I don´t think I´m engaged anymore

I´ve finally returned to Pichilemu, after a few months away it´s really nice to be back in a place that has some semblance of home. Plus my brother is with me now so it´s been a lot of fun. It is strange, however, because a lot of the people that I knew before in Pichilemu, are now gone. I guess I didn´t realize how transient my group of friends were. My teacher, Tati, left to go teach spanish in Australia and all the other gringos have left save the owners/english teachers at the institute. Also the sandbar at La Puntilla changed a bunch (although it is in the process of coming back) so I haven´t been surfing as much because it costs a bit of money to get to Punta de Lobos. But all in all its good to be here. It is strange with my brother, especially because it´s the first time that we´ve shared a room in about twenty years. I have been really surprised to see that he´s been quicker to talk here than he would be at home. I think in large part that is due to the fact that he is here to learn to talk, but it´s helped that the family has really embraced him. Pati Paz, the youngest daughter (I think) has a crush on Reynnie. She´s always giggling and playing around with him at the house. At the table sometimes she sits across from Reyn and will break out in soft giggles every now and again. I think this could be a good sign for me, considering that before Reyn showed up there was the joke (only half joking though) that I would marry Pati Paz. I think this could get me off the hook, although then it would put Reyn in the awkward position of being engaged to a fourteen year old Chilean girl. Better him than me though, sucker.

Kidnap

I just witnessed a kidnapping. There is no joke there, I myself still can´t believe what I just saw. I guess it had gotten to the point where I forgot that I am in a big city, which has it´s dangers just like anywhere else. It´s strange but I had gotten to the point where I was feeling that Chile is probably safer than most parts of the US.

It was such a surreal moment. I had walked through town and was returning to my hostal in Santiago. I was on the main street and then turned of to the sidestreets belonging to my hostal. I had only walked maybe half a block when I saw this man, riding with all fury, and a small child (who looked to be crying) on a bike being persued by (my guess) the older brothers of the kid screaming ¨Paralo, Paralo¨ (stop him). Right as they said that I saw a guy up the street try to stop the bicycling man, but he was comically fat and the kidnapper easily evaded him. I stepped out into the street to get ready for the guy, but I made the mistake of making eye contact, making him aware of my presence and he turned down another street well before he got to me. He just kept going, vanishing down the street like a hyena into the tall savannah grass.

I´ve never felt so worthless and sorry and relieved at the same time. Worthless because I know I would have stopped him if he kept going down my street. I´m a big guy here and would have easily been able to stop him without too much effort. Sorry, because I had to watch as the older brothers ran screaming for help down the street, no chance to catch the man. Their only hope was that someone down the road stopped the man. Relieved because I realized how lucky I was to never have anything similar happen to me. It would be so easy to have happen, I mean there had to be moments when I, or my brother were vulnerable for something similar.

I sincerely hope that the older brother gets the little brother back. I can´t imagine what that feeling would be like, I can only hope the joy of his return overshadows the terror of the young ones capture.

a good article that should be read about Vick.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/070816

I´d like to introduce you to my Ball and Chain

I´ve enjoyed studying spanish this year. It´s really been a lot of fun, and I think that is one of the reasons that I have improved so much. One of my favorite things about spanish, because of conjugations of verbs and the close links that nouns sometimes have, you get words that are spelled exactly the same way but can mean comepletely different things. I feel like puns can be taken to a whole ´nother level, or have been (to the point where they´ve been integrated into the language).

Ex 1: Me siento

It could mean ¨I feel,¨ as in me siento triste, ¨I feel sad.¨ Or you could be saying, ¨I sit.¨ I guess the difference between those two would be obvious in a conversation, but whenever I hear some use it either way I just think in my head of the opposite. So if someone would say to me, ¨I feel sad.¨ I just think of that persone sitting sadly. Or the opposite, ¨I sit over there.¨ I think of them saying I feel over there and then them going over and proceding to feel everyone and everything in the general area like an E-ed out raver.

Ex 2: Casa

It most quickly brings to mind, house/home, but with its reflexive direct object, it also means He, she, or you (formal) marries. I get to wondering if the derivation of the word casa came from being the build in which married people (casados) lived. Maybe, maybe not.

Ex 3 (and my personal favorites): Esposas

For those who have taken maybe only a little bit of spanish, you could know that it means wives. But it also means handcuffs. I know that we have the saying back home of a wife and kids being like a ball and chain, but never have we made the leap to just start calling them, the ball and chain. I don´t think anybody would ever introduce their wife (unless among good friends and having a very understanding wife) as their ¨ball and chain.¨ One thing that should be noted on this is that it only matches on the plural. So esposa, one wife, is cool but esposas, man that´s just handcuffs. Of course, all this gets me to thinking of how we could possibly adapt this to english but it just doesn´t seem to come out right. For example, to say that my boss and I brought along our balls and chain (balls and chains? ball and chains? This is hard to figure, like is it passersby or passerbies) might not give the correct image of what I intend to say. Maybe this won´t work for English.

There are so many more of these things, and for a person so obsessed with puns (yeah, I know, I got a bad sense of humor), it makes for studying and learning spanish really fun(ny).

Reasons to not like PETA

I´m really disappointed in the Michael Vick case. I mean, I know there is a racial aspect to it, but the biggest problem for me is PETA. Without PETA, Michael Vick would have a much better chance at being treated fairly. I realize that something happened, dogs were tortured, and I am completely against that. I love dogs, I have one back at home, Cali, who is a part of the family. So much so that my mom will stop talking to me and start talking to Cali when I´m on the phone (although to be fair it´s usually when she has done something insane like: bring a potted plant into the house...without the pot, eating meat off the counter, coming into the house completely dirty, etc.). So why am I against PETA? They are arrogant assholes who think they are above the law.

Thats right, I said it, they´re jerks who think that their opinion is greater than that of the courts. How else can you explain the fact that they have (almost singlehandedly) gotten Vick to be suspended by the league, his sponsors, his teams when there hasn´t even been a conviction. There wasn´t nearly this much outrage when Ray Lewis was wanted for murder of a human being (similar situation, black athlete big crime, only PETA isn´t involved). In the eyes of PETA and all their supporters, Vick is guilty, period. The public outrage is immense and we don´t even know all the facts. All we know is that this happened at Vick´s house, but how many houses does this guy have? How often is he even there? I think is way more than conceivable to think that a guy had lent one of his houses over to some friends that might have some questionable betting practices. I mean during the season he´s travelling to all parts of the country for games and that´s ignoring the fact that he has offseason training, sponsors events, media events, charitable work (I assume) and other travel that would impede him from knowing. I know that this is a stretch, but is it that big? I mean, in high school, wasn´t there always a friend that took over another friends house while the parents were away and threw a party that ended up costing the kid with the free house a few weeks of being grounded. This would just be on a bigger scale, bigger punishment.

I guess I´m not saying he´s innocent. There is a great possibility that he is guilty. But can´t we live by the old ¨innocent until proven guilty¨ ideal? I guess I just can´t shake the feeling that PETA just want´s to put Vick´s face up and say, ¨he´s a bad man.¨ I feel like they´ve forgotton that man is an animal and needs our compassion too. Like they want to publicize their views and flex their power just to satisfy their self righteous arrogance. Can´t they just wait until after a fair trial? Until we´ve Is it really too much to ask?

Down with the Alchemist

I don´t like Paolo Coehlo´s writing. There I said it. I know there are millions of people out there that completely adore him and think he´s the greatest writer ever, but I am not one of them. I can´t even count how many people have recommended me his book the Alchemist. And being one that enjoys reading I gave it a passing try. I hated it, thought it was the worst book I have ever read. I have given him another chance, and I´m glad I have, but I still am not a fan. But what this second book has done is given me insight into why I don´t like Paolo Coehlo´s writing.

I have nothing against the man, in fact I think I would probably enjoy his company. He seems to enjoy what he does (intuited from his books) and I like the message that he seems writes about. I like the idea that we, as people, should seek to find out what we want in life. We should be true to ourselves and not think of ourselves as machines meant to go in straight lines. All of that I´m cool with. I just think his writing (from the two books, and I´m mainly emphasizing The Alchemist) not that good.

What makes his writing boring/tedious/trite to me is that it doesn´t seem like he´s trying to write a story by which everyone can interpret and learn from in their own way. It´s more like he´s trying to create these templates for people to learn the exact same thing. I just think it´s funny because it´s juxtaposed on living an individual, passionate life. For me this makes the story turn hollow and mass produced, and even though I recognize his easily accessible messages it loses its meaning by that mass produced feeling.

I think the first priority in a fiction novel should be the story. This allows the message/s to lie naturally within the frame of that story, in the crevices. A good example of this, albeit a film, are the star wars films, where they are telling a captivating story with the Force as the back bone. It sits better in the film, even though it´s just as obvious, because the Author/Director has focused on creating a captivating story, unlike the Alchemist where there seems to be an overuse of vague semi-profound words but there isn´t much within the story. I realize to some extent that this minimalism of story telling is one of the things he is famous for, but I think it was overdone.

I think he has tried to emulate Jorge Luis Borges, but hasn´t quite pulled it off.