:00

well, at the very least, i must say that getting online in central america is not impossible, but not always that easy. hence, it has taken me this long to get online. we went to honduras, then el salvador, hiked onto an active volcano and came within 3 feet of molten rock, no shit, flowing, active, real live 2000 degrees centigrade magma, on christmas day. not a bad way to spend the holiday. tons of fun, lots to say, but my bus leaves in 15 minutes to mexico city and i have to run. not looking forward to a 13 hour bus ride, but oh well. still cannot believe i hiked on an active volcano in guatemala, but fortunately i have a camera and it even has video so all of it will be available to you guys in about a week.

merry xmas. hope you all had a great holiday, and happy new year. i am so excited to have visited so many cool countries!

2007-12-22T13:04:00.000-06:00

this seems like a good color for another country. today we are in león, nicaragua, but we will soon be leaving (later this afternoon actually) to return to managua, the capital of the country. as there is only 1 bus out of this country going north that leaves each day (it leaves at 5am), we have to return to the capital to catch it.

we spent the first night in managua, where on the plane we met an incredibly kind nicaragüense who told us how ridiculous the cab prices would be at the airport and that we should look across the street to find a cab. well, her sister, brother and son all came to get her and they busied themselves with finding us a decent cab (because we had big packs and looked foreign they would overcharge), but it turned out the cabs all wanted more than our new friends thought we should have to pay and so they took us the 10 miles into town themselves. from there they found us a cheap cab to take us to where we thought there would be cheap places to stay (although the guidebook i am using, only 5 years old, calls the neighborhood one thing, nobody from there has ever heard of that name, so there was some confusion at first). anyway, they found us another cab and told us it would be 4 dollars (almost everyone here accepts usa dollars). before i could reach into my pocket for cash, they were handing us the amount in córdobas, the local currency, and explaining that since we just arrived we probably had no change. upon discovering that i was reaching into my pocket to give them cash, they made it clear that they were not actually offering the money, but were insisting. needless to say this was the most cordial arrival i have received anywhere and should have boded well for the rest of the stay here in nicaragua. it did not.

we made our way to the part of town the guidebook said has cheap places to stay. well, cheap was true. the barrio was truly frightening, but i will get into that another day. we found a cheap hospedaje (like a house with rooms partitioned off) and were all set. the señora running the house told us it was dangerous to walk around (we got there around 9pm), but as we had not eaten, she recommended a place within two blocks. it was sketchy to say the least and as investing in street lights would take up precious money that they city could spend on, say, trash removal (also not done), the streets were darker than madison county side roads.

and it is roasting down here also. i should mention that. mosquitos abound, and since my friend has already had dengüe fever once (the second could be fatal), i put up the mosquito net in the, let us just say, not frequently cleaned room (filthy would be more adequate actually). about an hour into our rest, i could not stop itching my legs and arms. ever heard the phrase: sleep tight, don´t let the bed bugs bite. well, i leanred that night what bed bugs are. painful, obnoxious, not something you ever want to experience again (which is why, 3 nights later on the largest freshwater lake island in the world, ometepe, we found ourselves sleeping under the open sky in hammocks instead of the shitty ass room we had paid for that apparently used mattresses and pillows from the 1960´s that had never been cleaned or replaced). yet i digress. managua.

is, as far as i can tell from less than 24 hours, one of the ugliest, dirtiest and poorest capital cities i have ever been to by far. mexico, even the poorest parts, seems first world here. frightening at times, managua left much to be desired. we descended upon another city on a lake, this the largest freshwater lake in central america, granada on tuesday. heaven. colonial buildings, oriented for tourists, the place positively reeked of happy people and good times. while that first impression was not all true, we found a beautiful place to stay for 18 bucks a night (expensive for my taste, but after the bed bug incident, it was necessary. on a side note, we found an english-run coffe/bookshop on arriving in granada and the lady, from the states, suggested the place we ended up staying in. she told us there were cheaper places, but had heard horror stories of bed mites, and even a case of mange. no. we told her we could not believe it and were shocked but would take her advice and find the place she suggested. dear god. this is a valuable lesson. pay more if you have to, but find a place that is clean (this never mattered to me in the mountains of mexico where i have stayed because of the cold weather, but here, damn, the bugs love it.)

anyway, granada rocks. i have to go check out more of this city, but when next i write i will either be in el salvador or guatemala. tomorrow, honduras. merry christmas!

2007-12-11T11:37:00.000-06:00

not sure if any of you are interested, but the following is an outline/overview of what i have been working on the past 5 months or so. it will eventually culminate in a phd if all goes well, possibly down here. to say that living in mexico has changed my perspective on my future would be an understatement, but it would also overgeneralize. working at my current school, one fundamentally tied to technological advancement, has given me the opportunity to work using platforms and programs based on new ideas in technology. good and bad (certainly the two are not mutually exclusive if you believe what neil postman, andrew feenberg and albert borgmann have been saying for the past 20 years or more) this focus on change has altered how all societies function and interact with each other.

a simple example would be that we are shifting between a mass society to one that is clearly de-massified and focused on niches. of the 25 best-selling music albums of all time, none have been released since 2000. coincidence? piracy? i-tunes? or an idea much simpler- there is no need to buy an entire album if you only want one song. the last 8 years have also brought a resurgence of older music once thought gone- brandy, you´re a fine girl.

a discussion with my sister the other day made me realize how netflix contributes to this. according to a july, 2006 new yorker article, 90% of blockbuster´s film rental revenue comes from the rental of new films. with well over 100,000 films in its library, many of which are small documentaries or indie films, netflix on the other hand seems to be opening, rather than closing, markets. it was never that these types of films would not sell; however, the economics of all video stores containing all films is ridiculous. hence, netflix manages to be all the little stores combined.
technology and its ¨advancement¨ also affects individuals and has ethical implications.

memory enhancement, to take a recent example, creates numerous issues. engineers are developing devices, microsoft has a few in development, that record life. one such device is worn around the neck and takes a picture every 4 seconds or every time the wearer moves. thus, you have a photo record of what you experience. lots of cool ideas come from this when the device is linked to a computer. for example, the computer might ask you why it has been 6 weeks since the device took a picture of kelly. well, maybe kelly was out of town, or your ex, and so you could not see her. or, maybe you forgot and should give her a call. also, if you are on business and go to seattle, the computer can remind you of everyone you met and with a recording device, give you a first-hand account of what was said. maybe you dont understand why the business deal failed, but when you listen to the recording and see the faces of everyone at the table, you realize your tone of voice caused a problem (you see it in the faces of those you actually did not see bc you were looking somewhere else).

ethical issues abound with this type of technology. should we be ¨enhancing¨ memory in such a way? writing was the first technological advancement to memory. many predicted it would ruin mankind. maybe it did. but, should all people be recorded whether they want to be or not? what will happen to privacy if all life is recorded by everyone? this will change how you interact with others. guarded would be an understatement. you might even begin to wear a mask to cover your reactions/expressions.

another device is a transmitter that scrambles the messages taken by the recording device. like a program, which already exists, that automatically scrambles email messages. therefore, there is never going to be an authentic and authorized version of a digital message. all will be compromised, thus negating this ¨first-hand¨ source. is this ethical? is any of it?

the point is that it will not be stopped. you cannot take away a technology once it has been presented to society. imagine telling a kid that in 1 week, she will have no more ipod. forever. or, imagine telling a businessperson that in 1 month, the computers will disappear forever. back to typewriters and handwritten memos. this is an impossibility, not hyperbole. you cannot take away what was given regarding technology. you cannot even move backward. try telling someone that in 1 year all cellphones will revert back to the zack morris version from ¨saved by the bell¨ (big, clunky, funny looking to us).

these are the kinds of questions that interest me. these are philosophical issues, clearly, and what i am proposing to study down here is the philosophy of technology, focusing on technology and culture. the beauty is that the ideas will not slow down and the possibilities for research multiply exponentially, similar to moore´s law in that sense (moore´s law says that, "the number of transistors that can be fit onto a square inch of silicon doubles every 12 months." he said this in 1965, and mostly it holds true today. moore was a founder of intel by the way). in other words, job security.

below is a cut ´n paste job of some questions/ideas i presented to the director of the humanities graduate studies program recently. this is what i am thinking about and reading about. it may interest you or it may not; however, it already affects you. strange in that way, i think.

Technology and Its Effects on Epistemology

o Philosophy of technology from a humanities perspective

o The objects are part of the discourse (ex. environment is not simply an object to be manipulated, we must develop with the environment, similar to an inter-subjective conversation)

o Art and literature influence technology

o Technology changes how we gather, transmit and view information

o Much of Postmodern philosophy deals with analysis of texts,what is needed is to dissect the concept of information

o Technology provides means for democratization as well as trivialization of knowledge

o Technology can validate a posteriori knowledge; can it affect a priori knowledge?

o As definitions change analytic and synthetic knowledge might also be altered (is this tenable?)

o Raises fundamental questions about adequacy and validity of knowledge transmitted while simultaneously providing means of researching such obstacles

o This provokes ethical questions- what information is a given technology enabling? What is it marginalizing?

§ Technology facilitates an elite group’s domination because it validates their information (knowledge)

o Changes definitions

o Effects on literature

§ Our definition of literature must change (blogs) as technology facilitates access for both authors and audiences

o Memory associated with knowledge- data can be stored but altered, lost also- this affects what is transmitted and received

o Sender to receiver not simply a straight line (magic bullet theory), must account for the source, noise, etc. How does technology affect these limiting factors, yet remain part of them?

2007-12-11T08:59:00.000-06:00

only 6 days remain until i return to the usa. of course, i will only be in the usa for about 2 hours, but hey, it is kind of like going back. amazingly enough, the cheapest distance between two points separated by about 1000 miles is actually about 3000 miles.

a few weeks ago i was looking for the cheapest one-way fares to central america, and i discovered that miami, florida, was the connection that would take off about 100 dollars from my ticket. and instead of flying with a central america airline, i will be flying american airlines to nicaragua next monday morning.

i will spend about 4 days in nicaragua, then start heading back to mexico. one day (max) in honduras- i have friends who lived there and do not speak that highly of it- then maybe two days in el salvador. after that, another 4 days or so in guatemala before the nearly 24 bus ride back from guatemala to mexico city.
i might stop off in southern mexico just to break up the trip a bit, but as i lived there for a year, i am not exactly dying to ¨see the sights¨ necessarily.

then in january i am going to costa rica for a conference. i wont get much chance to be a tourist as the schedule is kind of tight, but it will be cool to see another country. sad to think i have lived down here over 2 years and still only been to 1 other country (guatemala). luckily in the next month i will visit 4 more. at the very least that is exciting.

anybody up there doing anything cool for vacation?

2007-12-07T13:47:00.000-06:00

happy birthday to my sis. have a great day!

now, to complain. i really feel i dont bitch enough. ever. doubtless you would agree. selfless, giving, loving, gentle, vulnerable; a rather altruistic person in general. ya, i would say that sums me up quite well.

my beef stems from student evaluations of teachers. giving a 15 or 16 year old a forum to grade a prof seems more than slightly ridiculous. there are 18 questions on this mandatory survey, and some of the questions range from benign: does the teacher use the platform? (blackboard or an internet based system through which we run our courses); to asinine: did the teacher show the real-world relevance of this course? to insulting: did you like the professor?

please. if a kid is failing, what do you think she will do? give you a high mark? or, fail your ass because that is what you are doing to her? honestly, i am not much better when it comes to this kind of thing, so i should not be allowed to take these surveys either, but damn, at least i have a clue about what the questions are really doing. these surveys are used by the department to evaluate profs. kiss. my. ass. if you want to go on the opinion of a 15 year old, be my guest, but understand that in the end the kid is a kid and if the prof follows the rules and does not allow a kid to enter class who is more than 5 minutes late, then the kid will react. is this generalizing? hell yes it is.

the pies de resistance must be the comments section at the bottom where children are encouraged to spout off whatever inane, ludicrous grievance they can think of. sweet.

my first question is where the hell is my evaluation? why is no one asking my opinion of them? why are my thoughts not worth it? to me, this seems to be telling me that i need to grade them based on how i see them. really? ok, then half fail. if those in charge want me to grade based on: did the students use the platform? did they like the subject? were they pleasing to me? then i will certainly evaluate based on such criteria. i dont think this is fair, though. i wont do that, not because i am bigger than this, because clearly i am in no way above that kind of thing, but because i dont see that matching jackassery with more of the same is in any way constructive.

if the above diatribe has not given you a clear picture of who i am, let me share a few choice insights from adoring, captivated audience. ¨he is cold. he should be more open in class and nicer to us.¨ ¨class would be better if he made it more fun.¨ ¨class would be better if he showed more interest in the subject.¨ ¨i dont think the class is relevant to the real world¨(the class is called media and culture where we discuss how media influences and affect the population through advertising, film, television, music and cultural imperialism, etc. right. no real world application. what the fuck does this child know about the world that mtv did not show?)

am i the friend of my students? hell no. i am their teacher, not their buddy. do i want to keep a separation between myself and them? ¿cómo chingados que no, cabron? which is a somewhat impolite way of saying, of course. i dont care if you hate me, but at the very least you should respect me. or, maybe i should start grading based on my own opinion.

2007-12-05T08:27:00.000-06:00

dreams supposedly offer us a glimpse into the subconscious mind. not sure i believe that, but at the very least they show us a warped reality that inspires thousands of trite ¨explanation¨ books and dim conversations. this is the latter.

there is an interesting film called ¨the good night,¨ at least that is what i think the english title is. stars danny devito, penelope cruz, the sister from royal tenenbaums whose name i cannot place and some brits. the brits pretty much run the film, so take that as you will. one of the underlying premises of the film is the notion that you can control dreams. lucid dreaming, i believe.

turning the light switch on and off a few times before bed, among other remedies, supposedly allows you a margin of control when you switch off normal thinking patterns and drift off for the night. following this ¨method¨ permits you to introduce into the dream whomever you want and control the actions.

is this not already possible? one could argue that we do already control our dreams and that what occurs, though not necessarily an overt desire, has links to what we want (or in some cases, what we do not). these remedies to give power back seem based on the idea that what we experience (not sure if we can use this word to describe a dream, but we can get to that later)is out of our control in the first place. is that true? do we really have no ability to manipulate dreams?

assuming we do not command what occurs in a dream state, why would we want to do so? is it simply fear of the unknown; some abject desire for power (a manifest destiny as it should and must be ours to control)? often times we fear what we do not understand. few have a clear grasp of the reasons behind ¨terrorism¨ (those in the muslim world who act against the usa, or those in the west who act against the muslim world) and thus both sides in many ways fear each other. would clearer definitions resolve these problems? perhaps.

what is the point of all this? not sure. my dreams recently have been no stranger than any other time (although it would also be difficult to define a ¨normal¨ dream), but i was reading an article the other day about a frenchman, jacques barzun (a rather famous author and former prof a columbia university) who taught and lived for 70 years in new york. he will be 100 this year and in the last 10 years published a book called ¨from dawn to decadence¨ which traces the history of europe and the states from, you guessed it, the renaissance to present. from the title you gather that he claims current society is in a state of decline. isn´t there a reality show based on that idea? according to him, all his dreams recently have been a mix of french and english. he is starting to blend french back into his dreams though he has not lived there for nearly a century. in fact, he resides in san antonio, texas. although not an expert on texas, somehow i doubt it has a barrio called little france.

it has been more than a year since i really payed attention to what language i was speaking or those in my dreams speak. most of it is spanish, and i often find myself explain spanish words to people as a kind of, not exactly translation, but clarification. this is a problem i still face with spanish- i know most of the rules but not all. luckily, i now hear others making mistakes all the time (native speakers), so i realize i am, and have been for a long time, at a point where my vocabulary is fine (although my slang can always improve), but some of the minor rules i miss.

nevertheless, i dreamed last night that i was explaining to two friends, one from the usa and one from here, how to say something in spanish. it did not strike me as odd in the dream that my mexican friend never contradicted me or corrected me. she let me go on with my explanation and even asked for further clarification. did i control that? do i want that? if not, do i really desire that people from here accept my version of their language as the correct, thus forcing them to come to me with questions about their native tongue? maybe.

i have many more questions than answers, but i am rather sure that no matter what i want, subconsciously, there is most likely an excellent reason that i do not make these desires public. so why did i write this?

2007-11-26T16:40:00.001-06:00

el popo and la itza as seen from my apt.

2007-11-26T16:39:00.000-06:00

2007-11-26T16:36:00.000-06:00

this is her boyfriend, ¨el popo.¨ there is a legend about the two, but i will save it for another day. suffice it to say the two volcanoes, el popo is active, are quite close to d.f. they are about 20-30 miles or so from where i live (maybe closer as i am not good at measuring distances). and as you will see in the next pics, both are visible from my apt simply by walking outside.

2007-11-26T16:34:00.000-06:00

this is the volcano ¨la itza¨ its name in nuahtuatl is extemely long and i will not spell it right. anyway, if you look at it from left to right, you should be able to see a woman lying down (profile view from the side- her head is the left, then her chest is higher, and down to the feet- like a mummy in a way.

2007-11-26T16:31:00.000-06:00

first, yes, that barney is as big as she is. and she can pick it up and carry it around. she is learning english through disney books and videos and barney videos. second, i am pretending to be a bear, and i am not quite sure why there is no fear on her face. clearly, bears are scary.

2007-11-26T16:28:00.002-06:00

no, this is not my child. this is alexia natalia, the daughter of my old friend from oaxaca. she is two now, and i saw her for the first time in almost as much time last weekend.

2007-11-26T16:26:00.000-06:00

2007-10-30T09:53:00.000-06:00

a chilly 33 degrees the other morning. the worst part is probably the shower because the tiles are so cold. and then getting out of the shower and putting on clothes, that is not much fun. having your hair dry in the icy temps is not recommendable either. hot to cold. oaxaca to mex city. i must say i like the cold better but it is damn cold here right now.

so i saw an interesting film the other week called ¨jesus camp.¨ about evangelicals and such, it gave a somewhat objective view of a group of evangelicals based in kansas. i recommend it highly because it is both entertaining and real. this is not a phenomenon consisting of a small group of people. this is millions of us people with more converting each day. at the very least, we need to be aware of it.

then yesterday i saw this piece in the new york times

i recommend reading it (although at 9 pages in a word document it will take a bit of time- not a usa today piece) because it also gives a lot of background information and brings the issue up to date. the republicans are losing support from the evangelicals and this article explains, to an extent, why.

at the very least this article will give you something to chat about.

i have also been reading a fair amount about the upcoming elections in the usa. it is probably all over the news in the us, but imagine if hillary wins. that would mean either a bush or clinton in the white house for 32 consecutive years, starting with the 80´s and bush the father. seems like a monopoly in many ways. does that not seem like a problem? i am not against hillary at all. she would probably be an excellent president, but do we really want to keep the same regime in power? i dare say the last 32 have certainly not been ideal, so why continue the trend? 32 years. that is a long time for a supposedly democratic country to have 2 families in control (though you could argue the limits of that control in the 1980´s) of the nation. if i were obama or edwards, i would make this a point of my campaign. similarly, if i were giuliani or mitt romney, i would definitely be using this against hrc. now, the question remains: is she strong enough to overcome this anyway? it seems more and more likely as the weeks go by.

and speaking of monopolies of power, did you hear about the argentine presidential elections? the current president decided not to run for re-election (they have a max of 2 4-year terms just like us), but remains in power nonetheless. it is interesting because though the president chose not to run, he backed his wife to run, and therefore his entire party, the majority, was behind her. she won. she became the first female president of argentina. and, in 2011 when her term is up, both she and her husband will be eligible for re-election. will they trade years again and eventually retain power for 16 straight years?

2007-10-24T11:34:00.000-05:00

freezing. it is.

last night and the night before it was in the 30´s. keep in mind we are describing a country that has almost no indoor heating. people, literally, die when it gets this cold (it is even colder in the mountains) because their homes are not insulated and rely on wood heat to survive (not to mention poor ventilation so that when they do have wood for a fire, the smoke suffocates them).

i am not in this situation. i have blankets and long underwear, so i survive. but, i have been tempted in the last few days to buy a space heater. 8 months out of the year it is useless and would just sit in my house (this is not a grand house. nor a spacious house. nor, indeed, a house. it is a tiny apt without closets, so everything you have is open and out there). my reason for not buying is not so much tied up in this. part of it is the feeling that i can survive this without a heater. part is knowing that in a few days this cold front will push through and i wont freeze at night. part is being a cheapskate. some things never change.

trying to justify this type of purchase seems ludicrous at times. those times are not 540am when i am in the bathroom and the wind comes through the slats in the closed window (the bathroom window is like the windows at beach and lake houses that have little glass panes that ¨close¨ with a lever on the side. ya. they ain´t stopping anything) and the hot water heater is not functioning well and i am feeling the breeze so to speak. at those times, i desperately wish i had already bought the damn heater.

then the afternoon comes, or i am at a friend´s house, who is the same boat, and i imagine making my argument for needing a heater. then i sound stupid. then i feel like a nancy, a sally, a child. no no i tell myself. none of that soft shit. you survived worse. you will get past this minor setback.

this is, for all intents and purposes, machismo. the machista spirit.

i also tell myself one other important thing. cold weather means growing season is fast coming upon us. i am excited for the beard.

yesterday was my sister´s birthday, and oddly enough, she was in a dream i had last night. happy birthday cline!

2007-10-23T11:23:00.000-05:00

in the past, mainly for work related but also in college as well, i have written my share of recommendations. they usually involve the key ingredient in all recommendations: embellishment. i think those who read recommendations are well aware of this and read accordingly. lord knows i have written my own share of recommendations, for myself, written by myself, so i know that there is a lot of lying going on. i do think writing your own recommendation is something everyone should try at least once. it will broaden your perspective on who you are, and depending on your self-deception abilities, it might raise you to another level of success (or incompetence as the case may be).

many of my students are applying to places like harvard, princeton, yale, mit, cal tec and other universities that would never have even opened an application from the likes of me. they also need recommenders, clearly, and as i am their sole native english speaking teacher, i get put up on the list for almost all of them. this raises questions (or challenges, depending on how you envision the world). there are a few students who are, let´s say, testing my limits. nothing nice to say? say nothing at all. how do you do that in a recommendation? i have toyed with the idea of simply giving back the rec forms and saying, no. why was i chosen anyway? if you were a student who put little to no effort into a class, would you ask that teacher to write for you? i would not. of course, i am not in high school so i cannot really answer that question fairly.

another problem is that we in the usa are indoctrinated with the importance of these letters and how they can make or break some borderline apps. here? not so much i get the feeling.

so, what do you do?

this is not a rhetorical question. i would like advice. any suggestions?

2007-10-12T08:49:00.000-05:00

not sure how much time y´all afford to reading online, but down here there are not many options as magazines from the states and abroad are rather expensive. about a month ago i began reading the economist, for numerous reasons, but mainly because i was looking for information about rupert murdoch´s Newscorp (that´s his company) takeover of Dow Jones & Co. essentially, he bought the rights to the Wall Street Journal. you are probably aware that Newscorp is the parent company of Fox. putting this all together, Fox now has the WSJ on its side, which if nothing else lends incredible amounts of credibility to a station known for its opinionated commentaries. i won t go into my own views of Fox or murdoch, but this news that he bought the WSJ back in july was rather astounding.

first, how many people are actually buying up newspapers? the answer is not many. why not? well, see how i found out about this takeover. online has become, to many, more important than print media. lots of people do not go online to read because they buy the paper instead. however for me down here, and for my students, we simply access the New York Times online because it is far cheaper (read: free) than buying the publication at a store. plus, it saves time and allows for convenient searches. downside? after about a month all content expires for non-subscribers (you pay an online fee to view all content).

in order to avoid this problem, i simply print the articles from these online sites and then have access to them. i will not even go into to how many copyright laws i break on a daily basis here (my students have never actually purchased an actual book: i create ¨readers¨ from online texts and photocopies of books from the library or my own collection (my sister amy bought me some great anthologies this summer when she and i went to bookstores in c-ville).

now that al gore is your nobel prize winner (although not a surprise to many, i was rather shocked), i feel a little bad about the trees i waste printing so many pages of online text. i make myself feel better by telling myself that buying the whole paper or magazine would waste more paper (living by pretexts). on the other hand, i have no real regrets about the copyright infringement part. authors works are, to an extent, public domain. that is, in the majority of the cases, the reason they write: to share with others an idea or experience. the internet has made this sharing all the easier. bravo.

there should be a point here, and maybe i will get to it.

the economist is by all estimations a rather conservative publication. this is why i enjoy it so much. not that i am completely conservative by an stretch, but i appreciate a publication that manages to print the news with no frills and with a clear objective. of course you could argue almost all publications direct themselves to a specific audience and it is almost always obvious. however, the economist, as the name suggests, is concerned with money. money, power´s cousin, makes for interesting reading when it comes to world affairs. what is going on in bahrain? let´s look at the financial implications. i find it refreshing that they manage to make the complex so simple in many ways. this does not mean i always agree with their perspective or even how they report the news, but i know what i am getting.

my dad used to listen to a lot of talk radio when he was on the combine or in the tractor (maybe still does in the truck also), and i thought he was just getting biased information (for a great article, read ¨i agree with me¨ by p j o´rourke http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200407/orourke ). of course he was. so am i. maybe he knew more than i was giving him credit for. hopefully i know more than you might be giving me credit for right now. either way, i am now for biased reporting because it is obvious. very little is hidden or tucked away from the reader/listener/viewer. sure, you may think the side given is insane, but you know where the author/publication stands. i appreciate that.

after feeling sorry myself about the price of international shipping rates for The New Yorker, i finally starting going to the website and printing articles to read. in the end the physical copy is preferred, but why spend all that money when i can get the same articles for free. when i go back to the states, which seems a certainty at any rate, i will order the physical copy of it. until then, i go to www.newyorker.com and read away.

if any of the previously mentioned publications would like to pay me for the above statements (whose bias should be obvious), i take cash and direct deposits.

2007-09-03T15:32:00.000-05:00

my 300th entry (of course this includes photos, which is kind of like cheating), so i think i will return to a topic i have often written about here. hair cuts.

in response to my friend´s query, my spanish is pretty good. perfect? definitely not.

in general i hate haircuts. i remember the good ol´days of university and even most of the time in cali and then in arizona (where i fondly remember ¨kitchen cuts¨ with a pair of school scissors and my hair in a pony tail) when i never needed a ¨professional¨ to cut my hair because it was long and anyone* could do it. *special note: when your barber says, ¨hey, i am gonna grab a beer, do you want one too?¨ say no. and then leave before the barber returns with her or his beer. i learned this lesson back in blacksburg, va when my friend courtface ¨of course i can cut your hair, i cut my sister´s all the time¨ killer was given the sheers and asked to ¨trim¨ a bit (like the use of passive voice to remove any guilt from the true agent-me- and placing all blame on the object). of course she began very well (again, all that is necessary is cutting, evenly, from one side to the other, and as my hair length was at my shoulders in all parts, this did not seem to be difficult to either of us), but as she reached the other side and the 2 to 3 inch difference in length was noticed, i lamented letting her have a beer before beginning (and not asking what number it was- 3, 4, 5?).

once i cut my hair off a few years ago, two actually, i thought it would be good to have short hair. hot climate and short hair= good. well, the problem is that you have to cut it every two months or so or it looks, well, crappé. not only is it a waste of time, but in oaxaca, land of 100 degree daily heat, it was a pain in the ass to find someone open during my lunch break (aka siesta for all businesses).

this all leads me to my last year here in the city. cool weather, lack of stifling humidity and a desire to extend the period between barber visits all had me in the mind of growing my hair longer. i am, as i remember my buddy jimmy describe in college so eloquently, in the awkward stage. not short enough to look dashing, not long enough to be a hippy, just right for ugly.

you would think that getting a haircut would help all of this. you would think a stylist could fix this for me and make life better. well, then start sending your donations because the last time i went to stylist to cut my hair and actually was happy with the result was over 6 years ago in charlottesville in preparation for my sis´s wedding. the experience was different, but the results cannot be denied. i am vain. unfortunately, i am also cheap. this results in me going for the cheapest cut around. so it goes.

last saturday i had made up my mind. scraggly, unkept and in dire need of some form, my hair was beginning to make its own demands. as usual, hair won.

i made my way past the barber shop on my street, site of two butcherings in the past year, and ventured into the previously locked sliding glass door of a one woman salon. my friend told me the woman was good, not perfect, but in my price range. as she later informed me, my frugality (read: cheapness) precluded her from recommending a better stylist (the one she goes to, paid for of course by her mother. would i were so lucky). no matter.

the cut was going well for the most part. she was doing generally what i asked and with help from my friend, who gave instructions also, we were well on our way to making the billy look somewhat respectable (key word: somewhat). there was no blood in sight and i had not stood up and stormed out, so all in all i could not complain.

then we came to the end. she had cut, although not exactly what i wanted, the general idea, as best i can explain it in spanish (although explaining haircuts without a photo is like me explaining the finer points of a petrarchan sonnet to an orangutan). i was pleased more or less.

the next words at first confused me, but i saw that she was actually touching the comb to my sideburns and assumed she was going to thin them out (hook up a fade like jimza back in the day). i told her sure and then could only sit in awe at the audacity of her next move.

instead of moving the electric razor in an upward motion, she touched the cutters to my skin and slid down. gone. an inch above the bottom lobe. vanished.

i think it was my mouth hanging open that tipped her off that she had done something to upset her client. staring at my reflection, and the white patch glowing on one side of my face, i came to a realization of some worth. not since i was 15 years old had i sported the no sideburns look. 14 years give or take. a damn long time. michael jordan was still kicking ass. the braves actually won a championship recently. bill clinton was still first term. alice in chains was awesome and pearl jam was still fairly new on the scene. in other words, i saw myself transported back in time. i find it only barely coincidental that i am teaching h.g. wells the time machine this semester.

my friend immediately began laughing behind me, which the mirror showed her to be in front of me. the lady with the sheers was not sure what to do. well, clearly there was not much to do. get the other side too. damn. unless she can make hair regrow in seconds, there was no real choice.

that first afternoon was unfortunate in that i spent at least 15 minutes dwelling on the past and all the good times my sideburns and i had. the swords. those were weird. the nike swoosh. worse. fat chops, unattractive but fun. the backward burn, the most recent. in all i could not stop looking at myself in the mirror. all i saw was a picture that sits on a desk in my father´s office in virginia from my first year at woodberry. my hair is about the same length and now my sideburns were too.

that first day i rationalized it by saying that in two weeks you would never know they were cut off. excised. ripped away.

but then i realized that i live in mexico and no one down here has known me for more than a year. to them, after 3-4 months of beard in the winter, not having sideburns would not be that strange. a day later the lack of burns was growing on me. i started to like it and two days later i shaved the ¨pre-burns¨ that i was already growing. the decision was made (for me).

so i write to you now as a younger man in many ways. of course, not in any of the ways that count, like age, but you know what i mean. or not.

all in all i am pretty pleased with myself at how well i am taking it. sure, there was the initial rude reaction and being pissed off at the lady. but, i learned a new word, patillas=sideburns, and now have a look i have not sported since the early 90´s. and i can laugh about it now. good times.

pictures will be coming soon.

2007-08-31T11:45:00.001-05:00

sweet action. now we are getting somewhere. catholic eh? from the frosty north as well (canada)? i dont think so; we dont trust canadians. jokes. we love canadians. in fact, when in a large crowd of people here i always say i am canadian. takes the tension off being from the states.

catholic. never expect a beard. two names come to mind, but i rule out the second, cuban b, because the first comment mentioned just finding the blog and that would not be the cuban. also, 30 is older than him. now, the other person, would probably be about 30. the catholic part i have no idea.

as i am a registered minister of the universal life church, i often hear people telling me that i can marry them one day (knowing full well that the wife, or husband as is the case, that has yet to be met would never, ever, allow such a thing. i still enjoy the offer, however, and take it as a compliment (deserved or not misses the point). the tasks of men of the cloth are never done.

another phrase struck me as odd. ¨i am as catholic as i am hindu.¨ quite possibly this is leading in the completely wrong direction, and i am pretty sure about that, but that comment makes me think the fiancée is hindu.

also, the clear reference to ween is not one to be missed. lovers of ween are not everywhere in this world. in fact, we are probably the minority.

i just thought of another person while writing all of this that makes more sense than my original idea. time to throw out the hindu wife idea.

do you like my chief inspector morse/ hercule poirot method of detection? i am rather impressed with myself. the hindu thing had me at first. but i am going to go with mr. clean. no hair and a beard? probably a good look. am i right timmay?

if not, i will keep guessing, but another clue or hint would be good.

2007-08-27T11:35:00.001-05:00

i will be honest. i have no idea who that last commenter might be. any help?
it was someone who last saw me with long hair. which does not really narrow it down that much as almost anyone who has ever known me has known me with long hair. also, the person is a year older than me and apparently knows me well enough to know that i am having a bday soon. that does narrow it down some, but not enough. then, the person has a job (stop laughing) and a fiancé. now i am lost. my initial reaction was someone from arizona, and that still might be the case. i do like guessing games (although this peaches person never materialized and frustrated me to no end), so if you choose not to reveal your identity, at least give me another hint.

sick. sucks. i hate not being able to breathe through my nose. i decided to come in and give classes today because there is one class i absolutely cannot cancel and it starts at 130, so, i pretty much had little choice. i have been giving a quiz and writing assignment and letting them go after 25 minutes or so. good choice i think. at the very least i give the appearance of them doing something as opposed to just putting a sign on the door that says no class (which apparently also reads: Drop everything in your hands and begin to run screaming through the halls that English class is canceled and you have a free hour). so i opted out of that choice.

boring weekend because i was sick. boo.

i watched ¨breakfast at tiffany´s¨ with my friend this weekend. now, i did not dislike the movie, i will say that. but, my friend liked it much more than me and as she was near tears at the end i was simply hoping Fred (Paul) had truly given up on miss golightly and that he would go find the cat and resume his previous life. no such luck. my favorite part was the library scene where fred and holly are constantly told to be quiet and on the way out holly says that ¨this place isn´t half as much as Tiffany´s¨. i might have to agree, although i have never been to Tiffany´s. libraries are rarely the scene of something exciting (although i used to go the library when i was in grad school in arizona just to sleep in their comfy chairs for a few hours in between classes).

so i now i have seen a movie oft referenced. it is easy to see some of its influence on other films as well. indeed, it is rare to see a strong female character who lives as she pleases during that era (on film at least). paul annoyed me more than anything with his goody twoshoes attitude, but i digress. on the whole, it was not a bad movie (i thought it might be), but only once was there a reference to bernard shaw´s play ¨pygmalion¨(the part where holly´s agent mentioned that it took him an entire year to teach her to speak english properly and he only managed it by first teaching her french) and i thought there would be more than that.

i know. if you wanted movie reviews you would go read something else on the internet. i am done. i blame the cold medicine. and waking up every two hours while trying to sleep. evil children. i told my students it was their fault i was sick. they did not like the idea but were quickly silenced as i told them that any dissent on their part would mean a lower grade on their quizzes. we read a story, ¨the lady or the tiger¨ which has an interesting brand of justice in it so they were writing about justice. i proffered the idea that my getting sick was justice because my students were sick first and so i deserved to share their fate. one rather bright student replied that my version of justice was punishing them because i had to suffer with being sick. while earning her no extra points on the quiz, it did make me feel good to know that someone understands me just a little.

here is to hoping your monday is sicky-free, unlike mine.

2007-08-25T10:33:00.000-05:00

rather amazing now that i think about it: i have completed two years in mexico. when i arrived two years ago, things were very different in my life. i imagined spending maybe one year here and then moving on to another country. strange that now i am very happy where i am and in the school (what an incredible difference there is where i live and work now compared to my first year) where i teach and that i am considering being here for a few more years, possibly 3 or more (depending on a phd program here).

two years ago i never would have considered teaching high school again. now, i love the school where i work and actually enjoy teaching high school students. most of this is due to the high academic standards the school has and that most of my students are motivated to learn, but overall i cannot believe i enjoy teaching people this age. strange.

i celebrated my two year anniversary by going to the pharmacy and buying cold medicine and then coming home and going to bed at 9pm because once again i have gotten sick. i would like to blame the 2500 students at the high school where i work for this. things might be different if i worked in an office with only 30 other people. oh well. tough shit. i made my bed.

last night i proctored a toefl exam and i am back again this morning doing the same. sometimes i get frustrated working so much, but knowing i have a lot of debt from grad school to pay off helps motivate me. plus, while giving the exam i can do other things like grade exams and quizzes, plan lessons and write on this bloggy.

i have no idea who reads this thing anymore. i am guessing the cuban b is still around because one of the comments, though nameless, sounded like him referring to bikes and brews. if you are still out there, cheers cuban b. hope your second year in the phd program at iowa goes well for you. jimza is still around also. and my sisters and pops.

this might now be a blog for 6 people. oh well. not like i add very much to it with any frequency anymore. i might compare this to a relationship. in the beginning, when you are still getting to know each other, you want to spend all your time with the other person. find out as much about them as you can and think that there is never enough time in the day or night to fit it all in. just being together for ten minutes (writing 2 sentences in this case) is enough and yet painful in that you know it is not enough.

as the weeks turn into months and then a year or more, you start to slow down. instead of looking to do everything together, you just do it that way. there is no more excitement and you let down your defenses (rambling, boring posts that say nothing but are there to show that i am still here and have some allegiance to the blog) to an extent. but mainly you become more judgmental and find yourself more rude than anything else with the other. you find excuses not hang out (i am too busy to write, i have a life now, etc.), but in those moments when you are doing nothing or waiting for the next thing to begin, you realize that it was all pretext and that the free exists but the inclination does not.

yet we continue in this manner. waiting for the other person to give up (blogger to fail) becomes the new pass time. droll, mundane, time actually seems to slow down because there is no more anticipation and nothing ¨new¨ to come of anything.

or maybe it is just me.

i have never held a job for more than 21 months consecutively. of course i have a long way to go before i break that record, but these are strange things about me. i have now lived in my apartment here in mexico city for almost 12 months. the last time i lived in one apt for 12 months was when i lived with my girlfriend in san francisco. before that was in blacksburg 3 years earlier. is everyone else like this? i have an idea what this says about me but i choose to see the positive side: i like change and avoid the routine for any extended period of time. i will be 29 soon; am i getting too old to be like this? if so, i guess it is too damn bad because i dont see these traits disappearing overnight.

those are my thoughts on this sunny morning here in one of the biggest cities of the world resting in a valley at over 8000ft. i wonder if my 3 year anniversary will show me that i have found a routine. will i be in the same city at the same school? will i be in a phd program? will i be in another country?

i love that these questions will not be answered until i am ready to answer them. there is no predetermined timetable. the plane leaves when i want it to. or i just find another one.

2007-08-01T10:29:00.000-05:00

here is yet another foto of the poliforo siqueiros. in the background is the world trade center. the black cylinder on top is a restaurant called felinis. the cool thing is that it slowly rotates in a circle giving a decent view of the city. they have really good cosmopolitans and martinis. i dont drink those, but my friends tell me they are amazing. the negative is that it is super pricey, hence i dont frequent it.

2007-08-01T10:03:00.000-05:00

this was taken last week at an event where the 3 on the left were dj´s. iván is from mexico city, ellie and neill, from under the aqueduct fame, are from north carolina, billy is from madison mills, and karla, on my right, is from mexico city. the even was really cool in that they were playing a horror movie upstairs in a huge auditorium and outside there was music and free food (catered by an outstanding seafood restaurant in the city called contramar) and inside downstairs was artwork, mainly photos. the forum itself was designed by an architect whose name escapes me, and the artwork done by one of mexicos most famous artists, siqueiros. a picture of the poliforo siqueiros is above to the left (obviously not the one with the people in it).

2007-07-17T11:57:00.000-05:00

i dont know how i forgot to write about this when i was in new mexico last month, but i did.

we were in taos, which is a small town with ski resort and one of the oldest still occupied dwellings in the usa (the taos people have lived there for about a 1000 years i believe). cool place to visit if you find yourself in new mexico and want to see indigenous housing that is still in use and well preserved.

anyway, we were in taos for the afternoon because we got out of class early and there was a bus going that way from the campus (and as the campus was 5 miles from the nearest town, there was that desire to escape). after a thoroughly obnoxious 2 hour bus ride in a high school type bus (uncomfortable), we spent about 2 hours at the small reservation. then, with about 2 hrs more to kill before returning to summer camp (pretty much it was summer camp in that everyone ate at the cafeteria, and you had to get there with your friends or you would be sitting with the losers-arguably as we were all teachers we were all losers, but i digress.) i was with a texan, a canadian (we teach in mexico) and a guy from mexico (he teaches in houston). we walked around for a while looking at the cheap crap on sale at every little store (who doesn´t want their name engraved on a cheap key ring!) and then we decided to eat.

there was a little restaurant close by, and as i had pretty much determined to eat appetisers everywhere i went in the usa because my favorite food from the usa is still bar food, i flipped through the menu looking for some sampler platter. to my surprise they had fat tire (new belgium brewery out of northern colorado) beer and i was stoked. this was once my favorite beer, at the very least favorite beer company, in the usa and it was happy hour so it was cheap. i made some stupid comment about how much i loved the beer and my friends decided to get it as well because i recommended it so highly.

the waitress arrives and i was so excited i jumped at the hesitation by the others to order first.
¨fat tire, please.¨ ¨sure, can i see your id first?¨

what? id. i am 28 years old.

¨sorry, new mexico state law requires me to see everyone´s id¨
no shit. i worked at a bar for years in college, i know the law. but damn, no one actually follows that law. if they did, where would tips come from? how would 19 yr olds go out and have fun with their older friends?

my friends produced their passports and i sat there looking stupid.

about a year ago i decided to stop carrying a wallet as a precaution against theivery and general imbecility (loss). since then, i dont use any identification when i go anywhere. i carry cash and sometimes a bank card. i went to buy some clothes with my friends a few weeks ago and was confronted for the first time in mexico by someone asking me for an id to accompany my card. i was more shocked that they would not sell me the clothes without the id and i cursed them as i left the store, swearing never to return. and i shant.

thus, carrying a passport outside of the airport was not even a consideration. wtf? i am, dammit, 28 years old.

immediately i thought back to the beard days and wished i still had it.

the waitress got back around to me and asked for my id again.

my first question was if they had sweet tea. no.
i ordered water.

then i remembered how kids under 21 drink with their friends who are older. my friend from texas arranged all the drinks in the center of the round table, then, she quietly passed me her beer.

2007-07-13T14:31:00.000-05:00

strange to think that in less than one week i will be in virginia. my friends from here ask me if am going to be nervous going home. i dont think i am but, it is still a long way away so maybe i am just not thinking about it yet.

this week and next i am pretty much by myself on campus. all the full-time profs are on vacation, except one or two, so the buildings are pretty much empty. i love it. it is nice to read in my office and know that no one will be by to bother me. because i am just starting full time, i dont get the two week summer vacation, but it is cool with me because i am still getting paid this summer. unlike last summer when i made no cash for about 1.5 months. also, i worked a lot of hours last semester, so i have saved a good bit of money anyway. although working the entire time means i dont go away to visit other places so that means i am not really spending any loot. anyway.

i must say that pirate dvd´s have taken over the lives of myself and a few friends. 2bucks for a movie? sweet action.
recently we watched rome, from hbo. i was sad that the second season meant the end of the show, but it has also been one of the best shows i have seen recently. of course, battlestar galactica is amazing. there are about 10 of us who have seen all the episodes and have strange dialogues that most people dont understand who never saw the show. but you know this has all happened before and it will all happen again.

currently, i am watching deadwood and the wire from hbo. both are great.

in the end, it was a choice between crappy dubbed televesion (desperate housewives, ghost wisperer- i hope you dont know this show-, bones, gray´s anatomy, dr house, and telenovelas. i still like the novelas, i have to admit, but it is so much better to watch tv without commercials.

i love the weather in this town during the summer. the mornings are chilly, around 55-60, and the days never really get over 88. nearly perfect. it rains, monsoon style, almost every afternoon between 5 and 8, for about an hour and then everything is nice and cool at night. mosquitos do suck, but what can you do. could be worse.

well, i have another two hours to kill so i am off to the library to rent some dvd´s for the weekend.

2007-07-09T13:38:00.000-05:00

if you want to see more pics, go to http://www.kcult.org/ellie/acuaducto

this was a camping trip that wasn´t. i think this was the 10th or so of june. damn rainy season.

2007-07-09T13:32:00.000-05:00

rainded out. this is what happens when you wake up extremely early, eat a lot of food, play football and frisbee in the rain and then find out that the rain is not going to stop and you must drive 2hrs back home. we all managed to stay upright because our shoulders are wedged together (in other words, we fell asleep). forks? well, that is a funny story....

2007-07-09T13:31:00.001-05:00

a good shot of the center of the acueduct. i recommend scrolling down and start at the beginning of the pics as they are posted in reverse order. so begins ¨under the acueduct¨

2007-07-09T13:29:00.000-05:00

lunch now over, these clouds appear. boo. not what anyone wants really.

2007-07-09T13:26:00.000-05:00

really, an extra long fork and machete are indespensibe on these kinds of outings

2007-07-09T13:23:00.000-05:00

lunch preparation begins. still sunny and beautiful.

2007-07-09T13:21:00.000-05:00

this is about half of the acueduct that you can see. height at the center is about 150-200ft (i have no idea how to judge that kind of distance really).

2007-07-09T13:19:00.000-05:00

nopal cactus and the acueduct. still early, maybe 1000am. we are about to get the grill going and then cook lunch.

2007-07-09T13:12:00.001-05:00

pretty much the coolest guys in town (left to right: rafa, neill, billy, clark). this is a great shot where all of us are looking in different directions (it is about 8am, we have been up since 415 or so). this is a small town near sahagun where the acueduct is and where you can buy goods. the day looked perfect at 8am. things change rather quickly in the mountains (we are around 9500 - 10000 feet).

2007-07-03T12:48:00.000-05:00

stemming from the start of my last entry is this: the world seems to wait years in between major events. lots of years between world war 1 and 2, am i right?

the point? after two years, the billy returns. ok, i did go back to the usa two weeks ago for a conference, but that does not really count. i saw no one i knew, and hung out with teachers and worked. not a real visit. plus, the people harassed me at the airport about why i had been absent for two years from the usa. what do i do in mexico? teach. why? umm... how long am i staying? 5 days. why so short? i have to go back to work.

and so on.

anyway, i return july 19th and leave the 24th (thurs arrival, tues departure). if you are available and able, come to va and see me. i will regale you with lively tales and treat you to some salsa i am bringingback. watch me struggle in public as i randomly speak spanish to people because it has been two years since i bought anything without speaking spanish. i think it will be amusing. it may be the last time you see me with short hair for a while also, and that, in itself, is a treat. or not.

right. i hope you can make it. if you cannot, i will understand (but secretly curse you- i also have many many stories of witchcraft which i am, literally, afraid to write on this blog for fear that something might happen to me).

two years is a lot, especially if you are a dog (because then it is 14).

2007-07-03T12:11:00.000-05:00

interesting thing about the world in general that the usa does not really share. sporting events, major events, take place every few years. world cup: 4 years in between. copa america: 3 years. america´s cup (sailing): ni (no idea, but it is not every year).

my point is that the rest of the world seems to have more patience than we do in the states. super bowl: every 12 months. every major sporting event has championships every year. ok, mexican soccer has 2 champions a year, but that is off the point.

perhaps this is why when i go to take a shower at 7am and there is no water, no one else seems overly concerned. i roll into work looking dishevelled and rather rough, but then again, it is summer. i really cannot describe to you, have you never experienced it, the feeling of having shampoo in your hair, soap under your arms and no way to rinse it away. just getting your eyes open at that point aint so simple. you must find the towel, and if you are like me and shower immediately after waking, you really are not quite awake yet, so that damn towel could be anywhere and the longer you take to find it the more searing pain you feel as the soap works to clean two objects that were never meant to be cleaned with soap. i am talking about the eyes here people. sensitive.

if you are up for something different, i have an idea for those of you who live with others. roommmates, wife and children (jam dougherty i am looking at you on this one, of course i do no believe you have not sired a youngun´ somewhere along the line), if you are in mexico, mother, father, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, grandparent, cousin, etc. all of these would work.

step 1. reconnoiter your property (i count rental property as your own as long as you occupy it). get to know things like the electrical box, plumbing pipes and, while you are at it, learn how to turn the hot water heater on and off. these are good basic things to know. they have nothing to do with our experiment, but consider step 1 the precursor; you cant take calculus without algebra can you? can you? this is a question people.

step 2. now that you are familiar with pipes and such, you probably know that you can shut those pipes and restrict, nay stop, the flow of water coming from said pipes.

step 3. yes, you know where this is going, but continue with the steps. it is about the process. the journey not the destination. the path not the... whatever, you get it.

step 3. (the last step was not really a step) wait until someone gets in the shower and turn off all televisions and radios. wait maybe 3 minutes. if possible, talk to the person in the shower and find out where they are in the cleaning process (shampoo, conditioner-if they use it- soap, shaving, etc.). ideally, you want shampoo in the hair and soap on the body. this may or not be possible, but you know, we all gotta have goals in life.

step 4. find that shutoff valve and close it. slowly. you want to do this slowly because you want the person in the shower to hope the water will come back. if you are really cunning and creative (notice i am not using words like ¨cruel¨ ¨evil¨ ¨ruthless¨ ¨heartless¨ or any of these pejoratives you might be considering) then you will shut off the water only partway, then turn it back on. if you have you turned off all electic appliances (and sent any children outside), you may hear sound wonderful sounds of anger and disbelief coming from the bathroom. this will be the person in the shower coming to terms with the unexpected. do not shy away from this. embrace it as a fruit of your labor.

step 5. once shut off, run, do not walk, to the bathroom (with a camera if possible).

step 6. enter noisily. dont try to hide anything. let the profanity be your guide here. snap your pictures (digital, film and mental) and laugh and laugh and laugh.

step 7. depending on the stage of undress, send me the pictures. or, better yet, start a blog and post them on the internet.

step 8. never tell the other person how to turn the water off. you may have to lie at this point. stand firm. you are morally right on this (say that if necessary and then tell the person, if they dare question how you are ¨morally right¨ that even asking that question of you means they have much to learn. drop them a copy of aristotle´s ¨nichomachean ethics¨ or even ¨crito¨written by plato. they will never read it, so you are totally safe and, of course, morally superior. if they do read it, well, send me an email and we can discuss your options and i will send you some other authors to peruse, namely nietzsche, who will fill you with a sense of superiority no matter what).

feel free to thank me later for this idea. onwards and upwards.

2007-06-28T13:43:00.001-05:00

21 hours ago i was livid. or, to use an expression i often heard my father and anthony say, i was hot.

first, let´s go back 46 hours. the office secretary came by and gave me a slip of paper. she did so casually, as though there were nothing special about it, and sauntered off to do whatever it is she does. noticing that in my hands was a note from the postal service of mexico, i was pleased because the package my sister amy sent had arrived. finally. then i noticed the date, june 18 (this was june 26th), and that the slip said ¨second notice.¨

i had left for the states on june 18th, so if this was the second notice, the first should have arrived at least 4 days earlier. june 14 saw me at school, teaching, normal routine. where was notice the first?

unable to make it to the post office before it closed (did i mention i was offered a full-time position at my school on this same afternoon?), i put off the trip for the next day. one day. big deal.

my friend gave me a ride to the post office and i arrived 15minutes before closing time. when i left 40 minutes later, i was, to say the least, nonplussed.

as i handed the woman behind the counter my slip, she asked me for my id. she wrote my passport number down on the paper i gave her and shuffled off to find my package.

do you ever think you know when there is going to be a problem? you order food, without onions would be a great example because onions are evil, and yet you know when it arrives that the food will have onions. people might call you paranoid, negative, a pain in the ass, whatever, but you know you are right. and then, when the food arrives, fucked up, you look to the other person to confirm that you were right. but, being right, does not make you happy. if anything, it pisses you off even more. naturally, you seek a vent for this frustration. profanity? depends on the scene. surly attitude toward any and all ¨help¨? definitely.

thus, as the older lady returned and informed more than asked that i had already received the package, i looked to my friend, who, alas, stayed in the car, and then paused before responding.

¨no¨

sometimes it is very pleasing that english and spanish coincide so. it was perhaps, i see it now, my pause that made her hesitate. she opened a red book with lots of lines, pages, signatures, and other scribblings of, probably, the five year olds who run el servicio postal mexicano.

¨look again¨ i said as curtly as possible. she complied and, if it were possible, crawled into the back room. clearly, i was ready to jump the counter, damn the sign informing that the area was for authorized personnel only. i refrained as the man with the uzi, i shit you not he carried an uzi, outside the door somehow calmed me.

i was then informed that my package had indeed been picked up already. i told her as cooly as possibly that my twin did not live in this country and either way, we spelled our first names differently. this confused her just long enough to prove to me she was at least listening.

five minutes later she returned from the overseer´s office (i think he is probably like 7yrs old) and motioned me to enter.

was this a trap? would the uzi man gun me down as i crossed the line into another world, a realm without reason where packages are distributed willnilly on a first come first served basis? no. it was not.

amazingly, i think the overseer was inclined to think that showing me a photocopy of identification of the person who retrieved a package clearly addressed to william davis would assuage my growing hostility. hmm. alberto flores zamora. well, we both have two ¨l´s¨ in our names at some point. looking into the eyes of the head of such an organized and professional outfit, i saw the one thing i knew i could never fight against and win.

indeed, what i saw in his eyes is not something you easily forget, nor is it easily feigned (although i certainly do not rule out he feels this way, or acts like it, daily). i restated the obvious to him hoping his look would change.

¨so you are telling me the mexican postal service gave a package addressed to william davis to alberto flores? what, then, is the purpose of showing you an id? can i have someone else´s package? i will show you my id first.¨

no, sarcasm went right past this one, as i feared it would, because he was, sadly, simple. in his eyes i saw that he did not really understand. he believed in what he had done. to him, he acted like loyal employee and faithful worker. on the package were the words ¨itesm¨. this is where i work. alberto flores told him he worked for itesm. ergo, the package went to the correct person.

flabbergasted and rather deflated, i accepted the situation as it was (you cannot browbeat a child who does not understand what it did was wrong any more than you should whip a horse for wanting the apple in your hand). what, praytell, did the mexi postal servce intend to do? well, first i needed to write explaining i wanted the matter looked into by them.

right.

did i have a pen on me, inquired the cretin. no (of course i did, but i was going to take his and keep it).

sitting at the desk, so kind that he offered me a seat, i thought of how i wanted to word the letter. oh, he told me what i needed to write, but i brushed aside his advice in favor of something more, how shall i put it, more strongly worded.

did i know that this letter would never leave that office? that no matter what i asked for i would not receive? that the mexi postal service ¨team¨ no more interest in me than i have in embroidery? yes. did i feel the need to release some hostility? indeed (a huevo- this is rather vulgar so i dont suggest repeating it the next time your spanish speaking server asks you if you would like another beverage, more salsa or the check).

¨i, william davis, arrived at the mexican postal service on (address) today at 1645 hours to retrieve a package. unfortunately, the workers of the m.p.s. had decided to give my package to alberto flores zamora of (address) without my consent or knowledge. acting for more me is not something i ever wanted the mps, or (and here i wrote the names of the kind staff who had assisted me so far) to do, nor would i ever like them to do so in the future.

negligence (i asked the overseer how to spell this word, to which he looked quite surprised and somewhat taken aback before slowly spelling it for me) by the staff of the m.p.s. is clear in this case; therefore, i request that said staff look for and find alberto flores zamora. then, i want my package delivered, preferably intact, by whom is not important, to me at (school address).

sincerely,
william davis

so ya, that took me about 10 minutes to write (partially because i knew the longer i was there, the longer they had to wait around (they closed at 5)). i watched as the mexi postal service´s chief intelligence officer perused my written request and smiled as he savored my description of the handling of events.

he then told me some bullshit about the how they were going to seriously look into the matter and get something done. as i had already copied down alberto´s home address and full name, i nodded and wished him luck in finding the package. i was assured that it would be found and delivered to me with all the haste within the power of the postal service (my friend sent me a letter when she was in chihuahua- this is part of mexico- 5 weeks ago and i have still not received it).

my anger had mostly subsided but disappointment grew in its stead. apparently, someone from my school had gone to the postal service after the third notice to get my package and deliver it to me. why had alberto waited three days without informing me? was alberto even an employee? was that even his name (i mentioned, i believe, my trip to where fake id´s are made, and the amazing authenticity they seem to possess)? where was the package? would someone else be ankle deep in russel stover coconut nest packages with traces of chocoloate on their cheeks and the stray jelly bean rolling around on the floor waiting for a cat, dog or rat to find it?

in the end, my package was delivered to me today, but not by alberto. i inquired about him through the school´s search page and indeed he is a worker in the package office. when i went to find him he was out tracking down the package of someone else. my package was on its way to my building to be delivered to me.

did the m.p.s. do as promised and come to the school to help find my package? was this why it was actually delivered to me this afternoon? one of the many things i have learned is simply not to question such occurrances. i have my package, unopened it appears and full of all my sister told me about. does anything else really matter? of course it does. but does anyone here care about my own misgivings? of course not.

hence, as i enjoy the chocolately goodness of a coconut nest, i think of alberto flores, wherever he is, and hope he rescues another package before the owner can get there to claim it. spread the joy to all, i say.

2007-06-21T01:30:00.000-05:00

hey guys sorry for not writing sooner. the computers here wont let me log in very easily. i am staying on campus in a dorm with a roomie, who is cool, and am learning a lot. i will try to call you again soon dad, sorry we missed each other sunday. i think you were out or asleep when i called the last time.

all is well and if not sooner, i will write next monday and let you know about all the fun i had. i feel like i am 15 and at summer camp. but this is actually a lot of fun and very educational at the same time.

hope you are all well.

2007-06-15T10:17:00.000-05:00

happy father´s day doughman! hope you are well and enjoying the summer in virginia.

to all you other father´s, i am looking at you jimza, happy day.

father´s day is fairly important down here, but it does not compare to mother´s day. for example, father´s day is sunday here every year. mother´s day, on the hand, is during the week, usually, and all mother´s who work get the day off. odd, no?

anyway, i leave for the good ole usa on monday morning. after a two year absence, i will be back in the us(sr) for about 5 days. going to las vegas! new mexico. ya, doesn´t quite have the same ring to it all. it is a tiny little town in the mountains of new mexico east of albequerque and santa fe. there is some tiny private university and i will be staying on campus, in a dorm, for the duration of my stay. i am going to talk about literature and teaching and the fun that is the international bac. program. should be pretty cool actually because i can make a lesson plan for an entire year during one week. of course, that is assuming i stay teaching where i am next semester.

as usual, my plans are up in the air a bit. i am not 100% sure where i will be in a few months, which is somewhat disheartening as i was hoping to stay at this school where i am. unfortunately, it looks as though there will be no full time positions for the coming year, and that means i make less money for doing about the same work. boo.

i dont know. i might suck it up and stay anyway. i certainly did not come to mexico only to make money. i am teaching literature classes i might never have a chance to teach in the usa (science fiction/future fiction for example), so there are many benefits to staying. i think i am just miffed that i thought there was going to be an opening and now there is not. oh well. suck it up.

enjoy the father´s day weekend and i will write from new mexico if i can (not sure if ¨talent night¨, i shit you not there is a talent night on the final night, will take up most of free time as i prepare my routine. it sounds like summer camp, westview on the james i hope it is not. could be worse i guess. i get to miss a full 5 days of class. that is cool).

anything interesting going on up there?

2007-05-30T12:45:00.000-05:00

time flies. hard to believe it has been over a month since i wrote here last.
funny stories, let me think. the problem is that there are many many events i find hilarious, but they have to be pg13 for this blog. if you thought i talked a lot before i left (and i know you all think this), be prepared to listen to stories for days when i return.

so i was at the supermarket yesterday (wal-mart essentially) and was in line with my groceries (raisin bran, juice, milk, habañero peppers, turkey, cheese, apples, avacado- it was a light day because i have been sick and am just getting my taste back). there is a promotion at this store that when you spend 100 pesos (10 bucks) you get a coupon that discounts a future purchase. this month the promotion is towells. ya. not into that.

anyway, a woman and her daugter are in front of me (both wearing large, obnoxious chanel sunglasses that cover their entire faces) and the mother looks me up and down (this is still normal- not only am i dead sexy, but foreign) and then makes her move.

¨do you collect the coupons?¨ she asks.

her daughter´s face goes red and ¨maamaaaaa¨ escapes her lips as she flips through soap opera digest (all names are changed to reflect what you would see in the states) and attempts to put some distance between herself and her mother.

¨why do you always get so embarassed, it is an honest question, and besides, he doesn´t mind. do you, sir?¨ is mamá ´s reply to daughter.

¨of course i do not mind you asking, and sure, the coupons are yours¨

the mother continues conversation with me, explaining her daughter, standing there the whole time, is always shy and embarassed in public when with her. but she, the mother, never understands why. the look on daughter´s face through all of this is priceless- she turns from red to crimson rather quickly and once the line in front dissipates, makes a b-line to the ice cream stand 25 yards away.

just before i pay, she turns to ask me if i am from the states. i smile and respond that yes i am. she says she has always liked gringos, even though so many think negatively of us. very magnanimous of her.

as my items go through, scrutinized by the mother of course, she remarks to the clerk that i should get ¨double points¨ for certain items(clearly she picked me out because she had scanned my basket and knew i would get more coupons based on what i was buying). a brief argument ensues while the clerk says i need to use a certain bank card to get double points. the mother then looks at me, my card (not the one that earns double points) and asks me if i have another.

no shit. she actually tried to get me to pay with another card to get her an extra coupon. well, after that, i expected something more (i paid with my original choice despite the pain it caused her to only earn one coupon instead of two).

she waited for me to collect my bags and noticed, she was on it, that i did not get my parking stub validated. was my car at home? after informing her i did not have a car in mexico (she was rather deflated), she offered me a ride. her daughter, who had returned, was about to explode. and i could tell she wanted me to say no.

so, of course, i accepted the ride.

unfortunately, the daughter was rather young, although mother tried to push her off on me in the car ride, so there will be no dates in the future. i assured her my future coupons were hers and offered my services of private lessons, which may or may not work out.

in the end, an eventful shopping experience. sometimes being foreign is lots of fun. i do not tell the worst stories, the ones where being foreign sucks, for obvious reasons.

i have almost cleared my second sickness in one month (my first was a stomach virus and i ended up halucinating at one point during the fever´s high point, the second was a cold) and hope this fills my quota for at least 4 more months. the stomach illness was vile, so i wont go into details, but it is worth noting that i get sick from eating at restaurants with running water and not stands on the street (i often eat at those places and am fine after). not sure what lesson i should learn from this.

i am excited about my class this summer. i am teaching a science fiction literature class. plus, there are only five students and they are all guys. if i never mentioned this before i must say that teaching only boys is the best situation. true, they can be assholes and little shits, but so can i. in the end, i know what to expect from guys. girls? crying? no way. boys are predictable. i know what they expect and their tricks to get what they want. would i teach at an all boys school? hell yes. teach at an all-girls school? no and never.

anyway, the class should be cool, even though it is two hours long, five days a week. i hope we have interesting conversations (today´s was great- we discussed acceptance, beauty standards ad how they have changed, plastic surgery, etc- we are reading ¨frankenstein¨ so it is all relevant. talking about these things with just guys is very relaxing).

i will do more writing this summer (my recent one entry a month is not exactly a high standard). hope all is well up there and you are having a good start to your summer. the weather here is perfect. 80´s during the day and high 50´s at night with consistent afternoon storms and showers. ok, if you wanted weather, you could check that yourselves.

i am sad to see duke lacrosse lost in the finals on monday. i never liked john´s hopkins. but, i am glad the guys are getting back to normal (to a very small extent) after all that they have gone through in the last year. i hope events like that dont happen more frequently now.

now that the suns and red wings have lost, again, i am done with both the nba and hockey. damn if the braves didnt start well only to choke over the last week. oh well.

in other news i combed my hair for the first time in two years today. strange. i have not had a haircut since december and my hair is finally getting long (relative) again. no camera so the pictures will come when they do, but i thought i would add that. two years. pretty amazing how short hair eliminates the need for hair grooming. or i am just a slob (probably the latter).

let me know if there is anything specific you want to hear about (new abortion law that has the pope seriously pissed off with mexico, teachers not teaching-strikes, etc.).

take it easy y´all

2007-04-17T12:15:00.000-05:00

walking to school every morning i pass a taxi stand (this is about the length of one block-just one curb- and at the corner is a little shack where the dispatch, normally a kid, sits and watches a big tv), and every morning i see some strange movie, normally dubbed or subtitled from english. at 6am or so, the tv i see is usually the last thing on my mind, but i always glance at it as i walk on past.

today, as i was coming to school, i saw something i thought i would never see on mexican news. blacksburg, va. virginia tech. massacre.

almost all of my students today asked me where i was from again. had i ever heard of a uni in virginia called virginia tech?

the questions that people often ask, regarding the usa and its proclivity toward violence, begin again. this time, however, i do not feel so separated from the questions; i do not have the same sort of detached perspective i usually do when i answer them. i saw some pictures of the campus today, mainly of police and wounded students. i have not seen the campus in about 4 years, and it was sad to see it the way that i did. i hope that if anyone reading this knew someone on campus that day that they are ok. i guess there is not much else to say.

2007-04-16T16:50:00.000-05:00

Drawing to a close, this semester will be one that at the very least leaves an aftertaste. Not that I dislike getting up and being at work before the sun rises. Nor that I decry going to work six days a week. Even the fact that I regularly spend 12-16 hours on campus is not enough to really get me in a pissy mood (although many would argue that I am often in this kind of mood, or at least that I am an irritable person - enojon is the word used here, and as you might have guessed, it is stronger than the English near-equivalents I have listed). I have made a promise to myself this semester not to bitch about things that I cannot change. Clearly, I have failed to accomplish this completely, but like all ideas in this vein, thinking about it has been helpful (at the very least I like to tell myself this).

Either way, there are just over two weeks remaining until exams. Amazing how fast it has gone (which is probably a testament to the idea that staying busy makes time seem to pass more quickly). But, it is sad that I have not done much traveling this semester (none, really). On the bright side I have gotten to know the city much better and visited many places and areas that I have never seen before. A friend who I met about two months ago and said my Spanish has improved a lot (I saw her for again on Saturday after not seeing her since February). Unfortunately, I had to stop taking my Spanish class because this semester because there was no time. On the bright side I have been seeing a girl here, so I practice my Spanish with her a lot. Give and take. My writing in Spanish is still quite horrible, syntax, etc. (you could also argue my English is not perfect either), but my conversational abilities have improved greatly. Mainly, it is the same problem I have felt since I arrived: reading books in Spanish is awesome, but no one talks like authors write, so in a sense it is not productive.

I read a quote from mark twain the other day I found very funny. The gist of the quote is: every time you want to write the word ¨very¨, write the word ¨damn¨. That way, when you go back and edit, you will simply remove the word.

Spring is here in the city. But it is much like a flagstaff, az, summer in that the nights are still chilly- this makes me happy because I like to sleep in colder weather rather than the heat. The campus is beautiful: green trees, manicured bushes, walks, flowers, everything. There is a small army of grounds crew here that begin at the crack of dawn and go until near midnight. They are here when I arrive at 6am. Weed eating, leaf blowing, watering, grooming in general. Unnecessary? Of course. But it looks amazing. There are lots of benches and areas to sit in the shade (8400 feet up, the sun is still intense) and the whole campus is wireless internet (along with power outlets everywhere), so you can do work wherever. I must admit this is an island in the middle of a sprawling concrete cacophony. And I definitely appreciate how peaceful and safe it is compared to other parts of the city. Living within walking distance means I don’t have to ride transit during the week, so I feel quite isolated at times. But, it is like having a pool in your backyard: you just have to go out and jump in when you feel tired of the everyday.

Ok, I never had a pool in the backyard.

The earthquake here last week never even woke me up. Everyone in my building, except my coworker and fellow compatriot, went into the courtyard (this is merely a fancy name for a grassy area between my building and the landlady´s house) at 2am. Good Mexicans. In 1986 there was a huge quake in the city that killed thousands of people, so since then, the people have learned their lesson. Of course, they forgot to wake us up, but no matter.

All of my students were shocked that I did not wake up for the quake. I told them I lived in Oaxaca for a year and there are quakes all the time there, so I was somewhat used to them. Ya, I am so cool. I know.

While in my class I checked my email and saw a headline on msn about Blacksburg. My first reaction was happy; I thought tech had done something good for a change. As you well know, the news was not good as I had hoped. I am not sure what to write about it; I think perhaps it is better to say nothing right now. On that note, I think I will go.

2007-03-20T11:04:00.000-06:00

zoos. i went to the zoo on sunday (this was a 3 day weekend, no work on monday to honor the president Benito Juarez´s- and c´s also- birthday- yahtzee) with a friend. i got a little sunburned, damn evil sun, but not bad. i also saw elephants and lots of monkeys. i really like monkeys and have decided that one day soon i, too, will own a monkey. sure, i could go to the market here, where they sell everything, and buy an illegal one (and yes, this thought has crossed my mind at least 4 times), but i have chosen against it. my friend who is a vet tells me bad stories about how i would be contributing to the brutal monkey trade, horrible treatment on their journey from the jungle, etc. i basically stopped listening when i heard that i would be asked to leave my apt if her mother, my landlord, found out i had a monkey. sure, the other stuff is concerning, but let´s get down to brass tacks- i, will, will not be homeless just to have a monkey. now if a place opens up that allows monkeys, well, that might be another story.

i am toying with the idea of getting a used motorcycle. ít will occupy my time (working on it) but might also kill me. up in the air on that one.

not up in the air on buying socks tonight. laundry was closed yesterday because of the holiday and i have run dangerously low because i was lazy and did not walk the laundry down the street last week. oh well, i will buy a pair socks to tide me over until i can get my clothes back on thursday.

speaking of laundry, yesterday i cleaned my apt (i know, i am also surprised) and as usual, i mopped myself into a corner. luckily, this is a planned corner, also where the door leading out of the apt is found, and i do this when i mop to make myself leave and let the floor dry. so, i have the plastic bag of laundry (big and clear so that everyone can see my dirty underwear- actually it is what i receive my laundry in when they clean it so i just use to stored the next load) outside on the balcony ready to rock and roll as i make the last sweep and i am off.

i realize i am wearing flip flops, a tshirt and shorts. it is hot, high 80´s, so this should not be a problem. well, yes it is. no one wears shorts here. well, almost no one (me). flip flops, for guys, are also out. t-shirts, a former staple of my attire, are also out. yup. i wear a collared shirt, pants and shoes every day of the year here. sundays included. even going to the grocery store i dress up more than i did when i taught college in the usa.

ok, so i make my way down the four blocks to the laudry place where they wash my clothes, avoiding the stares of the 10am holiday crowd loitering in the streets, trying to blend. right.

as i near the laundry, i notice the metal storm door is closed. dammit. i walked all way, embarassing myself as the rest of the mexicans stare at the gringo, for nothing. well, i was sweating and dirty (i had been cleaning a not-so clean apt) and decided that i needed to giddy-up over to the other laundry place. i walked five more blocks only to find them closed.

thus, my walk of shame included me returning with head low (could not look the people in the eye who i had just seen 5 minutes earlier). i had brought no money, or i definitely would have scored a cab and avoided it all, but i did not plan ahead as i was mopping myself into the corner.

wait, zoos! i forgot about that. i learned that elephants in captivity have developed a bad habit of rocking back and forth which essentially involves them producing a chemical that numbs their brain to the outside world. this only happens in captivity. also, zoo keepers (even the name ¨keeper¨ sounds negative- nothing escapes. they might as well just say wardens) cut the wings of the parrots and other beautiful birds so that they can be ¨free¨ from cages yet incapable of ever flying.

this might be the first time i have ever been to a zoo. this was probably the last time. disturbing to say the least.

i also saw a kind of monkey that is strong, and mean, enough to kill people.

2007-03-13T12:22:00.000-06:00

in an effort to improve my spanish (spice up my life), i have been watching an awesome telenovela (soap opera) called destilando amor. distilling love. it revolves around a tequila producing family and one particularly sumptuous sass-machine by the name of gaviota. or mariana, as she has recently had her name changed to fit with the new life/personality she has made up for herself. i liken it to a mexican dallas, with adhd. the novelas here only las about 7 months, and then they expire. they are all this way, which is cool because actors play new characters every year or so. this is also damaging for people who love the shows though (this is pure speculation, i never liked (watched) la fea más bella and anyone who claims this is lying like j.r.).

so if you are asking yourself what the hell i have been doing for the past month, well, here we are. i also shaved the beard. after 3 months it was a sad day. my students freaked out (the kids this semester had never seen me without it- and as there are about 3000 high school kids here, well, you get the point), which was pretty funny. or sad. the girls unanimously proclaimed: you look better. they could not quite understand how in english this means you looked like chewbaca before. meh. i miss it though, especially as it is chilly again here.

i work a lot, which does not really translate to free time for writing the bloggy blog. six days a week at school, often over 12hours a day (not the 6th day) takes its toll after a while. i am thinking of retiring. what? 25 more years? screw that.

as far as mexico goes, things are relatively tranquil. well, i saw on the news some riots in merida where, surprise surprise, one george w. was visiting. i also saw some footage from guatemala that showed how the people showed up by the thousands to welcome w. i am not sure when throwing metal fences at police replaced cheering and waving the stars and stripes, but leave it to the guats to change things up.

3000 pesos later i am clear to live and work in mexico for another year. yippee. it is strange to think that i pay just to be able to live here. damn immigrants. we should all be deported for complaining.

on a side note they opened a new hooters near my house. since my buddy and i have been making our own salsas (past 4 months or so), we have been talking of going to hooters and seeing if their hot wings (they call the hottest ¨muy macho¨) are really hot or if we have progressed beyond them. i think we have not, but my friend thinks we have. as you know i am a gambling man, so 50 centavos (5cents) is on the line here. the only problem, as another friend pointed out, is that the building is essentially made of glass. and located on a busy street corner near a mall and movie theatre where many students hang out. oh well. next time chipper jones comes into town, we are definitely going.

and after writing more about hooters than the general situation in mexico, i leave you. onwards and upwards.