Four months in between posts, must be some sort of record…

Time flies when one is having fun.  Let’s just say this semester was an eternity.

My brain is not wired to blog yet.  This post is just to let you know I am not dead.  Yet.

A few notable discoveries during the last four months:

(1) I am severely addicted to anchovies.

(2) Hell is giving THREE (yes, count ‘em, THREE) final exams in one day.

(3) If heaven is not Serrano ham and manchego cheese slathered with fig jelly, it must be something very close to it.

(4) Rubbing Golden Retriever belly fixes most things (but I knew that already).

(5) Tablita is not “table” in Spanish.  Duh.

(6) Anchovies!!!

(7) I like red wine better than white.  Malbecs in particular. 

(8) In a battle between stipend versus sanity, we SHOULD always choose sanity, though we probably almost always never do.

(9) I am getting old. It’s funny how that just occurred to me.  

(10) ANCHOVIES!!!

I am almost ready for Christmas.  Check out my Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

I see a real Christmas tree with tons of décor in my future.  Must hit the sales on the 26th.

Xabi says Merry Christmas, everyone!

Two rants in as many days, must be some sort of record...

Sheep.  We are educating sheep.

Dahil baka magalit sa akin ang mga matatamaan ng bato-bato sa langit, itago na lang natin ang usapang ito sa salitang Pilipino/Tagalog.  Kahit na alam nyong lahat na wala akong kwentang mag-Tagalog.  Ipagpaumanhin nyo na…ako ay isang hamak na Bisayang nagsusumikap na aralin ang salita ng mga malulupit na imperyalista…eh, nagsasalita pa ba ako?

Buti na lang may G00gle Translate.

Eniwey (o, di ba Tagalog ‘yun, haha), alam ng apat na nagbabasa nitong mga kwento ko sa intarnets na medyo matagal-tagal na rin ako nagtuturo sa unibersidad.  Para sa bagong pasukan, nabigyan ako ng mga klase na kung saan lahat ng mga mag-aaral ko ay galing sa paaralan ng pangkalakalan (halata bang hindi ako pwedeng magtrabaho sa Magandang Gabi, Bayan).  Madalas akong bwisit sa mga mag-aaral nila: tamad, makulit, madalas magreklamo, at palaging nahuhuling nandadaya sa pagsubok.  ‘Yun pala, mas nakakainis pala ang mga guro at dekano nila.

So, ganito yung pinaplano nila:  gusto nilang “magkasabay” ang iba-ibang klase ng kursong tinuturo ko.  Okey, payag kami, kasi talaga naming pareho yung ginagamit na aklat ng mga guro.  Pareho kaming nagsisimula sa unang kabanata at parehong nagtatapos sa ikasampung kabanata.  Nakasulat yun lahat sa balangkas na binibigay namin sa mga studyante naming sa simula ng pasukan.  So, binigay namin sa kanila ang mga kopya ng aming mga balangkas (I am using this term loosely, but you get the idea, right?) para makita nila na magkasang-ayon naman kaming mga guro sa aming tinuturo.

Kagabi, nakatanggap ako ng sulat galing sa isang guro ng pangkalakalan, na hindi sya nagpadala ng kopya ang amo ko, at inutusan nya akong baguhin ang balangkas ko.  Hindi daw magkasabay yung mga takda ko at mga pagsubok ko dun sa ibang mga guro.  Ang gusto pala nya pare-pareho yung mga ARAW ng lahat ng takda at pagsubok namin.  Kung baga, kung yung isang klase, sa ikalabing-dalawa ng Setyembre ang unang iksamen, eh dapat lahat ng mga klase ng kursong iyon ganung araw din.

(Sa loob-loob ko, eh ano ngayon, putang ina mo, kung hindi magkasabay yung mga pagsubok ko sa pagsubok ng ibang tao?  Matataas ba ang mga marka nila sa ratemyprofessor.com?  Ha? HA???)

Nung una pa lang, nainis na ako kasi sinulatan nya akong hindi naka cc yung bosing ko, tapos INUTUSAN nya ako.  Di ko naman siya ka-ano-ano.  Hindi naman siya dekano o taga-SJ.  Aba, teka muna, yung amo ko, binabayaran para utusan ako, ikaw HINDE!  Akala mo ba dahil medyo baguhan ako ay matatakot ako sa iyo at gagawin ko ang lahat ng sinabi mo?  TARANTADO KA PALA, UUPUAN KITA DYAN!  At hindi lang ‘yan, isusumbong pa kita sa bosing ko!

JODER.  Estupida.

Okei (iba-iba yung pagbaybay ko ah), nag-antay muna ako ng ilang minuto bago ko sinagot yung sulat nya at baka kasi matawag ko syang Satanas o kung anu-ano pa.  Sinagot ko naman sya ng maayos.  Ang sinabi ko, hindi naman nakatakda ang aking mga pagsubok ayon sa mga kapritso ko.  Kung ganun, eh di sa Disyembre ko na ibibigay ang nag-iisang pagsubok nila at hayaan ko ang higit sa kalahati sa kanila ang babagsak. Ayokong maging super dali yung unang pagsubok, tapos mamamatay naman sila sa huli.  Dapat medyo pantay ang pamamahagi ng materyal na isinama sa bawat pagsubok. At syempre inaayos ko rin depende sa kung mabilis o mabagal matuto ang mga mag-aaral.  Kung baga “fair.”

Sinagot ba naman ako ng, “Eh, studyante ko rin yung mga iyon, mas kilala ko sila kaysa sa iyo!” 

#$%@^*&!!!!!

Putang ina mo, magturo ka muna ng kurso ko ng limang taon, tsaka mo akong balikan at sabihin sa akin kung paano ko tuturuan ang mga mag-aaral ko!

Tinuloy pa nya, “Gusto naming itakda yung mga trabaho ng mga mag-aaral para HINDI SILA MABAON SA TRABAHO.”  Eh, tanga pala kayo, akala nyo ba na ‘pag nagtapos na ang mga mag-aaral nyo at nagtatrabaho na sila sa mga malalaking korporasyon iniisip ng mga amo nila, “Masyado ko yatang pinapahirapan yung mga empleyado ko.  Ayusin ko nga ang iskedyul ng trabaho para hindi sila mahirapan…”  BOBA! 

Akala mo ba nung nag-aral ako, pinadali ng mga guro ko ang buhay ko?  ABA, HINDE!   Sa totoo lang, nag-mi-miting pa nga sila para pag-isipan kung paano lalong pahirapan ang buhay ng mga mag-aaral nila.  Akala mo bang care ng mga bosing ko na napahirapan ako sa trabaho?  HINDE!!!  Eh paano matuto ang mga bwisit na ‘yan ‘pag palagi niyo silang inaalalayan?

Pigilan n’yo ako, uupakan ko na talaga ‘to!

Binuksan ko ang mga sulat ko kaninang hapon, at nakita kong pinagalitan na nga sya ng bosing ko dahil sinulatan ako ng deretso na hindi dumaan sa mga amo ko.  Malamang kailangan ko ngang baguhin ang pagtatakda ko ng kurso ko, pero hindi ko na kailangang makipag-usap sa kanya ng deretso.

Small miracles.

Ang sarap palang magmura sa Tagalog.

Pasensya na, alam kong marami akong mali sa balarila at sa pagbaybay (walang spell-check, maling ispeling lahat), pero kung naintindihan nyo ang nais kong sabihin, okei na yun.

Well, I’m glad I got that off my chest.

The comic is so obviously not mine; it is from the Genius of Piled Higher and Deeper.  But I can totally relate.

Assembling Furniture: A Tragicomedy in Three Acts

Tragedy for me, comedy for you.

Act 1.

 

For all those veterans of the furniture assembly process, what was the most difficult piece of furniture to assemble?  A seven-foot tall entertainment console?  A full length sofa?  A king-sized bed with  shelves on the headboard and drawers under the bed?

Early in the morning, I decided to pick the easiest job first, then work my way up.  Surely the toilet seat would be the easiest, no?

Forty-five minutes later, the OLD toilet seat was still screwed on to the toilet.  I mean, paking syet, how the hell did they put this on?  I kept twisting and twisting the screws, until finally I took a steak knife to them (buti na lang the screws were plastic).  I managed to loosen them a bit, but now there were all sorts of brown material coming off onto my fingers.  Don’t think about what they are (syet).  Don’t think about where they come from (syet).  Just keep working on the screw.  When this is all over, you can shower.  You can shower five times.  You can shower five times, then exfoliate with muriatic acid…

Act 2.

So after all that struggling with the furniture (let’s see: bed, mirror, sofa, coffee table, shelves, occasional table, toilet seat), it was time for me to take stock of all the cardboard in the apartment.  IT’S A LOT OF CARDBOARD.  Unfortunately, my building does not have separate bins for recycling. 

Dahil mabait ako, I go over the Department of Sanitation website and check the city’s recycling programs.  Paper and cardboard in clear bags, tin, glass and plastic bottles in blue bags.  Okay, so I’m good.  However, large cardboard boxes have to be flattened and tied up together.  Bring everything down to the curb on Monday night for collection early Tuesday morning.

Okay, this is a piece of cake.  Flatten the boxes before tying them up.  So I piled the boxes up, which were already rather flat to begin with (thank you, IKEA!) and started stepping on them to make them flatter.  Hey I can do dance moves, too!  ¯Oooh baby when you talk like that, you make a woman go mad.  So be wise and keep on reading the signs of my body…¯

I was shaking my truthful hips (i.e. they don’t lie) so enthusiastically that I did not notice that one of the cardboard sheets slipped out from under me.  The last thing I remembered before crashing sideways to the floor was “PAKING SYEEEEE…”

Act 3

I opened my eyes and wiggled my fingers and my toes.  Good, I’m not paralyzed.  Days like these, I’m grateful that I am pleasantly plump.  It’s like having lots of bubble wrap around your bones and internal organs.  Still, my right side hurts like hell.

So I drag myself to the kitchen to console myself with the munggo guisado that I cooked to perfection the previous day.  With lots and lots of pork, of course – my mother used to put a whole leg of lechon in her munggo while we all pretended that this was a healthy vegetable side dish.

So anyway, I put some in a bowl and stuck it in the microwave.  While waiting, I turned to the rice cooker.  Hmm, it’s empty, I could have sworn there were leftovers…oh well, waiting 30 minutes for the rice to cook won’t kill me…

The rice bin was empty.  Naubusan ako ng bigas.

PAKING SYET.

P.S. Photos of our new digs.  I'll get to putting up the frames.  Eventually.

Testing cross-posting from Blogger.

Testing cross-posting from Blogger.

Testing cross-posting from Multiply.

Testing cross-posting from Multiply.

See Spot Pack

“So the years roll on by, and just like the sky the road never ends.” – Allison Krauss

 

It’s the end of an era.

 

I moved into this building seven years ago; Spot and I are now preparing to leave it.  As this blog owes its name to this apartment, I think the occasion calls for a blog post.

 

For the info of my (three) dear readers, “Spot on Top of Bar” referred to the fact that our apartment used to be on top of a bar that drew crowds of undergrads with its loud music and relaxed attitude towards underage drinking.  It also refers to my best friend Spot, who lives with me, on top of a bar.  I kinda miss the bar.  The owner used to give me free cappuccino while I watched the World Cup matches in 2006.  Yes, I was there when Zizou consolidated his Dark Lord status by bringing France all the way to the final, only to bring them down by getting sent off for headbutting Marco Materazzi.

 

The bar is no more.  In its place is a convenience store that thankfully stocks coconut milk, picture frames and cheap Bounty wipes.  The people in the building have changed too.  This place is like a freaking airport – so many people have come and have gone.  Anna, Jeff, Tristan, Hannah, Paola, Ernie, Jen, Noel, Frances, Chilai, Mae, Mhir, Karla, Leanne.  By next week, Spot and I will be added to that list.

 

It is amazing to me that I have lived in this building for seven years.  For most of that time, I’ve never really felt that I could settle down here.  In “Fiddler on the Roof” Tevye explains that Jews cover their heads so that if need be they are ready to leave at any moment (e.g. the Exodus).  I have always had that subconscious covering over my head, always anticipating a moment of flight.  And just when I thought that maybe, this might be home, it is time for me to go again.

 

I arrived in this country with one large suitcase, one small suitcase, and a backpack.  Right now, I am writing this entry in a room with all the furniture pushed against the wall, all the better to accommodate the more or less (actually it’s really more) 25 boxes of my worldly possessions waiting for the moving truck to haul them away.  I give the impression that I am moving far away.  In fact, I’m only moving four blocks down.  But it’s just dawned on me that I have stayed the same place for seven years, and while I could conceivably still stay, I am getting restless.

 

Even as this new chapter is starting, I can’t help but think of the next great move.  I think of Barcelona all the time…perhaps I should take measures to plot my next adventure?  In the meantime, I am putting up an image from Casa Batlló on my inspiration board, hoping to channel Gaudi in my decorating efforts.

And because I am kinda sick of Toby, meet Mr. Perfect.

 

Well, Mr. Almost Perfect.  He doesn’t play for Liverpool.

All mine except for Xabi (damn it).  Filched from Kickette.com and the Hola Querida blog on Tumblr.

Overheard in Barcelona

K:  someone on my asked me on Facebook if I watched the El Clasico.  Maybe I should tell him that “the El Clasico” is redundant because “el “= “the.”

Heckle:  Shut up, nerd.  Nobody cares.

Jeckle: *cackles*

The best part of the trip:  I was here.

The second best part:  watching Crackovia on TV in Barcelona J:

 

The other parts (also awesome) are here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kristinesync

Are you talking about soccer again? And yes, this is a fucking rant!

This morning, as I was waving my Manchester United-loving colleague goodbye and asking him to give my regards to my Arsenal-mad former student, another colleague walked by and kinda snottily remarked:

 

“Are you talking about soccer again?”

 

This was not the first time he has said it.  Nor was it the second time.  Would I really be writing about this if it were just the second time? Really?

 

I could be the bigger person and let this go.  Unfortunately, I am not the bigger person.  I am only four feet, eleven and three-fourths inches tall.  I am definitely not the bigger person.

 

It wouldn’t be so bad if the question were just really “Are you talking about soccer again?”   You know, the way my father indulgently asks me when he reads about Andres Iniesta’s superb passing and scoring abilities on this blog for the nth time.  (My dad, by the way, is a Valencia fan).  Or maybe the way my African brother Mustapha says it before joining in the fray and waxing poetic about the Brazilians (the reason he roots for Mee-lan).  Or how my students ask with relief as I put up a regression output on the board showing the relationship between summer transfer spending and team ranking on the table of La Primera Division (it seems that being able to explain how David Villa’s 40 million euro transfer fee resulting in FC Barcelona’s number one ranking is more interesting to the students than just talking about “independent variables” and “dependent variables”).

 

 

No, the subtext of the question was, “Is there nothing in your head that you have to talk about soccer all the time?”

 

You know what?  I admit that I shamelessly use football to connect with my students.  IT WORKS.  Just ask the Cambridge-educated bestselling author, Oscar-nominated screenwriter and Arsenal obsessive Nick Hornby.  I got the idea from him.

You of all people should know that international students are not as comfortable with or confident in approaching their professors about their academic work, compared to their American counterparts.  It takes them a while to open up and ask for help.  Football gives us a comfort zone without having to pry into each other’s personal lives.  It’s not being unprofessional; it’s being approachable. 

 

I can tell you about an Arsenal fan, who did abysmally on his first exam.  I walked with him once and told him he had the built of a footballer, and he laughed. He also admitted that he did not study well first exam, but promised to do much better.  He aced all of the remaining exams.  A semester later, I find out that this kid plays for his national football team.

 

Or a Barça follower, the best student in the class, who almost went cross-eyed when I put up my data on the board and, to his horror, Real Madrid was at the top of the rankings (as of October 2010).  He was someone who I thought was untouchable, academically speaking – he would nap in class and still get a perfect score on a midterm - and sometimes a little arrogant.  One day, he asks for my help, as he is not doing so well in another class, that he was actually in danger of failing it.  I introduced him to a tutor who was not only competent in the subject, but could also speak the student’s mother tongue.

 

Or the Roma supporter, cruising along in class, whose ears perked up when I explained why the coefficient of the regression is negative in this vein:

 

Professor: You have to build the team, and recruiting extraordinary talent needs money.  That’s why it makes sense that, all other things held constant, a higher spending during the transfer market usually results in better performance or a higher ranking.  That’s one of the reasons why Torres left Liverpool.  He felt that the Liverpool management was not doing enough to build the team.  He didn’t think the team could regain its Champions League spot.

 

Student:  So why hasn’t Torres scored for Chelsea when they paid fifty million pounds sterling for him?

 

Professor:  Ah that’s another story… (Professor brandishes a voodoo doll dressed in the Chelsea No. 9 shirt.)

 

Football connects a lot of people.  I could tell you stories about relatives, students, classmates, colleagues, and strangers.  I could tell you about the members of the Liverpool Fan Club in Japan, who have been contacting each other in the wake of the earthquake, making sure that everyone was all right.  Because, as every Liverpool fan knows, you'll never walk alone.

 

(And don’t think I exclude the women.  I can point out Chanel Particulière from a mile away and discuss Dominique Ropion’s latest oeuvre.  But that’s another post for another rant.)

 

You know what else?  I am sick of this shit.  So what if I am obsessed about football? I have a favorite German player, Mesut Ozil, a fantastic midfielder playing for Madrid (yes, I know the difference between Real and Atletico, and I know which one “Madrid” refers to),  just in case you think I am biased against your country.  I have a hockey team too -- the Toronto Maple Leafs, if you are interested.  They may not stand a chance in the Eastern Conference, but I’ve been following them since 1993 (before we even had ice rinks in my country).  I’ll let you know the next time the student workers and I talk about that.  I’ve been painting watercolors since I was eleven, and I’ve done translation work for a Tribeca Film Festival-nominated film.  I have a black Labrador who loves me and listens to me on the phone.  I turned down four college scholarships and a study trip to Japan to become an economist.  My favorite opera is La Traviata and I adore Placido Domingo mostly because he looks like my grandfather.  I carry a backpack because all of the IMF economists I have met during my stint in government have carried backpacks.  I sing in the shower to the perpetual dismay of my roommate.  She’s getting married and moving out because she can’t stand the constant wailing.  OH, AND I HAVE A PH.D. TOO.  THE ONE THAT CAME WITH MY DISSERTATION.  The one that I presented a while back and the only thing you could say about it was “People are going to get mad at you because you called Taiwan ‘Taiwan, Province of China.’”  They can get mad at me, the IMF, the Asian Development Bank, and the World Bank.  It’s called Google, you asshole.  Look it up.

When I was 21, I was defending my government’s economic program to Congress, to the IMF and World Bank missions.  I’ve been using statistical software since when most of our current graduate students were in kindergarten.  I didn't do it for the money.  As a senior economist, I got $6000 ANNUALLY.  What were you doing when you were 21?  OKTOBERFEST? I’ve proven myself a long time  ago and I resent being patronized by people who think they are better than me.

Oh, and by the way, FC Barcelona's all-time highest goalscorer? Guess what, he comes from my country.

 

If Cesc Fabregas can vent about work on the Internet, then so can I.

Puyi, Geri, Zizou, Dahveed, Zlatan and Cesc are all cranky too.  Pics from Kickette, Keystone Press, Getty Images, the Guardian.

Bedtime Stories

One day, my little cousin made me cry.  Okay, fine, she’s not that little anymore.  She’s currently having her quarter-life crisis (*waves at Bulit*).  Don’t worry.  We all go through it – why did you think I went to grad school?

 

Anyways, when Bulit was younger, she used to make me tell the story of Cupid and Psyche over and over again before going to sleep.  As much as I adore Greek mythology, there were times that I didn’t want to give in to her.  I had other concerns: I was adjusting to being away from home for the first time, I was failing Math 18 (yes, OMG, can you imagine?), I was tripping and falling all over campus (excuse me while I slap Roomie for laughing at me) and the love of my life was ignoring me (life was SO simple then).  And here was this persistent eight-year-old saying “Please Ate, one more time, before I sleep.”  Bulit, you know how your name rhymes with kulit, right?

 

So while I was away, Bulit grew up into a young writer, even though in many ways, she is still the kid who introduced me to Anne of Green Gables (Gilbert Blythe, SIGH…) and Narnia.  But I had forgotten about all those nights we stayed up, wrapped in our blankets, talking about Psyche’s incompetence with the hot wax (seriously, who could be that careless?  We would never drop anything that could potentially injure what we imagined to be Cupid’s six-pack) until I came across this from Bulit’s blog.

 

How ashamed I was that many nights I said, I can’t, I’m so busy.  How guilty I felt that something I thought to be so trivial and tedious to me would be so important to her.  How proud I was that something I had passed on to her had opened up her imagination and her creativity, and has forever colored her path in life.

 

Like Bulit, I had a favorite bedtime story.  It, too, involved the stupidity of molten wax.  My father, who celebrates his birthday today, is probably the consummate bedtime storyteller (no offense to my mother, who in fairness trumps my dad in the realms of algebra and accounting).  Between the both of them, my parents had probably read every book that was worth reading, and watched every movie that was worth watching.  Part of the genius of my dad’s storytelling was that he did not limit himself to the traditional fairy tales that adults tell their children.  My father told us stories about Moses and the Amalekites (coincidentally, one of today’s readings at Mass), Jason and the Golden Fleece, Orion the hunter, Mangao, Maria Cacao and Mount Lantoy, the story behind Tie a Yellow Ribbon (I think Dad just wanted to sing it at the end of the tale) and so many other stories that are probably buried under all the other learning I have accumulated in my brain. 

 

My favorite, as I said, involved a bit of molten wax.  Icarus escaped out of a prison tower using a pair of manufactured wings made of feathers held together by, you guessed it, candle wax.   Before the flight, Icarus’ father, who had built the wings, warned him not to fly too close to the sun.  But Icarus, so overwhelmed by the freedom, so drunk with his power (after all, no other person could FLY), forgot his father’s advice and flew towards the hot Sun-Chariot, lost his wings, and fell into the sea that bears his name.

 

But oh, how those stories made me devour even more stories! When I was nine, I finished Bulfinch’s mythology, and, to my parents’ dismay, the Thorn Birds.  When I was in sixth grade, I memorized Brutus’ speech from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, not even realizing at that time who William Shakespeare was.  The Bible was also fair game, and I had probably read most of the Old Testament before graduating from elementary school. 

 

Today, I am mostly occupied with reading material on hat matrices and survival functions and structural breaks and all sorts of wonderful things that make one want to bang her head on the wooden table.  But even these have stories behind them.  Even these had that magic “aha!” moment, driven by imagination and creativity.  Even these were results of somebody’s attempts to fly towards the sun.  And sometimes I touch that feeling of discovery and freedom that Icarus felt as he was flying over the Mediterranean Sea.

 

And yes, I guess there is a point to this long-winded, rambling, all-over-the place discourse.  The art of storytelling has been confined to television programs and books that aim to reach the “average” child.  There is no mystery, there is no heroism, there is NO FLYING!  We tell our children about ordinary things or ordinary people.  Things that they already see everyday.  How can they widen their imagination?  How can they dream of things that are bigger than they are?  How can they FLY?

At Present

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery.  Today is a gift; that’s why it is called the present.” 

– Attributed to various people, including but not limited to Eleanor Roosevelt, Babatunde Olatunji, and Master Oogway.

    
    …I haven’t read a lot of books this summer.  Why should I?  There’s so much po…I mean reading material on the internet.  But I managed to finish “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” only to find that it there wasn’t an “ending” because it is the first of a series.  I’m still schlepping my way through “Dr. Zhivago,” as I have been for the last three years.  I am actually very close to finishing “Fever Pitch,” perhaps to understand my football obsession, and the Roman Empire has just started to crumble in "Europe: A History.”

***

    
    …a package that made my day (and possibly my entire week) arrived this afternoon.  Fragrant greetings from Zurich, the note said.  I opened it to reveal extrait samples of Vero Kern’s three fragrances: Onda, Rubj, and Kiki.  Each one so different from each other, each one beautiful in their own way.  
    
    I am not very good at picking out notes from a fragrance, nor am I an expert in describing any of them.  On me, Onda was all ginger and pepper and vetiver, definitely not cuddly, nevertheless intriguing.  Rubj reminded me of a vintage bottle of Jolie Madame that I acquired from my mother...they both have the white flowers and leather thing going on, although Rubj seems lighter because of its fruity notes.
    
    Kiki, however, is the one I fell in love with.  For someone who has a lavender fixation (lavender candles, lavender sachets in my drawers, lavender linen spray), I have a tragically small collection of lavender perfumes comprised of only one fragrance – New Haarlem, which I initially bought because it smelled like COFFEE.  Someone on the Perfume Smelling Things blog compared it to a macaron, but I dare my favorite macaron place to come up with something as delicious as this (I may have to talk to somebody at Madeleine.  A lavender/salted caramel/passionfruit/mango macacon sounds divine).  Plus I love that the name can also be a play on my initials.  KIKI, when my next paycheck comes, YOU SHALL BE MINE!!!
    
    We wants the precioussssss….

***

    
    …in the Bronx, somebody just passed by blaring “You’re all I ever wanted…you’re all I ever needed…so tell me what to do now…when I WANT YOU BACK!!!” full blast from his car stereo.  

    
    Dude.  So much for your street cred.    

***

    
    …after dabbling in it for oh, maybe close to thirty years, I think I am really learning more about watercolor this summer than at any other time in my life.  I stretched watercolor paper for the first time.  I have spent a lot of time practising strokes and giving my brushes a hard time.  I’ve already finished a few pads of watercolor paper and I am dying to try the new 300 pound pad that I just bought but I am terrified I would mess up the expensive paper.  After buying pretty much a new set of tubes, I learn from the watercolor forums that it is better to learn the pigment name of the color rather than going by the manufacturer’s names.  Because apparently, one’s scarlet lake may be someone else’s organic vermillion.
    
    Since I am a nerd of gargantuan proportions, I have compiled a list of my watercolor paints on Excel, listing their pigment names and numbers, their manufacturer’s names and level of light-fastness.  Yes, I know my list is not as detailed as some other people’s but my obsession is just starting to take hold.  Wait  ‘til next summer.  And I found out that my two crimson alizarins are not really exactly the same…

***

  

    …sulking because the BBC series “Sherlock” has only three episodes.  How do they expect me to go through the whole year without it?  HOW???  I must say, I love Martin Freeman, he is great at comedy (Hitchhiker’s Guide, Love Actually) and drama (The Power and the Passion, Sherlock).  Although he really did surprise me with that Lord Shaftesbury role.

***

    
    …thinking about the new school year, but not really wanting to prepare the lesson plans just yet…

Pics are from random Google searches, let's see if I can remember: Wikimedia Commons, Luckyscent, Blick Art Store, and some NSYNC fansite.

Dear Penelope

Dear Penelope,

Today I am going to write about something else.  Daddy complained that all of my posts were about “soccer” (it’s football, Dad!) so I decided to put off my Liverpool and Nando Torres news for another day.

 

Yesterday, I went to the home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Hyde Park, NY.  It is a two-hour drive, much like the distance from San Antonio to Canbanua.  Hyde Park is right beside a very big river; for most of the drive up, we took in the magnificent views.

 

Anyway, back to FDR.  When you get to FDR’s house, do you know what the first thing you see is?  Why, Fala, course!  Well, not the real Fala, but he is very cute, don’t you think?

 

According to the Interwebs, Fala’s full name is actually Murray the Outlaw of Falahill (because sometimes rich people give stupid names to their dogs).  But everyone knew him as Fala.  The American soldiers used his name as a code word to be able to identify German soldiers who may have infiltrated the ranks.  Anyway, Fala used to follow FDR everywhere, just like the way you followed your Mommy.  He even met the President of Mexico, and he also contributed to the war effort by donating $1 everyday for one year.

 

When FDR died, Fala always waited for him to come back.  One day, President Eisenhower came to visit Eleanor Roosevelt accompanied by security vehicles with a lot of sirens.  As soon as Fala heard the noise, he immediately stood up and pricked his ears, expecting his master to finally come home.  Fala died in 1952 and he was buried in the rose garden beside his beloved president.  If you look at my picture, the small fountain-like structure beside FDR’s grave marks Fala's own resting place.

 

I normally resist the temptation to buy mugs in a museum shop, but I could not resist buying a GINORMOUS mug with Fala’s picture on it.  Maybe because I miss you and Nicole and Paski very much.  Maybe because you were trying to tell me that something happened, because your achis forgot to tell me (hmp!).  I am sorry that I haven’t been home for a while, but it doesn’t really matter as long as Mommy is there, right?

 

Say hi to Scooby and Olive and Toyang and Barkley and Tigger and Pablo for me J.

This is my last WC post, I promise!

I would just like to take this last opportunity introduce you to Pepe Reina (guy in green).  You probably haven’t seen him around because he’s the substitute for Spanish goalkeeper Iker Casillas.  Pepe is also the keeper for Liverpool FC (my favorite team, as my Stats students know well) in the English Premier League.

 

Yes, you can Google him and learn about his skills on the pitch.  However, Pepe has other talents, such as:

Someone give this man a TV show already!

Good night, World Cup...

The notoriously sleep-loving Cesc finally gets some shut-eye with his new toy...

I believe these pics are from fielesalaroja, I think.