Delphi

I've just been thinking that what one feels at seeing all these centuries on top of each other (that's what this trip seems to be largely about) cannot really be expressed by describing ruins and statues -- or at least, i can't. Besides, that's done in much detail elsewhere. Just a few flashes, though:

--the rock where the oracle-women sat for centuries, probably from before 2000 a.C. How much of the behavior of kings and tyrants did they determine from this squat, unremarkable thing? I imagine them like a succession of toads on a toadstool, old and blind, blindly guiding the throng of humanity that came to consult them. Did they possess any true wisdom? If not truly prescient, maybe they were able to look into people's needs, or into their society's... Did they ever get tired and simply spit forward prefabricated formulas of the future? "When the sun no longer shines on your path, remember that drachma coins are stamped on both sides". It's fun to think that maybe one of them saw me here, too, a man dressed strangely, sitting in the shade, sliding a stick accross a piece of paper; it's sad to know probably none of them did.

--a swimming pool among the ruins of the town's gymnasium. Round, 15 metres across, could still hold water. Served as a goat pen for over a thousand years, when even the name of Delphi had turned into a legend and the people who now lived here didn't even know such a place had ever existed. Walking among the monuments of their ancestors perhaps they thanked them for building such sturdy sties.

--cats basking in the winter sun, among all these fallen human glories.

--a marble statue of Antinoo, so perfect, beautiful and life-like after lieing buried in a mountainside for 100 times the duration of its model's life... Neck and parts of the body still shining, as if the sculptors's hands had just finished polishing the white stone; tiny holes among his locks, where a golden laurel crown was once anchored. Story has it Antinoo drowned in a river to save his lover, some roman emperor or other. The bereaved was so devastated that he elevated Antinoo to godhood, and had him adored throught the empire. His cult survived for four centuries: he symbolized loyalty. I can't read it on his face, his expression is too forlorn. I think that, though the face be that of the dead, the sculptor put in it the expression of the one lover left alive.

--a corner of the sea in the distance. The ancient port through which pilgrims use to arrive in waves is now a fishers's village, pilgrims turned into 5 or 6 tourists with digital cameras. The whirring lenses, extending or retracting, try to capture the present. They'll have as much success as the oracle ever did with the future, i suppose.

Martha

Martha went to the shoe shop and saw that it was closed. She started screaming. Why?

She is claustrophobic.

Hah-hah.

Gythio

It's noon of a very pleasant day here in Gythio, and i'm on a tiny island right in front of town. Well, technically, it's not an island anymore, because someone's built a road that connects it to the mainland. On the farther side stands a lighthouse and i'm sitting on the coast, a few meters from it. From here i can see the middle finger of the Mani, all the way to its tip. It is, again, a mostly mountainous peninsula, but at stretches, towards the south, the land becomes lower, and at times it sinks under the horizon, so that the parts that emerge from it look like islands. The clear skies and the long views here make obvious the curvature of the Earth: people living in this area must have wondered about this in the oldest of times, perhaps not only philosophers or 'great' thinkers, but simple fishermen and farmers.

The rocks i'm sitting on have sharp edges, corroded by the rain. They are calcareous, porous, cratered as if fruit eaten by birds and striated and puckered, like elephant skin. If this kind of rock is common around here, there should be at least some caverns in the area. Must find out about that.

Onwards to Gythio

Am in Gythio, a tiny port in Lakonia. Got here by bus a couple of hours ago. The Peloponnesus is even more mountainous than central Greece: elevations are perhaps lower, but valleys are fewer and smaller. The light cloud cover over Athens became thicker as we moved west and south, and soon it was raining. The country looks, again, too green for winter, and olive and orange trees are everywhere, accompanied by the ever-present cypresses. The sun pierced the clouds here and there, falling now on the water of Saronikós Kolpós and later on the hills, until it set behind them.

Highlights along the way were the Corinth canal which, narrow and deep and smooth-walled, separates the Peloponnesus from the rest of the continent. Then there was Sparta, which i hope to visit on my way back north.

Speaking of Sparta, as we were leaving it a small Peloponnesian war erupted on the bus, and the main contenders were the bus driver and the man sitting next to me. Having as background not one but two cultures where people complain and argue loudly, the episode wasn't so unfamiliar to me, but it did get pretty scary at one point, as the two seemed on the edge of hitting each other. What they were yelling was all greek to me (har-har!), but basically it all started because some ten passengers got on the already full bus at the terminal in Sparta. The bus driver complained loudly at the guy who was checking the tickets, but nothing doing, they got on and had to stand on the aisle. Some started smoking and then there was also a strong smell of salami, and i thought "this is like home!" Of course, if the company has no more buses to send, we'll all make room. No problem with me, particularly as it was just another 45 k to Gythio. As they kept repeating this name, by the way, i also understood most of them would get off here.

In any case, we were still on our way out of the city when the bus stopped again, and some ten more people came aboard. The bus driver grumbled and fumed again, but the eruption actually took place right next to me: my seat companion yelled very loudly at the driver, the many 'a's and 'o's and 'u's of greek rising in volume, 's's and 'z's spewing everywhere. The driver reacted: he stood up, still yelling, and came towards us. The guy next to me got to his feet, too, and turned, as if to leave his seat; i leaned casually away, against the window, trying to take some distance from the approaching battle -- and from his butt, which was almost in my face now. We were on the third row, but before the driver could get too near, thankfully those on rows one and two intervened, as did most everyone else, standing and sitting, all the way back to the bottom of the bus. We spent some five to ten minutes like this, with this guy very aggressively shouting, the bus driver angrily answering back, not less loudly, and everybody else gabbling more or less conciliatorily.

From some gestures and hand signals, i thought i understood that the man next to me wasn't really bothered by the people standing, but more by the fact that he thought it quite unsafe for people to travel standing on a long distance bus. The road here is quite sinuous, after all... It then downed on me that we ARE in the European Union after all, for nobody back home would have made such a fuss over the matter (although, to tell the truth, our long distance buses in Argentina are luxurious, compared to any i've seen in either Europe or the US).

I also felt for the poor driver, as perhaps his choices were very limited. Maybe he would have gotten in trouble with his employers if he had decided not to take on the extra passengers. But then, aren't we in the European Union? Wouldn't he be protected by law?

Anyway, back to Gythio: a row of picturesque houses, cafes and tavernas alongside the shore, and the rest of the village rising behind, on a hill that rolls down almost to sea. Clouds parting, the moon over the water together with anchored fishing boats. My hotel window looks right out at this, over a tiny balcony.

An old cemetery

This afternoon I walked around Athens, from Syntagma to Omonia and then to the Keramikos, the cemetery of ancient times, which is basically a huge open-air museum of death through 15 centuries: from pre-classical Greece, through roman times and beyond. I sat on the grass in this necropolis for a couple hours, my head resting against the ancient city walls, surrounded by ruins, stele, sculptures and un-excavated mounds. I read a novel, and beyond this green, fenced-off island of sandwiched time, the city went on, uncaring: heavy traffic, smog, even trains, to my left, rumbling in and out of the ground.

More from Athens

Today i've remained in the Plaka section of Athens, visiting the Akropolis and the Agorá and walking through the many little winding streets in the neighborhood. I suppose i couldn't have done anything more touristy, but as there are not so many tourists this time of year, i didn't feel like such a schmuck. Besides, people here are such that they don't make you feel an outsider. Everybody smiles and is helpful. Maybe it's the season.

I liked the parthenon very much, and imagined Socrates sitting on its steps, talking to his students. He might have never done this, but then again, he might. The caryatids in the erechtheion were even more eye (and imagination) catching. Later i found out they are not the originals, but casts of them; nevertheless, i thought them fascinating. They are all slightly different in their dress and accoutrements, in the way their hair falls over their shoulders, and even in their pose. I also thought they looked quite suggestive, exposing one leg forward, barely covered by the rocky folds of thin clothes that, if real, would have been transparent. The classics must have been aware of the erotic element in these sculptures, and it must have been even stronger then, since in their society women were so covered and hidden. How would they have looked at sculptures in general? There are a few in the Acropolis museum and the stoa Attalou that are seriously hypnotic, even though many of them are mere fragments of lost wholes, or severely damaged by weather, pollution, martial conflicts or, that old favorite of mine, religious fanaticism. In spite of it all, treasure survives: an enigmatic face that seems to take in air through parted lips; a portrait of a serious, bearded man who obviously never heard a 'no' in his life; the weighty, robust and essentially masculine foreleg and shins of a wrestler; the exquisitely detailed toes of a rider by the heaving barrel chest of a horse – all else gone...

Later i walked to the theater of Dionysus, where the plays of Sophocles and Aeschylus were put up for the first time... over 2500 years ago! The stone seats are still there, and i sat on one for a while, imagining the actors and their voices, and wondering whose eyes might have been looking from the position of mine when Antigone or Oedipus Rex were performed first. Who might have been by my side? Who in front and behind me?

I climbed to the Areos Pagos, where around 50 a.d. saint Paul spilled the sermon to the athenians as it appears in the new testament (it was after that, i suppose, that they started defacing the sculptures that represented the deities and the work of their ancestors).

Then, in the Agorá, i tried to visualize the people that walked through these ruins when they weren't such, or those who might do so in the future, when as much time passes as has now passed since the now scattered marble blocks were whole buildings. What did/will they think? What were/will be their daily affairs and concerns? It's sweet not to know, and makes me want never to die.

I was seriously pooped after all the walking up and down and around the hillsides, so i stopped at a cafe and ordered an epanakotyropita (the only greek word i know, apart from ‘thank you’: efharisto!), which is a delicious cheese and spinach confection that i devoured in two minutes. I ordered another, and this time i took five.

Athens

Arrived in Athens a couple of hours ago and am now at a cyber on Syntagma square. The ferry, which was supposed to drop me in Igoumenitsa at 7:30, didn't get there until around 10:30, but the advantage was that i got to see the sun dawn over Kerkira, and it was majestic.



From Igoumenitsa i took a bus to Ioannina, and from there, at 14:30, to here. Getting from the Athens bus terminal to the hotel took about 45 minutes, as there's a public transport strike and traffic is crazier than usual – or so says the hotel manager.

My first impressions of Greece have been wonderful. The landscape, to begin with, is amazing. I was trying to compare it to other Mediterranean countries, but it's not possible. In the over 500 k of this land i've covered today, mountains are visible from everywhere (i guess that explains the ragged contour of the coast) but large valleys and plains are interspersed abundantly enough that there is a sense of openness wherever you are. As for the weather, it's an incredibly mild december. At 2:30 pm in Ioannina, northern Greece, it was 20C. Many trees and bushes are bare, and crops have already been harvested, yet the mixture of species seems incompatible: mountainsides are covered with scrawny xerophytes, yet rivers run everywhere and some trees, still green and luscious looking, grow in the valleys and hillsides. Many of them are covered by mats of ivy.

Alongside the roads (there is no true highway until 50 or 60 k out of Athens) you can see tiny shrines standing on poles perhaps a meter tall, some of them with offerings of candles and flowers. A few are quite elaborate and imitate miniature orthodox churches, but others are simply square boxes with some holy image inside and a cross on top. The only other place i've seen a similar practice is Argentina.

People are very friendly. There's again that harmonious chaos i saw in Bari, but people here are much more... receiving. Anyone you ask help of will try their best to give it, even when they can't understand what you're saying. The old lady sitting next to me on the bus insisted that i eat some of her chocolate, and the taxi driver offered me a cigarette every time he was about to smoke one himself – which he did three times in 45 minutes. I'd read somewhere greeks smoke a lot, and indeed, they do.

Athens doesn't seem dirty at all, though. Maybe it's because it's night and i haven't seen much yet, but all i can see is that it's bustling with life.

Crossing over

On the trip back from Greece i'll definitely upgrade my ticket, so that i can get a cabin to sleep in. It's 2:10 in the morning and i haven't been able to go truly under for more than a few minutes, although i've been trying since around 10:00 pm. At first i was a little seasick, because in spite of it's great size, the boat rocks a lot. I soon got over that though, but then the problem is that there are no comfortable seats to at least recline on. Am sitting at a bar, early deserted, but the chair is hard under my butt and my neck feels uncomfortable, whether i lay it on my arms on the table before me or on the wall behind. Legs and arms fall asleep in some positions and, since they do, i obviously can't.

So, i've decided to wake up, breakfast on the panettone i bought yesterday, and write and read a little.

Speaking of yesterday, it was an uneventful day. Woke up late, went to Feltrinelli and bought "I.O.U.", a book on third world debt cancellation that sounds promising. Spent a few hours reading it and drinking cappucinos. There is not much in the city of Bari that can't be seen in a day and, if there is, i've missed it. What i did in the afternoon was to sit for a long while on a bench by the coast, looking at the waves smash against the breakwaters, piqued by quite a heavy wind. I noticed that seagulls floated like kites in it, responding to strong gusts with those same sudden changes in flight direction i remember from my childhood. Bari has a definitely dramatic seafront.

- - - - o - - - -

My computer is running out of batteries, so i'll finish with this final comment: the love life of sharks is a truly complicated affair. With so many teeth going around, it is hell to kiss properly, and love bites are truly something to die for.

Strolling, and a strange talk

It's 11:46 pm and today has been a really eventful day.

I woke up early and walked down to the port, where i finally arranged to get a boat ticket to Greece. Am leaving for Igoumenitsa at 7:00 pm tomorrow, and will be arriving there on Thursday at 7:30 in the morning.

From the port i entered the old city and walked around its labyrinthine streets, visiting the cathedral and the norman-swabian castle. There wasn't much to see in the latter, as most areas are closed off, either because excavations are going on or due to repairs. On the other hand, the narrow winding ways and their chaotic traffic were quite charming. I read somewhere that in centuries past, when invading hordes threatened Bari, they were wary of entering this maze, as it was famous for the ease with which men got lost in it. Once they were disoriented, neighbors easily picked them off from roofs and windows.

Under a light rain, the place was a confusion of fruit vendors, fishermen (actually saw the tiny lights of their boats out on the bay yesterday night, from the plane), christmas decorations, smells and pastries, old italian ladies dressed like my grandmothers used to, cars and people sharing the strangled, unevenly paved lanes, the ancient limestone walls of still inhabited buildings, gnawed by time... Yet there is harmony in the way everything doesn't quite fit together. Nowhere in northern Europe can one see this organized discordance.

The high point of the day was my visit to the temple of santa Claudia. Beautiful construction in apulian romanesque style, and in one of the lateral naves there's the grave of the saint herself. There you can listen to small, intimate masses.

As i was leaving the building, i saw a woman come out of the confessionary, and another one go in. There was a tiny red light on the door next to the one she'd entered, indicating that the priest was in. And mimicking that light, an unlikely idea blinked on in my crazy brain: what if i were to go in next and talked to the priest about my experience as a homosexual man raised in the catholic tradition?

You see, a few weeks ago i wrote a dialogue on this blog, imagining such a talk. I feel christianity in general and catholicism in particular have been extremely negative forces in the lives of many gay people. Religion-inspired morals constitute the main factor that keeps homosexual matrimony from being legalized in most countries, but that is only the most visible of evils the church has inflicted on gay men and women: worst of all are the self-loathing, the guilt, the low self-esteem, the depressions that many go through. Because of the anger i feel at this, my imagined dialogue was quite simplistic: in it i left the priest without words or justification, made him apologize, humbled him as i believe the church should be humbled for the pain it's caused. Of course, i realized such a dialogue was unrealistic when i wrote it, not the least because, if i were now to use the aggressive and prideful tone my character uses on the text, the priest might simply tell me to go away (pride is always bad in a religious setting; have you noticed that?).

Besides, i really didn't want to attack the priest this time. I wanted to hear about the church's position on homosexuality from the mouth of a church-man. In spite of everything i've read about it, i'd never gotten the information from the source, and this was the perfect occasion.

So, while the woman was inside, i thought about how i was gonna go about it. First, i didn't want to tell the guy any lies about my background. Second, i wanted to be sincere about the way i saw things, but without attacking his organization. Third, i intended to remain as open-minded as possible. Fourth, i didn't want to tell this man what i thought the church should do, but rather hear what the church is doing. Fifth, i was determined to stay calm.

In the end, we talked for about 10 or 15 minutes. The priest struck me as very friendly from the moment i saw him. He must be in his mid-fifties and sports a thick, blond beard that doesn't hide the openness of his expression. His voice is calm. He was able to talk in a relaxed fashion about the issues i raised, much more easily and naturally than i'd expected. I wish i'd had a tiny tape recorder tucked somewhere but, having lacked it, here's a transcription of the talk, paraphrased and translated and as near-to-reality as i can remember it:

-- Come in, come in!

-- Good morning, padre. I'm actually not in here for confession, but because i would like to talk with you about something that's very important to me, if you have the time. I'm not from this city and although i was brought up catholic, i've grown distant from the church. I haven't been inside one as a worshipper in many years. Mainly this is because i'm disillusioned with it and yes, because of it, also with catholicism, particularly because of its views on homosexuality. I can't understand how love can be a sin. Why is it bad for two men who love each other and want to commit to share their lives to also share sex? Why is it impossible for them to get married in the eyes of the church?

-- OK. First, let me ask you: how did you actually become disillusioned with the church? Was it first hand experience that pushed you away from it?

-- Well, yes and no. As a young kid, i didn't feel i knew the priest well enough to talk to him about these things. He wasn't very accessible, but of course i'm talking about 15 or 20 years ago. Nevertheless, as i grew up and had to come to terms with my sexuality, i discovered that most of my problems with accepting myself could be traced back to the morals taught to me by the church. So yes, my priest wasn't very open or inspiring, but no, nobody i knew at my church was directly nasty to me because of my sexuality. There were other issues that made me lose faith in the organization, but they are not related to this.

-- I ask you because nowadays we priests get very particular directives on how to discuss this topic. It's more common than you might think, and many come to us to talk about their homosexual feelings, not only men, but also women. We know homosexuality has always existed, and that many famous people in the past, especially artists [?!?!?], have been homosexual. These are people with a superior sensitivity (that's why so many of them are artists) [again, !?!?!?], people who have difficult lives already, because they are surrounded by a society that's hostile to them. Only a few, and later, after much suffering, decide to live their lives openly, not caring about their communities or families [huh!?!?!?]. So we are cautioned not to be harsh. Have you read any of the documents the church has published about this?

-- No, I can't say i have.

-- Well, they are not harsh at all. But to answer the questions you asked before, i have to make it clear to you that it all comes down to the scriptures. We might get into a discussion of everything else, but that is the bottom line. I don't know if you want to argue about this: i might say that homosexuality is unnatural, but you might argue that it is also found among animals, or that sex is not only used for procreation. That kind of thing.

-- No, no. I realize the scriptures are the real issue with the church. What do they say, exactly? I'm afraid i haven't read the bible since i was very young. Does Jesus say anything against homosexuality? Why can't the sacrament of matrimony unite people of the same sex? Where does it say that i'm immoral? I don't want to sound proud, but i consider myself a moral person, in that i try to be careful with my actions, so that they don't hurt others. We all make mistakes and have oversights, of course, but that is what being moral means to me.

-- Of course, i am sure you are. And part of it probably comes from having suffered and been marginalized. That is why Jesus said to the pharisees that prostitutes and thieves were closer to the kingdom of heaven [encore: ?!?!??!] than themselves, and that is why the church does accept and embrace homosexuals; only the practice of homosexuality is a sin. Jesus himself doesn't talk much about homosexuals. It's saint Paul who condemns homosexuality and effeminacy [!!!] of any kind. Jesus does say, however, that matrimony is to be between man and woman. The sacraments are seven, and they are what they are: they cannot be changed, added or subtracted from. Take people who divorce, for instance: they are breaking a promise they had made to god. In the same way, a catholic homosexual person has a compromise with god not to practice homosexual sex, or any sex outside marriage, for that matter. This is something that concerns heterosexuals too. Men come here and speak about how they love both their wives and their lovers, but that is not right in the eyes of god; you were talking about love before, but it's not love that's the problem, you see.

-- Then it all comes down to accepting scriptures, whether we find them logical or not, whether there is a reasoning behind them or not. I can't understand why love isn't enough.

-- Be careful there. We cannot be christians unless we accept the word of god as it is. We cannot question it. But here: have you ever wondered why god made you like you are? He has a purpose for us all, and he must have had a purpose in making you homosexual.

-- Yes, i used to ask myself that question all the time, but i never found a satisfactory answer.

-- Well, think about it.

-- Mm-hm. Thank you, father. I really appreciate this talk and the time you've given me.

-- I'll pray for you. You say a prayer for me, too.

-- Thank you. Have a good day.

And i left. For some reason, by the time our conversation ended, i was almost in tears. I couldn't think why: i was not sad. I hadn't heard anything new, had i? There had been some inexactitudes, generalizations and unhappy parallels drawn, but the man had tried to be as open and helpful and kind as possible. Perhaps, because i was nervous about broaching the topic of my sexuality with someone i didn't know, and because of my perhaps obvious display of emotion towards the end, he'd been led to believe that i was having a real conflict with my sexuality. Regardless: the conversation felt good, as did his treatment of me.

In any case, it took me some 20 minutes to realize that what i felt was an immense sense of... exhilaration! I mean, we had gotten to the true bottom of the issue! A church person had just told me that i could not be catholic! Indeed, i could never accept a text without questioning it, no matter who is claimed to have written it! Some might say that it's a question of faith, and that i lack it, but i would contend it is a matter of trust in individual humans, instead. The church is made up of men; it is a human institution. There have been better and worse popes and priests, but they have all been men, with human ambitions and interests. Priests have translated and interpreted scriptures, too, and in 2000 years of very turbulent history, they may have manipulated them, too. Finally, however much they believed their hands were being guided by god when they were writing the gospels, the apostles were human, too.

Anyone out there wants NOT to be catholic with me?

After midnight

Rereading yesterday's entries (which i actually finished only a few minutes ago), am noticing too many references to men and gayness. Maybe i'm getting horny, but if that were the case i'd probably be able to tell (you'd think! hah-hah). More likely, i just miss having someone to hang out and share my time with.

Am definitely open to getting to know people, though there's nothing yukkier than meeting someone you really like and then leaving after a couple of days -- or weeks, in this case. And for the time being at least, home is back in the north, so staying is out of the question. Maybe i should try to be more sociable with Lars Jon. He's this farmer who lives up there with his sister, probably the only openly gay man in a 10 k. radius, apart from me. He seems nice and all, but it might be hard to communicate, as my norwegian is nearly as good as his english, or so i hear. It's pathetic that we live so close to each other and we've never really spoken. I don't think he even knows there's another gay man living 200 meters from him! Oh, well...

La sera...

Am in Bari now, and it's almost midnight. This pension i'm staying at closes its doors at midnight which, of course, gives me the perfect excuse to have already turned in... It's only an excuse though, because we all know that unless i went to the movies, i wouldn't really have much to do out at night, particularly having arrived in this place already after dark. Yes, am a bit chickenshit, and if i haven't seen a place by daylight, i don't feel comfortable strolling around it at night!

I suppose i could go to some gay bar or other, but don't like the places much. In my experience, people mostly go there to fish for lays, and that's old. In my crazy days in Philly and MN i behaved like a real... whaler (was gonna write hook, but that's too close to hooker, and one thing i never did was to get paid for it. No sirree!).

Did go out to a café a few blocks from here though, and got a couple of sandwiches and a coke: my dinner (incidentally, the men and woman behind the counte -- gay, all three).

My room here is nice, though it smells a bit musty, or old. I don't know. It's a familiar smell, though i can't place it. The building certainly is old: ceilings two and a half times my height, floors with red and white tiles that form psychedelic rows of rhomboids, narrow double doors and a window to match, with decrepit locking mechanisms. The bathroom is at the end of the corridor and i dread having to bathe in it tomorrow, as it is dirtier than my own ever gets back home, and that's saying a mouthful, as anyone who's spent any time in my house knows well.

The place is looked after by two men, father and son, i assume. The younger guy can only be a little younger than me. He's cute in a dorky kind of way, with longish greasy hair that'd have looked better in the 70s. Unwittingly, i start making up stories about the place and the men: perhaps the house is so run down because the mother died not so long ago, or maybe the guy seems so awkward because she left years back and he had to grow alone with his dad, or maybe she didn't die or leave at all and i just haven't met her yet.

Oh, one last thing: i got screwed by the taxi driver who brought me from the airport. Not literally, fortunately (guy was bold, old, ugly, smelled bad and had a bad temper, apart from being dishonest). What happened was that i ended up taking a taxi with 3 other men who were waiting for the bus at the airport. Because we had 30 more minutes to wait, we decided to pay a taxi together instead, but the bastard ransacked us. 10€ each!

Two of the guys were a couple, i think. They kept whispering all the way, and it seemed to me i could tell they were together. Did i imagine it or were they holding hands under their coats?

Lunedì lunare

Been waiting at Stansted for a while. My flight to Bari is at 17:20, but i woke up early today, as it seems the sleeping marathon of saturday and sunday managed to pacify my internal zombie. Stayed at the german YMCA, having arrived there at around 20:30 yesterday eve. Tried to catch a movie (really want to watch Narnia!), but got off at the wrong tube station and ended up in Covent Garden, which is filled with theatres, but no movie-playing ones. Walked all the way back to the hotel (about 4 or 5 k, i suppose), hypnotized by the Xmas lights strung all over the city. They ARE beautiful, though i wonder who's footing the electricity bill.

Another thing i like about London is that its architecture makes me feel that i'm in a parallel reality in which the Roman empire never fell. So much in this city is an echo of ancient Rome! Come to think of it, i've read somewhere that the present western civilization can be traced in so many ways back to Rome --law, politics, architecture, art, costumes, food, worldview-- that for all practical purposes, we're still living in the empire. The capital simply moved from Rome to London, and later to Washington DC (i remember now who wrote this: it was Frank Herbert in one of his Dune books).

Anyways. Today i've also been reading a guide to Greece, to plan my trip there. Finally managed to reserve a room at a pension in Bari, too. "Fiorini", it's called (Via Imbriani 69).

- - - - o - - - -

Was forgetting to tell a funny incident that happened to me this morning at an internet cafe. I asked the guy in charge for the price of an hour of internet, but instead of answering he kept trying to sell me a phone card of some kind. He insisted, and i kept saying no... Politely, explaining that my stay in London would be very short, but consistently repeating: no, no, no... At one point, he must have given up and switched to telling me what i'd asked for, but by then i'd stopped paying attention to what he was saying, somehow focusing on his voice rather than his words. So i went on: "No, thank you. I just need to check my e-mail and write some messages." I only realized he wasn't talking about the card anymore (and hadn't been for who knows how long) when he half-yelled "that's what i'm telling you! The price for an hour is £2.00." I said "oh, sorry", paid, and got on the computer.

Thinking back on the whole incident, i still don't really understand what i was thinking of. Is it that, since english is not my 1st language, i turn it off more easily? Or was it that i was concentrating too much on keeping calm and polite? Or maybe he'd changed topic, but his voice kept the intensity of the sales pitch; perhaps he was a little upset for not having managed to sell me the friggin' card. Perhaps i just got distracted because he was a yummy looking guy. Boh!

Speaking of yummy guys, there's this one sitting in front of me now... Must be 35-40, thin golden earring in nostril, shaved head, smoking a cig, big and tall and strapping. Oh, just got up and left. Bummer. Dang stewardess announcing departure of flight to Cork!

First truly free Sunday! Yay!

I left Flekke yesterday morning, with Dwight and Aura. We had to catch the 8:45 bus and D. was supposed to pick me up at 8:15, but when he didn't show up by 8:17 i knew he'd overslept. Walked to his home and, indeed, he was still in Morpheus' arms. We ended up arriving at the bus stop at 8:35. I slept all the way on the bus and only woke up when we got to Rysjedalsvika. Once on the boat, i fell asleep again.

It rained all the way, and it was raining when we arrived in Bergen at around noon. I went straight to Anita's, left my luggage and went out again to rent a DVD from the DVD bank. Watched "Blade Trilogy" or something like that, with Wesley Snipe and the big sister from 7th Heaven. Silly movie, but funny takes: 70s action films with weird camera angles and lots of special effects. It passed the time.

My taste in movies horrifies all my friends, i know. Gotta live with it. Anyways, the DVD bank is a great idea: if you return the movie within 3 hours of having rented it, you pay only 10 kroner.

I seem to have been very tired, too. Slept since 4:00 pm yesterday till 8:00 this morning, right on the sofa, waking up only once, at around 2:00 am, to go to the loo. In the morning i showered, started reading "El anatomista", by Federico Andahazi (best novel i've read in a long time! Just finished it now.) and went to rent another movie. This time it was "A Dirty Shame", by John Waters, the guy who made "Pink Flamingos" back in the 70s. Anyway, it's A MUST SEE! I laughed my head off. One of the most memorable scenes comes towards the end: it features David Haselhoff (as David Haselhoff!) taking a dump in an airplane toilet. Until that moment, neither him nor planes of any kind have been part of the plot (although there was one incidental reference to the Knight Rider) so the whole thing comes totally out of the blue. Anyway, as David craps (don't worry, the camera only focuses on his face), the bottom of the plane breaks and the contents of the septic tank tumble through the air. The camera follows this mass of feces – luckily not too closely, but close enough for us to see that it freezes over as it falls (interesting bit of totally-out-of-place realism there). Finally it hits a man on the head, knocking him down, giving him a concussion and turning him into a sex addict. Neither David Haselhoff nor the plane appear again in the movie.

Four paragraphs for a day and a half of holidays, half of one referring to David Haselhoff and his crap. Can't be too good a sign.

- - - - o - - - -

As i wait to board the plane that'll take me to Stansted, i'm just remembering a thought that came to me while on the bus to the airport, earlier today. I found myself pondering that everything is all right in the world, that even suffering and the worst injustices will be redeemed or explained at some point. It shocked me that i was considering such a reactionary idea, and bordering on the religious, too! Perfect for being subverted to support the status quo. Thing is, the only way pain can be redeemed is if we do everything possible to stop it, but we're not very good at it yet. I think there are signs out there that humanity is maturing, beginning to transform all its pains and whimsies into compassion and reason. I don't know.

Anyways, they're calling us aboard, now. Gotta go.

Winter

I walked to Flakis in the dark. My nose tingled, and my ears. On the side of the road, last week's snow is by now packed into a solid mass, and on the road itself, where it hasn't been rubbed off by the passing of many wheels, it's become a slick surface that echoes the tiniest suggestion of light: the last glimmers of daylight among the clouds, farm lights in the distance, the glow of my mp3 player. At one point, in this gloom and cold, my ears where being pumped by the recorded chirps of spring birds. The contrast was jarring, and sweet.

- - - - o - - - -

Before my norwegian class, i sat at one of the tables outside Flakis shop and smoked a cigarette. The wooden surface was coated in tiny, glittering crystals condensed (how?!?) from the dry air, too brittle and crisp to support smoke. Whorls and clumps of it drifted from the tip of my cig, sank and got snagged on the itsy-bitsy irregularities of the planks, then lazily broke up, and finally dissolved.

- - - - o - - - -

Every morning, new frozen tracks appear on the walls of my house, on my door, on my windows. They are thin, curved, swirling lines that look as if some gravity-defying goblin had been ice-skating on these vertical planes. Combined, they form a fuzz that seems to grow from buildings, a white mildew-like blanket that speaks of age and time passing slowly, silently, smoothly creeping along. Which is, of course, the essence of winter.

Stayed up til 4:30

cleaning my kitchen. I slaved over dishes and pans, cleared cupboards, sponged the fridge, washed the floor... Started at 11:00 pm. The kitchen is definitely my least favorite part of the house. Except when I eat in it, of course. But that happens rarely.

Gemina

Last friday we were visited by Gemina, a Malaysian woman who has been living in Sweden for several years now. Seropositive since the early nineties, she had an amazing and heart-rending story to tell. Raped and infected as a teenager by a "friend" of her family, she had a daughter who died (of AIDS, she later found out) at six months.

Unaware of their condition, when her daughter was born Gemina began to prostitute herself in order to be able to feed the child. Soon after the death, she found out she was pregnant again, and remembered a swedish missionary who had approached her sometime earlier, offering god's forgiveness and a better life. It was at the insistence of this contact that she was given the HIV tests that confirmed she had the virus.

This swedish mission in Malaysia helped educate her, taught her english and, eventually, brought her to Sweden, where she has been working as an activist with HIV and AIDS since the late 90s. At one point, while still in Malaysia, she became very sick and had to give her daughter up for adoption, for she could not care for her. The girl was 4 or 5 years old at the time and was adopted into an American family. Gemina is in contact with the adoptive parents, but not with her daughter (she says the parents think it might upset the girl, who is now 13 years old and neutralized the virus very early on).

Finally, in 2004, Gemina married Knut, a swedish man she'd known for some time. He is seronegative, seems to love her very much and is, like her, a very religious man. They became pregnant 7 months ago after a lot of deliberation and careful thinking. Knut and Gemina explained that the amount of virus in her blood is minimal and very much under control, thanks to medicine she takes regularly (incidentally, the swedish government pays for such medicine for all patients in the country; the cost is about 10,000.00 SEK per person per trimester). Knut pointed out that, thanks to this medicine, it is very difficult for Gemina to pass the infection to anyone; "doctors don't say it's impossible for the sole reason that doctors can't say such things", he remarked, and explained that the unborn child has at most a 2% or 3% chance of becoming infected.

These are the bare facts as i was assembling them while their presentation was going on. An incredible story, particularly because the resilience of someone like Gemina is truly inspiring.

On the other hand, while Knut and Gemina were speaking, it became obvious that the source of all their strength is their idea of god. It's a christian god; Jesus was mentioned over and over, and although tolerance for other religions was mentioned frequently in their speech, i was amazed to see how some among our students (one boy, in particular) kept insisting that this god of theirs be named. He was very christian, too, and because their god was his, too, he needed everyone present to know who had worked this miracle. He said stuff like "Praise Jesus!" and "Jesus, yes!", as they do in some of those revivalist services i've only seen on TV.

Not that i have anything against individual religious believes, nor do i feel that their faith takes anything from Gemina's and Knut's stories. On the contrary, i'm glad they have something that pulled them through their worst times. It's just that the underlying message is always the same: "only my god can make such wonderful things happen, and if you don't believe in it, such a resource will never be available to you."

I just hope i'd have the strength to believe as strongly in something other than god if i ever had to face such horrors.

Gasp!

I'm gasping for breath. Will i be able to inhale enough to last me till friday?

Ha-ha. Yes, i caught that one, too. I also wonder what it is i must be inhaling in order to keep up with this crazy lifestyle, year after year. I should be on crack!!! Am not, though.

Before friday i must: clean my bathroom, my kitchen, my office, my living-room (did the bedroom already - thank goo!). Look through the final ToK essays and presentations, chase the last forms, pack, make sure the student house is cleaned, prepare some classes... I'm forgetting everything now... I've also been thinking a lot about Gemima, the pregnant, HIV positive woman who filled my head with new knowledge about the virus, plus thoughts of social inequality, religion, and i have to figure out what else. Then yesterday night we went to the theater and watched Blasted, which wasn't quite so explosive after all. Will write about all of this at some point.

From global warming to economics

On friday, in one of my classes, we started talking about environmental issues. We discussed global warming, the runaway greenhouse effect theory, the possibilities that warnings about these topics be more or less accurate or exaggerated, that human actions might or might not affect the environment in ways that are adverse to our survival. I was shocked at some of the views i heard from some of my students. Basically, these were that economical prosperity comes first and foremost, that it's useless to ask people to pay to protect the environment (with more taxes, or with less goods, choice or supply); that it is arrogant to think that us humans could damage such a huge life support system as that of Earth, and that we should care only about ourselves, so that future generations should not play any role in our present actions or plans. The two or three who expressed these ideas justified themselves by saying that "this is the way people are, anyway. This is the way things work."

Indeed, i was stunned, not the least because at first it seemed to me i'd come across one of those attitudinal and philosophical changes that are supposed to separate people who grow up at different times. A generational gap! I'd never come across such a thing, and to have discovered one when talking to people younger than me! Because, certainly, at their age, we would have been more positive and idealistic...

But no, this must be bull, my own fears about growing older getting in the way. The concept of 'generation gaps' is crap anyway, mac. People are always people, and no matter what age they are, they may always have ideas you can't identify with, the very genesis of which is hard for you to comprehend. There certainly are people my age, and older, and dead already, who would agree with these students of mine. In all époques, many have always used purported "human nature" whenever it's been necessary not to give a fuck about others in order to safeguard one's own interests. It all comes down to egoism and selfishness – traits that are natural in humans, indeed (but so is our impulse to violence, and we still have laws that try to curb it!).

When speaking about ecological issues, what is different about the present when compared with 10 or 15 years ago, is that there are many more potent voices out there that advocate for throwing away all caution. Take Michael Crichton, for instance, who with his novel "State of Fear" criticizes environmentalists and their warnings. He says that they all have agendas whose ultimate aim is to destabilize the current political, social and economical systems. I would say, rather, that their aim is to change these systems by pointing out some of their problems. But "destabilizing" suggests a will to topple things, which makes terrorists or terrorist tools out of environmental activists. With the current paranoia about terrorism, can there be a better way to discredit environmentalism?

Anyway, i haven't read Crichton's book, nor do i plan to. To go through a novelized version of an argument i can't stand would make me a masochist, and in spite of what a certain singaporian seems to think, i'm not into that kinky stuff. In a (perhaps feeble) attempt to judge fairly, i have read a couple of articles that describe this novel in a favorable light. Here is how a ends: "The slight warming of the earth that is presently occurring is a result of natural processes, not human activity. Consequently, there is no need to take radical action, like passage of the Kyoto Accords, to cut our carbon dioxide emissions, or to abandon industrial civilization."

HUH?!? Did you also catch that? The Kyoto Accords and cutting down on carbon dioxide emissions are being made to sound as equivalent to abandoning industrial civilization!!! And as for the current global warming being caused by natural processes, scientists are not at all in agreement about this. Indeed, there have been other periods in Earth's history in which temperatures have risen due to entirely non-human processes, yet some of these resulted in the extinction of species both larger and smaller than us. As for the current occurrence, there is no certain data or model either way; there are researchers that say humanity's hand is heavily involved in it, and others that disagree. It is also true that there are homeostatic mechanisms at work on our planet, functioning to keep the stability of the whole, but how far they can be pushed before they break down, nobody knows, either.

In an age when information can pull at us in such different directions, the best bet is caution. We cannot go with wishful thinking, because as much convincing evidence can be presented for one argument as for its opposite. We are used to deciding by simply embracing what our "instincts" say is right, but i suspect our instincts are merely the voice of our interests. We do have powers that can wreck our environment. We do know that there is much value in diversity, particularly because we cannot accurately foresee what the future may bring. So why not make the little extra effort?

I'll tell you why: because many of us would miss a few commodities, and a fewer of us yet (an tiny minority, indeed) would lose the possibility to make HEAPS of money. Mind you: i'm not saying they would lose the money; they would only lose the possibility to make even more of it. Yet still we have let ourselves be convinced that this is too high a price to pay for caution, if caution it be to cut on emissions, or to have better recycling, or a less impactful exploitation of resources.

Economists the world over continue to teach and praise an economical model that largely fails to take into account human and environmental costs. Eastern Europe, its people disillusioned by repressive regimes that falsely called themselves socialist, is an even easier prey to this new, irresponsible kind of fascism, where the individual is everything... as long as s/he can make his/her voice heard the loudest, or most convincingly. Forget about empathy or forethought.

I know very little about economics. I only took this one course in college, and all i remember is supply, demand, and these graphs that had some crisscrossing lines. Nevertheless, all (but one) of the economists i've ever talked to seem to picture the market as a perfect, infallible structure, the laws of which are as unmovable as those that physics has worked out for the universe. Isn't this the hubris, the arrogance? In fact, the market was created by us, people, without forethought or planning. It just sprang up, spontaneously, through our trading activities; economists themselves will tell you that. Indeed, this market to which we have given the reins of our whole planet is nothing but the expression of our needs and ambitions. And it even fails at that, because it is not capable of representing or providing a means to tend to the needs and ambitions of all. Moreover, mind is not fully a part of it, and only in as much as it can be used to serve those interests. Compassion and empathy are left out, as are forethought and caution.

We are trapped, and we don't see it.

Out of the blue

My blog is about to become one year old. I didn't use it much for several months, barely managing to plonk in a couple of paragraphs during spring and summer. Yet now i think of it often and frequently find myself wanting to set little ideas and happenings down in it. I suppose a single yearly cycle is not enough to draw conclusions on behavioral patterns, but maybe fall and winter are a more creative time of year for me. Or maybe it's just that these months are the most stressful at school, and blogging helps me cope. Or maybe minds have a yearly ovulation cycle, and mine is menstruating right now. If that's the case, then i'm blotting, not blogging.

Surreal slurry

My log titles have lately been overly aliterative, but today i simply couldn't help it: after all, it has been snowing for four days now, almost non-stop. Slushy stuff, heavy. Slanting roofs are not such a good solution for heavy snow fall, after all. Why not just build thicker, flat roofs? That way i wouldn't have been caught by the tiny avalanche that surprised me this morning as i was going into my classroom. It just --phlumped!-- right on top of me, and by the time i realized what had happened, i was standing knee deep in snow: there was some in my shoes, some under my shirt, and even some in my butt crack (i swear!). Luckily it was 7:15 a.m., so nobody saw me -- if i'd seen something like this happen to someone else, i'd have peed on myself, just laughing.

So, all in all, things weren't as bad as they could have turned out. No packed ice cracking my knuckle, just soft, slushy snow soaking it. No peeing on myself, either. I actually feel quite special. I mean, what are the chances?!? This is only my 5th winter here. The universe must think i deserve special treatment.

I realize i must be leading a very screwed up existence when my spirits are lifted by 30 kilos of snow dropping at once on my head. In fact, it's the most exhilarating thing that has happened to me in the last few weeks. All the little and big dramas that come with end of term have been, this year, particularly difficult to plod through.

Gotta run to a meeting.
Friggin meeting.
Pick-a-nitting.
Friggin meeting.
Yippeee!

Quack, Quack, Quack!!!

There is a guy who is using Scandinavia as an example of how gay marriages are destroying heterosexual marriages:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/660zypwj.asp

It's a very interesting article, considering that gay marriage doesn't exist in Scandinavia. Look at what this other guy has to say about it:

http://www.law.ucla.edu/williamsproj/issues/perverted.html

When and Today

I'm not taking very good care of my blog. My excuse is that most of the time i run around like a headless chicken (i always use the same expression to talk about it; my grandma told me once a story about a headless chicken; no, my grandma wasn't so weird, and the headless chicken did exist, and it ran around; it was a funny story, except for the chicken, although since it didn't have a head anymore, it could no longer distinguish between what was funny and what was not). I suppose that i could organize my time better in order to write more, but that would require that i dreg more passion from somewhere and pour into the making of this blog, and passion is hard to come by these days. Shortness of supply and demand and all that.

So, instead of actually writing for the blog, i'll just paste my latest school magazine article. The main topic this issue is sexuality and, although i'm part of both the mag activity and the gay-straight alliance, i can swear i didn't have anything to do with picking this subject. It nags me to think, however, that some people will think so. It nags me even more that i still care.

Of course, everybody knows that we queers are proselitizers and want to turn everybody into copies of ourselves.

Anyways, here is what i wrote:



WHEN AND TODAY

WHEN i started to feel sexually attracted towards other people, i was disgusted with myself. The problem was, i was finding some guys attractive, sexually appealing, but nothing like that happened to me with any girl. I mean, i thought some girls were indeed pretty, and i had friends who were themselves girls, but i wasn't drawn to them in that way. I concluded something had to be wrong with me: it was obvious from everything I saw and experienced around myself. For instance: the worst insults people threw at each other (and sometimes at me) were basically words that implied the existence of such feelings of same-sex attraction on the "insultee". Maricón is the main such word in Spanish, the equivalent of the English faggot. The occasional maricones in movies and on TV were silly, vain, destructive men, always whimpering or being made fun of. At other times they would try to take sexual advantage of children, or they would appear in the news as diseased, dying of AIDS, cross-dressing or clad in strange leather garments and taking drugs. Sometimes they were arrested by the police, and occasionally you would hear about and see images of one such person having been beaten to death. In talk shows they appeared lonely and were repetitively shunned by family and friends. They were unnatural, evil, sick, weak, perverted.

I did not want to be, do or have happen to me any of those things, so i knew i had to change. Problem was, i could not! No matter how hard i tried. And i tried everything i could, for years -- nine of them!

I confessed at church my evil thoughts, and prayed a lot, but i still felt the same things, it could not be helped. Later i made myself date girls, though it did not feel natural to me. On the contrary, this worsened the view i had of myself, for i knew that i was lying to them. I was using them not only to try to "change" myself, but they were also a front that protected me from anyone's suspicions. I was conscious of doing this, and i felt despicable.

The only thing I did not do was talk to my parents because, what would they say? I knew what they thought of maricones already. I did not want to hurt them or, worse yet, lose their love. Besides, what could they do? Pray with me? Send me to a psychiatrist? I had read what Freud had to say about homosexuality (he agreed with everybody else), but how would that cure me? Since all my research on the topic had to be done on the sly, i did not know then what i learnt later: that there are so called re-orientation organizations, which teach homosexual people how to become heterosexual (in practice, what they do is to hammer in the importance of behaving heterosexually; many of their "graduates" have reported, after years of lying to themselves, that the feelings of homosexual attraction do not just go away). I also didn't know that electro-shock therapy had been tried on homosexuals.

If I had come upon any text that mentioned those re-orientation classes, or that claimed the goodness of electro-shock treatment (and there are several such articles on psychiatric magazines of the 50s, 60s, 70s and even the 80s), i would have asked that it all be tried on me.

Now, with several more years to look back upon, i wonder at my good luck. Who would have thought that i'd become an advocate for ignorance? Yet there are occasions in which it is a blessing, after all. In the environment i grew up in, knowledge of the options available to me then would have probably destroyed my life.

- - - - - - o - - - - - -

TODAY my views about sexuality in general and my own in particular are quite different.

I believe that a man can fall in love with another man and that they can create a loving family, raise children and have the support of relatives, friends and the wider community.

I believe that if there is a god, s/he/it would judge us by the depth and truth of all our loves, rather than by the gender of our romantic lover.

I believe that families and friends are actively created and looked after. If someone i love cannot accept me because of my sexuality, it will hurt. But in the long run it will hurt less than knowing i am loved for something i am not.

I believe that sicknesses must be treated, because they stop people from being happy. The sickness that affects me is called "prejudiced society". Fortunately, i believe it has a cure.

I believe that sexuality is about the kind of attraction we feel, not about the sex we have. Thus, i might decide not to act on my feelings of sexual attraction, but my sexuality would still be what it is.

I believe that to repress the acknowledgement of my sexuality could make of me a terribly unhappy and unfulfilled person. Romantic love is one of the fundamental dimensions through which people learn and grow.

I believe that all those movies and TV shows were lying to me, by omission at least. They never showed people like my friends Evan and Michael, who have been living together for 35 years and are two perfectly normal librarians, or David and Miguel, who have adopted a little boy and a little girl named Zev and Summer, or Joe and Mike, who got married in June and are university professors. They did not show my mom, my dad and my brothers, or how their views have changed.

Finally, i believe that a day will come when people will not be judged, shunned, discriminated, killed, beaten or murmured about because of their sexuality. I believe that, until that day, people have to speak up, ask questions, argue, so that it comes sooner rather than later.

Edinburgh Purr...

Or Edinburgh bra, if one is to be consequent with local pronunciation.

Anyway, the break is coming to an end. Boo-hoo-hoo.

Yesterday i sat for about an hour on Arthur's Seat (an old volcano, smack in the middle of the city! Is this a funky town or what?!?), got my hair blown by the wind and looked about myself, all the way out to the sea, while listening to old Celtic music. Ingredients for a transcendental experience? Perhaps not, but i pondered: does what we see remain somewhere? I mean, things obviously decay, rub away, disappear, but is the experience stored somehow? Can some mind some where some time see and feel what someone felt 10000 years ago?

I like to believe the answer is yes. But i'm not talking about god here, mind you.

Yesterday evening Mariteria and i went to see Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, this super cool play by Tennessee Williams. Clap clap for the actors, people! Brick was anything but, though: more like a bon-bon, actually. Maggie the cat was good, too. They had tough roles to act, particularly for Scottish actors who not only have to get down the complex emotions in the play, but also the Southern drawls of the characters. Sometimes they didn't quite manage the latter, and the Scottish closed vowels spilled everywhere, dragged around...

Connection ending, gotta publish before i loose it.

London Schmondon

Nah, not Schmondon. I actually like this city, more than i like others, in fact. Yesterday i ate about half a kilo of sashimi (should put a lid on my cravings for a while), went to Gay's The Word (great book store, near Russell Sq.) and then walked in Chinatown and Leicester Square. Love looking at people. Everyone's inside their little bubble, which collide or caress or simply slide past each other. A map of these interactions would probably look like a picture of a cauldron bubbling... or no: more like an explosion at a soap factory and the subsequent mess when firemen come to put out the fire. Hah!

I'm all random today. Been thinking of attempting to get a job in Svalbard...

Anyway, got only 6 minutes left in this connection. Gotta check my mail.

Haven't written in a while... Will try to start again

Check this one out:

http://slmetro.com/2004/4/local.shtml

What else could one ask for?

Possibilities

If i do leave, and if i were to think about what i'd want to do afterwards without limitations...

I'd like to go to Tromsø and learn norwegian there, for a year, in order to be able to finally integrate myself in this society. After that i might go to Bergen and get some kind of job -i don't care what- while studying physics & chemistry. Then perhaps, after two years, i could go to university and study medicine in there. With luck, by the time i hit 40, i could be a medical doctor and then decide what to do with that. Aerospatial medicine doesn't sound like a bad idea... I would also like to adopt a kid, become a father... I don't know if i'm made for romantic life, so i may never have a partner, but i know i can be a good father.

Another possibility is to continue in education... Wait for a few years and go work at the college in Devin, as a teacher there. Xaviera will retire in a few years and i think i'd like to teach in that place. But somehow that doesn't sound that attractive anymore.

Activism and grassroots movements are another area that does indeed sound very interesting. I see a need for that, in Argentina... But i don't know if i could live there.

Above all, i want my life to have meaning for others, be it my family or a community i may belong to. It's surprising, but never before had i felt so keenly, so certainly, this reality: that a life is meaningless unless you can see it its context, where it's lived: among other lives.

Evaluating

I haven't written here in a while. Guess haven't had much to say... Which says a lot about my everyday life, i suppose. I'm finding it harder and harder to do this job well. I used to believe that, in spite of all the imperfections of the system, the "education" we give these kids was largely positive, but now that conviction is crumbling, bit by bit. That in itself can't be good for the students: a teacher who doesn't believe in what he's doing can't be a good teacher.

I've had my misgivings about the academic side of the program (the international baccalaureate) for a while now. Even though it does attempt to instill critical thinking, it does so in a formulaic, limiting fashion; it presents certain modes and structures of expression as more adequate than others, and i believe that is precisely one of the problems with human relations: we are taught to think that someone's ideas are better than those of others because of their wrapper. And people who can't provide the right wrapper are seen as less valuable -at best- or outright inferior.

But now i've been losing faith about the validity of the rest of the program we provide. Us adults here cannot deal constructively with each other. Most everyone is entrenched in their own little position, and we judge and attack each other. We are not a good example for our students. There's no harmony.

I'm probably being too negative right now. I don't know, and i don't have the energy to lift myself from that at this moment. It's US who have to change. Or leave, as the case may be.

Our lady of the assassins

Just saw this movie. Waldemar asked me to buy it a few weeks ago, and finally yesterday it arrived. So i invited a few students to watch it with me tonight. It's a story of life in Medellín, Colombia. Very bleak reality. Most of all, what Waldemar said once the movie was over: "yes, that's what it's like where i live".

I have to get my ass off chairs...

It's official

I'm 31 years old.

In one and a half hours i discussed society and community and rights and legal systems and laws of behavior with Amel. Then i opened at random a poem book by Mario Benedetti, and he says that cumpleaños are not important, but cumpledías we should have and live. Cumplehoras and cumpleinstantes, i think, which is what i lived tonight. Maraca came as i was putting the book down and told me about a friend of hers threatening suicide. Then my mom called, and then a group of 25 latino students sang las mañanitas in front of my window... They threw snowballs at me, and i hugged them all and then they tried to put me in the shower. Then Harold came and tried to call his mom in Colombia, and we've been talking now about maturity and growing up and being yourself.

An now i'm calling my mom back again.

Happy Birthday to me!

So, i turn 31 tomorrow.

Until 3 or 4 years ago, or even more recently, i used to say i didn't feel any different from when i was 16 or 17.

I have mostly lost touch with that guy now, though. In some respects i'm glad of that: he was very insecure. He never spoke his mind, even though things appeared very clear to him at times.

That clarity is what i miss most of him. Now i say more of myself, but i feel like speaking itself is a lie.

Perhaps it is wise not to speak much, and the problem with him was that he was silent for the wrong reasons, meaning fear of what others would think of him. I must admit that, though to a lesser degree, i still feel that fear...

Confessions

Mariteria came back from Rotterdam today, and i'm supposed to have dinner with her in 20 minutes. I'm looking forward to seeing her again. I've missed her, even if it was just a week and when together disagree on many things (fortunately we're both very vocal about it; that saves our friendship, i think). Everybody gets on my nerves, sometimes, and i have to fight with myself to be in the company of other people. The only one that doesn't irritate me is Mishqi, but she's a cat, and though idiosyncratic and willfull, i know she takes me as i am. Only with Eddy did i ever have such a relationship, and only for a while.

Little poem for my bereaved blog

Just letting you know
that i haven't forgotten to blog,
blog.

Still watching with my little eye
but have lost some of my sight.
Am blind.

Or i feel nearly so
'cause i've hit a slump,
bob.

Julio's coming to visit!!!

Julio's girlfriend broke up with him and he's coming to visit! I'm definitely sorry that this has happened to him, but i'm very happy that he'll be spending a few days with me, too. He's been a very close friend since highschool, and though i did have a crush on him back then, now he's like a crazy younger brother to me...

To tell the truth, i don't know why i love him so much. In at least one way i can think of, we're very similar: we both stumble through life, and don't seem to be able to keep any romantic relationship for long. He's been seriously involved with two women who craved the love he didn't feel for them, until they finally left him... and crushed him in the process. Him or his ego? Whatever the case, it hits hard. The same happened to me with Dwayne, and i still can't tell whether i was really in love with him or whether i got obsessed with him when i saw he didn't love me. After all, i cheated on Dwayne repeatedly, at least at the beginning, in the same way that Julio cheated on his girlfriends.

Also, i don't know how much of an ethical person Julio is. I suppose cheating and lying to one's couple are not good signs, and that doesn't bode well for me, either. But well, i haven't had anyone to cheat on for over 4 years now. Blah.

Julio is also a lawyer, and i don't think he is the kind who asks himself any ethical questions before getting involved in a case. Still, i know he is loyal to his friends... Or hope he is.

Anyways, i suppose i love him for the history we share, because he was the first person i told about my sexuality, because he didn't recoil from me... At least not for long. I love his liveliness, too.

Electronic dictionaries

Once upon a time, a teeny weeny girl was using an electronic dictionary.

I could hear the beep beep of it from downstairs; she had to describe an image and was looking up the words she didn't know. I suppose she had forgotten this was not allowed and, unfortunately, since she was keeping the dictionary in her pocket by the time i entered the room, i wasn't able to say anything. I could see it bulging under the fabric, but since there was probably no bad intention, to ask her to turn her pockets out could have been extremely discorteous and interpreted as lack of trust in her, couldn't it?

Anyways, she wrote a description and read it verbatim. Dear me! I'd not noticed she was doing that! And, unfortunately for her, she had not heard me repeatedly saying in class that that is not allowed, either. So now it turns out i'll have to ask her to do her exam again, tomorrow. Poor thing!

I mean, it'll be another 40 minutes of my time, but how much worse it must be for her! I know how stressful these exams can be for students. I'll apologize to her for the inconvenience; i should have noticed she was reading the text she had written word for word, but was looking at the image myself. I must tell her i didn't realize it till later tonight, when i compared her notes with the recording and noticed they were identical.

Poor, poor baby!

More yaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!

Oral exams just began and i was already exhausted before they did; Martina tells me Antonio still hasn't returned the school key he shouldn't have (the guy lied to me about it); Pondo's lies about where he was when he missed classes still go unchallenged...

On the up side, i had wonderful classes today: great discussion with Lit. students, and the kids that are learning spanish really seem to be starting to speak, even those that had me scared before.

Also, it hailed today, and i had to shake my head when i went into my office this morning, so that little balls of ice flew in all directions. I never get to do this.

Still, my head is heavy and my eyelids want to crumble, disintegrate and leave no archaelogical trace. Got a meeting and more orals this afternoon, plus I've promised Mariteria to watch The Motorcycle Diaries tonight (which i really do want to do, but i'm oh-so-dead; i hope i don't fall asleep on her, again).

I miss Eddy. Gotta get in touch with him somehow.

Yaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!

Spoken exams, veiled hostility & discomfort from people about articles i wrote in school magazine, epistemology forms and grades to be handed in, Zulema's suspension/expulsion/?!?!?!?, Pondo's lies, intestinal upset (my intestines, but also among staff, students and staff and students), sicknesses of students, can't quit smoking, world literature essays, thinking of organizing a latino show and a teachers' show, class preparation and homework piling up, pending mail replies, book permits still not requested, argument with Amadeo about cleaning, watching out for people... And am sure i'm forgetting something, which upsets me even more.

Things that i love, things that i hate, things that i hlaotve and things that i lhoavte.

I heard this story when i was a kid; my dad or my uncle Orfeo used to tell it. It had happened to someone when they were kids, or when my grandfather was.

There was this boy that had been picking grapes with his father and other workers. This is very tiring work, so seeing a dog lieing around under the shade of a tree, the boy said: "Dogs have such a wonderful, easy life! I wish i were a dog!".

"Go ahead, then" said his father. "Go lie under the shade, too, if you want."

"For real?" asked the kid.

"Sure! Go ahead" answered the man.

So the boy did lie down and slept in the shade the whole morning. But when lunchtime came and the boy wanted to sit down and eat with the men, the father said, sure enough: "Shoo, dog! Go away!" and tossed him a bone.

So i suppose the moral of the story is that it's not so easy being a dog, either. Although probably a dog wouldn't mind eating bones, whereas the kid most certainly did.

How do you judge people?

If you're tempted to say you just don't, don't: you'd be kidding yourself (unless you've lived isolated your whole life and have never had any interaction, direct or indirect, with other beings; in that case, i might, perhaps, believe you).

Here is an example of how someone could judge others.

If you'd allowed someone use of your car, house or computer and, in your absence, that person had broken/lost or allowed to be broken/lost a possession of yours, that person would have two definite courses of action: to tell you what happened when you came back, or not to, in the hope you wouldn't notice or that, if you noticed later, enough time would have passed for you not to be able to point at him/her and demand an explanation.

In the first case, if the possession broken were a very important one to you, you might get angry at that person's carelessness and even tell him/her off for it. You might chide yourself for forgetting how people tend to be more careless instead of more careful with other people's property. You might decide to make sure that person is not left alone with your property again.

In the second case, and if you discovered the broken/missing object a week or two later, you'd feel the same as above, plus immediate despise for that person's lack of willingness to take responsibility for their own action. A few minutes, hours or days later, however, despise would be transformed into pity for this person and their view of the world.

You see, a person who doesn't take responsibility for their actions is unable to fully relate to others. They expect or believe perfection is possible in themselves and in others, and are thus constantly disappointed by both. We all come across disappointment at one time or another in our lives, but these people don't recover from it. They judge everyone, including themselves, inadecuate, and must thus put up appearances every minute of their lives. They feel alone and live in a world where appearance is more important than reality, with the consequence that they can never solve the real problems, neither with themselves, with others, or with their surroundings. This condition can lead to fatal consequences, sometimes not only to themselves, but also to their whole community.

The good news is, many times there's plenty of opportunity to face reality and minimize damage.

The bad news is, many times it's too late already, and damage is irreparable.

But that's precisely the point: it's always like that! If one is unable to deal with that reality... Well, we may be in trouble.

Avalon and Armandus

Avalon was a student of ours. This summer he went swimming with his friend Armandus to a mountain lake, and drowned. Armandus couldn't save him.

Six months have passed. Days are short now, gray.

I walk around campus and see a group of students passing by, and wonder if Avalon would be with them.

In my classroom there's no definite seat that would have been his, but he was always to my left. There's a blind spot there, imprecise. Perhaps i would have had to tell him off for missing more classes than was good for him. He would have been involved in too much, come to school with puffy eyes. Awake all night, he wouldn't brush his teeth and his breath would be strong. I'd have had a talk with him by now. Ponte las pilas, porque si no..., i'd have said.

Armandus i do see, from time to time, with his friends. He seems to be loved and appreciated by them. Silent and thoughtful, he is. Squirmy with his studies too, i get the feeling. Though he's not my student, i know he goes to school because he has to, but not much inspires him. HAS TO is the problem. He'll find what he likes when he doesn't HAVE TO, i hope.

I wish i could hug him and comfort him, tell him all it's ok, that i'm sorry this happened to him. That it was not his fault and that he's precious, that it would be terrible if he had been lost, too. That i would like for him to live his days as the delicate, beautiful gift they are.

Of course, i won't approach him. I don't know him at all, and teachers don't go around embracing students, particularly when they've never talked before. It's also unsightly for a man to let any other man try to give comfort. More than that, it's uncomfortable.

Moral authority

What a contradictory concept!

To expect someone to behave according to certain morals just because you somehow hold a certain authority is totally immoral! If people don't understand the reasoning behind the morals, their behavior is simply authomatic.

Moral authority lies in the agreement of all concerned by those moral rules to live by them. And even in that case, authority might become too smug, as it usually tends to do, unless the group continues to re-examine itself and the issues its morals are concerned with.

Untempered tempers

Another stiff, stuffed, staff meeting today, and sparks flew, again. Why can't we communicate?

I can't talk about others, but i'm always careful not too say too much or too little. Since i can't make up my mind about what would contribute to any of these conditions, i sometimes try not to say anything. Which means i most often err on the too-little side. But at other times i go for it, and then fear i've said to much, again.

Boris would say that i'm afraid of conflict. Amy would have said the same thing, back in MN. She would have added that, in her opinion, it was that fear which made me become passive-aggressive (which i was not!; when i knew her, Amy had ended all of her friendships because she thought her friends were passive aggressive. No wonder; she was prodding people all the time).

My answer would be that one must know which battles to fight, and how to say things. Not to sound dramatic, but i have other things going on in my life right now. Have a flu right now (yes ladies and gentlemen, that's what the cold turned into), and when i don't i have my students, my friends not to lose touch with, classes, the book, this screen, my social interactions (grueling experience much of the time), movies and books.

Now i've scared myself. It really doesn't sound like i'm fighting any battles. Well, i fought for years just to continue to stay alive (i'm in full-blown drama-queen land now, i know).

(Much beyond)

Homo solitarius

I suppose it is arrogant of me to label myself such. After all, no man is an island -- and no woman either, for that matter. I've no barnacles attached to my shins, nor am i all rocky and surrounded by water.

Nevertheless, I look at others and i find myself alone, more of a loner, though not lonely. Twinges of this adjective here and there, now and then, yes. But not much. Perhaps loneliness is there, but like a subterranean river (there's the water, after all!) of which i'm not aware most of the time.

Boh!

In any case, the homini solitarii are an abundant species, today.

Absences

I sent this letter to a student today. She said "ouch!", and i felt like a slave driver. Nobody's education should be driven by exams or attendance records, but unfortunately they are.

Hello, Loaira,

I don't know the exact circumstances of your absences, but of course, if you wanted me to know, I suppose you would somehow have informed me by now. So I'll simply proceed (I did meet you once, by chance, in the street, and you told me you'd been sick, but that was over two weeks ago).

Basically, I want to ask you if you're aware that you've missed all your Spanish classes this term (you said to me you'd come to the first, but I checked, and you hadn't). Indeed, I personally think you're mature enough to manage your own work, to decide what you want/need to learn and to catch up with missed classes/homework if you decide it is worth to do so.

Although you haven't told me so with words, your actions make it clear to me that you either think there's no worthwhile material that you need to receive from classes, or that you expect to put a lot of extra effort later to catch up. Even though you may be sick now, in over four weeks you haven't completed one single Spanish assignment. Your absences were very numerous last term, too.

As a teacher, I put much effort and feel a responsibility towards my students. I go out of my way to make myself available to those who show an interest to learn. But, as I have made it clear in class, learning a language requires constancy. If you deem class work dispensable, or if you don't invest the necessary effort, you free me of any responsibility towards you.

Please do or do not come to classes as you see fit, but if you still intend to take the Spanish ab initio exam, make sure that you comply with all IB requirements and do find out when you're scheduled to present your orals and exams. I'll try to help with anything you require of me outside the classroom if I have any free time available, but you know how hectic our days are here, right?

Likewise, I am totally unable to predict a grade for you this term, since you've missed already 25% of classes.

Kindly reply to let me know that you've received this message, Lo.

Marino

Cold turning into...

Cold is turning into flu, i suspect. Strong stomach and muscle aches, chills, stuffed nose, sore throat, headache... Full package! Hadn't had this bug in a while, and always forget how bad it is. Also, i think there's a bit of the hypochondriac in me: not only is it the physical disturbances that bother me, but the fear of getting worse or of it being something else. Yuk!

Speaking of people who're unwell, i called Luella at Mac this morning. She sounded her usual extra-cheerful self, which kind of worries me, as a few days ago she wrote telling of some panic attacks she's been having. Luella is an extremely high achiever, very outgoing and free and open minded... but paradoxically has a very strong need to be in control. Of course, there's probably more to it than that. I don't know her as well as i would like to; am not very good at reaching out to people i want to connect with -- my lack.

Cold

Have a horrible, horrible cold. I haven't felt this crappy in years. Funny thing is, a coupla weeks ago i was a little down, too -- not much, just some stomach upset; could have gone on teaching, but decided not too at the time. According to school law we have a day each year to take off if we simply feel the need to rest, and i did just that. But now, when i'm feeling so crap crap crappy, i feel i can't not show up. That probably means i'm not in such bad shape, after all.

Anyways, seems like half the student body is under the weather, too. Blah!

--------

...'Student body'. The one at this school has 200 heads, 400 arms and 400 legs. A monster no mythology has ever produced.

English IS a funny language!!!

Communion denied to gay catholics

Just take a look at this article...

http://www.sweenytod.com/rno/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=828

At the confessional box: a micro-play

-Forgive me father, for i have sinned. No, wait: though you will think i've sinned, father, i don't need you to forgive me.

-[After a few moments of silence] That is for God to decide, my child.

-What is? Whether i have sinned or not, or whether you should forgive me?

-Whether you have sinned or not. I cannot forgive you if you do not wish me to. That would mean you're not repentant.

-Not necessarily. This thing that i want to talk to you about i do not consider a sin, so i'm indeed not repentant for it. But there could conceivably come to you a sinner who's so sorry for his sins, who thinks them so big that she or he cannot believe they should be forgiven. Couldn't that happen?

-Yes, you're right, it could. I'm sorry.

-It's not big deal, father. And thank you. It's cool you're admitting to a mistake. But if you're fallible, how can you have the authority to forgive or not any sin?

Another article for the school magazine

THE MODEL UNITED NATIONS BANS GAY MARRIAGES WORLDWIDE!!!

MUN finished today. Someone told me that a resolution was passed to make all governments ban homosexual marriages within their territories. This means that, if the M in MUN wasn’t there, i would as of today have to wonder when the next resolution would come. You know, the one that doesn’t allow me to be your teacher, or the one that says that i have to live in special neighborhoods, or wear a sign stitched to my clothing, or be castrated or lobotomized.

Fortunately the M is there, and i can go on teaching… With the peace of mind brought by knowing that there’s a substantial majority among first year students who feels morally empowered to make such decisions affecting my life. Now that’s a relief!

Yes, i do feel a bit threatened, even with the M where it is. But not all that threatened. Seriously. What i am definitely not is offended. On the contrary, i really appreciate the fact that this issue is being discussed openly and i will welcome anyone who wants to talk about it personally. When i was your age, many of my classmates in highschool wouldn’t even touch the topic of homosexuality (other than to insult homosexuals), for fear of being thought homosexual themselves. Heck, even i, being gay, felt that way! So things have changed for the better, in my view.

Of course, there’s still a long way to go. For instance, how many of you feel comfortable about approaching someone who is lesbian, gay or bisexual and asking them what homosexuality is about? Have you ever wondered how someone who is directly affected by these issues views the whole thing? Is it fair to stay with what you read or heard about the topic without having talked about it with someone who supposedly embodies what you heard or read?

Maybe you don’t want to talk about any of this because you can’t understand why people do talk about it. I mean, why does someone have to blabber about her/his sexuality in MY face? Are you trying to recruit me or something? Do you want to make ME gay, too?

Let me make this very clear: NOT AT ALL! But i do have to be in your face, because if i don’t, there are more chances that you’ll go on thinking people like me are evil, sick, sinners, child-molesters, etc.. And i have to scream and shout, so that it’s not so easy for you to give me your version of cure or punishment. And i have to be visible and ask for my rights, so that you won’t try to tell me who i can and cannot love and partner with, what kind of jobs i should and should not have, or whatever (you might still try and do all these things, but at least not without me saying my bit).

If all these words coming and going make you uncomfortable, let me tell you: i myself am not all that thrilled about having to talk publicly or write about my sexuality. I very often find myself wondering how knowledge of my being gay affects the perception others have of me. Puerile as this behavior may be, my mind sometimes concentrates on this issue to the point of impairing my ability to communicate with others (“Is s/he thinking right now that i’m gay? What will s/he think about my saying this in light of my being gay? How do i say this so that it is not misinterpreted and taken to fit this or that gay stereotype?”)

Yes, my shoulders have more chips than any 3000 year old Egyptian statue, yet reason (not always in command) tells me they shouldn’t. After all, if you’re heterosexual, you display your sexuality publicly all the time: you walk hand in hand with your significant other, you introduce them as such to your friends, you comment on how attractive someone is, you watch movies and TV shows where your sexuality is portrayed as natural and supreme, and you have institutions such as marriage that validate your sexuality.

Yet if a couple shares the same gender, all of these behaviors are viewed as surprising, shocking or even criminal by many individuals and societies (in some countries punishable by death). Thus, artificial as it may feel in a society that is not used to it, a space must be created where homosexuality is visible as the kind of normal human behavior it is.

Anyways, going back to the MUN resolution about banning gay marriages on a global scale, i can’t help wondering whether the vote you cast on this issue was meant to reflect your own opinions, or rather those of the country you were representing. Did you research attitudes towards homosexuality in those countries before voting, or did you decide in accordance to your own ideas?

And what do you think: would it be understandable if my own attitude towards you (as individuals and as a group) were to change according to the answer you gave to the previous questions? It really wouldn’t be that difficult to change the way i think about you; i don't need to wait for an answer. In fact, it’s useless to deny it, to a certain extent, it has already changed. But don’t worry, o can guarantee it won’t affect my behavior as your teacher.

A lot of other questions come to mind, too. This is precisely what an exercise such as MUN should do for you. Consider the following, for instance: should there be a global organization trying to impose moral views that supersede those of individual people, cultures or nations? If so, what should its guidelines be? I mean, what are the parameters a certain practice must fit into in order to be declared universally despicable, damaging or violating societies, individuals and/or their rights and interests?

Personally i do believe there should be such an organization, but before it makes any decision, the parameters should be thoroughly discussed… I doubt it would be easy to come to a decision on what those parameters should be, but that same difficulty is an important indicator: issues such as this cannot be taken lightly.

Which, in my opinion, is exactly the opposite of what happened this afternoon.

Rashomon and MUN resolution

My favorite Kurosawa movie. Epistemology, a view into the psyche of post WWII Japan, a boost to my faith in humanity.

More interesting than the movie itself was the discussion Johnny, Azzam, Mariteria and me had after the film. Won't transcribe it here 'cause i wanna go to bed, but basically M & A were angry and frustrated at kids for their reactions to the movie (laughed in the wrong places, for instance). I personally thought they were overreacting, but that's that.

Albín told me tonight that at the Model UN today a resolution was passed to ban gay marriages on a global scale.

Goes to show how good at protecting human rights the real UN is.

Protesting nationalism

A good way to undermine nationalism and other divisive ideologies would be to trivialize their symbols.

Wear a Palestinian scarf around your midriff one day, and pretend to be Daryl Hannah in Attack of the 50 foot woman. Next day pick any two flags (largish) and fashion for yourself a toga: one flag in back, one in front. If you chose, for instance, the US flag for the back, you could sit on the stars and stripes; and if you had the israeli flag in front and you're a man, there could be a nice bump at crotch level, poking against the star of David.

The trick lies in alternating opposed symbols, of course. Don't stick to one garment.

If you ever go into the manufacturing world, i think there could also be a market for nationalistic toilet paper. Each roll would be hold all the world's flags, tightly printed in soft, smooth, ass-wiping cellulose (recycled, of course).

The same could be done for religious symbols. Imagine: the ankh, the cross, the half moon, a pagoda... All stringed together in soft pastel colors against a white background. If a certain religion or sect has no symbols, or if it shares symbols with another, then you just print its name... but you have to make sure that when the time to use the paper comes, you don't cut the word in two. Schisms are bad, as well we know.

------ o ------

Incidentally, we arrived from the Spanish-Skiing excursion yesterday evening. Had an excellent time.

We're off

Beautiful weather. Crisp air, full moon reflected on the fjord, even now! We're loading food and skis onto the bus in 15 minutes, and are off at 9:00. Yay!!!

Narcissistic.she

I think she is a she, at least. Not that i much care about her gender. I don't see that much narcissistic about what she writes though, but there's this whole entry in her blog about how the end is coming, and people should recognize the bible as the one and only truth, and... Sigh!

She seems to be a pretty young kid. Sixteen, seventeen? The world can be a harsh place to grow up in, and she needs to feel part of the IN crowd, protected. And what better crowd than that of a god all powerful? He never sits down and talks to you, but no matter. The other guys and gals in the group, the ones that have been around longer, tell you they know him better, and that he loves you and grace you with more and more of his favours... If only you do this or that.

This god sounds to me more like one of the popular kids in highschool.

Judge rules against anti-evolution disclaimers

This is a good step, but... Has anyone taken the care to check these textbooks in more detail? In my opinion, it doesn't much matter if a textbook has no disclaimers saying or implying evolution is just a theory that can very easily be disproved; it should also include evidence demonstrating how difficult it is to disprove evolution. Otherwise, a state can simply make sure to hire teachers with certain religious convictions and leave them to provide the disclaimers.

Skiing

I won't be writing in here for the next few days. Tomorrow i'm leaving for a ski trip with some of my spanish students. We'll be staying in a cabin up in the mountains, with no internet connections and barely any electricity. Should be fun. Besides the skiing we'll be cooking, watching movies, playing games... Everything in spanish.

My face

There's a mirror on the wall, behind my computer's screen. It was lieing around the house, and since i spend so much time at my desk, i just placed it there a few weeks ago.

Thus, when i work, i sense the pale, worn moon that is my face hovering on the background of my vision, as if an embodiment of my conscience. Sometimes i look at it, and see myself as i am now.

The hair is lost in the darkness, but i can tell it's long and uncombed because of a few glimmers of screen light beyond the ears. That same light, coming from below, catches on the skin and draws lines. I see myself at 10, 50, 75. From the sides of the mouth, where the week-old moustache ends, twin lines start and graze the nostrils. They continue up, defining the nose, till they reach the place where the eyes begin. Two more lines are born there. They are splayed out wider than the others, each pointing to the center of the cheeks, but never reaching them.

I try to read a meaning on my face but, as is often the case with faces, i can't penetrate it. It looks at me with curiosity, calculatingly, even. With distrust that tries to pass as nonchalance.

I realize it doesn't know me.