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Here it is folks. Buy all the independence you want. Everything is for sale. 

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The picture you couldn't see. 

Mosaic Gardens, art v. Reality

This image sums up a lot. The mosaic of writing above the shopping cart says  "real world". That combined with the illegaly parked shopping cart provide an interesting intersection of the beauty and poverty which compete for attention in the "real world." Beauty, often synonomous with money, is constantly creating murals and mosaics, rules and redistriticting,trying to rid the world of unsightliness. And poverty, continually rearing its unsightly head, with its homelessness and graffiti, slums and trash, keeps encroaching on the "beauty" of the world  that the rich try to create.  This type if beauty, one that ignores reality, is a false beauty.

Taking a step further back reveals that this is just part of the phrase the mosaic spells out. The whole thing reads "art is the center of the real world." So, if there is any truth in the photo, the cliched mosaic quote, and the placement of it in a poor neighborhood, then it must also be that art exists everywhere someone is digging into and exposing the difficult reality we find ourelves in. Art exists when we cut through the false beauty and see the truth in what surrounds us.

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Attempting to be rocky, like every Other tourist around. Except I had to film myself. I am a dork.  

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As you can see I'm in Philadelphia now. And in case you're wondering they make really aweseome vegeterian Philly cheesesteaks. 

Gag Reflex- Picante de Cuy

I pride myself on having a bit of a culinary adventure every now and again. So far on this trip I haven't gone wrong. I've ordered several and eaten several Peruvian, Nicaraguan, Israeli, Chinese, Italian, and Amercan food dishes never knowing quite what it was that I ordered or received. Random mystery meats, odd pastries, new fruits, funky smelling cheeses, unusual animal parts (cow's feet, heart, liver, spleen) But I finally met my match.

It's called a cuy, it looks like a rat. Some say it tastes like chicken and has crisp delicate skin like a suckling pig, but eating just a 1/4 of one almost made me a lifetime vegetarian.

Most people know it as a guinea pig, and it was my dinner last night. These rodents originate in the Andes and usually find their way into the western world via hamster ball, or small wire cages. Here in Peru and many other Andean countries, however, they are a delicacy, and are prepared in a myriad of ways: baked, fried, cooked in a spicy sauce (picante - the way I had it), in soups, casseroles, fricasseed, barbecued, etc.

The animals were also used to predict the future. Shaman during Inca, and pre-Inca times would spill the guts of the small creature and the resulting layout of carnage could forecast the future or diagnose medical ailments. Clearly, they were damn important. The Spanish realized this and tried to make cultural inroads via the cuy in this painting found in Cuzco's cathedral. (Take a close look at Jesus' main dish).

Now as far as food goes I would recommend keeping cuys as pets not livestock. I was a litle concered when I ordered the guinea pig, but my fear was assuaged by the amount of people ordering them in the restuarant I was in, and by many others who told me that it was very similar to chicken. When it arrived I was even more reassured by the delicious aroma of spices and peppers floating up from the plate. I took a bite of potato first and it was delicious, soft and tender, perfectly spiced. Then I tried to take a bite of the cuy. I started sawing with my knife. The skin was like a rubber armor protecting the scant amount of meat. I thought it would be easier when I finally got to the meat below, but it turned out the meat was stringy and almost as tough. Three minutes later I cut free my first bite, I was already kind of nauseated but I went for it anyway. Chewing the skin felt like eating overcooked beef gristle, or old a piece of an old pair of sandals. The taste was about the same, old shoe and sandal mixed together. I cringed as I ate. I sawed off a few more pieces and scraped and yanked out what little meat I could, but after a few bites I was fighting back a gag reflex. Maybe it was the taste, or more likely the texture, or perhaps it was the fact that my third grade class had one as a pet, but by the end of the fourth bite I was thoroughly disgusted. I had to throw in the towel. Even looking around the room at the others who were gnawing on cuy bones almost put me over the edge. I am seriously looking forward to a less carniverous diet when I return to the states.

Estoy en Nicaragua y traigo que apprender espanol. Es muy dificil, pero me encanta.

I took my 3rd glance at the clock in an hour and I forgot what the teacher was asking me about. Something about the subjunctive tense and conjugating a verb that I only marginally understood (from her rudimentary explanation in Spanish) "Como?" I asked and slumped onto the table. "Esperas un momento" she responded and went off in search of a dictionary. I took a deep breath and enjoyed the minute break. As I wiped the sweat from my face (80 degrees and humid  at 9 in the morning) I looked around the room. Both of the students we met yesterday (straight A students, one of them attending Berkeley)  had looks of desperation on their faces. The girl had strings of blonde hair sticking out from between her fingers and seemed to be trying to massage the vocabulary into her mind, and the other student was slumped so far over his books that it looked like he was trying to take a nap (which wasn't a bad idea, I thought, after a week's worth of twisting my brain into a new way of thinking).

Had I been teaching, this the lack of energy would have been discouraging. I would have been disappointed with what I saw (disappointed with students behaving as I was now) but now that the tables have been turned a bit I see that it sucks to learn a new language. I have become just like my worst students, unmotivated, tired and even losing track of and not doing my homework. So as I sat there and tried to re-energize myself I realized that if I have a hard time learning another language but have had the benefit of one on one tutoring, 18 years of formal education, and 4 years studying Spanish, then what the hell is to be expected of  students who have no foundation for their education or of this language.

How to apply this is a different matter, perhaps a lot of encouragement and leniency on my part. But for now, as I go back to studying through my packets of homework (very high school-esque), I suppose I'll take a page out of Nicaraguan history (or even a page out of the lives of some of the people living on the streets of this city) many of whose boundless energy seems to show the capacidad y necesidad para luchar (especially if my struggling is only for 4 hours a day and involves beer and sightseeing)

A woman working to support her family




Mi lucha no esta dificil en este momento!

this guy said he goes into the streets each
night to beg for food to eat.

!Viva Cerntroamerica! 

! Que buena esta viaje! Hemos visto muchas cosas interesantes. En el avión vimos la cuidad de Panama. No se que aquel ciudad tiene edificios grandes cerca del mar. cuando llegamos al aeropuerto vimos médicos ( para la H1N1). Los médicos hicieron muchas preguntas y usaron una camera termal y ellos chequearon si los viajeros tienen fiebre. Mas adelante fuimos a la ciudad Granada, cerca del lago Cocibolca. En este cuidad hemos visto iglesias antiguas, hemos conocido gente interesante, hemos bailado la salsa, y por su puesto hemos tomado cervezas. Hemos muchas cosas y tenemos dos semanas mas. En los semanas siguientes iremos a una ciudad que estaba importante en la guerra contra, y finalmente subiremos un volcán vivo (y va a tomar ron y cervezas también).

Se extrañaron mucho,
hasta la próxima vez,

Mateo

The National Pandemic We Should Care About

In the last week the principal at my high school has been more proactive on the campus than any time in the history of her employment there: making announcements posting bulletins, sending ridiculously long emails, and supplying every classroom with soap water, and paper towels (so that desks may be washed daily). All to address the swine sickness, the improbable infirmity that has inundated news coverage and has even recently caused residents in Spain to barricade themselves inside their homes. And though the news would have us believe swine flu  or ______________ (substitute other illnesses with animals modifiers, i.e.- avian flu, or a mad cow disease) is the next black plague, I am reluctant to hop on the hurtling bandwagon of hypochondriacal hysteria. So, before I scour the depths of of the a surplus shop for hazmat suits and black market retrovirals, I’d like to address another issue of a deeper and more pressing concern - slaktasyck-idleritis, or more commonly referred to as apathy.

This a common disease which spreads more expediently and thoroughly than an even the hysteria surrounding the would-be-epidemic of swine flu, it also seems to be a plague that is resistant to the remedies that have been devised to restrict its spread. Someone you know may have been affected by this disease if they suffer from slouched shoulders or a slow shuffling walk. This malcontented malaise often leads to instances of prolonged sluggishness, evidenced by heavy eyelids or, alternatively, blank stares. Perhaps its most deleterious effect, however, occurs in its later stages (often too late to cure) when the general lethargy gives way to out and out slovenliness. Patients often shirk responsibilities regardless of result, are troubled with a shorter attention span, and fail to wake up until late in the afternoon (those suffering from acute cases are even know to suffer from bouts of narcolepsy, falling asleep even during the most important or interesting occasions). This illness is spreading through high school campuses and suburban neighborhoods everywhere.

Case study to follow

I found the answer to my previous blog post:

Mr. T as a role model and teacher. "I pity the fool who gets bad grades" We'll have to get someone else for the resisting materialism, and cosmetology classes, but its a start.

Is this what I want to do for the rest of my life?
This week of blank stares & disaffected teenagers has been  tough one, one that makes me reconsider teaching high school

"There is one thing you need to make sure that you include in your essay: connection to the real world . It's time to go beyond the literature and into the real world, like we did in our discussion last week. You need to take what ruined Macbeth's life, what caused him to kill, and connect that with a troy that you are familiar with." I said to my class two weeks ago, emphasizing its importance and underlining important words on the board. When I had finished my two minute tirade I glanced out hoping to see students taking notes but was instead met with  blank stares (some slackjawed with eyes glazed over - just short of drooling- two minutes was apparently too much direct instruction). I let the silence hang for a minute and whispered "you should probably write this down." One or two students moved which dragged a handful of other students out of their stupor and caused them to ask their neighbors what was going on. As 1/2 the class slowly scribbled down the short notes (the other half not yet aroused from their daydream) I stared into this future pool of humanity and sighed.

Flash forward two weeks into the future. It is essay deadline day, and looking back I feel like I have taught these students, as best I know how, what they need to do to create a strong essay. I repeated instructions and tips for roughly two weeks, at least twice a day. WE brainstormed ideas together and they made connections in their notebooks. I created an online discussion board that students shared ideas on to ensure they were headed in the right direction. I handed out examples of an essay that successfully did what I was asking, and together we broke down the elements of the argument (I wrote the examples myself because I had not taught it before). I organized students into groups to check for this concept in each others papers. I put the students through workshops to make sure that they had honed this concept in their essays.  I gave students several hours to write and work in class. These are all of the most effective techniques that I have learned to create a successful community of writers from some of the best teachers in San Diego County, and yet upon reading these essays (now three weeks in the making) I see that it was not enough. Half of the students never included what we discussed, and to put it bluntly, their papers suck!

Sure you could argue that they have been undereducated for so many years before, and they come from poorer families, which make them much less likely to succeed. They are part of a digital age which makes focusing on an essay much less easy. It could even be argued that because I am a new teacher I am destined to be much less effective at teaching writing to my studetns. I will grant that these reasons contribute to some students poor acheivment (except the last one, my teaching is flawless -ha), but it's an explanation that just feels lacking. It seems the problem goes deeper. This poor acheivement seems to stem from one of our culture's major flaws. It seems that these students, who plan to go to college and become well paid business professionals, are living the new version of the American dream, one that tells Americans something comes from nothing. A dream that allows them to have the world handed to them without having to work for it. There are many contributing factors: doting parents, poor role models (think popular musicians, movies, and even business professionals) lack of consequesnces for bad decisions (invincibilty of being a teen), irrelevant teaching etc. etc. I am not so concerned with searching out the blame, but I am very interested in searching out the cause and combating it using the education system. What are teachers doing to battle apathy? How can these subdivided separately assessed skills be affixed, in a meaningful way, into studetns lives? How can we team up with other organizations to change the culture of the sutdetns who attend our schools?

Big questions without immeadiate answers. But I suppose the fact that I am willing to ask after this week, shows that I stilll care about teaching. We'll see if I feel the same way after reading all of the essays! ARGH!

Hugo Chavez is the Enemy of who exactly?

Many have claimed that Chavez, the leader of Venezuela (who recently helped the country do away with term limits that would enable him to remain president as long as he can be reelected) has been referred to by many as an enemy of the US. George W. Bush  declared the Venezuelan democracy an "unchecked concentration of power in the executive," which, although incredibly ironic (the whole pot & kettle thing), makes a valid point in light of practices such as the term limit removal mentioned earlier. But some take their criticism a little further as good old Pat Robertson does here, "We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," and "If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it... It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war…and I don't think any oil shipments will stop". (Ah, nothing like well paid vocal Christians preaching self-interest, murder, and war to make the rest of us look good)

Though most aren't as extreme as W or Robertson, much of what I've seen having to do with Chavez is negative. Which begs the question, what is the other side of the story? Well, here it is. The below documentary The Revolution Will not be Televised  set out to make a documentary of Chavez's life and accidentally captures a military coup launched by the several consevative businessmen and military officers (They admit to their involvement on TV!) Even if the politics of Latin America aren't something you're interested in, this is a fascinating look at how easy it is to manipulate the government and the media in a poor country (and may make you ask the same questions about our system here)

Enjoy!!!
 

The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Bird Man

I just finished watching Bill Maher’s Religulous, which was, to put it lightly, annoying and tedious. But despite the films flaws it introduced me to something I had never heard before. The connection between the story of Jesus Christ as told in the Gospels and the story of Horus, the falcon headed Egyptian god. I am in no way invested in the idea the scripture is inerrant nor was this the first time I had heard about mythology or pagan religions influencing the bible. My faith wasn’t shattered when in college I read the Epic of Gilgamesh and learned that the story of the flood in Exodus was most likely borrowed from that text. In fact I already assumed that a great many Old Testament stories were mythical and meant to be instructive not historical. But I had never taken that approach or heard similar stories to New Testament until Mr. Maher introduced Jesus’ bird headed distant cousin.

He really has a lot in common with Jesus. Check it out Virgin birth, son of (a) god, performed miracles (including both raising a guy named Lazarus from the dead), said to be the savior, had 12 disciples, crucified on a cross around age 30, rose again 3 days later after defeating death, etc. In case you might have been confused about the timing this legend came about at least 2000 years before Christ was to have lived. That would mean that biblical authors borrowed their ideas from the Egyptians. And unless the savior comes back around every so often (which would stoke fans of the Matrix) this knocks me a little off of my foundation.

Since reading a little bit about this I’ve been trying to determine if it takes away much of my faiths’ validity. However that is a good thing. It has caused me to reevaluate the most important tenants of my faith. For example, it’s really not that important that Jesus was born of a virgin or that he turned water into wine (though I was excited about that one). The crucifixion + resurrection, on the other hand, are kind of key. What does my faith look like without them? If that part of Christianity is negated then things might get a little tricky. Without this tenant of Christianity, essentially the part that says Jesus died to forgive our sins, the backbone is seemingly cut out of out of my understanding of God, my faith becoming a jellyfish beached and waiting to die, or is it?

So some questions remain:

• Am I reading too much into this?
• Am I ok with the normal guy Yeshua? Is the fact that he was a peaceweaving           nonconformist and revolutionary enough to follow him? deify him?
•  What remains of my faith without Jesus?
• Is there still the possibility that the Holy spirit speaks to us?
• Is there still the understanding that there is a God of love and his ideal is what we strive for?

Send answers or thoughts if you have them!!

Starting Lent off with a Bang!
This morning I was greeted by a student who was more awake than usual. She walked into my English class at 7:20 this morning shouting "Mr. Gonzales Mardi Gras is today, Whoo! Yeah! Are you gonna party tonight ?!"  I looked up up, half asleep, and saw her shaking a fist full of  purple and yellow metalic beads awaiting my response.  

"Huh?" was all I could think to say. "To be hoest I had no idea it was Fat Tuesday."

"Well I am!!" she  said and turned to talk to another student quietly, but not quietly enough. "Yeah, I'm totally gonna go out tonight. Check out the beads I got last year. I have another  one at home that says show me your tits!! I was gonna wear it today, but I thought it'd get  taken away."

The other student chimed in "That's awesome!! How'd you get 'em?"

At that point I walked to the other side of the room for fear of what else I might hear, and thanked God that my students keep me informed of the deeper meaning of religious holidays.