knowing that others have made this world a place of hope

Ismael Serrano talking about the song 'Testamento' from his new cd 'Acuerdate de Vivir':

[...] O como aquellos otros que se escriben en la servilleta de un bar, cuando ya está cayendo el día y esperamos a esa cita que se retrasa, con la urgencia del que cose recuerdos a los bolsillos para no olvidarlos, con la dicha del encuentro inminente con la vida que entrará a trompicones por la puerta, sofocada por las prisas, disculpándose por el retraso, porque el tráfico está imposible o, tal vez, no recordaba bien la ubicación del bar. Pero uno casi no escucha, no te preocupes, cegado por la sonrisa de ella, lo malo de llegar tarde es que tendrás que marcharte tarde, y ella baja la mirada y tú pides dos cañas. Y piensas que es verdad que no importó esperar, porque tienes la sensación que siempre la estuviste esperando y sólo queda celebrar que por fin ha llegado.

If I could find someone that writes like that...

tell him the anger just comes it just comes

From Shakesville:

How do you cope with formerly loved media becoming unenjoyable because of your progressivist beliefs?

1) The Soup: I used to love 'The Soup'. It is funny and engaging. I would laugh at the jokes days after I have seen the show. Basically, the show is a recap of all the crazy things on TV presented by Joel McHale on the E Channel. The downsize is that it is at the expense of women. I realized that the jokes are vile and deeply offensive to women. I have stopped watching the show.
2) Ricardo Arjona's music: Ricardo Arjona is a very famous Guatemalan singer/songwriter. He is highly respected for his trajectory and deep lyrics. He used to be a troubadour singer but as he got more famous, his music has become more commercialized (like Shakira's). I am very familiar with all his work, since I used to listen to his songs non-stop. My problem, I think, is that I find him to be very sexist. His fans often say that he can't be sexist because he writes pretty things about women in his songs, which I think is a bull excuse. There is a different between over-sexualization of women (like his songs 'mujeres') and actual veneration of women (like Silvio Rodriguez' song 'mujeres'). There is a difference. Now I don't buy his CD's anymore. He is becoming repetitive anyways.
3) James Bond movies: I simply don't watch them.
4) ranchera music: I am a huge ranchera music fan even though I am not Mexican. My favorite CD's of ranchera are Ana Gabriel 'Mi Mexico' and Luis Miguel 'Mexico en la Piel'. Two CD's that I highly recommend if you want to be more familiar with ranchera music. Anyways, ranchera music is very sexist. The male singers must portrait macho bravado and courtship. Really not my thing. So, songs that are not my taste I just skip it and I refuse to buy CD's of artists who portrait such negative aspect of ranchera music.
5) MSNBC: The sexism of Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann is more than I can handle. I just don't watch it.

As a whole, as I become more aware of things and more educated, I have noticed that my tolerance level has decreased. If I heard an offensive comment I would just shake my head but keep on listening. Now, I have realize that I don't need to put up with those things. Life is too short and I cannot remain silent when I hear sexist and racist comments.

there's a paradox in every paradigm

From Shakesville:

What's your favorite vegetable to eat, and what is your favorite preparation (raw, cooked, in a special recipe)?

I love very green lettuces and potatoes. I like potatoes both fried and boiled. I eat my lettuces raw, and I prefer them to be very green. I also like green plantains, both boiled or fried.

when i said i'll take it i meant, i meant as is

Random picture post day! I have been kind of slothful lately and I just have this strong urge to just sleep. But, here are stories told through pictures:
We had a nasty, nasty snow storm! Look at this mountain of snow!






I took this picture at my church parking lot, more snow, or should I say, pieces of ice.








My downtown with a huge Christmas tree.










Mom and I doing Christmas grocery shopping. We ate a lot and it was all good.







I bought a guitar for myself as a Christmas gift!!! I am very excited and when I don't feel like a bump, I practice. :) I named her 'Ani'.





I went to church for Christmas Eve. The ceremony was lovely and we sang 'Silent Night' with candles in the dark. I was happy to see the church with lots of people. I love going there.

and i've got no illusions about you and guess what? i never did

From Shakesville:

What is the worst band name of all time?

Even though I love the band and they are my favorite, I really dislike 'Matchbox Twenty'. I read somewhere that the group members doesn't even like it and they short it as MB20.

Here is my favorite MB20 song, 'Hang' from their debut album.

before you end up parked and sobbing forehead on the steering wheel

From Shakesville:

What's your homepage?

My gmail because I am a compulsive email checker.

If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it

From Shakesville:

What is your favorite last line from a novel?

From the list of 100 Best Last lines from Novels, I liked Voltaire's Candide: “All that is very well,” answered Candide, “but let us cultivate our garden.” I read that book a while back. Also, that line gives the title to the excellent movie 'The Constant Gardener' which you should see if you haven't.

When we have to keep checking our backs I think we should all just smile Come clean and relax

From Shakesville:

What activity never fails to cheer you up?

1) This might sound anti-social but being on the Internet makes me happy. I am busy checking my emails (granted nobody emails me), reading blogs via Google Reader, YouTube, etc. It is a great way for me to kill time and make me think about other things. On the down side is that I spent way too much time on the Internet and neglect other things.

2) I love listening to music and that always takes me to another place. Listening to trova -- singers like Ismael Serrano, Joaquin Sabina, Silvio Rodriguez, just to name a few, is just amazing. I am also listening a lot to Ani DiFranco and Chris Pureka.

And emptiness has its solace In that there's nothing left to take

From Shakesville:

What's your funny food habit?

I don't eat onions, or any food that has been touch by onions (or as I like to call it 'contaminated'). I just find the taste and aesthetic to be totally gross.

We don't say everything that we could So that we can say later Oh, you misunderstood

From Shakesville:

Have you ever seen a UFO, bigfoot, or other unexplained phenomenon?

No, and to be honest, I really don't believe in those things. I have found the bigfoot story fascinating though, since, I first read about it in 6 grade (a small story for English class). But, if people have not found any bones of bigfoot (or other very compelling evidence), I'm not believing it. Don't really believe in UFO also.

we all have different reasons to forget how to breathe

From Shakesville:

What's your favorite YouTube video?

I have spent countless hours watching YouTube videos, but its mostly for music. Lately I have been using YouTube for educational purposes... like learning more about bikes (repair, safety, etc) and about playing guitar. So, I really don't have a favorite YouTube video. But, enjoy these:

welcome to: the art of conversation with yourself

My wisdom tooth is coming out. It hurts.

I fight with love and I laugh with rage

I got three more brand new books. For my birthday my mother gave me a $40 Barnes and Noble gift card, but when I initially made my order, since the credit card was on the website record, when I clicked 'proceed', the charged went immediately to my credit card. (not my fault!) So, I ended up doing two orders of books, by mistake I can assure you. By the way, if you love shopping online, I highly recommend the website RetailMeNot.com where you can get coupons online. I was able to get a $7 coupon for this transaction. Previously, I have used it to get discounts for my photo prints in Walgreen's. A very useful place to save a few bucks.
Anyways, I bought 'Man is not Alone' by Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Journal from 1837-1861 by Henry David Thoreau, and The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol.

Masha'Allah

Last Sunday was HIV/AIDS Awareness at my new church, and that was the theme of the sermon by my pastor. I haven't been writing about my new experiences at my church and I really should. I know that religion has been getting a very bad reputation lately, specially Christianity, but I don't think all is lost. For those of us who find peace and comfort in attending a religious service, without judgments and alienation, it can be a wonderful thing.
My new church is exactly what I was looking for. I often smile because I think of all the things that had to happened, for me to sit in my room at Cambridge University, and start randomly searching for churches in my area. Too many to enumerate, that spans for almost 6 years. My church congregation is small, maybe 30 people. There is no one from my age group which is perfectly fine with me since I get extremely uncomfortable with people around my age. I would say the median age group is 45ish. The inside of the church holds around 200 people, so having only 30 people makes the place seem very large and empty. The wall behind the pastor is made of glass, and it looks lovely seeing the trees with the snow and a perfect blue sky (see pic). The pastor, who is female, already knows many name after a very peculiar event. About two weeks ago I decided to put in a prayer request because of my LSAT tests. I thought the process was like at my old church, I wrote down my prayer request and the pastor would pray about it on Mondays when all the pastors gathered together for a meeting.
But, here at my new church, I put my prayer request on the offering plate and the pastor got the plate and pray. Know you have to know, that I have only been to that church only about twice before, and nobody knew me! So, when it was time for 'Sharing Joys & Concerns & Pastoral Prayer' section, the pastor read my prayer request in front of the congregation. When it dawn on me that she was going to do that, I said, "well, she doesn't know me, and she will not know it was me. I will just hide here in the back and nobody will know.' Homegirl read my request, all the way from the front looked strait at me, and said in a lovely voice, 'Don't worry, we will pray for you.' I turned red. Everyone looked at me and smiled.
From then on, I have been that 'new person' that everyone is eager to know more about. Actually, while I was leaving this past Sunday, a total stranger when up to me and said, 'Did you pass the test?' I didn't understand the question and just said 'yes'. It was then that I understood she meant the LSAT test that I have taken the day before. She then said, 'we all prayed for you last week.' I smiled.
Anyways, back at the sermon from last Sunday, part of the 'young disciple' prayer went like this:

May Your Will become transparent in our culture...
A Culture of intolerance and indifference
A Culture of ignorance and fear
A Culture of exploitation and destruction
A Culture of of xenophobia and homophobia
[...]
Lead us from temptation to transformation
The temptation of war
The temptation of haughtiness
The temptation of ethnocentrism
The temptation of supremacy...

While reading this, I thought, these words would have never been pronounced in my old church. On the contrary, some of those things would be espoused. So, I am happy to attend a church in which I can agree with its tenets.

i could make you happy, y' know if you weren't already

I went to Natick's Public library to pick up five books. When I parked my car and was ready to pay for parking, I got this pleasant surprise:

Its the small things in life, people, the small things in life that are great. Now I can save those 10 cents I was planing on paying.

sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast

In the primary last night, Attorney General Martha Coakley won!!!!! I wasn't expecting to see the results, the analysis, nor the speeches, but I couldn't pass down this great historical event. I keep checking the results online and later I decided to turn on my local news. Martha Coakley win prediction was given very early, and I missed the announcement. When I turned the TV on, we were waiting for the concession speeches. The democratic concession speeches were all very nice.
Martha Coakley won with 47%, Michael E. Capuano came second with 28%.
I really liked what John Kerry said, 'Tonight the glass ceiling in Massachusetts politics was smashed into a thousand pieces. Martha Coakley is on her way to becoming the first woman ever to represent our state in the United States Senate. She will be an outstanding United States Senator.'
The fact that Coakley is a woman and a has the probability of becoming the first female Senator of Massachusetts really excites many. EMILY's List provided great financial support for her campaign. In what is call the "Clinton's Revenge', former President Bill Clinton endorsed Coakley and provided a voice message that was sent to thousands of Massachusetts residence. Coakley was one of the few Massachusetts politicians that endorsed Hillary Clinton when she was running for president. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed Michael Capuano, which shocked many people. But, the Clinton's had the last laugh.
I hope that now that I am not studying for the LSAT, that I will be more involve in this campaign. I have never been involve in a campaign before and I think it is time for me to do something.

life is a b movie it's stupid and it's strange a directionless story and the dialogue is lame

From Shakesville:

Who's your favorite animated character?

Daria Morgendorffer!!! Few TV shows reminds me of a particularly period of my live than the awesome MTV show, Daria. It reminds me of Middle/High School and basically how much I hated it. It was great for my self-esteem to see that someone (ok, an animated character) acted and thought just like me.
Do watch an episode:

you know that everytime i move i make a woman's movement

Picture taken as I left the voting center.

Today I exercised one of my favorite civic duties, which is voting. As many of you might know, Senator Ted Kennedy passed away and today in Massachusetts we have our first primary to determine the top candidates from the Republican and Democratic party. I think the Republican party have two candidate and the Democrats have four. The democratic candidates are Attorney General Martha Coakley, US Representative Michael E. Capuano, City Year cofounder Alan Khazei, and Celtics co-owner Stephen G. Pagliuca. The general election will be held in Jan. 19. Sadly, voting percentage are expected to be very low, around 15%.
My mother and I went around 11am to vote. We always have trouble remembering which precinct we live in, so it takes a while to find our names. Then we were given our ballots and we voted. When I inserted the ballot into the machine, I noticed that only 20 people have voted. Anyways, we voted for Martha Coakley, who yesterday was endorsed by former President Bill Clinton. She gave the keynote speech when I graduated so I have known about her for a while. I was also pleased that she is against supporting a health care bill that will discriminate against women. The poll will close at 8pm local time, and I really hope she wins! If she wins in Jan. 19, that will make her the first female senator of Massachusetts.

I don't take good pictures cuz I have the kind of beauty that moves

From Shakesville:

What's your personal theme song?

In Spanish, it would have to be 'Ultimamente' by Ismael Serrano. You can read the lyrics in English here. Basically the song is a Kafkaesque story of how things are not going well, '

Lately I'm walking around lost,
defeated by ghosts of the past
and new routines.

And in every street corner hides a thief
ready to rob my treasures, memories,
joys.

But, later Serrano states that it is all because it is difficult to stop loving someone he loves.

In English, off the top of my head I would pick 'Joyful Girl' by Ani DiFranco. That particular song she dedicated to her mother, basically saying that she does what she does because it makes her 'joyful' and that her mother shouldn't worry about her. I absolutely love the second stanza,

everything i do is judged
and they mostly get it wrong
but oh well
'cuz the bathroom mirror has not budged
and the woman who lives there can tell
the truth from the stuff that they say
and she looks me in the eye
and says would you prefer the easy way?
no, well o.k. then
don't cry

live the life you've imagined

We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! or, what if we had been taken sick? How vigilant we are! determined not to live by faith if we can void it; all the day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to uncertainties. So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change in a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.

-- Henry David Thoreau 'Walden',
'Economy Chapter, pg 13'

I am starting to read 'Walden' by Henry David Thoreau. I was able to download an audio version of the story from LibriVox.com. That website is an excellent source to get free audio of major works in literature that are part of the public domain. From the website, 'LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net. Our goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books.' I think it is an excellent idea that for sure I will use in the future. I recommend downloading a book and listening while in your car.
Anyways, I was really moved by what I have read thus far, particularly the quote that I put at the beginning of this post. I think people so often get hopeless and think there is only one way to live life, in an unbearable ennui without salvation. But, that is not true. Thoreau also says, 'What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.'

somebody's got to be interested in how i feel just 'cause i'm here and i'm real

For those of you who might not know, I am a compulsive book buyer. I don't buy clothes, CDs, DVDs, gadgets. I detest going shopping with mom. I haven't been to the Mall in ages. I don't spend my money on such things. My one weakness are books. I have so many books that I don't have space for them in my room, yet, I keep buying them. There is something aphrodisiac about having a story waiting to be read. My birthday was a couple days ago, and also my graduation from Cambridge University (Nov 28th). So, I asked mom to get me a gift card from Barnes and Nobles. My Barnes and Nobles membership card expired last year and I haven't updated it. The temptation is there (they email me about once a week with coupons), but homegirl has been strong. I don't have money to be buying books, so I am proud of my self-constrain. Anyways, with the $40 I was able to buy four new books. I got 'Beloved' Toni Morrison, 'The Color Purple" by Alice Walker, 'What Men Live By and Other Stories' by Leo Tolstoy, and 'The Women's Room' by Marilyn French. Very happy!! I can't wait to finish with the LSAT, so I can start reading books that I want to read.












I went to the library this morning and took these pictures.

they say that the truth will set you free but then so will a lie

Some news from France, and other stuff:

1) The Guardian: French plan to force gender equality on boardrooms

Nicolas Sarkozy's centre-right party has put forward legislation that would see women make up half the figures in France's leading boardrooms by 2015, under a bold plan to impose gender equality on the male-dominated business world. (read more)

My undergrad thesis consisted of me studying gender quota laws in Argentina, Chile, and Mexico. Generally they work, even though the powers that be always find ways around it (ei. Nicolas Sarkozy UMP party paid 5 million EU for not complying with gender quota laws in political parties.) Anyways, it will be interesting to see how far this goes and, most importantly, the implementation of such law. See also Parité in the Boardroom in the French Politics blog.

2) Two-time Grand Slam winner Amelie Mauresmo of France is retiering at the age of 30. She won Wimbledon and the Australian Open. I really liked her game, specially her back hand. She was never the most consistent of players, and the pressure was often too much (specially during the French Open), but her game will be missed.

3) French congresswoman Valerie Boyer (UMP) proposed a law that could require a disclaimer on photoshoped images. I totally agree with her and that should done here also.

and other news:

4) New York Senators have defeated a bill that would have allowed gay marriage in the state. The video of Staten Island representative, Diane Savino, has gone viral because of her brilliant and honest defense of the bill. She says, "We have nothing to fear from love and commitment." Please take a moment and see it:



I would love to see her at the national level, she will go a long way.

5) Studying for the LSAT, which I have given up, makes me feel like this.

so why do i feel like something's been rearranged?

Miles: 7.5
Average: 9.4 mph
Time: 1hr 35min

I have been feeling guilty that I haven't been using my bike as much (since Nov 7th!). A big reason is that in mid-November I got sick with a cold and another reason, is that my mom has been giving me rides. But, today the weather was nice, the first time we had the sun out in about a week. I decided to ride my bike to the library to take a practice LSAT test in peace and quiet. I don't want to get into the habit of not using my bike because that would negate the whole point of me buying it. So, I packed my stuff, put warm clothes, and headed to the library. It was around mid 40 when I left home. I initially left without putting my gloves, but the more I rode, the colder my hands got. So, I stopped after two miles to put my gloves on and fixed my jacket to prevent air from coming in. Then I rode some more, and then it hit me... somewhere in my travels, my bike computer got lost!!!! P A N I C K! It costs 50$! I took a big breath, got off my bike, and retraced my commune. I figured it felt when I put my gloves on and accidentally hit it. So, I walked back slowly watching the pavement fearing that a car might have break it into a million pieces. I walked slowly on the street (that particular rode doesn't have sidewalk), until I reach the place where I put my gloves (around .7 miles from where I realized my bike computer got lost). Then I saw it on the parking lot where I put my gloves on and fixed my jacket. I sighted with great relief. I was extremely happy that I was able to find it in one piece. I put it back on making sure that I heard the 'click' it makes to make sure it was properly install. I was, however, rather angry that I was waisting time finding the bike computer and not studying since, I really need to do that (test on Saturday!!). Anyways, I got to the library around 12pm and was able to take a practice test, which takes around 2.5 hrs.
Moral of the story: make sure that you hear the 'click' when you put your bike computer!

I took these two pictures a while back while visiting Wellesley Free Library. I thought it was kind of cute that their bike parking space looks like a bike! cute, no?