fading margins

You annoy me, kid

2012-02-11T10:57:00.010-05:00

I'm sorry to say that so far teaching middle schoolers has not given me much hope in the goodness of human nature.

When I taught English to immigrant adults I was often encouraged by the tenacity of people who would come to a 2 hour class after a 10 hour work day and before a night of housekeeping in order to learn the skills to give their families a better life.

And even though I'm no idealist, it made me think... just sometimes ....that maybe people are basically good after all.

But teaching their ruthless kids has made me take that all back.

In the past few days alone:

I had one 6th grader, 11 or 12 years old, just start to punch and smack another kid in classout of the blue. The punchee was in tears afterward, too embarrassed to go to go to the nurse or the bathroom or even talk to me. I still don't know what happened.

-I had a whole group of 7th graders laughing hysterically over an art project of the various subway lines hanging on the wall. I really couldn't understand why the fact that the Ruggles station had been left out was so hilaaaarious. It was only when the artist came up to me afterward in tears asking to take the project down that I realized that they were only using the drawing to torture the poor kid.

Oh, I know.

Someone meant to teach urban kids would be more understanding. They're just children, all horribly insecure, wanting approval and attention, bad home lives, rough neighborhoods, multicultural adjustments, yada yada yada....

But dang those mean kids piss me off.

Warning: Cat people click away

2012-02-09T16:38:00.005-05:00

I like cats.

Or, I think I like cats. It's difficult to tell...right now, cause my judgement of them is being strongly colored by my extreme annoyance with the little ball of fur that covers everything in our apartment in long white hairs.

The cat. It has a name, but I don't condescend to use it. "Cat" or just "the cat" does fine. And sometimes "Heeeey, HEY! NO! Stupid thing..."

Don't be seduced by apparent kitty cuteness.

I try to be fair, though, you know. Cat pros and cons:

Cons:

Seeing kitty poo every time I go to the bathroom.

Kitty litter under my feet in the bathroom constantly.

Fighting the urge to tell my apartmentmate to clean up after it constantly.

Finding cat hair in my food.

Keeping the door to our room shut constantly.

Gagging at canned cat food smell.

Losing half our plant, which apparently looks like catnip.

Stumbling out into the living room at 2AM to search under the coach for that dang noisy ball.

Pros:

Bonding with roommate over how much we hate the cat.

I'm Nickel... get it?

2012-02-05T10:33:00.004-05:00

I went to a party with a periodic table of elements theme last night.

My costume was clearly much too advanced.

Although Mendelevium, with a picture of peas on her shirt, definitely had me beat on required explanation time.

Introductions

2012-01-16T17:46:00.005-05:00

Meet... me.

You already have, maybe. But these days I feel like I hardly recognize myself. And it's been a long while since I've written anything, so we might as well start from the beginning anyway.

Ok, not the beginning beginning. The new beginning.

A month and a half ago I was a student in a little town in MA called Wenham. There was a lot of people who grew up 15 minutes from that town who'd never heard of it. I was a student at an even smaller liberal arts Christian college. I was sharing an on-campus apartment with 5 other girls. I had a car that I put a dent in the very last month it was in my keeping. I had substantial financial support from my parents in groceries and books and the general costliness of continual breathing in and out.

No longer.

I don't really miss that me. She was good in her day, but it was time to move on. I've really never been much of rear view mirror kind of girl anyway.

So...on with it.

I now live in a 2 bedroom Alllston, MA, a borough of Boston. I have a new roommate, Sarah, a long time friend at Gordon. And we have a new apartmentmate a la Craigslist named Rob. Two new apartmentmates, actually, including a cat named Coda.

Finding the place was not a Sunday walk in the park, let me tell you. But it's a good location, a comfortable space, and a short walk from the Boston T, public transportation.

And for the final chapter of my little saga: I am now a middle school Spanish teacher at an inner city Charter school in Bay Village, Boston. Which was actually the first job I applied to back in October, a month after which they dropped all contact and I applied for every other job under the sun and cultivated a nice ulcer until they decided to pick it back up again halfway through December.

But more on the job later. Believe me, much more.

Right now, my roommate is out working, I just ate way too many cookies, I'm on the last bit of A Heart for Freedom, and that top bunk is really quite cozy.

Go crazy!

So, toodleloo from Gordon St.

Nice to see you again. It's been too long, really. Don't let it happen again.

Happy Christma-Thanksgiving

2011-11-26T16:29:00.007-05:00

My holiday with family in Belleville:

(Where Pennsylvania lives up to its stereotypes.)

Bugged family.

Devoured too much popcorn.

Visited a country store.

Had my camera stolen several times by this one.

Played a rousing game of White Elephant Christmas exchange.

And, as always, ate way too much food in my Mema's garage.

And a Merry Christma-Thanksgiving to all the Werner family!

And we shall call him Scruffy

2011-11-16T20:23:00.004-05:00

Yesterday Kara and I were dreaming on Skype about the day that we return to South America.

Our dreams are very concrete:

Kara: Lets get a dog when we live in Buenos Aires.

Me : Ok, we'll get a dog! I don't know what types of dogs they have in Argentina...

Kara: Oh! Can we get an ugly dog? I love ugly dogs.

Me: But I love wrinkley dogs! (pathetic face)

Kara: They are ugly.

Me: Fine. An ugly wrinkley dog.

Kara: Good. But you know we'll just end up with a stray or something...

Me: You can't take in street dogs in South America!

Kara: Well, a mutt then. Oh! And we have to find friends to leave it with when we go. Or just leave it with one of our ex-boyfriends.

Me: We'll have many. Or the dog can just be our excuse not to go back: "Nope, sorry, how could we leave? What would the dog do?"

We didn't get to naming it. C'mon now. Choosing a name already would just be ridiculous.

You can't just plan every detail of life like that. :)

Happy Wednesday!

Some PA Dutch dialect that needs preserved

2011-11-15T11:06:00.006-05:00

Recently in my linguistics class we've been discussing dialects, different ones used across the US and our own.

And so ever since I got out of my linguistics class this morning I've been thinking about (And consulting the great oracle Google about) the way I speak, the way my grandparents spoke, and the different words and phrases I associate with the older PA Dutch folks in my church.

Cause that's what my family is, Pennsylvania Dutch through and through, (see the different clothing my relatives are wearing up there? Picture stolen from my Aunt's facebook page. Thanks Rachel!) but a lot of the dialect has been watered down and lost as the Mennonite community loosens up, moves away, and just generally integrates.

I've been bothering my apartment mates all morning with "Do you say it like this? Do you use this word?"

Here's some of the things I've come up with, most of which I never really thought about as coming from the Pennsylvania Dutch heritage before:

Dippy eggs: eggs you make in which the yolk isn't firm and you can dip bread in them. Really, it shocks me that you've never heard this before!

Dersn't: Dare not or better not. You dersn't eat all the scrapple now.... your Dad needs some yet!

Outen: To turn off. Can you outen the lights when you leave?

"Set" : To be idle, or to be for show. "On Tuesdays, Rachel comes just to set." "We use those candles sometimes, but these are just to set."

"All" to say "gone." "The milk's all" instead of "The milk's gone."

"Yet" like still. "The milk's gone but there's yogurt yet." Or, "I have to finish this paper yet, and then we can play."

"Sooner" and "as" in place of "rather" and "than." And not in the dramatic movie start "I'd sooner die!" way, but the ordinary "I'd sooner stay here as go to the store" way.

"What fer" often to say "what type," "What fer car was he driving?" But also as "whatever" and sometimes just thrown in there for good measure... "What fer book are you reading?"

"Once" not as in "one time," and not as in "once upon a time" either. This usage is hard to describe. I think it usually creates a condition before you do something else. If a child's crying: "Oh, now, I'm sure it's not that bad. C'mere once and let's see." Or if you're indecisive about purchasing a car. "Well, let's get to the dealership once before you make any decisions."

And, as in the title, the leaving out of "to be" before verbs, especially after "need." "The bed needs made. The table needs set. The floor needs swept."

Some of these I say, and some I don't. But now that I've thought about it, I may start reviving some of them again.

Think about it once, and I'm sure that what fer dialect you speak needs examined too. And I'd sooner sound a little strange as lose it completely!

Josh Groban and I

2011-11-11T18:31:00.004-05:00

I went to this guy's concert on Wednesday night.

With mostly strangers. When I should have been in class. Until late at night.

Does that make going to a Josh Groban concert sound cool and dangerous? Well, cool does not control me, so there.

In any case, my new acquaintances from MIT and I, and all the other retired couples there, had a lovely time. I'm not so much a fan of the newest CD, but he sang a lot of the old stuff. And Josh's a pretty hilarious guy. A real dork. A funny, gorgeous dork with the voice of a god. We're soul mates.

And it was HI-larious how the second Josh came out onstage the audience lit up with the lights of dozens of little phones taking pics. Look Bob, see that little dot..no, over...to the right, kind of longish...yeah! That's Josh! I thought I would die he was so close.

The guys from MIT were all in an acapella group called the choralleries. They were remarkably like the guys in my high school choir: odd voices, making up songs, inside jokes, drama drama drama.

I do nooot miss that.

Except these boys seemed a little afraid to talk to me. There are girls at MIT, I'm fairly sure? Like, more than the two that I met personally?

Notes on Josh Groban concert etiquette: I don't care if the song is your favorite of all time or how much the spirit moves you, do NOT sing along.

Lessons from vendredi

2011-11-05T15:02:00.007-05:00

1) You've been shopping in Thrift stores too much when you think:

I know that I've been looking for jeans for a couple weeks now, that these are the exact color I wanted, that they fit almost perfectly, and that I wouldn't need to wear a belt with them unlike every other pair I own, but $13? Who do you think donated these, Kim Kardashian?

2) Complaining will get you everywhere:

We're buying tickets to dance at Royale in Boston. The lady at the counter says it's gonna cost us $20.

We protest that we thought that ladies got in free before 11.

Only if you're on the guest list, she says.

But how do you get on the list? I protest. Because my friend sent our names on an email before and it didn't work.

The cashier looks like she's not in the mood for me and tells me to take it up with the people who are controlling the guest list.

She maybe thought I would let it go. Oh no, my friends, I was not raised to ignore a faulty system that charged us each twenty bucks. There were principles at stake.

So I go over and tell the people at the table the same thing. Not the principles thing, the "we've tried that before!" thing.

So how are we supposed to get on the list if the emails won't go through? (Huh, huh, people? That's right, I'm pushing this issue....)

They also look a little we-don't-have-time-for-you-ish. They give me the name of the email again, and then pull a free pass +1 from the secret stash of things-to-shut-up-people-who-are-complaining.

Of course, we still paid $20 each. And if we figure out how to work the freaking guest list email, it'll be free anyway.

But it was a small victory.

Looks kinda like Aladdin's palace, right? Slightly louder maybe.

That thing you always shake your head at other people for doing

2011-10-30T13:44:00.003-05:00

I cannot run any race without mishap, apparently.

Although, this was only my second, so maybe we shouldn't be chiseling that in stone just yet.

I got up early on a Saturday, put on three layers, and drove out to a nearby church where the Freedom 5k was starting at 9.

And then in my rush to register, thinking that I wouldn't want to jog with keys in hand, and certainly wasn't going to take my purse, wallet, or key card, I threw the keys on the passenger seat, pushed the lock, and slammed the door.

You can see the problem here.

Luckily, I had an extra set and an apartment-mate willing to drive me back.

But the camera and phone were in the purse, so no pictures.

But anyway, the rest of the run went fairly well. I don't know my time; something under a half hour. I don't really run for speed. I run for....

And they had free Panera bread. And a free t-shirt. And I won the raffle of a $25 gift card to Quiznos!

So my sheer luck won out over my willful stupidity in the end.

It was a good morning.

October snow

2011-10-28T10:22:00.005-05:00

... is craaaazytown.

Even for New England.

Yesterday was a miserable mess of rain and snow.

Today is a beautiful dream of blueness and sunshine.

The North Shore in the fall is a series of extreme mood swings.

Real estate wonderings

2011-10-26T19:09:00.004-05:00

These apartments apparently exist somewhere in Boston.

I wouldn't know. They look like they would be waaaay out of my budget.

Or rather, our budget. I'm currently on the hunt for an apartment for myself and a friend next semester.

But I'm a real estate amateur. There's a lot I don't understand.

Like, what does it mean when there's no picture of a place that otherwise seems perfect? Ceilings that aren't really 10 foot? Neon orange shag carpeting? Recent fire from the meth lab?

Or just, ya know, some lovely little old lady who simply didn't own a camera because they just have so many doggone buttons nowadays and ach, who can figure out how to work those contraptions?

Discoveries in the meantime

2011-10-24T13:56:00.006-05:00

Two whole weeks. That's what it's been since I've opened this page.

But who's counting? I just needed a blog break.

Here's some things I've discovered while not divulging my non-secrets to you all:

People really come from far and wide to see historic Salem, especially in October, and I've never gone, even though its about twenty minutes from here. It was a great place for an outing with my parents. The weirdo count was really much lower than expected. And anyway, who can't appreciate a good weirdo now and again?

Brazilians apparently love their barbeque. We went to a place and they brought my parents at least seven different servings of meat. I abstained. I prefer my fat in carb form.

Anyone was to buy me a manicure?

I found this Peruvian cincuenta in the pocket of the jacket I bought in Lima. I take it out and hold it every now and again, like a good luck charm. Maybe I'll pretend it's the cincuenta I made the cobrador give me back after he shorted me when I only had a ten sole bill. And then my friends laughed at me.

In some very specific situations, I still inexplicably have the gut reaction to speak Spanish. Like when I can't tell if someone's in line, I without fail want to say, Perdon, estas en la cola? Or when withdrawing money from the bank. Or when buying tickets for something.

American clubs are much like Peruvian discotecas, but seemingly bigger. Ha, I could say that about nearly everything! And with much more averting-of-eye-contact and staying-with-your-group tactics required. And much less moving of your hips, sadly.

And finally, job search is a wearing business friends. So far my future starting on December 15th, the day after finals end, is blank page of unknown possibilities.

Does that sound hopeful? It was meant to sound stressful.

Let the record show

2011-10-09T21:29:00.007-05:00

I'm training to participate in a 5k benefit for Route 1 Ministries at my church, which works against local sex trafficking.

Since I can't do the Nike 10k in Lima again, obviously. Although I can't bear to tell them to take me off the email list.

And by training, I mean I haven't really thought about it or changed my exercise routine at all.

I've had a couple conversations about that, which have gone something like this:

Me: "Yeah I'm doing the 5k! Although, we'll see, I haven't really been running...I do the elliptical in the gym though, and I try to push myself pretty hard there...."

The person I'm talking with at this point always looks at me with a knowing smile. "Oh no, trust me. It's not the same. You want to train on the road. It's a lot harder"

So last night I went out to the track to do this real running I hear so much about.

And I ran 3 miles.

With less strain than usual to my heart, only slightly more strain to my legs, and certainly much more damage to my poor knees.

So now. Let the quality of my elliptical training henceforth not be questioned.

Am I bragging? You better believe it!

Our trees are just beginning to turn! I'm so excited.

These are my grocery shopping shoes

2011-10-08T13:55:00.005-05:00

This afternoon I went grocery shopping in baggy jeans, a t-shirt, and red leather Italian pumps.

For which I have a very good explanation.

I went out in perfectly normal white keds. The main goal was veggies and flour, but I thought first I'd go to the thrift store to see about proper interview clothing. After a half hour of fruitless search on that end, I made my way over to the shoes to see if they had any plain black heels.

I was tempted by the Italian red leather (or, ya know, what looks like leather... do we import fake leather?) and took off my keds to try them on.

But for some odd reason which I can no longer remember, I held onto just one of my white shoes as I walked down to the end of the aisle to admire the heels in the mirrors. They were a little tight, clearly impractical for walking around in. I reluctantly took them off, put them back, and tried on something else, and then something else, etc.

Still holding onto the one shoe.

And then when I finally made my way back to the other show I had left in the aisle, it was gone.

I searched. I thought, maybe I moved it myself? I searched more. I went to fetch the manager. I showed her the shoe without a partner. She searched.

And then we both gave up.

"I guess I'll have to buy another pair to walk home in," I said.

And she said, "Well, I can give you half off on a pair of comparable shoes."

I did search for a "comparable" pair of very practical shoes. I swear.

But I left in the heels.

And while I headed for the veggies and flour, someone out there was walking around with my one white shoe.

Drop the sponge!

2011-10-03T18:21:00.003-05:00

In our apartment, we have a meal schedule going in which each of us ends up cooking for the other five once every other week.

And we only have one established rule with the cooking schedule: He who cooks must not clean.

So we always end up playing this game:

"What are you doing? Stop cleaning!"

"What? No, I'm not cleaning this dish! I'm just, um...transferring it from the table to the counter/putting the food in tupperware/enjoying apartment bonding time."

"Nope. This is a private cleaning party. Out of the kitchen. Out!"

We have our rituals.

Note that we generally have so many baked goods that we have to beg people to eat them.

Fluff and PB all around!

2011-09-29T13:06:00.008-05:00

I just submitted my first resume and cover letter to a school in Boston!

I was practically shaking.

So we toasted to my successful professional career. . .

. . . with a very elegant Fluffahnuttah. Which has become an apartment tradition.

Only the best, you know.

The first of many applications. Unless, of course, they call me tomorrow and say, "You're the candidate of our dreams. Don't you dare apply anywhere else!"

Which would be nice, cause I've had quite a few fails this week that could use some making up for.

We have three sicks and three hold outs in our apartment right now.

Guess which category I belong too.

Does anyone else notice how many spelling and grammar mistakes I make? And then sometimes notice later and usually ignore....

Beans, beans, the stubborn fruit

2011-09-24T15:24:00.004-05:00

With shockingly little insight into my own cooking habits, I brought not one, but three bags of dried beans from home in August and sat them in my closet.
And thought as I put them on my parcel of shelf space, Well, these are going to be taking up a lot of space at the back of this tiny shelf all year.

But in a moment of motivation and productivity (and foolishness) I decided to not only take my first crack at chili, but use the dried beans too. Canned beans? Ha! Canned beans are for amateurs!

And clearly, with my zero hours of chili-making experience, I'm way past that stage.

Monday 3:30. Start soaking the beans, two hours minimum. No huge cooking pots, but how important can that be anyway? I so got this.

5:30. Drain and continue with the recipe. Well, my recipe doesn't use dried beans, but I'm assuming that you can just boil them. Everything can be boiled. How long could it take, 10 minutes? And by then the rest of the chili will be done. Perfect. Perfectly perfect. I'm a genius of mixing tomato sauce and meat and beans, clearly.

6:00. Beans still hard and white. But surely they're on the brink of cooked.

6:20. We eat the chili sans beans. And sans the salad I would have made had I not been busy worrying about the beans.

Maybe they just need more soaking? I'll finish cooking them and make something else with them later.

Thursday Having now soaked the beans for three whole days in a pot on the stove, more out of laziness than for their benefit, and with my apartment mates inquiring politely what I was doing them, I turn the beans on simmer. For three hours.

And after all that undeserved time and attention, the beans have still not managed to make themselves edible.

They're in the trash. I hope the raccoons don't touch them. I don't want these beans to have the satisfaction of nourishing anything.

Someone please introduce me to the evil genius who invented the can and then imprisoned the beans in its dark cold cell.

I haven't tried to find out what failed. Probably something entirely stupid and entirely my fault. Frankly, I don't want to know. I just want to be mad at the beans.

My unintentional rally for a rather dubious freedom

2011-09-22T09:58:00.011-05:00

Last Saturday I was hanging around Boston Commons, (you know, like I always do....) and I noticed some commotion over toward the center of the park. I went to investigate.

Looked like a pretty normal faire at first. Cotton candy, jewelry vendors, crab cakes..(normal for New England that is...)
And then I started to notice a whole heck of a lot of vendors and t-shirts and posters that were sporting a very distinct leaf shape....

Hempfest 2011.

Well, the performers were calling it a "freedom rally." But I discovered it's street title later when the commuter rail director simultaneously congratulated his passengers on enjoying Hempfest and threatened us with police intervention should we mistake it for a "T-rail sponsored event." Apparently some out of town potheads thought they were riding for free....

The crowds mostly fit the stereotypes of people you might expect to gather to advocate the legalization of Marijuana.
The young and the pierced, the old and the unkempt.

But occasionally I spotted those who looked like they had absolutely no idea what was going on.

"I don't know Ma, this wasn't what I pictured when your sister said 'Freedom Trail."

And then I crossed over into the public gardens, where the usual yuppies and young families and tourists were doing their usual reading, running, chatting, picture-taking, general ignoring of each other.

And I smiled at the phenomenon that is Boston.

Planz about me me me

2011-09-15T09:47:00.005-05:00

I'm currently in a resume writing, job applying, completely unsure of my future stage of my life.

It is two parts exciting, one part terrifying.

With just a touch of drudgery and a smidge of "How much easier would it be to live in my parents' basement forever?" (What? Smidge is totally a word! Spell-check, we cannot be friends.)

I'm currently trying to drink mint tea with honey and milk. Bad decision.

For a second I was trying to think of some kind of bad decision metaphor involving my life and tea, to justify my telling you that, but I gave up. Giving up. That could be a metaphor too.

But, ahem... anyway....

I know I told this blog once upon a time, here, that I was searching for grad schools. That has changed. Obviously.

And the reason for that is that I want to go back to South America... soonish.

This might be an excellent time to be very poetic about the golden-hearted intentions behind that statement, how much I was touched by the people over there, how much good can be done/found in developing countries ....

But the prosaic truth of the matter is, I just liked it.

I was touched by many people. And annoyed by others. I maybe did some good. And had some good done to me. But I'm not entirely sure that the balance on all that came out any more than it does in the states....

Mostly, I just liked it.

I like who I was when I was in Lima. I like the revelation/frustration that is intercultural interaction. I like really getting to know a place, specifically a city, that's so different.

Or, ya know, most of the time I liked it. Some of the time. Enough of the time.

And that's pretty much my motivation.

But first, I'm hoping to graduate in December, get a job around the Boston area for a little while, and be around in the spring when the rest of my class graduates. And then hopefully go elsewhere (Santiago? Buenos Aires?) somehow for a year or two, and afterwards maybe come back for grad school.

Well, that's the tentative plan for the moment anyway. This will probably/definitely change before all of that happens in that exact order. But plans are made to be broken.

I leave you with that very deep cliche. And that picture above which I've definitely used before.

"I feel very New Englandy right now"

2011-09-10T19:57:00.004-05:00

And I ventured forth, guns blazing....

2011-09-09T09:38:00.005-05:00

Last night, at around 12:30 AM, some mad students decided that they were gonna to have a midnight volleyball game/shouting contest. From the noise they were making, fifty feet from our window, it seems they thought everyone else was partying on a Thursday night too.

Au contraire, my roommate and I were trying to sleep. As, I imagine, was all the rest of our dorm apartment building. I tried to be happy that they were having fun for a whole ten minutes, and then I sat up and turned on the light.

Jess turns over and looks at me questioningly as I throw the covers back.

"I'm going to shoot them," I say.

Pause.

"Do you have your key card?"

So I march down in my jammies, gun cocked, feet bare, and say, "Excuse me, it's 12:30 and we're trying to sleep. Could you please keep it down?"

I trek back up to the third floor.

"That was the most polite shooting I ever heard," Jess says. "They haven't stopped. But now they keep shushing each other when they make noise."

"Well, you can go down and shoot them again in another 10 minutes if they're not completely dead by then."

"Ok. I'll go down in 10 minutes."

Luckily, it turned out that the first round of politeness did it. They were soon gone.

Had to have been sophomores. Sophomores are old enough to feel like they own the place and young enough to disrupt it in the middle of the night.

Not aaall sophomores, of course. Lighten up. And they did leave at the first complaint, so I really can't complain.

This has a perfectly logical explanation

2011-09-05T13:07:00.003-05:00

Well, the socket halfway up the wall has none that we know of. But the crockpot on the box on the chair in the living room does.

We have a circuit problem. In the first two weeks of school we blew the fuse... five times maybe? That I remember. And once it was twice in three hours.

And, since we definitely don't have the key to the fuse box, we had to call either public safety or physical plant, shamefaced like little puppy dogs who had just peed in the corner again. "Really, I thought that unplugging the lamp would be enough!"

All we had to do was turn on more than one warming appliance or use more than one lamp and then poof! Gone.

At least one time the public safety guy was cute. After that I felt like boiling water, toasting bread, and making bread in the machine under the light of three lamps might become a a habit. Don't worry, I wasn't that stupid before!

But anyway, now we have a general policy of turning on only one or two appliances in the kitchen at a time.

Which is why when my garlic brown sugar chicken needed to sit in the crockpot for six hours, and I thought it likely that we'd probably need to use more than one other appliance in the kitchen, and turn on the lights and leave the refrigerator running at the same time, I had to get creative.

So I trucked the crockpot into the living room.

And dealt with the mysterious floating outlets.

Aren't you proud of me, all thinking ahead and problem solvey?

I've got ground to make up, because probably more than half of the blown fuses were my fault. Heh.

Now if only the chicken comes out well...

Je suis une débutante

2011-09-01T09:45:00.007-05:00

That could be horribly, horribly wrong. Which would prove my point.

I'm taking French!

No reason. For fun. Because I have time and elective credits to fill.

And because if I teach ESL eventually, it's beneficial to know the basics of lots of languages.

And because I was almost embarrassed to realize when talking to European and other exchange students in Lima that speaking two languages is nothing to brag about. Seriously, they were all whipping out like four or five to my two.

So far I feel the constant urge to speak Spanish in my French class. Especially when I need to say something, and I know I should be speaking some type of non-English. But I definitely can't ask "Is that why English shares more formal than non-formal vocabulary with romance languages?" in French.

I've resisted so far. Except for the occasional "y" instead of "et. "

Can you imagine how disastrous/offensive that urge could be when speaking to immigrants who are native speakers in real life? "Not all immigrants speak Spanish, you silly American!"

I'm fighting it.

Awesome event I went to in Lynn last night. May I never be too old for face painting!

On intentions and evil

2011-08-30T20:17:00.004-05:00

The cheerful, gentle-looking man above, according to many who knew him, loved to laugh and joke. Loved his family. Loved his country. Was kind to those around him. His countrymen still go to his grave to pray that he bless them and send them winning lottery tickets.

And he authorized the killing of more than a fourth of the population of Cambodia during the seventies. A fourth. About 2.5 million.

He is Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge (pronounced something like (Ka-mai Rouge)

Sorry to drag you down here with me, but I just watched the documentary "Pol Pot's Shadow" last night, about the Khmer Rouge genocide in the 1970s. So we're going there.

I don't even think I ought to try to use words to describe what happened. I feel like it would take a lot of gall for me to think I could even begin to put adjectives on something so far beyond my own experience. I, who have suffered so little. I, who have never had the least fear that my friends, parents, professors, classmates...myself...would be dragged off to be maimed and killed. I, who fancy myself compassionate and good.

But I can tell you, the most shocking, jarring, thing about this particular documentary was the interviews of those involved in the Khmer Rouge army. One of these was a man name Nuon Chea. He was "Brother Number 2," and apparently even more morally responsible for authorizing the killings than the smiling face at the top of the screen.

Yes, somehow, they could interview him. Living free in a home in the jungle, being taken care of by his wife. And I tell you, he seemed... nice. Mild-mannered. Grandfatherly. Proud. He admires George Washington. He quotes "E pluribus unum." He smiles.

The interviewers of course, in their commentary, pass him off as a two-faced liar. Putting on a show. Pretending in front of cameras.

And that's the most convenient explanation, really, isn't it? I really want that to be the whole story. I really want to believe that Noun Chea changed character completely after the cameras left the house. That he sat chuckling over how he fooled us all.

Because after all, who wants to face the moral dilemma of a sociable tyrant? A murderer who loved to make others laugh. A torturer who can hold his children tenderly. The leader of a genocide who really wants an agrarian utopia.

Better, much better, to pass Pol Pot and Nuon Chea off as diabolic, crazy men, wolves disguising themselves in lambs clothing, than to try to explain how someone who actually believed they were doing good could do such horrific wrong.

God help me the day that I try to explain that. I imagine then I'd have to start looking at the evil within my well-meaning self.

Shelter in Place

2011-08-29T10:44:00.003-05:00

I don't have the proper gut reaction to the weatherman's images of white spirals hurling toward the Atlantic coast. You know, like, natural conditioning. See a dog bear it's teeth, run for your life. See a rattlesnake on the path, run for your life. See a bee flying at you, run for your life. (Just me?)

See a hurricane on the television screen, buy a weeks worth of canned goods, board your windows, and hunker down in the basement.

Except, I usually open the windows and or sit on the porch or forget to even watch the weather. I don't advocate this approach.

I have no faith in the hurricane predictions. Those big white swirls and I have a very rocky relationship. I like big storms. I like the wind and the rain and the anticipation. I even kind of like the threat of destruction. (Other people's destruction, obviously.) But toooo many times I've been promised destruction and got a delightful fall shower.

And this time Irene was meant to blow us out and instead here outside of Boston we got a little rain and a little wind and a very quiet day of forced apartment mate bonding. Also known as "Shelter in Place," which is apparently the proper term for "if the campus police catch you outside you'll be escorted back."

Hope you all are safe and warm as well!

The less coolness that is senior year

2011-08-26T15:07:00.005-05:00

I distinctly remember feeling very cool walking across a college campus freshman year. Kind of strutting across the campus, feeling mature and independent. Although, I wouldn't have described it as "cool" of course. Have you ever heard anyone seriously describe themselves as that? Outside of the family movie genre I mean, where teenagers will continue erroneously spouting lines about how the have to fit in with the "cool kids."

I remember feeling a bit in awe of the upperclassmen. Surely, surely they know things. Maybe someday I would know things. (I know, long, right? I was gonna separate upper and class. But Blogger insists.)

I remember being proud to tell people that I was, in fact, a college student. I thought that that read adult. I think it does sometimes. In a way. In the patronizingly voiced "You're an adult now and you have to start making your own decisions" which they're actually not really sure you're capable of making, kind of way.

I also remember thinking it would be awesome to live in an apartment with a bunch of other girls. And I was right about that.

Homeowners may be scoffing at that. To which I say, "Go mow your lawn!"

This is the destruction the hurricane Irene has wrought here so far. But apparently the end of the world cometh on Sunday.

Back in Massachusetts

2011-08-20T22:06:00.005-05:00

I'm back at school. And it's weird. Weirder than I expected.

Not so weird last night, when I got in at 1:40 AM. But there was no one around except the angel/fellow Bromley resident who could let in a poor girl sans key.

As a side note: Does anyone else get really pedantic about everything late at night? At 10 o'clock, even midnight, I can be a careless slob, but post midnight Dani has to brush her teeth the full recommended 2 minutes, make her bed exactly how she was taught in Girls Club, and empty her car of almost every item she can feasible carry herself.

But the daylight took me on a rollercoaster ride. Walking across campus this morning was surreal. The freshman were wandering around with lost looks, the sports teams were practicing on the quad, the faces were unfamiliar. I almost felt like I feel when I go back to my high school.

Once, I knew people, I did things, I belonged. What's my place here now?

I couldn't help picturing the students at la Catolica, walking el Tontodromo, sitting in the outdoor cafeterias, taunting the deer.... Much like I pictured the university I'm at now the first time I left it to go to la Catolica.

And then later meeting up with a group of students interning in Lynn, a nearby city, and discussing community development. It was a lot of great conversation, a lot of really important topics, a lot of really cool people.

A little overwhelming.

But at least now, it's a familiar overwhelming. I've changed scenery enough by now to know that it takes some adjustment for me. I feel small. I feel alone. I cry a little. I smile. I adjust. I settle in. I move on. I grow.

For me, there's comfort in knowing the cycle.

And oh yeah... you go candlepin bowling.

And laugh.

This week in the news of Dani

2011-08-15T14:45:00.006-05:00

Yo dudes! I know I haven't been writing much. But hey, this blog is supposed to be a fun thing, not a stress thing. So you get what you get, buddy.

A random sampling of the thoughts I've had over the past week:

1) The highways in Virginia and West Virginia makes me nervous. Too much tree-y space. Too many giant hills to climb. Toooo little signs of civilization. I wanna speed up but I'm constantly having to check myself for fear of those undercover traffic cops that just pop out of nowhere. In PA we may drive 15 miles above the speed limit, but at least you can blame it on the cars in front and behind you. "But officer, I was just going the speed of traffic!" (In theory...I've never actually been stopped for speeding, so, maybe don't try that excuse.)

2) Oh how I miss the city!! Lima, yes, but just any city. I want the tall buildings that make you feel like men can do great things. I want the strangers running around who are simultaneously a part of each other and paying no attention to each other. I want the neighbor's noises leaking in through my window. And a hundred other things. I'm practically tearing up right now just thinking about it.

4)Even after a month and a little, I still occasionally lapse back into Lima phrases and habits when I'm in new situations. Especially with new acquaintances or service people. I accidentally mumbled "Como?" last week when I didn't understand the man in the ticket booth. He obviously didn't understand, but mercifully I think he just thought he didn't hear me. But it was still embarrassing.

5) I'm super super excited to go back to my college in good old New England! (Writing and saying college again, instead of university, like it would be in Spanish, still feels very strange. Actually, I'm pretty sure I mostly don't change it, even though my school isn't technically a university.)

Especially apartment living again. Really cannot wait. Especially looking forward to being with my lovely friend and future roommate Jess. (I love you Jess!) You'll probably be hearing more about her.

4) I've searched through and gleaned out some of the best photos from the last year to hang in our apartment. My original idea was like ten 5x7s and ten 6x4s. So naturally I ended up with about twenty 5x7s and eighty 6x4s. But I won't hang them aaalll, silly! I mean, probably not. Maybe not.

Here's a sample of my soon-to-be wall paper. Some have made it into this blog before:

From a birthday party for my friend Nate last semester, which was in a very nice house

Champion, the driver of the boat when we went to swim with the dolphins.

An old woman (or man, can you tell?) buying a magazine in New York last winter.

An inspiring wall in Via El Salvador, Lima. One of the poorest districts.
From when we went to talk with a former mayor.

A wall and floating stools from la Casa de Panchita, where I taught English classes.
Okay, I turned it upside down. I like it that way.

A flower in our front yard from the first real rainstorm we had after I got back from desert Lima. I ran outside to take pictures. I got soaked. The lens got wet. It was miraculous.

I love these photos. I love that they're each a different story. I can't wait to hang them.

Hikers who are not in the Trail Club

2011-08-09T11:04:00.007-05:00

Last weekend my Dad and I went on a three day, two night hiking trip on the Appalachian trail. A real one. The whole no showers, the paste-like power bar dinners, water from the stream kind of trip.

Cause ya know, I'm the whole tree-hugging, technology-shunning, who-needs-civilization kind of girl.And even so, the phrase, "We're not real hikers" came out of my Dad's mouth at one point, because we met hikers who are doing the trail in one go, from Georgia to Maine in a few months. They do take breaks visiting friends and eating in restaurants and what not, but during that time they mostly, as one girl said "walk and eat and sleep."

Many of them get to know each other, asking "Have you met so-and so?" and " How long have you been out?" They have trail names (like Panda Bear and Peter Pan and Red Flag) and trail lingo (Sobo and pack-slacking and purists) and inside trail jokes (hiker smells and the creepy old men). It's like a dirty, smelly exclusive club. With some of the strictest entrance requirements I've ever seen.

How do they afford four or five months in which they make nothing and spend money on expensive hiking gear and occasional restaurants and hotels?

I don't know. The one guy said some people are retired, some just out of school, some on disability. (I know, right? Anyone on disability who can hike for four months...my tax dollars at work.)

But anyway, our three days was a pretty good first trip for me. I saw some great countryside views, I walked in the rain, I made my ankles sore jumping over rocks. I spent time with my Dad and we sang such hiking classics as "The ants go marching," "John Jacob Jingleheimerschmidt," and "I know an old lady who swallowed a fly."

It was a good time.

But tip to myself for next time: bring a sleeping mat.

The wildlife varied from tame and cracker-eating to slightly dangerous.

Prime PA views.

This is what cool people do...

2011-08-04T12:01:00.004-05:00

... when they've reunited after six months of away-ness.
1) Stop first at a Mexican restaurant, which in reality only lists maybe three Mexican items on the menu. And calling even those Mexican at all is probably very generous. But there was a lot of hot guys, so who's focusing on what she's eating anyway?

2) Spend 20 minutes in the parking lot of the Salvation Army after the clerks see smoke pouring out of the ducts. It was half-off day, so we were naturally all much more concerned about our stockpiles of two dollar shirts than about our lives. So we sat as close to the building as possible, ready to rush back in and claim our dressing rooms, as all the king's horses and all the king's men (who were apparently bored in the station, just waiting for the a puff of smoke or a kitty in a tree) stood around and tried to convince us that it was serious business.

Now that's a classic Q-town love story right there.

3) Picnic in the park and attempt to be all intellectual and book-y. But we mostly napped.

4) Attend Shakepeare's classic Two Noble Kinsmen (You haven't heard of it? Shocking! But neither had we.) and whisper the whole time about how the actor playing Palomon looks like a serial killer and how distracting Hippolyta's fake Australian accent is.
5) Watch Gigantic, which is the weirdest movie I've ever seen, and not even worth all the snooty, hipster buttons you might get to put on your girl scout badge because it's an indie film. Who's that homeless guy? Why's he hitting whatsisname with a metal pole? What kind of weird eight year old wants to adopt a Chinese baby? Is whatsisname's face capable of smiling or frowning or expressing any emotion other than boredom? Though looking bored while getting hit with a metal pole is impressive.

Dude, admit it. We're way too cool for you.

Although, I've discovered I have just about zero cool-dar. Obviously. Or I wouldn't be writing the word cooldar.

Eating in Chilis and circling parking lots

2011-07-30T18:52:00.005-05:00

Today I had a severe bout of what I feel like should be called "homesickness" for Peru.
For starters, this afternoon on the porch I was reading a book of a British man's journalistic experiences in the Middle East (why is that capitalized?) and reflecting, as I often have before, on how the heck anyone should approach a culture and a country not their own. Accept bumbling Westerner status? Struggle vainly to become as much of an "insider" as possible? Bungle your way through helping with what you see as the problems? Give up and accept that you have no proper perspective or position to do anything? Are these the only choices available to us? God I hope not!

And then of course, my Mom comes out and hands me the Travel section of the Philadelphia Inquirer, which just happened to be titled "Deep into 'wonderfully weird' Peru."

As I read the article, I found myself getting really defensive about the sort of simple, unexplainable weirdness this guy was projecting. The only cultural detail he really got into detail on was "la hora peruana, Peruvian time," which he claimed was "indecipherable to North Americans." He described an event in a book by another North American in which a man lied to his mother and told her that his own wedding ceremony was at 12, when really it was at 4 and she shows up "red-faced and puffing" at ten till 4.

RI-diculous. Totally false. Obviously the woman found out that it was actually at 4. How could you not? She's not a child. Four hours late would be logistically impossible. And anyway, any Limeno I know would find showing up that late for your own son's wedding shocking. Do the readers of the Inquirer actually buy that hooey? She just coincidentally shows up ten minutes before the real start? Give me a break.

Yes, time definitely works differently in Peru. Yes, it can be bewildering and frustrating at times for foreigners. But, I thought to myself on the porch, I would hardly call it indecipherable. You get to know the circumstances: Business meeting or house party? You get to know the people around you: Relatively on time or chronically without a watch/cell/sundial? You get to know the phrases and the cues and the times of day and the priorities and....

Okay, so umm....it sounds more complicated than it is. Or maybe I got used to it. And I guess I can't reasonably be annoyed that someone who hasn't spent the same amount of time in the country would print things with such nonexistent clarity.

And then I started seeing all the details of the last year playing over in my mind. My Peruvian friends taking me to American restaurant chains that I hadn't been to in years. The expensive churros late at night. The old men who took it upon themselves to educate me about American culture and laws. The classic Peruvian literature that described the city as poop brown. The gringos in the touristy district with boots and hiking backpacks and lost looks on their faces that we laughed at. (Er, I mean with, of course.)

But well, here I am. And there's plenty to learn about this place.

Like for instance, why do Americans circle parking lots forever searching for the closest spot in order to spend less time walking to the building? Is that some territorial instinct? Do the primates swing from tree to tree to tree looking for the tree that will require them to do the least swinging?

PS. Happy Birthday to my brother Darren! Who will most surely not read this. But the universe shall know that I'm so glad we've gone through these first 22 years together, even if half the celebration is rightfully yours.

Meet Veritably Clean

2011-07-28T17:14:00.005-05:00

Mr. Clean Magic Erasers are truly, truly magical. The David Blaine of cleaning products, if you will. Or, am I David in this situation? And the eraser is like...one of those ladies who gets sawed in half. Or an invisible elephant. Or a top hat with bunnies. Whatever. Moving on. It occurs to me, that good old Dave isn't much for the coin from the ear type of magic anyhow...

What did maintenance workers do before Mr. Clean invented his eraser anyway? How did scuff marks come out of the walls? How did permanent marker get off the under sides of desks?

I don't intend to look too far into how exactly the eraser does these things, because anything that is like five times more power than our other already powerful cleaning products has to contain something that could wilt every flower within a 10 yard radius.

Actually, what I was really wondering about was why the creators of Mr. Clean gave him the image they did. Was it aimed at women? Women want a big muscly white man to help them clean? Or, they really want their husband to help them clean, but this will do? Would the image work the same if he were some other ethnicity? Why is he old? Why is he bald? Why does he wink? Why does he roll up his pant legs?

I tried to research this topic, and all I got was that Ernie Allen created him in 1957. And that his name is Veritably.

Which makes him sound a little bit like he should be out picketing for prohibition with Constance and Prudence.

This has been another delightful episode of Philosophy from the Janitor's Closet. Tune in next time for, "How discovering a woman cleaning what's supposed to be the men's bathroom throws a little boy into an identity crisis."

Summer slacking

2011-07-25T20:18:00.003-05:00

I know, I'm sorry, a week. But I'm in summer mode, and not very busy at all. Which naturally means that nothing gets done.

A couple updates:

1) My love of country music has sadly dwindled since I came back from Peru. Maybe cause I haven't listened to it for six months? Or maybe cause it just now strikes me as sooo....irritatingly American.

2) Keeping up with American entertainment must have gotten incredibly exhausting sometime in the last semester. The new TV, radio, movies...I don't even try. Makes me feel out of the loop. Is there a loop? Is it worth getting back in the loop? Can you be cool without being in the loop? Cause I definitely don't wanna be risking that...

3) I'm missing Lima. I miss the going out and the micros and the speaking in Spanish. And I miss living in the city. All these beautiful trees...fresh air...lovely scenery...you can see how there's only so much you can take of that. Pollution and traffic for me baby.

That's me with my twin up there. Do we look alike?

But dude, I did miss the late night cookie dough runs courtesy of the time Mom didn't have to bake those suckers. People in other countries don't know what they're missing out on.

While squirting that bluish liquid you find in public toilets

2011-07-18T16:08:00.007-05:00

I have a new, temporary job cleaning a school this summer. Toilets, windows, wiping, dusting. Minimum wage. Thrills chills and spills. But really, I've heard countless stories of people struggling to find work right now. So only gratitude here. And a little bit of wishing university would start already.

And plus, a lot of the time I get to just listen to my ipod and think, often simultaneously, while working. Thinking is much more fun when it's voluntary, and I'm a huge podcast fan. (Please tell me you know what that is....like a radio show, or a lecture...but downloadable....) You're not really my friend until you've heard me say "Oh, actually I listened to a podcast about that once..." at least 10 times.

This was today:

While cleaning the bathrooms, 2 episodes of Stuff You Missed in History Class : Best Innovators in History (Johann Gutenberg, Ben Franklin, and Leonardo DaVinci, apparently) and Victoria and Albert, the non-Emily Blunt version.

While dusting the elementary school office, A lecture from London School of Economics: "Change in the Middle East? Democracy, Authoritarianism and Regime Change in the Arab World." Really good. But hardly any economics at all (except for all the angry economics students demanding that she hadn't paid enough attention to the economics of the situation in Egypt....)

While washing the windows, an episode of Philosophy Bites: "Thomas Hurka on Pleasure" A fascinating topic, but not a very thorough exploration of it, I didn't think. Could you do that in a twenty minute podcast? But I did continue to think about the relationship between pleasure and goodness and care for others for another good half and hour.

Interspersed with Sara Bareilles, Tony Lucca, and conversation in both Spanish and English.

It's possible that this makes me look like something of a dork.

But needless to say, this is nowhere near the worst summer job I've ever had. (That involved two really spoiled bratty rich kids...)

Umm, I have a cold.

2011-07-14T19:55:00.010-05:00

These are the deepest thoughts I can muster right now:

I think my life and myself are much less complicated than I'd like to think they are.

I think liking to think I'm complicated is probably prideful.

I think people who think they're complicated people are usually pretty annoying.

Brief recap: I recently moved my person and two suitcases containing my material life for the past year from Pueblo Libre, Lima, Peru to Quakertown, Pennsylvanvia, USA. If you know me, you may be wondering how that's going. If you don't, you probably forgot all about it. I understand.

I've hesitated to write this first "How are you?" post after returning. Partially it's because I feel like I owe you all an honest, not just comic, response, and partially because I'm overly sensitive to pressure (okay, it's mostly perceived pressure) about what "reverse culture shock" ought to look like and the things I should be learning about my "experience." Doesn't that sound like I was shipwrecked o n an island or fought in a war or something? How has "your experience" affected you Dani?

There may be a lot to be said about the move and the things I've thought in the past few days. Most of them aren't at all original. Most of them even I have thought many times before. All the way from "You're throwing a bonfire? How amusingly American!" to "Does the American dream deserve all the flack it's been getting recently?"

And I've asked myself the same question that I know everyone's going to be asking for a few months yet, "How do you feel being back in the United States after a year abroad?" I've built it up in my mind. I'm overly analytical. I really want an answer.

But the truth is, I don't really know yet. The best I can do is say vague things like "good and bad" and "fine" and "okay."

Does that satisfy you? Not really? Well, you'll just have to settle for now, because I think I'm going to allow myself some slack to just go with the flow and not force myself into self-centered obsessing over the state of my adjustment. I'll just live and let the revelations come in little trickles or great big waves or not at all, as they wish.

Don't get me wrong. I don't mean that I don't want to talk about Lima. I do. I really want to talk about it. In fact, I think people are probably already getting tired of me saying things like.,"In Lima, the toilet paper gets thrown in the trash, not the toilet!"

And I don't mean that you can't ask. Please do. I may give you a little recap of what I just said, but by all means...

It's just that, at least for now, I'm releasing myself from finding a good answer to the question, "How does it feel to be back?"

Maybe I'll just say, "It's totally unfair that I have to put up with a Lima winter cold and the PA summer heat all at once!"

This was a long post. I hope you skimmed ;)

I think I may have just over analyzed my need to stop over analyzing.

#1.Things are bigger here

2011-07-12T09:11:00.004-05:00

How I knew I was in the states:

2. The "how to" video at customs in Houston was dripping with political correctness. Smile. Okay, I liked it.

3. I drank clean, cold, free water from a water fountain in the airport hallway.

4. I bought my first bagel in the airport food court. For three dollars.

5. The woman calling out standby passengers' names mispronounced mine "Geeman"instead of "Hehman."

How I knew I was in Texas:

1. Half of the airplane television channels on my free preview were religious. (Faithful workout!)
Is this really a Texas thing? I feel like it must be.

How I knew I was home:

1. My lovely, real, mother bought me roses to welcome me home.

2. No one doled out, watched, or even cared about my portion size at dinner last night.

3. We have skim, not evaporated, milk.

4. I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Definitely summer.

No me digas adios!

2011-07-10T12:13:00.005-05:00

I'm leaving Lima, Peru tonight. Laaate. At the very last moment that can technically be called "tonight." And not arriving home until like 9 PM tomorrow. Why did you bring that up? I was trying so hard not to think about my 7 hour layover in Houston.

So. I could go off on a long sappy post about what I've learned in about ten months, how much I'm gonna miss everything in Lima...yada yada yada.

But I won't. Not now.

Instead, I dedicate this post to my dear Kara, who has made this semester so much better than I'm sure it would have been otherwise, and shall henceforth be either an ocean or several states away.

I'll miss our face-to-face conversations, like these:

Kara: I wouldn’t want to be you. (When I had a bunch of essays. )

Me: I don’t want to be me either. I want to be you.

K: You don’t want to be me.

M: Why don’t I want to be you?

K: I dunno. (Pause) You’re right. My life’s pretty f***ing fantastic.

And I'll miss our long philosophical discussions (we weren't arguing, we were discussing!)

Like one we had one time about if there were intrinsically male and female qualities, which was brought up again later:

K: Ugh. Men are stupid.

M: I agree. Can that be an intrinsically male quality?

K: Yes.

M: Oh good. The only one.

But I still mean to have these conversations, which occurred via Skype:

Kara: He's a boy, not a man, that's the problem.

Me: I think "man" is a myth anyway...

Kara: Does that mean all women are pedophiles?

Me: Hahaha

Kara: Or motherly

Me: Disturbing, both of them

Kara: Except for lesbians

Me: The only truly mature relationships

Thanks, Kara dear, for putting up with me so much this semester my dear! I'll see you again when you come to visit next year. . . .

And as for you all, I'll catch you again on the other side!

I really think we're speaking the same language...

2011-07-08T11:21:00.004-05:00

Hermi, coming out of the kitchen: Daaniii, can you do me a faaavor?

Me: Sure, what is it?

Hermi: Fetch me the lustradora by the stairs.

Me, walking over to the stairs: Uhh...I don't know what that is.

Hermi: The lustradora! It's by the stairs!

Me: Yes, but I don't know what it is. Is it down here or at the top?

Hermi: By the stairs. The stairs are the thing you climb!

Me: I know what the stairs are! But I don't see anything. What is it?

Hermi, coming over to me frustrated: You have to go up.

Me: Ooookay.

Turns out it's some kind of big floor buffer thing. Who buffs their floors?

So normally, these kind of interactions frustrate me, (Why doesn't she just describe it to me or at least tell me where it is instead of repeating the same thing over and over?!?) and but this morning I had to chuckle to myself and think "Darn it. This will never happen in the states. I think I'll kinda miss it."

Leave? Who's leaving?

2011-07-06T22:15:00.005-05:00

I feel like every time I leave my house I'm faced with another potential "last."

The last time I drive along my dear green Malecon in Miraflores.

The last time I glimpse the lit up cross in Callao across the bay.

The last time I watch drunk American students make merry at a house party.

The last time I walk through the park with the George Washington statue.

The last time I laugh with the program directors.

The last time I stand on the roof at church and look over to the Interbank lights.

The last time I explain why we don't use "fat" as a neutral description word to my English class.

The last time I have a class in Spanish in Peru with Peruvian students and a Peruvian professor.

The last time I see a good friend who rolls her eyes when I use "venir" instead of "ir."

The last time I'll see the newest seasonal add that Saga Falabella comes out with.

Basta ya con las "lasts!"

It doesn't quite feel quite real yet. It feels like I may wake up Sunday morning and Hermi will say, "Leave? You live here! What are you saying, leave? Drink your juice!"

A post that wasn't worth the wait

2011-07-03T17:13:00.004-05:00

You did this to me.

Wow. Has it really been that long since I've written a post? Time flies when you're tearing your hair out studying.

I'm just brimming with interesting things to say. As always.

And completely lacking time to write them in.

3 finals down, 2 finals and 3 essays to go.

Oooooh, my life.

I always study in style.

I feel the need to list good things

2011-06-29T23:17:00.003-05:00

Exams. You get it.

1) I held a baby yesterday who was absolutely precious and who smiled like an angel every time I kissed her and pretended to eat her hand.

2) There's a blooming tree near my house that just smells divine, like a sunny field budding in spring, in the middle of a stanky grey winter.

3) I persevered through a dark period in my study process in which I felt like anything, anything had to be better then being a student in the middle of exams. And I feel good about the take-home final I wrote.

4) One of "our boys" at Starbucks, Ernesto, saw us wavering over a sandwich purchase and gave it to us for free. "Estoy encargado." (I'm in charge.)

5) This video about anxiety and stress dreams and psychopaths has just made me feel a lot better, more objective, about my own stress.

6) I helped to celebrate Rebecca's birthday yesterday!! Feliz cumple amiguita! Espero que el dia te pasara muy feliz!

Recuerdas esto?
Espero que si. Te la robe de facebook ;).

The whiny voice: Adult version

2011-06-28T17:19:00.007-05:00

I hate the whiny voice. Hate it.

In the states, the "whining" scenario usually goes something like this:

The kid in the back seat sticks out his bottom lip, puts on his doe eyes, and pitches his voice up a few octaves: "Daaaad. Are we there yeeeet? I'm huuuungry and I need to peeee." He oozes pathetic.

"Junior, if you don't stop whining, you're not going to watch any TV when we get to Grandma's house!"

Of course, what Junior doesn't realize, is that if he had asked in a normal, respectful tone, Dad might have answered him nicely. So he'll learn, eventually, that whining doesn't get you what you want. Big boys don't whine. (They cry, but don't whine.)

And so I've rarely heard a kid over the age of twelve use the whiny voice.

Except here. Where whining is a social art:

And I don't just mean the complaining, people. Everyone does that. We use them as synonyms sometimes. I mean the voice, the face, the works. They use it when they want something from you.

"Senoooor. Por favoooor, me puede atender? He estado esperaaando." (Siiiir, pleeese can you wait on me? I've been waaaaaiiting.)

"Senoriita, discuuupla. Me prestes tu baniiiito? " (Miiiiss, excuuuse me. Can I use your bathrooom?)

Daaaaani. Me puedes hacer un favoooor? (Will you do me a faaaavor?)

You think I exaggerate? Ha! I've heard Peruvian adults use the whiny voice a thousand times! Okay that may be an exaggeration. Is this a Latin American thing? A Peruvian thing? A Limeno thing?

If I'm being all Abe Lincoln here, most of the time it still irritates the heck out of me. To my United Statsian ears it feels ingratiating, begging, manipulating, childish.

And the thing is, in an objective way, I know Peruvians really mean for it to be polite. It's a social courtesy, a nicety. It demonstrates that they know they're putting you out. It's the equivalent of "I'm sorry to ask you this, but..."

AND YET, I still feel like saying "Stop whining, or I'll turn this car around!"

There's only so far the brain can take you in intercultural interaction.

Confession: I have, however, used the whiny voice myself a time or two. Followed by deep shame.

Your way hurts me the hand

2011-06-26T22:59:00.005-05:00

The other day we were leaving our last Comunidad Biblica Universitaria meeting at two twenty, running to lunch, as usual, because we have class at three. Although, still being in Peru, I use "running" in the loosest possible sense of the word....as in Sunday stroll in the park.

One of the girls says: Wait, what time do they all have class?

Silvia answers: At three. And she makes a gesture with her hand.

Me: Hey! What gesture did you just make?

Is that how you make the gesture for three? With those three fingers?

Silvia: Like this, yeah. Why? How do you make it.

Me: Like this!
We try each other's signals.

Silvia: This makes my hand hurt right here.

Me: Now my hand hurts right here.

I patriotically defend the logic of the American signal, (Look, see how when you're going from two to three you only have to move one more finger. And with the other way you have to move 2!) but like so many things, when you really get down the the why of it all, it's really mostly I dunno, that's just the way we do it.

So how do you make the three hand signal, my international, multi-cultural readers?

If you understand the title, then you speak at least some Spanish. Yay for you!

The clumsy ballet of my mind

2011-06-24T16:53:00.009-05:00

A million thoughts dancing around on my brain right now. Here's the one that does the best pirouettes: So. Much. Work. Must focus...can't focus....wish I was going out tonight!

Boo to Peruvians who make plans and change plans and leave me with no plans but homework on a Friday night!

This is the perpetrator:

Ha! All innocent looking. Don't believe it.

She may have had a good reason. But regardless, I'm gonna also blame her that I didn't get to go here, to the selva (jungle). Even though I might have been the one who was saving my traveling money all semester for our trip and then just kind of...didn't plan it in time.

Floating city in the Amazon. Doesn't it look awesome?

But I may forgive her when she comes to visit me in the states next winter! And we'll go here, a very different kind of city:

And I'll make sure she absolutely adores NYC and wants to move there and marry an United Statesian and see me regularly, not just on Skype.

Although that doesn't always work, cause even when I'm in the country/on the same campus I don't see this one:

Who I haven't talked to aaalll semester. I love her. And miss her.

Ooo! Another not-worth-my-time Boy Meets World episode on YouTube to procrastinate a little longer?

Yes please.

The dancing metaphor could use some work. But it's not gonna get it.

We're bad at this game

2011-06-22T15:17:00.001-05:00

Kara and I were playing this little game the other day, reminding ourselves of the all good things about going home to the states from Lima:

"I'm looking forward to eating whenever and however much I want."

"I'm looking forward to not checking for deer poop every time I sit down!"

"I'm looking forward to to not checking for dog poop every time I walk anywhere!"

"I'm looking forward to a soft bed and lots of water pressure."

"I'm looking forward to a good rainstorm."

"I'm looking forward to the sun."

"I'm looking forward to not having rice with every meal."

But a lot of our "looking forward toos" started out that way and took a turn:

Kara: I'm looking forward to blending in again in the streets.

Me: Oh, yes! Me too. I'm looking forward to not being stared at by creepy old men for speaking English while we're walking. But oh, I am going to miss speaking in the streets while no one can understand us... like our own secret language.

Kara: Yeeahh... and I'm gonna miss buying snacks and gum in the street.

Me: I'm gonna miss just living in the city and being able to walk places! I'm going back home to the woods....

(Pause.)

Me: Hey, focus! We're talking about things we're looking forward to....

And there are things I'm looking forward too, don't get me wrong. The old college I love in a new year. The old world with new eyes.

One more semester, and then out into the big bad world! Or ya know, possibly back to my parent's house. How's the job market looking?

Hey! I see you. Don't even think about it.

K: Oh! I'm looking forward to free water in restaurants!

Me: Yes! Good one!

Reasons to stay

2011-06-18T22:50:00.009-05:00

Tonight I feel once again like I cannot leave. Not this place. Not these people.

Not the little kids who dance without embarrassment in the middle of a group of cheering adults.

Not the way we turn off all the lights when we sing Happy Birthday, first the slow English version and then the faster one in Spanish.

Not the big, chaotic family gathering in which you never remember everyone's names or relations to each other.

Not the kindly old grandfathers.

Not the camera stealing little boys.

Not the baby-eating friends,

Who surely has better pictures from a better camera than I have. (Although this is kinda cool-looking, right?)

No. Definitely NOT in three little weeks.

They're not doodles

2011-06-16T18:40:00.003-05:00

They're class compositions.

If I can't have a proper cup of coffee in a proper copper coffee pot I'll have a cup of tea.

You can see these a little better if you click on them.

Hugo causes problems

2011-06-14T19:46:00.004-05:00

How long does your juice sit in the fridge? A week or two before it is finished?

On Friday I picked up my free sample of this:

(You can't really tell. It's pretty small. )

And on Sunday I was already getting scolded for not drinking it. Peruvian fridges are a much more delicate balance than American ones.

Oh dear, I'm afraid that's one thing that I won't be sorry about leaving in a month. I love my host family. They've been great to me.

But living on my own or with my real family, definitely preferable.

(Translation: I'm selling a scooter model 83. Oh! And try peach Hugo!)

Spanish out the ears

2011-06-11T13:29:00.004-05:00

So, there's been no official studies on this phenomenon, but I'm fairly sure that there's little filing cabinet system in your brain with all the information you've collected over the years. And if you start to overfill the drawers, especially the one labeled "Languages," the little file clerk in your head says, "Oh dear. I suppose we must just start throwing things out then!"

I formed this most excellent theory based on my own very solid and extensive evidence: the English has started to tumble out of my ears.

Examples:

I've caught myself framing English sentences as they would be in Spanish: "How do you call that movie?" instead of "What is that movie called?"

I use some phrases in English more now because they're direct translations of phrases I use in Spanish. Like "more or less" as a translation of "mas o menos" instead of using "about" like I used to say. "I think it will cost 10 dollars more or less."

I occasionally forget words in English. "And then they have to pay a...umm...a multa. You know, like, they charge you for doing something bad." "Fine?" "Yes, that!"

I sometimes stick Spanish filler words or conjunctions in English conversation. "Bueno, I need to do homework now." Or "Oh, yes, but the professor was late tambien."

Of course, I still have the same problems in Spanish.

I've noticed that we as study abroad students often like to "complain" about these slip-ups amongst ourselves or to other people. But of course the secret, which is not much of a secret at all, is that we're really quite proud of them. Hopefully they mean we've internalized the language to a certain extent.

If the little file clerk is already throwing things out, it must mean we've shoved in quite a lot of Spanish, right?

Or we just had very small file cabinets to begin with.

My own insanity and its bad coping strategies

2011-06-09T19:52:00.007-05:00

How do you handle situations in which you're waiting to find out an outcome that you can't control?

Encourage yourself? Hope for the best? Relax and try not to worry about it? Not. Me.

My strategy is this: Figure out all the possible horrible outcomes, and then start to deal with them preemptively.
For instance, today, when the professor was talking about the midterm grades, this was my internal dialogue:

Oh my gosh, what if I failed? I don't fail things! It's over. I've failed.

What if I got like a 4 out of 20? Okay, okay, so I got a 4. I could still work harder on the final and the final project and bring my grade up to a C. This is a pass/fail class, not even in my GPA.

But what if grad schools can still see the C? NYU Steinhardt and Columbia Teacher's college ... They might think I slacked off while abroad! No no, I'll just do better in my other classes. They'll just think I challenged myself.

But what if I fail the whole class completely? All right, I have an extra space in my schedule. I can still graduate on time.

And then what if I don't get scholarships to grad schools? Does that mean I can't go to the schools I want? Well, maybe I still get in and just don't get loans. So it costs me a lot more. That's okay.

And then what if I'm paying off student loans until I'm forty? That's okay. I can learn to budget. It will make me thrifty. And that will make me be happy for the things I have and not a greedy money grubber.

See? Everything will be all right.

I swear to you all on my Starbucks addiction that I thought every one of those things while missing the lecture the professor was giving.

And then I got a 13. Since I was already prepared for a 4, a 13 was looking pretty good.

Feel free to use that strategy.

Of course, if you're not me, it might be counterproductive to completely restructure your life every time you can't control something.

Democracy and governors and guns

2011-06-07T14:58:00.005-05:00

After much hopeful campaigning and treacherous mudslinging, Peru at long last has a new president elect: Ollanta Humala. And whatever your opinion of him, or whether or not you have an opinion of him, or have even heard of him at all, he was elected by the people in a fair democratic election.

And I helped make that happen. Rarely can I say anything with such genuine pride.

Last weekend, election weekend, (since I couldn't go out wild partying due to the dry law anyway) I helped with a mission of the Organizacion de Estados Americanos, or the Organization of American States, which, among other things, monitors elections in member states.

I was an "International Observer," which basically meant that I was assigned a district and a voting booth to...observe... and fill out charts about. So I went around awkwardly watching and taking notes and just generally making people alternately very nervous or very assured that someone cared to make things run smoothly and fairly. I don't know which was the prevailing sentiment.

Y'all know that I'm no fan of politics, but I am in fact a fan of democracy. And it was awesome to see the most basic process of democracy in action.

Plus, they paid well chickadees. Like, recontra well. Like, more money than I'll make in a few weeks of back-breaking menial jobs this summer well.

Not to mention that I met lots of amazingly interesting, odd, and inspiring people from all over the world: Chile, Paraguay, Canada, Belgium, Spain, etc. And former governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson. (Maybe that should have been more exciting? I was way more interested in the other folks, to be honest, and a little indifferent where the governor was concerned. Shhh.)

One drawback: The guns. The army was there, and they had huge guns. The Peruvians seemed all blase about it. I was freaked out. Which I suppose says a lot about the relative stability and advantages I've been lucky to live with in the states.

And then one of the Peruvian soldiers, with the gun, asked me for my number to go out sometime. Which I had not expected. Because I apparently continue to defy the saying "Live and learn."

'Twas a weekend to remember, without a doubt.

And possibly, a weekend to repeat? Some lucky people travel the world like this on a regular basis. I'm definitely sending an email to the coordinator with something to the effect of "Put me in coach!"

I'm afraid I got literally no pictures while on the job. Sadly, not even of me in the rocking vests they gave us. Professionalism, forgetfulism, and all that stuff. But they did give us a lovely show on the first night:

Tired of my yellow walls in the top picture yet? Not me!

Two truths and a lie

2011-06-04T12:46:00.002-05:00

Which one, which one?

1. This bottle opener is on the back of a keychain for the new "informed vote" campaign...for your own especial home use while the Dry Law is in effect over the voting weekend. Because whatever's in that bottle will definitely sharpen your judgement.

2. This two different versions of the same side of the "nuevo sol." I love new coins! Although, you'd think they'd want it to resemble the old one a little more?

3. The image that they're going to use for a new gay rights campaign in Lima.... because Peruvians of course use the star rather than the heart as a symbol of love.

I like this game. I should put out a more serious edition of it some time.

Oh cruel fates!

2011-06-03T21:21:00.003-05:00

Who will very soon forcibly oust me from the country by means of an already bought plane ticket...

I'm okay with that. Really. You do what you gotta do.

But please, send me to Buenos Aires! Send me to Asuncion. Send me to Montevideo or Santiago or Bogota.

Por favor, no me mandes back to the states.

Dear Reader, tomorrow I will probably be dying to go back. And you will have to hear about it. Tough luck.

Buenos Aires, City of the Beautiful People

2011-05-31T17:08:00.007-05:00

City of the green spaces and the clean streets and the changing leaves. City of the pink palaces and the stately-looking cathedrals and modern high rises. Of "desachzuno" and "decime" and "chzo me chzamo." Of city buses and pedestrians and subways. Of European architecture and Italian food and Paraguayan immigrants.

Somehow, despite my country heritage, my genes, my upbringing, and my previous life experience, I am a city girl. But all cities are not created equal.

And I've always believed firmly that New York City is the city, my city. See here. Every time I set foot in it, the moment moment I enter Grand Central, I heave a huge sigh of pleasure, and often tell whomever I happen to be with that "I belong here!" The life, the fun, the pain, the heart there. I've never been sure that I would spend a lifetime there, but I've always wanted to say, at least for a time, that it was home.

I've also often said that I could not see myself settling down anywhere but the states. Sure, I could spend awhile, a few years, in a different country, but forever? Not me. I've gotten comfortable in Lima, but I don't think I could stay here. And I think I kind of projected that onto all cities outside of the states: not here, so not there either.

But I have to tell you chickadees, Buenos Aires is completely enchanting. It really swept me off my feet for four days. And though I won't say anything rash, it's thrown into question both of the above statements. New York still has a special place in my heart, but maybe it isn't the only city of my dreams. Maybe the U.S. isn't the only place I could call my permanent home. Maybe I'm more flexible than I think I am.

Minds change. Mine does frequently. But right now I feel desperate to not be done with Latin America when I leave in a month or so. To at the very least not be done getting to know different cultures.

According to the cute Uruguayan I sat next to on the plane ride in, and may have talked to for the entire four hours, Buenos Aires has nothing on Montevideo. Next stop?

Fun with Titles = Cosas que no tienen sentido

2011-05-25T23:06:00.006-05:00

Last night I went out to see Agua Para Elefantes, or Water for Elephants, in theaters with my host sister. (Yes, yes, I'm sure it came out ages ago in the states.) I give the movie itself an "enjoyable but not very original" rating. It was adapted from a book, which I haven't read, but even so I kept thinking, "That probably made more sense on paper."

But here's something refreshing about the movie: The title in Spanish is a direct translation from the title in English!

What a concept.

No one seems to know why, but movies constantly change titles when making the switch to the Spanish-speaking world. (Probably the non English-speaking world over. Can anyone else speak to that?)

Some confusing ones I've run across:

Big Momma: Like Father Like Son = Mi abuela es un peligro or My Grandma is a Danger. Clearly, there was no attempt here to even get the idea of the original title. Is the grandma in this movie really a danger? Make it a little more literal for me, please. (I would like to go on record as having not watched this movie or any of its predecessors. You can't see, so I'll tell you that I'm wearing my disdainful look mixed with my snooty look right now.)

Sunset Boulevard = Crepusculo de los dioses or Twilight of the Gods.

I think here they must be trying to make the metaphor the original street name is driving at a little more obvious. Did they think that no one else could figure it out or something?

I Spit on Your Grave = Dulce venganza or Sweet Revenge

Maybe spitting on someone's grave doesn't have the same meaning in some Latin American countries? P.S. This movie looks absolutely traumatizing. I'm beside myself to come up with a reason that anyone would want to see it.

The Kids Are All Right = Los ninos tienen la razon or The Kids Are Right.

Not exactly the same. Actually, not at all the same. To be fair, I only saw this title on some pirated DVDs. It's possible that it actually premiered here as Los ninos estan bien, the direct translation, as I've found on some internet sites.

The Joneses = Amor por contrato or Love for Hire.

Granted, given the plot of this movie, the family's last name is referring to the saying "keeping up with the Joneses." But even if they couldn't bear for the title to be a plain old last name for Spanish-speakers, could they at least make it something that was not a spoiler? Even IMBD doesn't tell you as much as this title does! (And now I did...whoops.)

Who makes these decisions anyway? And what the heck are their thought processes?

There must be thought processes, right?

P.S. Fun with Titles = Cosas que no tienen sentido or Things that don't make sense

Sorry about the spacing. Firefox doesn't believe I am who I say I am, and internet explorer apparently has a very stubborn streak about ample white noise between thoughts....to reflect, as it were.

Almost eight months

2011-05-24T14:51:00.007-05:00

That's the time put together that I've spent living in Lima now.

And actually, the number itself seems a little too, well, pathetically small to encompass all that I've seen and learned and felt here. Although I suppose, as any pregnant woman will tell you, anything and everything can change in eight months.

But in the everyday of it all, I sometimes begins to feel a little more like nothing's changed.

So here's a bit of an update for you and a reminder for me.

Things in Lima that used to bother me but now don't :

Huge spoons and thin napkins. Why are the spoons here so much larger, you ask? It is a mystery. Why are spoons in the states so small?

The increased amount of service people...everywhere. Like on campus, there is constantly workers sweeping the paths. Which at first seemed like overkill. But now I say, "Hey, there are lots of people in Lima who need jobs! Why not keep the walk so clean you could eat off it?"

Constantly greeting and saying goodbye to people with a kiss. The kiss part didn't bother me, just the constant part. Talk to someone for two minutes and you're expected to saludar and despedir them. Now I don't mind. In fact, the little hand wave American thing's a little awkward.

The dirt. I think it must still be above-average dirty in this city, because I remember thinking it was so at the beginning. I haven't thought about it in awhile.

Things that used to bother me a lot, and now only do a little:

Throwing toilet paper in the waste basket. I occasionally felt slight panic in restrooms in the states. No trash in here! Where will I...? Oh.

Professors showing up 20 minutes late for class every day. Only really bothers me when they keep you 10 minutes late afterward.

Models on billboards looking nothing like most Peruvians. I remember this being one of the most shocking things in my first couple weeks: almost exclusively white people in advertisements, almost exclusively nonwhite in the streets below. Now that I've filled in a little of the background info, I don't really think about it on a daily basis. Still a bit sad though. (I could extend this to a lot of the signs of Western culture influence here.)

Cobradores yelling at me to got on the streets to get in their micros. I'm going to change my mind about where I'm going, but hey it's just their job.

Things that still bother me:

The lack of apologies. If you cause my coffee maker to be broken, or eat all my cookies without asking, or show up 20 minutes late, I do expect you to acknowledge your culpability.

The lack of line etiquette. I've already discussed this. I'm just too much of a wimp for Peruvian lines, although I have gotten better.

The lack of rain. Oh how I long for a good rainstorm!

The lack of heaters in the cold! Is there anyone living in Lima who wouldn't like heating, I ask?

Those are the things that are occurring to me at this moment. But I think/hope/pray that I've learned many more, and that I've not quite finished.

Like a kid and his green ball

2011-05-23T10:49:00.007-05:00

Have you ever watched kids playing and thought "If only I could be that carefree again!"

Well, my friends, as tempting as that sentiment might be, I really think it's crock.

Were we ever carefree? I think not. In fact, I remember being really bothered as a kid by the implication that my life was sooo simple. As if I didn't have my stresses, my problems, my heartaches too? They seemed important to me then. And "seem" is still about all I've got.

Exhibit A:

My host nephews playing ball this weekend:

Alberto, age two.

Santiago, almost four.

At first, everyone is trying to play together nicely. It doesn't last long.
Berto is a little shy around his older cousin.

And Santi is not only ignoring the rules of soccer (or, as his Dad suggests, playing some form of rugby) but also does not care to share.
Grandma swoops in to defend little Berto. "Santiago you play with one ball over here, and Berto will play with the other."

Santi is unimpressed by the idea.

He wants the green one.

As for Berto, even though he eventually ends up with the soccer ball, which is too heavy for his little feet, he is thrilled with the replacement of Scary Older Cousin for Kindly Old Grandpa.

And then I put down the camera and play with Berto myself, and eventually Santi sees what fun we're having and decides to play nicely himself.

And all is right with the world. Until they try to play with the puzzles.

It's fun to watch them light up when they play, and it's amusing to watch their little faces fall at the loss of a green ball. Children's joys and pains are so beautifully open and honest. But I think underneath, though as adults we dress it up with a lot of fancy words and straight faces, we're all kind of like that. I keep right on laughing when things go my way, crying when the things I'm attached to are taken from me.

In the end, aren't we all silly little boys and girls?

I'm not sorry to have this new set of frustration, laughter, tears, and joy.

I wouldn't go back if I could.

Pumpkin-tasting memories

2011-05-19T23:24:00.007-05:00

Around our house, the dessert my nana was always most famous for was crustless pumpkin-cheese pie. The crustless came about because as kids, we never wanted to eat anything but the center. At the time, I thought Nana was really going out of her way to make the pie in the special way, without crust, for us. It wasn't until I was much older that it occurred to me...

It also later occurred to me that: Pumpkin cheese pie - crust = not really pie. But who are we anyway, Webster's?

My brother and his friend apparently tried their hand at the pie in her honor earlier this week in Pennsylvania, and tonight it was Kara and I's turn to try it in Lima. (But admittedly with a significant amount of ingredients that immigrated from Pennsylvania.)

Pouring and stirring all at once.
It seemed impressive at the time.

This is my, "Quick take the picture before this spills!" face.
Okay, so we went with the crusty version.

Leftover batter is meant to be eaten.

We thought it might taste like a pumpkin milkshake.

But ended up down the drain.

I don't trust people who don't make messes when they bake.

We bought milk to drink with it.

And toasted my nana.

As we enjoyed a couple episodes of Gilmore Girls!

It was delicious.

Not exactly like Nana used to make it, but maybe it's better that way anyway,

Thanks for the recipe and the family tradition, Nana. We'll miss your desserts, though not as much as we miss you.

Turning down my 15 minutes of fame

2011-05-18T13:54:00.008-05:00

OMG, isn't it like, so annoying when people like, stop you cooonstantly on the street and are like "OMG, are you a model?" Its like, seriously people, should I be annoyed right outside my own house just because of these great looks and perfect hair!!? Right? Like, you know?

Like this guy today on my street, who was like, "Do you do commercials?" and I was all like, "What? Commercials?" So then he goes, "I know this place where they pay you 600 dollars for commercials." And I thought Commercials? This bod is waaay too hot to sell insurance. So I was like "No," and I just started to walk away. And he was all yelling after me to give me the address and I was all "No, thank you" and sorta whatever.

I knew that sexy face would come in handy again. Huh. Same sweater too.

Only real, high-fashion modeling gigs are worth my time. Thank you.

Actually, I just listened to a podcast on scams, so I was on the lookout for people who were offering something for nothing. Also my, "You only want me because I'm white" radar is never off.

I'll leave it to you smart ducklings to figure out which parts of this are true.

Happy Wednesday!

The shoe envy of the house

2011-05-17T15:22:00.003-05:00

Boot season is in! Yes, while reliable sources tell me that it's getting sunnier and warmer in the northern hemisphere, down here I'm afraid Lima is once again passing into its cloudy all the time, shivering in the shower, curse the lack of temperature regulation, season.

I have not actually pulled out the fingerless gloves that were my best friends last year. Did I even bring them?

The consolation prize is that I can now justify stuffing those winter clothing into my overweight suitcases.

My boots aren't exactly the style here. They're pretty big into the heels in Lima, I think in Latin America in general, and so you're more likely to see boots on wedges or heels than not. Maybe because no one in Lima ever has any actual weather-related reason to wear boots. I prefer mine chatas, definitely. They're snow-bound, after all.

Which is why I was a little surprised about the compliments from my host mom this afternoon:

HM, looking admiringly at my feet: I like those boots! I like the color.

Me: Thanks, me too! People here often wear them with heels, but I prefer them flat.

HM: Me too. What size are you?

Me: Umm...well I'm not sure in Peruvian sizes, but 6 1/2 in American.

HM: Oh, I'm about a 38 in size here, so I think that's more or less the same.

Me: Oh, hmm.

Awkward pause.

HM, still eying the boots: So you know, if you don't want them when you go, you can sell them to me.

Me, laughing: Oh yeah. Haha. Well I think I'll be taking them.

HM: But you could buy another pair just like it when you get back!

Me, realizing she's actually serious: Oh. No, these were actually very difficult to find!

HM, still looking wistfully at my feet: Oh...they were difficult to find...

Nice try lady! I'm picky about my shoes. My Mom and I walked around the freezing outdoor mall for hours solely to find these. Ain't no way I'm leaving without them.

Hmm...I think this makes me sound a little jerky. Now I'm feeling guilty. Should I be feeling guilty for not selling her my precious boots?

Where's the clowns and whimsy?

2011-05-16T09:32:00.007-05:00

I've mentioned at least once here that I'm not really a frequenter of the whole party scene. But this weekend I went out not one, but two nights in a row. To places with dancing and alcohol, not just popcorn and pajama pants. Are you impressed?

So obviously after that long, intense study on the practice of festejando, I'm an expert.

Now the sage shall share her new found wisdom with you:

1. Drunk people are funny.

2. Drunk people are stupid.

3. Sometimes, drunk boys/overly-eager boys need to be ditched. Apparently, the rules of etiquette are somewhat suspended in large parties of people you don't know, and you need not feel rude when taking off for "more drinks" or "a trip to the bathroom" and never coming back. I probably still will, but you shouldn't.

4. Drinking at parties is a delicate balance. Shoot for somewhere between this-whole-event-looks-really-ridiculous and everything-here-looks-wonderful-if-slightly-topsy-turvy. Or, that's what I imagine that extreme end looks like. I've never really been drunk-drunk, so who knows? It might be transcendent clarity. But based on #2...

5. Though the invite decidedly does not specify, apparently any large event in Peru that starts after 9 is more of a 4-inch heel, skanky dress thing than a boots, comfy blue jeans thing. Even if it's in a field. Although, my boots ended up being quite the commodity by the end of night. And really, even if I had known...

6."Circus party" need not imply that there will be anything very circus-like about the party, apparently. We need to tighten up the regulations on event nomenclature.

Yes, I did spill my drink on myself. How rude of you to mention it!

For about an hour or so after midnight they were releasing steam into the air until you could barely see. Do they do this at circuses these days?

Sunsets

2011-05-14T10:13:00.010-05:00

Some walk

And scorn the dirt trampled by other feet

And see the wilt in flowers on the road

And fear the coming sunset in the dusk

That might bring only darkness to the garden

She walked

And blessed the paths smoothed by the steps of saints

And gloried in the roses by her side

And welcomed night with hope and open arms

For He will yet bring sunrise to the garden

She walks

My nana once, in response to hearing that someone had learned of someone else in the church's birthday on the internet: "Why would anyone put that on the internet? How many people need to see that?"

My Dad: Well Mom, it's not just like a big newspaper with one page. There's lots and lots of different sites. This was probably only posted on the church website, so not everyone in the world will see it.

Nana: Ah, I don't know. It just seems like you wouldn't need to put that up.

So, she may or may not be approving of this message from Heaven right now. :)

Rest in Peace.

Peruvian food fights

2011-05-09T19:37:00.005-05:00

Ok, I haven't flung a single plate of mashed potatoes in anyone's face (which is really a shame!) but I do definitely have a full-blown war on my hands.

First off, I really like my host family this semester, I do. They've been great to me, and we mostly get along smashingly.

But the one thing that is increasingly driving me to desperate measures is the constant pushing to eat more, more, more! My poor stomach just cannot handle it!

For example, I have this battle on a weekly basis:

Host Mom: You don't like bread/mandarins/bananas etc. (Not in question form, you'll notice.)

Me: Yes, I do like them!

HM: Well they're here, and you haven't been eating them.

Me: Yeah, it's just that I eat so much at meal times, that I'm not hungry in between.

HM, with a disbelieving, disapproving look: But you eat early in the morning, at around 11 o'clock you could come down and eat more.

Me: I know, thank you, but I'm just not hungry!

And really Hermi, do you eat at every second that you possibly can? I don't say that. But I want to.

This battle on a nearly daily basis:

Host Mom: You didn't eat your salad/dessert/bread. (Or: Take more salad/dessert/bread!)

Me: I already ate the soup and rice and chicken and potatoes. Everything is very good, I just can't eat any more!

That response usually only gets a very worried, incredulous, or even slightly hurt look. Sometimes a strange mixture of the three along with a chuckle, which somehow does not diminish the disapproval.

When I'm vulnerable or tired I lose that battle and just eat. And then feel like I'm going to explode.

And really, no one else eats what I'm expected to eat. But I've found this question/excuse to be an ineffective tactic. Apparently my youth means I ought to be a bottomless pit of insatiable hunger.

I even often resort to going out in the evenings and telling them I was eating dinner en la calle (in the street) or at whomever's house I was going to, just so I can have a break from the force-feeding!

Last night we had three different kinds of sausage as an appetizer and a different kind of pork as the main course. And they desperately wanted to give me seconds. I couldn't brave it.

Could NOT. In fact, the wine at that meal was definitely my life-line in terms of getting the meat taste out of my mouth!

I won that one, but they did not look very pleased with me.

As I was typing this a full plate of food and soup and dessert was brought in to me (8:30 actually being a very usual time for a Peruvian dinner.)
HM: Here's your food hijita! Me: Oh, ok, but umm...I'm really not very hungry. HM: Just eat! And she leaves it. Looks like another win for Hermi. I have absolutely no appetite.

Because you deserve your own day, Mommy dearest!

2011-05-08T19:12:00.008-05:00

¡Feliz día de la madre!

Or Happy Mother's Day! Depending on who you are.

I'd like to dedicate this post to my own mommy, the real one in the United States, who put up with a lot to make me into the fantastic person I am today.

Today I present my mother with the Long-Enduring, Always-Loving, Still-Going Mother's Award. (Because we all know it never really ends...)

Here's just a few of her specific qualifications:

-I'm a twin. (Oh, have I never mentioned that? Whoops.) And my sister's only three years older. Yeah, just, imagine that for a second...

- When we turned six, my mom threw us an all-out birthday bash for which we invited our entire kindergarten class. A bunch of five-year-olds running around a house in the woods with animals and sticks and a great big rope swing and toys. Wow, I need a nap just thinking about it.

-In elementary and middle school, I was a chronic homework/gym uniform/lunch forgetter. We're talkin', every other day. My mom worked at the school, so she got the call to bring things in. And she did. Every time.

-I will forever remember the time I was having a horrific, horrific couple days in sixth grade (Nope, don't remember why it was so traumatic...) and I got a huge bunch of flowers in a vase in my locker from my mommy. She made me feel so special.

- I have now neglected to send her either a birthday or a Mother's Day card, and she still loves me. I hope...

The picture of my Mom and I at Wicked last year, which sits in my room in Peru.

For all you do and have done and will continue to do, Mother dear, I love you!

I hope your day was filled with goodness and happiness and love.

Long time no see, chickadee! I know, I haven't written in almost a week. And the truth about that is, it was a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week. (Alexander and...? Just me?) Not completely of course, but there was bad news from PA and bad news from Peru, all-nighters and stressing over exams...well anyway. Don't fall into despair! I'm back now.

I'm not the girl that I intend to be

2011-05-02T07:43:00.007-05:00

Sometimes we struggle through the stressful periods in life just sunken in our corner of the world, and we're just glad to surface again and breath the free air once the stress dissipates. But sometimes, the universe, or the universal God, depending on how you see it, gives us a little window into life beyond ourselves.

Yesterday I was slogging through reviewing for a midterm, feeling as I always do during this time, like life might end were I to fail, when I met a Peruvian woman who lives in New York City but is currently here helping a Peruvian congresswoman named Hilaria Supa Huaman.

It's a little hard to explain in a sentence or two why Hilaria is a big deal in Peruvian politics. I don't understand it fully myself. Let's just say that her Andean background (as seen in the picture above) and native language of Quechua have subjected her to a lot of challenge, disrespect, and ridicule in a system dominated by the coastal, Western-influenced Limenos.

And as the woman I met in Starbucks, who teaches as an adjunct at NYU, spoke of the politician, her voice filled with such love and admiration, such awe and respect for the intelligence and perseverance of Hilaria and her fight for her people. "She is so strong," she said. "Stronger than me; stronger than anyone else I know."

Wow. Doing well on my exam tomorrow would be nice, I still have to admit. But if I can someday work for something with so much heart and determination, and earn the respect of intelligent, compassionate people, then that perhaps will be some measure of real success.

I'm just missing the bloody faux fur

2011-04-29T15:18:00.006-05:00

The other day I was talking to the family at dinner, and my host father Agusto, who works in veterinary services, starts telling what he thinks is a charming story about a donkey:

Agusto: This one man had a donkey who was really, really old, so he could hardly do anything. But he was smart. They had no idea how smart this donkey was until one day he fell into a deep hole that he couldn't get out of. Well, since he was so old and was probably going to die soon, they decided to just throw dirt on him right there. But you know what? The donkey was so smart that as soon as the dirt started to come down, the donkey started to wriggle himself and stomp on the ground. And so what do you think happened? As the ground rose, the donkey rose with it, until he was high enough that he could climb out!

My host Dad looks very pleased with the antics of this donkey.
I'm thinking, Wait wait, go back...
Me: Wait, they started to throw dirt on the donkey...while he was alive?

Agusto: Yes, he was so old.

Me: So they were going to bury him alive?!?!

My host parents chuckle and exchange amused glances. Agusto says to my host mom: Look how much she loves animals that she's so concerned about that donkey!

Me: Well yeah, but I don't know if that means I love animals so much. They didn't even shoot him first?

Agusto. He would have died eventually.

Me: Well yes, but that would be a horrible death!

My host mom repeats me, still laughing: a horrible death!

C'mon, you're on my side, right? Bury a donkey alive, when you could at the very least end it's pain and not allow it to suffocate to death?

I don't think my disgust with the idea means I should go out right now and join a PETA demonstration!!

Oh she's new? Send her to the treadmill.

2011-04-27T15:59:00.008-05:00

I joined a gym in Lima, that's what's uuuup!

Yeah, I know, maybe I shouldn't be too proud of myself. It took me longer than two months to get around to it. But I'm so glad I did. I've been known to say I like the benefits of exercise, but not the actual act of exercising. Well never again! Ok, no, that's a lie. I'll definitely say it again. But you will know the truth.

Mostly, it's like any gym I've ever been too. Machines, weights, trainers.

But there were some things that seemed peculiar to me:

a) The trainer measured my muscles when we were doing the little weigh-in thing at the beginning. Is that normal? Am I expecting to be all butch in two months?

b) There was a few pictures on the wall with huge sweaty guys bulked up on steroids and non-muscley but equally sweaty women in tiny bikinis. What exactly are they trying to instill there? Intimidation? Low self-esteem? False hope? Actually, I personally find the incredible hulk look in guys a little repulsing. Where are the women who think that's attractive?

c) The trainer (Edwin) just threw me right in there, with no tour, no speech about safety, no spotting, and no breathing instruction. What if I hadn't already known to exhale with effort and inhale with release? Disaster!

d) They kept saying they'd see me tomorrow, even though I kept trying to explain that I definitely could not come tomorrow. And where did they get the idea that I could?

My knees hurt, and I felt very light-headed at one point, but it was good. A good life decision. (Yes! I do make them on occasion.)

And the gym was almost totally empty, so I was only hit on very briefly by one guy. Which had been a major concern I had about going there. Considering who I am (American girl) and where I was (Peruvian place where people usually wear tiny clothing) I didn't think once was that bad. I'm on the treadmill: "Are you just going at 5? " Me: "Yes. The trainer put it on for me." He says something about how he runs at 7 or 8. I respond a couple times, trying to look busy. "So you've never run at 16 then? That's the fastest it goes." Oh really, you've gone that? Take me now! He precedes to go up to to the machine in front of me, run at a moderate speed for about 2 minutes, and then get off. So impressive. Oh dear, silly boys.

Dani, you're all sweaty and gross in that picture up there, no one wants to see that!

Them's the breaks if you wanna read this blog, kiddos.

And also, that's nothing. I look way redder and worse than that when I'm actually exercising.

Well, nieto, it happened at Starbucks...

2011-04-25T09:57:00.006-05:00

Have you ever been in a restaurant, or any public place, seen a couple near you, and thought, "I think we're witnessing a first date here!"

I love it when that happens. Love it to pieces. I whisper, giggle, eavesdrop. And apparently, subtly take pictures:
She's: a little shy and unsure, laughing at all his jokes, touching herself too much, not really interested in her drink

He's: talking a little too much, trying to be funny, leaning in toward her

They: go over typical get-to-know you questions, don't yet have inside jokes, can't quite tease or criticize, but are eager to joke and laugh

Smile. I was silently sending them good luck.

Kara: What are you taking pictures of?

This was at the Starbucks the other day when we were studying...trying to study. We're there at least once a week, with our drinks and cookies. It's a good get out of the house meeting place.

And plus, we're the cool kids there. The barristas know us, smile when we come up to the counter. Yesterday the one kid even remembered we'd been there last Thursday as well. I think the security guard would protect us first....

PS. "Nieto" is grandson.

Stop traffic. We're processing here.

2011-04-22T23:05:00.009-05:00

Busco, no sé que busco; creo que es un rostro que una vez perdí

I search, I don’t know for what I search. I think that it’s a face that I once lost.

Siento, siento una nostalgia de algo que me falta desde que nací.

I feel, I feel nostalgia for something that I’ve been missing since I was born.

I've always liked Good Friday services. I like their solemnity and reflection and confession. I like their dimmed lights and muted volumes. I like that, since everyone knows Sunday is coming, we don't have to wrap the sorrow up at the end with a neat little bow of happiness. That we can just leave the sentence unfinished and unsure for a couple days.

In the states, Good Friday and Easter are really the only two things we celebrate this week (Or at least, protestants. I don't know about Catholics. And really, I'm not even sure you could say we "celebrate" Good Friday. Yes, there's a service, but even a regular church-goer could legitimately be like "Oh, is that today? Hmmm, I guess I'll go."

But here, it's a big deal. They celebrate the whole week, la Semana Santa. And Friday is a big one. I mean, businesses shutting down, streets empty kind of big.

So I decided to go with my host Mom to her Friday mass, which I was promised would include a procession afterward. Having never before been to a Catholic mass here, I'm quite glad I did, because the whole thing was just extremely interesting.

I'm having trouble pinning down one main, connected thought, however, so here are some random ones:

From the service:

1) The three priests are all white with pronounced Spanish accents. I asked my host Mom about it, and she said they were all sent here. They used to have one Peruvian priest, but he was sent to Cusco.

2) There's an incredible amount of older women here.

From the procession:

3) I love these bags to light our way. Oh, wow, real candle in there. That seems safe.

4) How nice to pray for different people at each station! But... "For the women are hit because their husband comes home drunk, but keep moving forward for the sake of the children." Shouldn't that at least say something like "And feel like they have no escape and must stay for the children" ? You know, with the implication that that's wrong?

5) I think I'll organize a police squad to block traffic next time I cross La Mar.

6) Station 8a...Jesus falls a third time? Darn it, this is not going to end in 10 stations like I thought,

7) What a beautiful flower petal arrangement!...that will now be trampled as we pass.

So obviously the night was a mixed bag. (What service isn't, I ask?) But as I processed along slowly, repeating the refrains to the songs we sang, I felt this overwhelming sense of community.

And a wave of sadness hit me that I will soon leave, and life here will go on with lovely, tiring, living traditions that I'll know nothing about.

Llaga, soy solo una llaga que tán solo al verte cicatricará.

Wound, I’m just a wound, that just to see you will scar.

Río, soy un río turbio, y Tú un mar inmenso. Guíame hacia Ti.

River, I’m a turbid river, and you’re an immense ocean. Guide me toward you.

Yesterday I got an idea. An awful idea.

2011-04-20T13:42:00.006-05:00

Dani got a wonderful, awful idea.

So I confronted my conscience.

And then I just did it.

Peep: "I certainly did not make that long journey across the Atlantic just to be treated like any old marshmallow!"

Thanks Mom! What would Easter be?

"And the Pacific? What route did I take anyway?"

Wisdom from the wall

2011-04-19T17:45:00.006-05:00

I heard a celebrity singer say once (nah, it doesn't matter which one...or I just don't remember) that when she's on tour, moving from hotel to hotel, she likes to carry the same things around with her to make each place feel like home. Decorations, photos, personal items etc.

So that's one solid thing almost all college students have in common with celebrities.

I lived in three different rooms through my first two years of college, and I've lived in three different rooms while I've been here in Peru. The above "The Greatest of these is LOVE" poster has hung in every one of them.

It's worn and folded and torn in several places, but it's definitely gonna make it at least another year, if I have to tape it ten more times. I can't say the book or even the full verse (Corinthians 13:13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love) have been life-long favorites or anything. That might make this a sweeter, more profound reflection.

But somehow those 6 words, when isolated from everything around them, have always come down to me from their perch on the wall as a pervading simplicity in what is generally a very confusing world.

When all else falls into gray, I know at least one thing.

Watch me do the sickness AND the workshopness

2011-04-16T14:10:00.018-05:00

This morning still slightly sick Dani went to a little workshoppy thing in a professional kitchen to learn to cook some of my favorite Peruvian dishes! Our group was Aji de Gallina (chili pepper of hen...or something that sounds better than that literal translation but means the same thing.)

But Dani, you say responsibly, weren't you going to infect the food? Yesterday you weren't even allowed to touch a knife! How is it that they allowed you within a mile of that place? Or umm...1.6 kilometers. Aren't I smart? No, you're right, I looked it up. Although it strikes me that I should not have needed to.

Well, this was my strategy:

a) Tell my host parents I had improved. Which I had...possibly not enough operate heavy knives and hot pans.

b) Stifle every sneeze, cough, or sniffle whenever humanly possibly, especially while standing near Chef.

C'mon, she does look a little scary, right?

c) Duck into dark corners to blow my nose and then wash my hands thoroughly thoroughly every time.

d) Isolate my sample food at the end so that I didn't keep sticking a germ-ridden fork into my group's food.

I think it worked pretty well. Or at least, no one yelled at me or kicked me out. Mission accomplished.

And we really did make some kick-butt Aji de Gallina. We privately named ourselves the taste test winners. Although really, the process basically consisted of us doing exactly what they told us to do and asking the cooking assistant Jose (whose name apparently was actually Joselo the whole time) for help every five minutes. "Chef just said we should start...so...what do we do?" "Is it supposed to look like that?" "Is this burning?" "Where's our silverware?"

I do know how to cook some things, I swear.

And plus, it seems we didn't bother Joselo that much. In fact, he was quite insistent about giving us his email afterward to "send him the photos" or "ask him about whatever." Which reminds me of another boy at the Andean music event who also gave me his email to send him photos or ask him questions, which I never did. Although, that time I just forgot. Is this a common Peruvian pick up line or something? Seriously, the "asking" thing. They all seem to think I'm gonna have a million questions about...something. No one ever specifies.

Joselo finishing the tiradito.

Guys just love it when you look helpless and laugh at yourself a lot. There's a boy-snaggin' tip for y'all. No charge. Sorry, I can't recommend that for guys. So you should, umm...use your charm and wit?

Actually I'm quite sure it was our attractive hairnets and aprons. Or personally, my red nose and sickly look. I should definitely play that card more often.

Actually I look a little manic here. Is that better?

Note: Despite the look of these last two blogs, (ok, and possibly this other one as well) I do not go around cavalierly collecting and rejecting boys.

Purposely.

But seriously now, I don't.

Wait wait, what's Plan B?

2011-04-14T19:42:00.008-05:00

Or maybe in this case, who?

Week 1:

A boy sits next to my friend Kara and I in our Musical Appreciation class. I asked him some trivial question and then we chatted for a while about what seemed to me to be the usual. Where are you from? Oh, what part? How do you like Peru? I think I'll print out my answers to these questions and just hand them out to every new person I meet.

Kara: So that kid was pretty friendly...

Me: What? He asked me like three questions. It was totally normal.

Kara: I don't know, I don't give him credit for as much disinterested niceness as you. And the boys behind me didn't either. They were smirking...we exchanged some looks.

Me: Hey! Stop exchanging looks with people we don't know! Especially about innocent conversations. He looks, like...15!

Kara: I'm telling you...

Me: Right. Sure. He can be my Plan B. Ya know, in case nothing else comes along this semester.

We laugh, and the conversation devolves (from that lofty point) into jokes about statutory rape. Ahem.

Week 2-3:

Me: Darn it, Plan B's turning out to be a little more persistent than I had anticipated. He just asked me what I was doing after class. I said something about homework.

Kara: Ha! See? You thought I made it up.

Me: Oh, now I feel sorry for Plan B.

Kara: Why? Cause he's Plan B?

Me: No no, cause he's fake Plan B. Obviously any guy would be lucky to be my real Plan B.

Kara: Yeah, it is a little sad that he thinks he's got a shot. Poor fake Plan B.

So now for two weeks we've been cracking jokes about Plan B. (Think Plan B will lend me his notes to that movie I fell asleep in? Do not ask Plan B for notes! Do I look hot today? Think Plan B will let me cheat off his quiz? ) But we never failed to end our chuckles with a little shake of the head.

"Poor Plan B!"

Week 4

Which was today. I was sick and miserable. Plan B was hanging around way too much before and after class. And constantly mumbling.

Me: "Plan B's starting to get on my nerves."

Kara: "I can never understand what he says! Can the boy not speak loudly?"

Me: "I hope he doesn't ask me what I'm doing after class again."

Obviously, something had to be done before matters got out of hand. Upon reentering the room with Plan B in tow we loudly discuss our weekend plans.

Kara: Do you want to hang out with my boyfriend and I on Saturday? You should bring (insert name of fictional guy).

Me: Oh, sure! As long as I can bring (same fictional guy).

Kara: Sure, it will be like a double date. That probably isn't a word in Spanish...but at least the word "date" was in there.

Puh-lease chickadees, we are nowhere near the first exchange students to make up boyfriends. I heard that one girl last year became particularly expert at spinning tales of her boyfriends/husbands. I didn't particularly like it, but it was for a good cause.

I just hope it was obvious enough, and that Plan B will move on and find someone for whom he can be Plan A.

Oh dear. Poor Plan B.

Whose actual name is something odd I can never remember right.

Tears, chocolate, and drugs

2011-04-13T15:30:00.008-05:00

When I woke up this morning, I felt oddly tired and listless. So I put in my ipod, I listened to this song by Sara Bareilles called "Between the Lines," and I cried.

No, the song has nothing to do with any situation I've faced in the past or face presently. It's just a saddish song. And it just made me feel saddish. So I just cried. At 7:30 AM. About nothing.

So it was obviously going to be a good day.

Turns out that I'm slightly sick. So let's blame it on that. (And if there are any guys out there who even dare to think "PMS" I'm going to reach through the screen and clobber you right now.)

If you were here during my last sickness, you'll recall that I became much closer with Floor than with Bed. But bed has been much kinder to slightly sick Dani. This afternoon it consisted of:

And I've got a three hour class yet to come. Yay.

It's also a shame that in Peru you get typical sick questions like "Well, did you eat anything cold yesterday?" when you feel the least tolerant of cultural difference. (Me: "I don't think that causes you to get a cold!" Host Mom laughs at my poor self, still unwise to the ways of the world.)

Sorry for the few days I haven't been on here. I know it disrupted your life routine irreparably, and you've been walking around feeling slightly agitated for days. But you see, it was my computers fault. She felt a little sick as well.

Hope your weekend was lovely nonetheless.

Did you see that guy?

2011-04-08T10:20:00.005-05:00

My friend Kara and I seem to have a lot of conversations that start off with her saying something like that, and end up something like this one did yesterday:
Me: ¨What? No. Where? What guy?¨

¨There was a guy sitting in the back of the micro licking his lips at you.¨

¨No...I didn´t. And I´m sure he wasn´t licking his lips at me, Kara. He probably just happened to be licking his lips... while he was looking at me.¨

¨Riiiiight.¨

¨And what is this anyway, how are you always seeing these guys?¨

¨How are you always not seeing these guys?¨

¨I prefer to be oblivious...I only notice the ones that wave bananas at me and say ´De este tamano.¨ We laugh, cause this actually happened. Hint: tamano (with the squiggle over the n) means ¨size.¨ Google translate that.

Eh, we might bring it on ourselves by talking and laughing loudly in English in the street...except for the banana. That I did nothing to deserve. Happy Friday!

No pics today, cause my laptop is currently down. Boo. Exactly what I needed. Aaaand this family computer will not put spaces in between these lines...sorry...I´ll fix that later.

10 things that made me smile today

2011-04-05T21:25:00.001-05:00

1. this kid's infectious laugh and obvious love of making other people happy. I dare you not to be when you hear him.

2. the easter package my dearest mother sent me, which arrived today

3. the delicious lomo saltado we had for lunch (with fish nonetheless! holla if you know that's strange)

4. the girl at the counter in Starbucks who knew I'd gotten an oatmeal raisin cookie before, and commented that I must love them

5. the guy next to me who offered to throw away my banana peel in exchange for guarding his backpack for a second

6. the way the same guy angrily slammed the window shut when a drumline started playing outside, and the window stubbornly bounced back open

7. This beautiful giveaway from tree & kimball that Bridget's got going on over here at tales of me and the husband

8. my Dad's proposition that I open a casino in which slot machine customers might still have the immense satisfaction of pulling a lever, not pushing a button

9. being productive for 4 hours straight this evening

10. knowing that I have friends who still love me though I've been tired and pissy and emotional lately

I've decided that this is the best way to pull myself out of a funk, remembering that the little things are what makes a life.

What made you smile today?

Indulgent bout of homesickness

2011-04-04T09:21:00.005-05:00

I'm tired today.

Not just body tired; I got plenty of sleep last night, but soul-tired. Soul tired is worse than body tired. Generally, I haven't been as home sick this semester; I've felt much more comfortable and confident than last semester. But this weekend has been a draining one, so today you're going to have to indulge me.

I miss my country. I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss my church. And yet the prospect of talking to anyone from home seems a bit daunting at the moment.

I miss having a room in which no one touches my things. I miss not being ordered to eat always more at meal times. I miss doing my school work in English. I miss having a gym that I can use for free. I miss baking. I miss doing my grocery shopping. I miss hot showers.

I miss last minute meetings in Chester's place. I miss walking across the quad to class. I miss trips to Boston. I miss studying in that chair in the library. I miss the rain.

Part of me feels like I'm very silly to miss the states right now. I've got a lot of great things going here. Undoubtedly when I go back and have a bad day there I will remember them all.

I'm like that chick from Enchanted

2011-03-31T20:51:00.008-05:00

Once upon today, I was sitting here:

Dutifully doing this:

When came wandering up a friendly woodland creature: Deer #9.

We chitchatted about the my astonishing lack of food suitable for woodland creatures.

And then snapped a picture to celebrate becoming new bffs.

And then deer #9 wandered off in search of other life-long friends.

I hope the next one has an apple for you, dearest #9!

The Tube of Me: CommunityChannel

2011-03-29T17:51:00.003-05:00

Natalie Tran is the most hilarious, honest, your-mom joke cracking, sarcastic Asian-Australian that I have ever virtually met. I've introduced her to just about all my (English-speaking) friends, and we can just sit around for hours watching old CommunityChannel videos. If you get hooked on any blog channel I'm recommending, ducklings, get hooked on this one. Now you see, if I was a better person, I'd make that "one" vlogbrothers. But oh well...

Nat (yup, that's right, we's got our own little nicknames for each other. What now?) does scenes from her own life in which she generally plays all the parts, in different clothing, of course. I'm always amazed at how she can take odd, everyday situations and turn them into hilarity. Kinda reminds me of Seinfeld in that way. Warning: She can get a little dirty, friends, so you're prepared. But it's worth it, heh.

I chose this particular one because I can totally relate to it. Remembering directions= me getting hopelessly lost. Also, my friends in Peru all think I'm incredibly strange for using Google Maps so much. But it gets me there, so they really should be grateful.

I also recommend: The We Just Touched Awkwardly Song(LOVE) Too soon? (that one may require you remembering some current events from a couple years ago) No, YOU'RE so pretty ; Bending at the knees for love; and couples who make out around you.

There's so many more. How does one choose between so much greatness?

P.S. We're making progress with Sasha. She's starting to love me. Stay tuned.

Thou shalt not feed the winged rats

2011-03-27T21:16:00.009-05:00

One of the most lasting memories I have from my high school AP literature class is our reading of the infamous Dante's Inferno. Not so much because I loved the book, but because I clearly recall the assignment that followed: Create your own Circle of Hell, complete with insufferable sinners and appropriately torturous punishments. Which is just now striking me as a very gruesome assignment...

My circle of hell was for that terrible blight on an otherwise sane and civilized humanity: the seagull feeder.

Some pampered seagull with horrible entitlement issues once stole a French fry from the box I was carrying in my arms. I knew who really deserved the blame.

In the circle 10 the punished were transformed into giant hot dogs and other beach food which were eternally floating in a sea of Coca Cola while human-sized seagulls dressed as lifeguards (? I don't know) blew really shrill whistles and swooped down to peck away at their edible bodies.

I thought of that today when I saw a woman in over-sized clothing sitting on the sidewalk feeding the pigeons on the street (from her hands: gross, gross gross). I was torn between breaking into a heart-wrenching Mary Poppins ballad or picturing her as a soggy hamburger.

What do they teach in high schools these days?

Where political arguments come to die

2011-03-26T08:16:00.008-05:00

I hate politics. (Can I open with that? Do I have any politicians as followers?) Really and truly, hate them.

Mostly I can't stand how divisive they are. In the states, you can often immediately alienate/befriend a person, make them lump you into a whole list of categories, and then start them off on an angry tirade/deriding joke/sympathetic venting session all by simply naming yourself as a Republican or a Democrat. Ugh, it makes me annoyed just thinking about it.
So fortunately for me, we're in the throes of a presidential and congressional election here in Peru, and though the dynamics and woes are quite different, the yelling and name-calling still exists.

Or at least was most definitely existent after the birthday party a few nights ago, when the 11 o'clock conversation naturally turned to politics. I sat silently as they duked it out.

One man was arguing heatedly for a candidate named Alejandro Toledo. He only had two arguments, as far as I could tell: A) Toledo had been president before and hadn't left debt behind, and B) Toledo had been a Harvard professor. (Wikipedia later told me that "he was an affiliated researcher in the field of international development at the Harvard Institute for International Development" from 91 to 94. Which is still good, although, obviously, does not a good president make.)

Apparently he thought that that last bit meant that Toledo was well-known and talked about by people in the states. To contrast his candidate, beloved by Harvard grads everywhere, with the other presidential candidates, sadly unknown to Americans, he turned to me.

"Let's get an objective opinion. Dani, what do people think about Keiko and Ollanta Humala in the United States?"

My role in this little scene, I think, was to simply say "nothing," after which the defender of Toledo could turn to his assailants and say triumphantly "Ah ha! You see? Toledo wins again."

Alejandro Toledo may or may not be a good candidate. I honestly don't know. But I was tired and annoyed at not only having been dragged into the fight, but also so obviously used to prove a silly point. So I simply said "No one talks about any of these candidates in the United States."

Which pretty much took the wind out of his sails, so that I felt slightly guilty.

The argument continued, but I was not called upon to participate again.

The politician in question

There's a very select few people I will talk politics with. Aren't you all glad that this blog is not one of them?

Babies masquerading as dogs

2011-03-24T18:30:00.003-05:00

Because they are dogs. I hope I'm not offending any babies.

Peruvian dogs, in my very American opinion, leave something to be desired in the affection category. It's not their fault. They haven't been trained in the art. But never fear, I've resolved to turn our dog Sasha into an American-style cuddle puppy. (And I said I wouldn't set goals! But who believed that....)

My strategy:

1) Get her to stop barking at me and to stay next to me for more than a minute at a time. Ok, so that doesn't have much to do with American/Peruvian. But it's irritating....

2) Talk baby talk to her at every opportunity. "Whooo's a good dog? Who's a good daaawwg? Sasha is! Yeeees you aaare..." Right now she thinks I'm pretty strange when I do that.

3) Pet and cuddle her. Even though she rarely bathes, and my hands look and smell like floor after I touch her. No one else pets her very much, especially not in the same way we pet our dogs while I was growing up. (I can't decide which of those is the cause and which the effect.)

This is a selfish mission. I miss dogs who come up to you waggle their tales and wiggling their butts cause they know they're going to be petted and pampered. I miss dogs who strain at their leashes in the street because every human they see is another cuddle-machine. I miss dogs who sit next to you like an old friend as you complain about a hard day and look into your eyes like they truly understand.

Writing this post has not helped that much.

These are the dog breeds I'd currently like to have in the distant future when I have the space and money:

Goldendoodle

Basset Hound

Dalmation
We had these growing up...and every time I see one I have to admit that I still have a soft spot for them.
Not all at once of course!

Who am I kidding? One trip to the SPCA and I'll be taking home whichever dog looks the most pathetic.

Happy Thursday chickadees!

Microwaves: Conspiring energy-suckers

2011-03-22T23:21:00.004-05:00

I appreciate energy conservation. Truly, I do. Turn things off when you're not using them? Good idea. Unplug them? I'm all for it.

But! I'm wary of people who toe the line between careful and crazy. And there's been something about the combination of expensive electricity and microwaves in both the families I've lived with in Peru that has pushed them just a leeetle closer to that line.

Last semester my first host mother always wanted the microwave number left on zero. She thought it conserved energy. I tentatively raised doubts about this; she confidently squashed them. Whatevs. Or it would've been, but I could not for the life of me remember to do it. And believe it or not, it became a major point of contention and stress. I got up at 2 AM one night because I remembered that I hadn't left the microwave on 0, and knew I very well could receive an email about it the next day. I feel like I've told this story to about a bazillion people. Forgive me if you're one of them.

This semester my family goes for the much more logical route of unplugging the microwave, which does in fact save electricity. I'm fairly confident that I've never forgotten, but then, I don't really have much occasion to use it anyway. So that could be more of a lucky coincidence than a matter of pride.

AND YET, despite this success, I'm still catching flack on the microwave issue! Apparently, someone, someone else, in this house left the microwave plugged in the other day (come forward and name yourself!), and I have had no less than three very serious discussions about desenchufando la microonda.

Sheesh. Peruvian microwaves have it out for me I think. They rack up their numbers and plug themselves in while no one's looking. And then snicker at me with the toaster while basking in their stolen energy baths.

the rant about the disfunctional queue

2011-03-21T13:19:00.006-05:00

I've recently discovered in myself a latent obsession with lines. Not as in geometry, and not as in coloring books, (although, come to think of it, I did abandon pages as a kid if the colors began to get out of their properly designated areas), but I'm talking lines of humans.

If I had to, I would pin it to elementary school, when whenever we ventured into the wilds of the hallways we had a line leader and a line follower, and everyone in between had to stay in their positions and not stray too far to the front or to the back. On pain of...umm...a warning? I don't remember. I was a strict line adherent.

Ponder the beautiful simplicity of the line principle: many people want to do something which can only be done by one person at a time. Walk through the hallway, ride an amusement park ride, use the bathroom. So we all stand one in back of the other, calmly waiting our turn, respecting the person in front and trusting the person behind to respect us.

Here's fun fact: Peruvians tend not to be quite as crazy about lines as Americans are, or at least as this American is. Forming them correctly, not actually waiting in them. As far as I can tell no one really likes that. Which is precisely the reason we're all so sensitive about our place in them.

I only reflect on this at such lengthly length because today I spent too much time waiting in lines. Lines the didn't line very well. Lines that only pretended to be lines. Lines in which the person behind me couldn't respect my place in line because they were not in fact behind me any more.

Especially at the photocopier. Nearly every time I go to the copier I end up wanting to smack someone. It has not happened yet. But it very well might.

No, you're right. I'm far too passive aggressive for that.

One apron, four hours, fifteen houseguests

2011-03-18T08:55:00.008-05:00

Last night was a night full of mystery. I now can pretty much fake my way thought most things here, but I found myself at a loss several times yesterday. For instance:

1) I wasn't told that it was her birthday on Thursday until Monday. When I asked what we were doing, she goes "Ohh, nothing."Me: "But didn't someone mention something about family coming over?" HM: "Oh, well, a couple of people." That nothing with a couple people turned out to be a party of about 15 people, cake, and finger food.

2) My host mom asked me on Wednesday: "Is Francesca coming to the dinner?" (my Peruvian friend) Me: "Ummm....I didn't ask her. Oh dear, did you tell me to ask her?" HM: " I thought about telling you to ask her."

3) I told her that Francesca and I might get there a little earlier than planned, and she said "Better that way." But when we arrived no one was around. And she was napping.

4) My host mom told us everyone was coming at 6:30. We thought she would call us down from my room. She didn't. We debated going down at 7:3o. Francesca: "I don't know, it's your house!" Me: "I don't know, it's your country!" F: "Nope. I'm Italian."

5) I got her a gift, (an apron for cooking (below from CasaIdeas)...I know...my feminist sensibilities, which are existent but not exactly fine-tuned, were screaming but I had no other ideas, and I really thought she'd like it. And she did. So don't judge!) but no one else brought anything, as far as I saw. Do you pass gift receiving age in Peru or something? What a shame!
6) At 11 o'clock I was dead tired. I still thought it would be rude to go to bed. But then they told me I looked sleepy, and I could go rest if I wanted to. I got a pang of guilt for leaving all the dishes and what not, and asked if I should help first. My host mom said no, it's fine, we'll do it tomorrow. I asked several times if she was sure, and may have sensed some hesitation the final time, but I went. It's tomorrow now, and not a dirty dish to be found.

Well, who doesn't need a good awkward night every now and again?

Happy Friday!

P.S. Francesca has provided me with updates on sickness euphemisms. Read if you care:

They didn't ask me "Estas ocupada?" for diarrhea but rather "Te estas ocupando?" (forgive the English punctuation, but this text is not bilingual) Which I guess is like saying, "Are you busying yourself?" Although that apparently is something you'd more use with little kids. (Which really is quite interesting linguistically, I think, when you consider how we think about speaking with language learners.)

A phrase I think I remember hearing, "Te has aflojado el estomago?" literally something like "Have you loosened your stomach?" is another way to say it.

"Diarrea" as a word is not so much gross apparently as just very medical and technical. I pointed out that it is not so in English.

Hmm...I think she told me something else for "vomitar" also, but it once again escapes me.

Touchy subjects

2011-03-16T14:02:00.004-05:00

I'm feeling much better now, as I'm sure you noticed that I failed to mention in the last post. I'm not 100% quite yet (as my 7th grade Social Studies teacher Mr. Kennel used to say. Shout out Mr. Kennel! An avid reader I'm sure) but I'm on my way.

I may milk the "eeehh...not fantastic" factor a couple days longer to keep my portion sizes down at lunch and dinner. Shhhh. That's our secret.

But truly, my host family, especially sister and Mom, were so extremely helpful through the whole thing, making sure I drank water and took my medicine and ate chicken soup, that I feel a little more like a part of this family.

And, I've discovered some more things about them:

Even in dire circumstances, they don't like to directly state any problems you may have with bodily functions. Is this a cultural thing, a family thing, a personal thing...? I don't know. I'm pretty sure I remember the Colombian couple I stayed with during my last sickness just coming right out with it.

But apparently "Estas ocupada?" literally, "Are you busy?", can also mean "Do you have diarrhea?" There was also several euphemisms for throwing up which I don't remember. But that one could be pantomimed a little easier....as you can imagine. They should write a handbook, seriously, because when I didn't understand my host mom just repeated it and looked concerned until I somehow got the drift.

I'm afraid I broke these unspoken rules every time and just used "diarrhea" and "vomitear." I wasn't really in a very learny mood at the time.

My family in the states ain't quite so delicate. Although, we do draw the line at hearing about my grandmother's bowel movements over a good meatloaf.

Off to dinner with you then!

PS Above is a pic I took near my house, across from the Starbucks.

The Tube of Me: Brigitte Dale

2011-03-14T11:58:00.005-05:00

You know you love these! Or at least, I know I love when you have to listen to my opinion. Whenever I get around to sharing a channel with you I always wonder why I don't do them more often... (Hint: It may have something to do with my bad memory...)

Brigitte Dale is possibly the oldest of my vlog followees, mostly because I think I actually started to watch her in high school when she was doing vlogs for ABC family. When the only thing I could load to our charming dial-up internet was tiny little clips.

I love her because she's cute and smart and witty, and often talks about actual news or her real life with good insight. I feel sorta like we could be friends. Little inflated opinion of myself? The above is kinda an exception to that rule (the real life rule, not the friends rule), but I wanted to share it cause it's one of my favorites, and a good example of her kind of self-mocking, dry sense of humor. The absolute worst thing you could do here, ducklings, is take the above clip seriously! She does sometimes offer advice to listeners. This is not one of those times.

I also recommend: In defense of e-stalking, Human bedwarmers at Holiday Inn, and winky ha ha.

Yes, I may have just spelled her name wrong in the title when I first published. Why the heck is "Brigitte" so hard to spell? It's like "occasion"... I never get it right the first time.

Thank you for watching this edition of The Tube of Me, sponsored by the ample amount of free time Dani has before her classwork kicks in.