first comes love

laughter

2011-07-12T12:04:00.000-07:00

after you have a baby, you look forward to their milestones. and people ask you about them. for a while now people have been asking if she laughs yet. after the first few months of a mostly crying baby, i was really looking forward to some laughter!

the first little laugh came just after memorial day weekend, when she was about 3 1/2 months old. we had just come back from a trip to dallas and were unwinding. joseph and i were lying down on either side of eliana, cooing and making faces at her when she laughed! we looked at each other, surprised, and he asked me, "was that...?" finally!

i thought that the floodgates were now open and that she'd be laughing then all the time. but that didn't happen.

over the past few weeks, she has been laughing more. mostly she responds to us tickling to her tummy with kisses. i don't know if all parents hear their children's laughter the same way, but to me, when eliana laughs it sounds like pretty little bells ringing. it makes my heart feel full.

the last few days of june, about a month after we first heard her laugh, eliana and i were at the grocery store together. i had her strapped to my body in a baby carrier as we perused the aisles. i was checking out some different bread, comparing labels, when all of a sudden i heard her laugh. surprised, i looked at her and saw that she was looking at some kids in the same aisle. these kids were trailing their mom, but had stopped and were wrestling over something. apparently, eliana thought that was funny!

i can't tell you how happy it made me to hear her spontaneous laughter, not just because it represents a milestone in her development, but because it gives me a little insight into her personality. she's going to laugh, that is, she's going to have a sense of humor. that moment was just the beginning. like looking through the peephole to a room filled with light. it makes me cherish the "firsts" and look forward to everything else to come.

@>-->>--

pocha mama moment

2011-06-11T23:41:00.000-07:00

yesterday the baby and i met with a potential nanny. V, a young immigrant woman from guatemala, was highly recommended to us by my friend.

V seemed to be a very sweet-tempered person, patient and good with the baby. her primary language is spanish, which i appreciate because i would really like for our baby to learn spanish. while joseph and i both speak it, we communicate almost entirely in english.

during our meeting, V and i communicated exclusively in spanish. we talked about things like where to find diapers and wipes, how often and for how long the baby naps, how much she eats, and what her favorite toys are. there were definitely some gaps in my spanish baby vocabulary. "cómo se dice wipes?"

i let V take the afternoon feeding, and after the baby had finished, she asked me, "le sacas el aire a la niña después de comer?"

i thought it a random question. why would the baby need to go outside after eating? but i said, "no, pero si quieres, podemos ir a la yarda de atrás."

as i start to usher her to the backyard, she stops me and says, "no creo que me entendió." she asks me again, "le sacas el aire a la niña después de comer?" and she began to pat the baby on the back.

i laughed. to burp. not at all what i had understood! but i guess it's another verb to add to my pocha spanish vocabulary.

@>-->>---

mother's day

2011-06-08T23:32:00.000-07:00

this year i experienced my first mother's day as a mother.

one month ago, i was two and a half months into motherhood and not at all feeling like i was doing that great of a job. at that time, crying was still my baby's primary form of communication, which frankly left me feeling a bit frazzled all the time. i generally imagined mothers to be much more in tuned with their children and, you know, able to address their basic needs. in other words, i was feeling a bit like a fraud.

then, at the end of the actual day, i had this surreal moment.

joseph and i went to mass that evening. at the end of the liturgy, the priest asked all of the mothers in the church to stand for a blessing. joseph nudged me to stand, and i did, looking around at all the other mothers--old, young, and in-between, of various ethnicities, many with their children by their sides. i had my baby swaddled close to my body in a carrier, and, as a i stood, i felt very consciously ... like a mother.

the priest prayed for us, and then some of the students of the congregation handed us each carnations.

this was something that i had witnessed at mass on mother's day every year all of my life at the different churches that i've attended--the mothers' blessing, the carnations. and as i stood, my mind raced as i silently exclaimed, "i'm getting a carnation!"

being a mother is obviously much more than a carnation on mother's day. i'm still learning (my baby is a good teacher!). but, in the meantime, i will take all the blessings i can get.

@>-->>---

two years

2011-06-06T20:44:00.000-07:00

two years ago today, joseph and i got married.
i spent much of the day today at home with the baby. i take care of the basics like feeding her, changing dirty diapers, and soothing her. but we also play with various toys, i read to her, and try to make her smile. (my daughter is more generous with her smiles lately).
though those things don't seem like much, by the time joseph got home, i had barely managed to put on any makeup, and i had baby spit up stains on various parts of my outfit. in other words, it was a far cry from how nice i looked on our wedding day.
nevertheless, he came bearing roses and was glad, as he always seems to be, to see me and the baby.
these days, our life together is not as romantic as it was on our wedding day, but it is marked by moments of happiness and wonder as we nurture our little family.

@>-->>---

anniversary

2011-06-06T20:41:00.000-07:00

this is how happy he still makes me after two years of marriage.

extreme makeover

2011-06-04T15:52:00.000-07:00

after a long hiatus, i've been thinking lately that it might be time to start writing again. when i was last writing regularly, i was single and in graduate school. years later, i'm now employed (thankfully!), married, and have recently had my first child. in other words, my life has gone though an extreme makeover. just when i was getting the hang of being a graduate student, i became a professor. as i was becoming accustomed to being single, i met and married my husband. as we were settling into our lives together, we became parents!

this blog is still about my "journeys," but it also bears in mind the love in my life that initiated all of this change (first comes love, then comes marriage, etc.). actually, when i really think about it, it was love that started me on my journey in academia--love of learning, teaching, and community. now i guess i'm being pushed to love in different and deeper ways.

@>-->>---

merry christmas

2009-12-18T19:47:00.000-08:00

the season

2009-12-13T16:18:00.000-08:00

when i was an undergraduate (a million years ago), i remember the frenzy that accompanied the end of each fall quarter. dead week, final exams, final papers. then catching a ride from the bay back home to the central valley with a friend. and i would be stunned to find that christmas had already arrived there. the neighborhood houses donned twinkling lights. at mass, they would be lighting the final candle on the advent wreath. and i would always feel a pang of sadness that i had missed most of the season.

as a young girl, i attended a catholic elementary school. christmas was never lost on me then. there were the hand made ornaments we completed in art class. there were the christmas carols we would sing at mass in the weeks before christmas, sometimes caroling at a retirement home or in a neighborhood. the christmas pageants when i would dress as an angel or a shepherd (as i got older) for midnight mass. and, of course, the gifts and family gatherings on christmas day. :)

the newness of this christmas, my first as a married woman, is exciting. joseph and i bought a tree last week, something i had never done before! i almost had an anxiety attack when i saw all of the ornamental possibilities for a tree, but i was able to buy a couple of boxes of basic ornaments. we have a beautiful (if simple) christmas tree in the living room of our home and stockings with out names on them. we're celebrating advent in a church that we love, and now christmas is almost upon us.

i'm 34 years old this year, and i still vividly remember christmases from when i was a child and young(er) adult. it already feels like a lifetime of memories, and yet i know that joseph and i still have a lifetime ahead of us. the thought is sometimes overwhelming. how does a person hold all of these moments in her memory, in her heart? i suppose that, too, is a miracle of the season.

@>-->>--

race day

2009-11-16T16:17:00.000-08:00

i made the mistake of watching the finish line for the 5K. they had started at 7:30AM; my 10K was to start an hour later. there was a stream of runners, one after another, who were finishing their race averaging a 5 minute mile! i was already doubting my ability to *finish* a 10K; now i was fearing that i'd also be among the last to finish. the obvious running amateur.

around 8:15AM, i made my way to the starting line, began to stretch, and tried to clear my mind a bit. there were hundreds of people lined up, many in groups. there was a lot friendly cajoling among the runners, all confident, all fun. no apparent nerves like mine.

once the race began, runner after runner passed me as we all began to establish our respective paces. a group of fire fighters were running in a block, each with his last name emblazoned on the back of his helmet, chanting what sounded like a funny running jingle. when i passed the one mile mark, i was surprised to have run it much more quickly than i had anticipated. (subsequent miles would be slower!)

the second mile was around a small lake in a local park. i saw ducks placidly swimming, swans stretching out their wings. by the end of the second mile, i was greeted with a small cup of water. the third mile began up a hill. i thought i could probably walk the hill faster than i was "running," but i kept on running.

miles four and five were a familiar blur, but in the sixth, i felt my excitement grow. this was my last mile, and at that point i knew that i could make it. toward the end of that last mile, i saw my mom aiming at me with her camera phone, and, closer to the finish line, joseph, and my dad furiously snapping pictures.

i ran through the finish line feeling exhilarated and a little bit proud of myself.

@>-->>---

running long.

2009-10-09T12:17:00.000-07:00

i dread my saturday morning runs. maybe dread is the wrong word.
i fear my saturday morning runs.

saturdays are my "long run" days. last friday night, i plotted a four mile run for myself on mapmyrun.com. on saturday morning, i found myself pulling on my running gear with trepidation. four miles?

that morning i ran along the residential streets of my neighborhood. on saturday mornings, there is scarcely any traffic. everything is cool and serene, except for the occasional dog that barks when i pass his house. i don't run to music; at this point, i prefer to run to my thoughts. and listen to my breath--uneven for the first mile, and then steadying.

i ran the first three miles with self-assurance, but when i came upon the last mile i became nervous. it was not only an unfamiliar mile (could it do it?), it was also an unfamiliar path (i have to find new paths now that i'm running longer). the street was busier than i would have preferred, but it was fine. when i saw my destination, the street sign that marked the end of my fourth mile, i picked up my pace. when i crossed that street, i felt a sense of elation. four miles!

as i cooled down, walking toward our house, i felt energized and accomplished.

four miles.

that was nearly a week ago. today i am nervous about tomorrow morning's run.

4.5 miles?

fits and starts

2009-09-22T10:45:00.000-07:00

as a crosstraining activity, i've decided to take yoga at my neighborhood gym. at the 8AM class during the week, i'm generally the youngest person in the class. though there are a couple of women who look to be in their 40s and 50s, i would put many of the class in their 60s and 70s.

yoga is no joke. most people think of it as a way to become flexible, and, it does help to do those deep stretches while on a running regime. but what most people don't understand is that yoga is also strength training. the poses you hold require you to hold your own body weight, which is, frankly, not that fun. but you do it, and it works. you emerge stronger and more flexible.

my problem is that i'm a little bit competitive. my instructor constantly tells us not to look around at other people. that "yoga is about you." nevertheless, as a "young" person in the class, i expect that i should be able to hold a pose just as well as any 60 or 70 year old. that's not always the case.

last thursday, i was feeling a little more able than i actually am. and i threw out my back! in yoga class.

it didn't happen right away; i felt something shift in my back when i switched poses, and i knew that something had gone awry. later that day, i started to feel it. by the time joseph came home that afternoon, i was hobbling around the house, wincing and clutching my back.

i took a few days before i was walking upright, but i have learned my lesson. i'm not bound to be a yogi any time soon.

@>-->>---

training days

2009-09-08T21:35:00.000-07:00

i'm training for a 10K.

four years ago, i used to do this. i trained for races. mostly 5Ks, but there was one 10K, and there was the triathlon training.

i used to love it. i loved the confidence born of the strength and endurance my body showed me, especially when training for the triathlon. i remember the first day that i did "brick training." we rode our bikes three miles, ran one mile, rode another three, and ran another one. the sensation of switching from biking to running was nothing less than discombobulating. when i switched from biking to running, my legs were shaking as if i were using them for the first time. but i pushed through, ran the mile, and got on the bike again. at the end of that morning's workout, i remember thinking that my body had never been in such hard motion for that extended period of a time. but in the weeks following that early training session, i saw that my body was capable of even more. swimming, biking, running. training for that triathlon made me feel powerful.

it's been 3 1/2 years since i've trained for anything seriously. and in that time, that strength and endurance has seriously slipped away. i have a million excuses, all of which i will spare you. the truth is that i haven't prioritized my body in all that time.

so now i'm training for a 10K. i haven't even wanted to say those words out loud because, frankly, i'm a little bit afraid. but i'm coming out. i'm going to run a local 10K on november 8th. or die training. ;)

@>-->>---

husband and wife!

2009-07-21T10:02:00.001-07:00

husband and wife!
Originally uploaded by lamusa

this is a shot of us as we we made our entrance into the reception site.

it's probably my favorite picture of us at the wedding. it's unposed, and i think that it really captures the joy that we were both feeling that day.

wedding day

2009-06-24T20:48:00.000-07:00

the morning was grey and quiet and rainy.

i expected that weather. my friends had spent the previous week assuring me that rain on your wedding day was good luck in some cultures. nobody could remember which culture.

i didn't care. i was happy and calm and ready for the day.

there was hair and makeup. a flurry of activity when the limo driver pulled up to our house and i was still not dressed.

my mom helping me with my dress and veil, stepping back to look at me, and beginning to cry.

"no crying," i told her. then, "i love you."

at the church, there was a critical mass of my bridesmaids already assembled, all beautiful. there were bouquets of roses and calla lilies distributed and pictures taken. when joseph and his family arrived at the other side of the church, everyone made sure that i was out of sight.

just before 2PM, we were ushered to the front entrance of the church. i was whisked to a side room with my bridesmaids, my precocious flower girls, and my dad. i wondered why there was no music.

but then the organist began to play canon in D, and, one by one, my bridesmaids made their way up to the altar. finally, i heard the wedding march begin, and my dad took my arm and led me to the end of the aisle.

that wedding march was, in a way, like watching my life flash before my eyes. i saw the aunts, uncles, and cousins that i grew up with; there were my closest friends from high school; friends from my undergraduate days at stanford; and my girlfriends from grad school in texas. all of these people from those various stages of my life, those people i have carried in my memory and in my heart, all there to witness this next stage of my life.

and there was joseph at the end of the aisle.

there were scriptures and prayers, the presentation of the lazo, arras, and the bible. we exchanged vows. we received blessings. and then we were married.

the priest announced that joseph could "kiss the bride." and he did. three times. the priest exclaimed, "or you can kiss her three times!" our first three kisses as husband and wife.

@>-->>---

prescience

2009-06-02T22:48:00.000-07:00

after Mass on sunday morning, joseph and i decided to have breakfast at one of our favorite mexican restaurants. it was bustling with a crowd of people who were mostly ordering menudo. we waited patiently for our non-menudo breakfasts.

that morning, i was in the mood to reminisce. the afternoon before, i had stumbled upon an old journal and found myself re-reading my chronicles of the first few months we were dating. did he remember telling me he wanted to marry me after three months? he recalled our first date, as he often does, at a country club and then at a starbucks in temple, texas. how i told him that i just wanted to be friends. ;)

i tell him, "maybe on friday, after the rehearsal dinner--"

"we can go to starbucks and have some time to ourselves before the wedding," he said.

i looked at him, mouth agape. "how did you know i was going to say that?"

"that's why you're marrying me, isn't it?"

because he reads my thoughts and finish my sentences. honestly, it's the same as it was on that first date. i found it disarming that he could sense what i was thinking beyond what i was actually saying. i think that joseph exercises a form of listening that is beyond listening. most people don't pay that much attention.

and yes, that is one of the reasons i'm marrying him.

@>-->>---

two small boxes

2009-05-29T09:30:00.001-07:00

two small boxes
Originally uploaded by lamusa

i waited all day on tuesday for these two small boxes. according to the tracking number, they were on the delivery truck by 8:30AM, but the fed ex guy did not drive up to my house until 3:30PM.

i opened the outer box and found a medium sized box inside. i opened the medium sized box and found the bag. inside the bag was a velvety black bag and what appeared to be some invoice papers. inside the small black bag were two small black boxes. inside those were two ring boxes. i fumbled through the last layer of box (!) and found the ring boxes to be EMPTY!

though i was a little panicked, i had to laugh at what seemed to be a practical joke that the universe was playing on me.

then, i carefully inspected the invoice papers and found that there was a small white paper bag and inside that bag were two clear plastic jewelry bags. i saw his ring first and then my own.

i tried on my wedding band and was pleased to find that it fit perfectly. and it looked perfect alongside my engagement ring.

i couldn't help but wear it around the house that afternoon, as if i were playing married. joseph insisted that i take it off when we were headed out to run errands later in the afternoon.

the next day, however, i got to the house after joseph and found him wearing his ring, too. :)

@>-->>---

pa' pagar el pan

2009-05-27T20:14:00.000-07:00

this weekend joseph and i had to run a wedding errand in pomona. afterward, we decided to grab a bite to eat at this local mexican restaurant/bakery called el merendero.

as soon as we walked into the restaurant, we were accosted by the sugary smell of freshly-baked pan. needless to say, after lunch we decided to grab some bread to go. we placed a few items on a tray and brought them to the woman at the counter.

"uno ochenta," she told us, after adding the prices for the three pieces we had selected.

"uno ochenta?" i asked to confirm, as i rummaged through my wallet for cash and change. i had one dollar and ... there was a quarter, some dimes... yes. uno ochenta. "a penas!" i told the woman as i handed her the change.

she took my dollar and coins and said, "si no, no más deja el señor aquí que lave los trastres mientras tú vas comer tu pan con un café. luego, cuando termines, regresas por él."

we all had a good laugh at that one (even joseph). leave "my husband" to wash dishes to pay off the pan while i enjoyed some coffee.

now that's what i call solidarity, sister. ;)

@>-->>---

unpopularly feminist

2009-05-04T21:14:00.000-07:00

a few weeks ago at my bridal shower, one of my friends from home asked me if i was going to change my last name. knowing that i was about to give an unpopular answer, i wrinkled my nose and shook my head, "no," almost imperceptibly. it was perceptible enough to garner a reaction from people, especially considering that the two married women also at the table had changed their last names.

what about your kids? whose last name will they have? will you have a different name than they will?

and, on the other side, a different friend pointed out that i have a doctoral degree. i am dr. N. mr. S. did not spend those six and a half years in grad school.

in the end, most of my friends at that table were for the tradition of the woman changing her last name. my family, of course, didn't say much, but i suspect they think that i'm a little nutty.

+++
this weekend, joseph and i sampled cakes for our wedding. it was an overall delicious experience except for one moment. the baker, when inquiring about how we'd like the cake decorated, suggested a monogram with our married initial, "S." joseph looked at me and laughed. i explained that i wasn't changing my last name.

she looked at me suspiciously and didn't immediately abandon the idea!

on the way home, joseph told me that it didn't bother him, but he thought it was funny that i was constantly having to defend myself. i told him that he needed to support me! it's not easy defying gender norms/expectations.

+++
i am keeping my name. my name is an important part of my identity. it represents my family and their unique history, and it represents my culture. in that sense, it represents what i have inherited from my ancestors.

it also represents what i have accomplished in my life thus far. it is all the trophies and awards of my childhood, the byline that accompanied the articles i wrote for my local newspaper when i was in high school, and it was is inscribed on my undergraduate diploma from stanford and my graduate diploma from the university of texas. it is what my students call me, and it was what accompanies and will accompany all of my publications from now until tenure and beyond.

it is me.

i love joseph. i count our upcoming wedding as an incredible blessing. i don't, however, think that love and marriage mean that a woman should have to sacrifice something she considers important to her identity. if a woman chooses to do so, i respect that decision. one of the major goals of the feminist movement, after all, was for women to have choices.

i am not so naive to think that women won't be judged for their choices, whether it be the choice to keep her last name or the choice to return to work after her child is born. in that sense, women's "liberation" doesn't feel so liberating after all. but these are our rights, and we choose to exercise them.

+++
joseph and i met with our DJ shortly before we left bakersfield today. at the end of our meeting he said to us, "the next time i see you, you'll be mr. and mrs. S!"

i sighed. "well, actually..."

@>-->>---

engaged encounter

2009-04-29T12:21:00.001-07:00

joseph and i have been engaged for almost six months now. during those six months, we have been meeting fairly regularly with our parish priest to discuss our impending married life.

more than anything, we've covered logistics. for example, who will pay the bills? separate checking or joint? how do you plan to balance work and parenting? who will assume what household chores? over the past several months, some of our sessions have been pretty intense. nevertheless, we finished the program with our priest a few weeks ago still committed to getting married!

the last requirement for us to complete before receiving the priest's blessing was to participate in an engaged encounter retreat.

joseph and i didn't really know what to expect of the retreat. we'd already covered so much, what more could they possibly throw at us? we were in for a surprise when we attended the retreat this past weekend.

the retreat was much more concerned with our married spiritual life. in the catholic church, marriage is a sacrament, after all. so the leaders of the retreat (two couples at different stages of marriage) talked to us about issues around communication, family, and the sanctity of marriage. After each "lesson" or topic, we separated to reflect and write our thoughts/responses. Each couple would then come together to discuss what they had written. in that way, we couldn't just let the lesson go in one ear and out the other. we were forced to really think about it and discuss it with each other.

in the end, the retreat really got me and joseph to think more about the sanctity of marriage, especially as we consider the difficulties that we will likely face in our life together. i think that both of us came out of the weekend better understanding the spiritual significance of our marriage, which makes it seem much more... serious (for lack of a better word). however, rather than being more nervous now, i feel more ready than i had previously been feeling.

i'd be lying if i said i wasn't scared about the "for as long as [we] both shall live," but i am certain that i've chosen the right man with whom to take this journey.

38 more days!!!

@>-->>---

wedding humor

2009-04-21T15:29:00.001-07:00

i don't think that this is the best picture of me, but i thought this bride and groom was hilarious. my friend, imelda, and i spotted it in this cute store in san diego, and i thought i would share. :)

@>-->>---

showered

2009-04-15T21:46:00.000-07:00

i have been to many bridal showers in my 33 years. i know the silly games, the prizes, the finger foods, the cake, etc. it's all been fun. but this past weekend i was on the other side of all of the festivity. my sister, with the help of my mom and one of my good friends from home, put together a lovely little party for me.

one of the highlights was "failing" a game that asked me to answer various questions about joseph. for example, what is joseph's favorite band? favorite pizza topping? i got those right. the name of his first pet and his biggest pet peeve, i got wrong. all in all, i missed 8 out of 20 questions. for each question i missed, i had to chew a piece of gum. so, as you can imagine, by the end of the game, i had a mouth full of tropical berry flavored gum (not appetizing at all).

i received some very thoughtful gifts, many of which were from our registry. so, there were a lot of kitchen/household items. i was thrilled to have been given a molcajete!!! i joked that i felt like i was being "domesticated." after 33 years, i suppose it was about time. :)

in any event, it was a really nice gathering of family and a few close friends. i appreciated how excited everyone was for me, the bride to be!

@>-->>---

hindsight

2009-03-31T20:49:00.000-07:00

last week i met with a prospective graduate student.
she's smart and serious and deciding between our program and a couple of others.
did i mention she's 22?

my meeting with her reminded me of when i was a prospective graduate student. i had been accepted into my top choice program, but i wasn't sold on getting a ph.d. i had a master's degree and thought i could probably get a fine job with that. but after i visited austin, and sat in on a seminar, and met with professors and students, i was sold. i was intellectually hungry. i missed the challenge of academia. so i decided to go.

there were many times when i second guessed my decision, especially during that first--very challenging--year. but i don't regret the path that i chose at all. even though i spent my 20s in school, and even though i didn't have my first "real" job until i was 31, i wouldn't trade the experience. i met some of my best friends in graduate school, and, though it took a while to get here, i love my job.

that prospective student talked for almost an hour and a half. i recognized her anxieties that afternoon, but was really excited for the path she was about to take.

@>-->>---

anxiety

2009-03-26T23:04:00.000-07:00

a few nights ago i dreamed that it was my wedding day, and i was running around in a panic. i didn't have shoes. i didn't have my something blue. i had no garter to throw. no jewelry. and no strapless bra.

it was 10AM, and the wedding was going to start at 2PM. my mom told me, "well, i guess we need to go shopping!"

we had four hours to shop for all of my missing stuff.

i woke up before i was ready to walk down the aisle. and i was relieved that it wasn't my wedding day.

the next night i dreamed that i got into a huge fight with one of my bridesmaids (also one of my oldest friends) right before the wedding. we were in the process of reconciling when i woke up that morning.

so. apparently, i'm having a little bit of anxiety about my wedding preparation. i hope that all is resolved over the next 2 1/2 months!

@>-->>---

home (getting there)

2009-03-09T22:14:00.000-07:00

outside of my old apartment there were cars that sped east-west and north-south, mostly trying to make the light. it was a constant whir of cars. in my new neighborhood there is nothing but the occasional hum of my refrigerator, the sputtering of my sprinklers for ten minutes each night, and perhaps the distant, low whistle of a train.
these are the sounds of the neighborhood where i am making my home.
it's been just over a month since i moved into the house. and there are things that make it seem like "mine." my red couch, my books, the framed pictures i hang of my family and friends. but the bare walls, the scarce furniture, and (i'll admit it) the still unpacked boxes make me feel like it's not quite home.
but this is only the first month.
in less than three months, i'll be married, and joseph will bring all of the things that make him feel at home (mostly books and pictures, if i had to guess) into the house. we'll inevitably fill it with the myriad items on our wedding registry.
it occurs to me, however, that it will take more than new furniture or appliances to make this house our home. it'll be the time that we spend here--cooking meals, cultivating the garden, mowing the lawn, hosting visits from friends and family. these will be the things that make us feel that we've finally come home.
until then, i'll commit to unpacking a few more boxes.
@>-->>---

almost ours

2009-01-27T21:07:00.000-08:00

about three weeks ago, joseph and i went to the house to meet with the property inspector. we hadn't seen it since august, when we first made the offer. at that time, i was surprised by how much i still loved the place. it hadn't lost its lustre for me.

as we walked around the property, the current owner came outside to show us his garden and told us how we took care of it during the winter. he kept saying things like, "if you guys end up buying this house, then ..."

by that point, we were in escrow, but the idea of buying--of OWNING--a house still seemed very far away and a bit unreal to me.

over the past three weeks, we have reviewed and signed a million papers, contracts, etc. i wired the money--pretty much everything that i had been squirreling away and into my savings account for nearly two years--to escrow. it was an awful feeling. but when i left the bank, the teller congratulated me on my new house.

today joseph and i returned to the house on linwood for a final walk through. the couple who lives there now--a mexican american couple about my parents' age--had already moved out almost all of their belongings. the bare furniture was all that remained. the husband took joseph outside to look at some "manly things" (i preferred not to know), while the wife showed me where she was leaving spare keys, light bulbs, and appliance manuals.

in that moment, i was anxious and afraid about the responsibility of the house. the commitment of it all really terrified me. i worried that we wouldn't be able to keep up the house as beautifully as they had. i was sad that they had to leave such a lovely home.

we signed one last form, and when we left the wife hugged both me and joseph and her husband shook our hands. they wished us luck. in five days it'll all be in our hands.

@>-->>---

home and heart

2009-01-07T13:10:00.000-08:00

joseph and i were in dallas a couple of weeks ago when my real estate agent called to tell me that the offer i had made on a house in riverside had been accepted.

we hadn't been house hunting since the summer. we saw many awful houses that had been foreclosed and several houses on the verge of foreclosure (short sales). these were the house in our price range, but most of them were in bad shape.

except for one. we saw a beautiful house in an established neighborhood in riverside. it was built in the 1940s, very small, but beautifully kept with hard wood floors, built in bookshelves, impeccable landscaping. it was, by leaps and bounds, the best property we had seen.

i made an offer.

four months later, after a lot of back and forth with the bank and the listing agent and a lot of waiting, i found myself in dallas with my future in-laws, receiving the news that the bank accepted my offer. everyone was talking about the engagement and our wedding in california, and now, on top of all of that is the house.

yesterday we met with the property inspector and walked through the house again. it was great because we remembered why we loved the house in the first place. of course now it feels more special knowing that this is likely to be our first house as a married couple.

these are huge life changes. kind of overwhelming, but also very exciting. :)

@>-->>--

signs, blessings, and things to come

2008-11-10T12:53:00.000-08:00

the waiting room was small enough to make us feel familiar. or to realize, at least, that we had to share space until the doctor could tend to our needs.

it was me and joseph; a middle aged man who looked to be asleep in his chair; a woman with a brief case on wheels and a computer in her lap.

i held joseph's hand, knowing that he was anxious about the visit.

suddenly, the man across from us was roused from his half-asleep state. "is that your girlfriend?" he asked joseph.

yes.

"i could tell. i could tell there's a lot of love between you." then the man points to the ring finger on his left hand and looks questioningly at joseph. "why doesn't she have a ring on her finger?"

i laughed. joseph reddened as he explained, "we've been talking about it lately."

"your name's joseph, right?" the man had apparently been paying attention when the secretary called joseph to her window for some documents.

"yes, sir."

"joseph," he restated. "that's a biblical name. proverbs says that God will show favor to a man who takes a wife. you want the favor of God, don't you joseph?"

"yes, sir." (who doesn't want the favor of God, by the way?)

after sharing that he was recently married and grateful for the blessing, the man apparently fell back asleep.

joseph and i later joked about the incident. joseph mused, do you think God's trying to tell me something?

+++

two weeks after the waiting room incident, on november 4th, i celebrated my 33rd birthday, a shiny new obama presidency, and my engagement to joseph. whether or not joseph was heeding a sign, i don't know. but i do count my blessings have great hope for the years to come.

@>-->>---

the search continues

2008-09-07T22:54:00.000-07:00

i found out on friday that my offer was second best. the bank chose another offer and is keeping mine as a backup.

i'd be lying if i said that i wasn't disappointed. i'd already imagined the kind of furniture i'd need to fill the house's nooks and crannies. i'd worried about where i'd set up my office. and yes, i'd imagined enjoying a cup of coffee overlooking the lovely backyard. but it seems as if this is not my house.

in any event, making the offer has been, as they say, a learning experience.

so now it's back to traversing the town, looking for a place to hang my hat (if i were to ever wear one). i know that my house is out there, just waiting for me to find it.

@>-->>---

on houses and love, washers and dryers

2008-08-25T15:20:00.001-07:00

i have always said that i will know that i've grown up when i own a washer and dryer.

now that i have finished college and grad school (after more years than i would care to count!), i have a career! also known as an income! the next step--naturally--is to buy a washer/dryer. more accurately, for the past few weeks i've been looking for a house in which to put a washer and dryer.

the housing market crash has supposedly cultivated a strong buyer's market, but i'm not so sure. perhaps it is because my budget is so limited, but i have to say that i have seen some very sad, sad houses all over town.

until this weekend. my real estate agent showed me a beautiful 1940s bungalow. it was well cared for and refurbished where it needed to be without losing the character of the place. it was small, but i was really impressed with the inside of the house. when i went to the backyard, however, i was positively choked up. i never thought myself to be a backyard lover, but this backyard could have turned the coldest of hearts with its impeccable landscaping and well-tended flowers.

it was love at first sight.

that was saturday afternoon. i didn't realize that, following love, there would be stress! loan-pre-approval-writing-an-offer-competing-with-other-potential-buyers-realizing-how-expensive-buying-a-house-really-is STRESS. over the past couple of days i have met (and signed) a mountain of forms (God help me if i've accidentally signed away my first born child!). i got my pre-approval this afternoon, and my offer will be "official" soon thereafter.

unfortunately, this is the first step in what is apparently a long process. who knows if mine will be the best offer? then it will be back to the sad houses. sadder yet because there is still no place for the washer and dryer.

someday!

@>-->>---

not the destination

2008-08-20T15:03:00.000-07:00

i hit my favorite bakersfield coffeeshop this afternoon. i caught up with one of the baristas i know. it turns out that we graduated from the same high school in the same year, but we never knew each other until i started coming here several years ago. now we see each other two or three times a year and we always chat pleasantly, give each other updates about what has happened over the past four to six months.

it's funny to catch up with someone that way. it's like skipping to the end of the story. she doesn't ever have to deal with the gritty little details of my life's story. she just knows the end end of the story. for example, she asks how my second year as a professor went. i think of how i had to submit my case for a promotion in the fall, applying for postdocs, our department's dramatic search for a new faculty member, the nasty written and verbal exchanges by my colleagues, receiving all of my postdoc rejections, my great experiences with students, how i'm working to conceptualize (and research!) my book.

so i say, "it was a lot harder than my first year." i give her a couple of funny anecdotes and tell her what i'm currently working on, what i'm looking forward to over the next few months.

sometimes i wish that i could likewise cut to the end of the latest episode of my life's story. will i get a postdoc this year? how much of my book will i really write over the next nine months?

but, in real life, i never even skip ahead when i read stories or novels (though sometimes i look to see how many pages are left in a chapter). ultimately, i believe that the end of the story does not matter so much as the journey.

@>-->>---

on being a faux historian

2008-07-14T18:49:00.000-07:00

i'm an anthropologist by training. one of the things that i love about anthropology is its methodology--participant observation, interviews, writing and coding field notes. ever since i was an undergraduate, doing mini-ethnographies, i have immensely enjoyed my time "in the field."

unfortunately (?), my topic of interest pulls me away from my training. for the past several years, i've been looking at mexican segregation, which has necessitated more historical research than anything else. i have only the vaguest sense that i am doing things "right," but i think that the story is important, so i'm pushing forward.

these past couple of weeks i've found myself muddling through property records--some digitized, others on pages that seem like they will crumble in your hands. i'm looking at old maps--platt maps, townsite maps--trying to create a picture of what a racially segregated community (with some exceptions) looked like. i'm recording the names of people who, according to the rules of segregation--should not have lived on a particular side of the tracks (but they did!).

i wonder who these mexican people were. were they old land grant families? were they wealthy? racially white? and what was life like for them on the south side of the tracks? did they speak spanish at home and english with their neighbors? how did they relate to the mexicans on the other side of the tracks? what about culture?

it's an incredible challenge to piece together an historical portrait of a community, especially when you feel like you don't have all the pieces! some of them come from property records. i had a breakthrough the other day with an affidavit. when the city planner explained blocks and lots on the map, i could interpret the records better and even imagine who might have been neighbors.

i'm scheduling oral history interviews this week with the hope that they will help me to tell the story. in the meantime, i'll be looking at court cases and city commission meeting minutes to try to find more pieces to the puzzle.

wish me luck!

@>-->>---

retorno

2008-07-03T20:04:00.000-07:00

south texas is mostly as i remember.

this summer the skies are grey and the air thick with humidity. the palm trees bend with the wind, their fronds like sea anemones. i wonder when it will rain. i'm waiting for a good texas rain, with thunder and lightning and sheets of water that pour like buckets.

i remember the language. brown teenagers speaking english, older mexicanos speaking spanish. those in between, speaking both. "oh jennifer, i wish you could meet him. lo quiero mucho."

there are more amenities than when i left five years ago. i used to have to drive half an hour to mcallen to find starbucks coffee. now, there are a few around harlingen (though not all of them have wi-fi!) there is more shopping now, more restaurants.

still, in la feria last night, i joined some people for drinks at the american legion hall. apparently, the bar/restaurant developers haven't spread into the small towns quite yet. but it was a nice time, reconnecting with my old friends in a smoke-filled hall. it was the bartender's birthday last night, and she had cooked a feast for the patrons--barbecued pork and chicken, mexican rice, potato salad, and birthday cake. the bar sang happy birthday to her.

i confess that it feels a little bit sad to be a visitor in a place where i used to live, especially considering that i really loved my life here.

but i've lived in three cities since then, one that i enjoyed, another that i loved, and one that i'm still adjusting to. and i guess that is the path that i chose as an academic. it feels like a nomadic path. maybe even migrant. and so i store up memories of the places that i've lived, feeling the fullness of my heart when i let myself remember.

graduation day, june 1997

2008-06-17T13:35:00.001-07:00

this past weekend was our university graduation. for me, the weekend came with a heavy dose of nostalgia.

i have this picture in a frame in my apartment, but i never really look at it. well, sometime this weekend, it caught my eye.

it doesn't seem like it was that long ago. i look at this girl (me) and i think about all the things that she does not know are coming.

ultimately, i think it's good to have that mystery in front of us. to not know what is next. it's the unknown in our futures that forces us to have faith in ourselves. we might be heading toward some huge mistakes, but we're also heading toward some great life experiences.

@>-->>---

two years

2008-05-01T21:11:00.001-07:00

two years
Originally uploaded by lamusa

we dressed up on saturday night--he in a button-down shirt, me in a summer dress. we splurged on a meal at an upscale italian restaurant in town, and we ended the evening listening to live jazz over drinks at the mission inn.

i thought that would be the extent of the anniversary festivities, but was pleasantly surprised when he appeared on monday with a bouquet of red roses (my favorite) and pink spring flowers.

after two years, the milestones are nice.

@>-->>---

just do it--write, that is

2008-04-29T13:22:00.000-07:00

writing is on my mind.

a couple of days ago i talked to a friend who told me that she had just submitted an article to be published.

"that's great!" i tell her, feeling a pit in my stomach, knowing that i should be submitting articles to be published.

"i'm on a high," she told me. "you should do it."

+++

this afternoon a student came into my office hours asking for advice about how to revise her introductory paragraph. just as i was about to ask her what she meant when she mentioned some social theory, she asked me what it meant.

we started to talk about writing, and i told her that she shouldn't use ideas if she's not clear about what they mean. i told her that i know that the instinct is to feel like she needs to write in an overly-academic way, but that it is more important for her to sound like herself. to find her "voice" in her writing. after all, i'm more interested in her ideas and interpretations than her use of jargon.

she seemed encouraged when she left, and she told me that she was going to "simplify" her paper before turning it in on thursday.

+++

why is writing so fraught?

i think that i feel a little bit like my undergraduate student. i'm afraid that the articles that i'm revising are not going to be "academic" enough, that they will in fact be too simple. maybe i'm afraid that i won't be as successful an academic as i was a graduate student (i'm a great student).

in any event, i can take heart in my friend's writing high and hope that i get there. soon!

@>-->>---

on the wagon

2008-04-27T22:05:00.000-07:00

so i've fallen off the fitness wagon. my sister warned me that boyfriends will do this to you. but i didn't pay attention. i was happy and in love. two years later, i'm still happy, still in love, but let's just say that i should have heeded my sister's warning.

little by little, i've been making changes. joseph, in an effort to support me, has also decided to try to be more conscientious about food choices.

today we planned to go to the movies. joseph is a sucker for movie popcorn. he LOVES it, can't see a movie without it. it's possibly more important to him than the movie itself.

in our effort to be healthy, we looked up the number of calories in a large bag of movie popcorn, which is what we typically share. we were shocked to find out that it has nearly 1300 calories. WITHOUT BUTTER. a small bag of movie popcorn, on the other hand, has about 550 calories.

no problem, he (we) thought. we'll just eat less.

when we walked into the movie theater we were accosted by the smell of popcorn. i knew there would be trouble.

in the concession stand line, joseph decided on a small bag of popcorn and a bottle of water. but when the concession guy asked for our order, joseph said, "a smm-edium popcorn."

a smm-edium popcorn?!

poor guy, he couldn't resist. i laughed and told him that i was going to blog about this later.

yum-o! (hi, joseph!).
@>-->>---

(image via flickr, courtesy of y entonces.)

something to declare

2008-04-10T21:31:00.000-07:00

i used to be a writer. from the time i was sixteen years old until the past year or so, i religiously wrote in a journal, finishing one journal every three to four months! i used to blog semi-regularly. i used to write poetry. i wrote a 250 page dissertation. now, however, i have to scrape the corners of my mind for something to write (or, something to declare, as julia alvarez has eloquently written).

it wears on me, not because i'd like to consider myself a "writer," but because my job requires that i write. "publish or perish" is a common adage in academia. if i can't manage to blog or write in a journal, how am i to produce a well-conceived, well-written academic article?

the other day one of my girlfriends from texas sent me an article that she'd written about a tejana activist who helped organize a protest for educational rights for mexican americans in the early 1970s. i started to read it, and i could sense the passion that my friend had for this woman's story. and i remembered that i used to have that, too.

i used to know a guy in mexico who would tell me that he wrote "cuando le llegaba la musa." i always thought it romantic to be waiting for a "muse" to inspire a person to write. as i got more serious about my writing, however, i realized that it was as much about discipline as it was inspiration. these days it's difficult for me to conjure either one or the other.

right now i'm supposed to be revising an article about mexican american women in farm labor during the 1950s and 1960s. i've been putting off this revision for a LONG time. i don't know if it's a lack of passion or inspiration. maybe it's a good old fashioned fear of writing.

i think that i'm looking a place to begin. maybe blogging a little more can be a place to start.

@>-->>---

primavera

2008-04-01T23:07:00.000-07:00

i have to admit that i love the first day of a new quarter, just like i love the first day of a new year, the way that i love writing on the first page of a new journal. to me, those moments always feel like a new chapter of life, a chance to do things a little bit better.

last quarter was dire. i was a miserable teacher. i was a miserable colleague. the first three months of the year were some of my most challenging as a professor.

but today was the first day of the new quarter. i'm teaching one very small class that meets once a week, and most of my other professional obligations (committee work, etc.) ended last quarter. and even though today was a long day of making last minute adjustments to my syllabus, attending a faculty meeting, teaching, copying articles, and configuring the course website, i left campus feeling optimistic.

it is a new beginning.
@>-->>---

disappointment/frustration

2008-02-05T13:06:00.000-08:00

i left my house today happy, knowing that i was on my way to vote! i've been pretty excited about the democratic primaries. i'd decided to vote for barack obama.

so i get to the polling place, and the women at the first table tell me that they don't have my name listed on the register and send me to the next table (which was for a different precinct). they didn't have my name either!

i explained to them that i registered to vote in riverside county when i first moved here (at some university orientation event). i had actually voted a couple of months after i registered. i confess that i did not vote last spring and last november, but i was ready to vote today.

this was the same polling place, but, all of a sudden, they don't have my name!

the woman in charge made a phone call to see where i was registered in the county database, and the county doesn't have my name at all! but she did kindly me a registration card. i thanked her and reminded her that i had filled one out a year and four months ago!

no matter. somehow i have become UNregistered. i feel very disenfranchised.

and if barack loses california by one vote, i'm going to be very upset.
@>-->>---

more teaching woes

2008-01-23T11:43:00.000-08:00

my friend, F, called me yesterday and asked, "how's your class going????"

"it sucks," i told her.

she then launched into a million ways that i could improve my lecture. being a seasoned lecturer herself, F has a million strategies to build rapport with students, to engage them in the lecture, to use technology. in short, she has skills.

yes, the act of lecturing is difficult. but my subject matter is equally difficult. this week i'm supposed to be lecturing about how race and class interact. you know that one affects the other. you know that they work together. you might even be able to point to some examples. but what is the specific argument that you make to students about the intersections race and class.

today i tried to use one of our democratic presidential candidates as an example. i just read an article in The Wall Street Journal about him, and i thought it was an interesting how the authors uses him to signify class division within the black community. according to the article, he just doesn't mean as much to working class blacks as he does to middle class blacks. it's interesting, but unsure of how to articulate the BIG argument around that specific example.

grappling with these issues in a smaller class would be easier because we could have a discussion, but in a class of 90 students, not so much.

that's the thing about being a professor. part of it is the performative aspect of teaching (the "skills" my friend, F, has in abundance). the other part is an intellectual endeavor. you want your students to think critically about issues you discuss in class. however, as a professor, you have to do the intellectual "leg work" to make connections between different bodies of literature. ideally, you present the ideas, and the students take them and think about them. i feel like i'm experiencing a breakdown in how the transmission of knowledge is supposed to occur!

sorry for the rant. only 7 1/2 more weeks of the quarter! bet me that by week 10 i'm going to finally have the hang of things.

@>-->>---

monday

2008-01-14T18:53:00.000-08:00

this morning when i got to school there was a handwritten note on top of my computer from the building maintenance man. over the weekend, he had tried to hang my bulletin board above my desk. in the process, he accidentally hit a power line. he apologized that there was no power in my office and wrote that he would notify the campus electricians first thing monday morning.

thank God i have a laptop.
and that my internet connection was still working.

i finished preparing my morning lecture on my laptop and emailed it to my office manager to print for me.

when i came back from lecture, this is what the wall in front of my desk looked like.

an hour and a half later, after i'd finished writing a letter of recommendation for a student, but not before finishing my lecture for tonight, my computer battery died. i relinquished my computer to our work study student in the main office, so he could look after it as it charged. i went back to my office for office hours, but fifteen minutes later, the electricians showed up and kicked me out.

my office manager let me into the conference room to work. less than an hour later, another professor showed up and kicked me out because his class was going to meet there.

the electricians were still working (looking for a power board?) in my office, so my office manager graciously shoved some papers to the side of his desk to create a space for my laptop. i finished my lecture notes (he printed them for me), and i decided to call it a day. (until my second class, which started at 5PM).

what a monday! the week can only get better from here...

@>-->>---

teaching firsts

2008-01-13T15:46:00.001-08:00

this quarter, for the first time ever, i'm teaching a lecture course. i usually teach smaller classes (around thirty people), but this quarter my department chair requested that i take on this larger course, an upper-division requirement for all of our majors. teaching a lecture course has posed a couple of challenges.

first, i'm still adjusting to the lecture hall. it's not as overwhelming as it was the first day, but it's taken some adjustment. i hate having to use the microphone, i'm still not quite used to all of the classroom technology, and, at times, it can be daunting to see ninety students looking at me and writing down everything i say.

second, the lecture format is VASTLY different from the discussion-oriented classes i'm used to teaching. wednesday's class was one example of having not prepared correctly for lecture. in smaller classes, i can fill the time pretty easily because i'm good at generating discussion about the course materials that i've assigned. lectures are different because there are too many people to really foster a discussion. i have to fill the time talking. i'm realizing that i need to incorporate more visual aids--slides, charts, film clips, whatever. i have to be überprepared.

third, i have a teaching assistant. having a TA is great because she leads discussion section and, thus, fields the majority of my students' questions. she is also responsible for all of the grading, which is a huge help. but! i've never "been the boss" in any circumstance, so it's a little awkward giving directives to someone.

that's the lecture.

also for the first time this quarter, i'm teaching two classes at once. my other course is a smaller class that i've taught several times before. i arranged it this way, so i wouldn't have to teach two new classes at once. hopefully teaching two courses will help me with my time management! ha! hopefully i have time to work on some of my own research this quarter.

hopefully i find something to blog about besides teaching for the next ten weeks!

@>-->>---

flop

2008-01-09T11:45:00.000-08:00

this morning, about half way through my lecture, i looked at the 90 students in the lecture hall, and i thought, "would it be the worst thing in the world to send them all home?"

have you ever felt like that while teaching/lecturing? you've come to the middle and you're just out of energy and maybe even out of things to say.

i was talking about thomas jefferson and his internal conflicts as he grappled with the fact that slavery was a contradiction to the ideals of his new republic. i talked about how he justified slavery by espousing the idea that blacks were intellectually inferior, but still had to concede their "humanity."

fun stuff, huh? how could i not have wanted to talk about it for a full hour?

lecture is *hard.* mostly i feel like today was a flop, but there were moments when i felt like i might have said something insightful. i take comfort in the fact that i still have 27 more lectures to go this quarter! 27 opportunities to redeem myself. :P

@>-->>---

project 365, part 2

2008-01-06T21:42:00.001-08:00

the following are my favorite pictures from the latter half of the year.

july

i took this picture while visiting joseph in dallas this month. we went to the old red museum to brush up on some dallas history. :) joseph looooves himself some dallas history.

august

one of my last nights in austin, my girlfriends and i went to see bob schneider perform at threadgill's. i love bob. and so does olga. we had a great time dancing the night away!

september

this month i went to pay a visit to my sister and brother-in-law in watsonville. my sister now works for a tomato company, so she always has these beautiful tomatoes on hand.

october

i took this picture at a coffeeshop in east LA, where they had an altar set up (a little bit early) for día de los muertos.

november

i took this picture for msabcmom. she and her class had sent "flat stanleys" all over the state, country, and world! i showed flat stanley a fine time in riverside. this was one of my favorite pictures of the month. i liked the texture of the highlander bear.

december

joseph and i went to see the festival of lights at the mission inn in downtown riverside this month. it was so hard for me to get a good picture of the lights. even at the end of the year, i'm still trying to figure out the settings on my camera! this was one of my better shots that night.

so there you have it: my 2007 in a photographic nutshell. here's to more kodak moments in 2008!

@>-->>---

first week of school

2008-01-05T16:44:00.000-08:00

yesterday was the first day of school.

the few days before the quarter begins are always a little stressful. you have to research course materials, write your syllabus, copy your syllabus, copy all the articles you want to assign to the class, and prepare for lecture.

this week was even more complicated because my department just moved into a new building. this has meant that:

all of my books and files were in boxes
some of my furniture was missing
the furniture that i did have needed to be moved around to fit (the smaller) office space
the building has no heat until next week
the copy machine is on the fritz.

ok. i'm not sure that the copy machine problems were a result of the move, but it was just one more thing to frustrate me this week.

finally, friday morning arrived. i got lost on my way to the classroom where i was supposed to be teaching. it's the first time that i've taught in a lecture hall, the first time that i've taught a lecture, and i was disoriented. when i got to the lecture hall, i thought, ok. it's not the most enormous space i've ever seen. i did, however, have to wear a microphone for my students to hear me!

and i have a teaching assistant.

it's all a little overwhelming.

in any event, it's been a bit of a rocky start to the new quarter (new year?), but i'm sure that everything will be going smoothly in a few weeks.

happy new year!

@>-->>---

project 365

2008-01-03T21:57:00.001-08:00

at the beginning of 2007, one of my new year's resolutions was to take one picture a day as part of a photo project i'd heard about called project 365. i usually write (in my journal, on the blog) to document the various moments of my life. i thought that this photo project would be a nice, different way to remember this past year. i also thought it might help me improve my photo skills!

for those of you who followed the project on flickr, you know that i was extremely dedicated the first half of the year. the second half, i faltered. it turns out that my project 365 is more like, project 320. ;) in any event, i wanted to share my favorite pictures from each month.

january

these happy face cookies are from smith's bakery in bakersfield. every time i go home i like to have one. i thought they looked pretty cute on the bakery tray, waiting to be purchased. :)

february

i took this picture in boyle heights, just outside my friend's apartment. i thought this mural was great.

march

joseph sent these roses to me at the office in march. it was one of my sweetest day that month.

april

i took this picture at central market when i went to austin this month. i think that we were grocery shopping for my friend cristina's birthday party. i snapped this pic in the produce section. i liked the way the light was hitting these chiles.

may

this accordionist is part of a local band named "mula." they performed at the ethnic studies senior award ceremony.

june

i took this picture while on vacation with my family this month in cancún. this pier was just outside the hotel where we stayed.

more pics of the past year to come!

@>-->>---

feliz navidad

2007-12-25T20:39:00.000-08:00

hope you all had a blessed holiday.

@>-->>---

guadalupanización

2007-12-12T16:20:00.000-08:00

my first experience with guadalupe faithful was in salamanca, guanajuato eleven years ago. sure, i'd been exposed to the cultural guadalupanas--the chicana feminist writers who also called her tonantzín and the chicana artists who rendered her as the statue of liberty or as a black belt in karate. but that year in salamanca i found myself with mexican men, women, and children who exhibited their faith in a more traditional sense.

my relatives in salamanca picked me up from the bus depot (i had just arrived from guadalajara), shuttled me to their house to leave my things, and then ushered me back into the car so that we could drive to the church in el centro. i gently tried to explain to them that i was tired, that i really wanted to rest; they brushed aside my weak protests as if i had not made them at all. it was december 11th, after all, the eve of el día de la virgen de guadalupe.

in el centro in front of the church, we joined a growing crowd. one of my cousins bought me a carton of fresas con crema while we waited. they explained to their culturally illiterate pocha cousin that the peregrinación would begin at midnight. we would walk together, carrying an image of la virgen and singing to another church, where there would be more singing, food, and festivities.

i admit. i didn't really get it. it was midnight, and i was tired. and what was this holiday? (yes, i really am that much of a pocha). but i resigned myself to participate with my family. i participated in the procession along with hundreds of other people, holding high the image of la virgen and faking the songs that i could.

years later, i would learn about the cultural/religious significance of la virgen de guadalupe, that she appeared to an indigenous man, the now-sainted juan diego, and because she herself is brown-skinned, like the thousands of her faithful. in many ways, she helped to bridge the gap between the spanish colonizers and the indigenous people of mexico.

but that night, at some point during the peregrinación i started to feel soothed. in the company of the crowd of faithful people, marching along under a blue black sky and orange street lights, i started to feel her significance. that night i experienced a bit of a revelation as to why miguel hidalgo called for the independence carrying her banner and why, 150 years later, césar chávez marched for farm worker rights carrying her banner, as well.

that night, i understood a tiny piece of the history that i couldn't have learned without having experienced it.

i'm glad that my c0usins dragged me, tired and a little bitter, to that peregrinación. it was a good night to be out in the streets of mexico with family, compatriotas, and little miracles.

@>-->>---

professionalization. ha!

2007-12-10T23:08:00.000-08:00

sometime in the middle of graduate school someone told me that i should attend my discipline's professional conference every year to present my research. i don't know why i listened to that person except that maybe i just wanted to go to new orleans, which is where it was held that particular year.

that year i remember that i arrived in new orleans just a few hours before i was supposed to present my paper. i checked into a nice hotel (i could afford it because i was sharing a room with three other people) and ran, in the rain, to the conference hotel. i had been anxiety-ridden about my paper, thinking that it wasn't "theoretical" enough for the high brow anthro crowd. when i arrived at the room where my panel would be presenting, however, i realized that i had nothing to worry about. only about seven people had shown up to see the panel; most of them were friends.

i spent the next day watching panels i found pretty predictable and a little bit boring. the following day, a friend and i decided to play hooky and go sightseeing in new orleans. we walked around the french quarter, poked around the shops, ate beignets at cafe du mond, and we went salsa dancing at the end of the night. i was thrilled to bump into ruth behar on the dance floor (she is quite a dancer, by the way). i wondered if someday a grad student would be thrilled to run into me on a dance floor at the anthropology conference.

since that first experience, the anthropology conference has come to mean different things to me. it has meant presenting my research and hearing others present theirs. for a couple of stressful years, it also meant enduring the university job interviews.

this year was different. i felt compelled to go so that i could "network" and maybe get some good advice about how to spend my next few years as a junior professor. i'm not that great at networking, but i did talk to some people who did give me some helpful advice. actually the advice was all the same--"write!" and then one of my friends peer pressured me into talking to some university press editors about my non-existent book manuscript (thanks, ronda!). i admit that i felt a little overwhelmed by the weekend, which is probably why i said yes to a night of mojitos and dancing the last evening of the conference.

now, back in california, i am winding down the quarter and preparing for the holidays. i am processing all of the advice, but tucking away my big academic ambitions for the new year.

@>-->>---

serendipity

2007-12-02T22:03:00.001-08:00

during the middle of last week i found myself staring into the eyes of a deadline. this fall i'm applying for postdoctoral fellowships so that i can take some time off of teaching to write my book.

of coruse, every application requires a statement of research. these essays usually require you to say, very succinctly, what is your project, what is the status of your research, what you will be doing during your time on the fellowship, and why your project is important (its significance).

i confess that i've been struggling with the fellowship applications. i think that because i've let go of my writing (no blogging, no journaling, certainly no academic writing) i'm having a difficult time articulating my project. i frequently find myself at an utter loss for words.

deadline looming, i found myself that day agonizing over each phrase of my statement of my research and plagued by self-doubt. suddenly my phone rang. i saw from the caller ID that it was a woman i know from south texas.

she is an artist and gallery manager in the rio grande valley that i met recently because of a paper i wrote about border art. though we most often talk about art, she has also expressed an interest in my research in south texas, because my field site is her home town. in fact, a couple of months ago, she asked if she could have a copy of my dissertation to reference for a paper she was writing.

that day on the phone she told me that she had read my dissertation and had been "riveted." my jaw dropped. first of all, the only people that have read my entire dissertation (apart from my committee members) have been my dad and joseph. second of all, riveted?

she told me that she recognized the people and the stories that i had written and said that it was great to see it all laid out in an academic paper. she shared some anecdotes about her experiences with some of the issues that i speak to in my research. her main reason for calling, however, was to brainstorm about how some of the concepts that i cover in my dissertation could be extended and/or translated to some of the art projects that she is currently undertaking.

what serendipity that as i was writing about my project in south texas, a woman from there should call me and tell me that my work was good and meaningful.

i wish that i could say that after the phone call, all the right words came to mind and that i wrote a brilliant research proposal, but no. it was still a long couple days of writing and revision. nonetheless, i was encouraged and felt a little more faith in myself that afternoon.

@>-->>---

out. of. shape.

2007-11-17T11:06:00.000-08:00

i've never been an athlete. i was not an AYSO kid, though as a child i did try a couple of seasons of softball, unsuccessfully. nevertheless, for the past five years or so, i've been making an effort to be more active.

i started to run, really run, at the beginning of 2003. i ran five days a week through a balmy south texas winter and an oppressively humid south texas summer. when i moved to santa barbara, running along the ocean, breathing in the cool, salty air felt like a gift. the next year, back in texas, my new running paths were the winding, tree-lined streets in my east austin neighborhood.

in austin, one of my girlfriends--a more hardcore runner than i ever was--encouraged me to register for races with her. we started with a 5K, which was very manageable for me; my 30-40 minute morning runs always covered three miles or more. by the end of 2005, she had me convinced to run a 10K with her. i trained for several weeks, and finished respectably. i didn't win any medals, but i felt good/strong afterward.

the following spring i trained for a triathlon. ultimately, i wasn't able to compete because of an injury, but i felt confident that i could have completed the swim/bike/run course.

a year and a half later, i find that i am utterly. out. of. shape.

a few weeks ago, i decided that i needed to start running--really running--again. i found a 5K scheduled for mid-november, and began to train, albeit half-heartedly and haphazardly. i don't think i ran more than two and a half miles at any one time. nevertheless, i showed up this morning bright and early (early, at least) to the race site, ready to run.

those 3.1 miles were a little bit excruciating, especially with the hills along the race course. i was trying to keep pace with a 60-year old woman, but she sprinted ahead of me. i decided to just keep running, even if it was at a snail's pace. thirty six minutes after i began, i mercifully crossed the finish line. i can't believe that just a year and a half ago, i was running three miles AFTER swimming half a mile and biking twelve!

something tells me it's going to be a long road back.

@>-->>---

a genius moment

2007-11-16T18:03:00.001-08:00

victor and joseph
Originally uploaded by lamusa

several years ago, joseph read the book, rain of gold, by victor villaseñor. it's a beautifully written book that tells the story of both sides of villaseñor's family, their travails in mexico, their migrations north, and, finally, how his father and mother come together. when joseph read this book, he was inspired to further explore chicano literature. this "exploration" led him to build a veritable library of chicano/a studies books.

we found out just the night before the victor villaseñor would be speaking at the chicano cultural center in riverside. it was a long day for me. i had to teach, meet with a student, write a postdoc application (yes, i procrastinated; it was due by 5PM). but we couldn't miss the opportunity to see victor villaseñor speak.

he was a great speaker, every bit the storyteller that i expected, but he was also very spiritual and motivational. by the end of the evening, he had also all yelling that we were "burro geniuses." burros, because we were tough; geniuses because we were intuitive and would listen to our hearts.

after a very long day of teaching and writing, too much trying to be smart, it was comforting to know that i might be able to rely on my burra genius.

@>-->>---

on being a teacher

2007-11-13T22:31:00.000-08:00

throughout the past eight years, i've taught several classes, hundreds of students. i probably wouldn't recognize some of those students if i passed them on the street, but some have made definite impressions on me. i've enjoyed talking to students about, not just course materials, but their life plans and hopes for their futures. i particularly appreciate my interactions with mexican american young women. i know how few chicana professors there are in academia, and am glad to be able to "role model" and mentor when those opportunities present themselves.

this past week, one of my students came to my office hours and reprimanded me for not taking a strong political stance on a particular issue that came up in class. she said something like, "as a chicana professor, students look up to you," and that i should be educating them about these particular political issues.

over the past few days, i've gone through feeling guilt for not measuring up to this student's expectations. did i make a major political misstep? have i alienated my students? i then began to feel indignant that this young woman would would tell me what my responsibilities are "as a chicana professor." i've thought about things that i could have said to her, ways that i could have perhaps better defended myself. but honestly, i'll probably never be able to make her understand where i've been and what it's actually like to be a chicana professor (one of four on campus). i am still annoyed at her self-righteousness.

today another mexican american young woman came into my office hours. she and i had a nice conversation about the novel that we are reading in class, her hopes for graduate school, some worries that she has about her family, and her dreams of traveling around the world with her husband. it was a nice moment.

i know that i'm not a perfect professor, but that moment reminded me what i love about teaching--those very simple connections with students in our conversations about books and culture and life. those connections make everything else--the research and writing, the university politics--worthwhile.

@>-->>---

feliz día de los muertos

2007-11-02T19:39:00.001-07:00

though we are already well into fall, this afternoon felt like early summer, the sun bright and beaming on the students and community members participating in the día de los muertos festivities. joseph and i stopped by to see the dancers and the altars that the students made for the event. the heat pushed us back to my office after only a short while.

this is the beginning of my second year as a professor here; the first was a blur of new classes and professional activity. the second promises to be less blur, more work and responsibility. our faculty has been busy developing a new Ph.D. program, which is exciting, but requires a lot of faculty meetings and also time apart to develop new graduate seminars. we're also conducting a search for a new faculty member, and, i volunteered to be on the committee (clearly, in some moment of delirium). also, this year i'm having my first review. fun times all around.

it feels like forever ago that i was a graduate student. in fact, it was two years ago today that i defended my dissertation. i thought that defending on día de los muertos might be some kind of omen. but really, i was just desperate to defend before my 30th birthday, which was just two days afterward. ultimately, it was good timing. those few days in 2005 between el día de los muertos and my birthday marked the end of one stage of my life and the beginning of another.

two years later, another day of the dead, another birthday, and i'm well into that other stage of life. it's not quite as i imagined it. after all those years i spent cultivating a life and an identity in graduate school, i'd forgotten what it meant to be in something new. i'd forgotten that new beginnings could be so difficult and so uncertain.

@>-->>---

fire season

2007-10-26T21:45:00.000-07:00

it's been ominous living in southern california over the past week. last weekend it was the wind, shaking the windows and howling afternoons and evenings. it spooked me. things started to get progressively worse, however, when the winds, coupled with the dry weather, started to spread fires.

at first, i didn't think much of the wildfires. it is "fire season," after all. but then they were spreading, and soon it seemed that all of southern california was burning.

the skies were dull shades of brown and grey, and the sun filtered through the clouds, casting an eerie red light. joseph and i found ourselves having difficulty breathing after being outside for short periods of time, with coughing, and sore throats (it's worse for him because he has asthma). we joked that it was like nuclear winter. ha.

but we've been lucky. i've watched the media coverage of the fires in san diego county, shocked at the evacuations and the destruction. today i read about a couple who survived a fire that consumed their house by jumping into their swimming pool. and then immigrants who died in the fires while trying to cross through canyons along the border. i've been thinking about the fact that though the fires strike indiscriminately, it'll be easier for the wealthy families in southern california to rebuild and resume life as normal. but what is normal for an immigrant trying to cross the border?

i'm relieved that the fires are being contained and that the smoke is beginning to clear. i'll be grateful when i can finally take a breath of fresh air, which, in southern california, is not normal at all.

@>-->>---

wonder years

2007-05-31T23:19:00.000-07:00

we used to watch the wonder years religiously in my household. perhaps the reason i enjoyed it so much was because i was in junior high around that same time, experiencing all the same pre-adolescent angst as kevin.

during one episode of the wonder years, kevin participated in a walk out to protest the vietnam war. it made your heart swell to see the students stand up in the middle of their classes, march to the fictitious football field, and begin to sing, "give peace a chance." i wanted to be that kind of american. to stand up for something righteous like peace.

peace was the last thing that we experienced on our junior high playground. there were fights. mexican boys who were bused in from the neighborhoods where my cousins lived. white boys who lived in my neighborhood. there would be a sudden rush of bodies running, trampling toward the scuffle. their fists--brown and white--would fly until some adult caught up, intervened. broke it up.

one morning shorlty after i arrived at school, my cheerleader friend, amee, rushed over to meet me.

"jennifer," she said. "are you going to participate in the walk out?"

"walk out?"

amee excitedly explained to me that monica was organizing a walkout. everyone was talking about it.

"what are we protesting?" i asked. (after seeing the wonder years, i knew that a walk out had to hold some higher purpose than just ditching).

"i don't know," she confessed. "let's ask monica."

monica was surrounded by curious junior highers. we made our way into her innercircle, and amee asked what we would be protesting.

monica informed us that thursday at 10AM we were all going to get up out of our seats, walk out of our classrooms, and proceed to the empty field across the street from the school. we were going to stay there until "they made the mexicans go back to where they belong."

i turned away, stunned, while monica remained to instruct her eager disciples. amee followed me, put her hand on my shoulder and said, "she didn't mean you, jennifer."

"i know she didn't mean me."

"so are you doing to go?"

"no!"

that week it was somehow permissible for all of my white friends to say incredibly racist things in our casual conversations. walking home from school one day, josh says the group, "why can't those mexicans just go back to where they came from?"

"josh!" i said, "i'm mexican!"

"but you're not THAT kind of mexican."

that kind of mexican. i knew what he meant. he meant that i wasn't a working class mexican. i didn't take the bus from the other side of town. i didn't dress like them. i didn't talk like them. but if i wasn't that kind of mexican, certainly my cousins were. certainly my parents used to be. my family. and they are part of me.

the walk out never happened. the rumors made their way to the administration, and they called a meeting of student "leaders" (e.g., student council members, football players, cheerleaders) to ask us not to participate. they made public warnings that any students who participated would be punished.

a newscrew showed up on the day that it was supposed to occur. but there was nothing. the evening news showed footage of an empty and silent schoolyard. an interview with a red-faced prinicpal wringing his hands, saying, "we do not have a race problem here."

***

i've told this story countless times over the past twenty years. most recently, i recounted it to a woman who is writing her dissertation about the educational experiences of chicana ph.d.s. i'm not sure if she'll find that i'm similar to or different from the other women in her sample. i think this story shows that i grew up mexican and middle class, which placed me in the sometimes uncomfortable space between "white middle class" and "mexican working class."

honestly, it's an identity that i've struggled with for years. and it's motivated most of my educational and professional endeavors. to research and write about mexican/mexican american experiences in the united states. it doesn't always make my heart swell, but it's an endeavor that i am proud of.

@>-->>---

the "i am" meme

2007-05-29T19:17:00.001-07:00

pete tagged me with this one. i was counting how many sentences i have to begin with "i am," and notice that each person i've read who has done this meme has done a different number. that makes me a little crazy. i need a template, people!

i am sitting on my very comfortable red couch, feet propped up on the coffee table that my brother donated to me, listening to the evening traffic rumble along outside my window.

i am, according to pete, la cantante maravillosa. when i saw that he was tagging "la cantante maravillosa," i wondered, "who's she?" thanks, pete. it was a great party.

i am waiting for joseph to iron his clothes, so that we can have our evening chat. these are our rituals. :)

i am promising myself that i will get up early and go to the gym tomorrow morning. i have washed all of my athletic apparel, so i have no excuses.

i am going to read the articles that i assigned to my class tonight, so that i don't have to have as stressful a wednesday as i usually do. students are not the only ones who procrastinate.

i am sad that it is tuesday, and there will be no new episode of the gilmore girls. ever again.

i am glad that i've been able to spend each weekend of the past month with family and friends in bakersfield, austin, and LA!

i am looking forward to the end of the quarter. very much.

i am looking forward to going to cancun in a few weeks.

i am a bad blogger. i think i'm averaging two posts a month these days (including memes!).

i am also turning out to be a bad writer (in terms of academic writing). but hopefully i can turn that around this summer.

i am not going to tag anyone else!

@>-->>---

midterm

2007-05-10T22:53:00.000-07:00

last time i wrote i was poised to begin the quarter; now i'm muddling through the middle. when i say "muddling," i can point to the fact that i have twelve student papers in bag, begging to be graded. *sigh* and then there are the student emergencies and excuses--so many in such a short period of time! i'm still trying to figure out how to be compassionate and also fair.

fortunately, there are some better aspects of being a professor. tonight, for example, i was invited to be a judge for a chicano/a talent show. it was great to see a different aspect of the students' lives. some performed spoken word poetry, others performed music that they had composed; there were dancers and singers. i was happy to have a part in it, though it was difficult to judge!

in any event, i am five weeks away from the end of my first year as a professor. so far i've managed to keep my head above water. next year i hope to progress from treading water to swimming. even if it's just dog paddling. ;)

@>-->>---

another quarter begins

2007-04-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

tomorrow is the first day of the new quarter for me.

i feel like winter quarter just ended. and it did! job talks and meetings up until the last day of finals week. final grades due the tuesday of spring break.

and here i am, a week later, contemplating whether or not i should do a bit more work on my syllabus before i go to sleep. no, i have not finished the syllabus. yes, i did say that the first day of class is tomorrow. surely there are other professor procrastinators out there.

part of it is procrastination, but part of it is just that i feel like i'm being trampled underneath the quarter system: ten weeks of fall quarter, two weeks of vacation. ten weeks of winter, one of week of vacation. ten weeks of spring. then, mercifully, summer. for research and writing and all the other things i should be doing all year along to maintain my professional standing.

there is so much more time within a semester system. fifteen full weeks of a semester. four weeks of vacation. fifteen more weeks of spring semester interrupted by a week for spring break and then a full summer. i miss that (seemingly luxurious) rhythm.

oh i know that all the 8AM to 5PM workers hold no sympathy. it's a flexible job and i do have a lot of time "off." but, as an academic, do you ever feel like you're "off." i feel like i'm always thinking about what i should be doing, even if i'm not actually doing it. case in point, i obediently brought several books with me to bakersfield over spring break. i only cracked a few open, but they were just sitting in my room, making me feel guilty about what i could/should be doing.

like tonight. blogging but knowing that i could/should be working on the syllabus. and when i dream tonight, it will surely be about immigration and the history of chicano/as. *sigh*

@>-->>---

figuring things out

2007-03-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

winter quarter has been exhausting.

during the fall quarter, i kept thinking, this is it? this is what it means to be a professor? i was teaching, putting off my writing, and thinking that the life of a professor was not much different from being a graduate student.

i was mistaken.

we've had departmental meetings almost every other week this quarter, focusing on merits and promotions. that is, we have to evaluate the files of our fellow faculty and decide whether or not they are worthy of promotion. needless to say, i feel less than qualified to be making these decisions. and i'm terrified of my own review, which will take place this coming october/november.

in addition to the meetings, there have been the job searches. my department isn't recruiting, but there are searches in other departments that could mean joint appointments with us. that means that i've been attending job talks, meeting with candidates, and debriefing with other faculty members on whether or not we think that they would be a good "fit" for our department.

(can i just say how different it is to be on the other side of the job/interview process?)

all of these "extracurricular" activities make up the "service" component of my job. the third thing upon which i'll be judged when it comes time for tenure--research, teaching, and service.

so now i know. and i'm tired! but i have six more years to go. and yes, i have already been told that the clock is ticking (the tenure clock, not the other one!).

@>-->>---

on writing

2007-03-04T22:45:00.000-08:00

when you earn your ph.d., one of your biggest feats is producing a dissertation. most dissertations range between two and three hundred pages. it seems that, on average, people take between one and three years to write them.

i started writing my dissertation on fellowship in santa barbara. my only obligation during my first five months as a fellow there was to write. and so, i would get up every morning with writing in mind. on good days, i would go for a brisk run along the coast. i would drive to a coffeeshop, obediently toting along my laptop, which, in those days, did not have wireless capacity. i would order a cup of coffee, and i would write.

my goal was to write three pages a day, five days a week. some days, i would reach my writing goal in one hour. other days it would take me four. some days i spent revising. most days i drank several cups of coffee.

it was an extremely productive time for me. i didn't have any friends in santa barbara. some days the only people i would speak to in person were my baristas. sometimes i think i ordered a second and third cup of coffee for the brief human contact it would allow me.

though isolating, writing on fellowship was a luxury.

after i finished the diss, i decided that i deserved a break. a year passed. in that time, i was productive in other ways--mostly teaching. but still no writing. and now this lack of writing is beginning to matter.

(to be continued)

@>-->>---

a lenten reflection

2007-02-26T17:46:00.000-08:00

last year i gave up red meat for lent. it was a minor sacrifice. other years i have given up cookies, sweets, etc. they've mostly been food items, now that i think about it. they always feel like small inconveniences during the lenten period.

it's my understanding that these sacrifices (or small inconveniences) are supposed to make a person reflect on what it means to do without. i think that the act of giving something up is also meant to serve as a kind of atonement for sins that we feel we have committed (ways that we have behaved badly over the past year).

i have to confess that many years, lent has served as a kind of "diet" rather than a time for true spiritual reflection.

this year, i'm not giving anything up (except, of course, for requisite meat-free fridays). instead i'm going to try to attend extra masses and other kinds of spiritually reflective exercises. i hope that it serves less as a diet and more as a way to slow down and reflect on my life direction and ways that i can attempt to be a better human being.

a ver como me va.

@>-->>---

cinco cosas

2007-02-06T21:18:00.000-08:00

la rebelde tagged me with this one. it was hard to think of things that people don't already know about me. i'm kind of an open book. this public blog probably indicates the openness of my life's book.

but! here goes (by the way, i'm writing this instead of an article that i should be working on):

1. i've had one black eye in my life. it was sometime during my early years of elementary school. my cousin vicky was a tomboy; she loved to be outside, climbing trees, running around. i was more of the stay-inside, nerdy, bookish type. she wanted to go out and play, and i wanted to stay inside and read my book. she tried to take my book away, i held on, a struggle ensued, and i came out with a black eye.

2. from second through sixth grade i was a serious competitor in the local catholic schools annual spelling bee. i won first place in second and third grade. in fourth and fifth, i came in second to bernadette r., who attended a rival school. in sixth grade, we were--again--the last two standing at the spelling bee. and i beat her. she missed the word "craftsmen."

3. my favorite kind of sandwich growing up was banana and mayonnaise. it was my mom's invention. i think that she had it once when she was growing up, and thought that i might like it. and i did! i haven't tried it in years, but it still sounds appealing to me.

4. my secret dream is to become a mariachi singer. but i don't know the words to many of the rancheras that i love. so this dream would take some work. and shouldn't dreams, by nature, not entail work?

5. my latest favorite TV show is everwood. it has been following the gilmore girls in syndication on abc family. almost every episode makes me cry. but i'm kind of a crybaby, so maybe that's not too surprising.

kind of random, but there you have it.

i tag joseph! let's see if he can come up with five things i don't know about him. ;)

@>-->>---

accidental paparazzo

2007-02-05T19:35:00.001-08:00

accidental paparazzo
Originally uploaded by lamusa.

yesterday i decided to break away from the IE and meet up with a couple of girlfriends in LA. they took me to check out the shops and such around silver lake. it seemed kind of like a hipster part of town with lots of funky shops and restaurants. it reminded me a lot of austin actually.

we were perusing the silver lake cheese shop, and i was looking for subjects for my project 365 endeavor. i took a pic of cheese and a random sign before i decided to snap a picture of these cute little girls keeping company with their dogs.

a few minutes later, k. and v. came out of the cheese shop, and we started to make our way to the next store when, all of sudden, dr. alex korev of grey's anatomy fame crossed in front of us! he was taller and skinnier than he is on television, but it was definitely korev.

i blinked a few times as he called these two little girls--his daughters!--to go with him to the next shop. i was still clutching my camera in one hand, and he turned and looked at me (i was trying, probably unsuccessfully, not to stare). i could have sworn that he saw my camera and hurried his daughters into the next store.

i didn't mean to be a paparazzo, i promise!

@>-->>---

silent poetry reading

2007-02-02T18:22:00.000-08:00

olga's most recent post reminded me that today is the second annual brigid in cyberspace poetry reading.

i chose the following poem by Teresa Acosta because i relate to the poem's protagonist. those of you who know me know that i love to dance, and, though my tacones are not always the most comfortable, a good baile is always worth it.

"Tacones"

Epiphemia mentions that
her tacones are worn sheer through
the core.
She rubs her palms against them, feeling
their rough edges,
their protruding nails.

Pero no hay porque temer.
Epiphemia will still make it to the baile. She has
a lot more pairs del Payless in her closet.

She thinks instead
about the new Little Joe CD
and the weekend debut
of his nuevo hits.
Her tacones will mark their beat on the dance floor,
doing neither the flamenco
nor the folklorico.

Instead
she'll pound the tacuachito across its length and width
this Saturday night.
For her tacones are primed to grip the floor.
They will slide and ride the fine thread that strings
los meros meros together.

Field to field.

-Teresa Palomo Acosta

@>-->>---

january come and gone

2007-02-01T13:48:00.000-08:00

the first month of the year has flown by. i like that these pictures tell me where i've been and what i have been doing all month.

@>-->>---

teaching worries

2007-01-23T13:57:00.000-08:00

this afternoon i picked up a large yellow envelope marked CONFIDENTIAL from my faculty mailbox. the return address indicated that it had been sent to me by the vice provost.

my faculty chair caught me as i was walking out of the office and remarked, motioning to the yet unopened envelope, that i was the first person to receive her teaching evaluations from last quarter.

"you did very well!" he said.

i was a little surprised since the letter said "confidential" and all, but it's logical that he--my boss--should also receive a copy of the evals.

usually, i wait until i'm in a room all by myself to open the envelope holding my teaching evaluations, but, since i'd already be pre-judged, i opened them as i was walking up the stairwell to my office.

he's right. i did well.

i'm always paranoid about evaluations, because inevitably there will be some student who will say that you are disorganized or that you talk too much or are an unfair grader or that you are a narcissist. (everyone gets those comments, right?).

these comments weren't bad. one students did remark that i say "ummmmmm" too much. hmph.

in any event, these evaluations come at a good time for me. i'm having a hard time teaching this quarter. it's a new class for me, and i have been feeling a bit like i'm floundering to make my most basic points. and i have yet to be able to fill an entire hour and a half time period (except for today, because, mercifully, i was able to show a film).

hopefully the ego boost will help. or, ummmmmmmm, maybe not.

@>-->>---

i am rewarded for a fit of procrastination

2007-01-15T22:34:00.000-08:00

this evening i have been obediently reading for class tomorrow, but must confess that i have taken frequent breaks. one of those breaks was to turn on the golden globe awards just within moments of américa ferrera accepting the award for best actress in a television comedy/musical.

honestly, i hadn't paid much attention to the golden globes this year. i hadn't even realized that américa had been nominated. but when i heard her name along with felicity huffman, julia louise dreyfuss, and a couple of other seasoned actresses, i just crossed my fingers and said a quick, "please, please please." and she won!

i'm thrilled for her. i think that she is a beautiful young woman and a talented actress. i love the roles that she has chosen, and i love that she is role model of intelligence and beauty for latinas and all young women within the realm of popular culture.

hooray for betty!

now back to work!

@>-->>---

afternoon drama

2007-01-09T22:45:00.000-08:00

as a single woman, when choosing a place to live, i try to be careful. i ask around for neighborhoods that are "quiet" and "safe." i want to feel at ease in my neighborhood, in the place where i make my home, even if the rent is a little more expensive. i don't want to be a woman who feels she has to sleep with one eye open, so to speak.

i felt satisfied with my choice here in southern california. i felt like i had done sufficient research about this neighborhood, which is, conveniently, within two miles of where i work. i have felt at ease here by myself.

until this afternoon. i was stopped at the intersection before the turnoff into my apartment complex and noticed a police car tearing into my parking lot. since i was on my way home, i didn't have much of a choice but to follow him.

the police car and two other unmarked police vehicles were parked within 500 yards of my parking space. i saw one cop pull on his bullet proof vest and the other two hovering around the corner of one of the buildings in my complex. as i got out of my car and headed to my apartment--which was, thankfully, in the opposite direction--i turned around and noticed the officer with his hand on his holster, peering around the corner of the apartment.

i rushed into my apartment and deadbolted the door, curled up on my couch, and talked to joseph (we'd been talking on the phone throughout this whole ordeal). after a while, i ventured out onto my balcony and saw one of the police officers take his vest off, get in his SUV, and leave.

i let out a sigh of relief and returned to the comfort of my solitary and safe couch.

@>-->>---

well-documented

2007-01-04T17:44:00.000-08:00

i didn't really make any new year's resolutions this year. of course, along with the rest of america, i vowed to eat better and exercise more. i identified some other things that i have to do to move further along in my professional career, but i'm not sure if those are "resolutions," or just things that i have to do to keep my job!

a few weeks ago, i came across this blogsite. i'm not a photographer (my dad holds that honor in our family), but i do like to document events in my life. i've kept a journal religiously since i was sixteen years old. i've kept this blog--not as religiously--partially to document my thoughts over a period of time. project 365 seems like a natural extension of this instinct to document parts of my life. this time through pictures.

i am now obediently carrying my camera around wherever i go just in case a kodak moment presents itself. aside from my obvious limitations as a photographer, i have encountered two major problems. the first is that i find that i am shy to take pictures of people, in front of people, etc. the second problem is subject matter! what is photographically relevant? since i still don't have much of a social network here (read: very few friends), i find myself searching for inaminate objects to photograph. i wonder if that will become boring after a while. i wonder if it already is! but they are supposedly representative of some aspect of my life...

in any event, i've been posting pictures on flickr every day so far (only five days, i know!). it'll be interesting to see what pictures emerge over the next several weeks.

@>-->>---

new quarter

2007-01-03T22:24:00.000-08:00

after a very restful and rejuvenating christmas break in bakersfield, today i found myself scrambling to prepare for the new quarter.

i suppose it's a good thing i didn't resolve not to procrastinate this year!

i'm nervous because i'll be teaching a new course this quarter. when i was at texas, i taught the same two courses over and over again. they were lower division courses that weren't necessarily the first choices for faculty members to teach. as a grad student and then as a lecturer, i was happy to teach them, and, after some time, i think that i got pretty good at teaching them. i had all my materials assembled, my lectures ready, all of which i updated as needed.

last quarter, my chair allowed me to teach one of the courses that i had taught so many times at texas. it was his way of helping me transition to my new university.

but now i find myself in the middle of something new. i'm excited to teach a different course, but i find that i'm not nearly as confident as i had been over the past few years. surely part of this nervousness stems from the fact that i'll have to write completely new lectures this quarter even as i gather new materials for instruction.

another, more familiar, part of my anxiety is becoming accustomed to a new group of students. i always worry that they'll be unfriendly, which seems like a silly worry, especially since i am, after all, their teacher. they should be worried that i'll be unfriendly, right?

in any event, tomorrow is the first day of school. wish me luck.

@>-->>---

feliz navidad desde bakersfield

2006-12-24T12:33:00.001-08:00

merry christmas
Originally uploaded by lamusa.

drive

2006-12-20T23:27:00.000-08:00

i took an old drive last weekend. that is, i took a drive that i used to make several times a year during a certain period of my life. east on seventh standard to the I-5; north on the five one hundred and seventy miles; west on the 152 through the mountains; north on the 101 all the way to the bay.

that was my route to and from the bay area from 1993-1999. i knew those roads like the back of my hand--every truck stop, patches of agriculture, every mountain pass, reservoir, traffic spots, etc. i used to make mix tapes that would fill the hours of my trip. i used to arrive at my destination hoarse from singing the entire way.

i used to enjoy those drives, the time that it gave me to think.

i stopped driving those kinds of long distances once i moved to texas. i didn't have family that i would drive to visit. there were trips to the valley, but those were few and far between. most of my traveling was by plane. the brief and halting flights and layovers from austin to bakersfield never held the same rhythm or inspired the same kind of meditation as my long drives. it probably has something to do with seeing the landscape, now that i think about it.

in any event, i found myself making a long drive last weekend. i had forgotten how tiring it can be in the car, how your eyes grow weary, your shoulders stiffen, and your lower back begins to ache. then there is the helplessness you feel when traffic comes to a halt on the interstate because of an accident.

nevertheless, i found myself enjoying the drive. my mix tapes have yielded to a car adapter for my ipod, and now i can chat on my cell phone with joseph, but much of the experience is the same. there are the almond groves i remember on seventh standard; the seemingly miles and miles of cattle at harris ranch; the reservoir off of the 152; the old farm houses and farms along the way.

these are some of the things that i enjoy about being back in california--the land and the memories that it elicits. these are some of the things that i enjoy about being back home.

@>-->>---

forbidden fruit

2006-12-13T18:24:00.000-08:00

one of the nice things about my university is that there are citrus trees all over campus. most of them are identifiably oranges or grapefruits, but some of them, unidentified.

saturday afternoon, i enlisted joseph--who was visiting for the weekend--to haul some boxes of books to my office. (yes, i do know how to exploit my boyfriend). on our way out, i noticed that the oranges on the tree behind my office building had ripened to a deep orange color. i didn't even think about it, just reached out and plucked the fruit off the tree.

i offered it to joseph, telling him that it was probably de-licious, being fresh from the tree and all. he questioned a) whether it had been legal for me to pick it, and b) whether or not it would be suitable for consumption.

i decided to keep the orange for myself and packed him a trader joe's orange when he left for the airport the next day. i ate the orange later in the afternoon. it was pretty good, but not the best orange i've ever had.

anyhow, yesterday i participated in a tour of campus for new faculty. our tour guide made a special point to highlight all the citrus trees around campus, telling us that, prior to the 1950s, the university was a citrus experiment station. she informed us that the university still performs such operations, and that all of the trees on campus are filled with "experimental" fruit. furthermore, the university apparently fines people hundreds of dollars for picking its fruit!

i'm thinking that a) it's a good thing nobody saw me, and b) it's a good thing i haven't (thus far) experienced any side effects from the experimental fruit!

in any event, i can't help but think it interesting that all of a sudden i find myself to be a woman who has partaken of forbidden fruit. ;)

@>-->>---

bare feet

2006-12-08T13:13:00.000-08:00

i stole this video idea from la xicanista.

THIS is the shakira whose songs i sang at the top of my lungs during my drives from stanford to bakersfield and back during the mid-1990s. before her cross over.

notice that her hair is long. and straight. and black. and she's fully clothed.

i have always loved this song. my favorite line is

las mujeres se casan siempre antes de treinta, si no vestirán santos aunque así no lo quieran.

ten years ago, who could have predicted that i would be an unmarried mujer de treinta (y uno)?

i still haven't crossed over. ;)

@>-->>---

'tis the season

2006-12-06T18:35:00.000-08:00

it always amazes me that just as thanksgiving weekend slips by, christmas suddenly appears.

though winter is somewhat of a fiction in southern california, i returned to find christmas lights and trees and wreaths decking every corner. it's nice that christmas is finally settling in to town. the past few weeks as the sun sets earlier and earlier, and the day hours become darker, i've felt considerably less productive. i've just wanted to come straight home from the office, put on my sweats, make a hot dinner, and cozy up on the couch to talk to joseph or watch primetime (he knows which shows not to interrupt!).

nevertheless, though i had imagined the quarter coming to a quiet winter end, it seems to be becoming more frantic. the last two weeks of the quarter are, apparently, when committees convene for one last meeting and all the departments and centers decide to host holiday potlucks (why doesn't anybody cater?). my schedule is more full now than it has been during most of the quarter.

but it's just a matter of getting through all of the last minute frenzy. soon the quarter will be over, and the students will depart. i will submit my grades and make my own northern departure. i'll have some work to do--planning next quarter's class, working on an article revision--but i hope to spend a lot of time with my family and friends. much more than festive decorations, meetings, or potlucks, that time is what makes christmas matter for me.

@>-->>---

hope for future ph.d.s

2006-11-27T12:46:00.000-08:00

joseph sent this article to me this morning.

i enjoyed this piece, because the author addresses the following misconceptions about ph.d.s:

* Ph.D.s are unemployed and can't get jobs.
* Ph.D.s are chronically underpaid.
* There are far more Ph.D.s out there than faculty jobs for them.
* The Ph.D. degree is so specialized that you can't get any other kind of job.
* It costs a fortune to get a Ph.D.
* It takes forever to get a Ph.D.

i have to admit that i had resigned myself to the truth of some of these myths, telling myself that the degree was worth the underemployment risk because a) i love to teach, b) i enjoy my research, and c) i like the flexibility of a professor's schedule.

in fact, the biggest misconception that the author addresses is that ph.d.s are hard pressed to find a job. however, according to the article, it might be better to say that it is a challenge to find a job in the academy. there are other job prospects for ph.d.s in industry (e.g., consulting, nonprofit work, research) that, in fact, pay higher salaries than their university employer counterparts.

although i feel incredibly lucky to have my tenure track job, this article makes me feel as if it wouldn't have been the end of the world had i been forced to work outside of the academy. and just in case, in seven years, if i'm not granted tenure, maybe i'll end up with a pay raise. ;)

@>-->>---

weekend frenzy

2006-11-20T18:45:00.000-08:00

the san jose airport seems as if it has grown out of its allotted space.

the security lines are one long snake. the terminals are couched with mini-restaurants on one side and rows of grey seats on the other, providing only the most essential three foot space to maneuver carry on luggage to the appropriate terminal.

the afternoon sun shines blindingly through the terminal windows. the flight is delayed.

every year i go to this anthropology meeting, knowing that it is what i should do; it's a professional obligation. but i never feel as if anyone notices whether or not i'm there. thousands of anthropologists descend upon the conference city, the conference site. i would say that the presence of most people goes unnoticed, unless, of course, you are an academic superstar.

in recent years, i had been on the job market, which, let me say, made the anthropology meetings much less fun. as a job seeker i had to be on my best behavior and in my best clothes, trying seem intelligent and self-assured when i felt nothing of the sort.

this year was actually quite nice. in terms of professional development, i was able to spend some time with one of my favorite UC anthropologists. i admire his work (and his attitude toward academia) so much. it's still difficult for me to imagine that now we're actually friends/colleagues. i was invited to present on a really great panel this year. there were a couple of "superstars" on the panel (not me; clearly, i'm still a "junior scholar"), and so it was pretty well attended. it was exciting to be in the middle of such a panel. and it seemed that the audience was very engaged, asked a lot of interested/interesting questions.

the other nice aspect of the weekend was that i was able to spend some time with old friends. obviously, there was a good showing of texas anthropologists; the annual anthropology conference functions, in part, as a class/departmental reunion. also, because this year's conference was in the bay area, i was able to spend some time with a couple of old college friends and then the weekend with my sister and her new husband.

the fact that i was able to squeeze in some cumbia dancing inbetween all of that was like the cherry on top. ;)

at the san jose airport, i know that my weekend has come to an end.

southwest does its cattle call--members of groups A, B, C all file into whatever available seats they can find. i settle into an empty seat between two women. we don't attempt conversation. just spend the 45 minute flight reading and writing. before i know it we have started our descent into ontario.

i read somewhere once that the sunsets in heavily polluted areas are beautiful because of the way the pollution filters the waning light. i remember this tidbit of information as i look out the window and see a ribbon of burgundy at the hoizon, pumpkin shades of orange above that, pale yellows, and then the slightest hint of green before the blue of twilight.

the plane touches down y me persigno, grateful for my safe arrival.

@>-->>---

neither here nor there

2006-11-19T19:27:00.000-08:00

this is interesting...

You're totally like 58% California!

Hmmm... you have some definite memories of this place... maybe you were born here but moved away as a child. Or you live in Fontana. Whatever. Come back someday!

How California are You?

i guess i'm more texan than californian?

@>-->>---

tejana?

2006-11-19T19:14:00.000-08:00

i'm actually a little embarrassed that i didn't score higher on this test.

You are 80% REAL Texan!!

You're way more Texan than average. You're parents were probably from here too. We're glad to have you. You probably go to the border for Christmas shopping and are well versed in BBQ, Mexican Food and .. well thats pretty much it.

How Texan Are You?

my girlfriends, olga and laura, both scored more texan than i did! i'm not worthy of their tejana company. :(

and let's not mention it to my sixth generation texan boyfriend!

@>-->>---

november falling

2006-11-15T13:22:00.000-08:00

november is typically my favorite month. i enjoy the fall, even though i've always lived in places where autumn feels more like "summer light."

if i'm very honest, i think that i enjoy november because it's my birthday month. who doesn't enjoy their own personal holiday? even if it does mean another candle on the birthday cake (or, in my case, birthday torte).

but this year it's all gone by too quickly. i spent the days leading up to my birthday doing a "best of," whirlwind tour of austin with my friends while also writing a conference paper.

ten days later (today), i find myself preparing for another departure. same conference paper, different conference. this one in san jose.

i'll come back sunday and then fly to san jose AGAIN on wednesday so that i can spend thanksgiving with my family in northern california this year.

then the fall is over. and there will be two weeks left of classes, and, all of a sudden, my first quarter as a professor will have ended.

that was quick! just blink, and it's passed. kind of makes me nervous for the other things that might be passing me by!

@>-->>---

hiatus and a new home

2006-11-05T17:34:00.000-08:00

the problem with taking a long blog hiatus is that, when it comes time to post again, you hardly know where to begin.

well. first things first. i moved to a new city. i now live in one of the less glamorous parts of california. sometimes, it's beautiful. the town is nestled on the cusp of the desert and the edge of the mountains; the landscape is much more striking than what i'd experienced in texas. but some days the smog is so thick, you can't even see the mountains. and you feel a little nervous that you are breathing the same brown air you see at the horizon. and then there are times that you feel like you might be sitting for days in traffic. but that's just southern california, i suppose.

second. i started a new job. sometime during the first or second week of the quarter, i was walking from my office to my class. i could hear the click clack of my heels on the floor; i had my lecture notes and my books in my over-the-shoulder black bag. the students around me--all young, dressed in slouchy clothes and flip flops--were filing into their buildings, their classrooms. and all of a sudden it hit me: i'm a professor!

i have those occasional surges of happiness when i realize that, after all these years of studying, i'm doing what i always wanted to do. there are also moments of anxiety when people talk to me about publications and university service and tenure. but mostly, i've been able to take the job in stride.

i miss my friends in austin. and i miss austin. but everyone assures me that i'm in an adjustment period. that it's just a matter of time before this feels like home, too.

@>-->>---

48 Things You Could Care Less About

2006-10-29T21:14:00.000-08:00

i've been shamed into writing and tagged with this meme. i know that this isn't a "real" blog post. but it's a little something. i'll write something substantial soon.

+++

1. FIRST NAME? Jennifer

2. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? I believe that I was named after Jennifer O'Neill, a model/actress who was famous in the 70s.

3. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY? wednesday morning.

4. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? yes, unless i'm writing in a hurry.

5. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCHMEAT? turkey.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? i think so. but i might get on my nerves from time to time. ;)

7. DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL? yes. i have kept a journal consistently since 1991. it takes me 3-6 months to finish one, so I have roughly 45 of them in storage between bakersfield and my new apartment!

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? yes.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? not even if you paid me.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? honey bunches of oats with almonds. yum.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? no

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? yes

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR? it really depends on my mood. sometimes a thick, gooey chocolate (like ben and jerry's fudge brownie); other times a nice light servng of strawberries with vanilla ice cream from blue bell hits the spot.

14. SHOE SIZE? seven

5. RED OR PINK? red

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? i overanalyze things.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? I'd say my boyfriend, but we talk on the phone all the time and have managed to see each other once a month since I moved to California. So instead I'm going to say my friends from Austin.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? nah

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS, SHIRT AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? blue flannel pajama pants with purple and white snowflakes. purple sweatshirt. light brown slippers with fuzzy insides. (very stylish, i know)

20. LAST THING YOU ATE? flavored rice cakes.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? lila downs' "border" album.

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? the closest crayon color to ocean blue (not necessarily aqua).

23. FAVORITE SMELL? roses

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? joseph

25. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE YOU ARE ATTRACTED TO? face, probably specifically his eyes. then if he's smart. ;)

26. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON you stole THIS from? i honestly say that Olga is one of the coolest kids i know.

27. FAVORITE DRINK? i'll give a shout out to olga's boyfriend, bill, here. i love the dessert cocktail he makes at Fino. it has espresso, Godiva chocolate liqueur, vanilla infused cognac, a touch of cream, and a hint of orange.

28. FAVORITE SPORT? probably basketball. i like to watch the playoffs. go spurs!

29. EYE COLOR? very dark brown.

30. HAT SIZE? this is an embarrassing question. my head is typically too big for most hats. :(

31. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? nope.

32. FAVORITE FOOD? i love indian food. but i also love my mom's lasagna. yum.

33. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? i can't bear to watch scary movies. happy endings all the way.

35. SUMMER OR WINTER? summer? i don't know. i like spring!

36. HUGS OR KISSES? hugs.

37. FAVORITE DESSERT? my sister's homemade apple pie. to borrow a phrase from my boyfriend, it is "greatness."

38. WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? i think Laura should respond, because she is bound to want a break from postdoc-ing.

39. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? ???

40. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING? just stuff for school. chicana without apology by edén torres. next week it will be a reader in latina feminist theology.

41. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE Pad? no mousepad. but if i had one, i'd want this one:

42. WHAT DID YOU WATCH LAST NIGHT ON TV? i didn't watch TV last night. i hung out with my family and talked to my boyfriend on the phone.

43. FAVORITE SOUNDS? soft rain (not storms), female mariachi singers who can belt it out, the violin, family/friends' laughter.

44. ROLLING STONE OR BEATLES? beatles

45. THE FURTHEST YOU'VE BEEN FROM HOME? rome

46. WHAT'S YOUR SPECIAL TALENT? my fingers are double jointed

47. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? bakersfield, CA.

48. WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? olga lydia

Book Meme

2006-09-13T18:42:00.000-07:00

Olga tagged me with this meme last week.

1. One book that changed your life: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. i was 17 years old when a crush recommended this book to me. though i considered myself a voracious reader at that age, i had never read anything written by a mexican american. after this book, i started to seek out other chicano/a literature. also, as a nascent feminist, this book provided the basis for my first college term paper--elements of feminism in the house on mango street. ;)

2. One book that you've read more than once: Loving Pedro Infante by Denise Chavez. i LOVE this book. it makes me laugh and cry every time i read it, but i think that, more than anything, i love the feeling of redemption at the end of the novel.

3. One book you'd want on a desert island: probably some poetry anthology.

4. One book that made you laugh: Drink Cultura by Tony Burciaga. i read this book bit by bit at the stanford bookstore when i was an undergrad. his writing is not only witty, but also culturally astute.

5. One book that made you cry: The Chin Kiss King by Ana Veciana Suarez. i read this book years ago and don't remember many of the details, just that it was about the relationships between mothers and daughters. i remember that i was sobbing as i turned the last pages.

6. One book you wish had been written: A Mexican American version of Interpreter of Maladies. does anyone know of a book that illustrates the various experiences of culture, class, and transnationalism of mexicans/chicanos in america?

7. One book you wish had never been written: Who Cut the Cheese?: A Cultural History of the Fart by Jim Dawson. i saw this on display by the registers at Half Price Books in texas. why???

8. One book you're currently reading: just finished On Beauty by Zadie Smith.

9. One book you've been meaning to read: mostly school books, Chicana Without Apology and Chicana Feminisms are next on the list (because I have to teach them this quarter!)

10. Six people to tag: Kelly, Vanessa, Joel, Lo, HP, and Cincy . i'd love to know what all of you are reading. :)

@>-->>---

anniversary

2006-09-11T21:06:00.000-07:00

my parents celebrated their anniversary this past weekend.

the story is that my dad asked mom to marry him after one month. she apparently said no the first time he asked. but they were married almost exactly one year after they first met, thirty three years ago.

"how did you know, after one month, that you wanted to marry her?" i asked him recently.

"i don't remember!" he says. "i guess because she was nice to me."

that seemed simple enough.

later in the day, however, while he, my mom, and i were driving somewhere, he said to me, "i remember now. it's because your mom was a hottie!"

she turned to look at him innocently. "i was?" she asked.

it seems like a small miracle occurs when you meet someone and decide that you want to spend the rest of your life with that person. it seems like a bigger miracle when you actually make it through thirty three years together, having brought children into the world and watched them grow into adults, having witnessed births and deaths in your families, seeing career changes, living through sickness and health, and still enjoying your favorite restaurants, your quiet nights at home, the moments you still laugh at each other's cheesy jokes. it's thirty three years of life, entangled with love.

muchas felicidades a mis papás. que sigan disfrutando de la vida y del amor.

@>-->>---

"porque le gusta bailar cumbia..."

2006-09-03T20:53:00.000-07:00

one of my dad's cousins celebrated his 70th birthday this weekend. to honor this milestone, his children organized a surprise birthday party last night. there were balloons and candy. catered mexican food and cake. amidst blue and gold balloons, a DJ that played rancheras.

after we had all wished the birthday boy well and eaten our fill, the DJ played a special song for my dad's cousin and his wife. after another ballad, the DJ transitioned into an upbeat cumbia.

now, i love to dance cumbia. LOVE. but had no partner. and besides, there was only one girl dancing with one of her uncles.

then he played a selena cumbia. more women got up to dance, and i thought, i can dance with them. one of my dad's cousins, who was sitting at my table, looked at me and said, "let's go!"

so we stepped and twirled under the low lights and amid the artificial smoke the DJ stand was producing.

back to back selena cumbias and there were all kinds of women on the dance floor, ranging in age from four years old to late fifties. all whooping and hollering and having a blast to bidi bidi bom bom.

the DJ switched to some 70s funk, and many of us sat down to rest and drink water. probably realizing that he gathered the best crowd on the dance floor with cumbias, he started spinning more.

there weren't many more of those moments, however, when there were all women dancing together. husbands asked their wives, nieces asked their uncles, sisters asked their brothers to dance. even my parents were out on the dance floor for a song or two.

all the coupling, of course, made me miss my boyfriend. but, bless his heart, he is still honing his dance skills. i really missed olga, my ex-roommate, who is my tried and true favorite cumbia dance partner.

so i sat through most of the remainder of the evening, tapping my fingers on the table to the cumbia rhythms and tucking my feet under my white plastic chair. i found myself admiring the couples on the dance floor, marveling at the grace that comes with dancing with the same dance partner for thirty years, and imagining that, in twenty more years, that could be me. maybe dancing more slowly, wearing not such high heels, but still enjoying el bailar cumbia.

@>-->>---

reunion

2006-08-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

friday afternoon, my parents and i loaded their car with weekend luggage and embarked on a 3 1/2 hour journey north, from bakersfield to watsonville.

it seems that most of the highways in central california that head west are small and curve--sometimes gently, sometimes dramatically--through the mountains. the summer heat begins to break somewhere north of paso robles. and we noticed that right around salinas, a herd of grey clouds completely absorbed the sun.

i'm amazed at how different the northern california coast is from the central valley. the crisp air, the chill after sunset, the gray overscast mornings. i was glad that i had dug through my boxes of clothes for jeans and a couple of sweatshirts (items of clothing that i would never wear during this time of year in bakersfield!). it was a welcome relief from the valley's relentless summer heat and haziness.

i hadn't seen my sister in six months, since her wedding. i had been in texas all that time, while she and her husband had been settling into their new home and their new life together.

we shared meals, watched movies, toured beautiful capitola village and santa cruz. my brother drove over from modesto on saturday, so we found ourselves enjoying a kind of family reunion. just catching up, enjoying each other's company.

if i'd had more foresight, i would have planned to stay another couple of days with my sister and her husband. but i realize that, now that i'm back in california, there will be plenty of opportunities to visit. watsonville is a short (and inexpensive southwest airlines) plane ride away from southern california.

this past weekend reminded me why i've always coveted the jobs at california universities--because of their proximity to my family.

and now i don't have to covet any more. :)

@>-->>---

disorientation

2006-08-23T22:56:00.000-07:00

i jumped in my car yesterday, ascended into the mountainous terrain of the grapevine, and finally descended into the smoggy los angeles basin, to touch base at my new job.

i got a late start and arrived just before lunch. rather than pester the administrative staff into helping me run my errands right before their lunch, i decided to wait. i'd find a quaint place for lunch around campus and be at the department door by 1PM.

everywhere i drove in the campus vicinity was packed, and there was no parking anywhere. i thought to find the local california pizza kitchen (yum), called and got directions. it turned out that the CPK worker who got my call misdirected me. i ended up back in the neighborhood where i had been apartment hunting the week before. determined, i pulled over, pulled out my map, and tried to figure out where i had gone wrong.

i found my way on the map, but decided that i no longer had time for a restaurant lunch. instead i pulled into a shopping center and saw a taquería. i parked illegally at vons (vons customers only!) since there was no parking anywhere else and had a satisfying lunch--un taco de carne asada y un taco al pastor, por favor.

back on campus, the administrative staff gave me a laundry list of things to do:

move books (that i had previously shipped to the department) to my office
check out office!
get keys
go to parking services for a permit
get university faculty (!) ID card
consult with IT guru who would assess my computer needs

i drove and walked around campus all afternoon. my final trip was to the library, where i needed to find books for the course i'm planning and an article i'm writing. though it was a hassle to check out the books since i am only semi-in the system, i was pleased when the student worker mistook me for a student. i have to confess that even i am having a difficult time wrapping my mind around the idea that i'm now a professor.

everyone keeps telling me how exciting it is to be moving to a new city, working at this university.
it is exciting. but it's kind of overwhelming, too. to be the new girl. to not know where i'm going. to constantly ask for directions. to be turned around. to not really know anyone. i suppose the enormity of southern california, with all of its pollution and crisscrossing highways and traffic, doesn't help much.

but i have to remind myself that, at one time, i was the new girl in austin. and i didn't know a soul. i was completely disoriented, having moved to a new state (!), a new city, and a new university. but that worked out pretty well.

and though it's difficult to imagine loving any place like i do austin, i guess i need to go into this new place with an open mind. and probably an open heart, too.

@>-->>--

being mexican american

2006-08-20T20:53:00.000-07:00

when i was an undergraduate, it was an ongoing joke among my family that i was a "born again mexican."

it was true. in college, at the urging of a boy on whom i had a crush, i read my first chicana novel (the house on mango street) and was shocked to find--along with that book--an entire section of chicano/latino studies at the stanford bookstore. there were books on everything--literature, history, politics, social science, art, etc. i couldn't believe that i had never been exposed to any of it throughout the entire course of my primary and secondary education.

i was enthralled. maybe even a bit obsessed. with being mexican american.

twelve years later (yikes!), i complete my Ph.D. in social anthropology, with an emphasis on borderland studies, and a doctoral portfolio in mexican american studies.

two months after my graduation, at my sister's wedding, one of my cousins teases, "so you finally finished your degree in being mexican???"

i laugh. yes, i guess i have.

i've been thinking about this lately because now i'm in bakersfield, which is a fairly conservative town, and people have been asking what i do.

i tell them that i'm going to be a professor of chicano studies.

and then i brace myself.

not for a fight necessarily, but for the questions. and the (mis)perceptions.

saturday afternoon, my best friend introduced me as a professor to a coworker. upon hearing that i would be teaching chicano/a studies, he started to grill me about the issues--immigration and labor, art and religion!

later that evening at a party, a young farmer asked if was going to teach an entire class about césar chávez.

"no... not an entire class," i replied and wondered if he was relieved.

i think that chicano/a studies really is about being mexican and mexican american in the united states. but the truth is that our experiences are so varied that chicano/a studies scholars could study forever and never know it all. i suppose it doesn't help that our culture continues to change with each subsequent generation, with the different regions where we settle, the people we encounter, the kind of education we receive, etc., etc.

i now find myself talking about being mexican american all the time, even teaching it. it's funny because most of the time, i wish people would just let me be.

@>-->>---

homecoming

2006-08-14T22:19:00.000-07:00

two weeks ago, at 6AM, i am crying and indignant when an airport worker tells me that i have been bumped to the next flight, which is scheduled to leave in SIX hours.

after much sniveling and whining and generally trying to make everyone feel sorry for me, one young airline worker finds a flight that will deliver me to albuquerque only three hours after my original flight would have.

the airline would pay ($271) for a taxi to drive me one hundred miles to fresno where i could catch my saving flight. i had one hour and forty five minutes to make it.

minutes later, an 80's model ford painted yellow appears and stops at the curb. a 22-year old goth-type girl steps out lightly, asks to see my voucher and springs back into the car as i settle into the backseat.

"do you know how to get to the fresno airport?" she asks me.

"no..." i say, hardly hiding my surprise at her question.

she gets on her CB and calls her dispatcher. "i don't have a cellphone, and i need you to give me directions to the fresno airport."

i understand this to mean that once we are out of her CB radio's range, we are on our own.

she dutifully writes down the directions as her dispatcher dictates them to her, and we are off.

my goth girl taxi driver averages 90-100 miles per hour, weaving around cars on the two lanes that head north on the 99 freeway. after some close calls and jerky driving, i decide it best to close my eyes and try to catch up on some sleep.

secretly, i am grateful for her speed demon ways; i'm afraid that i will miss the flight and have to travel back with her to bakersfield.

soon we are in fresno and both looking for our exit.
we never see the exit the dispatcher has told her to take.

finally, we come to the northern end of the city to the clinton exit. she says that clinton is that last street the dispatcher has told her to take. we get off the freeway, both of us unsure which direction we should head.

i suggest she stop at a gas station to ask for directions.
she ignores my suggestion.

we pull up alongside a white SUV. a 30-something year old mexicano drives. my taxi driver manually rolls down her window and yells, "hey! hey! is this this the road we take the airport?!"

a blank stare. and he drives ahead.

disgruntled, my driver grumbles to me, "i forgot that in FRESNO nobody speaks ENGLISH!"

i am startled and have to remind myself that i am not in my liberal, PC, austin bubble any more. i remain quiet.

until we pull up to the white SUV again at a traffic light. this time the driver is on my side of the car.

i roll down my window and yell, "oiga! está el aerpuerto por esta calle?"

"el aeropuerto? no. está por la... ah sí. está por la clinton."

"está muy lejos?"

"sí, son varias luces."

my driver looks at me expectantly. "it's way down the street," i tell her.

as we tear down the street, the white SUV catches up to us. i turn my head toward the window and the driver, not a bad looking guy actually, raises his eyebrows at me suggestively. i laugh and shake my head, turn away. no, no, i think. i mean, i guess we did share a moment. i've always been good at playing the damsel in distress. why do men love that so much?

she delivers me to the airport curb at 9AM, the exact time when my flight is to begin boarding. i run through security, and am at the gate just in time.

though i am actually leaving the valley, i know that i've arrived.

@>-->>---

moving

2006-07-16T20:39:00.000-07:00

two weeks from tonight, i will most likely be spending the night in las cruces, new mexico.
all of my furniture will have been sold and/or donated to goodwill. my essential belongings--books, clothes, CDs--will have been shipped or packed into the trunk of my car.
our apartment will be empty and clean.
my roommate will be moved in (or at least partially moved in) to her new apartment.
and i will have said my good-byes, my see-you-laters to this city, to the people i love in this city, holding the hope that i will come back for visits.

i hate moving.

california will be great.
i'm so lucky to have this job. especially at a research university. in california. three hours from home.
it's nothing against california.
but i love my life in austin.

it was always going to be temporary. and, to be honest, those first two years, i wanted to miracle myself back to california every day. but here i am, nearly seven years later, wanting nothing more than to hold on.

but i'm forced to keep moving.

@>-->>---

the magic valley

2006-07-11T21:35:00.000-07:00

las nubes, courtesy of chicanoblogs
Originally uploaded by lamusa.

i moved to the rio grande valley nearly four years ago, during the middle of a very hot texas summer. though i was moving to my mom's hometown of la feria, i did not have the cushion of family to help my stay. my mother's family had migrated from mexico to texas, and then from texas to california. our relatives on her side of the family live either in mexico or in california.

though my mother had introduced me to her padrinos, a very sweet couple in their 80s, who live in "el rancho" (in english, they call it "the country"), i was basically on my own to make friends and to find community.

i spent a little over a year in la feria doing field work for my dissertation. and while my time there was for research, it became personal. the people i met in la feria helped me to grow not only as an anthropologist, but also as a human being. (grad school sometimes has the nasty habit of making you kind of more "intellectual," less "emotional/sensitive").

the day i left la feria, i cried in the car long after we had left the city limits.

one would think that i would welcome any opportunity to go back. but i have to admit that it's difficult for me. it's hard to be a visitor in a town where i used to live so fully. does that make sense?

i hate how everything changes without me. that people don't recognize me as readily. that i have no place of my own to return to at the end of the day.

and so i rarely indulge in trips to la feria. in fact, i hadn't been in a little over a year until this past week. i begin to forget why i loved it so much there.

but after a few days in the valley, i fall in love again. catching up with old friends, marveling at how everything continues to move forward, to change and stay the same. being in the valley with joseph probably made the trip even more vivid, because he was seeing it all for the first time. it was nice to see how he was falling in love with it, too.

at the end of the weekend, we began the long drive back to austin, me with a lump in my throat, and vowing to return. even if just as a visitor.

@>-->>---

a domestic scene in dallas

2006-07-02T21:07:00.000-07:00

we entered through the side door because of construction just behind the front door.
joseph introduced me to his grandfather as our eyes became accustomed to the dim, indoor light.
"a sus ordenes," his grandfather introduced himself.

joseph, his grandpa, and i took seats at the kitchen table while a neighbor continued to work on the floor in the living room. our conversation was punctuated by sounds of electric sawing.

i knew that joseph's grandmother had passed away some years ago, but noticed food on the stove burners. i wondered if his grandpa cooked for himself. joseph's grandfather offered him a bud light and me, a soda. when he opened the refrigerator i saw a tall clay olla and imagined there to be frijoles pintos inside.

we sat around the kitchen table, me sipping my squirt, the men sipping their beers.

his grandfather asks, "asi que ya te casaste joseph!"

no, no, joseph replied, she's my girlfriend.

the grandfather contemplated this for a moment before asking, "y cuando se van a casar?"

we explained that we'd only been dating two months.

oh.

we talked about this and that. the grandfather's relationship with his deceased wife, the effort it takes to make a relationship work. then he looks at me and asks, "sabe echar tortillas?"

the "usted" verb form and the use of the verb "echar" momentarily throw me off.

"yo?!" i stammer, my jaw droppping slightly. is he really asking me if i know how to make tortillas???

he goes on to say that this is a different generation. it's easier to go to the store and buy tortillas than to make them by hand.

i tell him that i *have* made tortillas before, but that i usually buy them from the store.
he doesn't seem to judge.

(joseph later tells me not to worry, that i can learn! i tell him that i'm NOT worried because he can learn, too!).

the grandfather is funny and wise, and we enjoy listening to his stories, his advice, and his perspective.

when he walks us out the door, he asks us to invite him to the wedding.

@>-->>---

a lapse...historical memory

2006-07-02T20:55:00.000-07:00

memorial and sky
Originally uploaded by lamusa.

for someone who just finished writing a dissertation that serves as an historical ethnography, my historical memory is remarkabley poor. i had completely forgotten that dallas was the city where jfk was shot in 1963.

joseph led me around the memorial, past the book depository from where lee harvey oswald took his aim and shot, to the grassy knoll where onlookers saw jfk's motorcade pass.

we decided against paying $8 to peruse the "conspiracy museum," but there were plenty of conspiracy theorists peddling thier literature around the grassy knoll.

through the rain

2006-07-02T20:45:00.000-07:00

luz
Originally uploaded by lamusa.

though saturday a thunderstorm spoiled (soaked, really) our afternoon plans, i really enjoyed spending time at the catholic cathedral downtown. erected to honor la virgen de guadalupe, the sanctuary boasted gracefully arched high ceilings and simple white walls adorned with beautiful stained glass windows.

recuerdos de dallas

2006-07-02T20:42:00.000-07:00

vista del centro de noche
Originally uploaded by lamusa.

this evening marks a full week since i've been back from my dallas trip.

the city was more lovely than i could have imagined. i found myself enchanted by the city's skyline at night. one evening, joseph and i enjoyed a drink at reunion tower, where we experienced three hundred and sixty degrees of the city at night.

chicano/as en dallas

2006-06-22T16:52:00.000-07:00

tomorrow i'm off to dallas.

not to mourn the fallen mavericks, but to finally acquaint myself with joseph's stomping grounds.

back in april, when i heard news of the dallas megamarch, i couldn't believe that dallas was home to 500,000 latinos who would march for immigrant rights. while the numbers surprised me, i imagined the latinos in dallas to be recent immigrants.

then i met joseph, who is a sixth generation dallas chicano. SIXTH generation.
his speech has a hint of drawl, and he says things like, "you *know* he had a come-to-jesus talk with her!" come to jesus? clearly he lives in the bible belt.
he is polite the way you imagine southerners to be, all "sir" and "ma'am" to strangers.
and he loves tejano music. while you hear other guys his age bumping hip hop in their cars, when joseph turns on his engine, it is puro tejano blaring through the speakers. little joe y la familia, ruben ramos, etc. etc.

joseph is texan AND tejano. and he has invested himself in documenting chicano dallas history. both the history of the community and the history of his family.

he has been educating me about dallas. not the dallas i've seen on television--mostly stereotypes of big trucks, big hair, and rich oil barons--but a dallas that is home to raza. several generations of them.

and, of course, a dallas that is home to joseph.

@>-->>---

happy father's day

2006-06-18T21:47:00.000-07:00

in this picture (circa 1979), i bear a striking resemblance to my dad. i actually remember being photographed; i remember wanting to emulate his expression. i wanted to be just like him.

though these days, i am more the spitting image of my mom, i still believe myself to be deeply influenced by my dad.

when i was in high school, i told him that i wanted to learn about politics, and he encouraged me to read the editorial pages of the newspaper. in that way, he told me, i would get to read different peoples' opinions about poltical (or politicized) issues. he encouraged my high school involvement in speech and debate because i would be forced to understand and debate both sides of a particular issue.

though as a younger man, my dad was a democrat, he is now a moderate republican. i imagine that, over the years, it must have caused him some consternation that his eldest daughter had become so liberal. a chicana! a marxist! i don't know how he felt when i told him that i wanted to get a ph.d. in anthropology, but he never tried to dissuade me. he trusted me.

nonetheless, my father, the republican, always keeps me grounded. he quietly sends me articles and editorials he finds in the bakersfield californian or in the los angeles times. offers me a perspective he knows that i probably won't receive in liberal academia. we talk, in the most calm and rational way, about different political issues. he as open as i am to a different perspective. because i consider my dad to be a thinker, and because he has lived a longer and harder life than i have, i respect his opinion.

though i consider myself to be very independent, i am very much my parents' child, holding strongly to their integrity, their values, their stories and perspectives. and i'm grateful to be rooted in that way.

i love you, dad.

@>-->>---

water

2006-06-16T07:29:00.000-07:00

went for a swim a couple of nights ago at bartholomew park.
i arrived in a speedo racerback swim suit with goggles and a swim cap in hand, walked around the perimeter of the pool to the lanes they have roped off for lap swimming.

there was anarchy in the rest of the pool.

mostly black and brown children from ages five to fourteen, jumping and splashing, yelling in spanish and english. laughing in the bright blue water as the daylight waned. most congregated in the shallow end. each time i ended my lap on that side of the pool, a chubby mexican boy asked me if i could retrieve a small green ball his friends had thrown over his head and in to the lap lane.

the first time i obliged.
the second time i obliged with a look of exasperation on my face (he was ruining my stride!).
the third time, he said, "it's not my fault."
"i know, sweetie."
and then i witnessed the culprit throw the ball far above and beyond his head!
i told her that she was not supposed to throw anything into the lap lane.
then one of the life guards reprimanded the boy for venturing to the second lap lane (not the one i was in) to retrieve the ball.
"see?" i told the girl. "you got him in trouble." and i returned to my swim, wondering when i became such a cranky old lady.

i wasn't always this way.

every summer that i remember of my childhood, my mom used to enroll me and my sister (my brother, too?) in swimming lessons at siemon park. i think that she wanted us to conquer her fear of the water. and i think she wanted to get us out of her hair for part of those long summer days.

we happily obliged. all of the swim lesson kids would line up outside of the pool and be forced to walk through a corridor of cold water-spouting shower heads before each lesson. the instructors told us it was for us to become accustomed to the cold water so that we'd be more apt to jump into the pool. some of us would sprint through the showers to avoid the shock of cold water. others would creep along the sides of the corridor, carefully avoiding the water. if we weren't wet enough, the teachers would make us go through again.

other than the initial shock of cold water, the swimming lessons were great. i loved being in the water during the brutally hot summers in bakersfield. and my mother was right to assume that it would make me comfortable in the water.

to this day, i love the water. i love the feeling of weightlessness gliding through a swim. i love the silence under water, the peacefulness. being able to focus on the most basic things--my breath, my thoughts.

i see those kids at bartholomew pool, and i remember those summer days that were filled with sun and water. and think that someday those kids will be remembering the same things.

@>-->>---

punking out

2006-06-09T17:20:00.000-07:00

i've decided not to do the triathlon on sunday.

it is now friday, and i am still hobbling around the office. after my last swim training class last night, i noticed that my limp had become slightly worse.

so this is it for me. when i began the triathlon training in march, my goal was not to win, nor was it to beat my frenemy. i simply wanted to cross the finish line feeling strong. i imagined that, more than likely, i would be tired, but my hope was that i would also feel exhilirated.

i don't think that would happen on sunday. even if i were to jog/walk the 5K, i'd be overcompensating on my strong leg, essentially limping 3.1 miles. in the texas heat!

last night my swimming instructor asked me if i would ever compete in a triathlon if not the danskin.

"i'm only 30!" i responded. it's not as if i have one foot in the grave!

i have to confess, however, that this training has been special. the trainers for the group with whom i've been working, L.A.T.I.N.A.S, focus on creating a non-intimidating atmosphere to encourage women who don't necessarily see themselves as "athletes" to participate in these kinds of events.

and the women involved (frenemy included) are inspiring. they range in age from 18 to 40. some are students, others full time working women; some are mothers; some are single and swinging. all of us are at different levels of fitness. i've had a lot of fun with these women over the past few months, and feel like we've successfully created a fun and supportive community through our commitment to the tri training. we've come to believe in each other. and that has really made this training over the past few months--race or no race--worth it.

@>-->>---