Unfortunately I didn’t do anything for Earth Day/wk but sleep/hang out in the burbs, there was cool stuff going on in Chicago, as I found on a (live earth-related) Earth Day website, ranging from events at UoC, interfaith discussions, hikes, Mt. Trashmore at Northwestern(!), and a park cleanup. Alas.. Next year? I visited Milwaukee, Chicago and the burbs in this trip though, what was in downtown you ask– (BTW, Just uploaded all my Chi and Mil pix)

It's the Cloud Gate

So I took the same bus back into Chicago, and the next 2 mornings my aunt dropped me off at the “El” (train/lightrail) station, so I could get into Downtown and explore! My first stop was Sears Tower, turned out there wasn’t much to see there if I didn’t want to pay ~$12 to go up an elevator, but that’s okay. From there I decided to get on of those “Hop On, Hop Off” tour buses/trolleys for $25. I used it to go just a few stops to the Art Institute, which is a chill art museum. I then headed to the nearby (and new-ish) Millennium Park, where “the Bean,” as the locals call this curious shiny ’sculpture.’ On the last leg of the day I went to Chicago Cultural Center to buy a Visitor’s pass, which is $9 for 2 days for CTA buses/trains, and this has to be the cheapest and most convenient way to see all the sites in Downtown. Too bad its only for visitors, that makes New York’s Unlimited ride card more useful+accessible, as NYC’s can be bought anywhere. And then I went to find my trolley/bus so I could finish off the tour, which instead of having me wait ~25 minutes, I had to wait over an hour for, and since I caught the last one of the day there was very little tour value to it. Since I tend to linger at sites/museums, this was easily $25 wasted, and I don’t recommend it to anyone who wants to see many things in Downtown. It’s not time or price convenient. This brings us to my second day in Downtown Chicago. I started off walking down the “Magnificent mile” a bit and checked it out, that was kinda fun, I was also questing for some hemp shoes so I could volunteer with Habitat in NYC which is one way having a cell phone was useful during my trip, then I headed down to Pilsen, which is a largely Spanish-speaking neighborhood, wherein I quickly found an organic convenience store! Yeah! Unfortunately, even being a local, her business is not doing so well (not surprisingly? organic in a “lower-income” area?). It/she was cool though. Next I got to my destination: The Mexican Fine Arts Museum.. it was brilliant! From the first exhibit I saw, about the famous Chupacabra, that my Spanish teacher Francisco taught us about as we began our stay in México. The exhibit was brilliant, if it ever happens near you, GO! And if you’re ever in Chicago, GO TO THIS MUSEUM! I think it’s fair to say that it’s my favorite museum EVER! And its free? “wtf” some might say, I just say They know whatsup! This is part of the reason I was sorely disappointed at my next stop, the DuSable Museum of African-American History. After having just visited a museum that recognizes the struggles of immigrants, minorities, or more generally folks’/countries that powers such as the US have such great influence over, this museum sorely missed all marks. Their highlighted exhibit was “Blacks In The Armed Forces.” Sorry, but learning about African-Americans in war doesn’t even vaguely elevate my opinion of them. The history of Africa in the museum also seemed slightly out of place, considering its an AA museum, and it didn’t do much to tie it to today. I can’t think of more to say, so I’ll leave it at that. I wanted to visit the Museum of Science and Industry after that, but! Even with relatively early starts to the day, I still run out of time! My last task of the day, and now in the rain, was to find a pair of eco-friendly shoes. After some searching (calling different shoe stores, and sometimes getting leads from them, making great use of Google 411), I FINALLY find a shoe store selling ecologically-friendlier shoes FOR MEN. (Everyone else only sold them for women!) I ended up choosing one of Simple Shoes‘ Ecosneaks. Check out the ingredients! (My favorite are the bike tire treads!) So that concludes my time in downtown! What I missed: But there was so much more I wanted to see! I wanted to borrow/rent a bike and cruise around the neighborhoods, or see the Lakefront or parks. The neighborhoods are supposed to be the cat’s Meow, there’s Devon (Indian), (I did walk through Greektown though!), Lakeview and Wrigleyville – a punk haven with a mishmash of subcultures, etc. I didn’t even attend any live music! As far as sites, I skipped the Planetarium (but saw some skyline/view from nearby), Social Justice-style CCAT place (Ask John/Noelle for more info), field museum, zoo, Museum of Contemporary art, Museum of Science and Industry (supposed to be huge+great!), the (free) stained glass museum at the Navy Pier, nor did I pay attention to architechture (e.g. Frank Lloyd Wright stuff). Non-downtown (Suburbs): • The saddest thing I missed was touring the Stickney Water Reclamation Plant – Cicero. I just found out that the (or 2nd) largest Waste Water (Sewage) Treatment Plant in the country is for Chicago’s poo! I have to let someone know ~30 days before. There’s a Baha’i House of Worship, Illinois Railway Museum, and the largest mall (measured by retail space) in America.

me and the bride

The mall is notable because it’s in Schaumburg, the same city where the wedding I came to attend took place. This was my 2nd cousin on my dad’s side, Preeti Prasad , marrying Pradeep Kodali. (Their names both start with ‘P’! Well, this post is _severely_ overdue, so I’ll have to end it here, but to mention that it was great to see several of my cousins (and their families! wow i’m young I guess!), who are (mostly) all cool people. More (and better!) pics can be seen from the father-of-the-bridge on picasa, email me for that link. (Dunno if it was meant to be private, so I’ll only give it out to friends/fam)

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So, I’ve done a couple of things now. I’ve got the contact info for the 2 YHA Hostels (one official, the other not so sure!), got in contact with a few trekking organizations (Get off Ur Ass, Ozone India, Kalypso Adventures, Kali Rafting, & Empowercamp.com), emailled a few friends, Anand Bemra and Venkatesh Murthy, who were really involved with HSS in the US, to get some ideas on what I could do in terms of service (and will no doubt be connected into Sangh ^[1] ). Possibly not surprisingly, Venkatesh has only been in Bangalore for 6 months, and has ALREADY started a new project! It’s called Youth for Seva, and its intent is to see volunteerism among India’s youth similar to what is seen in the US. I also emailled another friend (Niket Sirsi) to get some ideas of what to do in terms of adventuring.. Sounds busy huh? Not exactly a lot of work for a whole month of being here though! The wedding is of course over (see the pics) Though I didn’t get any mehendi (Henna Tattoo) done, oops. (my Mom did though! )Oh, and Monday I went out with a friend of my cousin Sridhar’s, Vijayraj, who runs Farmland Rainwater Harvesting Systems (farmlandrainwaterharvesting.com is supposed to be their site but that link doesn’t work for me..) <–Link to the pics, and this project is discussed in an article in the newspaper The Hindu! Wow, was that NOT what the focus of my (incomplete) Senior Project was?? And I just finished signing up for WWOOF Independents, formerly known as Willing Workers on Organic Farms (I guess they changed their name) online. W00t, I’m excited! It’s funny that things are different, with YHA, WWOOF, etc, in India than elsewhere, but I guess it makes sense. It also fits in with the fact that doing EVERYTHING seems different/more difficult in India than I’m used to! Makes it more exciting, I guess! I’ve also looked up the website for USAID(.gov)’s India section, I don’t know that I’ll do anything with them, but when I was researching Decentralized Wastewater on Google News (for PoliSci project), I found references to their work in Jakarta (Indonesia)’s newspaper. Even if it’s like the Peace Corps, it would be worthwhile to connect in with them, imho. I need to start being able to make connections, find resources, network, etc. Interestingly enough, my uncle (a very rich man, runs a construction firm) setups On-Site Sewage (WasteWater) Treatment at some of his developments, so he’ll give me a tour, okay done, here are some pics: . I also read an article about this guy, CB Ramkumar who has recently created an organization called FEEL, and also made a company, Our Native Village, which is a “100% eco-friendly” eco-resort. I emailled him, have to call and followup soon. WOW. You know what? Writing this blog entry ALONE has been amazing, I’ve had to find so many links (because I like to link to things!), making me realize that SO many of the resources I want are ALREADY online! Yowza! Once I add some pics, I think we can call this entry good! (As TonyV would say, “lock it in and call it good”!) More?? I’ve got to start reading the newspaper more, the Times of India had a cover story on GreenPeace India bringing attention to GMO foods, so I emailled them about volunteering and signed up for their email list. Turns out their head India office is IN Bangalore! Later a small blurb about the Centre for Green Building Materials & Technology, Bangalore, they’re organizing a “SUSTAINABLE LIVING ’07” Conference this weekend! Good thing I didn’t make any plans yet!

References: 1) My blog entry from my last trip, 2) Article about CB Ramkumar, IT professional turned Eco-Tourister

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(Links to Goodbye pics album)

Oh, what am I talking about, India, you ask? Oh yes, sorry, I thought I already told everyone. SO! My cousin Lakshmi is getting married, so my entire nuclear family has decided they want to go! Wow. My mom was already thinking of heading to India this year, but not until December, because that’s when her big family meet’s going to happen. (Family, and keeping in contact, is really important to my mom’s side. As opposed to my dad’s side..) So, that probably won’t happen now, ~$1500 (per person!) is a lot to drop twice in a year, so hopefully momz is okay with that. (Better once than never!) So, since this is only a # of weeks after graduation, so why not just go to India with the fam and.. Stay there! Yes, that’s the ticket! I called Eva, and apparently (contrary to my mom saying it was 6 months) my ticket is extendable up to ONE YEAR, and also without penalty! Good call on the airline choice momser! So I can keep changing my departure date per my whim. Ohh yes, that’s right, and nice! I didn’t have to pay all that much to tweak the heck out of my Australian ticket, but it was a bit more of a pain, and more $, so I ended up just getting it reissued once. (Maybe the fact that this is an e-ticket makes it easier? Dunno..) But I was thinking of cutting my trip a little shorter than that, and so I have it in mind to come back in time for HSU’s Commencement Ceremony (see pics from mine), but I’ll be waiting for someone to invite me to their graduation party before settling on that (*hint hint*). So, about this trip, I’m sure you’re asking for more..

I have these 3-4 areas/goals (expectations?) for my trip, things I’d like to do/accomplish before I leave. I’d like to 1) Reconnect with my roots/heritage, and hopefully in the process 2) connect with my spiritual side a bit more, while 3) being a tourist and see cool and neat places, and just have the experience of touring and living life, wild+free, 4) Check out the environmental scene, and potentially (ideally?) 5) Connect into the movement, organizations and folks doing stuff, and just generally have a jolly activist lifestyle here.

Most of these goals are of variable ease.. I mean, “finding myself” (this trip, and that phrase especially, seem so cliched!) , which really means making a true+deep spiritual connection, seems a bit tougher, but mostly they are within my abilities for sure. (Good little article on the spiritual tip, from the ‘Speaking Tree’ series, “Way to Spiritual Wisdom is through Heart.”)

[BUT!] In thinking about going to, say, a village in India, and trying to “help” and learn, I have to think about a piece that my friend Fernando Paz looks at very fondly. It is by Ivan Illich, and is titled To Hell With Good Intentions. Powerful shit. (High recommendations about Ilyich have come from many others, esp of the AZ (Accion Zapatista) folks. Will have to read him, and many others, at some point..)  More on all this later I’m sure..

Well, I feel like cutting this post a little short and ending it here, so PLEASE, if you have ANY questions/comments/concerns/etc, about my trip, life, ANYTHING, please comment on this post or email me. I’ll try to either reply back to you, or better yet cover some of ya’lls questions in a future blog post, so all can be enlightened. I’m sure many others share your questions. All for now, peace out! -@

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People that I think of as amazing can generally be thought of with the term ‘activists,’ and .. wow, this semester I’ve been meeting so many amazing activists, notably ones involved with Accion Zapatista (on campus, kinda).  It’s been REALLY awesome, I’m like, in love with them or something, or at least, way enchanted.  :)  And I’d love to tell you more about them, but.. no time for that now.
When I first got to HSU, I stopped by the Arcata Co-Op and met someone tabling for the local Earth First! chapter.  I took this as kind of a sign then, and took their flyer intending to participate in one of their nonviolence training workshops, but never talked to them or otherwise involved.  I would have been interested in doing the training, and ideally supporting a treesit in some way, but, didn’t happen.  Maybe just keeping the thoughts and ideas in ones’ mind is value in and of itself though?

But in the Spring’07 semester, Hillary told our Environmental Politics class about this SkillShare that was going on down in the Mattole.  I was curious, but never heard back from her.  Luckily, some of the AZ folks (Sierra, Verbena, and eventually Farmer) told me about the SkillShare, and luckily Verbena added me to her list so I got some updates, and so it happened!  I went to the Mattole Wildlands Defense Fund Skill Share, which you can read more about there.
In one of my last entries I was talking about my Winter Break. After I got back in January from that break, ~3 weeks off, I was completely unrefreshed. Somehow, trying to do nothing, sleep in, etc., didn’t relax me. Greg Handa told me that maybe I don’t know how to do nothing. I even had trouble sleeping in! He’s not right, it was really because I was so troubled and disconcerted. It was just.. such an unpleasant ending to this semester, having supervisors trying to get me in trouble, and at least putting the fear of getting fired in me, in addition to being a student and taking a heavy-load (And doing more poorly than I need to have in some classes, and so I was worried about failling them.) The lack of refreshment, added to all the normal stresses/problems/etc that go on, left me completely unable to enjoy this semester, or to do anything other than worry/stress/freakout. Until the Skill Share came.

I would have liked to go home, just for my parents sake, but that’s fine I Didn’t, that’s not enough reason for me. I’ve never been down to the Lost Coast either, and the weather there, I later learned, was AMAZING. It was great, to be in this activists space, to be greeted, and treated well, by these kind folks. A gathering of like-minded folks, which our Env. Politics teacher, Ralph Faust (possibly in relation to Emily saying things were too negative in class/world) is what is needed for one to stay happy/well in life. (That’s me oversimplifying, of course.) Meeting new, interesting and different people, having different kinds of conversations from the usual, spending time with passionate people, taking hikes, learning about nature, the world, ourselves.. oh! Just everything that is important to me in life, and so makes me happy! SO GOOD! Oh, yes.

Well, I could write a lot about the Skill Share, I took some notes in my journal (since I don’t use it enough, gotta do something with it! I did the same during the Ed Encounter a few weeks prior), and have a lot to say, but! Not now. You’ll have to come back to this entry later, I reckon, on my website, not on facebook. However!

To start you off, here’s a Slideshow from the Skill Share, my photos to be polished up (hopefully soon!), feel free to bug me!

In the meantime, here’s a nice one.. (This links to the album!–>

MAD props to the Forest Defenders community (and to Forest and Mystique for all their work putting this on!), for all their energy, good thoughts, sacrifice, etc.
(On a sidenote, I’m sure that, if there is a divide between SJ and Env movements, it’s not coming from these good-hearted folks! (at least not intentionally!))

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At another point in the night I started to talk to Alan Stokke (like everyone else mentioned, also on facebook, weird!)  It was kind of an amazing conversation, it seemed like  it moved from the point of small talk to passionate amazement just like that, it was so.. fabulous!  Alan is totally working in water, which at first I thought “Oh, that’s a lot different from what I’m interested in,” plus he’s an engineering major (what I possibly should have been) and maybe it was Alan who helped me with the perspective directly, or just the conversation generally, but it was pretty rad!  And it was interesting to see someone interested in working in environmentally-related areas but also making muchos dinero!  So this conversation provided another interesting career idea, of being able to live it up and make the world a better place.  Fascinating!  I’d love to write more about this, to really impact the coolness, but this entry is long enough already!  :(  It was cool that Abbey Stockwell had given a presentation on stormwater in my Wastewater Reuse/Reutilization class a few weeks earlier, which helped enable this great convo.  (Later, in the Spring’07 semester Alan went out of his way to email (and facebook) Ajay with a career opportunity in that same firm.  TOO Nice!)

And the roadtrip continued.  So I headed over to KJ’s place, and so got to hang out with her for a long while of not having seen her.  I don’t think that I was the best company, since I was still in that aforementioned weird state from the way the semester ended poorly, but it was rad.  It was cool, even from early in our drive from Jess’s place, to talk to KJ again.  Really frank, honest, kind and sweet.  Knowing some of my opinions, and with me continuing to share others of mine, she showed interest in knowing why I believe what I believe.  It’s hard to explain, but it was interesting because she could have  just assumed that I would judge her poorly for some actions/behaviors, but rather than being caught up in such a concern, she just sought to understand me, which required her to be honest and open with herself.  I really appreciate that, as I’m not so open+free with myself, at least, as much as I would like to be.  I don’t know if that was impactful enough either, but basically KJ’s got such an amazing heart.  And.. just so cool!  It’s for sure that few people have the patience/interest/curiosity/etc/etc that allowed her to .. maybe not even deal with, maybe even love?? my rediculous emails.  Crazy!  But I should start wrapping this up, I don’t know how you could still be reading this, you’ve got some patience, reader.  :)
The Portland part of the roadtrip wasn’t too hot.  I am a pretty poor planner, and only slightly better at time management, so a lot of the time I could have spent seeing things was lost, for many reasons.  Me and KJ went in my car first to some park, and then tried to hit up that Pittock Mansion, unfortunately it was closed and we were less lucky in sneaking in there but it did have an amazing view of Mt. Hood(?).  Unfortunately I soon started to realize that, even though the weather was supposedly similar to Arcata, the Portland area is FREAKIN cold!  (Brr!)  It was a sweet view though! For sure! So that made up for it. I was getting ready to leave Portland, and called up Zach Mermel to see if he needed a ride from Arcata (hence semi-dictating my next plan), and he didn’t, but also convinced me to spend more time in Portland, taking the train (light rail/Tri-Met/whateveryouwannacallit) into the city, and checking out the City Repair Project, all of which I wanted to do anyways, dunno why I needed the kick in the but from him, but it helped!
So the next day that is what I did, I found the address and directions, took some rail+bus to get there, and had an amazing conversation with their new intern, Steve (Lamaire?), who’s way interested in water too! We were coming from slightly different perspectives, mine more academic, his more hands-on, and it was cool to see. Again, could write more about all this, but! (Too long already. Again, rad.
The rest of my winter break was pretty boring, so this is as good a place as any to stop. My mom was going to try to fly into the Intel facility there and we could drive home together, but she couldn’t get a flight on their little plane, so it was a solo roadtrip home.  I sometimes forget how much I enjoy+appreciate my alone time (And how I never take it), so that was pretty chill.  Got back to Arcata, packed a little, hung out a little (oh so great to have a building to myself, or nearly so!  :)  So, in wrapping it up, here’s a pic of me+KJ, (which was entertaining to get taken) at the beginning of our Portland time, and it links to the pics from that short trip.  AKA, We end this entry with KJ, the start and inspiration for the fabulous part of my Winter Break’06!  Lotsa love!

I might want to blog about my spring break, but I think that’ll be it to get me caught up.
(Did I really want to blog about the Time person of the year too?  Hmm, months later.. Guess not!)  I’m sure there’s more I wanted to say about my roadtrip, sorry roadtrip!  (Maybe I’ll edit this later?  (He always says that!))

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IT WAS A BLAST! Ohmahgoodness.. First, MEGA-PROPS to Armeda for inviting me to her mama’s b-day party, and I’m additionally super-glad that I wasn’t so shy that night. I think after most of the gringos left I like opened up or something, and I was just being super-talkative/hyper/something, really funny/silly/crazy/whatever, whatever I need to be to really (and entertainingly) engage with people. It was soo awesome, so much fun. The first fun experience I had was with a woman named Blanca (who apparently helped other people with their project), and when she left with some other folks arrived, the one I talked to most was the one seated next to me, César Iván Moreno Aguirre, a Saltillo native who was hanging out in Parras. arg! It’s the night of 8/15 and I finished writing most of this entry and it crashed! ARG GUIs!! I don’t remember what else was in this paragraph, so I’ll move on..
A few weeks later we went to the Zona del Silencio, and I met David Diaz, a community college student from Texas (pronounced: Tehas) that was on an exchange and studying at the UTC Saltillo (really, Ramos Arizpe) campus. (His pix from that trip.) He also seemed cool with me coming over and crashin at his place after the trip was over. More people to hang with, cool! unfortunately I never got his contact info, and as with many things in life, I was “meaning to,” for awhile. By some sort of luck, I saw him half a block from “my” house a week before departure date, PERFECT! And he was cool with it. I emailled him and César, and they both seemed down and cool. TiGHT! Ever systems designers dream, REDUNDaNCY!! Achieved. The only thing is that David wasn’t planning to be there, but I could crash at his place. That left some worries/questions, of course..
I got to Saltillo on Saturday night, and took the “Radio Taxi,” to his place. Once I found what seemed like his place, I was confused because the door seemed open (I was supposed to get the key from his neighbor.) to my surprise, he was there! His plans to go to Monterrey fell through! Right on. I was kinda skeptical about staying in his place solo, since that might reduce my chance of getting out, especially considering his complaints of living far from everything. So we ended up chatting for awhile, and by the time I called César, it was almost midnight, which I figured was late and whatnot, so I told him that, and he said to give him a ring tomorrow (Sunday). After I got off the phone, David said things are barely getting started by now, and surely enough the next day when I called Cesar around 1pm, I woke him up. They were out until ~5AM!! Aye! WICKED!
David suggested we go to the Cathedral in front of the Government Plaza (plaza del Gobierno), and check out what’s going on around there, and it was a pretty happening day too, tons of street vendors (not a few of which were selling lots of pirated CDs (music/Video/etc) too, heh.), folks (gente), etc. Cesar and his really nice friend Yvonne arrived, and we checked out the outside of the Cathedral. It was some sort of special day/occassion, so there were a lot of people going in. Next, we headed through the plaza to the palace (el palacio del gobierno). On the second floor was this mural.. OH! I found a Flash version of it, with spanish explanations. It was awe-inspiring/amazing! I can only start to explain it, and pictures just don’t do it justice! Since this is the part of my life with my camera being stolen, you can see more pictures of it from David’s pictures, which are pretty cool, and awesome he gave them to me. It was awesome to me not just because it was awesome imagery, but because of what was there. Many of the names I had started to learn, along with important events, from Mexican history. Francisco Madero, the dude from Parras, notably in my memory. I had learned that México had gotten a new constitution in 1913, but somehow, until I saw a mural with two constitutions of different dates on it, it didn’t really strike me. TWO Constitutions?! That’s crazy! It’s so weird.. this was just a continuation of my love affair with México I’ll try to tell you about.. Amazing, interesting, and all so.. beautiful.

From there we headed to the Museo del Desierto, Coahuila, which would be worthwhile if for the view alone! WOW.
(SIDENOTE: I just noticed this Amazing feature in Opera, when I use the keyboard shortcut for next in my album, it automagically takes me to the next page/image. How does it know?! Thank you Opera and IDS!! You rock!)

That’s TiGHT! Saltillo’s a city, of about 500k people, by the standards of Parras (~40k), my parent’s city (Milpitas, ~65k), and my school city (Arcata, ~20k), it’s HUGE! Of course, I live in a suberb of San Jose (~1 Million), and near SF (similar but smaller, and denser.) And.. it’s interesting, at least that’s what I thought by these views, which extended the idea I already had in interesting directions. It’s a cool place, if you ask me. Sorry, I still like big cities for some reason!
And the museo itself? Yeah! It was way cool! Hopefully Cesar, David and Yvonne weren’t getting too bored with me, I was having a really good time reading all the signs (which is of course slower than my slow english reading and checking everything out (including their (mock-up?) of a Man-sized Bat Skeleton.) WAY COOL!!! I can see why my class liked it so much. Which reminds me, when they all returned from the museo del desierto (day after my b-day (day I got sick) they went..) Jonathan Wu was the person who was really nice and really remembered me, he bought me soap from there! How sweet. THANK YOU JONATHAN!

So by then, it was semi-late, so we dropped David off at his place, and the 3 of us went to dinner, at a restaurant owned by a guy of Spanish decent. (It’s just semi-weird sometimes to see people with “White” skin and especially when they can speak seemingly perfect spanish!) That’s when I really got a chance to talk to his friend (who he was heavy mackin on Yvonne, and realized that she was a really sweet+nice person, which was cool. Later that night, we checked out the Festival (farea? farrea? ferea? however you spell it in spanish!) of Saltillo. (Yes, Parras isn’t the only one that has a festival! (Kind of like a county fair) It’s just that people in Parras are more interested in theirs, maybe that’s just because it’s not as big.)
We did a bunch of rides and stuff, which was actually a lot of fun. (Since I thought I had outgrown that. Wow.. the fun never ends!! The next day I went to school with David, to the UTC RA campus, didn’t meet so many people (they’re not welcoming enough, as David says, coupled with my shyness, well.. ya know!) But I got a few staffs people to give me tours and whatnot, and this was the other place my class went to when they came, with their particular interest/focus in the grey/black water treatment that they have. The whole tour was pretty cool and interesting. It’s a pretty big campus, with some rad technologies going on (HUGE contrast to the UTC Parras campus!). And the Director, Jaime, wanted to talk with me/us, and gave us this Libro del Oro (Golden Book, about Coahuila with a section on UTC), asked some questions, and finally had us do a mini-interview.. which was weird, since my colleagues were treated so differently. I got this personalized tour, special treatment here, my own schedule, etc. Weird! It was of course cool though.
Another weird part was them telling me how none of my fellow students could understand anything they were saying, they were surprised at how my good my Spanish was compared to theirs. (Which wasn’t the first time I’d heard that. Cesar or Blanca, and one of Armeda’s “relatives,” said something similar to me, and possibly others.) Which is just weird, since I’m, by comparison, sooo out of practice/learning compared to the rest of them! However, that’s ALWAYS a nice compliment, Yvonne complimented me too during dinner, it’s a thing so nice to hear, especially since I’m so self-conscious about it, since sometimes I feel like I can’t understand a darn thing someone’s saying!
Well, this is getting pretty long, and it’s getting late, so I should bid this entry adieu!
As a quick wrapup, my last day I Was going to just take the morning bus and head back to see what was crackin in Parras, but Cesar and his friend David(2) were cool to hang out and show me a little more. All we ended up doing was going back to the Festival to help kids which we didn’t, but it was cool because we got to see a circus. When the clown was looking for volunteers, David2 told me I should go. I said “nah,” and I think when I was looking at the clown (as he came looking for volunteers), he musta pointed at me or something, so I was like, crap! I said okay, and since I was afraid I’d screw up his act, I told him I didn’t speak good english, so he just talked to me in spanish. All the better, because he said he was going to throw knives at me.
WHAT?! KNIVES?! EEEKK!!!
IT was really.. interesting.. I didn’t trust the whole thing very much, I was very sketch. SERIOUSLY SKETChED oUT! I figured he must be really good or something, else he wouldn’t try it, so after the first, I relaxed a bit. I told David that he (and/or the clown) tried to kill me, to which he responded that while I had that bag over my head, his assistant was just sticking the knives into the board.
So obvious, right? Yeah, I guess it shoulda been, I felt silly for not realizing that.. and unfortunately, no pictures from that day. David2 took some with his camera, but.. you can imagine how those came out.

Ahh, so that’s it then, as ended my great and amazing trip to Saltillo. Since the bus I tried to catch was full, I cut my hair off while waiting for the next one, life was freeing once again..

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cool folk singer dude

Las mañanitas

Éstas son las mañanitas These are the morning verses
Que cantaba el Rey David, That King David used to sing,
A las muchachas bonitas To the beautiful young ladies,
Se las cantaba así. He would sing them like this.

Despierta, mi bien, despierta, Wake up, darling, wake up,
Mira que ya amaneció, Look, the dawn has broken,
Ya los pajaritos cantan, The birds are singing,
La luna ya se metió. The moon has already gone down.

Éstas son las mañanitas These are the morning verses
Que cantaba el Rey David, That King David used to sing,
Hoy por ser día de tu santo Today because it’s your saint’s day
Te las cantamos a ti. We’re singing them to you.

[end lyrics]
My spanish teacher did something else that was kind of funny for our birthdays (we’ve had at least 4 so far, 2+ to go! Seems like a lot in 10 weeks, but I guess it is ~24 ppl..) He claimed it was a Spanish birthday song, and it took me a bit to figure out what was really going on. Took other people way, way longer, even after he translated it. I was crackin up.. Here:

“Apio Verde, a ti.
Apio verde, a ti.
Apio verde a Alyssa.
Apio verde, a ti.”

(Her birthday was a week before mine.)
Then he translated it for us. Apio is celery, verde is green. So.. green celery to you? Huh? If you missed the joke, you’ll have to sound it out, not just read it.
It’s definitely only funny to english speakers. Maybe particularly funny to people learning spanish? Dunno..!

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