today i learned that someone that i wrote some letters of recommendation for got into their first-choice graduate program!!

i can feel that one of the things i should be doing regularly is writing. in a book, or here, whatever, but i don't think unless i write. even just knowing i might write something down later makes me think about it more. another psychological auto-control device... i would like to master more of those. i am thinking about that too, how not only do you learn little tricks to make other people happy, but you can learn some to keep yourself happy too. like crossing things out on my whiteboard instead of erasing them.

was thinking about these english assessment tests i do. how even though they would most likely just be a pain to keep up with, they are also something else - the only time i get a chance to sit down and give 15 or 20 minutes to someone alone. ask them questions, form little connections that make the job worth it. sometimes these little personal glimpses are devastating - recently a woman told me her husband had died - during a war, opposing forces had come, poured petrol over her husband, and she mimed the action of lighting a match and throwing it down on him, since we shared little in the way of spoken language. she teared up, said now she's tired, tired, tired...

other times they are inspiring, surprising, and sometimes humorous. today someone was doing quite well, and they mentioned something about the seasons - summer, autumn, winter, and sprinkle.

a few days ago, a young cuban told me that his passion was history - and secretly studying it with his band of covert research buddies, in a land where reading the wrong thing can get you sent off for a long time. i also now know that if this person is upset, the best way to calm him down is to send him on a long drive blasting some enya on the stereo.

all of these bits of people's lives i learn through questions i am prompted by a computer to ask for this test - the thing is, you never know when someone is going to feel like really sharing and something they've been holding in just kind of comes out.

this is also when i notice quirks for the first time, which is always really interesting to me... and, in most cases, this might be the only time i ever really talk to the person if they're not in my class.

i learn that someone is a father; someone else rode here, freezing and wet in a raft in december to be re-united with their fiance; someone can only sleep four hours a night because they can't make their brain be quiet; someone's writing a book; someone's hut burned down and took their only book with it and they're still waiting to get another one; someone's second child is due tomorrow; someone was the best dancer in the village; someone worked in a cellphone shop in egypt; someone has managed to buy a car but has no idea how to drive it.

i can't believe i am going to argentina in one month and one week. for three and a half weeks.

i wonder what it will bring. i wonder how it will change my perception of and relationship with pato. of argentina, as an idea in my mind.

i wonder if i'll fall in love with the place, with some of its details.

i wonder what the family and huge tightly-knit group of friends will make of me, what i'll make of them, if it will be difficult to feel comfortable, or if they'll just kind of open up a place and envelop me into them. they seem more the second type of people, but even so, how could one not be at least a little nervous to hold their breath and jump into someone else's world like that?

i hope everything goes fantastically.

i need to figure out a birthday present for him. i have the beginning of an idea, but i need to get working.

oh crap, what i really need to do is start reviewing spanish grammar. i can get a lot of things across, but lack some basic skills, like conjugating any verbs in the past tense, or when to use por vs. para and things like this. i can help myself out a lot if i just prepare a bit.

ok.

i don't really pride myself on much, but i would say i have developed a knack for understand people that a lot of other people find indecipherable. however, once in a while someone throws you a strange one. and sometimes, even if you do get it after a second or two of mental puzzle-working, you can't help but laugh. patricio tells me that i have a lot of fun for free with him when he speaks english.

it's true; while he is doing very well with his language acquisition, the dude is a goldmine. and i quote:

"it's unreal, isn't it, the octopus's garden?" (i told him yes, it was real, and we'd go there sometime, to which he responded with a dirty look.)

"what's his name, the deenosaurus with the long hair?" (he meant to say "neck")

or sometimes, he'll get stuck on a word, as he feels out the pronunciation: "if you want some, there's the sauce. sauce. sauce. sauce. sauce. sauce."

a student said something very cute today in class. i was explaining where the word "ringleader" comes from and she said "yeah, he's the one who stands in the light spot."

today, a needed reminder at work.

trying times for all make many workplaces more difficult.

much time in certain places can desensitize one to heart-rending stories that pile up daily.

two unexpected professions among clients woke me up a little somehow today. i got a new guy in my class, a cuban air-traffic controller. later this afternoon i gave an english aptitude test to a very pleasant iraqi guy who said he worked for nbc in baghdad, whipping out his press pass. he also worked for fox and for the bbc, as well as being one of five cameramen on the baghdad high program. he promised to bring in a dvd of the program before shaking my hand (a result of the international work, i guess) and leaving with a smile.

i think it's hard to understand why such a small interaction gives one hope, without knowing how trying so many other moments are.

also i think most of us get to a point where you see all of the stressors, the issues, the seemingly unsolvable problems swirling about as soon as you walk in the door and the small joys that were more easy to see at first become obscured. recently i have been coming to terms with this, and starting to ask myself how i can, for example, tap into a few timid, quiet smiles to fuel myself in order to get through the yelling fit that someone else throws minutes later.

i need to replenish my soul somehow. i see that most of us do. advice is most welcome.

i have always wanted to write a book. how about a nice bilingual tome under this title? well, we'll see how things go. hopefully i will qualify for the authorship of such an advice gem. what would the book contain? maybe some of the chapters could include:

1. say WHAT?: navigating huge misunderstandings due to language gaps
     "tell me YOU!", "sometimes i have childs", "tenemos que hacerlo" and other favorites
2. it's football, not soccer
     + bonus list of teams by city
3. political correctness: considered useless in much of the world!
     even if your honey is less-bad in this category, surely some of their friends or family members are going  
     to  deliver some real gems. normally you'd walk away from someone who's just voiced a racial slur!
4. "we don't do that here!"
     fun with faux pas
5. puff up those feathers and strut: dating rituals around the world
     we explain what in the hell is going on
6. smile and nod
     what to do when meeting the family
7. food pyramid, shmood pyramid - fried cookies for breakfast is a great way to start the day!
    worried your darling will have a coronary by age 30? so were we.
8. I'm perfectly NORMAL; what's up with you?
    how to be understanding of cultural difference
9. vale la pena?
    we'll help you figure out if it's worth all the hard work

and maybe we could finish up with a 7-page illustrated guide of how to prepare an acceptable cup of yerba mate.


i say all of this with a smile, of course.

so.... i guess it's a good thing when someone walks into a room and you get a small shiver, without your permission and with no warning?

what an odd sensation! i guess that's what they call butterflies of the stomach? someone tried to make it sound more innocent than it is, invoking that image. "butterflies", sure.

no one does that to me, so it is surprising/exciting/worrying to be sitting there and then boom! the face, and then boom! the zap. then you're hiding the "what the hell" look on your own visage until said face leaves the room.

it might only happen this one time, so i thought i should sit down and think about it for a second. and then i thought i would write about it since that's usually the only way i can make my mind sit still for long enough to examine an idea when there are other stimuli around.

so... i'll probably beat you to laughing at me about this - especially as i am the only one who knows who i'm talking about - but who cares? little moments that only come once are the marrow of days, the good stuff! and a hearty laugh never hurts either.

cheers.

what a funny word.

a word that has too many meanings... does it become meaningless?

like a bubble, irridescent... swirling with every imaginable color while looking clear at the same time? only to POP?

does that even make sense? it doesn't have to. yes, i don't care. good, if it doesn't make sense. what does "make sense"? nothing big or important seems to, when you really start to think.

when things do make sense, isn't that just according to a set of rules we've set up our brains to operate off of? what if those rules change? it's not pretty, that's what. take galileo for one of many examples. he discovered a new truth and it didn't work at all for the catholic church, so they made him recant. "just tell everyone that you were crazy when you said that stuff" they told him.

what am i talking about? i have gone completely off topic. i am just writing to distract myself.

i need to take this in a more positive direction. can you fool yourself into being more cheerful in a conversation you are holding in your own mind, or does that require another person?

(begin rambling) i broke down and bought a replacement hard drive. lacie minidisk 250GB designed by sam hecht. a real cutie. it will be nice. i even bought an attractive little purple case for it. i need to feed my kitten. i bet she's hungry. i would like to knit now. i need to make soup tonight for a sick friend. i will meet with a person to play a trivia game. i still won't know what i think about this whole thing, but at least last night cleared things up a bit and things are on the square with old so-and-so, who seems to have gotten down the whole expressing myself thing. i rearranged my office. i would like to continue to enjoy that for a long time. good Lord willing and the crick don't rise. Zahra has a terrible rash. they gave her medicine; it got much worse. she's red and puffy and itchy. (end rambling - safe again)

would you want to know the future if you could? i wondered just now about kids. mine, if i have some. will i? it seems the answer would be yes, but what if i never make it that far? why is it so awkward to say something like that? yes, collective fear of death, blah blah, i know. alright, but i thought wouldn't it be interesting to know how many kids you'll have? and to know who you'll have them with? and when? and when you'll meet the person you'll stay with for a long time or commit yourself to? and where you'll end up spending your time? or would that take all the fun out of it? i think it would take all of the importance out of whatever led up to that which we were waiting for. definitely kill a lot of the excitement at the very least. if we knew what was going to happen already, then would everything we did be just going through the motions?

putting things in quotation marks with no discretion is a great way to make yourself look like an idiot. it's a bad thing to say, i know.

it's interesting to think about when people with a good working knowledge of grammar decide to deviate from that for stylistic reasons. i would wager that while few people consciously realize that they do this, many people do it. how do you separate that from the genuine mistakes, though? difficult to gather data here.

i believe a lot of people tend to hate those with all the fancy grammar skills. seemigly by a series of coincidences, and to prevent myself from looking an ass in front of many a classroom, i have been forced to learn a lot of grammar rules. i would say that sometimes people get kind of defensive and funky when this comes out. like how you always feel like psych professionals are always sizing up your behavioral/social/cognitive/emotional issues and soundly judging you. and you know what? they are! they can't help it. once you understand how something works, and you've been trained to spot and try to correct problems with how it functions, what can you do? while it would be great if we could all walk around giving one another lots of great constructive crtiticism... yeah right. good luck not getting punched often and regularly should you try it.

it is astounding how different one person's realities can be even in one day. depending on the surroundings, on whether or not they've heard the latest bit of news, or if they've had that argument with that person yet, or a million other things.

ok, i need to extract myself from this place deep in my tangled up, muddled thoughts. hasta luego.

it's very story-book when we receive a piece of advice or encouragement that is absolutely perfect for a burden that we are secretly carrying. an aunt gave me such a morsel last night. i asked her how she had gotten through something and she replied that she just did. that you go minute by minute and then hour by hour and then week by week etc until one day you are looking back asking how did i do that? i can't wait to be looking back.

while many times experiences are not as bad as we'd thought they'd be, sometimes they are far worse than we could ever have imagined. trying to look on the positive side, each of these outrageously messed up things we live through gives us that much more compassion and understanding. damn, though, sometimes it is just a little too far a stretch to get over to that positive side.

but what is there to do but try? a million things, and none of them helpful.

to doing our best...