Oy!

The weekend was crazy and this week is more of the same. I hope to post more soon.

Oh, big shout out to my cousin Jefferson, congrats on our receiving your MFA this weekend. I really wanted to go but couldn't get away on Friday.

gym, gym, gym

Wednesday's suuuck [sing-song].

So I went to the gym last night, per my usual Tuesday night routine and JW took me through a leg workout. I woke up okay and did 20 minutes on the treadmill at the advice of mi hermano. I took my shower and now, oh it hurts to sit down. And I bet that tomorrow will be even worse.

In other news, I got everything done for my Monday and Tuesday class but I think I am in trouble for tonight's class. And this is the essay final that is due tonight. I just don't have the mental energy to do anything at this point in the week. I am going to try to write this paper today at work but I don't know if I can get it done. I will turn something in tonight but I may have hung myself on this one.

Hooray

Well, because my boss is so cool and let me clock out of work early so I could work on my paper, I finished it in the nick of time at 6:00 tonight. Turns out I didn't format it correctly but I have the excuse that I didn't take the class that everyone else has, so hopefully I can slide by with that one. I'll let you know how it all turns out.

One poster, a handout and an essay exam to go.

Screwed

It's 6 a.m. and I have a 6 - 8 page book review due at 7 p.m. tonight. I have the paper formatted, an outline done and the introduction written. I finished reading the book around 1 a.m. this morning. Yeah, I really screwed up this time.

Death

Saw this movie tonight with D & JW. It was very well made and extremely upsetting.


I highly recommend it. Two thumbs way up.

oh...

A guy I met while working elections asked me if I wanted to get something to drink today. I was so startled that I responded automatically that I was still on the clock but that we should do it another time. oh...

Voting

Yesterday and today are the elections for the university. I am working a voting tent near the union. And can I tell you, I don't really like people after yesterday. So many of the students were rude and greedy. I got cussed at for not giving someone a second ticket for a drawing for an iPod shuffle and a free hot dog on a stick. I am not sure which one he wanted more. Voting lasts until 7 p.m. today and I am working 12 to 5 at the tent again. Not looking forward to it.

Sorry to bitch but...At least I got to go to the gym a little earlier that usual with JW. That was good and I am not gettig as sore as I use to anymore. That's a good sign, right?

Homework

For Communication and Technology, my Monday night class, we had to sign-in and contribute or edit four entries in Wikipedia. Fun, fun, fun. I really didn't follow the rules of citing and so forth but I added information to:

United States Lottery

Snowflake

Mohawk Hairstyle


and last but not least

Corset


I may never add anything to Wikipedia again but I can now say that I have. Now, if the entries stay in Wikipedia, that is a whole other issue....

G to tha' A to tha' G-ma

Celebrated mom's B-day today at Versaille. It's this Cuban restaurant on Ventura Blvd. which I am just not a fan of. But it is only once a year so I suck it up and just go.

Most of the food is meat, meat and more meat. Usually mom orders the half chicken which comes topped with onions, fried plantains, and with a side of white rice and a cup of black beans.

Usually I gag down the rice and beans but I just couldn't do it this year. So when the waiter came to take our order, I ordered the mixed salad (Greens with onions, tomatoes, avocado and served with oil and vinegar) and a side of french fries. Hey, it's a party.

So when it came time for mom to order for her and G-ma, she started to order the half chicken for them to share but G-ma said, "No, I'll have what she's having." Meaning me.

I don't know why but mi hermano and I thought that was hilarious. So grandma had green salad and french fries for lunch. Rock on!

"Celebration of Knowledge"

My Wednesday night class is the Communication and Education class. We have this very nifty project that requires each member of the class to teach something to the other students. The lessons vary wildly. For example, tonight we learned how to play blackjack and how to decorate cupcakes. Here is my cupcake from tonight

The yellow icing at the bottom is made with a "basketweave" tip, the blue M (For Marz) is a "round" tip, the pink is a "star" tip and the green is a "leaf" icing tip. It was a lot of fun and made me want to dig around the kitchen for the icing kit my mom has and start decorating cupcakes. Decorating party anyone?

Previous lessons include:

- Tap lessons
- How to make Vegan Peanut-ty clusters
- A sign language lesson
- Making "The Pink Stuff"
- A lesson on herbs
- A Tango Lesson (yes, we partnered up)
- How TV shows are rated
- Sudoku

That's not even all of the lessons. I went the very first week and taught the class how to make tissue paper flowers.

I better get to bed as the week is not over yet but I wanted to post a little something tonight. Oh, and the "Celebration of Knowledge" that I refer to in the title is our final exam, a take home set of essay questions that are due on 2 weeks. We are limited to 10 pages and the first question should be 2-3 pages of our response. Yeah, mi profesora is a little of a hippie.

Tuesday Night Jam

I woke up humming a Neil Diamond song this morning. I can only blame this phenomenon on the wack dreams I have been having. Oh I really enjoyed my dream last night, as I had the pleasure of a certain someone's presence (Oh, baby!) whom I have not seen or thought of in a while but it is all still rather bizarre.

Any who, I grew up listening to Neil Diamond, so I have a certain affection for him. Until I took another listen to the lyrics. A rather sexist and heteronormative performer, that Neil Diamond. The first song I listened to this morning was "Solitary Man". It was so knuckledragging thick that I decided to skip to the next song. And I just kept skipping song after song.

In honor of my musical morning fun, I offer up the latest Soundtrack of my life

1. Opening Credits: Don't Stay Home/311

2. Waking Up: Dirty Little Secret/Sarah McLauchlan

3.First Day At School: Lubbock or Leave it/Dixie Chicks

4.Falling In Love: Oh Well/Fiona Apple

5.Fight Song: You are Loved (Don't Give Up)/Josh Groban

6.Breaking Up: They Stood Up for Love/Live

7.Prom: Where Fishes go/Live

8.Life: Beautiful Disaster/311

9.Mental breakdown: Better Version of Me/Fiona Apple

10.Driving: Sir Psycho Sexy/Red Hot Chili Peppers

11.Flashback: Call The Law/Outkast

12.Getting back together: Every Little Thing She Does is Mgic/The Police

13.Wedding: Off The Hook/Barenaked Ladies

14.Birth of Child: Candy/Mandy Moore

15.Final Battle: El Manana/Gorillaz

16.Death Scene: Crazy Movin/Britney Spears

17.Funeral Song: O Green World/Gorillaz

18.End Credits: Let Me Roll/Seal

Missing Bun

Someone walked off with a pet bunny who roamed in a fenced grassy lot in Santa Monica. Poor Bun. Here's to hoping Sugar Bunny is returned safe and sound to her people. Click here to check out the article featured in Sunday's Los Angeles Times.

No bueno for Easter, my peeps.

Back in Orbit

Okay, okay. I know I said that I would post a real post on Thursday but in my defense, it was an exhausting week. Let me put it to you this way, since I had Friday off for Cesar Chavez Day, I slept in and it turned out I slept 12 hours Thursday night to Friday morning. I was really ti-ti.

So let's catch up, shall we?

Where to begin... Ah yes, the conference. So, it was a rough start on the road to Fresno. First off, I was participating in a research project as a focus group moderator (have to build that curriculum vitae) and through a series of events, the group was meeting on Thursday afternoon from 2 - 3:15 instead of the following Tuesday as originally planned. So I stayed and did the project. Turned out the tape recorder I was using had bad batteries so we had to redo half the discussion the following week but whatever. Pop had his tax appointment at 4 that day but lo and behold, he forgot a crucial document at home. Rather than try to reschedule the appointment, we ran for home to get the document, calling into the tax guy's office to let him know we would be running late.

As fate would have it, right after we grabbed the document and got back on the freeway to head back into the valley, traffic started slowing down. Turns out there was an accident on the freeway up ahead. A bad one too. From what it looked like, there was a three car accident involving a pickup truck, a mini cooper and a Semi truck. The semi came through the concrete divider and stopped about 10 feet from going down into the road through a freeway overpass bridge. It was so scary. I looked online for more information but I was not able to find anything. I hope everyone was okay.



So then we had the conference itself. We missed all the events on Thursday night, so we checked in and went to bed. We were up early the next day and went to a couple sessions and then the plenary lunch with Lillian Faderman. Lillian Faderman is one of the founding academics in multi-ethnic literature studies. She was a very good speaker and we got to see mi primo shortly before he headed back to get some homework done. Dad and I took the afternoon off and I did homework and took a nap. Then we took our trip to Dinuba for pizza (bleh) and visiting for the family.

Mi Primo Jefferson outlined the visit pretty well here.

The rest of the conference was as to be expected. I already hit the highlights. Some good speakers, a lot who didn't know how to present, some good food and seeing Luis Valdez talk as I mentioned before. Dad and I headed out Sunday afternoon and so the conference went.

Luis Valdez - a pretty good likeness.

The week after that went by in a blur, I worked and went to classes and the gym. JW kicked my butt super good at the gym on Tuesday, She showed me a new machine at the gym that I totally fell in love with but I so overdid it that day. I was in so much pain that when I tried to donate blood on Wednesday, I couldn't. I am sure that does not make sense so let me back up.

I had an appointment at 5 p.m. and when the Red Cross person took my blood pressure, it was too high. She didn't want to defer me for high blood pressure, so she told me to relax, and we went through the rest of the paperwork while we waited for my pressure to go down. She tested me again and it was still high, so she had me fill out the last of the questionnaire. That took some time because we had to pull up a map so I could check to see if I had travelled into a malaria zone for my conference last summer (I hadn't). She checked my blood pressure one last time but it was still too high. See, your blood pressure should be between 50 and 100 and when I came in that day, it was 112. The last time she checked, it was 104 and although I lowered my blood pressure 8 points, it still was not enough. It made sense to me. I was super tired, as I had mentioned several times and I was sore from working out, in quite a bit of pain, truth be told. You know how when you're really tired, your eyes and face feel hot? That is totally how I felt that day.

Thursday was hilarious for me. I came home a little early, went to the public library to get a couple books for an upcoming project (Struck out on one of the books I wanted), came home and passed out on the couch, woke up for a bite to eat, watched TV for a little while with mi hermano and then did my marathon sleeping.

The Friday of Cesar Chavez Day rolled around and I had a chance to catch up on my sleep and everything. That night I had the opportunity to cook dinner. Since I slept in, I ended up not going to Dinuba to have lunch with mi familia and since dad was on the road and mom was coming home from work, I made a noodle bake with a lot of fresh garlic. It was yummy, mi hermano really, really liked it. I also attempted to make a ginger, curry carrot side dish for a vegetable.

It was okay, I think if I had not added the loquat white balsamic vinegar at the last moment, it would have been better but that is what next time is for. I made the recipe up, trying to come up with a sweet ginger carrot dish without adding actual sugar since I wanted to make sure that dad could eat the vegetable too. After I started cooking, I realized, pasta dish and carrots, not a good dish for a diabetic. So, dad did not have the carrots and life goes on.

I actually like to cook and it makes me sad that I just don't have the time to cook like I use it. Cooking for one is really hard and I don't get home in time to cook the family meal any more.

So this is the catch up from the MELUS conference. NACCS is a whole other post, one I hope to get to by this coming weekend. Really wasn't worth the wait, was it. Ah well, catch you later.

viente anos*

*Twenty Years

I just learned that we have lived in our current house for 20 years. Yes, we moved into the current Casa spring break of 1987. I actually remember vividly that it was spring break because my backpack was misplaced during the move and I had to return to school without my backpack and a note from my mother explaining what had happened. I was so freaked out that I didn't have my homework, I thought I was going to get in trouble. But mom found the backpack that night and it all worked out.

Wow, 20 years...that is really hard to believe so I just had to share.

Happy Easter!

Glad to be home, enjoying a day off and finishing some homework. Also had the chance to talk to Ms. S this morning, good to hear her voice (Remember chica, reframe/rethink). I hope everyone is having a good day.

Ding Dong

The dishwasher's dead!

I was really excited until I heard the 'rents talkin' and I don't think we are getting a new one anytime soon. I think we are going old school and going to be washing by hand for a while. And we realize that we have been rather spoiled for a long time.

P.S. I am working on a longer catch up post but it is taking me a little longer than I thought it would.