time away

Economic breakdown, what I'm thinking now.

2008-11-30T16:13:00.000-08:00

When I have time, I often watch video podcasts from the TED conference (technology, education, and design). If I taught older kids, I’d probably reference them all the time, but I teach 3rd-5th graders and most of the ideas are a too complicated. Anyway, earlier this month, the James Surowiecki TED lecture from 2005 showed up in my podcast feed, I had the chance to listen to it today on the train from Boston to NYC.

Sourawicki has famously written about the blogosphere, the changes in journalism and the wisdom of crowds. I was interested to listen today because in light of the economic crisis, I’ve been thinking about group speak (a not so good thing) vs. knowledge of networks (a “good” thing). I mean, until recently pundits have been telling us our economic system is strong and resilient, using this flawed model to predict prosperity into the future. Since reading Marx in college, and exploring sustainability over the past few years, I’ve thought that our consumption based economy is more likely to breakdown than survive.

Sourawecki speaks about this too: explaining that networks have a tendency to encourage “group speak”, and that, as a network develops a voice, it re-enforces it’s own ideas, shaping views of the individuals within it. There’s a psychological re-inforcement loop: as people participate, they get more attention if they draw attention to the ideas that the network values. Thus, networks are not simply the component of their individual parts, they are something more; propelling their valued ideas further and further along.

dreamix project

2007-03-24T07:08:00.000-07:00

The dreamix project is over, it was intense.

Friday afternoon preview: listen to rapper's delight and "good times" identifying that much hip hop music is made with samples.

Day 1) Morning: history of hip-hop. recap rapper's delight, listen to The Message, watch the video, deconstruct the lyrics. Watch clip from Style Wars: 4 elements of hip-hop: Mcing, Djing, breaking and graffiti. Each child writes note in notebook, creates a tag.

Afternoon: talk about fair use and citations. Begin experimenting with garageband and sampleing old records

Day 2) Morning: Eyes on the Prize, awakenings, recap history of Africans in America. Emancipation, plessy vs. ferguson, Jim crow laws, WW2, Brown v board, civil rights movement. Watch eyes on the prize video (pbs.org) comparing Malcolm X and Martin Luther King's ideas. discuss.

Afternoon: Watch video of Malcolm's return from Mecca. . . what has changed? emphasis on white and blacks as part of "human family" . Teach quicktime pro, students extract audio from clips for use in final piece.

Day 3) Morning: MLK I have a dream speech, watch it twice, stopping to explain the metaphor of cashing a check. and the historical context. talk through vocabulary beforehand:

Score: 20 years
Emancipation Proclamation: the law that made enslaved Africans free citizens, marking the end of the civil war.
Decree: an order or law, to make an official announcement
Seared: burned
Captivity: being held a prisoner
Manacles: metal rings that hold a prisoner
Poverty: state of not having enough money
Languishing: to undergo hardship as a result of being deprived of independence
Promissory note: a signed agreement
Inalienable: not able to be taken away
Default: the failure to meet an agreement
Insufficient funds: not enough money
Tranquility: to induce calmness
Desolate: empty, solitary, and joyless
Determination: a fixed purpose
Legitimate: real, well reasoned
Devotees: a dedicated member of a group
Persecution: suffering felt by a group of people
Degenerate: to develop into a situation that is worse than before.

Afternoon: extracting audio from I have a dream speech placing into garageband and adding music.

Thursday: Morning: talk again about citiation, use handout to show how to cite sources. Talk about creative choices in how to mix music and words and images.
dreamixing, work day, kids work on final piece.

Friday:

Final day checklist: dreamixing
check a box when you finish each item:

Citing sources: did you correctly identify:

Your records?

Your images?

Your videos?

Photograph your tag (to start your podcast)

Fix sound levels so voices are audible.

Export to disk: open in quicktime: export from movie to quicktime movie.

Put quicktime movie to agardner’s drop box (so I can put it into final movie)

make movie and show to others.

I just went through my records

2007-03-11T17:47:00.000-07:00

I just went through them and pulled some gems to illustrate what digging through the crates can do for you.

I will definately need to begin day 1 with hip hop history. Jazz and hip hop only american developed art forms, representing a culture.

Begin with video of The Message (I have it on tape): talk about what it's about. watch you tube video about making of it, Grandmaster flash got credit even though he didn't record it. talk about copywrite, etc.

Talk about breakbeats, watch a clip of Grandmaster Flash cutting together 2 copies of the same record, play some of Style Wars video (perhaps buy it on DVD for myself. (the clip with "the message" playing) then begin looking for breakbeats.

more ideas later

prepping IPW

2007-03-11T14:46:00.000-07:00

So a few weeks ago I spent 2 days helping 4th graders remix MLK's I have a dream speech. I liked the project, so now I'm offering an improved and extended version for Integrated Projects Week. I would like there to be visual imagery as well, so we will use garageband to make podcasts.

This morning I sat down and began planning, I began collecting content to share with the students. I found a bunch of audio recordings of Dr. King and some great video footage of Malcolm X, but I'm struggling with how to download and manipulate them. I don't want to encourage copyright infringement, but I do think it's valuable to engage with media
and manipulate it. We're in the age of remixing, but how much can I encourage taking content without permission?

back in school

2006-08-29T21:38:00.000-07:00

I've met with all the grade level teams now, and I'm confused about my new role as educational technologist. I do not have a specific role, though it's becomming more clear that teachers expect me to integrate for projects, not teach skills weekly, no surprise there. However, classroom teachers are pinched for time, they can't teach reading,writing and math, let alone create time for addition stuff from me.

I want to do learning portfolios, but I also want help and not burden. Picking the teachers to work with will be key.

Summercore

2006-06-28T14:49:00.000-07:00

As a teacher transmitting values to students, this symbol (not surprisnigly) means a lot to Steve, so I thought it would be good to post it here! Hey Dad, it's used outside Harvard too! (taken from PAS intranet http://abbey.pas.org/sbergen/PA19.jpg)

So, day 3 of summercore, Steve and Lynne's computer professional development workshop is ova'. Today we talked about using Excel, which was good, because it's a program that I rarely use and don't know much about. I sat behind John Platt, while he showed how he uses it for grade sheets, and sat behind Steve and Aroline as she made a ficticious bribery column in her spreadsheet and wrote a function giving each child an extra point to their cumulative average for every 10 bucks they gave her. . . Ha! Brother Francis and I learned the pros and cons of creating columns compared to using 3 tabs and then he explained to me the difference between an abbey and a monastery (post a comment if you know!)

This experience is proving to me that I need to learn MS office suite much much better. It's the primary software on everyone's machines, and though I use them reasonably well, it's clear that I'm not comfortable enough to get in front of a group of teachers and explain how to do so efficiently. I'm a trail and error kinda guy, but that doesn't cut it in this environment. Now, if we were on Macs, and I was teaching ilife suite, it would be a different story. However, I still wouldn't be in autopilot/improv mode. I'm new to teaching teachers. It's a different beast.

However, now that I've sat through a few days, I have a more clear sense of how I can help Steve and Lynne on the next summercore workshop. Now that I've seen them do it, it's time to think a little about teaching Excel or Word. I'm sure I could develop a great lesson, and with a little effort, I could be a much more active participant.

Sooooo, what else have I learned to date? Well, since this is a PC based workshop, I'm learning a bunch of stuff about windows functionality. Like, for example, on a PC many keyboard letters have different functions when you press the function key (a little different from the keyboard shortcuts that I use on my mac). On the dell and IBM laptops we're using, those functions are written in light blue on the same key. So, when I press function and f8, I can select how I want to display the screen through the projector. Like all good progressive teachers, Lynne and Steve are going from structure to choice, providing the necessary guidance, and then creating time for more "authentic learning" by using the newly acquired skills through projects and constructive excercizes.

It's great to watch them, I love how Steve knows that everything needs to be repeated at least 3 times, so he kinda acts like he doesn't understand sometimes so that a participant needs to explain what is happening. And when Lynne systematically introduces everything about excel, not assuming that any student has had any exposure. She's super clear, and repeats herself so that they get it. Clearly they bug each other some times, but wouldn't you get bothered teaching the same workshop with your spouce for over 20 years? In general, I think the pacing and transitions could be a little better, though Steve began giving "5 minute warning" reminders today. .. I do think folks get frusters when it's just "stop and close yer machines." I'm probably more sensitive to that kinda stuff cause I have taught little ones for the past 8 years!

Overall, I think the group is coming together. There is momentum building, between Steve and Lynne's unending energy and the fact that the students are recognizing their learning and the fact that Dan came in today and reminded everyone that there will be more projectors and that site licenses for new software is easy to get, I think changes may be happening here. That's the point, right?

More later,
Andrew

whats happenin' now.

2006-05-14T11:19:00.000-07:00

it's strange how when you come back home you feel exhilarated, tired,
strange, sad, all kinds of things. After spending the last few months
thinking about sustainability, the environment and limiting my
footprint on the world, I come back to NY and I'm focussed on desiging
a kitchen andchoosing the right kind of counter. We were looking at
all these different brands, corian (made by dupont) Silestone, grantie
etc. I like the silestone, but questions arise. . . where do they get
their quartz, how do they manufacture this stone, plastic polymer?
Then I need to think about getting a new teak table for MV . . .
where does Smith and HAwken get the wood that's going into this table,
if it's from the rainforest, I don't want to buy it. . . but that
means putting my priority over the families need, and that's sometimes
considered selfish.

A few months back, I spoke with Frank, the professor from South
Carolina, about my thoughts on a good teacher. I claimed that I liked
a true eccentric, who may give me a biased, but at least meaningful
perspective on a certain subject. Is it good for a teacher of young
children to do this. I certainly would be criticial of religious
education, or strong rightwing education, but then again, I feel that
my job is political, and it's my duty to get the kids thinking
critically about what's going on around them.

Other than beginning to plan the kitchen, I've spent many hours
working to organize nanny's papers. There are probably close to 100
boxes full of old mail, and my job is to sort through the sweepstakes,
filled out but unsent petitions, political propaganda, and find those
unpaid tax bills, those 3 year old account statements and all the
other important stuff. I'm excited to get through it, get it
organized, and then actually get her an accountant to help her pay
bills and keep her organized. she is too overwealmed by her papers
and it makes her miserable, though at the same time gives her
something to do. It's sad to spend so much time there, she is
paralyzed by her inability to get anything done, and that makes her
sad.

Today is mothers day, I'm meeting up with her, Kerith and Jay and
Jeanne and Oscar for brunch. I'm hopeful that it will be a pleasant.

home again

2006-04-27T06:56:00.000-07:00

Breakfast is better in Mexico. Oaxacan coffee is good, and they serve cut up papaya, pinapple, mango, apple, banana with homemade granola and yogurt . . . usually for about 2 dollars. Of course there are "hotcakes" and all sorts of Huevos, but the fruit usually made me happiest.

Zipolite and Mazunte are too hot in April. Though they are good inexpensive vacation spots, its hard to sleep there now. Probably perfect in February. Solstice, in Zipolite, has a fantastic Yoga teacher named Brigitte. She uses all kinds of props to align you, and give clear Spanish and English directions in her cute Dutch accent. I left feeling an inch taller. If staying in Mazunte, I recommend Alta Mira, privacy and unparalleled views. Also be sure to go to the western beach to see the sunset. Avoid Balamjuyuk, the French couple owners were not very friendly (granted I needed to cancel the 6 day reservation that I reserved). There wasn't much love in the breakfast.

suko and I were able to unwind together and actually talk out our future. She has been very lucky for the past few weeks. She got into Hunter for an MFA and yesterday was offered a job as the Visual Arts Curator or Chashama, a non profit arts organization. She also got 2 weeks of undistracted attention from her boy! Our fall will be busy indeed. Next Question is where we will live and for how long we will live there. Appently, my neighbor wants to expand and buy my place. hmmmmm.

Anyway, more about mexico, average income is about 6 thousand dollars a year, yet basic staples like gasoline and milk cost the same amount as they do in the states. After driving around with Colin and Carla, I realized there simply isn't the same car infrastructure. In fact, to take the highways, there are unafforable tarrifs. I think it cost over 25 dollars to get from Guadalajara to San miguel de Allende. Will that lead to a more sustainable future? Perhaps. Is there enough water there? Don't know.

Deeper in

2006-04-04T18:32:00.000-07:00

I take back some of what I wrote about the houses in Mexico. Though the majority in San Christobal are painted stucco, there are plenty of not so attractive cement brick houses too. After my week of study in the center of San Christobal, I found this out over the weekend, while taking a horse trip to the small ¨indiginous village¨ 5k north of the center. I felt uncomfortably like a conquistador, my pronounced moustache and long hair likening me to a colional spaniard, riding a horse, foreign at one time to the ¨new world,¨ into the pueblo of indiginous. When I got there, things got even more pronounced. I was swarmed by 2 little girls who asked for cookies. When I gave them each one, they did not thank me, instead, asking for more. then in the center of the marketplace, home of many chachkas, another little girl persisted for more than 5 minutes trying to sell me a belt. Eventually I bought one, and I didn{t even try to bargain. $2 means little to me.

Then, on Sunday, I took the 14 hour trip to Palenque, an impressive mayan ruin. Unlike Macchu Picchu, 2 and a half months ago, Palenque was filled with carving and paintings. Most interesting is one carving, in a temple that was actually closed when I was there, that has a carving of, what some postulate, is a mayan god riding a spáce ship. Some even think that the Mayans disappeared because they were abducted by aliens, que horror!

I met up with Colin and Karla in Guadalajara yesterday. Today we rented a car and drove to Lake Chapala, is expat stronghold in the center of the country. We arrived and drank a tequila with a bunch of drunks who were telling us, in Spanglish, that we were in paradise. Slightly amusing, slightly sad.

Tomorrow, we may stay here of just go to Guantajuato. We{ll see how we feel.

Zapatistas

2006-03-27T17:47:00.000-08:00

So Id always heard of the Zapatistas, but I never really knew much about them. Now I{ve seen a movie (produced in 98) so now I still know very little, but I{ll share it anyway.

So anyway, On January 1, 1994, the day NAFTA went into effect, Zapatista guerilla troops seiged 6 cities, the largest of which was San Christobal (the city I[m in now). You see, the beginning of Nafta was also the beginning of a new Mexican law that changed the rules of rural land ownership. Before, campasinos owned the land that they tended, but with the new law, the government began reclaiming it. This was the opportunity for Commander Marcos, (a masked frontman, proabably a political science professor from Mexico City) to encourage the beginnning of the Zapatista (named after Zapata, the original Mexican revolutionist) revolution. MARCOS is a acronym, each letter represeting one of the towns that the Zapatista´s overtook on Jan 1 (I can´t remember all the names, so I haven´t listed them). Ironically, the party in power in 94 was called the institutional revolutionary party. . . how can you have an institutionalized revolutionary party. . . doesn´t make sense to me.
Anyway, the´Zapatistas came into town, between 150-500 were killed, the government set up peace talks and shortly thereafter a temporary cease-fire was declared. They wanted change, not death. Peace talks were on going, and very very slow.

The movie that I saw focussed on a small town of zapatista supporters in the North of Chiapas, where a different paramilitary group called Peace and Justice, came in and kicked out the residents. Peace and Justice claimed that the Zapatistas were armed and they wanted change without arms (of course some of them had arms too). Of course, the displaced folks wanted to go back, but they were scared and wanted some sort of support either from Zapatisas, state police, or federal troops. None of the aforementioned groups helped, thouhg the Zapatistas pulled out of federal peace talks. These poor folks were stuck away from their village, out of their homes, without money, food, or any help. Finally, 4 months later, they went back to their town (with nothing but the film crew as escorts)and ended up camping on the outskirts for a month, and finally one group went back into the town.

The film ended, but then it turned out (in the post script) that a big bunch of Zapatista supporters were killed a few months later. Peace talks were set up again, and when I know more, i´ll update this blog entry!

Now in San Christobal

2006-03-26T14:56:00.000-08:00

So I made the move from Xela Guatemala to San Christobal Mexico. The 7 hour ride was basically uneventful, I sat behind an overweight dutch guy and the only noteworthy thing worth mentioning was the scence on the border between the countries. I wouldn´t exactly call it organized choas, becasue there wasn´t much organization. There was a huge public market where people were selling fruit, batteries, fake puma merchandise and then suddenly the passport control. My passport was quickly stamped without so much a glance at my face, and I walked across the border with a bunch of different tourists and hopped on a mini bus. Immediately I noticed the absence of Gallo beer signs (ubiqitous in Guatemala) and the deluge of Corona, Sol and Superior in their place. Yet as we made it further into Chiapas, past the farmers and the military installations, the slabs of concrete they call home in Guatemala became comlorful smooth stucco walls of the homes in Mexico.

Arriving in the city, I quickly got money from the ATM and checked my email to find the address of the home that I¨m staying at. I schlepped 20 minutes to Beatrice´s place only to find no one home. I sat outside on my bag for about 5 minutes, hopelessly ringing the bell on occasion, before schlepping back to the center of town. After finding a public bathroom (10 cents to pee in a toilet with no seat), a shoe shiner in the middle of the park called me over and I decided give my boots some love. I took lunch of chicken and rice and beans at a simple restaurant near the center and then returned to Beatrice´s. She was there, welcomed me in, and showed me my room (with a magnificent view of the city). I rested for a while and then returned to the city to walk around again. On a small pedestrian walkway near the central church, there was reasonably good live Jazz blaring from a bar and a guy scooping frozen desert from a funky little cart. He took the cone, opened 4 containers in the cart and and began layering tiny little spoon size scoops of red, yellow, blue and white frozen stuff on the surface of the hole in the cone. The final product was a small work of art to be consumed by a happy kid. I didn´t get one, though I wanted to, becasue my belly, sigh, is bothering me.

San Christobal is another world from Xela, things here are pretty: the poeple, the architecture, the ¨cultural¨ scene. Last night I left the house around 9 and actually felt like I could walk around without having to keep both hands in both pockets clutching my wallet and camera. There are street lights, citizens who (unlike Guatamaltecos) haven´t endured years of civil war and less poverty. After eating a light dinner with Beatrice, her 26 year old son and 5 year old neice and then playing barbie with the neice, I returned to the bar where the Jazz was coming from, took a beer and I watched a bunch of teenagers try to rock out. They were bad. I left, walked around past a not so good mariachi band playing on the street to a bunch of gringos, endless habburger vendors (here, perhaps motivated by their names, hamburgers come with a slab of ham on top of the patty) and half internet cafes half pool halls. After my first authentic hot shower in weeks, I slept well.

This mornign I woke up and had two chicken filled tamalitos for breakers, then made off for town again. This time I was trying to find a bicycle tour company whose address is marked incorrectly on the map in my tourbook. I got totally lost in an indiginous neighborhood and tried to talk with a couple of drunk guys on the bank of the dirty river but my Spanish wasn´t up to snuff, sigh. Then I found myself in the middle of the thin rows of the marketplace surrounded by dried fish and bootlet DVDs. I bought an avacado and put it in my bag for later.

Now I´m off to see a documentary about the Zapatista movement, and then I´ll go to bed early so I am well rested for my first day of school at Instituto Jovel tomorrow morning.

I´ll post pictures when I can.

schools

2006-03-22T15:01:00.000-08:00

Today, I woke up early and met a bunch of volunteers to go to the health clinic, salud y paz. We got on the bus, but it turned out that they were going to a cooperative glass manufacturing factory (that i had visited 2 weeks ago) So I ended up not getting to the clinic until 930. that kinda sucked, but when we got to there, 4 of us quickly took off to a nearby school to give children floride treatments.

When we arrived at the school, I looked around a bit. Though the buildings were typical ugly concrete slabs with few windows and little decoration, there was a lot going on in the classrooms. In the fifth grade, they were acting out a play and a bunch of smiling kids were wearing black pastic trash bags and jumping around. One child explained that a marimba band was coming to the school next week, so they were preparing a welcoming play. In the 3rd grade, kids were learning their multiplication facts by cutting out red apples with numbers and pasting them into their handmade tree number books. A girl happily showed me how she knew her 3s tables but matching the correct numbered apple with the correct fact in the book.

This was a far cry from the school that I visited last week where the kids, sitting at gender segregated tables, were mechanically chanting pa pe pi po pu over and over for hours. That place was far more depressing, and I{m going there on Friday to teach an english lesson and then talk with the teachers. MArtha, my teacher at school, has been preparing me to use the conditional tense so that I can make suggestions in a gentle and corteous manner.

Anyway, after touring the school on my own, I settled down in a little room with 5 dutch speaking volunteers and began recieveing children to treat. UGGG those teeth were horrible. I{ll bet that most of the children had never brushed in their lives! Deep deep cavitied and bleeding gums were normal, and I was glad to be wearing purple rubber gloves. I would ask the child to put their head on my lap. then I would dry their teeth with gauze and finally take the little yellow brush from the kit, put it into the bubblegum tasting floride treatment and paint their teeth. At the end each kid got a sticker.

Of course, after advising the kid not to eat for an hour, and not to drink hot liquid for 4 hours, the people at the school were handing out watermelon for snack. There were lots of kids jumping around with yellow stickers and a piece of watermelon rind in their hand. Seemed like a waste, but in fact most of these kids needed a real dentist and adding floride to their decayed baby teeth wouldn{t do all that much anyway. It just shows that you really need a well coordinated effort to volunteer successfully.

píctures later.

cemeteries and schools

2006-03-14T17:31:00.000-08:00

The wall along the back end of the rich section of the Xela public cemetaries read ël amor a la libertad los hizo heros . . the love of liberty made them heros. This is the only revolutionary memorial, located at a former firing squad wall where the ¨martyrs¨from the first 2 revolutions were killed. This wall divides the cemetery into 2 sections, 1 half is filled with tightly packed together small buildings and mausoleums, the other half is filled with shallow graves. The folks who had money built these small mausoleums, so that they could live well in the afterlife. Sometimes, if they dont pay dues, the cemetary people will take the remains out and sell the plot to someone new.

There are all kids of different architecture, reoman, greek, even Egyptian, there were someminteresting stories, one group of german immigrants died when the couldn’t adapt to the environment of Xela,

One woman who supposedly helps couples who are having maritial toubles has a tomb and people scribble on it. In another section, there are a whole bunch of marble angels, but they are all missing heads. Supposedly, shortly after the peace accord in 96, a satanic gang required the head of a marble angel as an initiation right. hmmmm.

fact

2006-03-14T17:06:00.000-08:00

I found out the Bolivia is the Latin American country with the most coup attempts, I think it´s 108, crazy.

lago atitlan

2006-03-12T15:25:00.000-08:00

Lago Atitlan is about 2 1-2 hours away from Xela, but our trip back today took about 4. We arrived in Panachel around 1 and found the 1 direct but to Xela. We got on. We sat, we waited. 30 minutes later, as the black smoke rose from the tailpipe, we took a little tour through the town, only to come back to the same place (facing the other direction) and rest for another 5 minutes. Finally, the green, white and orange striped schoolbus was full, and we took off. As we ascended the first hill from the lake to the mountains, boom, clank, thud, stop. We all sat, looking around, wondering what was happening. Scott, who had chosen to get off his last bus (2 weeks ago) from Atitlan to Xela becasue of smoking tire problems, suggested that we do the same. I flipped the emergency exit handle and hopped out the back of the bus. I looked aorund to see the driver, lying underneath the bus, fiddling with the broken rotor (I think thats the name of the thing that connects the 2 wheel axels. . . ) We knew not to wait, luckily none of us had paid, or put our backpacks on the roof of the bus, so we hopped off, hailed down the next bus, and got on. About 25 people joined us, making the already full bus, even more full. A fellow with a big hat fell asleep on my arm. I met a couple whom had graduated from Oberlin in 91. They happen to be studying at the same school, hmmmmm. small. . . . .

The new bus took us to Sonola, where we got out and transfered to another bus to Los Encuentros. IT was also very crowded, nonetheless, a boy walked on and started handing out honeyroasted nuts, shouting, ¨manis manis manis, uno quetzal¨ I bought a little bag and munched them as we headed off the los encuentros. There were 7 people in my row designed to fit 4 school children.

We got off at los encuentros and transferred to another bus for cuatro caminos, where we would finally meet a bus to Xela. The rest went smoothly, and now I{m back at Xela.

So Lago Atitlan was entertaining. We (7 folks from my school) stayed at a 3 room Hacienda style hotel complete with mud walls, stone sinks, and lake water showers. It was owned by a curly white haired, 60ish, jewish, gloucester raised, ex-pat, woman named Terry. She invited us to her treehouse home to sample some of her cert org homegrown coffee and listen to her strum the guitar and sing songs of guatemalan history and hardship. Later that night we saw her again playing her flute along with a hippy dippy latin band called Mamalapacha. Actually, even though the band was lousy, they were playing at a commune place where the 4 resident families open their ¨grounds¨ every afternoon for children to come engage in creative art projects, dance and circus arts. Sadly a lot of it was disturbed during a recent hurricane (It wasn{t Katrina, I forget what it was named). In fact a lot of the lake area was destroyed, but the expat population seems to be pumping money into the economy adn the recovery is going ok (from my uneducated eyes).

In general, our weekend involved learning the gringofied area known as Lago Atitlan. The departure city (where we left from Friday night), called Panajachel reeks of pot and there are lots of pizza places and cheap hotels. From Pana, it{s possible to catch little boats that take you to the other towns. Each town has it{s own little personality. We stayed 2 nights in San Marcos, the ¨chill¨ place with lots of message, ¨wellness¨ centers and folks like Terry. San Pedro, where we went on Saturday afternoon, has a party, and study, reputataion. I may return there for a week (I could swim and not be too cold for a week, nice). I looked around at a few schools, trying to determine which was best, but quickly realized that I couldn´t tell becasue theyñre all similar, small thatched roof huts with little tables and 2 chairs. Also, all have words like [cooperative or volunteer or development in their titles. They realize that the target audience has left leaning sentiments, but that few actually want to get their hands wet in volunteer opportunities. I may return.

There is Santa Cruz, which is sorta chill, sorta party. Lonely planet reports, and others confirm that there is a cross dressing party every Saturday night. Then there is Jaibalito, which is small and has only one hotel called Casa Del Mundo. We went there to swim, drink liqidos (smoothies) and play scrabble in their spic and span surroundings. Then we hiked back to San Marcos. Next weekend there is a ¨folk fest¨ in Santiago, a pueblo that we didn{t visit.

Thats it for this weekend

some pics

2006-03-09T12:35:00.000-08:00

A boy near a church in San Andres (45 minutes from Xela), (taken from the hip, i find it problematic to take pics of people without asking)

baddass buses (on the way to San Andres)

In San Andres with my new friend San Simon, I gave him 5 quetzales, and he will give me love luck.

life in Xelaju

2006-03-05T16:23:00.000-08:00

Here´s the situation. Since arriving in Guatemala, I have spoken exponentially more Spanish. 5 hours with Juan, my teacher, every meal with Doris, my madre de casa, and even during free time with the other gringos. I feel more confident and i´m getting around the city of Xela more easily becasue I communicate with people. yay for me ,)

So that´s it for studying, there is no need to bore everyone with the intricacies of irregular verbs in the past imperfect tense, so I´ll get onto other things. I went back to the hotspring today, becasue I actually hiked up a volcano yesterday. The Volcano was supposed to be a beautiful expoerience (and we got up at 4:15 AM so ensure that we took in all the beauty) but alas, la nina, or something has caused abnormal numbers of clouds to decend on Xela (as I experienced before) and there was no view from the top of the Volcun. hmmm. But today was really sunny and a much better expeience at the hot springs because I was warm, and I drank beer in the middle of the day. Alas, I acutally spoke some english with the other students. . . that wasn´t great, but it was also nice to take a break and know that people understood instead of just nodding their heads.

SO Xela is a small city of about 100g people, there are some cobblestoned strets, and other concrete ones. It´s funny the majority of the cars here are mid 80s colorras, simialar to the cars that both Mom and Ellen had. My 2 taxi rides were in an 87 corolla sedan, and an 82 corolla station wagon. Also, they recycle old US school busses, but they jazz em up with what looks like chrome (but is, I think, actually aluminium), atypical colors, and sometimes even drawings. Since I´m in the highlands, I see in the street lots of indiginous Qui´che folks who do actually wear traditional clothing, live in the mountians and farm for a living.

My teacher Juan and I talk about all kinds of things. It´s good, I actually have the time to express what I think abuot politics etc, and he is patient (And paid) to listen, egagae and correct me. IT´s great. He is hoping to study in Maine this summer (at an english immersion school). Maybe I´ll get a chance to see him.

Doris, my madre de casa, lives alone in a rather large 5 bedroom house. Her job is to host students and take care of the house, but alas (for her, not me) we´ve been alone the last week, she hasn´t gotten much rent, and I get her all to myself. We talk and she has told me her story. She was born very poor, rurally, her father died and her mom moved her, and the 3 sisters to Xela. living on the streets, her mother was identified and brought in by a Swedish woman who married a Guatamalteco (the word for gualamalan guy) and started working. Doris and her sisters lived in the same house, but her mother was the nanny for the other kids, and the other kids were priority. It was very hard for Doris. The family got divorced, and then the Swedish woman fell in love with antoher woman, her daughetr went to America and was killed in a car accident. oy! Now, Doris has grown up, she has 3 kids, but no husband (didnt tell, didn´t ask). When her kids were little, she moved, without the kids, to Santa Monica for 3 years and worked to make money. She came back, a couple of her kids have been not so nice and dont talk with her, (though the other came for lunch last week). A few years ago Doris tried to buy a house, but defaulted on the loan and the bank re-possessed everything (she told me with a tear in her eye.) She does have a big house now (she rents) but I think she has cable. (no TV in the common spaces) She cooks me all kinds of nice things, and she is very kind to me. IT´s the first stranger I´ve lived with, and it´s going AOK.

I have my own room, with a queen size bed, and 5 blankets (it gets cold at night)and nothing on the walls. THere is a little wooden desk, a lamp with no lampshade, and a small armoir to hold my clothing. I have my own bathroom (right now, because there isn´t another student)! with the crazy shower. IT´s crazy becasue of how the hot water comesout. If you want a hot shower, you need to hit a circuit breaker switch, and then turn on the water. There is this big bulbous shower head that has wires sticking into the wall, and a broken pencil plugging a hole and pointing out. I assume that there is a little hot coil in the shower head and that it heats water as it goes through. So, if you want a lot of pressure, the water isn´t hot. oh well. Usually my showers feel kind of like someone peeing on me, because it´s so hot but so weak.

Anyway that´s it for now.

So, Semana santa is in one month. I was just sitting here in the intenet cafe, and this huge procession of preists followed by a large marching band, carrying a big Jesus float, came walking by. woah, smelly incence!

yes!

2006-03-01T08:40:00.000-08:00

Yesdterday afternoon, Colleen, Betsy and the 2 germans from Nuremberg met outside school at 2:30 with intention to go to Fuentes Georginas, a hot spring [spa[ nestled between 2 volvanos, Zunil and Santo Tomas.

We walked to a corner and hopped on the first bus with the sign for Zunil in the window. It had orange racing stripes, big chrome rims and gold rods horizontally parallel along the techo (roof). We haggled with the conductor guy, who charged us 4 quetzales (rought 50-60 cents) becasue the lonely planet guide said it would only cost us 25 cents. I think it{s pretty stupid tohaggle becaseu its so cheap to begin with and . . . its serously only pennies and they culd use more than us affluent gringos!

Anyway, we paid 4 quetzales and rode along for about 20 minutes stopping periodically to let on and off a series fo quipu clad women, some with baskets and shawls on their heads. I said buenos dias to the lady sitting next to me but nothing else. 2 little girls sharing an ice cream laughed at me when I missed a clump of sunscreen that I was rubbing into my face. They got off in Zone 3.

Finally we got off the bus at a bridge crossing a river into the 6000 person town called Zunil. As we stepped onto the bridge, a patch of sun illumiated a woman hurrying by. She began dumping her bag of trash into the river. Corn husks, old toilet paper, and a big green plastic thing cascaded through the air and plopped into the roaring river beneath. Just then a truck stopped and offered us a ride to go to the hot springs. We quickly accepted their offer after realizing that bargainin would have only saved us about 30 cents each. We hopped in the back of the blue pickup sharing the space with 3 indiginous women and their 8 sacs stuffed with lettuce, onions and brocolli. We entered town, took a right, and entere3d a plaza. Some village folks laughed as the truck rolled into the marketplace with 5 gringos. Perhpas they thought the same joke that I did. . . .ahh, gringos for sale at marketplace. WE stopped and everyone got out (except me) and i helped the driver push the vegetable sacks out of the pickup.

Everyone else hopped onto th epickup and we began heading up through the town, past a pristine white church and onto the narrow road up the side of the mountain. We stopped for a fellow with a gigantic machete and his friend carrying 5 pcv pipes. We drove by gardens: lettuce, cabbage, beans, corn all planted in little squares looking like a patchwork quilt.
20 minutes and 8 kilometers later, rain drops began falling as we approached the top of the mountain. 5 minutes later, after negotiating our return trip in the same truck and then walking past 7 villas,3 people and a small restaurant, pebble sized hail balls began falling from the sky! WE quickly changed, put our things in a broken wooden locker and then jumped into the welcoming, warm thermal pools. For the next hour we swam around, found hot spots with protection from the hail-rain and generally enjoyed the warmest water we´ll have for the next month.
5:00 approaced and we knew we needed yto be back in Zunil by 6 if we wanted to get back to Xela for the night. The rain kept falling and we lept from the pool, got our stuff and attemped to dry ourselves as best we could without towels. Though glad to be wearing various forms of fleece, I knew my jeans were bound to get soaked.
We quickly stopped at the restaurant for m&ms, fake doritos and beer, then we headed for the pickup. Betsy and the German lady sat in the cab with our backpacks, while colleen myself and the german guy began braving the elements in the flatbed. After trying, unsuccessfully, to stay dry under colleens travel towel, I stood up, held on the the top bars surrounding the flatbed and practiced scream therapy for the entire rapid, wet and scary ride down the mountain. When we got to town, we hopped right onto another chicken bus. It left without Colleen, but we shouted ¨Espere, espere (wait, wait)´ and, lcukily for her, they did. She got on and we all began ringing out our clothing. I shivered all the way back to Xela and only began warming up when I stopped for a hot cheese filled corn pancake on the street. Though the bus dropped us off far from school, the necessary (and thankfully dry) walk was fun to experience because we got to see a different part of the city. This was my first ¨¨wuthentic¨Guatemalan experience.

These are the people in the neighborhood.

2006-02-07T11:14:00.000-08:00

Hey pa, where you going with that ax? It´s now evident to me that whe I travel, I prefer settling in one place and staying there for a decent period of time, getting to know the streets, the people, the lifestyle. Traveling from place to place seems to only encouagre meeting more expats and english speakers. During this trip to Chile, for the last 4 weeks, I have been staying with Rocio Westfall, her family and friends. It´s quite a cast of characters, and it´s fun to describe them . . .so here goes.

Rocio is the queen. Her home is perched like a palace at the top of plaza esperanza (faith) in the Recreo neighborhood. Though she coordinates the international programs for University of Valparaiso, she also is currently hosting 8 people in her home. Her daughters, Jamie 23 and Mollie 21, her parents, Fernando and Acension, professors, Veronica and Frank, a student who just got out of the hospital from Salmonella poisening, jonathan, and little old me. She is a strong, beautiful independent woman, recently divorced with interests in yoga, martial arts, and exchanging ideas. She has inspired me to re concieve the concept of home, and an open door. Í´m very comfortable here.

When I fisrt came to visit, 3 weeks ago, before I decided to move in, I met frank sitting at teh round dinner table. Upon Rocio´s intro that I was a teacher from New York City, he immediately told me about his ¨25 year old attracttive neice who is a teacher and lives in Queens, you gotta meet her¨. Later he complimented me for trying to speak spanish with Rocio´s fast talking nephew Phillipe. He´s usually quick with a compliment or an arresting fact about the destruction of the environment or how our diet is quickly killing us (like that cows milk contains 3% puss). I admire the bleeding heart liberal attitude that he carries through his working environment, 70% right wing repulican christian Furman University of South Carolina.

JAne is Frank´s wife but she doesn´t live in the house with us. . . hmmmm. She is motivated to immerse herself in Spanish so she lives with a Spanish only house. When she comes over, though, she is happy to engage in English. A retired teacher, She is here with Frank and spearheading a project to help a shelter for sexually abused children. We had a couple of meetings over the last week, I´ve taken notes and started a blog. You can read about the project at sonrisasdelmar.blogspot.com

Linda is Jane´s friend from Greenville, though she was born and raised in Cambridge , England. A drummer, traveler and veteran teacher as well, she lives down the street from Jane with an enormous German Shepard called Rocky. She has also come to Chile to work on her Spanish. Linda hosts the meetings for the shelter, usually Rocky barks when we arrive.

Veronica is the other teacher from Furman university. She was born in Rural Mississippi in the mid 40s and has lived all around the south for her entire life. Even after hiking la Campana, a 9 hour hike to the top of an 2800 meter peak, the aqua net hair spray continued holding her little blow out perfectly. She is extremely formal, and quite conservative though she has traveled extensively through Americas, Europe and Asia. She is worldy yet simple. We had a 5 hour walk together to an antique fair the first week I was here, and I enjoyed her company immensly. It´s amazing to see her and Frank work together because they´re quite different.

Fernando and Ascension are Rocio´s parents. Every morning at 630, Fernando gets up, puts on a little cuban hat and goes out to rund errands. When he comes home, he enjoys telling stories of avation, flying both commerically for LAN airlines, and for the Chilean airforce. He eats large portions of food, enjoys growing mangos and ginger at his home in La ponte.

Ascension seemed cold toward me at first, but that{s probably becasue I was sorta cold toward her. One day I gave her a hello kiss (normal here) when she came in, and she lighted up saying, sobre tiempe (it{t about time!) Now she has brightened up and seems to like correcting my spanish. Ironically, this makes me less likely to speak around her becuase I don{t like being corrected. However, she used to be a school teacher, and I think she likes that I do that too.

Mollie is the 21 year old soft spoken daughter of Rocio. She was working full time for coordinating Furman U activities as the assistant to Frank and Veronica, until she got the chicken pox. Since then she{s been home, in bed, listening to Los Mutantes (70s psychedelic Brazilian music. . . that I like) and playing Jenga with whoever is around. . . often her boyfriend Phillipe. Finally, she left the house today, but as she was putting on her sweater, the scab came off the chicken pock on her forehead. She no longer looks hindu, with a red dot between the eyes.

Jamie is a little older than Mollie, but is even more soft spoken. She paints and the house is covered with murals. On my bedroom wall, there is a Jester riding a unicycle on a tightrope with a scared cat watching! She also does canvases, tonight we went to a gallery to see some of her stuff, but it was closed. She runs a yoga class out in the front yard a few times a week, though sometimes her boyfriend, Boris, runs it. When I first got here, she generously took me to a converted pornography movie theatre (that becomes an art cinema on the weekend). There was this neat mini movie animation of George Bush leading sheep through the streets of NY.

This family is counter culture. I like it here.

more later.

Ex- Carcel. . . ex jail.

2006-02-01T14:56:00.000-08:00

Nadia and I struggled up the cerro conception. Beyond an old decrepid concrete wall, we heard the sound of drumming and guitars. On the curb at the foot of the hill, painted under a small mural in bright yellow letters were the words ¨ex-carcel¨(ex jail) with a little arrow pointing toward the left of the wall.

Curious, we hurried up and around the curvy wall and through the imposing painted gates; passing a small cafeteria on the left and 2 small tourist offices on the right. We entered the courtyard looking to the left and seeing a 3 story whitewashed wall with rows of small barred windows facing the center courtyard, a jail! The music was louder. Immediately we walked toward the building and crept through the small door on the right. 4 drummers, an acoucstic guitar player and a keybord player were bashing away, swaying back and forth with their eyes closed. I stood, smirking and listening in the dark dank hall, while trying to read and understand the writing on the wall plaque explaining the history of the space. In 1999 when the jail was abandoned, the city government converted it into a community art center. Now the Chilean department of culture is responsible for maintenence and upkeep. It was mindboggling to be in a place that once stood for confinement that now stood for expression and freedom, what an interesting contrast!

Nadia walked over and started bouncing to the rhythm of the drums and taking photographs. Then we wandered around the first floor of the jail house and through the exit on the other side, only to encounter another group of drummers practicing samba music. However, over the sound of their drums we heard the buzzing of table saws, as we continued toward to the back, we saw a complete wood shop with 3 shirtless guys manufacturing tables.

We turned around and walked up the fire escape to the 2nd floor of the jail house, and entered an old cell. . . there were still old magazine cut outs of scantily clad women pasted on the wall near the ceiling, where the 3rd bunk was. Amazing.

We returned to the ground and walked through the first floor past the first band again. It was time to explore the rest of the grounds.

Opposite the jail house is probably what used to be the administrative quarters. Now those spaces are a museum with a permanent exhibit displaying the history of the jail, and a theatre showing independent and experimental productions. . . tonight was Nimia (something about nymphs I think.) A guy was juggling in the lobby.

On the other side of the administrative building is a series of shops. Apparently artesans, working with recycled materials, can rent space for $10 a month. Though the spaces were not busy when we were there (its summer and many people are away), palm tree bark and leaves were poking out the window of one shop and, another was filled with plastic and glass bottles and old aluminum siding that were to be used for recycled crafts. One space had large colorful mandalas on the wall with the words, ¨historio de la cuidad y cultura¨ stenciled above.

The entire wall accross the back of the jail complex was covered in a mural painted by 80 local children from December 2004. Other nooks and crannies around the grounds have interesting graffitied spray paint murals.

Nadia and I sat down with 2 guys at a table in a kitchen (located close to the entrance)There was a native indiginous Quecha woman cooking and her weaving covered the wall, she offered some juice and explained that people who need to can eat for free. She sells her crafts at markets. This kitchen was her work space.

I was just dumbfounded that a jail could be turned into a community center. I can see how a kid would think that it´s cool to be practicing music in a jail, spraypainting murals on an old wall, and coming there at night to see events. This place provides safe space for creative development, without sacrificing ¨coolness¨ that so many teenagers need to feel authentic.

When I mentioned that I went to ex-carcel to Molly (who I live with) she mentioned that it is run by a convict that used to be incarcerated there.

What if Bush had suggested that we convert jails to community centers in his state of the union address? We have a long way to go.

movie to see

2006-01-26T13:26:00.000-08:00

today I saw a film called ¨the end of suburbia¨ about the impending oil crisis that we face in the world. Though arguably alarmist, the premise, that the world will reach peak oil consumption in the next 10 years (at the latest) seems to be accepted by both the industry and the experts. The consequences are dire and useful to think about now. What will it be like when it costs $500 to fill the car with gas?

you can netflix it.

Andrew

collectivos

2006-01-24T14:57:00.000-08:00

In Valparaiso, the city of a hundred hills (its not really called this, but it sure feels like there are that many)there are a number of ways to get around. One can take a ¨micro¨ an exhaust spewing small bus that seats about 20, a car, if you have one, or, my favorite, the collectivo.

A collectivo is a cab/carpool service hybrid. When you walk to the street these little renault or toyota or nissan black sedans cruise around with big signs on top. The signs have a number, something between 1 and 300, and a bunch of names of hills. when you see the name of the hillthat you want, you raise your hand and (if the car isn´t full) the driver pulls over and you hop in and tell him where you want to go. during the day you pay 400 pesos (here 530p=1$) and 600 after midnight and the collectivo will take you home.

Plaza Esperanza (where i´m staying) is conveniently located right on the border between vina and valpo, and no matter which city you´re in, you can catch a collectivo with the ¨Recreo¨ sign on top and it will drop me home. Becasue Recreo is the neighborhood between the to cities, many collectivos go through there on their route, therefore it´s really easy to get home.

Today, after morning class, I was hurrying home to be back by 11 for yoga class. I grabbed a collective on the main street in Vina del Mar. As the guy was driving, he kept flitting with the radio and cursing. Finally he pulled over, got out the car, ripped some cords from his engine, then returned to the car, handed me 250p and told me to get out. Apparently something was wrong with his car. SO I began walking toward home, 15 seconds later, another ¨recreo¨collectivo drove by, so I hailed it down. I got in, only paid $300p (because we were almost home) and he took off. At the base of the hill, though, this guy pulled over, and he too gave me back some money and told us (there were 3 others) all to get out of the car.

Luckily, I was close to home so I could walk the final few minutes, but I was 10 minutes late for yoga. oh well. The hills here are very steep, so it makes sense that a cars transmission would fail regularly.

Last night, Frank and I went into town, and the collectivo home was a speed demon. He whipped us through the barron streets of Valpo putting his pedal to the metal and not letting up when going around corners. WE got home in a jiffy, telling the driver ¨que fuerte!¨ (what strength!) he snickered. Though clearly dangerous, these collectivos seem safer than the micro bus alternative.

more later

new year, new llugar

2006-01-24T14:48:00.000-08:00

January 17th

I´ve finally arrived back in Vina Del Mar Chile where I will spend the
next 4 weeks living at a home with the director of international
exchange at the university of Valparasio and studying with a private
tutor for 2 hours a day. I may add an additional spanish class, but
I¨ll see how I feel in a few days. Dad and I woke at 3:45 this
morning, to make it to the airport in time for our respective 7 AM
depatrures. When I arrived in Chile, I could either pay $120 for a
bus directly to Vina, or take a local bus into Santiago and then
tranfer to another bus to Vina, I chose the latter and paid 10 bucks
for the whole 3 hour trip. A little indirect, but one thing I have
this year is time.

I got to the bus station, and I called the house I´m staying. A
nice fellow named Eduardo picked me up, and we spoke solo spanish, as
he drove me back to the house. There is a little 2 month old puppy
here nnamed Merlin. Rightnow he is sitting on my lap and gnawing on my
arm, (I just put him down), and i like that.

Anyway, a lot has transpired in the llast few days, most notably that
Dad and I were incredibly lucky on our trip to Macchu Picchu.
Potential problems included the airplane, the weather, the train, the
altitude sickness, and excessive worrying. However none of these
problems became realized and everything went smoothly.

To get to Machhu Picchu, one must 1) fly to Cuzco, 2) adjust
successfully to the change in altitude, 3) take a train or bus to Agua
Caliente 4) take a bus to the ruins 5) navigate the often bumpy and
hilly terrain.

We did it all, and in style. Sylvia, our host in Peru, booked us a deeeeelux
trip. Though our plane was 4 hours late, we arrived in Cuzco and were
greeted by Ismael, our coordinator, who explicitly outlined our
itinerary as a personal driver drove us over to the converted
monestary, our accomidations. We had 2 hours to rest (watch the first
half of the steelers beating the colts!) and drink coca tea. Later we met our tour guide, Vincente, who brought us around Cuzco, showing us the incan and colonial highlights. Notably we visited a ruin called saxaywamman, but jokingly is referred to as sexy woman! HA! We looked around for about 4 hours, and then went back to the
hotel, I had an amazing Chicken Consume that made me think of Jeanne,
and dad had some fish. Though the altitude was bothering my stomach
and I was tired, Dad rented Mutiny on the Bounty, a Clark Gable movie
from 1935, and we retiured to the room to watch. As usual, I could
not concentrate on the movie, and I tried to sleep.

The next morning, I went down to breakfast and was overwealmed by the
amount of choices the buffet offered! My belly hurt, so I only took a
yogurt and some granola, but the 4 different tarts, chocolate filled
brioche, cured smoked trout (to name 1 tenth of the choices) were
awfully tempting. Ismael picked us up proptly at 8:20 and sat shotgun
as the driver whisked us over to the train station, 20 minutes away.
When we got out of the car, a woman greeted us with mimosas, which we
both turned down, though I took another coca tea. As we milled around on
the platform with about 6 other gringos, agroup of traditional dancers
came from around the corner and began dancing while little (they must
have been 5 or 6 year old) boys hit drums. It was very cinematic
as the 3 car wooden train pulled up around the bend. We entered car B
and sat in seats 40 and 41, a table for 4 with 3 glasses at each
setting, brightly polished silverware and starched while linens. Deee
fucking luxe. The Hiram Bingham train (named of the explorer who
rediscovered M.P. in 1911) was clearly designed to bring the richie
riches from whitey land to see the ruins.

As the rickety train embarked on the 3.5 hour trip, Marianne, the
guide on the train, encouraged us all to come to the caboose train
where there was music, drinks and general merriment. I went to check
it out, while dad was reading, but I returned quickly becasue the 2 60
year old ladies playing the tamborine and mini conch shell shaker were
embarassing me. However, after i returned, dad went out there and didn´t come back so I returned to join them. Though the train proably held 80 or so
passangers, there were only 3 couples and a single woman. The
youngins were on their honeymoon from ireland. The older couples were
from Danbury and near Colombus circle, so there was plenty in common
to talk about. They liked dad, so he quickly began ¨holding court¨ at
one point even describing Ericcsons, 8 stages of Man!

We retuned to our table to eat the 4 course brunch including some of
that smoked trout, an artichoke purree and an amazing apple crumble
with coriander buscuit.

Another half hour of interesting views of terrain between amazon
jungle and andean highland and we arrived in Agua CAliente. We were
wisked through the little tourist traps selling inca cola shirts and
typical andean tapastries and got onto a bus. . . .

I´ll write more wehn I have time.

I'm an uncle now.

2006-01-06T15:34:00.000-08:00

Oscar was born on December 23rd at 5 after 2 in the afternoon. He weighed 8.2 pounds and measured 20.5 inches. He's been around for almost 2 weeks now, and he's healthy. whew.

I'm leaving on Sunday for the next 4 months. I'm nervous and excited, getting concerned that I haven't planned enough, but eager to improvise. As always, I"m a little concerned that something catastrophic may happen, but I can't live my life trying to avoid risks.

Dad and I will arrive in Chile on Monday morning, be there (and in Valpariso) for about a week, then off to Lima and Cuzco for the 4 days. After he leaves, the rest is up to me.

I won't have my computer in Central and South America so blog entries will be fewer and more far between. Though im; bringing my digicam, it's possible that I won't be able to post any photos. oh well.

best to everyone, happy new year.

my first published piece

2005-12-22T16:31:00.000-08:00

http://www.educationupdate.com/archives/2005/Dec/html/metro-technologyinele.htm

so this link will connect you to my first published piece of writing. I've always wanted to write something about using technology in the classroom, so here it is: in Education Update. If I feel inspired, perhaps I will write something else.

Anyway, back in NY for 3 days. In many ways it's like I never left. Spending lots of time with Suko, seeing Jay and Kerith, and feeling a bit wound up. Madrid feels like a dream. Today, I completed a scrapbook with all the memoribilia that I took home from europe: concert tickets, maps, ID cards. It felt like writing the conclusion of the chapter.

I am still a bit jettlagged, so I haven't run or done all that much. Tomorrow I'll get off my ass and set some achieveable goals for the next 2 weeks.

thats it for now.

to the south, and then to NY

2005-12-21T08:11:00.000-08:00

As the regional train to Grenanda sped through small towns and past kilometers of olive tress, I read my lonely planet guide and figured out that I needed to take the 33 bus to the center of town. When I got off the bus I followed the windy streets toward the hostal and my phone rang with an unidentified number. I plopped down my overstuffed backpack, looked over the sierra nevadas and flipped the phone open. It was a representative from an insurance company! He needed my consent for some insurance transaction that my grandmother is schemeing up. I spoke to him for about 2 minutes, hung up, picked up my bag and then found the hostal. Or did I, I walked in, put down my bag again, and sat down in a chair to check in. “This is the funky hostal” she said, “You’re looking for Oasis, right?” I was, indeed, looking for the Oasis, so she pointed me toward the other side of the town, “I guess they haven’t updated this edition either” she sighed, as she pointed toward my guide book.

I crossed town, stepped in dogshit, but eventually found my way past 10s of Islamic trinket vendors to the Oasis. I checked in with the friendly proprietoy, and after I put my backpack down in the 8 bed bunk room, I went down to the kitchen and made some mint tea and check my email. There were a coupla guys playing mandolin and hand drum. I was anti-social for the first few hours. That night, I went out for Grenada Tapas, which is nice because every time you order a drink, they ask you what you want to eat. In Madrid, sometimes you get some free nuts, but here it’s a bit more generous. I had a ham and cheese crepe, meatballs, croquettes and some jamon. I like food.

Later that night I remembered how funny it is to share a room with 7 others,. You learn little eccentric thoings about people, like the British guy yelling at his mother in his sleep, and the Belguin guy taking 35 minute showers. I slept well, however, and the next day took a long walk through the old city, getting lost in the windy streets of the Islamic quarter and taking a nap at the highpoint of the city that faces Alhambra. Then I woke up and finished reading A Confederacy of Dunces.

(Have you read it? It’s a fantastic comedy but is also filled with many tragic, complicated and annoyingly funny charaters. It’s about a 30 year old overeducated extremely critical oofish feloow who lives with his mother in new orleans . He is convinced that the world is wrong and gets into all sorts of trouble trying to save the world while trying to earn money to pay off a debt that his family owes. He works in a pants factory and as a hot dog vendor. It was written in the 60s by John Kennedy Toole, another tragic figure, who was clearly a brilliant writer. According to the intro written by Walker Percy, Toole killed himself shortly after he wrote this novel and it was rejected by publishers. Interestingl y, Toole’s mother convinced Percy to read the manuscript and it was eventually published in the early 80s and won a prize. I recommend it.)

Anyway, sorry for the tangent, I finished that book, returned to the hostal and met Gunnar, a nice Norwegian fellow who I ended up traveling with to Cordoba 2 days later.

The next day I went to Alhambra a fortress/garden/palace that housed many years of Islamic rulers in souther spain. I went there with Masago, a Finnish/Japanese fellow who spoke Spanish worse than I, (but we spoke it nonetheless) and we walked through the palace and then ate bread, cheese, salami and chocolate on the patio.

That night the hostal hosted a 3 course dinner, and I ate and then drank beer late into the night with a bunch of guys from the hostal. Next morening I woke up with a sore throat and went to Cordoba.

When I got back to Madrid, I went directly to Carolyn’s home and picked up Maria’s guitar (did I mentioan that I wrote 3 songs here in Spain, all in the course of 2 weeks. . . Inspiration struck at one little moment) I hurried over to Maria and Maria’s casa to celelbrate complianos feliz, for little Maria. Maria Jesus cooked amazing leg of lamb with a side dish of couscous and I did my best to try and tell the family (Maria’s mother sister and friend were all there as well) about my trip, but I felt inadequate in my ability to understand and express. They were amazing hosts while in spain. Letting me stay for 3 weeks, and then always providing warm meals and supportive words when I needed them.

Now I’m back in a public transportationless NY. Haven’t had any moments to really reflect on the return from my little 2 2/12 month dream. It’s nice to see family and Suko.

next day in Seville

2005-12-14T07:49:00.000-08:00

This morning, I ate churros and chocolate for breakfast. Churros and chocolate is a typical Spanish treat. You get a cup of hot (riding the line between pudding and liquid) chocolate and this greasy fried dough, or donut sticks. You dip the donut into the chocolate, then tip the donut back a little bit so that the chocolate runs down the interior of the donut, then pop it in your mouth. This morntng, I had a fresh fresh fresh churrro that was thick and circular. It was better than the ones that I ate in Madrid. Sadly, I couldn’t savor the yummyness because I had to make the train by 11:30. It was necessary to see the cathedral and the Arenal before I left.

I hurried to the cathedral and, again, it was closed. However, I spotted a fellow walk in one of the side entrances, so I scurried over there, looked both ways, and felt like batman as I jumped through the thick brown mat covering the door on the side entrance. The cathedral was impressive and blah balh blha, here’s a picture. Interestingly, the priests were praying and singing in this old Gregorian style, and the organ played too. IT was nice because there were very few people were there.

Next, I walked across the plaza to the Arenal, a palace/garden/special place that has many layers of significant history. Clearly much of it was constructed during Islamic rule because you could see it in the architecture. I’m sure there’s mountains of history here, but I didn’t have the time to get deeply into it.

Now I’m on the train to Grenada. On Thursday, I will go to Alhambra,an Islamic fortress from the 9th century. People say it’s amazing. I hope it doesn’t rain.

Closed

2005-12-12T06:11:00.000-08:00

Seville is another ancient multiculturally signifncant city much farther south, but here I seemed to forget that Sunday is a holy day, and that sights would be closed. So even when the Ponely Planet says “free on Sundays” be sure to get out early. After a morning of 1, unsuccessfully searching out wifi hotspots, so I could check email and post the Toledo blog entry, 2, unsuccessfully looking for a gym, so I could shake that body, and 3 successfully stumbling accross an art sale outside the museo de belles artes, I met Jereon at 2:30 at the plaza San Pedro. We walked past the nativity scene market to the cathedral, which is “free on Sundays” but also closes early during the holiday season. Oh well, and guess what, it’s always closed on Mondays!

Alcazar, same thing.
Finally we walked through the tropical parque de Luisa Sofia toward the Plaza de Espana, which is magnificent indeed. The shadows we large and crisp, so I bought some corn nuts, and we took photographs for an hour.

By that time, I was tired, so we walked back to the movie theatre to see what was playing. When you come to spain and want to see a movie in English, look for the letters VOSE (which stands for voice original subtitle espanol). Those letters were not on the poster for la vida secreta de las palabras “the secret life of words.” Not a good movie to see in a foreign language that you don’t speak or understand fluently. It’s all dialogue and takes place almost entirely on a platform in the middle of the ocean. However, it’s always good to practice listening, (and get in a little nap too!).

Now we were hungry, and we wanted to try the Restaurant Enrique . . . . because lonely planet described it as hearty traditional andelucian and advised trying the lamb stuffed with cheese and pine nuts with honey sauce. However when we got there. . . . closed! My day was like an old commercial for ATT with the tag line, “you should have called first”. Little do they know that one of the most difficult things to do in a foreign language is talk on the phone!

We found an irish pub, ordered hamburgers and coca cola (diet in my case), and stared at the projection TV as Barcelona’s star right forward, Ronaldino, singlehandedly beat the entire team Sevillian futbol team.

I was tired, came back to the quaint, and a little dirty, Hostal Zahrina, and went to bed.

Stuck in Toledo, lose a turn

2005-12-12T06:04:00.000-08:00

In the board game Monopoly, the worst card to pick reads, “go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200.” In the MAD board game (Alfred E Newman) the equivalent states, “you’re stuck in a bus station in Toledo Ohio, lose one turn.” Since my early experiences playing that game, Toledo has always seemed to be the butt of some joke. However, if you come to Spain, you learn that Toledo is also the name of a historically significant medieval city! Everyone MUST go!

On Thursday, immaculate conception day (no school), at 11:00, I met Landon and Ingeborg at the Atocha station, with the intention to spend the day in Toledo. We originally thought we would take the bus, because it costs 4 euros less than a train, but we had all been out late the night before, we were already at the train station, and we agreed that a train ride would be easier on our slightly “less than settled” stomachs. There was a 12:20 train. We stood in the long queue to buy train tickets, but alas, when we got to the counter, we noticed the sign flashing “completo” aka sold out. We could have bought tickets for the 1:30, but that just seemed too late, so we decided to go to the bus station. We headed for the subway.

20 minutes later we arrived and faced an even longer queue. However, when we asked at the information booth, the fellow directed us to the short line, and we quickly bought tickets for the 1:00 bus, hopped on and settled in for the ride. About half way through, Inge asked if she could go to the front. . . she wasn’t feeling well. She went. As we pulled into the bus station, Inge leapt from the bus. As Landon and I stepped off, poor Inge was stooped over, losing her lunch in the next bus berth. Welcome to the Toledo bus station!

After 15 minutes and 2 litres of cold water, Inge felt better, but expressed concern about returning to Madrid by bus. We decided to find the train station immediately and buy return tickets to Madrid. So instead of heading into the city centre, we walked around the city wall, over the Rio Tajo, to find the train station. Though it was a beautiful station filled with Islamic arches, again, after waiting in line, the flashing sign for the 3 trains in the early evening read again “completo.” OY, after all that walking and waiting, we would still have to take the bus home!

We walked back over the Rio Tajo and around the city wall again, and back to the bus station. Finally we secured tickets for the 6:30 bus, and we all said a little prayer for Inge.

Now it was 2:30. We hiked up the side of the city (it’s very hilly) and wound our way through the curvy streets to the cathedral, and what do ya know? another long line to buy tickets! However, we soon discovered that you could skip the line and go to a little holding pen where tourists who are too cheap to pay can look for free. I would have paid, but I didn’t want to wait in another line. Then we walked around the pheriphery of the catherdral which is massive and amazing and all sorts of other descriptive adjectives,

and then headed toward the Jewish quarter. Toledo is notable because of it’s importance in the Iberian penisula. First it was a roman city, then an Islamic city, then a Christian city, but there was a time, just before the inquisition, in the15th century when all different religions flourished and lived and studied together harmoniously. Oh joyous diversity!

Anyway, It was about 4:00, and Inge wanted some food so we stopped before we hit the Jewish quarter and we went to lunch. Landon and I split warm pisto (which is ground peppers, onions and tomatoes) and the typical tortilla Espanola. Inge had the congejo, (rabbit that Carolyn meant to order the other night!) they charged extra for bread.

It was 5:00, we had 1 1/2 hours left. We headed past the numerous sword dealers and dulce peddlers, into the narrow crowded streets of the Jewish quarter. We followed the signs to the 2 remaining synagogues, and stopped at the one that the lonely planet claims “should not be missed.” Honestly, I didn’t agree. Sure there was some Hebrew lettering and a few interesting windows, but mostly it’s a museum that tells the story of the sefardic Jews ancient history in Spain. I was talking with my intercambio friend Paco who explained to me that when Spanish people think of jews, they think of them as ancienct biblical people that lived long ago, not a current culture that thrives in other parts of the world. This museum certainly seemed to jibe with his observation. It was all ancient history. Supposedly, the other synangogue is not a museum, I didn’t get too see it though.

So it was approaching 6, and we needed to be back at the bus station before 6:30. On the way to the city gates, we passed San Juan de los Reyes, a franciscian monastery and church that looked massive and interesting from the outside. . . however it was closing, and even though we tried walking in through the exit, they wouldn’t let us in.

We hurried back to the bus station and found our seats just in time. Inge sat in the front, and we all arrived back in Madrid, safely, without sickness, at 7:30. I met Maria Jesus and Maria for dinner at 9:30 on the calle Cava Baja, a curvy little street in la Latina, filled with yummy restaurants. We had couscous, seared tuna over apple sauce and chicken racions with caramelized onions and corn mousse. Very nice. Then we walked toward the Palacio Real and they took me to the orient café for a coffee and dessert.

I was home by midnight, and I started packing.

Carolyn!

2005-12-05T10:00:00.001-08:00

Carolyn is a rock in Madrid, she speaks like a native, (and will quickly and proudly tell you that people mistake her for a Spaniard all the time) lives centrally in Malasana, and knows where to find the best churros and chocolate in town. And oh, how she’s helped me! Carolyn was the person who pushed me to start a reflection journal and reminded me to associate learned words with stories. Carolyn taught me the word for meatballs and women’s underwear (albondigas and bragas) and she has told me all her thoughts about her new boy, and I’ve told her about my thoughts about relationships back home. She lives with a bunch of folks, and she yells at them to clean up. She has her own bathroom in her apartment, but oddly, though it does have a bidet and a shower, it doesn’t have a toilet.

Last night we went to a chinese food restaurant, and she ordered crab (congrejo) instead of rabbit (conejo). . . oh well, we're not all perfect all the time.

speaking and understanding

2005-11-29T11:31:00.000-08:00

On Saturday I spent the night at Kate’s home. She invited me over so that I wouldn’t be alone of November 26th, the date of mom’s death 11 years ago. It was a kind gesture. Kate lives with her husband, Enrique, and her Brazilian friend Lillian. Lillian is teaching Portugeuse to Kate and Enrique, and Kate and Enrique are (kinda) teaching Lillian Spanish, though she already speaks well. So it was a night was a rich lingual exchange.

I’ve found that there are a number of obstacles getting in the way of my participation when I’m in groups of more than one person and the dominant spoken language is Spanish.
1) Unlike in class, when every direction or phrase is repeated, in conversation, people usually say things only once.
2) As I try to process the words, and I get stuck trying to remember the meaning of one word, I do not listen to the rest of the sentence and therefore, lose a lot of meaning. Multitasking is too difficult.
3) By the time I’ve formulated, in my head, what I’m going to say, the conversation has moved on and my thoughts are irrrelevent. I struggle mightily when I speak w/o rehearsing.
4) Depending on the size and attitude of the group, I’m more willing to take a risk. When I am not confident, my tendency is to shut up. I do not want to take risks.
5) Often, in conversation here, there seems to be lots of maneuvering to make your comment, the conversation is quick and the content is rich. I’m not always willing or able to try and butt my way into a conversation just to say something that I don’t feel confident about. That is sometimes the case in NY as well. In conversation, you want to be a quick and witty participant, and it’s not worth participating if you don’t offer something juicy to help move the conversation along.

One curious part is that when someone says something funny, that I don’t understand, and someone else tries to explain it in english, it’s no longer funny without the timing, the humor is lost. I usually chuckle politely and offer a quick acknowledging comment, then the conversation moves on. It’s a continuously humbling experience.

NEXT: last night, Monday, after a culture class about Flamenco, a group of us went for a cerveza. 1 turned to 2 and 2 turned to 3 and by that time we were hungry. I took 3 others to a restaurant in my neighborhood. They called me “Jefe” boss, because I was in charge of where to go and I spoke to the waiter and ordered. However, thorough the whole night, we spoke Spanish. A full 4 hours only reverting to English when the idea was too complicated. I realized that I feel much more comfortable taking risks and understanding other Spanish learners. However it was nights like last one, that give me more confidence for speaking with non language learners. I dreamt in Spanish. Yet in class today I knocked my head with my hands because I had so much trouble going between the passed indefinite and the passed imperfect.

From the perspective of speaking and understanding, I have good days and bad.

thanksgiving

2005-11-25T05:29:00.000-08:00

This year I’m thankful to have met Chris, a CIA graduate, because he cooked thanksgiving. We went to Shana, Elizabeth and Moa’s flat and ate all the traditional things. Except instead of a full bird, We had boneless breasts, which I think I might prefer, though the perfect oval slices seem a little unusual and uniform. Also, there were no cranberries, so he made a current and orange sauce instead. Great, I ate 3 helpings, it’s now the next morning and I’m still full. No special K today! I need to go running.

The table wasn’t big enough for us all to sit together, so we settled in around the living room eating on our laps. We went around the room and talked about what we were thankful for. No-one was particularly creative in their responses and I kept it non-personal (I didn’t want to open my heart to 8 strangers) by saying that I’m thankful for Madrid, because it’s a city that closely mirrors my current mental state. The culture here is very spontaneous, and I am too.

But truly, I’m thankful for soooo much. I realize how blessed I am.

I am thankful:

that I will probably be an Uncle by the end of the year
that The School at Columbia gave me an “ano libre”
that I have enough money to travel and live comfortably for the year
that I am never hungry
that I can wake up at 9:30 every day and study
that I am still able to learn new things at 29 (and for the rest of my life)
that my computer didn’t die when I spilled orange juice on it.
That I have a good friend living in my apt in New York.
That I leave near the Mercado Anton Martin, where I can get clementines for 99 euro cents a Kilo.
That I have met supportive and kind people during my traveling so far
That, 2 nights ago, I smacked the hand of the pickpocket and he didn’t get my wallet.
that Mike Parker invited me to Barcelona for turkey day but understood when I told him that I felt too overwealmed to go.
If I didn’t want to study now, I could continue this list forever. I am blessed.

After dinner I brought out a bottle of Anis and Blueberry apertif. I took a tiny sip and my heart started racing and I got all hot, so I didn’t finish. I wasn’t the only one, I think the sink digested best; everyone poured it down the drain.

It’s getting cold here, supposedly there will be snow on Sunday. As long as I sit between the 2 space heaters, the apartment is warm enough.

listo

2005-11-21T12:33:00.000-08:00

So in class we learned that the word "listo" usually means "ready." However when I went to see Match Point, the new woody allen pic, I noticed that when a character said the word "clever," the translation in the subtitle showed the word "listo." Huh, I think it's neat that the word for ready also means clever. . . because a clever person is really ready all the time. Learngin the 2 meanisngs of listo is my first "aha" moment about the language. It's neat to learn and think about how different cultures express ideas.

On Friday night I saw a play written in 1995 by Howard Zinn called Karl Marx in Soho. It was a one man show imagining what Marx would think if he came back to modern times and reflected on the state of capitalizm and the fall of communism. It was kind of a jumbled bunch of ideas, most notably (but not surprisingly) that he wouldn't be a marxist based on how coommunism play itself out in the soviet union. The most interesting part, I thought, was when he described the Paris commune in 1871 a 3 month period when Paris was controlled by the workers. I never knew it existed, but it was as close to a situation in which cammunism, as Marx concieved of it, actually thrived. On Saturday, I went to Segovia, a small city north of Madrid that boasts an aqueduct and a castle on which they claim Walt Disney based the castle at the Magic Kingdom.

thats all for now.

back in Madrid

2005-11-10T11:36:00.000-08:00

So I've returned to the city that I kinda call home right now. New apartment, new esquela, new friends. I just had a beer with a young french fellow named Joseph whom imports fruit to France for a living. He speaks less English than he speaks Spanish, so we really had to work to speak in Spanish. It's good, we kept if up for 45 minutes. Now I've found a coffee shop with free internet which will do for now because my new apartment has a wifi router and a dead DSL line :(

Anyway, the apartment is OK. Esther, the landlord is eccentric. A dancer and physical therapist who works for Martha Graham company in NY, she has filled her apartment with posters of Wonderwoman, a pink showercurtain (that isn't on the shower) and a dreadful multi hued pink armorio (protable closet). I've made a few adjustments but it's still a little funny to walk into it.

So I'm posting some pictures from Nuremberg. The parking lot is located at 12 Hochstratte, Oma and Harry's old address. The sausage is very typical street food, and sure beat the hell out of the dirty water dogs that you get in NY (and I like dirty water dogs) because they're crispy and come in chewy bread. The rally yards are just that, rally yards, and they're intimidating. Now they are used as a public park space and a venue for occasional concerts. (Oh, I didn't take the picture on the last post, so don't give me any credit for masterful exposure)

Nuremberg

2005-11-04T06:39:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning I left the hotel and went directly to the tram station and bought a ticket to Zaum-Centrum, the stop at the old Nazi rally yards 15 minutes from the center of town. The documentary Museum at the rally grounds is housed in the old outdoor congress hall. The congress hall was originally designed like an outdoor coliseum that could accommodate 50,000. But, it was never fully completed, in 1999 began to house the museum. Interestingly, an enormous glass and metal point sticks out 100 feet from the entrance. It has speared this former physical center of the Nazi Party through the heart.

Most of the rally yards were never completed, but the plans were massive. A stadium for 450,000 people, 2 sport complexes, a Zepplinfield, Even housing! In 1936, Nuremberg (a city of 440,000) hosted over 1 million socialist party (and sympathetic other parties) members at the yearly rally. The film clips from that September show the city overflowing with soldiers and families. Therefore the rally yards had strips of semi permanent tents and housing and enormous kitchens and beer gardens to feed all the members of the party. Even though Germany was handling the global depression differently from America, there were still images of party members standing in lines for soup (a similar look to the American images produced at the same time.)

So after the museum, I walked down the old parade lane (where the Nazi’s marched) and I sat at the Zeppelin field and wrote postcards to family members. There are no guards or groundskeepers keeping the public from going into the seats. And the place has been neglected. Gum and cigarette butts and cracks and grass and graffiti cover the old place. There was a fellow with a tennis racket hitting a ball against the tall, cold, stern, rear wall. It’s as if the current German citizens know that caring for it could be interpreted as sympathy for the ideas it symbolizes.

I went back to the city and walked through the old castle on the way to Hochstrasse 12, Oma’s first address. Now it’s a parking garage. I couldn’t find Tiergarten Street, and when I asked at (not one but two!) Tourist offices, they were not helpful, only guiding me toward tiergarten square (of which there is no #48).

Last night Phillip met me and took me to classic Bavarian dinner. I’ve eaten 14 sausages in the last 24 hours. They have these special white ones that look like Jones (the American brand with the little log cabin on the front) but they taste a lot better. I also had 2 slices from different loaves of meat (one had chunks of carrot) the other had lots of green herb (parsley I think). They also have these tasty fresh baked pretzels that you can buy on the street for .45-euro cents. Oh yeah, and I had hot strudel with lots of whipped cream and vanilla ice cream. It was drizzled with chocolate too.

1 week, 3 conciertos.

2005-10-23T16:15:00.000-07:00

I saw three concerts this week. Tuesday was Morcheeba, a British trip hop band who sound like they’re stuck in 1997. Saturday, The International Battle of the Bands featured 9 Spanish rock outfits fighting it out for regional supremecy. And tonight,Domingo, Poco Veo played like Tuck Andress and sang in Spanish (though I didn’t hear him use the word corazon once!)

In order:

1) Morcheeba were outdated, and sore throat = no fun.

2) However, at 11:45 on a cool rainy Saturday night, on the Calle Jardines 2 blocks south of Gran via, the drummer from Echobolt was putting on his headphones so that he would coordinate with the grinding squelch coming from the PA. When he hit it, the roughly 400 people in El Sol started jumping. Though clearly going for a commercial sound, Echobolt rawked hard, like Nine inch Nails but poppier; thankfully there was no disco house. They all had short hair 2 guys had makeup. Echobolt were first. . . there were 8 more to follow.

During the battle of the bands, I took out notecards and a blue Pilot g-2 to take notes. It’s fun to pretend that you’re a reporter because people think that you’re there for a reason, and for me, I feel more deliberate in my attendance. Also, more importantly, I actually remember all the fleeting thoughts that you usually forget. For example, one band had a backup singer that looked and sang like Screech from Saved by the Bell, but she was a woman. The same band’s lead singer looks like what I think Todd Rundgren should look like, (I’ll do a google search and see if I’m right). I just wouldn’t have remembered that without taking notes, y’know?

Anyway, every band played 2 songs, a nice number because if they’re no good, you only have to sit through them for 10 minutes. However, some of the bands were actually really good; rocking out, not posing. The band with the drummer that looked like Zack Lee sounded like U2, and while repeating the refrain, “we’re together” did this amazing Slayer like double time to 1/2 time switch; assuring that every head bobbed through the crowd.

I was there alone for the first 4 bands, and then Landon showed up. She felt sick, though, and I ended up walking her to a cab before the 9th band finished. I don’t know who won.

3) Tonight Paco Veo, was slapping his guitar like a bass, thumb on the low e and palm on the rest; using the back of his nails to strum percussively. I listened to the lyrics and simply heard words that I knew, but that I could not yet string together into meaning.

Empezar. . . I know I have a flashcard for that. . . .what does it mean again? Oh yeah, “to start”.

But after all that processing (my little 386 brain), I didn’t hear the other words, ahhhhhhh overload. However, the guitar playing inspired to take lessons. When I return from Holland and Germany, I will inquire with my new school and see where they recommend I take lessons.

The cast of characters

2005-10-22T04:32:00.000-07:00

Last night was birthday dinner for a (now 24 year old) italian fellow named Lorenzo, I think of him as the mayor (el alcalde) of International House, because he is friendly, outgoing, and seems genuinely happy to greet people and know everyone. He wears black horn rimmed glasses, usually sports a hooded sweatshirt, and uses many hand gestures to communicate, though he speaks English, Spanish, Italian and French quite well.

Yo intiento en espanol. . .

La noche hier, tienes un fiesta de compleanos para un intaliano que llama Lorenzo. Me le intiento el es alcalde de International Casa, por que ello es simpatico, extravertido y feliz a encrontrar la gente y sabe todos. Se lleve los gafas negras y un jersey con capucha y se use los manos por explica pero el sabes hablar Ingles, Espanol, Italiano y Francies muy bien.

the rest in english.

Sitting next to Lorzenzo is Edwin, a Parisian with a perfect side part in his hair who wears blazers when we go out. He is rather quiet, smoke Marlboros, and is a bit more standoffish than most at the school. However, he dominates on the dancefloor, smoothly twirling women around, and is a surprisingly good beat boxer as we found out on the street last Friday while walking from Chueca to Sol. When I joined him, his resepct for me ascended.

On the other side of Lorenzo is Landon. Also 24, she lives with Lorenzo and Tomas in a student flat rented from the school. Their kitchen doesn't work. They are all moving out. Landon comes from Tennesee, but lived in Hell's Kitchen before she came to Madrid. She is short, blond, smiley, and quite affectionate with Edwin. She organized the dinner for Lorenzo (at an Italian restaurant). Earlier in the week, we went to see Morcheeba together, but I was sick and concentrated more on my illness than on her or the show.

Tomas sits accross the table from Landon. He is from San Francisco, worked in banking for the last 12 years, and is now taking the time to enjoy life. He is tall, wears thin glasses and sports a shaved head. Tomas always has is digital Canon Elph in his hand, and has affection for the MPEG movie function on the camera. He documents most moments of the evening, and then reviews them imediately. Tomas was a metal head when he was younger and so we have good music conversations. However, he sustained hearing damage when he was younger, so he cannot be in loud environments without earplugs. He also has a bad back, so instead of carrying a backpack, he wheels around a smallish luggage cart with his stuff in it. Tomas is also unhappy with our school, International house, so he may change to Don Quijote with me in a couple of weeks.

Andrew is a tall American fellow with bushy curly black hair who is always sleepy. He lives in New York and has taught little kids since he graduated from University. He's nice.

Accross the room at the other table sits some others.

Phillip is a large, blond, imposing but outgoing, German with a serious affection for partying. He loves to go out until dawn, drink gratuitously, and then talk about it. Last weekend, Phillip introduced me to "all you can drink night" at Casa de la Cervesa. We only stayed for 2 hours until the futbol game was over and then went to the club until 6AM. (probably the reason that I got sick!) Also last week, Phillip was held up at knifepoint as he was leaving the subway. He quickly retreated to the station and emerged again, a few minutes later, with a large group of people. Nothing happened. Phillip comes from Nuremberg, and he will be there when I go. I like him, but I do not want to party my time away in Nuremberg. It will be nice to know someone there though.

Next to Phillip is Stephan from Germany. Though blond, he is a much smaller and more softspoken fellow from Munich. He has been sick most of the time he has been in Madrid. Stephan is a patient talker; last Friday we sat in the cafe at school and talked for 1/2 hour about Germany and America in Spanish. It was one of my better Spanish moments.

Next to Stephan is Kate. When ever she introduces herself she says her name in a strong quick and stern voice, "Kate". She is small, with long black hair and horn rimmed glasses. She goes to school at Colgate and is spending her JYA in Madrid. She is standoffish, rarely attempting to start conversation and is always smoking with a scarf around her neck. I do not know her well.

A tall British fellow with wide set eyes, and a smile like the Cheshire cat is named Andrew as well. He is very outgoing, and seems to have his attention on a million things all at once. He turns his head both ways and repeats the word vale, vale, vale, vale, (OK) all the time. He is very supportive of us new Spanish speakers and spent 1/2 an hour with Annabel (another student in my class) helping her develop her own syllabus for learning vocabulary. He lives in London, but is trying to find work in Madrid while he studies. Pleasantly humble, Andrew admitted to me that coming to Spain has made him realize how poor his speaking skills really are.

Gaby comes from Brighton near 7 points. Her Spanish accent is priceless becasue she adds a delicious British sing song to her words. ?Donde es el Bar? I seem to see Gaby in the street all the time, her long tight black leather coat held aound her waist with a belt. Gaby and I have had the smae conversation many times, simply trying to get the specifics of our trips down. It's nice though becaseu we're both aware of it, and think that it's kind of funny. Gaby is trying to get a job teaching english.

Liam comes from Long Island. He taught guitar to kids before traveling in south America for 4 months and now coming to Madrid to study and teach. He is short, has long hair,is soft spoken and a nice twinkle in his eye. He was as excited as I that Steve Vai is coming to Madrid. Alas I will be in Berlin that night of that concert. I told him to take notes.

The first time I spoke with Erika, I tried communicating in Spanish, and when I asked, A que te dedicas?, she looked at me funny as if I was speaking gibberish. An insecure spanish speaker myself, I tried repeating, and then just reverted to English (though I asked correctly, and my accent on that phrase is pretty good). She told me what she did, in Spanish, and when I didn't understand, she walked away. I haven't given her much of a second chance.

These are just the people from dinner. There are others.

and then we get better

2005-10-21T10:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, with my gargantua (throat) the size of a pinhole, I took the day off and stayed in bed reading Life of Pi. I'm almost finished. When I got up for a little lunch, I spilled my orange juice on my computer. It went Kaput and the rest of the day was spent reading and researching authorized apple service centers in Madrid. I found one near school, and I was planning to bring it there this afternoon, but when I woke up this morning, the computer turned on! and I felt better! oh joy, I would go to class on my last day at internaitonal house madrid. sniff.

I went to Don Quijote (the other school) this afternoon and met a nice lady, we spoke in Spanish for about 7 minutes and then it got too confusing when I started haggling about tuition for the week with 2 holidays, so we switched to english. The stinky part is that I have to pay full tuition for a week with 2 holidays and I cannot visit a class on Monday. I didn't understand why I couldn't visit (as we spoke in Spanish) and in English it was just a stupid. "we don't want to make the other students uncomfortable," she said.

Anyway, I am game to try it. Tuesday I;m off to Amsterdam.

there comes a time. . .

2005-10-19T08:44:00.000-07:00

when we get sick. Starting in the back of your throat, with a scratch that you just can't itch, and growing into a raw fleshy abrasion that burns when you drink orange juice. It started on Monday afternoon, and today, Wednesday, sent me home from school early. Maybe I should have stayed home from the Morcheeba concert last night. I went becasue I thought I would be upset with myself for not going, but over all it was pretty lousy music. And today, I lie in bed, advil pumping through my body, but not really reducing the pain.

I tried to go to class, and I made it through for 4 hours. Luckily before the break we were going over the different instances for using muy or mucho, and I already knew that. However, after the break, learning irregular verbs was a bit more difficult.

Tomorrow and Friday are my last 2 days at International house because I'm heading off to Amsterdam and Germany on Tuesday. I may return to the International house when I get back to Madrid in November, but I'm going to look at another school tomorrow afternoon. I'm sick of going to class and not knowing who will teach me, or what I will learn, until the moment that it happens. If Don Quiote, (the name of the other school) says that they produce syllabi or agendas, I'll take my business there.

My favorite part. . .

2005-10-16T20:38:00.000-07:00

of going out to clubs is when you leave. Though I really like dancing, the sandwiches that you can buy in the street are just so irresistible! You see, when you leave clubs here, there are people set up on nearly every corner selling Kit Kats, beer and jamon y queso bocadillas. These 2 euro sandwiches include a very thin layer of pricchuto style ham (here they call it Jamon) covered with a very thin layer of mild soft cheese all nested in half a loaf of chewy french bread. The ham and cheese is so thin that you're basically eating a lot of bread, but there is just enough salty contents to fulfill the sacory craving that a belly full of beer demands. I'm a fast eater, but it still takes 15 minutes to get through one of these chewy delights. . . mmmmmm. . .

Exhaustion

2005-10-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

listening and talking and listening and talking and listening and talking are incredibly draining. All day long, I have to be "on" and must process so much. I haven't felt so frustrated since I played piano!

Last night I went online to find a place ticket from Berlin to Nuremberg and back. I found a reasonably priced, 99 euro roundtrip fare on Luftansa, and I was all set to book it. . . then, as soon as I identified myself as an american citizen, the fare skyrocketed to 568 euros. I tried idetifying myself as a Spanish citizen; 99 euros, a German citizen, 99 euros, a French citizen 99 euros, American citizen 568 euros. I called (skyped actually, you should try it www.skype.com and we can talk for free) the 800 number for Luftansa in America and spoke with "Laura" who was incredibly un-helpful only explaining that she had the same information that I did, and that "it's probably because you're not a European citizen." duhhh, it's still rediculous. She advised me to go to the airport and talk with the people at the Luftansa desk there.

Instead, today, after coincidentally studying travel words in morning class, I went to a travel agent and dealt with the situation (entirely in Spanish!) I left with agent with a ticket for $149, a bit more than I would have liked, but, as they say, I'll remember Nuremberg, not the amount of money that I spent to get there!

La fin de Semana, yo tengo sueno, pero yo voy a ir de copas esta noche!

hasta manana
-Andrew

Language, stereotypes, Guernica and The Enigma of Hitler

2005-10-13T14:51:00.000-07:00

The funny thing about learning a new language is that you start by learning very general descriptive words and then you need create lots of excercises to practice.

So after corto/alto, grande/pequnyo, gordo/Delgado and other opposite words for physical description, today we learned how to say the names of groups of people (gente) from different countries. Alemanios from Aleman, Americanos from Ustados Unidos, Espanolas from Espana etc. After practicing the names, we then proceeded to make a list of words to describe people from different areas of the world. Los Alemanios were muy estricto, preciso etc. Actually we were really generating lists of prejudices and stereotypes of nationalities. Arabs on Camels, Americans and fast food, French and arrogance. Though kind of funny, it illustrated another way of how limited communication skill and the consequential over simplification is problematic.

After class today, I went to the Riena Sofia (the modern art museum here). I saw Guernica. It’s really big. The best part is that before you get to the actual piece, the gallery before hosts all the sketches that Picasso did in preparation for creating the masterpiece. You see the toro and the mujer, and las manos, and everything that is in the final piece, but smaller and in more detail. It’s surprising how detailed the sketches are, compared to the grandiosity of the final piece. Also, there is a room with about 20 photographs that show the creation of the piece over time in which you see the sequence in which Picasso painted.

The museum has an impressive Dali collection and it was interesting to compare the way that Picasso and Dali dealt with the War and Hitler. Whereas, Guernica is critical in obvious and hidden ways, Dali was more curious about “the enigma of Hitler” a much less critical or even meaningful piece, with a small picture of Hitler on a dish.

After the museum, I was sitting with some folks at a bar, and the TV was showing a bull fight where the matador was lifted by the bulls horns and flung back to the ground. They showed it 6 or 7 times in replay (it was nasty) and then cut to an interview with the matador in a hospital bed with his leg wrapped in gauze. I guess the bull does win sometimes (or is it that the matador loses?)

The rain in Spain

2005-10-10T11:44:00.000-07:00

falls mostly on . . . Madrid. . . at least this afternoon.

Toros

2005-10-09T12:50:00.000-07:00

I always thought a bullfight was one matador against one bull. Flapping a big red blanket, the fight would be just that, a fight, and it would take trickery and stamina for man to win.

At 5:30 this afternoon, at the Plaza del toros, I saw the systematic, ritualistic killing of 6 bulls. Plaza del toros is a perfect circle, 27 rows up and around, and 2 small covered tiers of 6 rows each at the top. There are no advertisements, every seat was filled.

As Werner and I walked through the halls toward section alto 25, we passed the man renting small blue and grey seating pads, and the fellow hawking cans of beer from a small red tin cooler. As we entered the seating area, an unamplified band played traditional music from the top of section 16. We settled into our hard stone bench seats and looked at our feet resting on the white tile and jammed between the base of our own seats and the top of the seats in front of us. The man behind to me lit a cigar.

Next, a man walked out into the center of the 2 concentric white chalk circles hoisting a large sign with the number 541 over his head. Clapping began as the 6 sparkly matadors emerged from the tunnel under section 16 and did the procession around the ring.

They each settled behind small wooden safety panels against the side of the ring, as the bull came charging out of the tunnel. For 3 minutes, the men peeked out from the panels and shook their yellow and pink blankets. The bull ran from one to the next trying to butt the toreodors with its horns. Then l long shrill toot from the trumpets and the gates open revealing 2 men on 2 blinded, armored horses.

The 2 horses go to opposite sides of the ring. Both men sit upon their horse, long pointy poles in hand, as the matadors begin creeping from their safety panels. They continue to bate the bull back and forth around the ring until one man on the horse calls out. The bull looks in the direction of the sound. Head down, it charges the blinded horse. Just before the bull strikes the horse, the man on the horse raises the pointy pole and jams it smack into the back of the bull's neck. the bull continues to butt into the horses armour as blood begins flowing down its coat. A matador bates it away, exposing the bloodied neck to the jeering crowd.

The horse man stabs the bull again, and leaves the ring to the sound of trumpets. His idle companion from accross the ring leaves too.

One matador appears with 6 long swords covered in peppermint stick colored wraps. he gives the first pair to another matador who runs to the center of the ring. As the man in the center with the 2 swords calls for the attention of the bull, he raises the swords above his head, points down, ready to stab. He runs toward the bull. The bull runs toward him. As he passes the bull to the side, his arms descend, slamming the 2 swords into the back of the bull's neck. He runs to safety jumping over the wall out of the ring.

This happens 3 times. Blood continues spilling down the bull's coat.

Now the bull has 6 swords sticking from his neck. They are flimsy, and a few fall out. Allbut one matador leave the ring. The solo matador stands in the middle of the ring waving a special red blanket. He leads the bull in a dance: vexing and tiring it out, getting it ready to die.

He gets a special sword, hits it against the side of the ring, and re-engages the bull. He raises his arms, decends the sword into the bulls back and steps away as 2 others begin to distract the bull from side to side. Quickly, its legs buckle, and 600 kilos fall bumping the ground. The final matador snaps the bulls spine with a knife, and the bull lays motionless legs sticking strait up in the air.

The audience rises. 3 mules emerge from the tunnel and are led by 3 men to the bull. They strap the bull to the mules. The mules pull the bull to the tunnel leaving a trail of blood that is quickly raked over by the groundskeepers. The audience sits as the bull disappears.

Each time, the dance is the same, in 2.5 hours, no men are hurt and 6 bulls are killed.

hmmmmm, not a fair fight.

1 week in and. . . fusion

2005-10-08T07:55:00.000-07:00

I've been here for 1 week. Today I'm very tired becasue I've been social the last 2 nights (my studies have suffered a bit, but after this blog entry, I'm gonna study). Last night I went out with Kate, a nice woman from Columbia (university). She took me to a meeting of the columbia club of Spain. at the meeting, Tomas Pederson, a physics professor, gave a talk about sustainable energy and atomic fusion, not fission, fusion.

He described how fusion creates far more energy with less hazardous waste than fission . Though solar energy and alternative fuels are useful for now, and should continue to be used, they are not capable of creating the quantity of energy that the world needs long term. Of course the big challenge in the field of fusion is actually getting molecules to fuse and create additional energy. It all works on paper, but it is hard to create conditions for it to work in reality. Fusion requires that molecues be heated up to 100,000 degrees C, and then they must be forced together! Also, fusion cannot occur in the 3 forms of matter we are most familiar with (liquid, solid or gas) becasue of the necessary heat, so it occurs in plasma.

Anyway (thanks for bearing with my confused explanation), Pederson build a machine that looks like a big twisted donut (for the plasma to be contained in), with 4 large intelinked magnet circles (to create the magnetic fields). The magnetic fields force the plasma molecules together and the donut shape contains the plasma. Though Pederson has not yet succeeded in the creation of energy, there is one example of succesful fusion energy. In 1996, at a program called SET in England, the scientists made fusion happen and created 16 megawatts of power, enough to light a medium city for 1 second. However, sadly it took 55 megawatts of power to create the conditions for the fusion to occor, so therefore, nobody has yet created net every from fusion.

However, there is now an international project, housed in France, called ITEL (not coincedentally the latin work for "the way") in which they are building a fusion energy power plant. Pederson is excited and hopeful that ITEL will be successful, and the current plan had it actually producing energy by sometime like 2037. the concept behind ITEL has been around since the mid-eighties but due to the internationl politics around it's creation, it has taken a long time to actually get off the ground.

In America, the field of atomic fusion is looked upon as science, not energy, so there is little public or federal funding.

It is interesting that the only real waste created from fusion is the actual radiation of the power plant, but tremendous amounts of energy are produced from a very small number of fused molecules, unlike fission which makes energy from dividing and dividing (which produces more waste). I'm sure there are potentailly more hazards, but he did not talk about them, and when someone asked a question about it, he did not elaborate or share any new info about it.

Anyway, it was a pretty interesting lecture. If my explanation showed any serious misunderstanding, please bring it to my attention.

So, after the lecture, we went to eat at some typical Spanish place. I had a yummy plate of this egg dish with chopped up sausage and frenchfries: called huevos bombera (yo creo) and then some sort of smallish Tuna like fish, with a side of oily potatoes. It's nice to eat unprocessed food. in spain most of the base ingredients are fresh. We drank lots of red wine, and even had a little cranberry apertif!

tomorrow, it's off to see the bulls, should be muy triste :(

more later.

solar eclipse

2005-10-04T23:50:00.000-07:00

At 11:20 the moon and sun crossed paths, and I stood on the corner of calle Zurbano. Looking east and listening to excited Spaniards wearing gafas, I put some on myself and the light dimmed. The birds stopped chirping. The moment passed. I walked back to class. I'm sure a better writer could think of some meaningful connections between my year abroad and a solar eclipse, if you can think of one, send it along!

So I'm in class 6 hours a day: 9:30-1:30 with 10 students and then again from 2:30 to 4:30 with only 3 students. I very much like a 40 year old fellow from Belgium named Warner. He live in Antwerp with his wife and 2 children, and he is here for 2 weeks learning Spanish and doing some computer consulting. He is sincere and kind. After class, we go to the cerveseria and drink canas (little 7 ounce beers) and eat small snacks that the bartenders give.

I've already visited the Prado twice, on Sunday I saw the Medieval and early Ren up to El Greco. Very long bodies. Today I saw the Goya and Velasquez stuff that makes the place famous. The Goya paintings from "period negro" are dark and imaginative. I wouldn't bring a kid in to see it though. Scary. I want to go back again sometime by myself and get the audio guide. With a schedule like mine, it will happen soon.

Maria and Maria, my hosts, are taking me good care of me. I eat well, sleep OK (I'm still jet lagged) and use wi-fi a lot!.

In Spain, lunch, "comida" is the big meal of the day. Alas, the school is so far away that I cannot come back to the house and enjoy the meal with them. However, it gives me a chance to eat with other students.

I like staying up late. go sox (losing 8-2 right now).
more later.

finally

2005-10-01T17:03:00.000-07:00

So after a 1 day delay, I finally arrived in Madrid.

1st impressions:
1)They eat big lunches and small dinners. . . both of which are healthy. I've eaten fish, stewed cabbage, gazpacho, potatos and lots of salad and fruit.

2) It's hot: almost 90 degrees.

3) The park (where I went running today) was covered with condoms and tissues. I can only imagine what happened there last night.

As expected, I'm Jetlagged. Was up until 3:30 AM and then took a tylenol PM and slept until Maria woke me at 10:30. I've been to 2 department stores already (becasue Maria is looking to buy a bike), and I've gone to the Tabac where I got a monthly public transportation pass.

I'm still thinking a lot about the sox and everyone back home, but it's nice here and I'm looking forward to my first class on Monday morning.

2005-10-01T08:07:00.000-07:00

Nuremberg

2005-09-21T07:40:00.000-07:00

7 days until departure: Yesterday I went to see Oma in Canton and say goodbye. Knowing that I will go to Nuremberg while in Europe, I wanted to hear her retell the story of leaving, here is my retelling as best as I remember.

The family applied for papers to leave Germany in 1933. They went to Italy for one year and returned to Nuremberg shortly afterwards, They eventually received their papers in November 1938 to take an ocean liner across the Atlantic. There was a “legal” 420% tax rate on every material possession that they wanted to take with them, They crated a lot of things and brought them. They left in early November on the Chrystal Nacht, a night in which the Nazi’s stormed the homes of jews in Nuremberg. Many relatives were killed.

When they arrived, it was veteran’s day, so the ship had to stay at sea. If they had arrived there wouldn’t have been any immigration officers working and they could not be processed. Opa had a cousin living in California, and the original plan was to go on another ship to California (via the Panama Canal), but the authorities said that they could not go, and so they stayed for a few days in Woodside Queens. Opa went to find another cousin (who was living in Scranton) and got a job pumping gas. Oma and Eric were still in New York and had to take a train to Scranton via Hoboken. She went to Grand Central with her little screaming boy and a big fat suitcase. She managed to get down the stairs, and on to the correct train, and as they traveled she kept listening to the train stations, thinking they were hers (stratsbourg) but finally got off the train in Scranton. She stepped onto the platform and looked for Opa, but instead found a little jewish man, who spoke Yiddish, who brought her back to a house. When they arrived, it was about 5 o clock and the help instructed oma to go shopping for food, and prepare opa dinner. She went to the little grocery across the street and picked up milk, eggs and bacon. She did not realize that the house in which she was staying was kept kosher. Eric put his head on the pillow of the bed they slept on, he said it wasn’t soft, unlike the linen he was used to sleeping on, this was muslin cloth.

They bounced around various apartments in Scranton and were joined by various relatives at different points.

Opa’s family were in the stove business in Germany, but he had to pump gas, and sell auto parts before becoming a book seller. Oma’s family were in the hops business.

When I go to Nuremberg, Oma wants me to go to the Rodin museum and the regular museum. If I go to the “new” cemetery, I should look for Rao (Ebs’s first husband who was killed at Aushwitz) and some weilheimers. One woman, Hildgaard Behn still lives there; she was 1/4 jewish and took care of Eric as a baby. Oma said that I should look for her at the Red Cross building. Dad said that she is Senile.

on MV and back

2005-09-18T20:59:00.000-07:00

Just came to Boston to say bye to dad, Ellen, Ben and Oma. Spent the weekend on MV; celebrating Jay's birthdays, watching movies (this terribly sad japanimation about 2 orphans that die of starvation during world war 2) and thinking too much about the Red Sox, who lost today 12-3. Now Suko and I returned to Cambridge and she's going back to NYC tomorrow morning on the Fung wah.
Tomorrow, I'll bring the 4runner to the toyota dealer to get a new clutch, and then I'm gonna call lots of banks and try to find out which ones offer the best interest and the smallest international ATM withdrawl rate. I'll let you know when I find out.

more later.

genesis

2005-09-15T13:00:00.000-07:00

So last night I was drinking Miller high life with Amani, Mike and Michelle at Great Lakes on the corner of 5th ave and 1st street in Park Slope. I mentioned the idea of starting a blog, and Amani was very supportive; he has one; I'll post the name later. Suko and I are heading off to MV to celebrate Jay's birthday this weeked, we're heading out now. More later.