vente cinco

Three eras of architecture side by side. History bleeds in this city.

Talismans of the Virgin.

Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe

Quetzalcoatl

View of the main boulevard from up top the Temple of the Sun.

View of the top of the Temple of the Sun.

I am officially 25 years old. Yoohoo! Actually very low key. I didn't even mention it to my roommates. No point in foisting unnecessary celebrations on strangers. I had a perfect day anyway. Oh, recap of previous day.

- took 4-hour bus ride from morelia back to mexico city after thinking about all the cool things i wanted to do in the city. squished against fat woman who crossed herself when we arrive in mexico city. terrible american movies playing over tv. slept through most of it so journey just fine. :o)
- took the subway and found the hostel i wanted behind the main cathedral after getting lost a bit. settled in 6-bed dorm room with nice Australian girls on a 4-month world trip. very cool. i have my own locker! my passport is finally secure.
- took tourist circuit bus ride through central district. kinda bummer because it started to rain and we were stuck in traffic. also were let out on the main boulevard istead of at cathedral because tour stops promptly at nine. ai! so walked the mean streets at night! but perfectly alright and street well lit. made it home with body and possessions in tact.

And then today...Teotihuacan! I saw the great Aztec ruins that lie just outside Mexico City. Well, first took a detour to Tlatelotco (i may be horribly mispelling that) ruins within the city of pre-Spanish marketplace. Right by a Fransiscan church. And also surrounded by 50s housing complexes upon which Mexican police and army stood to fire down and kill 20,000 protesting students in 1968. Mexico bleeds history. Also a stop at the Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe, where our guide gave us an objective history of the shadiness behind the Catholic church's use of saints and images for conversion. Somekind of huge service doing on. Rode on conveyor belts to see the image of the virgin. Also saw the caravan used to carry Pope John Paul II when he came to visit Mexico. When he died the bus was drived empty through Mexico and thousands stood in the streets to see it pass and say their goodbyes. Wow. Ah, then to the coolness. Huge boulevard like formation with the temple of the moon at the end, the temple of the sun at the side, and thirteen smaller pyramid bases all around. So organized and clearly laid. A rush of human enginuity and a culture far different but also perfectly logical and empassioned as our own. Or not. Thankfully no rain, just sun behind the clouds as we trekked up and up and up. Amazing to see how the pyramids were meant to mimic the mountains around. Sad that what was once forest was probably decimated to make the stucco used to cover the stone walls. Stone walls and steps that ran with human blood from daily sacrifices. And there is so much of the culture that is similar with the Mayans and Incans. So much cultural exchange and technology. Must have been amazing with runners bringing fresh fish from the coast and ice from the mountains. Wow.

And then back again to Mexico City, where I enjoyed a dinner of Chinese food (halfway decent but veggies doing my rollicking digstion good) and then a cup of yogurt, fruit, and gelatin from a great pastry-dessert place. Gonna hit that place at least one more time before I head out in two days.

Love being in Mexico City. Love being 25 in Mexico City.

Mexico!

Even the public trash cans are pretty!

Kids and animals: cuteness!

Critical Mass by the Spanish Aqueduct. Check out that dude scowling at me.

Deformed fetuses in the Natural History Museum.

Balloons for sale outside the artisan market.

Corn husk Jesus

Pineapple ceramico!

Ok, writing from Hostel Catedral in Mexico City. Decided to leave Morelia a day early after I found that I had pretty much hit everything I had wanted to see in one day. Here´s the rundown of Morelia.

- traipsed all over the main plaza several times and poked my head into the church, though mass was going on so I didn´t want to disturb.
- walked to the main park where duckies swim in the fountain. kinda wet all around with the rain. strange because i remember that too from when i was here before, lots of wetness. walked along the old spanish aquaduct. visited the museum of natural history, which was mini, like in a house. had a mini exhibit on climate in morelia and also a small room filled with deformed animals and fetuses! i will post some pictures that some viewers may not want to see.
- ate gazpacho! a fruit cocktail of finely cubed pineapple, jicama, and mango topped with chili powder, Valentino chili sauce, cheese, and lime juice. fantastic!
- walked through various museums and old universities to see murals and paintings.
- ate at fancy hotel cafe on the plaza and read a book i got in peru. felt very bohemian!
- watched movie, Pirates of the Carribean 2. incomprehensible plot. i forgot how much i didn´t like the first one.
- had delicious fruit yogurt from a shop that just made yogurt.
- oh, and had a breakfast where i was served a bowl of raw eggs. eck! don´t order huevos tibio.

Weitdest thing about being in Morelia was that everyone I saw was decidedly middle class. this may have something to do with the fact that i only hung around the central district, but even the street kids selling dolls wore blue jeans. it was a very different feeling from peru or guatemala to see that all the tourists were locals! Mexicans with digital cameras taking pictures of churches or out shopping for handicrafts and pan dulce with their kids at the market. Streets clean, even glossy with all the intermittent rain. I can´t say if it was good or bad, but just was so different from it being gringos buying things and the locals begging for money. Economic prosperity.

Oi. I´ll leave Mexico City to tomorrow. I arrived kinda late so haven´t been doing too much anyway. My trip is almost over! But tomorrow is my birthday and I´ll spend it at Teotihuacan seeing the Aztec temples of the sun and moon. Very excited about it. Till tomorrow. Hasta luego!

Morelia Morelia!

I made it alive and well. City is beautiful. So hungry and need to find the tourist office so will write more later. But I made it!

The United Nations Tortilla Factory

Island cabana on Tabacco Caye. Even a shack in paradise is more than any mansion.

Island puppy

Hammocks!

The Marie Sharp hot sauce bottling plant

Dark storm clouds over San Pedro

This is the name of a tortilla shack I saw in Belize on our way out to Mexico. I´m taking off solo for Morelia, Michoacan. Ahhh. Let me explain.

From Tobacco Caye three of us went back to Dangriga to make a stop at the Marie Sharp factory (when we asked how to get there people would just call it ¨Marie Sharp¨like we were going to see the person). Marie Sharp is THE hot sauce in Belize. With a carrot base it tastes like nothing I´ve had in the states and is just absolutely excellent. We got to see the humble factory where ladies were bottling the sauce and of course did some shopping. Got little bottles of the ¨fiery hot¨sauce and grapefruit based sauce. I also picked up some canned cashew fruit that was superb. I hope the jar makes it back in tact. We went on to Hopkins, a small Garifuna town on the Carribean Sea, where we hung out and played in the ocean. Hopkins has no town center, it is just tin houses and businesses all along a street that runs parallel to the ocean. Really quite place where everyone gets around by bike. A little black boy called me Chinese and when I called him a Belizean he said, ¨Hopkensian!¨ We then headed back up to Dangriga where we met up with our friend who had stayed on Tobacco Caye to do some scuba diving.

We traveled, the four of us, together to San Pedro, the only town on the tip of Ambergris Caye, a large island off the northern coast of Belize famous for its resorts and beaches. It was such a change from the tiny island paradise of Tobacco Caye. Everyone drives around in golf carts and there are boat docks poking out of the beach every 50 feet. We did some snorkeling there at the Hol Chan Marine Reserve, beautiful coral reefs but so crowded with snorkel groups that I kept bumping into ppl constantly, and then at Shark Ray Alley, a spot where fisherman gutted their catches so sharks and rays congregate there. It was amazing to swim around with rays and sharks, but the experience was marred by the fact that the 5 or so snorkel boats there were all chumming the water, some very obstrusively, and one snorkel guide even grabbed a shark and ray for ppl on his tour to ¨hug.¨ Thankfully, our guides from Ecological Tour were much less invasive but the experience very much gave me my fill of snorkeling. There is such beauty in the ocean to be seen, but my finning all around it only interferes with what should probably be mostly left alone.

That day I also decided that I wanted to set off solo. I have had my fill of beaches and I know that going up the Yucatan to Cozumel and Cancun will only place me in ever increasingly touristy places that I don´t really want to go to. This trip has also shown me that I could totally make it on my own. I don´t know lots of Spanish but I think I could get by. And really what spurred me to go on this trip was an opportunity to visit Morelia again, the capital of the Mexican state of Michoacan. Beautiful city: modern, colonial, clean, economically diverse, cosmopolitan but easygoing. I don´t know if it will still be the place I once encountered, but it is what I left to see and my travel companions really only planned to go through the Yucatan to see beaches and ruins. So I´m taking off solo. First time doing so in a foreign country. I hope things will go well. I´m a little scared, but I am also excited. I´ve surprised myself with how strong I can be. I think I can do this ok. I take off tomorrow with a flight from Chetumal to Mexico City and then will take a bus to Morelia. Phew. I´ll keep connected to the internet daily, I think, to reassure my family that I´m not dead or hurt or penniless. So, I guess you´ll get the latest on my solo adventure. I really just plan to stay in Morelia for 4 days and then spend a day in Mexico City to see the Aztec temples of the Sun and Moon (meaning I will have seen the greatest ruins of the Incans, Mayans, and Aztecs in one go!). Then I hope to stop in Houston for a few days before heading out to California. It´s my vacation and I should do with my time what I want to do. I want to stay in one place for more than 2 days (even spend my birthday there alone, I´ll be 25 on July 25th!), and I want to see my family one more time before I have to dive into my final year of graduate school. Holy moley, let´s hope I know what I´m doing.

You Better Belize It!

Tikal spider monkey

Dawn at Tikal

Enormous turquoise jungle bug with a missing wing.

Tikal, the jungle ruins...

Cabana a Placencia

A piece of paradise

Writing from an internet cafe in a cabana by the beach. Spent the day walking the beaches, swimming, talking with Mayan kids who tried to sell me crafts, drank coconut juice from a cocunut that a kid climbed a tree to fetch for us, ate fantastic shrimp, drank delicious pina colada. Placencia, a synonym for paradise.

Ah, but how did I come to be in Belize. I believe I left off at the Mayan ruins of Tikal. I'll give the rundown.
- Got up at 3:30am for a sunrise tour of the ruins. Sleepy! Had a hike through the dark and up a temple side where we sat and watched the sky lighten to where levels of mist came in an out of view. The world awaking. Birds calling, howler monkeys screaming like resonating symbols, a temple poking through the fog and the rain forest canopy. Didn't actually see any animals, but cool to greet the day from the side of a temple and hear everything come alive.
- Walked through the main plazas and around to other temples. Amazing and so high and steep and more to be excavated and discovered it sounds like. Made all the more pleasurable b/c we hiked around and allowed all our senses to awaken to the place in the morning. Can't say better or worse than Machi Picchu but more engaging, yes.
- Hiked around the park and saw a family of monkeys several times swinging overhead and across our path. Spider monkeys! Also spotted a gray jungle fox twice, once with what looked like a bird in its mouth. Saw an ant totally chomp down on a catepillar. Also several path-blazing lines of leaf-cutter ants carrying sails of leaves in their jaws.
- Took a canopy tour, which really consisted of doing 11 high up zip lines through the tree tops. Fast and fun! Then got eated alive by mosquitoes towards the end and dusk. Oh those jungle bugs!
- Basically an amazing action packed day of nature, physical activity, and good ole recreational fun.

Next day got up at 5 to catch bus for Belize. Missed the first stop and had to pay our last bit of Guatemalan quetzals that we had been saving to pay the border tax. Turned out ok though and we caught the bus we needed. Rode 5 hours to Belize and had to pile out of the bus at the border check. Somehow we made it from Guat to Belmopan in Belize, then to Dangriga and Mango Creek where we took a boat to Placencia. (Oh, had great soy milk made by a Chinese couple in Belmopan. Many Chinere people in Belize!) Schlepped our heavy bags as we looked for a place to live and settled on a turquoise cabana right on the beach. Quiet because the tourist season seems mostly over.

Have spent the days in eating ice creams from Daisy's, Daisy being the proprietress who makes the ice cream herself every night. So yummy. And walking in the sand and the sea water. One our long beach walk we also popped into hotel pools and had to hedge suspicious lodgers who kept asking us what room we were staying in and where we heard about this place. Room 16, from a mother. Anyway, skidaddling along the beach avoiding random rainshowers. Drinking juice of a coconut fetched down a tree by an obliging kid. The people in Belize are so welcoming and friendly. Can't help thinking what is the catch? Why are you being so nice? Do you want me to buy something of help you gain a commission? Maybe residual reactions from Peru. But enjoying it. Kept running into a group of Mayan adolescents who were trying to sell crafts in order to get money for their school registration. Got to talk and joke with them, learned about school in Belize, and ducked with them under our cabana in the rain. Conclusion, kids are fantastic pretty much where ever you go. Not right that so many of them have to earn livings and have to constantly proposition people that they meet.

On to a caye hopefully tomorrow. Everyday will just simply have to be better than the last.

Dios nos acompañe!

The colors of the textiles are just gorgeous.

Lago Atitlan with mystic volcano in the background.

Chicken bus. Not your run-or-the-mill yellow bus, eh? Now squeeze in as many people as you can!

Fountain of the "mothers" in Antigua.

A church in Antigua that looks like cake frosting. Squelch!

Guat has been something of a haze of buses and dusty towns. A crazy haze. The lake that we visited was Lago de Atitlan, mentioned in my travel book as one of the centers of mystical energy like Machu Pichu or the Egyptian pyramids. After taking a 3 hr bus ride to the city of Panajachel that sits at its coast, my friend and I took a kayak out on the lake to paddle around. It is a quiet blue lake surrounded by green volcanoes and mountains. Only two small docks poke out into its waters and just a few tour boats running tourists to the surrounding towns of indigenous peoples. Also just a few boys swimming and diving off the peirs. Eerily, we were the only two ppl in a kayak out on the water and the current kept pulling us out towards the volcanoes across the lake. We kept getting turned around in the waves and had a hard time maintaining a straight path. Could just be that we had a crappy kayak and crappy paddles that exacerbated the difficulties of paddling in a double kayak, but no, i think it was mystical energy.

Shortly thereafter we had to rush back to Antigua to pick up my jacket with I had sent to the laundromat to have repaired after the zipper broke. I guess I could have abandoned it to see more of the lake, but I´m attached to my things and wouldn´t like to lose something if I could help it. My friend was nice enough to come with me to navigate the public bus system, which turned out to be a transportational adventure. First we stood in the back of a pickup truck, hanging on to a metal frame set up for passengers as we winded up the mountain, to a bigger city, Solola. From there we has to catch a chicken bus to Encuentros. A ¨chicken bus¨ is what they call the old Blue Bird yellow school buses that Guatemala uses for public transportation. I think the one we rode from Solola had ¨Williamsburg County¨written on its side. I guess Guatemalans are little or have no other option but everyone squeezed in 3 to a seat with their bags and babies. At Encuentros it started to rain as we tried to look for the next loudly painted chicken bus that would take us to Chimaltenango. On the previous bus, the ticket man who squeezed up and down the isle to collect the bus fare had gouged us by charging us 2 more quetzals than the locals. A cool lady stuck up for us and said it was unjust, though the ticket man said, ¨Hey, I am a business man. They are not from around here.¨ Goo to know that eventhough we were the only gringas on the bus, we weren´t looked upon by all as despicable future victims. The bus from Chimal. to Antigua was the last leg and the longest. It was something like 1.5 hrs of bumping along the countryside in the rain. Inevitably we kept falling asleep on the passengers to either side of us, but they were pretty nice about it too. And we did survive and I have retrieved my jacket with its nice new black zipper! Also had a great last night in Antigua eating street papusas (corn tortillas stuffed with stuff, queso in my case) and cut mangos. Also peeked into a house to enjoy a marimba band jamming away.

--------

Ah, woke up at 4am to catch our bus out to Flores to see the ruins of Tikal. Craziness abounded. Our pickup van was late and we had to stop lingering outside the door of our hotel when a pack of dogs became interested in us. Made it to the bus station ok and set out for a 10 hr bus ride. Ahh. Purposely kept from drinking water to avoid having to use the bus bathroom. Eick. But the view and sunrise in the morning, oh man.

Our bus rides have been cruises through paradise. In the mornings, the clouds touch the mountaintops like talcum smoke and the light gray of the sky makes the terraced farms and broad banana leaves seem all the more green. Little tin roofed houses are set amongst bushy trees and shredded palm fronds that punctuate the expanses of cornfields that climb up the mountains - nothing´s flat. And the volcanoes, always the most verdant green, dark and looming with the mist that only just hides their terrible tips. Guatemala. Guatemala. Guatemala.

Tomorrow we get up at 3.30 to take a tour to see Tikal at sunrise when the monkeys and birds emerge. Ahh, sleep...what is that? And then another bus voyage out to Belize. Flying through the Mayan world, Fly!

guat, guat, guat

Gates of Lima's Barrio Chino, donated by China. Where are all the Chinese people?

Church encrusted with pigeons (all the dark dots on the outside).

Our thirteen-year-old fans from outside the church. The boy in blue, surrounded by his novias, is my Chinese "cousin."

Wellness bus in Lima. Mental health for all!

Ice cream option from ice cream shop in Lima. Cultural competence anyone?

The courtyard of the hostel in Antigua. Pretty, no?

hello from anttigua! i´ve been sick with a cold for the last 2 days or so and so have not been able to stumble to el cafe de internet. So, I will try to give a condensed version of what has happened thus far.

- wandered Lima, Peru. Fantastic city, Miraflores (the fancy developed area anyway). taxi window was not smashed and bags were not stollen. Cool! Also felt good to be in a city. At least there I know that the culture is there to be commecialized, not like in the smaller towns where I wonder if i am exploiting and destroying the culture.

- In Lima, overrun by middle-school-age kids outside a cathedral overed in pigeons. One precocious boy approached me because his grandfather is Chinese, from Canton. He asked me to pretend he was my son. Ahh, gotta love middle-schoolers.

- Crazy traveling to Guatemala. layover in costa rica. what i saw from the aeropuerto was beautiful. green and volcanic. ate papa john´s pizza. si.

- Our cabbie from Guatemala City to Antigua stopped halfway on the highway claiming that the rain made his car stall. Freaking out that we are about to be robbed-assaulted on the road during a storm. We got out and were able to hail a bus and we all survived. Uh, travel adventure not so fun, but we survived unscathed.

- Chilled in hostel room watching bad American movies on HBO while recovering from cold. Loved evey minute.

- Walked around Antigua today. Touristy colonial city. Guatemalans also short. I feel tall. But Americans all tall. Darn. Handicrafts and clothing beautiful, can´t help buying things. Money does not go as far here as Peru. What gives? Alas.

Next stop the lake, can´t remember the name, but will repot more later. Surrounded by volcanoes it is. And then on to the Mayan ruins of Tikal, which are supposed to be magnificent. Entonces, hasta luego! (oh, what do you know, but I am picking up Español.)

reed islands and empanadas

The boat dock at Taquile with the lake and mainland in the distance.

Reed boat, with figureheads that bite!

An island made from reeds! And a Peruvian lady in the traditional bowler hat.

Protest of American trade dominance. We're Canadians, honest!

Yesterday we took a boat tour out to the Floating Islands of Lake Titicaca. They are a group of 48 islands created completely out of reeds and are anchored by stakes in the ground. They are amazing things, like walking on squishy mats that undulate with the water. The houses there are also made of reeds and there are elaborate reed boats. Of course all this is now touristy. The moment we land the people unveil tables of handicrafts, the reed boatride costs 5 soles, and everyone actually lives in tin houses outfitted with solar panels and satellite dishes located behind the reed houses. Dying culture it is with the kids all going to school in Puno and then going on to university and not coming back to live on the islands. Amazing things though. Each island takes about a year to construct and reeds have to be constantly layered on top to form a 2 to 3 meter thickness. The lake itself was gorgeous. It is so expansive and blue it really is like being on the ocean. We then took a long boat ride out to one of the largest islands on the lake, Taquile. We climbed high up on a rock road to eat lunch and view more handicraft markets. I want to support the locals but at the same time it is hard not to be overwhelmed with kids thrusting knit bags and bracelets at you at every turn. ¨No gracias¨ has become a regular phrase that I repeat constantly. But I don´t think I had know how poor Peru is and how dependant it is on tourism to survive, which sadly does much to alter the traditional culture that people come to see. Well, Taquile was beautiful set in the middle of the lake. From where we ate we could see Bolivia on the horizon.

Oh, there´s a protest going on outside. We saw one the other day against free trade, particularly with the US. Hm, this one has old guys wearing suits. Don´t know what it is about though.

Oh, and I finally convinced my friend to eat street food with me so I had a beef steak empanada. Sooo good. If I get sick at least I had a fantastic breakfast. Don´t worry, no jello cups for me. I think we will have an afternoon of yogurt on the docks. Splendido and çíao!

On the shores of Lake Titicaca

Sunrise over dusty Puno.

Lake Titicaca! Oh the sludgy green waters! Actually very blue and calm further out.

Made it to the lago! After a nine hour train ride that rose thousands of miles in elevation, we tripped out the train with heads reeling from the elevation change. we got to see a beautiful landscape of snowcapped mountains, yellow plains, glassy rivers, and pink spraypainted sheep. I guess that is so that ppl can identify which are theirs but it was strange to see nevertheless. also lots of llamas tied up and many small peruvian children in very cute crotchetted hats. we arrived in puno, on the shores of the lake, and checked into a really great hostel that we bargained down perhaps too much. some bad feelings may persist. spent the next day checking out the dock and different tours and walking up the mountain to a gigantic condor statue. for that hike we climbed 619 stairs! intense, especially with the elevation, but i absolutely loved the climb and the view was spectacular. also enjoyed fantastic mini ice creams. oi, traveling is stressful though. constantly moving from place to place. living out of a backpack. having to shop around for affordable lodgings, food, and transport. i think it is a lifestyle that i will just have to get used to. tomorrow, the floating islands of lake titicaca! ah, what beautiful green waters.

basketball, cow hearts, and white jesus

Cusco in the distance.

White Jesus!

I´ve had a long day. But one that I feel much more pleased with. Upon first arriving in Cusco I was overwhelmed and saddened by how touristy this place is. There are native handicraft stands everywhere hawling the same stuff. White tourists everywhere you look in their REI gear. Little kids following you around asking you to buy knit fingerpuppets or postcards. And though the cost of everything is about a third the American cost, it makes me sad and confused that I came to a place with the intention of having my money sapped from me at every turn. This is fun?

I did have a splendid time though with some free entertainment watching a baskeball game of a city league of forty-something women. They just looked like they were having so much fun and everyone´s family was there. Kids buying popsicles and rolling around, pink-cheeked, in the terraced hill behind the outdoor court. Among other things I also ate a very Peruvian meal of quinoa soup and cow heart kabobs, followed by a desert that was something like a cornstarch gravy of Robitussen. Yum! And we met up with one our friends who has been Andean jungle trekking. One more friend is meeting us soon and our group of 4 will be complete and ready to head of to Lake Titicaca and Central America. Warmth and beaches are on the horizon.

Oh, and we climbed up one of the mountains surounding Cusco to see de Christo Blanco, a huge statue of Jesus with his arms outstretched over the city. The dude at the entrance of the long stone path up originally wanted to charge us 40 soles. We reasoned that we weren´t headed for the Inca ruins, but for Jesus. Can we just see Jesus? Ok, 40 soles for you three. Finally he folded and let us go for free, but we had to swear we were only going up to see Jesus. Hey, we came to take the narrow path that only leads to our salvation. Buenos noches from Peru!

llama drama

Oh she looks all innocent now, but one second before she was smacking those pups.

Llama, up close and personal!

The ruins of Machu Picchu!

hello from aguas caliente, aka Machu Picchu according to the mayor. just trekked around the ruins. don´t really have any concept of how to integrate them into my understanding of the modern world, but will post impressive pictures as soon as possible. also had close encounter with a llama that was really less interested in me than I was in it. lots of terraces stoned off for agriculture, small room-like areas that were maybe houses, and various plazas and watch towers. we traveled there and back from the train on Mercedes Benz buses, very posh, but i didn´t particularly notice the vehicle much because i pretty much immediately fell asleep like i do in every moving vehicle. the train ride up was also very nice, with a breakfast of ham sandwhich (in so much abundance on transportation), fruit, and strawberry shortcake. the baños was also quite servicable. the tracks ran along a rocky river at the foot of tall green mountains. it made me think about what americans do with some mountains, cordon them off to build trails for shuttle buses and campsites. but with how large our human population is how can we interact with nature without destroying it? nature is then by nature so unnatural. how much better is it to take an Orient Express train to see it? No se.

On one of the train stops I caught a photo of a girl with two puppies, the bigger of the puppies whose neck she would yank at and whose head she would periodically whack. Ah, au naturale.

mi manos can´t keep up with where i am

Cusco flags; not the gay flag, as a waiter pointedly told us.

Hello from Cusco, Peru! Hmm, yes, behind in updating about the mid-transatlantic driving adventure so I shall recap as thus. Camped out in Zion and Bryce. It is so hot in the desert even at high elevations. It was of much hotness yet sunscreen worked marvelously. Had great time with friends, catching up and bonding and hopping from tent to motels. Visited Yosemite only for a peek. Stepped out of car to take pictures of waterfall and were marauded by elephantine mosquitoes like out of a scene from Hatchet. The valley was, as my friend called it, a zoo. There was a mini shopping center that had shopping carts. There was an art studio for taking art classes. An Ansel Adams gallery. A car garage. Too much. And home again to California to spend some mad dash quality time with the sister.

And mad dash again from airplane to airplane, mini sandwhich to mini sandwhich, until I am here sitting in an internet cafe with a 2.5 liter waterbottle in my bag sitting next to my friend who is waiting for me to finish this so we can go grab some lunch and sleep the afternoon away before a 6am train ride to Macchu Pichu. It´s a mad house, this life of mine.

one wedding and 4 states

Hello from Mount Carmel, Utah. I am much chagrinned that I am unable to post my pics thus far up, but perhaps in a few days. I just attended a friend's wedding three days ago (a wedding that perfectly fit the personalities of my now wedded friends: bbq reception followed with an anime viewing). Got to see long-missed friends in Austin and camp out in an apartment complex that I used to live in. Found out that my travel route coincided with that of the newlyweds and so my friend and I are traveling with them and their visiting German friend. We made our way through Texas (long hot drive, much hills, then dry flatnessw, and scrubby vegetation, and many moo-moos), then New Mexico (beautiful mesas and goats and horses and metalwork and irrigation line/mobiles), and Arizona (gorgeous mountains and canyons, Hopi reservation with small houses and many school buses, postcard scenery in real time, layers of prehistoric sea history written on the walls), and Utah, which we hit at night and so there is not much to tell yet. We intended to camp at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon but we were thwarted by a forest fire that was smoking out the roads. So that is why we are in Utah outside of Zion National Park. Eee. More to report as the world turns. Thankfully did not kill any bunnies though they certainly displayed suicidal tendancies by running into the road in front of myh cart and parking their fuzzy butts.

Living la vida loca

Ah, happy to report that Grandmother is feeling much better. She's settled in a new hospital in downtown Houston for rehab, a hospital that even has a staff person from Fu Zhou! And her room is enormous, with sofas and accent tables with lamps and dressers and an extra bed for visiting family members. My grandmother's suicidal requests have decreased and will hopefully piddle out altogether once she gets walking some more.

I will also update the "new words" and "books" section once I get back from Peru/Guat/Belize/Mexico and don't have to suffer the stiffling confines of a dial-up connection that burns out when the day gets too hot. Will add Shalimar the Clown by Rushdie (excellent book! read it; i liked it even more than Midnight's Children) and From the Dust Returned by Bradbury (which was like a string of his previous short stories, some of which I have read so it was like reading a book I've read before).

Ah, my sis is getting into Houston today for a one day mad visit of family and grandmother and something for Father's Day and prepping for friend's wedding in Austin... Ahh. Much will be the travels that will soon be commencing, including a transcontinental (well semi-) drive-a-thon from Austin to Berkeley. Aii, I will not be in one place for long.

we all get at least one blogpost of abject desperation

The last two nights I have spent in cold hospital rooms, trying my best to sleep curled in frigid rooms against gauzy, sterile pillows. My presence there had nothing to do with and injury of mine but rather my grandmother’s. Wednesday afternoon I drew my sister out for a late afternoon walk. Strangely, my grandmother had not yet started dinner and it was seven o’clock. Then we saw her in the driveway, sitting on the ground. She had lost her balance and suddenly sat down, her left hip screaming in pain with every moment. She asked me to try to lift her up, and foolish me I did try, but thankfully had little strength. My sense kicked in and I called 911.

Thus began the sequence. Ambulance – emergency room – x-rays (and the wails and face contortions of pain pain pain) – cries for a catheter that fell on irritated and overworked ears of the perpetually unavailable nurses – and the first sleepless night in a cold chair. The next day surgery – a replacement hip socket – ICU – a second sleepless in a cold hospital chair punctuated by hourly doses of medication and blood tests. And it’s over. The worst of it, I hope, is over. If she can walk again and feel useful then she will possibly beat back the looming threat of dementia. If she can still get around and see people, she will shoo away the dogs of depression that nip at her tired legs and weakened heart. I think she will be ok.

Being home I sink into a stupor of lost identity. I’m not who I am anymore and can think of escape as the only recourse for regaining my selfhood. But escape gives me no peace because my absence is always physical. My empty room. That space in the house that will not be changed or filled. All my possessions there. My dad teasing my older sister about moving into one of our rooms and her refusal because those rooms mean that we will come back. The tether is long: it stretches for thousands of miles across states, mountains, and canyons. And it tugs on me and tells me, “You will never escape. You will always belong to place where you cannot be. You can be yourself in other places and talk with other people but you will not belong to them because you will always belong to me.” And I’m snapped back and I stuff myself deeper down to hide, for when I can escape again and unfold my unused voice and my rusty mind. And pretend that I am free and that the tether will not again pull me back. Because obligation is stronger than love. Because obligation is not love. One can coexist with the other but so too can obligation exist without love. Have we confused the two?

No-No the sexually molested baby seal

My older sister likes to listen to children's song and story tapes and most recently she has been listening to the tape of No-No the Seal. It is a story about a baby seal that is molested by his Uncle Seal. He tries to run away in the ocean and is scared to tell his parents, but with guidance from his friend Wise Whale he is able to tell. I remember years ago when my mom got this book and tape for my sister. I read the book and was shocked. I wasn't sure if my mom had read the story before getting the tape. The book had a picture of a fuzzy seal on the cover after all. But as unconfortable as the story is, Uncle Seal's voice is of a guffawing grandpa, perhaps the story's message is one that suggests a more appropriate response for children, for as the Neil Gilbert says, children should not be responsible for defending themselves. But I can't quite get over the weirdness of a sexually molested baby seal.

My sister's favorite song on the tape is his reflective/confliced song.

My world is falling down;
My heart is broken and sad.
When Uncle Seal's around,
I feel mixed up; I feel scared!
He is my special friend.
Why did he touch me that way?
I don't want to hurt Uncle Seal
Or make Mom and Dad bark and yell,
But this very funny feeling that I feel
Is worse because he told me not to tell.
Yes, it's worse because Uncle told me not to tell!

one in 12 Americans...

...owns an RV. Is that right? I hear that off of an infomercial about luxury RV parks.

But this is what new thing I have learned since being home in Houston. I have to fight the urge to slump onto the couch in front the tv, which I haven't had exposure to for months, and turn off my brain. I don’t know what to do with myself. I am a kid here and I am never allowed to forget it. I dug out the old rusted bikes in our garage and my dad pumped up the tires. When I told him that I intended to ride around in the street my dad said no, you will get hurt. When my grandmother asked me to help her with a weed-turned-tree, I thought she was carrying a hatchet for me to use to chop it down. No, I would only hurt myself. I don’t know what I’m doing. I was there to watch her hack it up and then drag what was left away. I am told constantly that I am too young, unable, not experienced enough, when I know this not to be true and yet there is no way that I can express my ideas or abilities because at home I might as well still be in middle school. But the sadness is there: the soft intonation that I have been long missed. Why did you go away for so long? When are you coming back to stay?

I can’t. I will be here for three weeks but I can’t live where my life is not my own. And that breaks my heart.

So instead I keep house. And clean. I gave my sister a bath and cut her fingernails. I washed her bathtub and sink. I helped my grandmother install a safety rail on the edge of the tub. I helped her label her video discs. I helped thread the sewing machine. I helped my dad pay the bills. I sweep the floors. I packed up all the newspapers for recycling.

And the aquarium. When I was home last in the winter, I was felt so sorry for our turtle. The filter to its tank had long stopped working and it swam in a half evaporated tank of filthy water. No one had time to look out for Mr. Munchie. My older sister and I took it to a pond in a golf course down in Herman Park (I was intimidated by all the mothers with children at the pond outside the zoo) and set Mr. Munchie free. Well, as free as a pond in the middle of golf course in the middle of the huge urban metroplex can be. How can we keep you when you cannot have clean water and care? So, this bilgy tank has stayed as it was since we let loose Mr. Munchie on the world. A film of fuzzy white stuff was new though. I took the whole operation down, washed out the filter, cleaned the marbles, scooped out the water, scrubbed down the tank, and sanded the rusting stand. Tomorrow I'll paint the stand and get some filter cartidges. I think I'll move our sadly neglected fish from their five gallon tank to this big one. But should anything or anyone really be confined to small spaces? Could you make it outside the box that keeps you safe? Will you still know who you are? Tell me Mr. Munchie, do you miss me?

i like bike

Today I rode a bike for the first time! Yes, this was my secret disability. I could not ride a bike. But that changed today. It was both exhilarating and utterly terrifying, but with about ten minutes of my friend holding the bike and running with me made me feel that I could do it. And...I did. Wow! So this is the bliss of cycled mobility. Granted, I'm not great at it. I still freak out when cars come and then tend to almost fall into bushes, but I could do it. I can ride straight and turn corners! Now, I just need a more developed method of braking that doesn't involve me stumbling sideways or into parked cars. Yosh!!!!!

--------------------

Ich liebe Sommer! I also went with my friend to the Stanford campus and walked all about. We stopped in the art library to browse through the Soetheby's and Christie's art catalogues. I also got some swanky orange tennis shoes. I bleed burnt orange. On my feet. (Ooo, like space cadette's orange pea coat...)

Summer Daze

Kickin' it in Palo Alto with an Austin bud. Feels funny to be out of Berkeley, a place that has so occupied my mind and soul the past few months. Packed up my apartment in a day and zipped all my belongings to my sister's place in Sacramento. The separation from the b-town get-a-long still yet to hit. And the languor of summer creeps up apace as the sun shines over the South Bay.

In preparation of the Latin Amer. Adventure, decided to read books by writers from the countries to be visited. So far this includes

1) Peru - Mario Vargas Llosa, The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta
2) Mexico - Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude: Life and Thought in Mexico
3) Guatemala - Rigoberta Menchu - The Girl from Chimel
4) Belize - ?

If you have any suggestions for further necessary reading before entering these countries - for emotional and intellectual understanding and connection - please let me know. I think I may end up doing a lot of reading on the beaches after the sun has sizzled away my epidermis.

ummm

I noticed that I hadn't really posted anything in the last few days, though I still get visits. So let's see...what is something interesting and worth reading...

I went to the graduation for all the second-year MSW students. For some reason it was downright thrilling to see all the graduating students get hooded and march across stage and smile and know that they're schooling is over. I'm terrified that I will be one of those people in a year, but I'm absolutley looking forward to the ceremony and regalia and everything, which is strange for me because I usually despise all the gown and marching crap.

As a volunteer I was stationed to work with the caterer lady and help set everything up for the reception. Donning an apron, two classmates and I found ourselves being the slave monkeys of this woman as she snapped at us for laying out the wrong napkins, chewed us out for bringing the wrong spoons, and generally mistreated us. Very interesting. There was also a protest scheduled that day to occur outside the hall where the ceremonies were taking place. UC employees are paid significantly less than workers in community colleges. So we were all a bit troubled about crossing a pickett line to help at a graduation--it turned out that our scheduled speaker cancelled in respect of the workers and so the protest/strike didn't even happen. But anyway, the caterer was complaining about workers violating contracts and not doing good work and then whining about it and causing trouble with unions and everything. I was like, "Does she know that she's catering for social workers?" Anyway, it was a very interesting evening overall.

--------------------

And now I am continuing my library hopping as I endeavor to complete my last assignment, due Tuesday. Let's see what libraries I have been to already:

- Doe Library (Main)
- Mofffit Undergrad Library
- Music Library
- Educational Psychology Library
- Environmental Design Library
- Public Health Library
- Optometry Library
- East Asian Library (a particularly beautiful one)
- Law Library
- and right now in Ethnic Studies Library.

Oh the wonders of La Biblioteca!

O the terror, the suffering, for all the world to see, the worst terror that ever met my eyes.

This is day one of wearing hard contact lenses. Ouch. I can't stop blinking. My eyes keep screaming at the irritation, but it is getting better, or so I tell myself. I was starting to worry at bit while at the optometrist because when I tried to squeeze the contact lense out with my eyelids it kept drifting away and getting lodged in the corners of my eye. Ack. Putting them in is not so bad though. When I went to get myself fittend I had to settle on hard contacts. Why? Because the aperture or my eyes are too small. When the optometry student working with me pulled out a soft contact to try on me I almost freaked out. It was so big! There was no way it was going to fit in my eye. I read a comic strip once (done my a dude who makes comics of dreams that they submit to him). A girl dreamed that she woke up and went to put on her contacts only to find that the lenses were the size of her face. This is how I felt. After multiple tries and even trying out a smaller lense, the student busted out the hard lenses. Which aren't horrible. Everyone I talk to explains how the hard are better for your eye, especially in correcting astigmatism, which I have. I don't think I really prepared myself though for the change in my appearance. What will it be like to not wear glasses all the time. How will people perceive me? Differently now that I am not bespecled? Is it true that guys don't make passes at girls who wear glasses? Still waiting for answers.

A first year come...and almost gone

I can't believe that I am almost done with my first year of graduate school in social work. Half done! It does not feel so long ago that I first climbed the steps of Haviland, extremely nervous and excited to be at Berkeley. So confused about social work. And convinced that someone must have mixed up applications in admitting me to the school because there was no way that I was in the same league as the amazingly experienced people in my entering class. I've weathered through! Wow, and I'm almost done.

I'm feeling particularly reflective after writing a brief statement for a scholarship application. Ok, don't know if my social work pals actually check my blog regularly (hello, are you reading this?), but I'm going to stick my short essay here, because I wrote it and it captures my thoughts. And its my blog and I'll post if I want to.

------------

My first year of study in the Masters of Social Work program has overwhelmed me with techniques for competent practice, tales of the tribulations in the field, practice in forming a research proposal, and a grasp of the social work vocabulary that so intimidated me when I first arrived in Berkeley. My previous experience in AmeriCorps mentoring and tutoring a caseload of middle-schoolers gave me the ideal and desire to work with children and families, and my MSW studies have provided me the path and method for doing so. As a Title IV-E recipient, I have weathered looks of sympathy and shock, even pity, but knowing that I want to serve in an area of critical need, I look forward to a year of challenges and learning in my second-year internship with Contra Costa’s Department of Employment and Human Services. I know that my education in social work will not “terminate” next year once I finally grasp a Master’s degree in my hands, but it has been – and continues to be – a good beginning.

SI SE PUEDE!

This morning I marched with classmates and throngs of thousands down Market Street today. I assembled with my social welfare buddies (we call ourselves the Get-a-long Gang) and we took the BART to the city. We wore our white shirts and followed other white shirts until we found a pot-banging throng milling down the street yelling and waving banners. It was a smallish crowd that was constantly redirected by the police, who came up running behind me wearing riot gear and bearing billy clubs. I must have been surprised at least twice when bumped from behind by running police officers. It was quite terrifying, too, to see see them route marchers and think of how close we could be to bodily harm. Imagine the crash of a fist or the whack of a club. I want to keep my bones whole! No pain, no pain.

Arms linked to stay together, we finally merged with the main marchers starting at Pier One. This group matched more of what I was expecting: it was much bigger and more Latino. With this critical mass filling up Market, the Get-a-long Gang crept along with viscous languidness, animated most by shouts of

El pueblo unido,
Jamas sera vencido!

and

Si se puede!

We read the banners around us, images of Che flying on red flags. And saw all the babies and children that accompanied their parents, marching, marching, marching.

When we finally made our way out of the crowd, preparing to head back to Berkeley, when we were stopped by a man with a microphone and recorder. He asked us for a sound bite for NPR, and my friends encouraged me to speak.

I told him that the day before I was walking with my friend through Berkeley's Elmwood neighborhood. We stopped to admire some California poppies in yard when a woman stepped out of the house. She asked us what language we were speaking. We looked at each other quizically and replied, "English." She went on to question my friend's accent and would not believe that she was from LA. She moved on to me, complimenting my English, though my accent was still highly obvious. She chided Chinese people for their reserve and unemotionalness, and complimented my "good breeding" for making me unlike them. And on she went with a "benevolent" diatribe on the scarcity of female students, the wonder of our being able to study when our parents and grandparents had not the opportunity, the "bubble" that we lived in as students that kept us from recognizing that we were at war, those hippies that her sons were a generation short of becoming because we are paying for their medical bills, the military accomplishments of her husband as opposed to her domestic ones, and on and on. She would not stop, yet delivered as a "sermon on the mount," as she finally called it, we couldn't very well get away. And I seethed over it. Finally, slinking away to pop back into our "bubble," I did seethe over. She had made me so angry, hurt me so deeply, struck at tender heart of what has troubled me much this year. She questioned my identity as an American for being Asian. As if my appearance told the whole story. And though I told myself rationally that she was an old woman, that there really wasn't much I could have done in that situation, what she said still wounded me more than I could cognitively or emotionally understand.

So in deciding whether to paticipate in Monday's protest, I jumped off the fence. And, God bless them, my friends came with me. I marched for the people of this country. Todos Immigrantes! Our right to belong here. Our right to be both American and not belong to dominant white culture. To be seen as people, not criminals or work thieves. A decent life, free from abject need and bigotted treatment. I marched for me, for what I want this country to be, and for that paternalistic old white lady.

This is what I told the NPR reporter. Maybe in not so many words or in such detail, but essentially so. Viva America Nuevo!

Good day, sunshine!

I have two more weeks of school. Three more presentations to make. Three more final papers to write. One evaluation to complete. At the moment I should be completing a peer review. But the end is in sight and I can't resist a taste of freedom. Today, the sun finally showed its face and evaporated the damper of a winter of rain. One of my friends had a birthday party, a bar-b-que with tofurkey sausages and a chocolate fountain. We ate. We talked. We laughed. We played ping-pong (you know you are having a good day when you get to play ping pong). And it was good, this taste of summer.

This is what my summer will be: a casting off of responsibility, if only for a shortwhile. I've decided not to continue working at my current researcher position. I'm not going to take Chinese class as I had intended. I am going to do 3 things:
- Take a camping trip to Glacier National Park in Montana;
- Go home to Houston, buy a car, and do a half-national road trip back to California;
- And...go to Peru, Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico!

It is heedless of professional responsibilities, fiscally impractical, but one taste of summer is not enough. I want to eat the whole pie! I will learn to be responsible again in August. Promise.

Berkeley: a paralysis of good intentions?

I attend a conference on the future of Asian American studies--yes, another conference!--yesterday, and my mind and heart ate well on workshops speeches that enaged the experience and future of Asian and Pacific Islanders. The conference itself was about the bleak outlook of Asian American Studies at Berkeley, where enrollment is flagging, despite its origins in the 70s during hard-fought-for struggles among students for Ethnic Studies programs. I got to attend workshops about Pacific Islanders and the conflict around their inclusion and exclusion from the label "API." Another workshop was about the domestic violence: its expression in Asian famililies and the services provided for them. (As a testament to the degree that API don't want to deal with DV, I was the only attendee at this workshop aside from conference volunteers.) The final workshop I attended was a panel of Korean adoptees talking about experiences growing up and the bumpy roads along their development of their racial identities. I can hardly imagine my own conflict over what it means to be Chinese/Asian American had it been overlayed with no understanding or connection to the culture for which I was ridiculed by classmates. These syposiums and conferences, that expose me to the conversations and revolutions happening outside the School of Social Welfare, give me the social and cultural consciousness to continue as a social worker.
--------------------------------------------
A glimpse of Berkeley! I walking with a friend down Shattuck when a well-dressed, middle-aged man racing down the street past us. Behind, we heard a homeless man yelling at the top of his lungs, "HEY!" We thought, maybe someone had offended someone, but the homeless man kept yelling, saying, "HEY! YOU DROPPED YOUR CELL PHONE!" And the well-dressed man kept sprinting away, not paying any mind to the calls for his attention. The homeless guy was getting understandably frustrated, saying, "Well, I guess you don't want it that bad. Maybe I should throw it in the street." I was finally able to flag the well-dressed man and ask him if he was missing his cell phone. Only then did he acknowledge the homeless gentleman waving a phone in the air, who chided the upper middle class for "not taking the time to f*ching listen." I have to say that I agree. This is Berkeley: the upper class streamlining the streets, the locals maintaining the town's integrity not without a chip on its shoulder. Our local, celebrity writer Michael Chabon says it well in his blog essay. I don't know if I agree with the enraptured abandon he has for B-town, but his descriptions of the setting, the people, and the atmosphere are dead on.

Yummy yummy yummy, I've got love in my tummy!

Tonght I saw two documentaries by filmmaker Kim Longinotto: Dream Girls and The Good Wife of Tokyo, brief glimpses in the lives of Japanese women. Dream Girls follows performers of the Takarazuka Revue and students at the Takarazuka school where girls learn to dance and sing to become temporary performance stars. The dances choose between playing women or men, the male performers being allowed freedom and authority for their brief time in Takarazuka. But most women eventually give up their careers and education to follow their cultural calling to be married by age 25.

The Good Wife of Tokyo was a look at a Japanese performance artist's mother, who find exigency and purpose as a woman through her role as a spiritual leader for a religion called the House of Development. Begun as a melding of Shintoism, Buddhism, and Christianity, the House of Development has come to serve mostly middle-aged women as a support group for them. The have face conflict over their societal obligations to their husbands and mothers-in-law and their desires to have freedom and be independent. It made a nice follow-up to the previous film, to see the result of women’s following the ideals of Japanese society and finding methods for coping. I feel so sorry for the women, living their lives always in the shadow of their potential, but in the context of their culture they are successful. Ai.

But the daughter, the performing artist, is in a band called Frank Chicken, which is composed of 3 women total. They sing and dance in early 90s fashion, in costumes to match. They sang Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, I Got Love in My Tummy with huge fanny-pack sized lips pasted on their stomachs. They also sang a song about the Rockefeller building, where the ghost of Rockefeller visits his building and sees that it is owned by Japanese business men. He mistakes them for Native Americans and wonders how they came to own his building when they were conquered.

Conferences: Motivating versus Discouraging Crossroads of Information

Last Thursday I attended a symposium on overturning Proposition 209, a proposition that eliminated affirmative action in California, and was stirred with the boldface calls to action. I heard lawyers, professors, and community activists explain litigative and theoretical approaches for taking down a racist initiative that has had real detrimental effects for minority businesses and educational opportunities. They spoke of the problems that disrupted unity among the ACLU when Prop 209 first passed and the lessons they have since learned. For 2008! During the next presidential election there is hope for change! We can win it – panelists and speakers spoke with passion and fervor for social justice and did not shy away from decrying racist policies and practices.

My feelings of energy and activism were not soon after doused by a conference for Title IV-E students, future CPS workers. I sat through a series of monotone speeches about the problems that plagued a failed system we were soon to join as child welfare workers. The disruptive life that we would soon be compelled to offer to foster children. The disregard for siblings and families that we would soon be powerless to prevent. We heard from foster kids who recounted their experiences, prompted by a moderator who asked them to tell their life stories to a room full of future social workers, the sometimes bad guys of those stories. Our future is cast in insensitivity, futility, and exhaustion. Great. Am I in the wrong line of work? But if anything, it got me thinking about foster kids and the possibility of being a foster parent sometime in the future. Not easy by any means, but made me wonder if to help one kid or a sibling group with real care was the way the make a difference in child welfare.

Feeling torn from the reason I entered this profession. Better when out of the classroom and into the field?

what circle of hades are we in anyway?

I was just doing some gardening to get some House Improvement hours in for my coop (I have to do 4 over the whole semester). So I did some weeding, some hedge pruning, and--this is rich--cutting grass with hedge clippers. There is a reason humans invented lawn mowers, but having none, our coop must improvise. It was like I was giving our sidewalk patch of grass a bad haircut. First I snipped at it, then I used a rake to comb out the clippings, leaving mangled looking clumps of grass. When the garden manager asked me to cut the grass with the sheers I wasn't sure if he was joking. But, imagining myself in some absurdist performance piece, I cut the grass with big scissors. What offense did I commit to warrant this? Some bad karma there.

So not surprisingly, I've decided to not live in the coops next year. Not just funky hierarchy, but I want my own space, my own kitchen, the freedom to socialize when I feel like it and to be a guilt-free hermit when I want to be. Looking for a place to live though...no easy task. Updates on the horizon.

From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters

I just returned from the most splendid of vacations over my Spring Break. I went with some friends to stay in a cabin by the Russian River. Blessed with sunshine, we did a day of hiking in Armstrong State Park. The random tendon/ muscles in our legs screamed and our feet whined in protest, but we trudged on through mud and rocks to see beautiful views, mossy trees, and numerous javelina traps. Ok, maybe not javelinas, but forest pigs. Like in Princess Mononoke! Ok, maybe not gigantic god-pigs either.

We also ate extremely well, cooking fantastic dinners each evening and glorious breakfasts. Culinary Therapy. Strangely, the trip turned into a social work retreat in a way, with all of group processing, checking in, and assessing each other throughout, half in jest and half in seriousness. Yet, the formality of structured discussions did create a space for us to talk about how we got along with each other and process our various experiences in social work school so far. Highly beneficial. Highly strengths-based.

Afterwards we also visited an aunt of one of my friends and saw her children and horses. We watched a movie with her family and played air hockey, pingpong, and cards. So welcoming and warm.

If anyone should need an intervention for relaxation and pleasantry, I will refer you to the Russian River.

You don't know me! I don't know you!

I was walking home today and talking on the phone with a friend. Granted, I guess it is rude to walk around in public while talking on the phone, but I walked by guy ranting to entertain his friends and encountered another incident that makes me think Berkeley is no haven from racism. This guy, perhaps homeless, was mouthing off about how he had to live under the white man until he was seventeen, then seeing me added that the Japanese need to get off the phone. Japanese! Do I look Japanese? If you can't tell the difference between a Korean and Chinese person then don't make assumptions. Grr, I was seething afterwards. When these things happen I also get crazy mad at myself for not starting a scene and mouthing back. Do I perpetuate the stereotype of submissive Asians by not talking back? But you know, that is not me. I don't want live in a world where racial outbursts result in streetfights and neither do I want to be such an instigator. And I don't need to be the object of my anger either.

Why won't Spring Break just arrive already?

Over easy

I went to a diner-ish eatery on Telegraph Ave. for breakfast today. I found myself standing in line behind a row of guys each three-times my size. A quick inspection of their t-shirts revealed that they were the Cal football team. Ah, this explains their orders of full breakfasts with sides of bacon, sausage, pancakes, and cheeseburgers. I can't even comprehend how much food they must all consume. A village worth.

At one point, two of the guys were mocking the English of the Korean owner at the cash register. But a team member called them out saying, "What, you think that's funny?" Hooray for football players with senses of social justice!

I enjoyed a glass orange juice, a scrambled egg, and a stack of blueberry pancakes. Yum! Come visit me -- I know where to take you for breakfast.

Namaste

This week has run me to the ground. Assignments piled on assignments. Sleep deficit upon sleep deficit. I don't think I've been more stressed than at any other time in my life.

So I decided to take a self-care holiday this afternoon after my field placement. I went running out in the sunshine. Then napped on the floor of my room. And, on a whim, attended my first yoga class, which ended up having the whopping attendance of one: me! If was a free class through the coops. This was the second. The first had only an attendance of two. Having never done yoga before, I've always been intimidated by the prospect of having to "perform" in front of a group of experienced people, so this was actually the perfect setting for me. The instructor, unfortunaley, was rather disappointed at her tiny class and could not keep the disappointment out of her voice for some time. I rather enjoyed it, in any case, and found that I'm pretty flexible. I surprised the instructor as well. Three cheers for the lotus position!

Afterwards, I attended an interfaith peace ceremony that my friend's roommate was performing in. It had religious leaders representing Native American spiritualism, Judiasm, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. In some ways moving. In some ways incongruous. It ended with everyone joining hands and dancing in a circle to the beat of a Native American drummer. I watched but did not partake. I was not moved as I needed to be to really participate in the circle of qi, though I did pick a river rock that was annointed with water blessed from all the represented religions. Lucky rock? Holy rock? I'm not sure what I'll do with it, but hopefully nothing blasphemous or sacrilegious. Like partaking of communion, if my purpose in keeping it is not pure, it will be a blight, not a blessing.

I've done more "spiritual" connecting with myself and others than I have done in a long time. But I don't feel anymore whole for having done anything. I think my mind body, and soul just need more sleep.

Sage words.

I'm up late trying to finish my reading for class tomorrow. Found a sentence that stuck out and popped me out of zombie-reading mode. Don't know if it is the choice of words or its message, but here it is.

To expect cures is irrational; to expect to impart wisom that, through experience, will fascilitate adjustment is sage.

Also interesting, the ratio of positive to negative thinking in normal individuals is 62:38. So normal is set at about 2:1. Depressed people have ratios of 1:1. To be optimistic more than 2:1 may also indicate unrealistic thinking.

[From Kendall, P.C. (2000), Child and Adolescent Therapy: Cognitive Behavioral Approaches, 2nd Edition, New York, NY, Guilford Press Chap 1 (pp. 3 – 27)]

Melts in the sun, not in your freezer.

I opened up a box of chocolates I received as a gift. There was a small paper inside that reads the following:

Hot summer day?

Chocolate melting?

Just freeze for a few minutes,

peel away the foil,

and enjoy this perfectly fine, but

somewhat misshaped high-quality confection!

Heehee! Funny and tasty.

International House of Pusillanimity

Did you know that today was National Pancake Day? It may be no more than a marketing ploy by IHOP (Natl. Pancake Day:IHOP::Mother's Day:Hallmark) but some friends and I decided to take up the call to enjoy free pancakes for the carbo-happy goodness that they are. Well, having traversed San Pablo into Emerryville, we found that our nearest IHOP had a sign that bore the words "NO FREE PANCAKES" in pink highlighter. Not taking this poor attempt at sign-making too seriously we entered to investigate. Ah, there behind the cash register was a marker board that also read the same, yet there on the counter was a welcoming sign declaring free pancakes in celebration of the day. Uh? We asked to see the manager. The host went to inquire on our behalf. He came back. He told us that the manager had told him, "The sign should be enough." One of my friends, with violent tendancies, took pictures of the signs and the host called us cheap. She snapped back that we were poor students and shouldn't be expected to pay for pancakes when they should be free. In an case, it was a good thing that we left, otherwise IHOP might have had an intermittant explosion on their hands. We were all a bit stunned at the injustice of how rudely we had just been treated. We later relocated at Mel's and enjoyed excellent service and tasty, if not free, pancakes. What was the lesson that we learned from this?

IHOP is the man?
Everything comes at a price?
or maybe...

Friends don't let friends pay for pancakes that should be free.

--------------------------------------

In unrelated news that have nothing to do with pancake day besides having occurred on the same day, I've been trying to return all the books from inter-library loan that I have checked out for my research assistant job. The borrowing services office called me not to long ago to tell me that I have stuff checked out that was due back in November and the school has been paying fines on all my overdue books. When I went in to check on my status they asked me my last name and when I furnished it the librarian replied with my first name. Eek, you know it's bad when the librarians recognizes your name.