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.

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.

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.

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.

we have a new color today. brown. ish.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

this is a day of mourning in many senses.

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

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

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

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

pennsyltuckians? that is fucking hilarious. hooray for hillbillies.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

i will leave you with that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

¨you look like a redneck.¨

now we're getting somewhere.

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.

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.

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....

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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?