hola peeps. i have been drowning in work, so there isn't much time for blogging. Basically the election ruined my life for months and now i'm making up for all the things i didn't/couldnt' do because i was mentally incapacitated with anxiety about "our future." But now i feel better and it's all very like "is that all there is to electing Obama?" So i wanted to note a few things

1. Finals season is coming up. When i was a student i used to think that finals were like the epitome of all that was wretched in the world. Now i am a TA and i realize that NO NO NO, grading finals are in fact the most wretched thing in the world. The only thing that comes a close second is teachign section to a bunch of privileged rich college kids who coudl give two shits about economic disparities and the achievement gap. so anyways my students have their final papers due tomorrow and they have been bombarding me with drafts to read, and coming to office hours and making appointments. I've lost interest in my own story, but the point is that i feel really sorry for all the times that i turned in crappy, night before written papers to my TA's. Now that i have to take time out of my personal work schedule to read 60, 13 page papers, 75% of which are bull shit i realize that i was for sure in that 75%. It's like...it's called a run on sentence! learn about it! Or sometimes i had to include comments like "this sentence needs a verb." For serious. Also liek i said, 90% of my students are rich white girls, and when they write about issues like "black underachievement" and inequity in teh schooling system they refer to their own personal experience like this. "In my experience, i came from an upper class family. Even though my parents didnt' have time to help me they knew my education was important so they hired tutors and got me the finest education. Poor people tend to not value education because their kids do badly in school and tehy dont' even try to help them. In my experience it has nothign to do with social class and has everythign to do with how much parents value education, and poor parents just don't value education." i read this and was like...where do i even begin!!! I have gotten a lot of personal stories liek this in their papers, about why their success in life has had NOTHIGN to do with class.

2. Nick is back from the election trail which has been nice. He's been living in my apartment, which is kind of like living in sin, only it's temporary and not official But we spend most of our time outside in coffee shops and such doing work (me my student emails and him applying for white house jobs) so we dont' really get the whole "cute couple cohabitation" thing going on. Not bad at all. But alas he is trying to get a job in the white house (as is everyone else) and so he'll probably be leaving pretty soon. It's the curse of my attraction to men with big dreams.

3. I went to this dinner party this weekend which included me (daughter of taco trucker), Nick (son of environmentalists middle class michiganders who like to argue alot), Adam (law student/ self described hippie from Maine), a natural resource phd (whose dad is a writer), a canadian natural resource guy (who studies bird migratory patterns), A mixed black girl of kenyan heritage (like barack obama!), and my roommate (who has harvard educated phd parents). Oh and Alex (the poet liar, who is pretty middle class too but likes to talk about henry james alot). Anyways it was an odd assortment of people who just wanted to talk about marxism and economics and how they were reading Moby Dick for fun. When they asked me waht i was reading i was like, "well in between perez and jezebel, i dont' get too read much but i'm really looking forward to reading Twilight next week on my flight home." Their response, "what's twilight?" SERIOUSLY!! sometimes i really hate the circles that i run in. Another response "why dont' you get your news from a real source." i do bitches!! Also i really enjoy perez not just for the gossip but for the fact that he is able to filter important news to the masses. News that that average americans wouldnt' normally access, like he links to nytimes articles and stuff. I find that interesting that by way of reading gossip he has gotten peopel interested in social issues. Did anyone at the table care about this???? no, to them it was just stupid celebrity gossip. ugh snobs. so instead of having a deep discussion about something not deep, we ended up talking about 3rd world farming patterns and how someone was writing their thesis on indigenous farming practices that they studied during their backpacking trip through central america. It was like a not funny version of stuff white people like. After 3 hours i took a hit of hooka and just passed out on the couch because i couldnt' deal with the convo anymore. Oh we also listened to Nigeria 70, which is an obscure collection of Afrobeat music. I have listened to the cd before because my roommate gave it to me and honestly it sounds a lot like latin music, but of course, africa is way cooler than latin america on the obscurity scale.

real deep

so words fail me right now...because i'm tired and excited and drunk and have things to do tomorrow. but for this moment i feel at peace. And it's just a moment but it's so meaningful.

to quote people who said it better

"i didn't vote for Obama. I voted for change!"
- Grace, my mom, who has voted republican since reagan

"Your Tio Charlie, asked me why i voted for Obama since we are both small business owners and i said, 'I voted for Cristina.' he kept saying to me, 'why would you vote what she wants. She has her own vote. You should vote what you feel.' And i said, 'No Charlie, you didn't hear me. I didn't vote for myself, i voted for Crisina...for her future. That is why I voted for Obama, for her and for your daughter and your son's future.'"
- Ernie, my dad, who voted on is first election

guys, tonight was deep and beautiful and full of tears.

um HELLO!!

so in honor of this momentous day i felt it important to record my feelings in some way so here i am. Every hour or so i find myself on the brink of tears.

My friend Adriana and I woke up really early and got to the polls at 7:30. I mean, i guess this wasn't that early but i willingly woke up before 9, which is HUGE for me. So i rolled into the polling station in my jammies, and 2 hours later i was the proud recipient of a sticker. I have never felt the need to wear these stickers but today I do. so you know how i have "moments"? Well today i have had like 8 billion moments.

Moments:
1. seeing the long line of people, bundled up on scarves and coats on this chilly fall day, all looking so pleasant at such an early hour. It was a true sense of community that i felt. A community of Americans united, perhaps on different sides, but honoring this one thing that we all have in common, our right to vote. what a beautiful thing!! I ran into people that i knew who had just voted and we hugged and it was this feeling of like...LET'S DO THIS!! " sense of control in a world full of chaos" if you will.

2. i walked into the booth, opened up my folder and had to stare for a second at the 2nd option on my presidential ballot. "Barack obama, Joe Biden." These are names that i have been hearing and seeing in print for so long now, yet here i was and i couldnt' believe that those names were put in front of me. It's kind of like when i see my profile on the psychology website and it says that my degree is from Stanford, and i know this but seeing it out there always makes me feel a bit shocked and incredulous. Like, did i really go there?? Anyways this was how i felt seeing Obama's name on that ballot. I mean look how far we have come! right now i'm getting emotional! but seriously, i almost shed a few tears in that voting booth because who would have thought that someone like me could be president, AND have a shitload of people in this country voting for them. This is a great day! Last week my professor told us that she would be cancelling class today. She is Black and was planning on voting very early and driving out to pittsburgh to be with her family. She said "do you guys even understand?! This is HUGE!! I have relative who didnt' get to vote and went to segregated schools and now they are voting for a Black man!" And i knwo peopel have seen that clip of that old man and, yes, i wept buckets. But this was a person right here in front of me, talking about what it meant to her, and that moved me. And it was like on the west wing when Jimmy Smits got added as teh fake potential first latino president. I dont' even really watch the show but i saw a few episodes and i felt so proud!! and this must feel like that times 100 to this woman because it's not a hollywood fantasy, it's real! anyways when i used to watch those episodes just a few years ago it seemed to far away, like that would never happen but we could keep dreaming about it and hoping. AND HERE WE ARE ON THIS DAY!! VOTING FOR A BLACK, MIXED, SON OF AN IMMIGRANT, HARVARD LAW GRADUATE!! this is unreal!!!

3. My dad called me and told me that he woke up this morning and thought "wow! i am voting in my first American election!! Can you believe it, Mija!??" I tell you, i cannot. My Father is not a democrat, but he is a big believer in America, and what he believes it stands for. he's very upset about what it has become. And he said "you know, i don't believe that American is perfect, but i believe in America. And we REALLY do need a change! i really believe that." Then he went on to talk about how not too long ago he was driving by Staples' center during a swearing in ceremony and he thought to himself "what am i waiting for!?" and here he is, almost a year later, voting on his first election, perhaps the most important election of his life, voting for the first black person to have the chance of winning the presidency. Even my dad, who is racist as fuck, realized what a great moment this was for him, an Indio. When i asked him what his stance on Prop 8 was he said "hell no! i say no to that! It is not my place to say that they cannot get married. And they've been getting married for a few months now and i don't see california burning in hell so i don't know why people are so scared." People, we have come a long way for my dad to say this. Not that he's a homophobe, but he definitely has elements of teh old school to him

3. This one is truly embarrassing. So in my education class that i TA we were showing the students "kindergarten cop" as a depiction of behaviorism and knowledge construction. anyways there is a scene toward the end when they have all the kindergartners at a festival reciting the gettysburg address. And the final kid says "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from earth." We here these words, and for so long they have been just words. Theories, ideals. And here we are today and the fruition of that speech is happening RIGHT NOW! and the moment was not lost on me. And i looked at my professor and my fellow TA and we both looked choked up and kind of laughed at each other cuz we were like, "why is this scene in kindergarten cop so much more meaningful now!!"

Anyways i dont' know when i will have a feeling of complete unity with my fellow brethren like this again. but while it lasts i shall savor it. I wish i could be at home with my family, watching the results, or wiht my college friends, in the atrium of Casa Italiana, or with Nick, in North Carolina, or with Annette, in our living room. le sigh. But no matter where i am or how i celebrate it i will be thinking of all of you

halloween, recap

guys, halloween totally sucked! annette, we decided not to throw a party, which was a huge mistake because while there were tons of parties they either didn't have any music (what the hell???) or refused to play top 40. And seriously, i NEEDED to hear "Disturbia" or i was gonna die. Also i went as Ziggy Stardust, which of course, no one got. Thank god i had all teh shit lying around so it didn't really require too much effort.

here i am, rocking out in my 2 dollar body suit i procured many months ago
my friend dressed as icarus. he went as pan last year. He's really into these old greek type things.
ramones, ziggy, and prince rocking out

so like i said we were ready to party, but hit a few bumps in the road when we hit up some parties that were just not where thye needed to be on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being, rocking out to "American Boy." it was a night of heavy drinking, chasing a party that we never found, and ending up drunk at a local all night joint.

but there were 2 great moments of the night.

1. we left the first party that was only playing soul music and headed back to my house for a dance party where my friend, who dressed as prince proceeded to reinact the music video for "when doves cry" in my bathtub. I filmed it but can't find the clip.
thsi is her getting ready. Needness to say, there was crawling and seduction involved. it was awesome.

the second highlight of my night involved an impromptu jazzercize party that started on the street. We actually went to laurel's med school frat party, which was pretty fun, albeit a bit too undergrad for me. so anyways there was a guy dressed as one of teh girls from the "call on me" music video. he had a boom box and was walking around playing the song on repeat, inciting random people to start a street dance party that involved dancing to call on me on repeat for about an hour. At some point the situation got even wierded, because as cars started driving by the jazzercizer would jump in front the car, start playing "call on me" and proceed to hump the cars, which was followed by large crowds also jumping into the street and doing this. This basically turned into an all out street dance party
now that i talk about it in retrospect, the night wasn't as bad as i remember. i think i was just really drunk and pulling a cathy, in that "i hate you and everything for no reason" kind of way. you know what i mean?