298 Days (Approx.)

Blogger Application-Tastic!

2009-08-18T00:12:00.003-04:00

Hey guys, it's my first post since coming back from Ecuador. I guess when my year ended, that was the end of the blog. But now I have another reason to post! I'm applying to be an Admissions Blogger at MIT!

Here's my application:

Biographical stuff

1. Tell us your major, or (for freshmen) possibilities of your major. 

I plan to dual-major in Biology and Chemistry.

2. Tell us what activities hope to become involved with at MIT, or (for upperclassmen) what you're currently involved with on campus. 

I hope to do a UROP at the Broad Institute, and do (non-invasive, non-destructive, non-illegal) hacking. I also will be part of the Freshman Arts Seminar Advising Program, or FASAP.

3. Let us know your living group. For freshmen, tell us which dorm you've been temped in. For upperclassmen, tell us where you live, and, if applicable, any FSILG affiliations.

I've been temped in East Campus.

Short Answer Essays

Short answer #1 - In a paragraph or two, describe why you want to be an admissions blogger and what unique things you feel you'll contribute to the program. 

When I was in a year-long foreign exchange program in Ecuador, I did many exciting activities, like volunteering at a home for children and attending an art school. Along each step of my path, I wrote about these things in this very blog, and I felt a sense of wonder at the way I could explain strange and different customs to my friends and family. I want to be an admissions blogger because I want to share my joy in math, science, and everything that is MIT with everyone. I think that my experience in trying to make the sometimes odd actions of Ecuadorians understandable to other Americans would translate well to making the sometimes odd life of an MIT student understandable to prospective applicants.

Short answer #2 - In either a video or a written post with photos, introduce us to a part of your life, house, town, etc. that you find wildly interesting.

Perhaps my most interesting experience in Ecuador was attending an art school. One day, I went to a show of some of my teachers' work.

This is my Drawing teacher, one Sr. López. He's a nice guy, really soft-spoken. He had some interesting stuff, as you can see here in this really dark picture.

This is my 2-D Composition teacher, la Sra. María Elena. She's one of the two teachers I have who teaches art the way I think it should be done, focusing on conveying information about techniques and different thought processes rather than making a painting you can sell in Otavalo for $50. She's also the only teacher who has shown an awareness of the existence of abstract art, though she does like Jackson Pollock, which is a strike against her. I like this painting the best out of all of them, though I think I may be alone. When I showed a friend of mine, Diego (who didn't go to the show, but went with me on Saturday for another reason), he said, "You like this?" I asked Sra. Elena about the painting, and she said that it's figurative of the idealism of femininity. She told me she's reading now a book about how all the leaders of the ancient past were women, and then men used their sexual powers and tricks and stuff like that to gain control.

This is my sculpture teacher's painting. His name is Carlos Torres. I didn't realize that he painted, but apparently, he does! And, he also paints naked women, unsurprisingly. Nice guy.

This is my painting teacher, Rivadellera or something like that. I think I've complained enough about my painting teacher in other posts that I don't need to do it here. But the painting's nice, if a bit typical of the paintings with the subject matter and exaggerated hands.

Other prestigious figures who showed up include:

My Social Studies teacher, the second from the left.

My school's principal, the guy in the center there.

My Literature teacher.

The school Inspector, the guy in the middle.

This man, who I think was a retired teacher, who can only be correctly described as Eyebrow Man. I didn't notice why my Weirdar was going off until I took a closer look.

OMG HIS EYEBROWS.

MaiTe, Mishel, Valeria and I were the only people who went to the show from our class. It was shameful. Speaking of shameful, I just learned the word for shameful! Vergonzoso! I was tired of saying "It's a shame."

That's, from the right, Mishel, MaiTé, Valeria and some girl I don't know.

Additional Blog Posts:

Why I'm Online at 10AM
Art and Some Things that Annoy Me
I Make Art
The Ecuadorian Adventure

A Video I Made with Some Friends:

And I think that's everything. Thank you for reading my application.

I Have to Pee!

2009-05-26T20:08:00.002-04:00

I have to go to the bathroom, but I'm in the internet café and I don't want to get up because then someone might take my flash drive or headphones. It's not cool. And if I take the flash drive, then I have to close out of all my programs because I run my programs off my flash drive. So I'm just holding it.

Now, more information that you didn't need to know.

I woke up on Friday morning at 2AM and proceeded to throw up the half-digested Chinese food from the night before. Now, according to Anita and Rosita (They tag-team me on these kinds of things. They're worse than Mom and Susanne. Okay, maybe not.), the reason for this is one of the following:

I ate too much greasy food the day before (just fried eggs, pork chops, and the Chinese food).
I ate while sitting in my bed.
I went to sleep after eating and without walking to let my food settle.
The Chinese food was bad (Rosita threw this one out without considering it. It was obviously that I didn't let my food settle.).

Now, they didn't really care that I've eaten Chinese food in bed before going to sleep many, many times before, and it's never bothered me... *sigh*

So it was a strict ration of Gatorade and toasted corn kernels, which I promptly ignored and went to KFC for lunch. Anita, Rosita, Carolina, and Carlos went to Santo Domingo for Salomé's (you remember Anita's granddaughter) birthday party. I stayed behind, because I didn't feel like throwing up on the bus, and went to Otavalo instead. I got some nice stuff, fabric for Mom, t-shirts for Doug and Ezra (Ezzy, if you grew too much, it won't fit you, so you better stay tiny), and some cloth bracelets I thought Anna might like. Still gotta get stuff for Jesse and Silvia's wedding present (I'm thinking some Playstation games, but I dunno) and Eve and Dad. I was thinking a nice leather wallet from Cotacachi for you, Dad. On top of that fat stack of DVDs.

So that was fun. On Sunday, I was feeling strange and mopy, and I decided not to go on the end-of-the-year trip to the beach on Monday. Which turned out to be a good thing, because I had diarrhea. I hate being sick. Rosita and Carolina asked me why I didn't go, and I said I was sick. It was one of the few times Carolina's talked to me in the past few months, and it was just to tell me how stupid I was for not going on the trip. It's starting to piss me off. I dunno. People have this weird idea that it's impossible for other people to not be like them, especially teenagers (like Carolina, who's at the awful age of 13). Carlos is much the same way. I don't think he ever really grew up. It's not just people here, of course, it's people everywhere, but it's only here that my characteristics (like not going to clubs and getting smashed) are coming into extreme conflict with the people around me. For example, when we were planning this trip to the beach in my class, we were originally going to go to Atacames and spend the night there, which ended up being scrapped for the cost ($1010). Anyways, my math teacher was planning it with us, and he said, Oh, at the end of the first day, we'll all go out to a club, get a couple of beers, dance, you know. Regardless of the fact that I'm in 10th grade here, and most of my classmates are 15, and it's illegal for people under 18 to drink and go to clubs. Mine's just a different mindset. One that Carlos says is boring.

Sorry if this sounds a little angry, but it does upset me. Especially Carolina. She yelled at me "Liar!" when I said I didn't go because I was sick. What she doesn't realize is that I could crush her with my pinkiest finger.

So I went to school today, and no one showed up. Turns out it was just for the people who have to take extra classes because they failed their course. Turns out, I didn't fail any of my courses (even though I don't know how in the world I passed gym)! They don't hand out grades for the last trimester though. Oh well. Doesn't really matter anyway. I said good bye to those of my friends who did show up. Only five people failed one or more of their classes (one kid failed four) in my course. The other tenth grade class had twelve who failed something. We win.

Anyway, it was my last day of high school. I don't have to wake up at 5:45 anymore. I've got three weeks of vacation (with FLVS... Greater-than period less-than), and I'm looking forward to using it. To sleep in and spend time at the internet.

You know what, I think that's boring by anyone's definition.

Thanks for commenting, Jesse. I think cybermakeouts are great too, though not as great as actual makeouts. Thanks for commenting too, Kris. I'm not sure if Thunder Road is still my favorite song. I've got a bunch of new ones I like too.

That's all for now.

kthxciao.

Some Insignificant Updates

2009-05-17T13:08:00.002-04:00

Okay, just a couple of things of no importance to anyone (except the last one).

I made a comic version of my incredible trip to Quito to take the AP exam. It's only slightly exaggerated. I've got it up on my self-portrait diary blog, so check it out. I also added in some labels that appear under each post, telling you what materials and/or techniques were used. Click on one, and it brings up a page with all of the portraits made in the same way on it. For example, click on "watercolors", and you see portraits #s 4, 5, 6, 15, and 16.

I've only got 29 days left here, so I'm gonna be hitting up the tourist hotspots in search of bona fide Ecuadorian goodies to bring back as presents. Any requests?

I got a girlfriend, Kristina, who I met way back at MITES. This means, as Jesse says, a high potential for cybermakeouts. Oh hey, Jesse, you're one to talk, for someone who calls his significant other "Schmoo," short for "Schmoochies." OH BURN. Also, Kris said to tell you to shut up. She's got a black belt in karate, too, so it's probably not the best idea to piss her off. This goes for you too, Ezra, though I don't need any help in totally destroying you, at Brawl or in real life.

Thank you, Kris, for commenting. Yeah, I love hamburgers. Thank you, Mom, for commenting. Anita's favorite color is sky blue, and I only went to McDonald's because I couldn't find a Burger King. I'm a BK man through and through. Thank you, Jesse, for commenting. I think you become a guidance counselor by taking a test. Question 1: A student comes into your office with some schedule issues. Do you: A) Tell her you're too busy, B) Tell her to schedule an appointment with your secretary who's out to lunch, C) File her request in the paper shredder, or D) All of the above?

That's all for now. 29 more days.

kthxchow.

This IS a Tasty Burger!

2009-05-14T12:21:00.004-04:00

So, yesterday, May 13th, I decided that waking up at 2:30 to ride a bus for 3 hours to wait around for another hour before taking a four hour test was MY IDEA OF FUN. But I'm putting the cart before the horse.

Yesterday was the AP English Language and Composition test. I'm taking the class online, which is the reason I haven't posted lately. So, yesterday morning I got up at 2:30 in order to catch the 3:00 bus to Quito, where the American school that gives AP tests is. Anita went with me to show me where to go. So, a six-hour round trip for her, for no real reason. I love her so much. I'm gonna do something special for her when I actually have some money. Traveling with Anita is really fun, because she can't handle not being in control. We're waiting for the bus, and Anita's cursing that the people who run the booth for that particular bus are late, and that the bus hasn't arrived yet, and everything. Then, about an hour into the ride, someone gets on the bus with something smelling very strongly of paint. Maybe fifteen minutes later, Anita realizes and gets up, and starts asking loudly, "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT PAINT SMELL?" No one speaks up, but eventually whoever had the paint left, probably out of fear for his life. When we got to Quito, the taxi to take us to the terminal charged three dollars, so Anita nearly came to fisticuffs with the taxi driver, trying to barter him down to two dollars. I paid for it.

We parted at the terminal, where Anita pointed me to the bus I had to take to get to the school. That ride took about fifteen minutes, and I found out that the buses in Quito charge twenty-five cents instead of ten, like in Ibarra. When I got there, I had a little map that showed me where the school was, except the scale was wrong and it was missing streets, so I wandered for ten minutes ~~thinking~~ hoping I was going the right way. As it turned out, after a little while I didn't even need the map. You can tell the giant eyesore that is an American school from half a mile away.

When I got there, it was about 6:30, 1.5 hours early for the exam. I wanted to go in and wait inside but the guard (real guard, like with the bang-bang and the nightstick) said no. I'm like, You're really gonna make me wait out here on the asphalt instead of right inside on a bench, where you can still see me. He was like, *nod*. So I sat outside in the school parking lot reading Spider-Man and eating slightly warm pizza Anita heated up for me before we left (I love her sooooo much). Finally, at seven-fifty, one of the guards motioned me over and told me to go talk to one of the people, who took me up to the college guidance counselor. Her name was Tracy Galvines. Ms. Galvines was American, and talked in this really high-pitched and annoying voice. I don't think she can speak Spanish, because she only spoke English with the people. Oh, all the teachers and students speak English really, really well, even though they're all Ecuadorian. It was weird. But I guess if you're going to the most expensive school in all of Quito, you should be getting your money's worth.

That reminds me of something I hate. I hate when Ecuadorian people talk to me in English. The teachers there kept trying to speak to me in English, and I was like, "No, I understand Spanish." And they kept talking to me in English, so I finally gave up. It's kind of insulting, like they don't think I can understand them. It's even worse when people say just "Good morning" or "Hello", and that's all they know in English. It's like they're trying to show off.

NO I WILL NOT LOOK AT THINGS FROM ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE. IT'S MY BLOG AND I GET TO CHOOSE WHAT POINT OF VIEW I WANT.

Ms. Galvines asked me what school I was going to for college. I said MIT. She froze, and was like, "You're going to MIT?" I said yes. She said, "How did you get into MIT?"I thought she was kidding at first, but then she waited for an answer, and I said, "Well, I went to a summer program there, and I think spending a year here helped too." She said, "You're kidding." I assured her I wasn't kidding. She then foisted responsibility for proctoring the AP exam onto her secretary, saying "I'll be there as soon as I finish this!" She never showed.

The kids at the American school were strange. The secretary assured me that none of them were American or had American parents, but they all seemed pretty white, with blonde hair and stuff. And American accents. Totally freaked me out. Then we took the AP test, which, for National Security reasons, College Board forbids me from talking about. I can tell you that on the last page of my essay, I wrote "WHY SO SERIOUS?" in big letters and then drew a line through it. R.I.P. Heath Ledger. I don't know how the Ecuadorian kids did well on it, though. Not because it was in English, but because a lot of the questions dealt specifically about America and American culture. I threw a bunch of American mannerisms in my writing just to differentiate myself. All the kids were freaking out about the time. Every five minutes or so, someone would ask what time it was, and the proctor gave the correct time limit about 50% of the time. It was funny.

Afterwards, I made my way out of there and went to the McDonald's I saw on the way. Now, if you haven't lived out of the country before, in a place where the amenities of home are non-existent, you won't be able to understand why this was so important to me. I will try to explain. Probably the only truly American food is fast food, and the most symbolic of that is the McDonald's franchise. When you eat at McDonald's, you're tasting America. However sad that may be. But there are no McDonald's in Ibarra. The only American fast food here is KFC (which they still call Kentucky Fried Chicken, even though no one knows what that means). There are burgers, but they're all nasty and disgusting. And my host uncle owns a burger joint! Te last American-style burger I had was ten months ago. So, I go into the McDonald's and they've got the air condition set to 65º, just like back home. They've got a playpen, just like back home. I look at the menu, and it's all in Spanish, not like back home. But the pictures are the same! I say Gimme a double quarter pounder, no cheese, extra pickles, with a large order of fries and a Cherry Coke. The lady at the counter doesn't understand, so I repeat it in Spanish, except I don't know the word for "pickles" so I just leave that part out. The whole thing comes on a tray with three packets of mayonnaise and one of those large sheets of paper with advertising on it to keep the tray from getting too dirty, just like they do it back home, except with mayonnaise instead of ~~ketchup~~ ~~catsup~~ ~~catchup~~ ketchup. Then I unwrap the burger and eat it. It was the best meal I have ever had. From McDonald's! Who would have thought! After that I ordered a Dark Temptation, an ice crem sundae loaded with chocolate. But it was good ice cream! Not the nasty kind they have here! I was so happy, I was just sort of smiling all the rest of the day. Well, that wasn't the only reason I was smiling, but it still made me really happy.

I rode the bus home without incident. I watched this really grüesome Jackie Chan movie on the bus. It had people getting hanged and shot and stuff. Then I went to an AFS meeting where I was the only kid who showed up. *sigh*

Anyway, the upshot of the whole day was That was a tasty burger!

Thanks Jesse for commenting. I don't know. I used to wrap my entire bed in Shrink Wrap, but then I passed out from lack of oxygen. Thank you, Kris, for commenting. I wore my Obama t-shirt to the AP test for good luck. Thanks, Mom, for commenting. You know the Bahamas is there with voodoo and the stuff, right? THAT'S WHERE ZOMBIES COME FROM. Dad, can you check and make sure that Mom's not a zombie, please? Thanks. And thank you, Ezra, for commenting. I just want to let you know that your days of being able to win at Brawl are limited. Because the day I get to your house, I'm gonna just start destroying you. No mercy. You have been warned. Thanks, Stephan, a new commentor. I know I'm awesome, but I don't mind having people tell me. I appreciate it. You're pretty cool yourself. Are you going to go to MIT early for the Freshman Pre-Orientation Programs (FPOPs)? Such a cool acronym.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, but taking the camera would have been a lot to worry about.

That's all for now. 33 more days here. I'll be doing a picture tour of Ibarra sometime soon, so stay tuned.

kthxchao.

I Think I Caught Swine Flu

2009-05-03T17:44:00.002-04:00

Okay, this is gonna be a short post. Just a couple of things.

One, I finally made a decision about college, and I'll be attending MIT in the fall. Like that comes as surprising news to anybody.

Two, I feel kind of sick. Although I'm not vomiting, and I don't have diarrhea, or any of the symptoms of swine flu, and there have been no reported cases of swine flu in Ecuador (Ecuador FTW). My nose is stuffy, and I feel pretty tired. Which sucks. I hate being sick.

Three, I put some new self-portraits up on my self-portrait diary blog. Some good ones too, I think.

Okay, that's enough for now. Thanks for commenting, Dad. Hey, I'm bringing back a whole bunch of bad movies (and a couple of good ones) for you, but they're all packaged in a single case, so they won't take up too much space. Don't go out and buy the Dark Knight or Iron Man, 'kay? Also, there's a package coming from MIT with orientation materials. You guys can open it, but just hang on to the stuff until I get back. Won't be long now (45 days). Thanks to you too, Ben, for commenting. Did you not see that I said about three times that I was planning on doing a post about politics for the election but never got around to it? ;)

kthxchao.

How Many Times Can I Mention My Dad in One Post?

2009-04-25T19:23:00.008-04:00

Well, I was just thinking today about my father, who is undoubtedly the most amazing man in the history of everything, serving as the inspiration for every single amazing thing I do in my life (which is a lot of stuff), and I thought, Hey, maybe I should do a blog post about him!

Oh, and, you know, other, less important stuff like photographs of my teachers and the
~~orphanage~~ home for children that I work at.

So, I've done a couple of posts about the ~~orphanage~~ home for children I work at, but so far I've been too afraid of the nuns to take pictures. But, since I know my dad would like to see pictures of the kids and stuff, so I bit the bullet and asked for permission. Which they gave. No biggie.

This is Erika! Now, all the kids at the ~~orphanage~~ home for children (I'm trying to change that word in my mind, but it's hard) love me, but some of them try to pretend like they don't in order to get my attention. Erika's not one of those. She also gets really upset easily, and is a favorite target of Sor. Linda (I figured out her name. 'Sor.' is a title, which I don't know what it stands for yet, and her name is Linda. [not kidding] I didn't get a picture of her.) She's pictured here next to a map of Ecuador, which still includes land ceded to Peru in a war back in the 1990s. She's also wearing red, which is not green, which is my dad's favorite color.

The brown-skinned girl in the back is Dominik, the girl not looking at the camera, Nicole, and the girl getting the bunny ears, some weird girl not in my study group whose name I don't know who follows me around because I give her candy. Dominik is hilarious. When she found out I was taking pictures, she tried to get into every one. And nearly succeeded. Also liked to try and put her finger on the lens. Kind of annoying. Nicole is the other girl like Erika who follows me around and grabs my arm and tries to get me to sit next to her even when she's not doing homework. I tell you, this volunteering business is a dangerous game. I'm reminded of that time when my dad worked in Mexico at a clinic with just women. That little girl is too young to be in the room where I am. The other American guy, Robert, works with their group.

The girl on the left is Anahí, and the one in the middle is María. You already met Dominik. Anahí is really energetic, always bouncing around. María is a 20-year-old German girl who lives at the orphanage full-time, volunteering and giving English lessons and stuff. She's taller that most people here, like my dad would be if he lived in Ecuador.

The girl on the right is Silvia, who managed to get her eyes closed in every picture I took of her, and the girl on the left is *gasp* Dominik! Silvia's a really nice girl, the only fully black one in my study group. I'm not sure whether Dominik is mulatto or (more likely) mestizo, but the black people here are really, really dark. Silvia is the hardest working and (coincidentally) the smartest girl in my study group. She's in the same grade as Erika (who's also really smart but doesn't want to put any effort in) and Amelia (who wasn't there that day, so I don't have a picture of her), but does her work about two or three times as fast as them. You know who's also a hard worker? My dad.

This is Anahí, holding up Friday's snack of Bread and Yogurt. That brownish blur is Dominik, trying to jump into the camera. Took me about 4 shots to actually get this much.

This is Silvia's little sister. She's like that other little girl above in two ways: One, I don't know her name. Two, she only talks to me to ask for candy.

This is a little kid whose name I don't know (noticing a pattern here?). Although this is a girl's home for children, some of the girls have brother who come to visit and hang out. Just little kids, though. Haven't seen any older guys.

Sometimes the kids try to trip me up by asking if I know their names. Luckily, they just started a few weeks ago, right after I had finally learned each of their names.

So, Thursday night, I headed out to the Earthly Terminal (that's what it's called) for my teachers' show!

This is my Drawing teacher, one Sr. López. He's a nice guy, really soft-spoken. He had some interesting stuff, as you can see here in this really dark picture. There's another painting that I didn't upload where the main figure is a naked black woman. She's got the curly hair and everything. I didn't ask him about it. Probably should have. Maybe he's married to a black woman, like my dad.

This is my 2-D Composition teacher, la Sra. María Elena. She's one of the two teachers I have who teaches art the way I think it should be done, focusing on conveying information about techniques and different thought processes rather than making a painting you can sell in Otavalo for $50. She's also the only teacher who has shown an awareness of the existence of abstract art, though she does like Jackson Pollock, which is a strike against her. I like this painting the best out of all of them, though I think I may be alone. When I showed Diego (who didn't go to the show, but went with me to the terminal on Saturday for another reason), he said, "You like this?" I asked Sra. Elena about the painting, and she said that it's figurative of the idealism of femininity. She told me she's reading now a book about how all the leaders of the ancient past were women, and then men used their sexual powers and tricks and stuff like that to gain control (not exaggerating here). She's pretty feminist, which is a bit refreshing in a place where my old history of art teacher once spent twenty minutes explaining that the woman's place was in the kitchen. You know who else supports women's rights? My dad.

This is my sculpture teacher's painting. His name is Carlos Torres. I didn't realize that he painted, but apparently, he does! And, he also paints naked women, unsurprisingly. Nice guy. Like my dad.

This is my painting teacher, Rivadellera or something like that. I think I've complained enough about my painting teacher in other posts that I don't need to do it here. But the painting's nice, if a bit typical of the paintings with the subject matter and exaggerated hands (Jesse and Silvia know what I'm talking about. Hey, you know who my brother's father is? My dad.).

Other prestigious figures who showed up include:

My Social Studies teacher, the second from the left.

My school's principal, the guy in the center there.

My Literature teacher.

The school Inspector, the guy in the middle.

This man, who I think was a retired teacher, who can only be correctly described as Eyebrow Man. I didn't notice why my Weirdar was going off until I took a closer look.

OMG HIS EYEBROWS.

That's, from the right, Mishel, MaiTé, Valeria and some girl I don't know.

Then some cowboys started dancing, and the thing was over.

So, last post was pretty big on comments! I had 6 comments on that post, the most I've ever had on a single post. The previous record was five, held by Food, FTJ: 8-28-08, and The Things People Say. I'm not sure what the big draw was, since there were no cooked pets, pictures of other AFS kids, or hilarious lolcats (the Soylent Milk one I thought was so-so). Let's get down to business, then.

Thanks for commenting, Dad. I had forgotten how important you are in shaping my life, so I mentioned you twelve times in this post. I'll get the other eight soon. Thanks for commenting, Tom. I like my dad too. Hey Anonymous! Why don't you go write a poem and not attribute it to yourself? Or, like, go give valuable information to the police without giving away your own identity! Or, maybe not be a moron! That's a thought. (Disclosure: If you're actually someone I know who just didn't put a name, I'm only kidding. If you're not, I mean every word.) Thanks for commenting, Jesse. Yeah, I think "home for children" is the best way to describe it. There's no school there. María told me yesterday that some of the kids were beaten by their parents, so it could be that too. To throw another wrinkle into defining it, though, one of the girls, Joanna, just stays there until 6 or so to do homework, then goes home with her mother. And it's not that my blog is popular enough to pick up trolls, it's that it's AWESOME enough. Also, it may not be a troll. Trolls usually have annoying usernames like "coolman87324" or "xXsexygrlXx213", and speak without proper grammar. Thanks for commenting, Mom. You got the wrong kind of troll there. You're thinking of this kind of troll. Jesse meant this kind. Thanks for commenting, Ben. I come back to the US on June 18th, and will be going (relatively) north either in July, if I go to Maryland for the summer, or in August, for college.

Speaking of college, Harvard just got back to me, saying I was accepted, and giving me $51,200/$52,700 in financial aid! They also said specifically that my parents (this means you, Dad) don't have to pay anything! So that's good.

Well, that's all for now.

kthxciao.

In a Handbasket

2009-04-17T19:45:00.004-04:00

I thought I'd take a little time today to talk about one of the biggest parts of my life here in Ecuador, volunteering at a local orphanage. At least, I thought it was an orphanage, and then I found out they spend holidays with their mothers. But, until someone gives me a better name for it, it's gonna be "The Orphanage next to the San Francisco church."

It's a pretty nice building, actually. It's square, and has a large open courtyard in the center. There are a couple of places for having masses and that on either side, but I don't have many occasions to go into them. There are two floors, with most of the bedrooms being on the top floor along the east and north walls. The place where I usually hang out is the study. There are three studies in a row on the top floor facing the street, the south wall. I'm in the last one on the right. There's also another courtyard where we eat snacks, and a playground with really old swings and slides, and an open pool that scared the crap out of me the first time I saw it since it's deep, empty and right next to where the kids play.

But you guys don't really care about that. You want to know about what I actually do! What? You don't care? Well, I don't care about you guys either! Okay, yes I do. I'm sorry. But anyways, I work with the girls on their English homework. Oh yeah, it's an all-girls orphanage, kind of a sister institution to the all-boys orphanage a couple blocks away. I work with girls aged seven to about twelve. Because ~~everyone here is really short~~ the average height here is less than I'm used to, I have a problem with telling people's age during the teen years, since I usually go by height as the determining factor. So twelve is just a guess. Some of the high school girls from other studies try hitting on me, but I just ignore them, because the best way to make a girl interested in you is to totally ignore her.

One of the nice things about being in Ecuador is that for what seems like the first time, I'm living further away than my mom can reach.

I love you, Mom.

Yes, I know I'm not going to be living in Ecuador forever, and that I have to come home sometime.

Yes, I know that you control how much money I have.

I love you soooooo much.

Anyways, I help the girls with their English homework. The quality of the education in English here is terrible. Usually, I try not to make judgments on that, but it really is. For several reasons, most outside of the control of the teachers and the students. The kids aren't taught on a daily basis (in my school, it's three periods a week), the teachers aren't native speakers, and so fail pretty hard on nuanced (and sometimes not-so-nuanced) grammar and pronunciation. But sometimes I wonder, because these kids take English from first grade, and half of them don't know pronouns or even what "the" is. Now, I'm not there enough time to do some serious teaching that would be useful, and they're not old enough that it would stick anyway, and this German woman who's staying there is doing a good job of that as it is, so I just try and make sure they get their assignments done right. Which can be difficult, since half the time the textbooks mess something up, or the teacher himself puts something down wrong on the test (This actually happens frequently. And the girls tell me that he gets mad when I correct him, and makes vague suggestions that I should talk to him so he can show me up. Or maybe it's just the febrile minds of ten-year-olds.). It's funny seeing the exact same assignments I had to do (there is, there are) in Spanish class four years ago crop up again, but in English.

The group I work with is ten girls, Anita, Amelia, Joanna, Katerine, Dominik, Erika, Anahí, Nicole, Silvia and one little girl whose face I can picture in my mind but whose name is just not there. I've almost got them all, though. There's also a nun who stays in the room most of the time. I think her name's Soycatalina. Or it may be Soylinda. Or maybe Soylentgreen.

All the nuns, it seems, are named Soy-something. I don't understand it yet. They're all really old, except one. I take Bible stories more seriously from them, because I figure they were around to see most of them happen. Now, my friend's mother Heidi has long told me horror stories about the nuns at the Catholic school she attended, so I was somewhat prepared for the way the nuns would be, but I wasn't really prepared. A couple of months ago, Soylinda, or whatever her name is, took ten minutes out of her busy schedule to yell at one of the girls for eating an apple, because she wasn't sharing with the rest of the group. Now, it's an apple. And the girl's all of eleven years old. There's no need for that kind of reaction. See, this nun, she was a prayer. And one day, she goes off cra-a-a-zier than usual. So Erika gets the sharp wit to defend herself. And Soylinda doesn't like that. Not. One. Bit. So she calls Erika an "empty-headed clown" and starts yelling about how she don't get no respect (I only wish I were kidding), and how she hates hypocrisy. Erika tells Soylinda to shut up and leaves. One of the funny things about Spanish is that you can say things inherently insulting, like "shut up," but using the formal form of the verb. I don't even know what it was about. At least she didn't start hitting the girl. I dunno what I would have done then.

That's about all I can think of with respect to the orphanage. I'm gonna get some pictures of it, probably next week, for your viewing pleasure. Stay tuned.

Thanks for commenting, Mom. I don't know why people are scared of cats and not dogs. Probably the same reason why Camille and I walk around ladders when everyone else here goes right under them. And it's true that nobody is afraid of the dogs. Kids'll go up and pet them. Thanks Jesse, for commenting as well. Carlos mentioned off-hand that Jesus wasn't a Jew, he was a "Galileo." Assuming he wasn't referring to the famous astronomer, I have no idea what that could mean. Thank you also to Diana, for commenting and following my blog. I was intrigued by your comment about being in Chile, so I looked at your blog "A Temporary Santiaguina," but there's only the one post...

That's pretty much all for now! Oh, also, I'm sick of car alarms and politics. But that's another story, and shall be told, another time.

kthxchow.

The Things People Say

2009-04-12T16:09:00.007-04:00

WARNING!

I'm gonna warn you up front, this post is going to be highly subjective, insomuchas I didn't ask people what they meant (you'll understand once you read), and it all comes through my American Lens. So, if you're the kind of person who gets upset at that sort of thing (I'm not pointing any fingers), then you may want to skip down to the bottom. It's just that things have sort of come to a head, for me, with this topic, and I like using this blog to talk about things that I can't really talk about here.

Like racism and anti-Semitism. So, the Channel (a TV station named just that) was showing a movie, one you may be familiar with. The Passion of the Christ, with Mel Gibson. And so, not being so much of a fan of whips tearing flesh off of bones, I left. Then, yesterday, Anita's son Carlos shows up, and he and Rosita start talking about the movie. Carlos specifically mentioned the whip-flesh-tearing as one of the reasons he liked the movie so much (It was so real!), and even made the sound with his mouth. I nearly laughed, but I held it in. Somehow, the topic got around to how awful the Romans were treating Jesus, and how awful it was. And then it was, Oh, and the Jews were awful too, spitting on him and no sé qué, no sé cuánto. Rosita wondered aloud why people don't blame the Jews for the crucifixtion, and Carlos said that after what happened in WWII, you can't blame Jews for anything.

Yeah...

I, of course, remained characteristically silent throughout the entire conversation, but then Carlos says to me, "You know how Jews are in the US, right, Jacob? They have all the money." I just sort of mumbled something, and the conversation moved on. I mean, how am I supposed to respond to that? I feel a little more sympathetic towards Hannes now (not much more, though). I could have said, "I have family members who are Jewish, friends who are Jewish, and they're not exactly rolling in dough. And I don't like it when you denounce an entire group of people, the vast majority of whom you've never met and don't know anything about." But what would that have accomplished? Not going to change Carlos's mind on anything. It's just going to put him more on edge around me then he already is (A guy under ~~twenty~~ ~~thirty~~ forty who doesn't like going out every night until 2 o'clock in the morning? What the hell is wrong with him?). It's like my Mom says, Sometimes you have to pick your battles.

But this brings up other questions to my mind. Whenever there's a discussion of crime, it's the Columbians who are entering into the country illegally. The guys who kidnapped Camille's host grandmother? The Columbian gang. The guys who broke into the house? Some Columbian hoodlums. The person who controls all the assaults in Yacucalle? That one black guy. Okay, so it's not all Columbians, but whenever the high crime rates are mentioned, it's usually Columbians who are responsible. And this is coming at me from various sources, Anita, Rosita, people on the radio, people on the TV. The scary thing is, is that I get the feeling that I've heard this all before. In the US. It's the same kind of thing as people saying the Hispanic immigrants are stealing our jobs. It's xenophobia, scapegoating. I mean, yeah, there are some Columbian criminals, like the drug cartels, just like there are immigrants who come to the US for less-than-honorable reasons. But there are far more immigrants who come to Ecuador, who come to the US, to support their family, to earn a living. And there are Ecuadorian criminals and American criminals too. It's just kind of upseting when people denounce the way Americans treat immigrants in one breath and then rant about those "Columbian thieves" the next. But, whatever. I should know by now to accept human frailty when I see it and be grateful for those acts of human kindness that there are, few as those may be.

On an unrelated note, I went and hung out with Rodrigo yesterday. We went and played basketball, and soundly got our asses handed to us by a girl and her friends. Thankfully, it was just the one girl on their side, so it wasn't so embarrassing. Still, it was like, 20-13. After that, we went and played guitar for a bit. Rodrigo's teaching me what he calls "punteado", which is playing just one string at a time. I dunno what it's called in English (I'm developing an artistic vocabulary of words I only know how to say in Spanish, like "esfumear"). He's also teaching me scales. Music is really cool. After that, he told me about how he went to the beach in Montañitas, and met this one English girl there, and he wanted to write her a love song in English. I suggested that we translate a love song he had already written, so we set about doing that. It actually turned out pretty cool. We're going to record it later today, and I'll see if I can find some way of uploading it to this page (any suggestions for music hosting?). Then we went to the internet, and Rodrigo got worried when he read an email from his German girlfriend saying that's she's going to be here in two months... Ah, the pitfalls of love.

So, that's about all. I'm planning on doing a post about the politics here, but that's another story, for another time. Sorry for the lack of Photoshopped pictures in this post. They take a long time, and I couldn't really think of one. To make up for it, here's a lolcat someone else made:

Yeah, mom, that other lolcat picture was one I got off the internet and added my own caption to. There aren't really any cats here. I think people are scared of them (not kidding). Thanks for commenting. You too, Kris.

Oh yeah, and I updated my self-portrait page, so crazy go nuts.

kthxchow.

Why I'm Online at 10AM

2009-04-09T19:32:00.005-04:00

It's Holy Week!

all terms translated directly from Spanish

If you're like me, then you only had a vague idea of what this term means (something to do with Jesus, probably) before actually asking somebody. You were just happy when you got Spring Break, and if it happened to coincide with Easter, then hey, okay. Things are a little different here. Holy Week started last Sunday (I think), with Branch Sunday (called Palm Sunday in other parts of the world).

Sunday morning started out with me wondering why Anita was making me get up so early. Usually she lets me lie in bed until whenever I feel like (never later than 8:30, because I'm incapable of sleeping past 7:30), but Sunday was different. I also wondered why she was well dressed and carrying branches.

It was only later that it struck me that HEY, maybe this has something to do with Branch Sunday and Easter! Upon arriving at this thrilling epiphany, I ran upstairs to change into a Florida shirt and black non-jeans that were slightly more presentable than the torn brown pants and t-shirt I was wearing. Then we went to church, arriving a fashionable half-hour late, which Anita swears was due to one of the singers telling her 11 instead of 10:30. We rushed in past the people selling pre-made branches to those churchgoers who had forgotten to get some.

Church here lasts only one hour, so in a surprisingly short amount of time, people were crowding up around the Father with their branches, and he was throwing Holy Water on them.

It was kinda like in a concert, where everyone holds lighters.

Then we went home and had a giant bowl of Fanesca with Anita's mother and notably without any other members of Anita's family. Anita was kind of upset, because usually the whole family comes to her house on Branch Sunday to eat Fanesca, and all of a sudden "No one liked Fanesca." Now, Fanesca is a mashed-up paste kind of thing made of cream, potatoes, beans, peas, weird green things in shells that I think are vegetables, fried balls of dough, fried bananas, cheese, boiled eggs, and melloco. Now, most of the stuff in here is pretty nasty, like the cheese, the green vegetable-fascimiles, the melloco, but somehow it works out to taste pretty good. But then I had to eat it for lunch and dinner on Friday and Monday because Anita made a lot of it. Trust me, you realize why they only make Fanesca here during Holy Week.

Things were pretty quiet for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and then things kicked right back up with Holy Thursday. I found on Wednesday night that Holy Thursday and Holy Friday meant we couldn't eat meat. You know what that means. Moar Fanesca.

So, the horror ends on Saturday, and we get Easter, and then I have to go back to school. Ewwwww.

Oh, and Anita's daughter's pregnant.

That's all for now. And Jesse, two points. I understand that Boston is negligibly further from Florida than Providence. I was being sarcastic. I'm taking this fact about as seriously as I am the one about H.P. Lovecraft (that is to say, not at all). Also I was technically correct. The best kind of correct. ;) Thanks for commenting.

kthxchao.

Lists

2009-04-08T19:37:00.003-04:00

Places I Want to Go when I Get Back to the States:

The Video Game arcade (The only DDR they have here is the knock-off brand with diagonal arrows)
The ocean (I'm in the mountains. It's cold. And not wet.)
Barnes & Nobles (I'll have like, thirty back issues of manga to go through)

Food I Want to Eat when I Get Back to the States:

Chicken wings (Homemade, if possible, from McKenna's if not)
Barbecue Ribs (Homemade)
Calzone (From Pepino's, only option)
Pizza (Also from Pepino's)
Slurpee (Volcano kind, which is Cherry-flavored on the bottom, Coca-Cola-flavored in the middle, and Cherry again on top)
Beef Jerky (You'd be amazed the things you miss when you're not in America for seven months)
Ice cream (First from Dairy Queen, then from the supermarket [Panda Paaaaaws], then from the Banana Split Republic)

Wait. Okay, Panda Paws ice cream is THIS:

NOT THIS:

Everyone seems to misunderstand that when I say what my favorite ice cream is. Also, I love Photoshop. Also also, pandas are sooooo cute.

TV Shows I Want to Watch when I Get Back to the States:

Fringe (Tylor recommended it to me. Apparently, it's like a global version of The X-Files. Sounds good to me.)
The Office (I've been keeping up with this on Wikipedia, but Steve Carell just isn't the same in text form...)
I'm sure there were more, but I can't remember. Making that panda picture made me lose my train of thought.

Okay, that's all for now. Thanks for commenting, Kris. Yes, I don't understand MIT sometimes either. Thank you too, Tylor. I wouldn't buy them if I had a consistent source of internet in my home, but I don't so I do. Plus, they're really for my mom, who I know would prefer the DVDs. Speaking of which, I did buy the last two seasons of X-Files, so I've got them all now. They were pretty good, actually. I forgot. Thanks also to Vicky. I liked Brown too when I went to visit. It's a hard choice. A couple of things to take into consideration for me is that Boston is further from Florida (and my parents) than Providence, but H.P. Lovecraft liked Providence more than Boston...

Rejected alt-text for that panda picture:

The panda's saying, 'Why do you hate me, God?'
I refrained from putting tears in the panda's eyes because then I would have started crying.
I'm going to Hell for this picture.
Ben Stiller knows how I feel.
Their blood is actually made of candy!
Somewhere, someone took that picture specifically so I could Photoshop it like this. I mean, c'mon!

College Decisions

2009-03-31T17:51:00.003-04:00

Hey! Brown University accepted me! With $50250 worth of financial aid! So that's good!

At least it balances out the fact that MIT emailed me and said they wouldn't pay for international flights, only domestic flights. Wish they'd told me that before I got excited about it. Oh well.

Harvard's still being stupid, because they screwed up my email address, meaning I have to wait for my decision to come via regular mail, which should take a few days. Not like I care about them anyway. ;)

Thank you to Kris, Vicky, and Ezra for commenting. Yes. It is MagicLand fire.

Time to go buy some X-Files. I'm thinking of only getting up to the seventh season, because after that, Mulder leaves and the show goes downhill. Your guys's thoughts?

Limited Four Day Engagement

2009-03-29T21:10:00.005-04:00

46. That's how many events planned for Thursday mention food. About ten of those are ice cream, and another ten are Barbecue, those being two of the three things I miss most of American food (the third being Slurpees). Oh, it's good to be going back to the USA.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, or the Awesome Place of Awesomeness) is hosting a Campus Preview Weekend (CPW) for prospective students (affectionately called 'prefrosh') to come and experience MIT. CPW lasts from Thursday, April 16th, to Sunday, April 19th. Now, I've know about this for a while, since MIT likes to send me emails about it, but I had never actually planned on going. A round-trip ticket from here to Boston costs upwards of $850. However, MIT sent me an email recently saying that they wanted to pay for the flight so that I could attend CPW. I was pretty excited. So excited that flames burst out of my stomach.

After I took some heartburn medicine, I settled down to the nuts and bolts of planning this thing out. First, I realized that while I wanted to surprise my friends from MITES who are going to CPW, it would probably be a good idea to tell at least one, so that we don't miss each other through a freak accident. Therefore, I informed Kristina, who, besides being the most likely to keep a secret of the three going to CPW, is also the only one who reads my blog. It's been fun telling the others how disappointed I am that I won't be able to attend CPW, just to watch them cry. Well, emoticon cry, by going T.T .

That settled, I talked to my brother, who gave me some sound advice. It went something like, "Yeah, MIT's going to have a lot of quote-unquote mandatory events for you to go to, but they're stupid, so just ignore them and hang out East Campus." He also asked one of his friends, one Keja Rowe, who I met at Jesse's graduation, to host me. This is good for two reasons. It means I'll be at East Campus, which is good not only because East Campus is Awesome Central of the Awesome Place of Awesomeness, but also for resolving scheduling problems, which I'll explain momentarily.

*moment passes*

So yeah. The time it takes to get from Quito to Boston is one day. Like, leave in the morning, arrive in the evening. But that doesn't work for me, because I don't want to arrive Thursday evening to be late for the festivities, nor Wednesday evening and be way too early to actually go to MIT. Arriving at Boston in the morning would require staying overnight in one of the airports, which is doable, but isn't preferred. Now that I have a host, someone I know through Jesse, it's possible that I could stay with him Wednesday evening, in addition to the regular CPW nights, and avoid an overnight airport stay at all! That is, if the T runs at 9PM. I dunno. The upshot of all this is that I have to confirm things with Jesse before making my final plans, which has to be before this Thursday.

Flight plans thus ignored for the time being, I put myself to (oh noes Spanish grammar invading my speech!) planning out what I would actually do while at MIT. Now, there are a couple of things that I have to do, like buying shoes, a Slurpee, and beef jerky, that can't be done at MIT. Unsure of what was being offered, I looked at the MIT schedule plan. Now, that's just Thursday, but there are over 75 individual activities planned. Most of them, as I noted before, mention some form of food, be it refreshments, free snacks, or the Muffins of the Patriots. My plan, therefore, revolved around the following idea: Pick a few things that are so awesome I have to do them (like the Jurassic Park movie marathon), and then as many of the food things as I can. Why yes, I will attend the Campus Crusade for Christ meeting, if it means free Pizza and Klondike Bars. Do you know when the last time I had a Klondike Bar was? AUGUST. AUGUST. I can hear Frank cheering from all the way over here ("$850 plane ride and free food? Ô_Ô"). My ill-laid plans are, of course, subject to what my friends want to do, since I want to maximize my time with them, and how long I can deprive myself of sleep. Interestingly enough, the longest time I've gone without sleep was at MIT, as was the only time I've ever experienced fatigue so intense I couldn't move (separate incidents).

So, there are three really good things about this.

I get to go back to America and buy new shoes.
I see some of my MITES friends again after several months (You Florida people are garbage for hanging out without me. Okay, I forgive you.).
I get to eat American food, like Barbecue and ice cream, that they either don't have here or they have in a lame, watered-down form.

Thank you, Ben, for commenting. It was Chavez who said it. Thanks, Mom, for commenting as well. And thank you Piper. Yes, people are strange. That's why I find it best to just hit them with a Carebearstare.

kthxchow.

Art and Some Things that Annoy Me

2009-03-23T21:11:00.003-04:00

So, I made another painting. This was a quick one, done mainly over this past weekend.

I call this one "Nighttime" and the other one I made "Daytime". This one's the better of the two. By far. I'm getting better.

But I'm not the only one who noticed that I've improved. So, I had this up on the easel, all set to work on it, and I go to get my paint. On the way back, palette in hand, I hear my painting teacher say, "This is really good!" I notice that he and a bunch of my other classmates are standing in front of my painting. He goes on to say, "Look at the transparency of the water! Brilliant! And the greens are wonderful!" I wanted to say "Who are you, and what have you done with my painting teacher?" but I don't think he would have understood the English. It's the ~~first~~ second compliment he's ever given me. He also broke his vow of ignoring everything I do and said, "You should make this part a little darker, BUT DON'T SCREW IT UP BECAUSE IT'S SO GOOD RIGHT NOW." He uses a lot of hand signals when he talks to me, probably because he doesn't think I understand Spanish. I know what "lejos" means, jerk. Finally, as I'm walking out, he says something much more in character: "I didn't think you could make something that good." Whatevs. I'm happy with it.

I like the stars best. They give, in my opinion, a contrast to the darker, more subtle tone of the rest of the piece, adding some cohesion that prevents things, like the left edge of the mountain, from fading entirely into the sky. I also like the reflection. Instead of making the reflection shorter than the actual objects, like I did last time, I made it the same height. I also blurred the ridges inside the mountain, which I didn't do last time. I'm getting better at this. I think one more and I should be good. BUT, we're moving on to hands and faces, now, so no such luck. However, bringing what I've learned about ignoring everything my teacher says into the future, I should be good. I really like the tone of Nighttime. I like it a lot.

So, some things that are starting to annoy me. Way back a long time ago, I remarked on the fact that sharing is incredibly important here. Well, maybe it's just my American lens, but this is starting to grate on me. Not the sharing chips, or things like that, because I'm just as often the receiver as the giver on that end. But I'll give you an example, the one that really bothered me.

The other day, we had a test in Technical Drawing. Now, in Technical Drawing, we have to make very exact measurements and things. This particular day, I had left my ruler at home, and making do with my 30º and 45º triangles, which happen to have mini-rulers on them, so I wasn't in the best of moods anyway. But then Edwin turns around (he sits in front of me) and says, "Lend me your 45º triangle." Normally, I'd give him the triangle, but I didn't have my ruler, and you need two rulers/triangles at the same time to do anything in Technical Drawing. And I'm quite clearly using both of my triangles when he asks me. I say, "No, I'm using it right now." And Edwin says, "Apurra." 'Apurra' is the command for of the verb 'apurrar', which means "to move quickly". So, Edwin was saying "Hurry up." Now, this bothered me, for the obvious reason, but it was mainly his tone. He said "Apurra" in a way that said, "I don't have time for you to be wasting by not giving me your triangle." The way he said it made it seem like he felt entitled to having my triangle, and my not giving it to him was irksome and tiring. It really bothered me.

But it's not just that. Every day in my painting class, I lend out at least three of my paintbrushes to different people, who often try to return them to me without washing them. I ask "Where are your paintbrushes?" and the answers are usually along the lines of "I left them at home" or "I've been meaning to buy some, but I just don't have the time". Now, I understand if you don't have a paintbrush one day, but on a regular basis, it bothers me. And I really don't think it's that they can't afford paintbrushes. I mean, maybe there's something I don't know, probably is, but it doesn't seem to me like this is a problem for some of these kids.

Now, I just want to say that this is a very small problem, and it's affected by all sorts of cultural things that I've only scratched the layer of, but this blog is mainly to talk about how ~~emo I am~~ I feel, and this is the way I feel.

Another thing that bothered me. Rafael Correa was on the radio today, responding to something that Obama said, I think about the drugs in Columbia. I quote (as well as I can remember it): "What a poor ignorant person. He should try learning something, open a book sometime." Correa is incredibly anti-American, which is probably a shrewd political move. Anita mentions a lot that Correa's a real ingrate because an American university (I dunno which) gave him a scholarship to study there, and now he rails against the US every chance he gets. It really takes living outside of the country to make one a real patriot. Everytime someone takes a potshot at America, I take it personally. Probably not the best thing to do, and I don't respond usually when this happens, but I do. Oh well. I know they (usually) don't mean to offend me.

kthxchow.

Why Haven't I Been Posting?

2009-03-18T20:59:00.002-04:00

Because FLVS eats my soul. That's why. Also, I have to finish a 70cm x 50cm canvas painting by Monday. Most of the people in my class haven't started yet.

However, for your viewing pleasure, I've started a self-portrait diary, wherein I draw a picture of myself every day, using different techniques. I've got eight now, not counting today's, but only six are up. I'll update this site sporadically. Also, it's really picture-heavy, so it may take some time to load. Sorry.

Also, my parents just got my MIT financial aid package. $48,000/$52,000!! Is what is being awarded! To me. If that wasn't clear. So yay me! I'm the best, AROUND, nothing's gonna ever bring me down!

Thanks to Emily, Mom, and Ben for commenting. Glad you like the site!

kthxbai.

I Made Art

2009-03-07T17:21:00.003-05:00

So, I finally finished my painting! The one with the mountain and the fuegote I showed you earlier! Brewskies all round! Okay, not really on that brewskie thing.

I really like it. I really do. I mean, wow. And just two months ago, I loathed art. It's not that it's spectacularly painted, it's more that I had a vision in my mind about how I wanted this to look, and it came out like I wanted it to. Yeah, the mountain's bigger than I wanted it to be (thank you, Mr. Painting Teacher Whose Name I haven't Learned Yet), but it came out all right. I think that, for me, the best part came out with the reflection of the water. I was really looking for a sunset, so I probably made the sun a little too bright, but the reflection in the water came out well.

I was working outside, so people who were walking by all stopped and looked at it. My sculpture teacher complimented me, my drawing teacher offered suggestions (which I ignored because I didn't want to risk messing it up when I had just got it the way I liked it), and my painting teacher completely ignored me. I told him I was done, and he said to the class, "Hey, the gringo's done! Hurry up!" and went back to what he was doing. Didn't even look at it. Oh well. Screw him.

Some guys from the art College that's part of the school were walking by, and one guy said that my painting was the only one he liked out of all the ones in my class. And it's not (I think) because it's the best painted (it's definitely not), but rather because it's different. I made my painting by purposely doing the opposite of what my teacher said, Landscapes don't use warm colors (red, orange, or yellow), they don't use colors not mixed with white (like most of mine), they definitely have houses and/or trees, and they DEFINITELY are made from photographs, or paintings that other people have made, and not even the SLIGHTEST tiny bit from the imagination. Everyone else followed all the rules, and even had the teacher paint parts of the painting for them. The teacher says that he's "fixing" the paintings. That's the word he uses, "fixing." When I mention this to the other kids in my class, they all say he's teaching them, but I don't see it. I mean, the kids get up and go talk to other students, or get something from the snack shop, and he keeps right on painting for them. It's like when you're helping a little kid, and you get the urge to just say "Let me do that for you," only he doesn't suppress that urge. But you know, maybe I'm just looking at it through my American lens.

Hey, speaking of that picture, I got the most amazing thing ever. Photoshop CS3 in a portable version, one I can carry on my flash drive and takes up all of 87.4MB of space. Of course, it is all in Spanish, but oh well. It's a whole lot better than Paint, which is what I was using to make my pictures before. You can tell by the effect I put on the American flag on top of making it slightly transparent.

That's all for now. Thanks for commenting, Ben and Mom.

¡Ciao!

Picture Teims!

2009-03-03T20:48:00.004-05:00

This is my brother and I when he came here for vacation. I'm the more handsome looking one.

This is Marco. He's like that all the time.

This is Salomé. She's pretty much like Marco, though she tries to hide it.

kthxbai.

More Photos

2009-02-18T19:07:00.006-05:00

I like uploading photos. So here's some more.

This is the Me Beating the Crap Out of Hannes for Being Such a Moron drawing. I started it two posts ago, but just finished today.

This is my Emohand picture. The kids at the orphanage nabbed me when I wasn't paying attention and painted my fingers. Luckily, the nail polish remover only costs $0.50.

Oh, also, the school nurse made her annual weight and height checks of everyone, and I am officially 6'2.4", 169lbs. So, there you go. That answers a couple of questions, like "How much weight have I lost since I got here?" (16lbs.) and "How much taller am I than my dad?" (0.4"). Yeah. And I wasn't wearing shoes either, Dad. Jacob: 0.4, Brian: 0. :)

Okay, that's all for now.

What I'm Working On

2009-02-17T18:37:00.003-05:00

So, I thought that maybe you might want some pictures, so I got you two.

Right now I'm working on a canvas painting. Now, I've always said that the reason I suck at painting is not because I lack skill, but because I lack tools. Problem solved!

Yes, I gave my teacher $5 and he bought me some paintbrushes. Nice ones, too. He said they cost $0.70 a piece before I gave him the money, though, so I think he skimmed a little off the top. Anyway, here's what I did with my new paintbrushes.

It's not done yet. I'm working on it. My painting teacher made me make the mountain really big. I was sad. But he didn't say anything about the rays on the sun, which was good. My sculpture teacher was looking at it and said, "Oh, it's Impressionism!" I was like, Yes, yes, that's exactly what it is.

Anyways, happy fun time.

Some Stuff Has Happened

2009-02-15T18:38:00.004-05:00

So, yeah, don't update for a week or so, and some stuff happens. This post has two parts.

This first part deals with AFS students (don't all my posts?). Two students in particular, Sara and Hannes.

About two weeks ago, we had an AFS meeting. At this meeting, Anita asked Hannes to show up half-an-hour early to tell her about all the problems of his family (he'd been complaining). Should have told him an hour early. He's written down five pages worth of complaints. And they were pretty legitimate ones, too. You know, stuff like his family only feeds him rice and egg with Coca-Cola for lunch, father beats his sister, father works as an illegal loan shark, oh, and his sister stole $750 from him and threatened to kill herself if he said anything. Yes. $750. Anita said later that it's the worst thing that has ever happened to a student in AFS-Ibarra, probably all of Ecuador.

Hannes is like a little child. He has complete and absolute trust in everyone. He let his sister see his ATM code, because he needed help using the machine, and then left his card where his sister could get it. Surprise, surprise, she withdrew $600 out of the bank and took $150 in cold cash from his room. Hannes didn't notice because he thought, Well, maybe those pants cost $80 and not $30 like the price tag said. Hmmm... Anita was like, "Hannes, Nothing here costs $80. You moron." So, the decision was made to remove Hannes from the house. I'm not sure whose idea this was, but from what I gather, Hannes called Anita and said he couldn't stay one more night in that house.

Now, Hannes's counselor is Alexis, and so he should have gone to stay in her house while AFS tried to find a family for him. Alexis said, "I don't want anything to do with this." Responsibility now defaults to Grace. Grace said, "Well, why don't we just put him in a hotel for a few days?" This being despite the AFS rule that clearly states that children can never be put in a hotel without adult supervision. Anita, pissed at all the adults shirking their duties, said, "Well, just put him in my house, then!" more as a joke than a suggestion. Grace was like, "Sure, I'll pick him up at seven!" So Hannes became my temporary brother.

Now, I'd never really talked to Hannes in a one-on-one situation before, so I found out a few things about him. Like he seems to be ten years old. He had to go buy a card for his cell phone, and he says, "Jacob, can you come with me to help me?" I'm like, "It's a phone card. You do not need my help." Hannes does not understand Spanish very well. Somewhere along the line, he picked up a few verbs and latched onto them like a leech. So, "Yo dijo, tú dijo, él dijo. Nosotros dijieron, Ustedes dijieron." And he uses "fuera" all the time, regardless of what tense of the verb "estar" is actually called for. It's pretty terrible listening to him, and I'm an American.

So, Anita found this one family, and Hannes raised a big stink about it before even meeting them because Anita told him that everyone in Ecuador is racist. This... wasn't exactly news to me (see my New Year's Post), but Hannes completely flipped out about it. He launched into a whole discussion about how his girlfriend was black, and since his family was going to be racist, it was his job to teach them how not to be racist. It was awful. The thing is that his heart's in the right place, but he's incredibly childish about it. Number one, if someone's racist, you can't teach them how not to be racist. It just can't be done. But secondly, it's not even the point of being here to try to change the people we're around. We (the AFS students) are here to experience the culture. We need to adapt to the people we're with, not the other way around. I could have run out into the street screaming and yelling on New Year's Eve about how racist everyone was, but what would that have done? Nothing, besides seriously embarassing me and maybe Anita. If I was living with a racist family, that would be different, because I'm black, and their racism would directly affect me. But with Hannes, he's a white European. He gets like, the good kind of racism. So, unless the family goes around beating up indigenous people or something, it's part of the culture, he needs to not accept it, but adapt to it. And above all, not bring his girlfriend into the house, because that's not okay regardless of her skin color.

So, Hannes went to meet the family, and came back shouting and yelling about how he wasn't going to put up with a family that had "Rules" and talked about "Education" and other ridiculous things like that. He flat out refused to live with them, and went on a crusade trying to find another family. Anita, of course, got saddled with having to explain to the family what happened. Surprised at the Pizzería, she said that Hannes had gone back to Germany. The family was pretty upset, having gone out and bought a new bed, new mattress, and put internet into the room, all in the one day after meeting Hannes. Anita, incredibly embarrassed and ashamed about lying to them, went back the next day and told them the truth. They were incredibly gracious about it, I thought, but Anita spent all night crying about it. Being that Anita's my host mother, I was upset with Hannes for this whole mess, and told him he had to go apologize. He says, "Oh, but it's not my fault! It's the family's fault for being a way I didn't like!" I'm not quite sure how I refrained from beating the crap out of him right there. He proceeded to tell Anita that he wished he had just stayed in his old family, the one that stole $750 from him, that he had been happy there.

The end result was that Anita said, "I don't even care anymore. Talk to Monica (the AFS coordinator for all of the students in Ecuador), and let her decide your fate." Monica, having talked with Hannes's family in Germany, decided to give him one last chance, and so he got to go to the family he wanted. The moral of this story is, Act like a little baby, and things fall into your lap. Especially if your parents have money.

Sara has also been having troubles. She complained a lot about her family, that they weren't giving her enough food, that they were stealing her stuff, etc. etc. Anita, being upset about the lack of action on the part of any other AFS volunteers, agreed to find a house for her. Sara came up with a list of demands (written on the palm of her hand), that included a house near Lotta and Alexandra (two other AFS students), a house in Yacucalle, etc. etc. Anita refused and finds one in Atuntaqui, which is about 25-30 minutes away from Ibarra by bus. Now, Sara's new family is complaining that Sara is never at home, that she goes to Ibarra to go out to the clubs with Alexandra and sometimes calls to say she's staying at Alexandra's house for the night. Now, this is not cool in Ecuador. Family, as I've said before, is the most important thing here, and the number one complaint about the AFS students is that they treat their house like a hotel. And this was something that Sara's previous family complained about as well, and now they're upset, thinking that Anita changed Sara's house "de ganas", which means something like "because she felt like it". So now Anita has to deal with that, and her husband she's separated from just filed a petition for divorce. I got her some flowers for Valentine's Day, so that was good, though.

Oh hey, speaking of Valentine's Day, that's part two of my post.

So, on Saturday, I asked Andrea, the girl I've been teaching English, to go with me to get ice cream. She's been feeling pretty down lately, because the US Embassy denied her visa, so now she can't go to New York to be an Au Pair, like she was planning. It was really sad. I talked to the family she was going to live with over the phone for her, and they were pretty disappointed too. Everyone from Andrea's program got denied the visa to the US, though, so it wasn't just her. Apparently, you have to speak English perfectly to get into this program, which is absurd to expect of the people here. No one here learns English perfectly through school, and the only other way is to go to the US or England. But whatevs. No use crying (or cursing) over spilt milk.

Anyways, Andrea was really happy to go out to get ice cream with me, which was a nice surprise. She even had a Valentine's Day card for me, which said, "To my good friend Jacob, who knew how to win my <3." style="font-style: italic;">is a good thing. I didn't have a card for her, or flowers, so that was a fail on my part, but I'll make it up somehow. Anyways, we went and got some fruit ice cream, and then went to pick up Andrea's mother from a birthday party. That was interesting. We go in, and we meet Andrea's mother, Jackie, her father, Edgar, and her uncle, Joffry. Yes, it's spelled "Joffry". Joffry was drunk as a skunk. I mean, totally smashed, completely hammered, utterly hosed, supremely tanked. I was wearing my Peru jacket, which is totally awesome, and Joffry asked me at least five times if I was Peruvian. After finding out I was American, he asked where my Ecuadorian jacket was. I was like, I've got the t-shirt. He also happened to notice that I have an afro, which he thought was hilarious. He also tried to get me to take pictures with his daughter, which was kind of weird. I figured that the best way to avoid these things was distracting him by saying, "Look, a beer!" or something.

So, after that, we went to the cemetary to put flowers on the graves of Andrea's two grandfathers. Now, Andrea's father is a Coronel in the police force, which is the third highest rank you can get, and comes with a minimum 28 years service. And his father was in the army, and even higher up than that. So he had this really elaborate mausoleum with an Ecuadorian flag on his coffin and everything. Edgar had all of the epaulettes that his father had earned over the years, and placed them next to the coffin with candles and stuff. It was nice. Joffry sat at the entrance and cried.

Then we went to the hospital to visit Andrea's grandmother, who had high blood pressure. I got to meet the most of Andrea's family, which was nice. She really played up the fact that I'm smart, studying by internet and whatnot, which I took as a good sign. Joffry passed out in the car, and so we took the other car and left him at the hospital. Then we went and had dinner, and it was all good.

So, that's everything really exciting that's happened with me lately. How are you guys? Thanks to Mom and Dad for commenting, and Ben. Here's your post, Ben. Another really long block of text with no pictures. Sorry. I'll see if I can get a pic of Andrea up, so you guys can see how cute she is. :)

That's all for now. ¡Ciao!

Ne-e-e-e-w Blog!

2009-02-01T17:05:00.002-05:00

Hey, I've started a new blog to hold my webcomic, as shown in the previous post. Check it out! Use the handy little arrow buttons I made under each comic to navigate.

I Make Art

2009-01-31T15:29:00.007-05:00

I figured I'd take this time to talk a little bit about my artwork.

I also wanted to upload a picture of my latest soap sculpture. I woke up one morning and there it was, and I was covered in soap shavings.

Yes, this is the dread Great Old One Cthulu, who slumbers beneath beneath the waves in his dead city R'lyeh. Fear him.

The real art of this piece isn't the actual sculpture, but the story behind it. I went to turn this in yesterday, but the teacher had already left and his room was locked. This was at 10:20, okay? So, Richard Aldaz, Blanca Tuqueres, and I were standing there, like, Um...? We checked around for broken windows to try and put our sculptures in the room so we could say we turned them in when they were due (Friday was the last possible day), but there weren't any. Except one over the door. But we didn't want to drop them in, because we figured they would break. Finally, we put them in a bag and lowered them down onto the ledge with a stick. We attached a note, explaining that we had turned them in on time. I wanted to include a poem:

Por favor, Señor Licenciado,
Ud. es un hombre bien estimado,
No sea carajo,
Acepte el trabajo,
Y por nosotros estará muy amado.

But the other kids said no.

I've been reading a lot of webcomics lately, and talking with one of my friends about making a webcomic, so I though I'd try my hand at it, just to see whether I epic failed or not. It's autobiographical in nature, and I'm using it to show you in a graphical nature how extremely interesting my life here in Ecuador is. So, without further ado, I present issue #1 of

The Adventures of Jacob in Ecuadorland!

I drew another one, but I accidentally deleted the picture off my camera. Guess you'll have to wait. Sorry. It's meant to be read from left to right in a continuous horizontal strip, but Blogger decided that was too wide, so I had to format it funny.

Thanks Mom, for commenting, as well as Kristina, Silvia, and Victoria.

That's all for now. ¡Ciao!

I Just Found Out It's "Blah-GOY-ya-vitch"

2009-01-30T12:32:00.003-05:00

So, I've been following the Blagojevich impeachment trial with some interest, mainly because it allows me to laugh at my friend who lives in Chicago. Of course, his dad got to go to the Inauguration for free, so it's a trade-off. Anyway, Blagojevich just got removed from office, and then summarily REJECTED from ever holding public office in Illinois ever again. It's like getting pimp-slapped by the government. CNN had this picture of Blagojevich's reaction:

Blagojevich wins my choice for "Most Photogenic Politician in the Way that Lets You Make Fun of Him" award. I'll add another post later tonight, so until then, ¡ciao!

Chapter Fifty-Eight

2009-01-27T09:04:00.010-05:00

In which Jacob goes on a retreat,
Breaks his New Year's Resolution,
Takes a trip to far-off reaches, and
Learns why Never to piss off Anita.

I really wasn't sure how to organize this post, since a lot of important things have happened to me in the past four days, so I figured I'd just go with chronological order.

This weekend, AFS had the Mid-Stay orientation. Suzanna (AFS volunteer), her niece Lady, the other AFS kids, and I all got on a bus and traveled to the Valley of Chota, the place where all the black people live. Well, not all of them, but lots and lots of black people live in Chota. Since we couldn't leave the hotel, I only got a few pictures. Sorry.

The trip started off in a rocky manner. Anita and I showed up first, ten minutes early, and sat around for a while. Then Suzanna and Lady got there, and we sat around until 8:10, waiting for the other kids. They eventually arrived, but Lotta was alone. As you may or may not remember, Lotta and Daniele are living in the same house, so it was strange for them not to arrive together, but Lotta said Daniele was sick and couldn't make it. Suzanna flipped out, and said if he didn't go, he'd be sent home. So Daniele showed.

Traveling in buses is always difficult for me. I keep trying to read my book, or sleep, but I always end up watching the scenery. Ecuador is such a beautiful place.

The hotel was a pretty nice place, with a pool, and banana trees, and stuff.

From left to right, Alexandra, Hannes, Lotta.

Well, on the first day, we had to do some stupid orientation stuff, filling out questionares about what our family was like, and how we were getting along. It was really boring, the kind of stuff I expected to be doing. AFS isn't real big on the creative aspect. This meeting was the first time in a long time that all the AFS students were together in one place. Usually one or two people, often Alexandra and/or Hannes, don't show, but this time we were all there.

Before lunch, Suzanna went around and asked us all about our families. Now, because Anita's one of the most involved volunteers in AFS, I get to hear everything that's going wrong with all the different families, so it kind of upset me when I had to listen to people telling blatant lies about how well they were doing. For example, Johannes's family is extremely upset with him, because he's never at home. His mother complains that he uses their home like a hotel, just comes home from school (if he even went that day. He's missed two days of school every week since forever.), maybe eats lunch, goes to Ibarra (he lives in San Antonio), and comes back at 9, 10 o'clock. Yet, there he was, telling us about how he's doing so well with his family, how he's got such a "special" relationship with his mom. It made me want to puke.

After lunch, we had a couple of hours free until we had to continue, so Camille and I hung out, talking about Harry Potter (I told her my awesome 19 Years Later idea), listening to her iPod, 'n' such stuff as that. Suzanna was on a tear about no one talking in Spanish, but everyone pretty much ignored her. Eventually, she just gave up.

Lady was really nice. When Camille and I had exhausted our ideas over better names for Harry's children and listened to about every song by Weird Al Yankovich, Lady came over and offered to teach us how to play "40", which we accepted. Now, 40 is a game so complicated it makes Mao look like tiddlywinks. There are maybe a hundred different rules, and it wasn't until the very end that I actually caught on. Camille, after trying and failing, gave up, and went into her room and listened to her iPod. There are some things that just don't change. But I played for a bit, and I taught her Go Fish and Egyptian Rat Screw, and we found out the they play Gin Rummy in Ecuador and in America. She was really pleasant, and open. Which was good, since I successfully alienated myself from most of the other exchange students.

At 6:00PM, we met up and we had to give presentations on different subjects. I think it was at this point that I realized I was going to break my eighth New Year's Resolution, Don't get mad at people and never talk to them again. We all talked about different topics, like I did Religion, and some other people did Social Relations and Sports. Now, this should have been a way to objectively examine the differences between our home countries and Ecuador, but instead, it degenerated into a pity fest where everyone talked about why they hated Ibarra. It was disgusting. People said things like, "Everyone in Ibarra is a hypocrite," or "Everyone in Ibarra lies." It was the worst display of stereotyping I think I've ever seen. And Alexandra and Hannes were like, "Oh, and my house is so dirty." Now, unless your house is crawling with cockroaches and taking a shower actually makes you dirtier, I think that saying your house is dirty is an incredible insult. That's just me. Apparently, it wasn't so for Alexandra or Hannes, or they just didn't care. I don't know Alexandra's family at all, but I met Hannes's sister, and she seemed pretty nice, so it upset me to hear them talk so cavalierly about how nasty their homes were.

But that wasn't what made me most upset. No, Suzanna wins the "I Pissed Jacob Off the Most" Prize. I expected Suzanna to be at least a little upset, but on the contrary, she encouraged them. Suzanna made a big deal about how she was NOT from Ibarra, that she studied in Quito in the American school, and had traveled all around Europe, and had a white, blonde-haired daughter, and in short wasn't a filthy Ecuadorian. I wanted to say, "Your daughter's about as white as I am," though of course I didn't. Now, there's a very clear reason why Suzanna's like that: Internal Racism. That's where a person emulates another group (usually Europeans) to the extent that they begin to hate or stereotype the ethnic or national group they come from. Here's my Dragonball Z example, to help you understand:

This is Goku. He's the most powerful character in the anime. No, Gohan is not more powerful than Goku, I don't care what you say. Now, Goku usually comes in two styles, Regular Saiyin and Super Saiyin. Super Saiyin's the more powerful one. See if you can pick which one of these is the Super Saiyin photo.

If you picked, European Goku, you're right! The weaker form that Goku keeps trying to change out of has black hair and black eyes. The strong form that always amazes people when he changes into it has blonde hair and blue eyes. That's what I mean by internal racism. The Japanese makers of the show are consciously or unconsciously portraying Europeans as more powerful and desirable.

This is external racism, for comparison.

Now, Internal Racism is a very sad thing, and, truth be told, I expected to see it sooner or later, with all the American influence there is here, and I sympathize with people that suffer from it. At least, I thought I did. Then I met Suzanna, and listened to her pandering to a bunch of snot-nosed brats just because they were white, and I can't bring myself to think, Well, it's not her fault. I was disgusted.

Then we had dinner, and I gobbled down my food and disappeared into my room and read my book. Throughout most of the orientation, I had been drawing, or writing my graveyard story, but after that session, I just needed to crash and lose myself into the story of the Joads. I was reading The Grapes of Wrath. Evetually, people started drifting in, and we formed a mutual ignorance, where I wasn't there for them and they weren't there for me. Lady came in and asked if I wanted to play cards, which I did. Turns out, she didn't like most of the other AFS students either. She asked why I didn't get along, and I said that it seemed to me like they had just come here like it was a trip. Which is exactly why I don't like them. The program is not so they can go to Baños and Peñas every five minutes, ditching their families and not asking for permission even. I also don't appreciate them taking potshots at America every other sentence. Suzanna was like, "Oh yeah. Europeans learn their own language and English. I know English and my language. How many languages do you know?" I was like, The only reason you're learning English is because America is so awesome. You don't see every country in the world trying to learn German, or Spanish, do you? No. You don't. So shut up, and sit down. Well, you are sitting, but stay sitting. I keep wanting to say "Hitler!" whenever Johannes tries to badmouth America, but I'm saving that for a later time.

The next day, Sunday, Lady left early in the morning to go back to Ibarra, and the rest of us stuck around to talk more. I bolted my breakfast and hid in my room again until we had to talk. I could tell Alexandra was starting to get pissed off, but I didn't care. Sunday only brought more fuel to the "I hate the other Foreign Exchange Kids" fire. Alexandra and Johannes both said flat out that the reason they came to Ecuador was as tourists. Alexandra was complaining about how her school gives homework (Gasp!), and if one of her friends came over and wanted to go out, well, she sure as hell wasn't going to stay shut up inside doing work. "I came to Ecuador to have fun, not to go to school," I think were her exact words. Johannes, in complaining that AFS never takes them anywhere, said, "I came here to get to see the country." Now, AFS is not a tourism program on the year-stay. The summer-stay, yeah, because there's no school, but not the year-long program. But more than that, it's an insult to the work Anita and the families are doing. They're not bending over backwards so a couple of rich kids can stay and live it up. They really want us to be here so we can see how people live, get to know another culture, the school system, etc., and to flat out say that doesn't matter, they only want to have fun, is like spitting in the faces of the people who work so hard for them.

Oh, and Johannes's family had the option of picking an American (me), or a German (Johannes), and they picked the German, not knowing anything about us other than our nationalities. WELL. Looks like you made the wrong choice! Sorry, but Johannes was really laughing at me and America about that, so I can only laugh on my blog about him. I'm not an America-phile, but you step on Barack Obama, them's fightin' words.

Suzanna, though, still wins. Rather than, you know, correcting them on their mistaken belief that AFS is a touristic program, Suzanna said, "Oh, that's terrible, I'll organize trips myself for you poor suffering children." Sorry, but when you can shell out three hundred bucks at the drop of a hat to go on a trip around the country, you lose any "poor suffering child" status you may have had before. I was talking with Anita about how they didn't invite me on that trip, and she said it was probably because I was living with her, and she would have put a stop to it.

Lunch, though, was where it finally hit the fan. I didn't think quick enough to ask to take my lunch in the dining room, so I had to sit out there with everyone I had been avoiding. Alexandra in particular was pretty upset. She said, "Suzanna thinks you're being very impolite by not talking." My response was a "And I care because...?" I thought it was phrased very well. I asked if it bother her that I didn't want to be around them, and she sort of huffed at me. In the words of the Immortal Dwight Schrute, "Reject a woman, and she will never forget it." It's a good thing I don't care.

So, then last night, I get back, and hey! Carlos is there! Carlos, for those of you not in the know, is Anita's son. I told him about how upset I was with the other exchange students, and that ate up some time until we had to go get Magna! Magna, not Magma. Magna is a Norwegian guy who's thirty, and he was one of Anita's first exchange students that she hosted, 12 years ago. He's back, and he found himself an Ecuadorian girlfriend! I told Magna about the other AFS kids, and he was like, "Screw 'em." He's a good guy.

On Monday, I ditched school and went to Ambato, which is the capital of Tungurahua. Yay hypocrisy!

What a beautiful place!

Anita had to go because Carlos is in some kind of trouble. He wanted out of a company, so he took his computer and desk and stuff that was his out. The other people were upset, and put out a warrant for his arrest. So, Anita had to go and sort stuff out. I also learned that it's not a good idea to make Anita angry. The phone rings, and I hear Anita say, "You say 'Let him deal with it by himself' NOW, but when this company was first getting started and you needed money, it was, 'Where's Mrs. Anita?' Well, Wars have two sides! YOU WANTED WAR, YOU'VE GOT ONE, YOU LITTLE SHIT." I've been keeping a low profile.

I haven't been in a large city in ages. It was really fun.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is that a blue-and-grey version of the Thundercats symbol?

And now for an interim segment of

JACOB'S EXTRA-SPECIAL RACISM PIC OF THE MONTH

La Mama Negra is apparently a funtastic celebration held every year in Tungurahua on October 11th. Erm...

And, to round things off, a fun picture of Me, Anita, and Carlos.

Thanks for commenting, Silvia. I'm glad you like the photo. Yeah, I just ignore all my teachers now. I know what's awesome, and what's not! Thanks, Ezra, for commenting. I'm not changing my Extra-Special Racism Pic of the Month segment. That's here to stay. :-)

That's all for now. ¡Ciao!

Epipheral Vision

2009-01-22T17:44:00.008-05:00

This post is about Four things.

There's been a problem building with Camille for a while now (character-driven plot FTW). She's been pretty despondent with her family, not talking very much or "integrating" into the home, as Anita says. Suzanna, apparently, has talked with Camille about it several times, and is tired of trying to deal with her. I'm not sure of the veracity of that statement, since Suzanna is an old woman suffering from some disease which makes her go to Quito every so often for treatment, and she probably has the mental force of a tomato. She does make good turkey, though. But I'm getting off-topic. The upshot of it all is that Anita asked me to talk to Camille and see if I can get her to change.

Now, it is absolutely not my place to have that conversation, but from what Anita said, the people whose place it is have had that conversation, and it didn't work. Now, Camille is the only other American here, and, if she goes home, as Anita's told me is the next step if Camille's family decides to let her go, I'll be alone. Not alone, but there'll be no one else to understand how awesome going to KFC is, or to laugh at "What's that over there?" I don't know if you know why that's important, but it is. So, I agreed to have a chat with Camille and see what was what. As I've been giving "English lessons" to Camille's sister, Andrea, for a while, it's not weird for me to be over at her house. My original plan was just to take a few minutes and say, "Hey, Camille. Let's talk, huh?" Didn't quite work out that way.

Camille showed up around four o'clock, but left to go to the internet right away. Which was actually a good thing, because I wanted to okay my talking to her with her family first. I don't want to be stuck in this kind of drama. So, it was just Andrea, myself, and her two sisters, and so I asked Andrea about it. Andrea stopped just short of saying "PLEASE TALK TO HER. DAMMIT." She then went on to tell me about all of the horrible awful things that Camille's done, and they were pretty bad. Again, I don't know how much of it is true, because emotions tend to get the best of people, but it was pretty consistent with what I've seen of Camille. I can't write most of it here, because Andrea made me swear I wouldn't say it (I think she was worried that her mother would find out she told me), but it boiled down to a couple of things: Camille stays in her room all the time, and doesn't talk to people, Camille won't help with housework at all, Camille eats everything ("You see that basket of eggs? That won't last until Monday.") or refusing to eat ("She just sort of throws it away."), and Camille hates sharing.

I'm going to talk about that last part. Sharing is an incredibly important thing here, and I never realized until Andrea told me bluntly. She said something to the effect of, "Here, everyone shares. If you have something, you offer a little bit to everyone around you. You don't have to share all of it, if they ask for more, you can say, 'I already gave you one,' but you have to share at least a little bit. No matter how small it is, you take it and cut it into little pieces and give some to everybody." She went on for a good, fifteen minutes about sharing. And it's true. Every time during break at school, when someone has a bag of chips, the first thing they do is offer some to everyone around them. I hadn't noticed before, but it just works out that way. And if they (usually me) don't offer, people ask for some. Of course, I never refused, and now that I understand, I'm always going to offer. It doesn't really work like that in the U.S. There's a real idea of "I bought this with my own money. It's mine, and you can't have any." that gets inside of you. It's not even something I ever really thought about until this happened. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, it's just the way we are. Of course, not everybody, and not all the time, but that idea's there. It's not in Ecuadorian people.

As if to epitomize this thought, Camille refuses to share with anybody, even refusing to get something for herself if it would make her feel uncomfortable about not sharing. Andrea finishes telling me this, and I'm like, I had no idea sharing was so important. Why don't you tell her that? No one sat down with me and had a talk about sharing things until now, and I know Camille hasn't had one. That was my basic response to each of the points, that if you don't tell her, she won't know. Of course, some things, like not helping when being asked, I couldn't explain, but I'll get to that later.

So, about that time, Andrea's mother and grandmother (the "I hate America" grandmother) showed up, and Andrea explained that we had been talking about Camille. The two women basically confirmed what Andrea had told me, though not as explicitly, and when I asked if they wanted me to talk to Camille, they said, YES. The mother's the only authority figure in the house, since the dad has a two-week on, three-day off, deal as a police chief in Azuay (another province). She told me that she didn't want to discipline Camille, or tell her to do stuff, for fear of upsetting her. I explained that this was a common problem among first-time host families (Johannes's family had this too), and stressed that they should talk to Anita.

Then Camille showed up, and, as it was seven o'clock, it was time for me to leave. I told Camille to walk with me for a bit, and tried to explain delicately about how my mom had asked me to talk to her to see if she was having problems. We talked about it for a little while, and I made a very startling connection. Now, because Camille's host mother is very timid, she doesn't ask anything of Camille, leaving it up to Andrea, two years Camille's senior, to make requests. When I asked why she didn't do things her sister asked her to, Camille told me that back in the States, she's the oldest child, and so it's very strange and upsetting to her to have a sibling tell her what to do. The pieces fell into place, and I said, "Why don't you say that? I wouldn't have to be here!" Again, my mother's right. Every problem in the entire world stems from people not talking to each other. Except, like, um, Earthquakes. And diseases. But everything else, yeah.

After promising me that she would talk to her family as soon as she got home and see what she could do to fix things, we said goodbye. I don't know if she did or not, I'll find out later today or tomorrow, I guess, but I did my part.

In an unrelated occurence, I had a strange and rather disappointing series of epiphanies this week relating to my school. Remember that one post where I said I was just going to stop listening to my painting teacher? I think I should just apply that to all my teachers.

In Artistic Drawing, we're working with drawing ink, which is very difficult-to-use stuff. I've been in a nostalgic kick in my artwork lately, because of my homesickness, and so when ordered to draw a landscape in ink, I made the ocean, with a guy fishing:

I happen to kind of like that picture. It's silly, yes, but I like it. I go to turn it in, and hear the teacher saying, "INVENTED. ZERO." to other students. So, I quietly slipped this picture back into my tablero. The assignment for the day was to do it over, though, so I couldn't hide it. The teacher came by, and sure enough, "INVENTED. ZERO." He never said it couldn't be invented before, so I added him to my mental list of teachers that change the rules for the assignment after I've already done it. Anyways, he takes one look at my picture and says, "Putting rays on the sun is childish. Don't do it anymore."

I can picture my mom's face as she's reading this. It's funny.

But anyways, the inner artist in me said, "This is my god damn art, and you can't tell me what to do." I didn't say that, of course, but I was thinking it. And that makes the difference, and led me to my second epiphany: I'm through letting my art suffer for my grades. My grades mean absolutely nothing to me. They don't help or hurt me with colleges, which is about all grades are good for at this point. If I want to put rays on my sun, I'm going to put god damn rays on my sun. If I want to draw the ocean, I don't care how many times they order me to make a mountain. Now, I didn't feel like going at it just then, so I redrew the sun as the moon, which doesn't require rays. But that's the last time. That's all I'm going to say about my art school right now.

Oh, and I hate my Painting teacher. That's really the last thing.

Hey, Racism! There's a fun topic.

JACOB'S EXTRA-SPECIAL RACISM PIC OF THE MONTH

Next to the Church of Santo Domingo is this stately statue. It's a fun thing, with a couple of young poor children making do with what they have. But the message to poor people ("Stay in your place. You have it good enough.") is something I'm not going to get into. Instead, I'm going to focus on the black kid in the back.

This picture seems innocent enough, with the white kid with blue eyes flying the kite while the black kid looks on in admiration. But let's get a closer look at these two upstanding young gentlemen.

Yes, as you can now clearly see, the white kid is looking on in wonder as his kite (I like to think of it as his dreams) fly up to the Heavens. Sitting on the rock, the black kid is watching the white kid fly the kite, his hand outstretched. The real message was probably Ibarra promoting its diversity, but the artist managed to slip in his thoughts. Study the black kid's expression, and you will see the look of apathy. This is a kid who has realized that everyone else will always have more than him, and has accepted that fact. So, he must sit idly by while other, whiter kids fly their kites and live their dreams. Walk by this on your way to church, all you black kids. Just be thankful you don't have ragged clothes. Oh, and he has giant lips.

Spain's legacy of Purity of Blood ("Cleanliness of Blood" in literal translation) lives on!

I went to take pictures of the Indigenous strike (stayed home from school for it), but they didn't show. It wasn't until later that I realized that I was there at ten o'clock, when they said they'd be there. I should have been there an hour and a half later, at 11:30, when they were there. Oh well. Instead, I watched Obama get inaugurated and got some interesting pics.

This is a crazy old black man preaching about how Jesus Christ died for our sins. He said, over and over, "ONE DAY, GOD WILL JUDGE JESUS CHRIST FOR OUR SINS." I'm like, I'm not all that religious, but I don't think that's how it works...

The Chinese food place lied to me. IT FREAKING LIED TO ME.

Okay, that's all. Thanks for the comments, Mom and Silvia. I'm looking forward to your visit!

¡Ciao!

My Mom Is Always Right (or I Hate You All, You Ruined My Life)

2009-01-18T15:52:00.004-05:00

Today, I was waiting for my friends in the park, and I sat down on a bench next to this really old black guy. I'm not sure if he was homeless or not, because his clothes were all right, but he smelled kind of rank. But I'm not writing this post about homeless people. I'll save that for another time.

I said Good morning to the guy, and he sort of smiled and said Good morning back. There was a band playing, and I was just going to sit there and write and listen to the music (I've started my graveyard story). But then the old guy leans over to me and says, "Hey, are you Catholic? Or are you Evangelical?" Now, usually, I have a whole song and dance about how I don't really have a named religion, and then we get into this discussion about whether I believe in God or not, and it's a giant mess. So, instead, I just said that I was Catholic. So he says, "That's good. There are a lot of Evangelicals in Hell right now, repenting for sinning." I don't really have a response to comments like that, so I just sort of nodded. It's my all-purpose defense against people who say stupid things to me.

We're sitting there for a while, and out of nowhere, the guy asks where I'm from. I tell him the United States, and he says, "Say, there's going to be a new government there, isn't there?" Everyone knows about Obama. I told him about how I hoped this president would be better than the last, and so that was nice.

Then the old guy starts asking me about which church I go to. The band was playing then, so I couldn't really make out the words the first few times, but eventually I got the message and said the Iglesia del Quinche, or the Divino Niño. He seemed satisfied by the answer, and since the band was really loud, we didn't say anything until they finished. Then, he asked me what sounded like an incredibly loaded question, Did I like the music? I said yes, and he asked if I thought there was music in Heaven. I said that God gave us the ability to make music, because I wasn't really sure where he was going with that. He sort of ignored me, and said that the music in Heaven was way better than the band playing here, because there were heavenly quires and all the best musicians who ever lived. I was very tempted to make a comment about Azathoth dancing to his mad pipers, but I didn't think he'd get it.

We sort of droned on and on for a while. Well, he droned, and I sort of nodded. But the general focus of this conversation is that my mom is always right about everything. It's not that hard to talk to people, and if you try, it's actually pretty likely that they've been trying to find someone who would listen to them for some time. We'll see if I talk to more people in the future. I dunno.

In an unrelated and more depressing piece (although I have to work to get more depressing than Azathoth eating your brain),

I'm sick of everything. I'm sick of not having internet. I'm sick of having to do Virtual School, and especially Gym class in Virtual School. I'm sick of trying to do Virtual School and the internet not working. I'm sick of having to go to regular school, especially since it's art school. I'm sick of teachers who think they're God with a paintbrush, especially when half of the stuff they tell us is wrong. I'm sick of my art not working out (although this is offset somewhat by my writing). I'm sick of waking up at 5:45 dead tired because I went to sleep at 10:45 the night before, and then listening to my stupid Painting teacher tell me if I really love art, I'd get up at 1AM and paint. I'm sick of the other kids who laugh at my English because they're so bad at it, and my Spanish because I'm so good at it that it stands out when I make a mistake. I'm sick of Sara showing up when she feels like it and then acting superior because most of the teachers treat her like she's made of gold. I'm sick of Johannes acting like he's God's gift to women, because he's white and can play the guitar. I'm sick of Hannes not giving me back my flash drive, even though he's had it for almost four months now. I'm sick of Camille having problems with her family, especially since now Anita and Grace want me to talk to her about it. I'm sick of Grace trying to shove responsibility for Daniele not having a family onto Lotta's family, and causing a whole host of problems for Lotta. I'm sick of AFS forcing Anita to get receipts for every ten cent phone call and then refusing to pay for this or that because of some reason or another. I'm sick of the circles under my eyes and the plaque on my teeth. I'm sick of my short hair and the fact that the inspector's going to make me cut it soon enough anyway. I'm sick of the insect that buzzes around my ear at night and won't let me sleep, and the insect bites I get from said insect.

But I'm also glad for some things. I'm glad for Rodrigo and Chooki, who I can go and play basketball with any time of night. I'm glad for the mountains, which are still I think some of the most beautiful things ever, even if I hate painting them. I'm glad for sunsets, for giving me a reason not to hate painting entirely. I'm glad for Anita, who woke up this morning at 5:45 to make sure I woke up on time, and then made me breakfast. I'm glad for Rosita, whose mother just had a bad turn, but is slowly recovering. I'm glad for Carolina, who still blushes every time I make a joke about Chooki being her boyfriend (he's not, but it's still funny). I'm glad for Andrea, who thinks I own English and laughs at all my really bad jokes. I'm glad for my friends back home (NY and FL), even though I don't get to talk to them as much as I'd like. I'm glad for my friends from MITES, who are always up to talk with me and share weird internet sites and music. I'm glad for my parents, who always take the time to talk me down from the metaphorical cliff whenever I call up in the middle of school, nearly in tears and paying $1.50/min for an international call. I'm glad for EXTRABREAD, the bread store next to the internet store about a block from my house, that sells the most amazing fresh-baked bread ever. I'm glad for the Chinese food place about two blocks from my house, where they don't even bring me the menu anymore because I always order the same thing (if you ask me, Mixto Especial con Cola Mediana is the food of the gods). I'm glad for my teachers who like me and let me out of class early (I know English. I don't need to be there.). I'm glad the Indigenous people are strong enough to have a strike that'll shut down all inter-city traffic tomorrow (Yes. Yes, they can. Hopefully, I'll be able to get pictures.) so I don't have to go to school. I'm glad Obama's going to be sworn in tomorrow as the President of the United States. I'm glad for Steinbeck, who writes amazing things (Tortilla Flats FTW). I'm glad I got into MIT already, and I don't have to worry about other schools so much. I'm glad people comment on my blog, too.

I think that's about everything. Peace out, guys.

¡Ciao!

The Ecuadorian Adventure

2009-01-17T16:15:00.005-05:00

The way I see it, there are three types of stories: plot-driven, character-driven, and setting-driven. Plot driven is where things happen to the characters, and the characters react to them, like in Stranger than Fiction, where a bulldozer goes into Will Farrell's house, and the guy says, "Now that's plot." Then there's character-driven, where the characters are totally nuts and go around and make things happen. Pretty much anything by Carl Hiassen is character-driven. Think about it. And then there's setting-driven, where things happen because of the place where the characters are. I can't think of any examples of this. But what I'm trying to get across here, is that my life is a sum of all three types, a fantastic story I'm thinking of calling

The Ecuadorian Adventure*
(*I wouldn't really name my autobiography this, but it's good enough for a blog post.)

I'll start with Thursday. On Thursday, I went to Camille's house, Camille being the other American here. But I didn't go to visit Camille, but rather Camille's host sister, Andrea. Notice I made sure to get her name. I'm tired of going several weeks trying to catch the person's name offhand because I forgot it the first time, and didn't have the guts to ask again. Andrea's a really nice girl, a little bit older than me, and she wants me to "teach" her "English." No, she really does, I just like saying that to mess with my mom. On an unrelated note, MOM. PLEASE DON'T SHOW THIS TO SUSANNE OR VANESSA. I BEG YOU.

But seriously, what we do is we sit at the table, and I have Andrea read to me out of Danny, the Champion of the World, by Roald Dahl. She says that she understands reading and writing well, but that she can't do pronunciation. So I just write down words she's having problems with and try to puzzle out the archaic rules of the English language and explain them. It's difficult, since writing out pronunciation, like "toad" is pronounced "toh-d", doesn't work that way in Spanish, since the letters make different sounds. But I'm getting the hang of it. Now, Camille, of course, speaks English, and so I was wondering why Andrea wanted me to help her, instead of Camille, which would be easier. Now, I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, by which I mean I'm not going to ask why a cute Ecuadorian girl wants my help, but it turns out that Camille's just not a very good person to be around, that she doesn't do anything with the family, doens't help or whatnot, and so Andrea asked me if I would. That's not good, because if Camille gets sent home (which is very possible, if the family decides they can't put up with her anymore), I'll be the only American left in Ibarra. No one to go to KFC with, no one to understand why "What's that over there?" is so funny. It'd be a shame. I'd be alone.

Andrea's doing much better with reading, though. She still sounds Ecuadorian, which probably won't change, but at least she'll probably get the visa. She wants to go to America as an au pair, which is a person who lives with a family and watches the kids while the parents are out, and does general servant things. But to do that, she needs a visa, and the visa offices only do appointments in English, and other people Andrea knows who wanted to do this got denied the visa because they didn't speak English. So, she wants my help.

Sometime around five o'clock that day, the power went out. Now, this isn't very uncommon in Ibarra (see previous posts), but it happened in the entire city. Usually it just happens to one sector, like Yacucalle, or something, but it was the whole city. So, I leave around six to start on homework, and I get home and I'm like, Wait, how am I going to do FLVS if the power's out? Dammit! So, I lit up some candles to see if I could do my regular work.

I had this three-candle set-up going, where I put two candles on a plate, and put a third candle in a candle holder. I put the plate next to the candle holder to let the wax drip onto the plate. It was good, but then I went back to hang out at Camille's house because no one was home on my end, and I couldn't do work by the meager light.

As it turns out, all the power in Ecuador went out. 18/22 provinces went without power that night, for some strange reason. Think the Northeast Blackout a couple of years ago, except for the whole country. It was like that. We're getting power from Columbia until we're back up and running. Most of the people I asked about it blame Correa directly, like he was walking through a power plant and accidentally turned off the "Supply Power to Ecuador" switch. I don't really get it. But I went home at around nine, and since the power was still off, went to bed. I got up at five o'clock the next morning, Friday, to do homework, which most people didn't do because the power went out. My 2-D composition teacher likes me.

I think I've figured it out. The female teachers like me because I do my work well and on time, and the male teachers like Sara because she's a blonde Norwegian girl.

So, on Friday afternoon, I got a headache from not having enough sleep, and headed out to the orphanage. Now, last week, I made a promise that I would draw this one girl a picture. That was my first mistake. So, I brought in my sketchbook and a picture of the Little Mermaid to draw for her, and BAM. All the girls wanted pictures. I realized about half-way there that this would be the case, so I had somewhat prepared myself for it mentally, but still, having a bunch of ten-year-old girls clinging onto you begging for pictures isn't something you can exactly prepare for. So now I've got a picture of some Disney princess I'm supposed to draw, and then a Divine Child, and then, who knows?

Every week, I go back to the same classroom. Not really out of choice, but rather because that was the first class I went to, and no one really said anything about going to other classes, so it's always the same one. But yesterday (Friday), one of the older girls came and asked why I never go to their class. So now I'm promised to go to the older kids' class next Friday. The girls there have this really big thing about pinky swearing, and they get really upset when I'm "breaking" a promise. I had to sing three songs to get out of there, and that was only with me fighting them to get out. There's another American guy, 25 or so, who goes there to help out, but the girls don't like him. They keep telling me that, and trying to pit us against each other. There's also a German girl, 20, who lives at the orphanage and helps out. The girls are trying to hook me up with her for some reason, trying to get me to say that I love her. It's kind of weird, like having a ten-year-old fan club that's always trying to distract me.

In a stroke of extreme brilliance, I said that it wasn't fair for me to be the only one making drawings, and got them all to rush off and start making drawings. Or give me drawings that they'd already made.

This is the drawing that Amelia made me. She's the girl I drew the picture of the Little Mermaid for. She pasted the picture of Bugs Bunny in my sketchbook and then drew around it. She reminds me a lot of Pam N., for some reason. I do this a lot, in that I'll see people and consciously connect them to someone I know. Random people, too, like people I barely know, or haven't seen in ages. She was one of the two girls who fought with me to keep me from leaving ("But I'll be back Wednesday!" "I don't care!"). They really, really like me. I guess I'm just that awesome.

When I got back home, I went to bed. I woke up at 9:30, realized the internet was closed, and went back to bed. I had an epic struggle with my body trying to get more sleep, in which I woke up at four, five, six, and seven, and then lay in bed until 8 trying to fall back to sleep again. I have a physical inability to sleep past eight o'clock, no matter how late I go to bed. Much as I kick and fight and scream, I'm a morning person. Argh!

I did some watercolor work for 2-D Comp (Nothing special, mom, just colors). My Comp. teacher is really impressed with me, that I actually do my work. I think they've had problems with past foreign exchange students. She complimented me on my watercolor set, too, so, thanks for that one, mom. I actually like watercolors, which just gives more fuel for the hating my painting teacher fire. He totally spoiled them for me.

At ten, I went back to Andrea's house to help her, but we ended up going out. We went to one of her friend's house to get Andrea's dog to mate with another dog. I told them (Andrea and a couple of her friends were there. Camille was still asleep.) that in America, we don't have to deal with this, because we spay and neuter our dogs. They were all upset and said, "That's so awful!" I'm like, we don't have stray dogs running around the streets eating garbage. That's why. After that fun time was over, we went to the cemetery. They were exhuming a body to bury the son with his parents. I was going to ask where the son's body was, but then they pointed to a garbage bag, and I was like, Oh, Okay. So the caretakers pulled the coffin out, and the bottom fell out, spilling thirty-year-old bones, clothing, and rusted metal all over the place. Gag. Barf. So, being the only young male there who wasn't terrified of dead people, I got the fun task of helping clean up the junk, after all the bones were removed, and tossing it into the giant pit of death in the middle of the cemetery, with the other rusted coffins that they weren't using at the moment.

It was really interesting, though. We were there because one of Andrea's friends is in an anatomy class in college, and the professor assigned them to get a nose bone. Yes. Yes, that actually happened. I think I'm going to write a short story about the experience, since it was very surreal.

When we got back to the house, Andrea had the grandmother blow cigarette smoke on us, to make us better. Or something. The grandmother was weird. She told me that she'd been to the United States several times, but hated it. I wasn't really sure what to say, but she went on to say, "Yeah, because there's all these really fat black people. Like, really fat. And dirty. Black people. I don't think they even wash their feet. I hate America." So that kicked off a good thirty seconds of extremely awkward silence. I almost made the awkward turtle sign, but no one would have understood it. Then the grandmother went away, and I went back to "helping" Andrea with the vowel sounds. One thing I've learned from all this is that English is a very, very stupid language.

Thank you to Pam, for commenting. Glad you liked the story. There's no second part, but there is another story set in the same town, with similar craziness: "The Strange Case of Randal Skall". Thank you, Kristina, as well. It's okay if you don't get the Lovecraft joke. Not many people would. Thank you, Victoria, for commenting. Just send 'em over when you get 'em done. And I beat up Jesse all the time anyway. Especially since he's smaller than me.

That's all for now. ¡Ciao!

Finished Heat Resistant

2009-01-12T20:58:00.005-05:00

Well, I finished my story, Heat Resistant, that I've been working on for a while. Any comments or compliments would be greatly appreciated, though the former moreso than the latter. I'm hoping to enter this one in the Writers of the Future contest, so it needs to be in top shape. Check it out, huh? Thanks.

To commemorate my epic story, I made a cheesy HP Lovecraft joke in Paint:

Thanks to Victoria for commenting. You're like, the most dedicated commenter I have. I seriously appreciate it. If you ever need me to do anything, like, um, I dunno, beat someone up for you, or something, just say the word.

¡Ciao!

New Year's Resolutions, Part Deux

2009-01-10T21:16:00.002-05:00

Hey, I had a conference call with Tom, Kris, Chris, Paula, and Sabrina, so that's five down, eight to go!

Also, I updated my story "Heat Resistant" on Sunday, Jan. 11, so check it out.

La Caminata de la Muerte

2009-01-10T15:53:00.005-05:00

So, yesterday we went on the Caminata. It was okay. I woke up at 6:00, which was a definite bonus, not much of one, but it was there, and got to school at 7:25. I was a little worried that I would be the only one wearing regular clothes, because I thought the Director had said to do so the day before, but no one had the uniform, so it was good. It was the first time I had seen anyone wearing normal clothes, and vice versa, so I wore a Florida shirt and non-jean pants. But everyone else had on jeans, so it wouldn't have mattered anyway. But whatevs.

We had about ten people when we left, but we picked up most of the other kids up on the way there. I've been down the path we took several times in a bus, but this was the first time walking, so I really took a good look at the scenery. Ecuador is such an incredibly beautiful country. The clouds are so close to the ground, because we're so high up, and I could sit and watch them move slowly across the sky, flowing around mountains like water, all day. That's what I did yesterday after the Caminata, actually, when I was at the orphanage waiting to start work. But that's another story. I didn't bring my camera, so no pictures. (Mom, I'm not going to bring my $400 digital camera to a place with 150 kids playing soccer by a pool.)

While we were walking, Ricardo and the Director kept up a running conversation about the different kids in the class, about how Stalin is doing really badly in school, and Diego is trying but his parents don't support him, and how I'm fitting into the class. I wanted to say "I'm right here!" but then she said, "Is Ricardo right, Jacob?" So she knew I was listening. I'm like, WTF, mate? These aren't conversations she should be having with children who aren't involved in what's being discussed, but whatevs. Stalin wasn't there. I don't blame him for not wanting to ride 3 hours in a bus to go to a 3 hour event. Even if the Director did tell us it was obligatory. Obligatory fun. Like Mandatory Study Breaks, only not as cool, and in the rain. Oh yeah, it was raining too, though not hard enough to deter the manic Director.

The place itself was pretty big, with two soccer courts, two volleyball courts, and two pools. I'm not that big on non-ocean swimming, especially with so many people (oh yeah, five other courses went too, with about twenty in each course...), so I just played soccer and volleyball. While we were playing soccer, some of the kids said "Que huevada" and "Que huevas," which was weird, since I've been talking with Victoria about it for a post or two. I don't remember what they were saying it for, though, so I couldn't hazard a guess as to whether it refers to laziness. I'm getting better at soccer. After a couple of fails as a defender (self-imposed), I listened to Edwin and just ran at people with the soccer ball, screaming and kicking at them. It worked out pretty well. I sucked at volleyball, and people kept trying to tell me how to play. I wanted to say, "I know how to play, I just suck at it!" but instead I got back by mocking them when they failed. Jacob: 1, the World: 1. I can live with a tie.

To get from one football court, you had to pass over this cement arched bridge, which was really narrow and had no rails. That kind of stuck in my mind. I was worried, but I got past it fine. There were a lot of mosquitoes, but I only got bit twice! There's a yellow fever epidemic on the coast right now, so Grace the AFS coordinator told me, but I had my vaccination already. Edwin was playing goalie, which meant he didn't move that much, and he got bit up a lot. The game itself was hilarious. Since it was drizzling, the ground was really wet, and I laughed really hard whenever anyone slipped, which was fairly often. I like playing soccer, because since I started out so bad, no one expects anything from me, so people like it when I'm even the least bit successful. Not that I care that much if people like me. Like Michael Scott from The Office says, I don't need to be liked. I like to be liked, I want to be liked, I have to be liked, but it's not an obsessive thing, like my need to be praised.

I also played basketball with Diego, Edwin, Ricardo, and some annoying little kid who follows me and Sarah around at school. I called him "huahuito" or however you spell it, which means "little child." It's fun knowing Spanish. The game slowly degenerated into us trying to take the ball by brute force, and saying, "This is for America!" or for Quito, or Batman, whenever we went to shoot. It was fun. Then I went home, and the bus broke down, and I had to find another one.

I have my grades now (all of these are out of 20):

English: 18
Math: 20
Technical Drawing: 16
Artistic Drawing: 17
Artistic Anatomy: 14
History of Art: 19
Painting: Blank until I turn in my exam.
Sculpture: 16
Computation: 19
2-D Composition: 18
Social Sciences: 19
Bodily Expression (or "Physical Culture" in the real world, and "gym" in America): 14
Literature: 19 (WTH, mate?)

That's all for now. Thank you Victoria, for commenting. I would respond with something witty, but Que Hueva. Do you have a blog? I tried to click on your profile link in the comments section, but your profile is private. Thank you also to Emily. I knew shameless self-promotion on Facebook would yield results! I'm glad you like my blog.

¡Ciao!

ECRS Again, Only Different

2009-01-08T18:32:00.006-05:00

I've been doing a massive amount of updating. This is my third straight day of posting, I think, but I've had to talk about some stuff. The New Year's Resolution post had been building up in my head for a while (9. Brush my teeth twice a day, every day.), then Ngozi asked me what MITES was like, and now I had an event that can't go without saying. I got my grades today, from my Ecuadorian School, and I actually did much better than I thought I would. Unfortunately, I don't have my grades in front of me, since Anita snagged the report card and took it with her to Atuntaqui. But I remember some things, and I'll get to those in a minute.

First, let me set up this week for you: We just got back from vacation, and I've been dog-tired all week. Getting up at 5:45 again has hit me really, really hard. I woke up to my alarm this morning and laid there with my cell phone in my hand, thinking "I really don't want to get up." Next thing I knew, Anita was saying my breakfast was ready, and it was 6:20 (!). So I rushed out of the house without showering and ate my hard-boiled egg on the bus. I did brush my teeth, so that's good (see above). I got to school on time, like always, so that was good.

Tomorrow, I guess as a reward for making it through the first trimester (The schedule is kind of screwed up. The first trimester is four months, the second one month, and the last five. That's not how dividing things into three works in my part of the world, but then, it still is three parts, even if they're not equal.), we're going on a trip called "La Caminata." I keep confusing it with "Campeonata," which is "championship." The Caminata is where each course (grade) takes the day and goes off to some place for a mini-vacation. Except it's obligatory. And you don't get to pick where you go. Actually, this is a funny story. I'm getting kind of off-track from what this post was supposed to be about, but I don't care. On Tuesday, the course director, my Social Sciences teacher, came in and said we were going on the Caminata, so pick where we wanted to go. That was actually a pretty awesome day, because teacher meetings meant I didn't have Artistic Anatomy. So, anyways, Diego, the class president, decides we're going to do this the Democratic way, and list some places to go. I personally advocated for the United States ("Look, it's a 2-hour bus ride. We'll be back by 7!")

Map of South America, according to me.

Other places were Peguche, a bunch of waterfalls, Chachimbiro, some resort place, Baños, the beach, and Imbabura, a mountain. Baños got shot down because it's too far away, people balked at the $3.50 admission price to the resort, so Chachimbiro was out, Peguche never really caught on, even though that was my second choice after me taking everyone to visit D.C., and there's nothing really to do on Imbabura. So the nice orderly discussion degenerated into a rowdy contest to see who could yell out the name of a place loud enough. I really was pulling for America, and Edwin and I actually got Diego to put it on the list. Andrea erased it. I was sad. Diego eventually got fed up with trying to keep things organized, and went and got the course director again. She put things into order, and offered up the alternative of the Piscinas of Chorlavi, which is within walking distance of the school, so that would avoid paying for the bus. But then someone (I think it was MaiTé) caught wind of the fact that four other courses were going there too, and pitched a fit. Diego disappeared again, and then the course director was saying, "I don't care anymore what you guys want. You're going to Chorlavi, you lousy ingrates." She gave us a giant speech about how none of the other courses got to choose, and she was really going out on a limb giving us that opportunity, and we broke her trust, and we were awful. I think I've figured out gender roles here for my teachers. The males think they're God in their subject, and so they don't care what you say, and the women give you long speeches until you finally break down and say "No More! No More! I'll be good! I swear!" My Literature teacher today (a woman) spent 5.5 minutes telling us that whenever we address the class, we have to first say, "Teacher, classmates," just so everyone knows we're talking to them. And not to, the ceiling. Or something. Keep in mind that we have this class for all of 80 minutes a week. So 5.5 minutes is an important amount of time. She started winding up into how she had tried to teach the course manners for three years, and no one had learned, but thankfully she was cut off mid-rant. Incidentally, this is the tactic my dad uses in his class, with remarkable success. I think if he can't find a job teaching math in South America, he could get one teaching education.

But that's enough of the school week. Now onto the grades, which you've been waiting for. Oh, before I say that, I was wearing my Peru jacket to the meeting (Thanks, Jesse), and one of the other kids was like, "¿Qué más, chompa?" which is "What's up, Jacket?" Hopefully, that won't become a nickname, but I think they were impressed by how cool I looked. My grades, though:

I averaged a 16.076/20 out of my 13 classes, which is above average (10/20 is passing). I was pleased. I got 7 As, including a 20/20 in math, a 19/20 in computation, and an 18/20 in English (I own in things I already know). The real shocker there was a 19/20 in Social Sciences. The teacher really likes me, apparently (I'll get into that in a minute). I had 4 Bs, including a 16/20 in Sculpture. I was disappointed about that one, but the teacher doesn't like my soap sculptures. My two worst courses, which I knew, were Artistic Anatomy and Gym, with 14/20 in each, my only Cs. I hate those classes. Sooooo much. But all in all, I did okay, I think. In fact, the course director gave me a giant compliment. When Anita went up to get my report card, the teacher said that I was the best exchange student they've ever had, that exchange students usually just go when they feel like, not taking tests if they want, ignoring homework (cough cough Sarah cough cough. Case in point, Sarah didn't feel like going to the thing today where they handed out the report cards.), but that I'm not like that. I get things done. Yeah. Somewhere along the line, I got in good with the director of the course. I'm doing something right.

After the handing out of the grades, Anita gave a short speech on the fact that she's the treasurer, and only 9 families out of 24 have paid the class dues of $5 that were imposed in September. Dot dot dot. Silence filled the room. There was a long argument about wanting to paint the course, and on what day, and I suddenly realized where all the kids in my course get their argumentativeness from. It was the first time I'd seen most of the parents, so it was interesting trying to guess whose parents were whose. I was right on some. It was easier since the indigenous men all have long hair in ponytails and the women wear distinctive clothing.

Thanks to Ngozi for commenting on my blog. Hope I answered your question. Thanks to Victoria as well. Maybe I'll call you "Vicky" when we finally meet, but writing out Victoria seems more correct to me. MITES is really cool beans. Make sure you get people to edit your essays when you're done. It really helps. I'm free for that, if you want to shoot me an email: jacob.austin.breneman@gmail.com. And no, I haven't heard "Que hueva" here. What's it mean?

That's all for now. Sorry for the mono-pictured post. I really like doing quick Paint photos when I think the opportunity knocks, but it takes a surprising amount of time. Keep reading! I'll probably post about the Caminata tomorrow, completing one full Monday-Friday of updating.

¡Ciao!

Minority Introduction To Engineering and Science

2009-01-07T19:15:00.007-05:00

Someone from the MIT Admissions blog comments, Ngozi, clicked on the link to my blog and read some, and asked if I would tell her what MITES was like (Sorry about the mix-up, Ngozi. I don't know anyone with a similar name to know the gender... My apologies). So here it is.

MITES in one word was amazing, stressful, wonderful, tiring, interesting, boring, provoking, bad-tasting, and all-around awesome. Okay, maybe that was more than one word. But MITES was, hands down, the best summer I've ever had in my life. My only regret is that I didn't keep a blog during that month and a half, because that would have been something to read. I've learned my lesson since, as you can see with this blog here.

The first and most important point about MITES I need to make is concerning my friends. To make you understand how entirely transformative MITES was for me, I need to first say a few things about myself. One, I am a very shy person. I do not make friends quickly, and I'd rather stay in my room reading than do almost anything else. Second, I am a very strange person, and there are not many people who share my special breed of insanity that leads to extreme bursts of creativity (like NaNoWriMo). In two weeks of MITES, I formed ten friends just as strong as those back home, and many more in the weeks to come, and they were all like me. Not exactly like me, because that would have been creepy and boring, but each of them all sharing similar interests (anime FTW) and that inner pull to do things that are new and confusing. We made a movie that I thought was pretty funny that we showed at the MITES Talent Show on the last night:

All together in the supergroup called 3rd Floor Lounge, there was Me, Chris, Kris, M, Jessica, Sabrina, Steven, Jason, Paula, Alex, Horacio, Andy, and two Teaching Assistants, Aaron and Tom. We hung out all the time, got breakfast, made "awkward signs" for each other (like awkward turtle, only better), had epic Nerf Gun battles in the bowels of the Simmons dormitory, worked together on PSets, laughed at the awful food, sang "Yes You Can" when people told us to stop, made the Physics Cave, met Physics Man, sang the Physics Man song, beasted essays, made "Hey, Victor" jokes, ate cake, and in general shared our thoughts and fears and hopes with each other. Oh, and Chris liked stealing any food from the study breaks that wasn't tied down, and sometimes I had to give him a hand. Seriously, he had 11 water bottles one Wednesday night. That's ridiculous, it's not even funny. But seriously, some of my fondest memories are from sitting at the tables in the Student Center eating a plain bagel with plain cream cheese and trying not to laugh as Paula made things really, really awkward. We all still talk and email each other very frequently, in that among the 14 of us, we've created more than 32megabytes of emails. That's pure text. It's about 950 emails. I have more emails from most individual members of 3FL than I do from my entire family. But it wasn't just them. I made very strong friends with many other people from MITES, some of whom write to me about their problems with guys (I'm not sure why I got elected for this. Maybe it's because... No. I have no idea.), or for help on their college application essays, or just to say "THAT'S MAH CLUSTAAAAAAAH!!!!" And what's even more awesome is that most of us are going to meet up again at MIT and get four full years together. That pulls me to MIT just as much as the amazing opportunities the college affords.

The second most incredible thing was the classes. Take your hardest class at your high school right now (those of you still in high school). That's nothing. Forget it. What is behind you does not concern you.

These classes are absolute murder. We had a fun saying at MITES, Eat, Sleep, Study: Choose two. Then the head of the MITES program, Dr. Carter, had to call a special meeting in which he told us that was a joke, and giving up sleep was the wrong way to go. I myself spent many a night working on Biochemistry or Physics until the wee hours of the morning, although I made a promise to myself that I would never stay up past 4:30 and only broke it once. I don't even remember what that time was for, though. Oh, the metaphors. The coursework moves at a highly accelerated pace (Calculus 2 was not fun) and is much more advanced than anything I had ever done. But the classes were designed that way to teach you two things: work in groups, and develop good study skills. I had to make major changes to my study habits (writing essays is a solitary ordeal, but everything else required help), and I think pretty much everyone else did too. Chris was probably the best person I knew for this. He made himself a schedule. I just said, "Oh crap! Biochem's due tomorrow!" and went from there. When we did Problem Sets (PSets), we were encouraged to work on them together, by bouncing ideas around, helping others when they got stuck, getting help when you got stuck, etc. There was a problem with cheating, but that only happened once in one of my classes. People understood that the teachers trusted us, and for the most part, we kept to that (I was never mad at you, Stephan).

The real beauty of the classes that I found was Mans et Manus. Minds and Hands is MIT's motto, but they really mean it. I was one of the lucky few to be in both Biochemistry and Genomics. That was an amazing duo. I'd have Biochemistry in the morning, and we'd learn about gel electrophoresis, how it worked, what it did. And then I'd go to Genomics and actually DO gel electrophoresis in the lab. Incredible. Absolutely stunning. It was here that I decided I wanted to study Biochemistry.

I could go on and talk about how cool and helpful the TAs were, even if they did make fun of us. A lot. Or about how I had lunch with Eric Landers. Yeah. The "Head of the Human Genome Project and now Obama's Science Counsel Co-Chair" Eric Landers (I won the "My hair is almost as big as my lust for Eric Landers" award at the end of MITES. The TAs all gave us mock awards. Chris got the "Aaron Ramirez: Finally someone I can love more than myself" award.). I might mention the time we went on a tour of Boston, or had a 4th of July Barbecue where Stevie did quite the epic maneuver. But I can't sum up the entirety of MITES in a single blog post, so I just include the two most important things. I hope this answered your question, Ngozi ("How was MITES?"), but if not, I can always do another post or two ;-). Thanks, Dad, for commenting on my blog. Yes, my painting surprised me too. I wrote a couple more paragraphs for Heat Resistant on Tuesday. I'm thinking of retitling it, but I can't think of what I was going to call it. Oh well.

Oh hey, this is my fiftieth post!

Hooray me!

¡Ciao!

New Year's Resolutions

2009-01-06T16:34:00.014-05:00

Yes, I know I'm late with the New Year's Resolutions. No, I don't care.

1. Write more.

I don't write enough. I've got a lot of ideas, but usually something gets in the way. On a completely unrelated note, FLVS needs to die.

2. Edit more (edit at all).

A while back, my Composition teacher was telling us about the difference between Love and Passion. For art. Not for whatever you're thinking of. And the basic gist of her lecture was that you need both to make art. Passion she described as throwing yourself into your work, painting with gusto, with umph! or whatever kind of art you do, and I've got that in spades with my writing. What I don't have is the other half. Love for your art, she said, was being willing to come back to it day after day and make it perfect. I don't have that. I hate editing my work more than any other part of the process, but I have to do it. I haven't edited any of my fiction work, novels, short stories, at all, ever. Except for one, but it was really short and I didn't edit very much anyway. But I need to edit, especially if I want to enter some contests. Which brings me to my next resolution.

3. Enter contests.

When I finished NaNoWriMo, the What Do I Do Next? page included a link to CreateSpace, a place where you can publish your novel in a people-buy-it-then-they-print-it kind of way. There, I found a novel-writing contest for unpublished authors, in which the winner gets a $25,000 against commission publishing contract with Penguin Group, a pretty well-known publishing company. The deadline is February 8, so I have about one month to make my novel top form. That's not enough time, so I decided to just go back and add stuff in where I think it needs it (and it needs a lot). But I think I can get at least to the quarterfinals, which is 500 contestants out of the original up-to-10,000. The rounds are kind of strange. First, everyone submits the novel, an excerpt (the first 2,000 words), and a 500-word description of the novel (what you read on the back cover of the book, basically.) 2,000 contestants get chosen from the 10,000 based on the short description, and I think I can get past that because my novel's pretty unique. I'll talk about how it's a mix of Ecuador and Florida and mountains and oceans and stuffs. Then, one of every four contestants gets picked on the strength of the excerpt, and I think I can make it through that cut as well, but we'll see. Next, one of every five contestants are picked on the excerpts for the semi-finals, and then the entire manuscript is read and three finalists are chosen. These finalists get an all-expenses paid trip to some place in the US, and the winner is chosen by popular vote of Amazon.com customers. And, even if I don't win (I probably won't), many of the semi-finalists get offered publishing contracts anyway. So, I really want to enter this one.

I also want to enter Writers of the Future. This is an award set up by L. Ron Hubbard, in which people submit entries and the three best stories of the quarter get a $1,000 prize and the chance to compete in the year award, which is $5,000. This one would probably be a little easier to win, because there's three winners and the prize is lower.

4. Walk straight.

For most of my life, people (my dad, my Spanish teacher, my ex-girlfriend) have been telling me to walk straight and not slouch. For most of my life, I didn't listen. But then the girls at the orphanage told me to, and, being ten-year-olds constantly looking for a way to avoid work, they didn't leave it at that. No. They jumped on my shoulders and forced me into an upright position. But I realized that they're right. While walking, I usually look at the ground, and don't pay attention to anything else. It's going to get me run over eventually, so I need to stop that. I figure now's as good a time as any.

5. Paint more.

I hate painting. I'm forced to do it at school, and I hate it. But I realized something today. The reason I hate painting is because the teacher's a jerk who's never complimented me once. I talked about him in my entry about Ecuadorian school. So today, we were supposed to paint a countryside ("Paisaje" in Spanish. It doesn't translate exactly to countryside in English, but that's as close as I can make it.), and my teacher pretty much said he expected mountains from everyone. So, they obliged. Except me. I've been feeling pretty homesick lately, because I had to go back to school for the first time after a two-week break, and the first class was painting, which I hate, so I was depressed and lonely. In my yearning for the warm climes of sunny Florida, I decided to paint the sea. It started out as a short rectangle of green. Then I put blue on top of that, and it started looking okay. I think at this point, I realized that my teacher was the reason I hated painting. The very first time we sat down with tempera paints in the class, I went to do this layering technique, and my teacher shot that down, saying "We mix colors here." And so I followed his instructions, and it sucked. And I hated painting.

After the sea, I added the sky with a couple different shades of blue. I used a lot of water. Alex Ramos (there's a picture of him on here somewhere) came up and said, "You're using too much water." All the kids like going around to everyone else and pointing out what they're doing wrong to make themselves feel better. I stared at him rudely until he went away. That works very well, especially with girls who care about feelings and dumb stuff like that. I sat there, staring at the blue block and the green block, and I realized that we had more than an hour and a half left in class, and I had to throw something else in there to make it better. I remembered Stephen King's book Duma Key, and I thought about painting a ship, but I didn't think I had enough skill to do a ship. So instead, I added a sun, in red-orange, just on the horizon. It's a sunset, even though the sun only rises on my part of the ocean. I added pink and orange beams running off of it, and green-orange beams reflecting in the green block. Using a lot of water really helped here. Anyways, here's what it looks like. I call it "Sun Sets en Mar" ("en mar" is Spanish for "on the sea," and for some reason I didn't feel like going for the epic alliteration).

It's the best painting I've ever done. Alex said, "Oh, you're paint's running." I said something to the effect of "That's the point, dumbass," but I don't remember exactly what it was.

I also painted another sea and sun picture, but it wasn't as good as this one. I turned that one in instead of this one because if you turn something in to this guy, you don't get it back. He cuts them up and uses them for scrap paper. Not kidding. I've gotten my own paintings back from him cut in half. Luckily, they sucked pretty bad, so I didn't care. But I wanted to save this one, so I kept it out and brought it home. I really like the way the rays look like they're reaching out for something.

So, yeah. I'm going to paint some more and see how that goes. Our next project is a canvas painting of a landscape (that's closer to "paisaje," but it's still not exactly right), so I'll flip the Daniel Reyes Painting Institution the bird and do a vertical picture of the sea. Everyone does landscapes horizontal, and they all had little pictures out for their models today. It may not be great, but at least it'll be better than Jackson Pollock.

But this leads me to my next resolution.

6. Tough it out at art school (I can hear my mom cheering from across the Gulf).

With this new epiphany about painting, which was my least favorite class, I've decided to stay at the Instituto Superior Tecnológico de Artes Plásticas "Daniel Reyes" until I leave. I waffled back and forth on leaving for a while, but I guess it's too late now to do anything. Plus, if I left, I'd probably lose my friends that live far away from Ibarra, and, as Jesse said, I have to be able to say in the future "Oh yeah, I'm going to Ecuador to visit my friend Stalin. Yeah. He's actually nicer than most people think." What I am going to do is completely ignore my painting teacher, forever. Which works out okay, because he ignores me too. The whole time we were working today, he didn't say a word to me, even though he helped other people and I caught him looking at my painting more than once. Except at the end. I caught him staring pretty obviously at my work, and he opened his mouth to criticize it, shut it, opened it again, shut it, and then finally said, "Buen trabajo," because he couldn't think of anything wrong with it. It's the first compliment he's ever given me, and I might be proud of that except I don't respect the man. I'm proud of my painting because it's the first painting I've ever done that I felt good about. I figure that what I'll do is buy some paint myself and paint my canvas at home. That way, I don't have to put up with him either ignoring me or "helping" me, which is worse.

7. Call everybody from 3FL at least once.

This one's going to need some explanation. When I was at MITES last summer, I met a bunch of people who shared my interest in subtitled anime, interesting numbers, and gratuitous violence, and we formed a supergroup. By "supergroup," I mean "a group of kids who went out to breakfast together a lot and all had Nerf guns," in case you didn't catch that subtlety. Because we hung out in the 3rd floor lounge, we called ourselves "3FL." Here's a picture (props to Sabrina, for the awesome drawing.) I'm the tall one with the giant hair. This was back when I had hair... *sniff* (I have to comb my hair again! But the combing only works for about half an hour, and then the curls start clumping together.)

Being down here in Ecuador, I miss out on a lot of stuff, like when the Florida 3FL members (there are four of us in the Sunshine State) got together. So I decided that I would call every member of 3FL before I left Ecuador (it's a January-February kind of resolution). We're going to have a conference call on Skype on Saturday, so this is probably the first New Year's Resolution I'm going to accomplish.

8. Not get mad at people and never talk to them again.

This is probably going to be the hardest of the eight resolutions for me to keep, but I've started out doing well so far. One of my faults is that I hold grudges for a very long time. In ninth grade, I sat with the kids from my middle school at lunch, and one day, I heard them talking about having a party. I asked what it was about, and they pretty much unanimously told me to go ask someone else for the details. I'm a smart guy (or so I pose), so I figured out pretty quickly that they didn't want me there, and I left. And I never really talked to them again. Wasn't that much of a loss, since I made friends with the math team guys and stayed friends with Michael, but that just goes to show what I'm like. It wasn't so much that they didn't want me at the party (I'm notoriously dull at parties, except the one time I showed up in a V for Vendetta costume, and I don't like parties anyway), but that they didn't want to tell me what was even going on. Which brings me to the now.

On the Wednesday before vacation started, Johannes, one of the German AFS kids, found me at the internet café and gave me a package with $300 in it. He wanted me to take it to the mother of Lotta and Daniel (other AFS kids) that night. I asked him what it was all about, especially since carrying around $300 is not the best thing to do in Yacucalle (seriously, most of the other AFS kids have gotten held up at some point, but that's a story for another time), and he sort of mumbled and didn't say anything. I didn't press it. Lotta's mother didn't say anything either. I forgot about it until after Christmas, when I went to Lotta's house to get Rodrigo, Daniele, and Chooki (Rodrigo's brother) to play some basketball. Chooki was the only one there, so I asked where everyone else was. Turns out they went on a whirlwind tour of Ecuador, the coast, the Orient, the whole bit, taking Johannes, Hannes, and Alexandra with them. This is wrong on so many levels. First, because we had a meeting where the AFS coordinator in Ibarra, Grace, told us very explicitly that we couldn't go on trips without our family, period, that it was an offense for which you could get expelled from AFS. Second, Johannes, Hannes, and Alexandra are taking off from their families during vacation, when it's the most important time for families to be together here, when their families have already expressed anger over the fact that the kids treat their homes like a hotel. But third, and most important to me, they didn't say a word of this to me, and Johannes specifically dodged the question when I asked him. I'm a smart guy (I hope), so I figure that's what the $300 was for. I wouldn't have gone anyway, both because I don't feel like leaving home for a couple of weeks during vacation and because I don't have $300 to throw around, but it would have been nice to have been asked. Turns out Sara and Camille didn't hear anything about it either, so Sara started planning a revenge vacation, in which only us three leave. Alexandra called Sarah and talked about how beautiful Baños was and how warm the hot springs were, so Sarah was fairly indignant about the whole thing. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, or something like that.

But I'm trying my hardest not to get mad at them and never talk to them again for this. There are plenty of other reasons to avoid the other AFS kids, and I'm using those, but I'm not angry at them. (I figure if I repeat that enough, it'll become true. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy.)

So that's it for my New Year's Resolutions. Hope you liked them. I did this thing called alt text on the photos. For those who don't follow xkcd, that's where you hold your mouse over the pictures and text appears in a box that would usually appear if the picture doesn't load. I did this on the last batch of photos, too. (Note: This isn't working for me in Firefox, so if you're using that, you may have to switch browsers. Or just check the page source, if you really want to read my bad jokes that much.) Thank you to Vicky for commenting on my story (Do you prefer Vicky or Victoria?). I appreciate the compliment! It'll be done sometime soon. Maybe. It's the one I want to enter in the Writers of the Future contest. The idea of using a first-person narration for the bulk of the story was good, because it keeps me from using overly-flowery language. I keep having to stop and say, "A normal person wouldn't say that," and change it. It's good for me.

It's so beautiful!!!!!!!111 Now, who wants to pay me a couple thousand for it? Please, make a line, no shoving.

¡Ciao!

Heat Resistant

2009-01-03T20:56:00.012-05:00

This is the first part of a story I'm writing. (Updated Sun., Jan. 11, 2009)

We live in a world now on the brink of maturity. In past aeons, the Earth was just growing out of its infancy, producing a people capable of conquering the mysteries of this adolescent world. Now that we, as a race, have dominated the subtleties of biology, illuminated the hidden secrets of mathematics, and set the atom to work for us, we have become masters of the planet, supreme above the rats and the like vermin. But as we set our sights on that which has long remained beyond our reach, we must remember that there are things other than us, things that were old when the Earth was young, things that had solved the question of resisting the ether of space while we were struggling to rise up out of the sea, things that look upon our pitiful attempts at space flight with such mirth that their laughter would deafen us would they deign themselves to be heard. We may be the Kings of the Earth, but they are Emperors of the Universe, and we would do well to remember it.

You can't see the rocket launches from Miami's beach, but I am now sitting on the sandy dunes of that shore while far, far away, red fire glows and sends another man into the outside. Ignoring the orders of my editor will most certainly leave me finding other work, but I would rather face the gallows themselves than travel up US-1 to Cape Canaveral to watch a shuttle hurtle into that little-known terror we call space. They say that every possible precaution is taken to ensure the safety of those watching from the Cape, but now I much prefer the relative safety of the vast distance between myself and the rocket, though how safe I can be when I can still hear the lapping of the waves on the sand, I do not know. For I have found coconuts in my walks on the beach, and if they can float for miles and miles, who can say that something cannot find me here?

The launching of a space shuttle is always big news in Florida, but that day's launch brought the attention of the whole nation, it seemed, as this was to be the last journey for this type of rocket. After the Challenger disaster and other malfunctions, NASA was switching back to the older version that hadn't killed anyone yet. The Miami Herald sent me up to take some pictures of the flight, the wheels still spinning in my editor's head as he tried to come up with a fitting headline (The Final Frontier for This Old Bird was the last one he tried on me before I beat feet out of his office). The weather was fine, and I was looking forward to a short vacation in Daytona Beach before the launch when smoke started coming out from underneath the hood of my car.

I called triple A, and they sent a tow truck out, which took me and my car to the nearest mechanic, a man by the name of Charlie Box, who ran the Box Bros. Workshop at 823 Dixie Freeway in Tropic Park. After a quick examination of my car's engine, Box told me something I couldn't really understand about the radiator and charged me two hundred dollars, saying the work would be done by that night. He suggested that I visit the beach, which in his opinion was the finest beach in all of Florida. He began to tell me about all the places he had visited in Florida, and how inferior their beaches were in comparison to Tropic Park's, but I politely excused myself and headed for the shore.

Across the street, I found a small gas station and asked for a map of the city. As I was paying, I fell into a conversation about the best spots for a stroll on the beach and a bite to eat. The man at the counter told me about several restaurants in the area, as well as a few places for a leisurely walk, and circled them on my map. When he asked why I had stopped in at such an early hour, I mentioned the shuttle launch, but at the first words he stopped me, gave me my change, and then disappeared into the back of the shop. Nonplussed, I took the map and exited the store.

I walked across the Middle Causeway to the beachside part of Tropic Park, stopping at the apex of the bridge to admire the view. The waterway below me was wide, and I could see the fins of a pair of dolphins skimming for fish. There were several small islands, and far off were the North and South Causeways. Quite near was a small river, which lead off around the city and up into Lonesome Mountain.

As it was closing in on noon, I decided to take a short walk on the beach and then retire to one of the many waterfront restaurants for lunch. The beach was, as my informant had said, a marvellous sight, but I still prefer the warm water of Southern Florida, even if the bay area is heavily polluted now. The waters off Tropic Park were cold, very cold for that time of year, but as I walked through the surf with my pants legs rolled up, I gradually acclimated to the chill and actually enjoyed myself quite a bit. I don't think I will ever return to Tropic Park, and if I hold myself to that, it won't be because of the clime.

Twelve o'clock brough with it a strong wind, and I saw storm clouds closing in from the sea, so I walked back up to the street and, after washing my feet of sand in one of the public showers reserved for this purpose, enetered a large-size eatery named JP's Fish Camp.

The waitress was very hospitable, and found me a seat by the window overlooking the inland waterway, which was just as beautiful as the ocean, even if it was in shadow. There was only one other patron of the restaurant, sitting at the bar, and, after a moment's hesitation, I went over and sat next to him. "Say," I asked, "know if there's anything to do in this little town if you've already been to the beach?" He didn't look at me, but said, "Fucking tourists," and went back to his drink.

A little taken aback, I said, "I'm actually not a tourist."

He still didn't look at me, but took another pull from his glass and said, "Then what the fuck're you doing in a tourist town like Tropic Park?" His voice was low, and gutteral, and I could tell he didn't want to speak to me. But I felt a need to explain myself to him now. Being a Florida native, albiet originally from the Panhandle and transplanted to the South, I hated tourists just as much as he did.

"I just drove up from Miami. I'm a reporter down there, and I only stopped over here on my way up to Cape Canaveral to watch the rocket launch." At the mention of the shuttle, I saw the man shake visibly, and his face, which had been a bright red, lost much of its color. He hurriedly drained the bottle, more than half-full, in a matter of seconds. "What is it?" I asked.

"If you know what's good for you, you won't mention anything about those goddamn rockets to anyone here."

Now I was intrigued. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't ask me any question, because I ain't saying anything." He stood up, tipping his stool over, and threw some bills down on the bar. "Be seeing you, Mary," he said to the waitress, who had backed up against the wall, her face petrified with fear. I righted the stool and then paused a moment in my pursuit of the man to stare with confusion at her face. There was a slam of the door, and the man was gone.

I went outside as well and saw him standing across the street near the boardwalk down to the beach. When he saw I had followed him, he turned and disappeared down the boardwalk.

When I reached the shore, I found him waiting for me. He spoke first. "Walk with me." His demeanor was still defensive and tight, like a spring wound up too far in a clockwork toy, but it held none of the anger it had previously. That was gone, replaced by what seemed to me to be sadness, or resignation. We began to walk south, towards the inlet.

"What's going on?" I asked. "Why wouldn't you talk to me in there?"

"Look, I'm the editor of the local paper, and I know a man who won't quit when I see one. Hell, I used to be one myself, back when I was a reporter. But that was before I realized how much trouble that pitbull mentality can get you in. I'll tell you the story about what happened with the rockets, and why no one in this town will talk to you if you bring it up. But you have to promise me that you'll shut the fuck up about Cape Canaveral and astronauts and anything else related to space. Mary lost a child to that thing, and so did a lot of other people, and I can't let you go around upsetting them like you did back there."

"Okay, I promise."

And David Miller began to tell his story. He paused many times in the telling, and by the time he had finished, it was dark. I asked him then, "Why do you stay? Why do any of you stay?"

"There's something that holds us here. Anyone who moves away comes back, and anyone who moves here from away leaves soon enough. There's something about the water of the sea, the green of the river, the height of the Mountain, that holds us here and keeps others out."

I found my way back to the mechanic, overpaid him knowingly without complaint, and drove south to Miami. As I sit on the sand of Miami's beach, I check my watch and know that right now, the shuttle is bursting out into the great unknown. I tremble, almost as though I were in the rocket itself, feeling the vibrations travel up and down my spine, instead of the chills I have there now. Once I write David Miller's story, I will lock it away in a safe place. If I had the proof to back up the fantastic claims, or if I thought someone of importance would take heed of my warning, I would publish this message far and wide. But as it is, I will settle for not being thought mad. I write down now the words of David Miller, while I still have them fresh in my mind, so that, should things change suffieciently to make the world more open-minded, I will still have them.

Here is the story I heard as I walked along the cold abandoned beach while storm clouds gathered and the fish grunted in the distance:

Charles Greene, or Charlie for short, was born in Tropic Park in the seventies. Being just a child, he avoided the culture wars of the time and managed a fairly normal childhood. After graduating high school with a 3.1 GPA, he attended the local branch of the community college for business and opened a small store selling towels, goggles, and other beach items on the plot of beachside property his family had bought before real estate really took off in Florida.

As the shop was quite close to the beach, Charlie Greene liked to take, as did so many others, a nice long walk down the shore before he opened. If you go down to the beach at six in the morning, as Charlie used to, you'll find it vacant, and you can enjoy the solitary stroll as the sun comes up. One of the added benefits of this early rising is being able to comb the beach before anyone else. Usually, when you walk the beach in the afternoon, people have already picked up all of the interesting sea shells that washed up during high tide the night before. Not so, for Charlie Greene. Before long, he had a collection of strange shells and driftwood unrivaled in any of the neighboring cities.

But the crowning piece of Charlie's collection was a large white tile which he found floating in a tidepool one summer morning. He had no idea as to what it could be, but he brought it to me. Having reported on a bunch of spaceflights, I recognized it immediately as one of the heat-resistant tiles they affix to the shuttles to keep them from burning up on reëntry. A shuttle had recently landed after a visit to the International Space Station, and I told Charlie that the tile had probably come from there. Shuttle tiles are notoriously weak. They're made mostly of styrofoam and held down with Elmer's glue. It doesn't surprise me at all that those things fall off, but they've got so many that losing one doesn't really matter.

So, Charlie put the tile up in his shop, showing it off. It got so everyone in town knew about it and had stopped by once or twice to see the thing. But one morning, Charlie called me to come see something about the tile. He had been arranging the display when he dropped the tile. You'd think it would have bounced, but it broke in half cleanly down the middle, spilling out a strange, clear liquid, something like gelatin that hasn't been completely set yet. He had left it where it was, waiting for me to come over. I had no idea what the substance was, but I guess that sea water got into the glue and mixed to create it, whatever it was. I picked up a little bit and rubbed it between my fingers. It was light, almost weightless, and had a gritty quality, like it held undissolved salt granules.

At this point, Miller pulled back his sleeve and showed me his arm. Up to the wrist, his hand was scarred with long jagged veins of flesh and pitted and pockmarked besides. The ring finger was gone, and the remaining digits had curled into a permanent claw. All the fingernails were missing, and the space where they had been, once light brown, was black and fleshy, with bumps and contusions that were entirely unnatural. At first glance, I would have said it was the result of fire, but they were like no burn scars I had ever seen, and in my time with the Miami Herald, I've seen a few.

So you can see what this stuff did to me, but that wasn't until later. Just then, I only washed the stuff off in the bathroom. When I came back, Charlie was spitting and hissing like someone'd force-fed him dog shit or something. Charlie, damn fool that he was, had put some of that gooey stuff in his mouth. He was always dumb as hell about stuff like that. Burned off both his eyebrows in tenth grade with a sparkler because he wanted to see how many he could light up at the same time. So I get him a glass of water and Charlie spends the next ten minutes in the parking lot swishing and spitting, trying to get that taste out of his mouth. He said it was like eating meat that'd been heavily salted, but meat that smelled awful, like guinea pig or something. I made fun of him about that for a while, and then I took off for work. The Post-Times, where I worked then, is in Coral Beach. That's a good thirty minute drive up the coast, you'll probably go through it on your way up to Canaveral. But that was the last I thought about Charlie's tile for a while, until Natty Bishop's boy went missing.

Oh, that was a heartbreaker. Everyone loved that kid. Natty Bishop owns a couple of used car dealerships around here, and whenever the Missus wanted to go somewhere for the day, he'd take Jeremy, that was the kid's name, Jeremy, he'd take Jeremy into work with him. People'd come in to buy a car and spend half the time play peek-a-boo with that kid. Had the biggest smile I've ever seen on a person, and beautiful brown eyes. If I'd have had a kid, I'd have wanted him to be at least something like Jeremy Bishop. But then, one day, I think it was in November of that year, Jeremy up and disappeared.

His mother, Julia Bishop, told me about it. I was the reporter assigned to the story. Anyway, Julia had put him down on the porch while she was working in the garden. She heard something over by the water, they've got a house on the beachside next to the inland waterway, and she looked over there just in time to see Jeremy crawl over the embankment and down into the water. She lost her mind, of course, and ran over to the edge to find him, but he was gone. The water wasn't deep at all there, but the boy had just vanished. A couple of the neighbors heard her screaming and came over to see what was the matter, and when she finished gasping out what had happened, they called the police. Dragging is a difficult business in the inland waterway, since the bottom's all mud and the depth and width changes so much, but the police did what they could. They never did find that boy, so everyone just assumed he drowned. I did too, for a while. What I saw in Charlie's store got me thinking, but I didn't connect the two for a while.

Now, I don't normally go onto Beachside. Too ritzy and upper-class for me. But since I was there, I thought about Charlie for the first time in a long time. I hadn't seen him, in fact, since that time he'd called me over about the tile. His store wasn't too far from the Bishop house, both being off the main road that comes from the Northern Causeway, and I went over there. The place was dark. It was early afternoon, maybe two o'clock, and Charlie kept his store open from seven to seven every weekday during the summer, and ten to five all other times, so I couldn't tell why it'd be closed then. I knocked on the glass, but there was no movement from inside the shop. I pressed my hands up to the window and peered in. All the displays seemed to be in order, the shirts properly folded. Thinking that maybe he was taking a short break for lunch, I went around to the back and knocked on the rear entrance, but there was nothing there either. I was just about to leave when the door swung open a crack, and a large white eye peeked out at me.

"What is it, Dave?" Charlie said. At least, I thought it was Charlie. Who else could it have been? But his voice was strange, too high, and scratchy, and an awful smell oozed from him, like something between fermented grapes and bad eggs.

"You all right, Charlie? You sound kind of funny."

"I'm fine." Charlie coughed violently, putting his hand on the door frame to steady himself. There was something not right about that hand. Its color was not too pink and not too white, somewhere in the middle, which should have matched Charlie's skin fine, but it didn't. I can't put it into words, but there was something not at all right about that hand. The fingers didn't look the right length either, but that may just be me changing things now that I saw that thing on the beach. I know for sure that his hand made the skin crawl on my back, though. I couldn't fake that feeling if I tried. "I caught a cold somewheres. I was taking a nap in the back here, sorry I didn't hear you knocking."

"I was just talking to Julia Bishop about her son disappearing, but now I've got nothing to do until I drive back to Coral. If you want, I could run to the store and get you some medicine."

The eye widened momentarily. "Jeremy Bishop's disappeared? How terrible. But no, I already bought some cough drops. Thanks."

"You're sure there's nothing I can get for you?" I put my hand on the door. The eye squinted, and the hand tightened around the frame, the knuckles going unnaturally white as the blood was squeezed out of them. I withdrew my hand quickly. His fingers relaxed.

"No, thanks. I'm perfectly fine. Now, I'm sorry, but I'm very tired, and I'd like to get back to sleep." Charlie brought his arm back inside the darkened room, but another coughing fit struck him and he replaced it, leaning on it heavily.

"You're sure I can't get anything for you?" Charlie shook his head, or at least his eye moved back and forth, so I assumed he was shaking his head. "Well, take a cough drop, and get back to sleep." The door closed, and I heard faint movements and then a crunching sound. "Chewing them doesn't do anything, Charlie!" I called out.

The noise stopped, and then Charlie, even hoarser than before, said, "Oh, right. Thanks."

I walked back to my car, and, taking one last look at the darkened insides of the store, drove away. I was busy for a while on the Jeremy Bishop thing, but it didn't go anywhere and, after a couple of weeks, it stopped being even a paragraph on page three of the local news section. If he'd been kidnapped, that'd be different, but no one likes reading about a little drowned boy. After that died down, my editor sent me up to Cape Canaveral for another rocket launch, and I was up there for two days. Shuttles and astronauts weren't really my field, but the editor knew I like the beaches up there, so he gave me the assignment as a favor. It reminded me of the tile Charlie got, and when I got back, I went to his store again to see if he was better. I knocked on both the front and the back, and listened for snoring, but there was nothing, and I worried that Charlie had gotten so sick he couldn't even make it to the beach. He lived in Marc St. Waters, which is a little ways out from Tropic Park. I figured if it got too bad, he'd give me a call, so I wasn't too upset. A little nervous, but nothing serious.

That night, Alice German disappeared. She was a little older than Jeremy, six, I think, and she was taken right out of her room. Her parents put her to bed that night, and when they got up in the morning, her room was empty, and the window was open. Since I'd gotten the last missing child from my editor, I got assigned to this one too. The police came in and searched, fibers, DNA, fingerprints, everything. Then things got weird. The police pulled full fingerprints from at least thirty people that couldn't be identified, and partials from a dozen others. There were no other traces at all, no evidence that gave even the slightest hint as to the abductor. The police ran the prints they did have through the criminal database, and got hits on every one, people who were in jail, out of jail, living in other states, dead, even, and every one checked out. One of the cops said it felt like someone was jerking them around. The story got around, thanks to me, and it lasted for more than a month. But, when no suspects turned up, no further leads came in, and the girl wasn't found, people lost interest, and I went somewhere else. But then the third kid went missing, and things got real bad, real quick.

That was Amelia Dirgit, a black girl that lived across the tracks, next to the river. She was nine, I think. I don't remember things too well, now, especially from that time. Most of that stuff I'd like to forget. But this was monstrous even for Tropic Park. Amelia went to Tropic Park Elementary with her sister, whose name escapes me now, and they were on their way home late from school one day. Her mother told me later that she should have been watching them, but she had to work a double shift that day to cover for someone else. She was the worst of all the parents I saw. She wasn't crying, just sitting on her daughter's bed, holding a picture Amelia'd made, one of those "Mommy and Me" holding-hands marker drawings most kids make, rocking back and forth with such pain in her voice. It was like her throat had broken, and all that came out was shattered sounds that somehow worked themselves into English. Amelia's father was outside, walking aimlessly around the yard, picking up toys and putting them down again. The yard was strewn with tricycles, dolls, and other sorts of playthings. Someone had put a lot of money into making those two children happy, and now the one was gone. I talked with the sister for a little while, but she didn't say very much, just what she'd told the police. That was horrible enough.

The two girls were walking home from school, I told you that already. It was dark by then, but the girls had walked home from school many times and knew where to go. The sister, Emily, that was her name, Emily said that they were next to the river when they heard something splashing about in the water. They went to check it out, and saw an arm reaching up out of the water. It was dark, so she couldn't make out the color, but she said the moon shining on the water silhouetted the arm. I remember that very clearly, because I was surprised at the way such a young girl could use language so well. Emily talked in a calm, monotonous voice, never slowing or stopping, never varying at all. It was unreal, listening to her, but I suppose she had been through an ordeal. She talked very slowly about how the hand beckoned her towards the water, and they walked towards it. The hand began to wave back and forth, as though saying goodbye, and disappeared into the river. The girls, so Emily said, went right up to the edge of the water and looked in, trying to see where it had got to, and then Amelia fell or was pulled into the water. She went under for a moment, and then was back up, clutching at Emily and screaming. Emily, with a presence of mind and courage I would never have suspected from someone her age, tried to pull her sister back up out of the river, yelling for help. No one heard her, and no one came. But fear can give strength even to the smallest of children, and somehow, Emily began to win the war with that awful thing in the water, and succeeded in pulling her sister onto the bank, until she saw what she was fighting against. The hand, now clearly visible against the mud, was greenish-white, she told me, and the fingers were easily three times as long as her own, and they clutched with fiendish persistence at Amelia's leg. Emily didn't know what was happening, but she kept pulling, until the arm was fully out of the water, and then she let go, unable to continue in the face of the horror that came, dripping and cold, up with the girl.

There was no body with that arm. It ended about halfway up bicep, the skin and muscle ragged and shards of bone sticking out like the arm had been torn off. Emily's voice died at this point, and she continued moving her lips without making any sounds. I stopped our conversation and went to the kitchen. The father was sitting at the kitchen table, absently leafing through a copy of Hello Kitty, Hello World, and I asked him for a cup of water. He gestured vaguely towards the cabinet, and I found a glass and filled it from the tap. I brought it back into Emily's room, where she was still voicelessly describing what had happened. She took the cup and drank deeply, spilling water all down her front. After she had finished, she let her arms fall limp and the glass rolled off her bed and onto the carpet. She didn't move to pick it up, and neither did I.

I made leading questions to try to get her back onto talking about the arm, but she didn't say anything more about it. After she saw what was holding onto her sister, she let go and the thing pulled Amelia into the water and was gone. Emily didn't say anything after that, but one of the neighbors found her sitting on the edge of the water, whispering her sister's name over and over again, staring into the river or maybe beyond it. The neighbor took Emily home and her parents found out what happened. The police got involved, but they didn't put any credence in Emily's story beyond the superficial, that she had been abducted. At least, most didn't. There was one, George Fallon,who did. He's a good man, and a good cop, and he listened to me later, when it counted.

There was a news storm about that one, and we had reporters from all over the country down here, CNN, NBC, Fox, The New York Times, Washington Post, and a whole bunch of others besides. Being the first reporter on it, and the guy who communicated with all the other media outlets, I could have won a Pulitzer on that one, but they didn’t give it to me and I didn’t ask for it. It didn’t seem right to me to build success off the backs of dead children. It didn’t seem right at all.

To me and to most of the world, it seemed like we had a serial child snatcher in Tropic Park, and people were quick to make the connection to Jeremy Bishop the year before. I didn’t want to open that book again, since the parents were still grieving, but the other reporters were on Natty and Julia about it almost non-stop, and they moved away. Amelia German’s parents were already dead, and her grandparents, the ones who had been taking care of the girl, barricaded themselves in the house and didn’t leave at all until the whole thing was over. Their other children brought them food and things they needed. Amelia Dirgit’s mother and father made absolutely no effort to avoid the press, or even acknowledge them. They sent Emily to live with her uncle in Coral Beach, and went to work as normal, and the press crews followed them around wherever they went until the Emily’s uncle came and threatened to shoot anyone who bothered the family. After that, an realizing that they weren’t going to get anything more than they already knew out of them, the press corps took to hanging around the police station to see how the manhunt was going.

Tropic Park has a tiny building for the branch of the police, because it’s a small town and besides the occasional drug bust, nothing much illegal happens here. The search was being staged out of the central police headquarters for the county, which was larger, but they weren’t getting anywhere either. The search for the missing children had turned up nothing, and though the police continued searching Tropic Park and the surrounding area, some of my friends on the force told me in off-the-record statements that the only way to solve this case was a tip on the hotline.

Several other children went missing, and Tropic Park became a city under siege from unknown assailant or assailants. Schools went on an early spring break and remained closed for a long time after that. Many of the families left Tropic Park to stay with family in other parts of the country, and those that remained refused to let their children out of immediate supervision. Security firms in Coral Beach did a brisk business in selling alarms and, in some cases, iron bars for fitting on windows. Each of the disappearances was linked in some way to water, either of the ocean, or the inland waterway, or the river, and beachgoing dropped off to almost nothing. People, having heard on the news of the city's reputation, went to less dangerous climes, Tampa, Daytona, and all beach-related industry in Tropic Park nearly died. Restaurants, shops, fishing boat charters, anything that relied on tourists, went into a prolonged state of limbo, and no one knew whether they would recover. Those were scary times for the town, and that summer was one of the bleakest.

It was in reading the paper of the closing of JP's Fish Camp, that place we were in before, that reminded me of Charlie. In the state I was in, rushing about, trying to give statements from the police to different news agencies, I hadn't thought about him, but I decided to go to the beachside that weekend to see how he was holding up. I remembered how sick he had sounded the last time I went to visit him, and my resolve stiffened.

His shop was closed, and the windows were dark. I looked inside, and saw with a start of surprise that the displays were all from early spring, it then being late July. Charlie, as I told you, prided himself on those displays, loved arranging the shirts and the umbrellas in new and interesting ways. He hated even leaving them one week without moving something around or added a new item to the pile, so I was worried that something had happened to him. Looking closer, I saw that there was a layer of dust over everything, and that only concerned me even more. I went around to the back, remembering how I had found him there the last time, and knocked. The door swung inward, and foul air burst out of there like nothing I'd ever smelled before. It was worse, far worse than the eggs-and-wine stench. If you've ever been out on the shore when there's a Red Tide, and all the dead fish wash up, you might have some idea what I mean, but even that's a poor analogy. I was worried that Charlie'd died in there months before and his body was rotting away.

I remember everything that happened next very clearly, much as I'd like to forget it.

I went in and found the light switch, but flipping it on and off again didn't do anything. As my eyes adjusted, I could make out a small cot in the corner, and a low table with a single chair next to it. I walked over towards the table, and stopped when my feet crunched glass. I looked down and saw fragments of white glass, and above me the shattered remains of a lightbulb, as though someone had smashed it. On the table were some papers, covered in weird shapes and symbols I couldn't make heads or tails of. The blankets on the cot were rumpled and cold as ice. The whole room was cold, I realized as I looked under the sheets. But I still couldn't understand what was making the horrific smell. Then, under the bed, I saw a small object pushed almost up against the wall. Stretching my arm out as far as I could, I picked it up, shimmied backwards and then stood up, holding my prize. It was a shoe. Examining it more closely, I made out the figure of a stylized cat head, the Hello Kitty symbol. It was the shoe of a young girl. What would Charlie be doing with a girl's shoe? I wondered. He didn't have any young relatives, and he didn't sell shoes of any kind besides sandals and Crocks in the store. I looked on the tongue of the shoe, and in the dim light that came through the open door, I made out the name Amelia Dirgit stiched in yellow thread over the tag showing the size of the shoe.

"What are you doing in here?" I jumped and dropped the shoe, which hit my feet and rolled under the bed. I can think that that was my only saving grace, because I couldn't imagine what Charlie would have done had he found me with Amelia Dirgit's shoe in my hand. I wheeled round and saw Charlie Greene standing in the doorway, black against the afternoon sun. "What are you doing here, Dave?" His voice was gutteral, feral, even, and there was an unmistakable note of rage in it. He took a step towards me. I took a step back, and nearly fell over the cot.

"I haven't seen you in ages, Charlie. I knew you were sick, so I wanted to come and see how you were." For the life of me, I don't know how I managed to stand there in that room smelling like the deepest section of Hell, with the Devil standing not five feet away from me, and not let out even the smallest hint of the fear I felt.

"I'm doing better, doing better," he said. "I found a new medicine, works wonders." His face was in shadow, but I could swear he grinned at me.

"I just knocked, and the door swung open, so I came in to see if you were all right, but you weren't here. I only just got here myself."

"Don't worry about it," he said. "I'm glad I've got such good friends to worry about me like you do." I hadn't even realized he was so close, but then Charlie put his arm on my shoulder. His fingers were wet, and I shivered at the touch. "It's good to have friends, don't you know."

I noticed that he wore a bandage wrapped tightly around his right upper arm, and the sight only disturbed me further. I ducked under the arm and said, "Well, I've got to get going. I'm reporting on the children who've disappeared, and I've got to get back to it, or my editor'll have my head."

"Working on Sunday, are you, Dave?" Charlie had stepped out of the patch of light from the door, and was watching me intently. "That's mighty dedicated of you."

"Yes, I know, but with the kidnapper" my voice nearly broke on this word "working so quickly, I need to be on call twenty-four-seven."

"Oh yes," said Charlie. "I think there's been another disappearance too. I heard about it on the radio. I listen to the radio a lot, nowadays. Never know when someone's going to..." His grin widened. "Disappear. Might even be someone you know."

"Well, I better get back then." I turned and nearly fell out the door, which slammed shut behind me.

On news of what I'd found, the police broke into Charlie's shop and his home, with no success. The shoe was gone, and no other evidence remained to show that he had been there. No traces remained even of my visit earlier that day, as the dust in that room was uniform and a heavy, rusted lock had to be broken before the police could go into the back room. Charlie's house in Marc St. Waters was vacant, having been put on the market back in early spring. A phone call to Charlie's brother in Jacksonville revealed that Charlie had moved up North in the spring, hoping to find a less dangerous city in upstate New York. Without any evidence to support my claims, and mountains of proof to the contrary, the police assumed I'd made the story up in hopes of inciting further news reports, as progress had been non-existent on finding the kidnapper, even with the disappearance of another child just that day. I made the mistake of telling them what I thought about Charlie and the bandage on his arm, and they dismissed me out of hand. My editor removed me from reporting on the case, and assigned someone else, and I was relocated to The Palaçades to cover the creation of a new golf course there.

Damn fool that I am, I went back that night to the Beachside, determined to wait for another attack and find Charlie myself. I had nothing to go on, no idea where he would be now that his hideout was discovered, but I had to do something. If I hadn't gone there, if I'd stayed away and reported on the doings of the wealthy on the other side of the Mountain, I might not have this-

He held up his withered left hand, and I shivered.

-but who knows? Charlie had it out for me then, I knew that later, and he might have followed me up into the Mountain.

I waited down by Charlie's store that first night, but he never showed. I went back the second night, and when still no one came, I switched stakeouts. There were police all over the town, most along the shores, so I told Fallon what I was doing, so the police would know it wasn't me doing the kidnappings myself. That was another bit of luck, and sometimes I wonder if there isn't a guardian angel watching over me sometimes.

It was the third night that it happened.

I've got a police scanner in my car, a lot of reporters who follow the crime beat do, and at around nine o'clock, news came over the radio of an alarm being tripped in a house not too far from where I was. I drove my car towards the address mentioned, but found that the police had set up a road block, and wouldn't let me go any further. The houses on the northern side of the street butted up against the inlet, so I parked my car and proceeded on foot along the shore. There were a few policemen on the strip, but a commotion came up from the street and they ran up to see what was happening. I tried to follow, but I slipped on the wet sand and fell face-first onto the ground.

The fall knocked the wind out of me, and I lay there, trying to get my breath back. When I felt okay to move, I got to my hands and knees, and tried to stand, but something strong gripped my leg and pulled me down. My face hit the floor again, and I rolled over, spitting sand out of my mouth, to find that some one had grabbed me and was dragging me into the water. I jerked back in fright, and the arm came with me, and I saw that there was no body to go with it, nothing at all. It was just as Emily Dirgin had described it, down to the broken bones sticking out of the bloodless stump. I think I screamed then, but I'm not sure. If I had, more officers probably would have come to my aid, but then, perhaps they were all out of earshot, dealing with the arm on the other side of the street.

I reached down to pry the hand off my shin, but when I touched it, what felt like an electric shock traveled up my left arm and into my shoulder. I let go, clawing at the ground around me, and the hand resumed its grüesome work.

All of a sudden, there was the sound of a gunshot, and the hand released me. Standing ten yards away was George Fallon, holding his revolver like Clint Eastwood out of Fistful of Dollars. There was no time then for explanations, because the hand flipped up and began crawling towards Fallon at incredible speed. Fallon, a much calmer man than I, steadied himself and emptied the remaining five chambers into the hand. The fingers curled into a tight claw, the nails tearing strips of skin off the palm, and then lay flat.

From what seemed like everywhere burst a scream, high, piercing, and unending. I have no words to tell you what it sounded like. I have never heard anything like it in all my fifty-three years living on this Earth, and neither has Fallon. It was something that should not be, a crime against Nature that something could even exist that could give off that terrible scream. You can't understand. No one can, really, and it's probably for the best that only Fallon and I were there to see what happened next.

Charlie, his face transfixed in the most hideous vision of anger I had ever seen, came up out of the water. The lights from the house were shining fully on him, and I saw for the first time how my friend had changed. Both his arms were gone, the skin and muscles ragged as though they had been ripped off through brute force. No blood drained from them, though no effort had been made to bandage or restrict blood flow in any way. His skin moved and pulsed, as though ants were crawling through his veins, and his eyes bulged wildly. Through the holes torn in his shirt, which read "Tropic Park" in faded letters, the flesh bulged weirdly in ways unlike the rest of him.

"You!" he said, as though through a mouth of broken glass. His tongue lolled about weirdly and seemed unconnected to the rest of him. "You'll pay for that!"

All at once, there was a burning pain in my left hand, and I looked down at it to see the bones shifting and reforming, my fingers moving spasmatically, and growing, lengthening. The nails split and bulbous flesh dribbled out, solidifying into fingers far longer than they had any right to be. New nails grew, longer and sharper than before, and before I had any time to freak at what had happened to my hand, it was moving against my will, groping for my throat. I grappled with it, though as a leftie, my right hand was the weaker.

Charlie, having dealt with me, proceeded towards Fallon at a shambling run, the stumps where his arms had been flopping grotesquely. Fallon fumbled in his pocket for another clip, and was reloading his gun when Charlie let out another scream, this one of pure rage. Even as my eyesight began to go black as my demon hand began to win in the struggle against my right, I saw Charlie's chest explode outward, and an impossible third arm reach out, grasping for Fallon. My eyes failed entirely, and I heard several shots. Then I could breath again, and I lay on the beach gasping as the stars slowly winked back into existence. I stared at my left hand, my good hand, and saw the extra flesh dissolve into the same salted gel I had seen back in Charlie's shop the previous summer. That's why my hand's like this now, and I haven't been able to use it for anything more than to hold a cigarrette ever since.

Fallon was standing over Charlie's body, his gun hand shaking just barely, and I saw that whatever had got to Charlie was gone now. The third hand had disappeared, probably turned to the same gel as mine, and his skin was a hue that wasn't normal, but was at least human. The shirt was completely destroyed, and as Fallon and I stood over him, wondering exactly what to do, we knew there was no way to ever explain what had happened that year in Tropic Park. Something from the outside came down and got into Charlie, and changed him in ways that weren't any way natural. There's many things that I don't know, and Fallon doesn't know, and no one will ever know, about those kids who disappeared, about who was truly responsible for everything, but I can tell you this: it all came from those days when Charlie would go up and down the shore, looking for interesting bits to put in his shop window, because, as Fallon and I could see clearly now with the moon bright above us and the electric lights behind, grafted into Charlie Greene's skin was the heat resistant tile he'd found the year before.

It is now coming on twelve o'clock, and I am fairly sure the shuttle is orbiting around the Earth even as I write these words. It will soon discharge its cargo to the International Space Station, but whether it will reënter with an empty hold, I cannot say.

The End.

Thank you, Jon, for commenting. I've never had alpaca. Maybe someday. Thank you too to Vicky, for commenting. I'm glad my blog inspired you to write in your journal. I tried to when I first got here, but I just can't do it. I save the journals people give me to write stories in. Thank you to M, also. Yes, racists just make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. ;-) Thank you to my little cousin Ezra, who is a little tiny baby child, so young and small, trying to make his way in a world in which almost everyone is taller than he is... *sniff* It's a sad story, of pain and suffering. I'm just messing with ya, kid. And finally, thank you to Mom, who always comments because she knows I love it. That's all for now. Sorry it's a day late, for any of you who check my blog on the stated Monday, Wednesday, and/or Friday. Hey, five comments! That's a new high score!

¡Ciao!

Yes. It Gets Worse.

2008-12-31T19:38:00.014-05:00

So, this New Year's Eve, I managed to answer one of the questions I've had about Ecuador since I got here: namely, how much racism is there in Ecuador? And it got answered in the most horrible way. I could never have imagined, but Stephen King says God punishes us for what we can't imagine.

But I'll get to that later. First, let me set this up by saying that every year on New Year's Eve, there's a big party in Atuntaqui where Anita works with loads of people, so Anita suggested I go and take pictures! Yay for not charging my batteries. But I still got pictures. (pix or it didnt happen kthnx) She says it's a lot of fun, and they burn an effigy of the old year, and it's a lot of fun. She said the "fun" part a lot. I should have known. She also mentioned that men dress up as women, again, with the "fun," and I thought Senior Crossdress Day at Spruce Creek. No. No. Much worse. So, I show up, and there's a lot of people there, like LOTS of people. So everyone's just chilling, waiting for the parade to start, and I go and stand out on the side, trying to find a good vantage point, right? And I do.

That's the effigy they're going to burn. One of many. They like burning things, here.

And then this bird shows up, and I say, "WTF, mate?" for the first time that evening. The first of many. But I can handle the bird. It gets worse.

If you're wondering what that is, you're not alone. It took me a while before I realized that that was a man, dressed up as a woman, complete with facemask. Apparently his chin was too rugged to be taken for a woman's. Or something like that. But it gets worse... I was going along fine, until I saw this:

Yes. Yes it is. Yes. And it gets worse. Much, much worse.

If you can't tell, that's a cart of watermelons. Because blackface just isn't insulting enough. Or maybe the guy thought you wouldn't be able to tell it was blackface without them. I dunno. But it gets worse...

That's a guy dressed up to be Chinese. There were about thirty guys like this, and some kids too! He's selling ladybugs and stuff on a stick. Other people had rats. Yes, at least there was Equal Opportunity racism. Some of the young girls had Chinese dresses on, and looked pretty nice, but then there were these guys... Urgh. But it gets worse...

If you can't tell, That's a man. Your argument is invalid. Yes. It is a man, in panties and a see-through teddy, I think it's called. But it gets worse...

And here I thought only one guy was gonna do blackface. I was wrong. That is a couple of black guys chopping and processing sugar cane. Three, actually. There's also a whiteface guy (some Ecuadorian guy with a white guy mask) carrying a whip. I thought I had the picture, but I can't find it. But it gets worse...

I'm going to let this picture speak for itself. But it doesn't get any worse than this.

At least, that's what I thought before the guy in the diaper started riding his bike around. But it gets worse...

That's a guy dressed up as an Asian woman lip-synching to American music. In honor (is that the right word?) of the Olympics this year, there was a serious Olympic theme. The singer was perched on top of a mock Bird's Nest, the Chinese stadium. But it gets worse...

Okay, this one isn't much worse than the other one. It's a continuation on the theme, with the STRONGMAN. There were two of these guys. But it gets worse...

That's the American member of the faux-boxing match they set up at points along the route. The American guy was the most bloody and beaten up, but he was also the most buff. So, okay. The other guys ganged up on him... *Tear* But it gets worse...

Hey, it's the Scottish Bagpipe Brigade! If you check out that guy on the left, you'll see he stumbled into the wrong stereotype when they were setting up, got a bagpipe, and doesn't quite know why he's out there. He's lost, and he needs help. But it gets worse...

Yes. That is the Pope. With naked women, on his hat. He was also riding a motorcycle. All in all, the most badass depiction of the Pope I've ever seen."
But it gets worse...

That's the front of the cowboy.

And that's the back.

Okay, it gets better from here.

As a special reward for anyone who could sit through all that (I couldn't. I left and nearly missed this part.), they included a float with four actual FEMALE models, all of whom were wearing nothing but body paint. Yes, it was all worth it.

As a side note, because I know my mom wants to know, there were other black people there, and I think they were just as disgusted as I was. I didn't see any Chinese people, though.

Christmas

2008-12-26T18:42:00.005-05:00

So, I was going to use the ~~Friday~~ Monday post to talk about more reasons I dislike my school, like the Inspector that looks like Hitler (Okay, I know I need photographic evidence to prove that point, but I don't have that yet. I will, I promise.), but then I went and had one of the most interesting Christmases ever, so I'm going to talk about that instead. You'd probably be more interested in that anyway.

Because it's the Caroling season, I'm going to do this post in the form of a parody of a popular Christmastime Song: The 12 Days of Christmas.

12 people dining: There were 12 people at Christmas dinner besides me and Anita, divided into two groups: People whose Name I know: Carlos, Marco, Grace (Marco's wife), Marco Alejandro (Marco's son), Salomé (Marco's daughter), Victor (Grace's brother), and People whose Name I don't Know: Victor's wife, Grace's two parents, the housekeeper, and 2 other people whose relation I don't know. Yeah. It gets kinda awkward when you don't know someone's name but it's too late to ask politely what it is. That happened to me all the time at MITES.

11 hours driving: Anita and I had planned out (by that, I mean that Anita had planned and I had sort of nodded in agreement) that we were going to take a bus from Ibarra to Aloag, meet up there with Carlos, Anita's 30-year-old son, and drive from Aloag to Santo Domingo, to spend Christmas with Anita's other son, Marcos. Leg One of the journey worked out fine. We got up at 5AM and took the 6AM bus to Quito, where we would transfer to an Aloag bus. Anita fought with the bus driver because he wasn't leaving, and spent maybe half an hour complaining to the woman across the aisle about it, but that wasn't all bad. We got to Quito and transferred to the Aloag bus and got to Aloag just fine. Then things got bad. Real bad. Anita went to cash a check in the bank for 5000 big ones, because she just sold her car on Tuesday. Money's not in the guy's bank account. She and Carlos FLIP OUT. Not in the ninja kinda way, but the "Oh my God, someone just stole my car and I'm out nine thousand dollars" kinda way. I was just sort of sitting there. So Carlos makes the decision that we're going to drive all the way back to Ibarra and find this guy, and beat the crap out of him. Well, I inferred the last part from his tone. To make matters worse, both of the guy's cell phone numbers were out of service. It was bad. So, half-way back, the guy calls and says the money's there, it was just getting transferred from one account to another. So, long story short, we drive 3 hours to Otavalo, and sort everything in fifteen minutes. Cue the 5 hour drive to Santo Domingo. Fun fun fun.

10 dogs half-eaten: One of the things I had asked myself a lot about living in Ibarra is why there aren't more dead dogs in the road, with the combination of awful driving skills and stray dogs. The answer: Because they're all out on the highway. Seriously, ten dogs, in various states of decay, often with a flock of buzzards. Nasty stuff.

9 pounds of candy: Both Grace and one of the people I don't know handed out bags of candy, somewhere in the range of nine pounds worth in total among all of us (Yes, I just made it nine so it would fit with the song. No, I don't care.). There were animal crackers, and cookies, and Tootsie Roll knock-offs, but surprisingly little chocolate. The animal crackers here are really good, way better than American ones, and for some reason they're sold in giant 30lbs. bags. Weird. So, anyway, Anita and I ate a lot of candy, and we both got stomachaches from it.

8 pigs a-hanging: One of the strange things I saw while we were driving to and from Santo Domingo was a lot of stores selling "fritadas," which are hunks of fried pig meat, served on a plate, which is a current contender for most manly food ever against beef jerky. But, the way the people sell it is they have a pig hanging up, a dead, bloodless pig, and they cut bits from it when you need. It's kind of disgusting. I mean really. There're flies and stuff on it.

7 movie sellers: I also saw a lot of DVD sellers. It's depressing, since my computer died and now I can't watch DVDs. One of the two connectors inside the computer between the battery and the power cord burned out, and so the computer will only charge when it's not on. When it is on, it uses power faster that it gains it from the power cord, and died in about half an hour. Plus, the screen got messed up for some reason, and now it displays everything so bright all the light colors get washed out. It's very frustrating.

6 hours swimming: So, on Christmas Day, the whole family went out to a water park just outside of Santo Domingo. It was kinda tame, just two slides and a kiddie pool, but Salomé and Marco Alejandro had fun. Victor took Marco Alejandro down one of the slides, inching his way down as slowly as possible, but Marco still bawled the whole way down. I didn't have swim trunks, and I didn't feel much like swimming anyway, so I sat and read my H.P. Lovecraft book again. I went over to the bar and found a bottle of Inca Kola, which is this bright yellow soda that's native to Peru. Jesse told me about it, and said it was totally nasty, so I had to try some. It was pretty nasty. But hey, whatevs. I had a pretty good time alternating throwing candy wrappers at Carlos and playing "ataque de hormigas" with Marco Alejandro. The kid is so funny. He goes up to people and says, "Are you brave?" And if they say yes, he goes "ANT ATTACK!!!" and starts tickling them. After thirty times of this, most people got kinda annoyed and started saying "No." That kinda threw him off, and he didn't really know what to do, so he went and kept trying until someone said they were brave. He also liked being spun around, so I did that too, and got really dizzy. It was all right, although there weren't any cute girls to look at.

5 different cities: So in the course of my cross-country EcuaTour, I got to see five cities: Ibarra, Aloag, Quito, Otavalo, and Santo Domingo. I had seen Otavalo and Quito once before, and of course I live in Ibarra, but the other ones were new, and I did get to see more of Quito than I had before. It was nice.

4 unique climes: Through the trip, I got to see four different settings: Misty Santo Domingo, Clear Santo Domingo, mountains, and the city. Misty Santo Domingo was what we saw once we reached the Eastern part of Ecuador where it's really warm and humid. It was the most beautiful place I've ever seen. There are trees, EVERYWHERE, on the mountains. Every square inch had a tree growing out of it, and all different sorts. Of course, I forgot my camera, so no pictures for you. You'll just have to take my word for it. I don't know why it was misty, but there was a strong cloud cover over everything, so it was all eldritch and mysterious. Maybe I've been reading too much H.P. Lovecraft, but I kept imagining this giant monster clawing his way up over the ridge of the mountain. Clear Santo Domingo was what we saw on the way back from Santo Domingo, when all the clouds were gone. I got a good look at the forest, and it was still beautiful, although I really prefer the Misty version. There are a bunch of tiny tin shacks along the road, and I decided that when I'm a rich and famous author, I'm going to buy a plot of land on one of the mountains there and spend my time writing. I'm gonna get water and electricity and internet pumped in first, of course, but other than that, solitude. I'ma pull a Henry David Thoreau. The mountain region was what we saw right outside of Otavalo and most of the way down to Quito. Geography: Ibarra is north of Otavalo is north of Quito is west of Santo Domingo. This was also a very beautiful area, with tall mountain regions and deep valleys. The mountains were mainly brown, because not very many green plants grow there, and no trees at all. We passed by several rock quarries. The houses here are almost all made out of concrete mixed with this one rock mined from the mountains, and that's what they were digging for. There were also long buildings where Anita told me they keep chickens. It was an interesting ride. Lastly, the city. Quito is a giant city, and it took us forever to ride all the way through it. The southern part, which is the only part I really remember, is what looks like the result of some giant kid playing with blocks. The houses are stacked up and strewn about with no clear pattern or order, and they're all square and brightly colored. No sloped roofs or anything. Totally cube-like. Anita told me that's where the poor people from the other provinces come to find work in Quito, because the rent's cheap. The place was enormous.

3 bad artists: Carlos, before the mad dash back to Otavalo, bought a CD of "American Pop Ballads" from a kid selling CDs out of a bag, most of which had naked women on them. Yes. It was exactly as bad as it sounds. The whole way down, and the whole way back, I listened to Britney Speares, 'Nsync, and the Backstreet Boys. Someone needs to teach Ecuador what good American music is, but that task is too monumental for me. Some of the songs, like "Ops [sic] I did it again" were on the CD two or three times, but luckily I could hit the next button surruptitiously when this happened, and Carlos didn't notice.

2 complaing kids: Salomé and Marco Alejandro are nice kids, but sometimes... On Christmas, after we had come back from the water park and eaten dinner and all that, I was kicked back in my room writing, and Salomé comes in and asks if I want to watch TV. No, she tells me we're watching TV. At first, I thought the "we" was maybe her and Marco Alejandro, or her and her dad, but no. It was her and myself. So, I get up and go and lie down in Marco and Grace's room to watch TV with Salomé, and we're chilling there, everything's fine. And then Marco Alejandro sees us, and he comes in to watch TV too. And by "watch TV," I mean, kick me in the testicles. He thought it would be a great joke to jump on top of me while I'm lying down and knee me in the stomach. So, I'm like, "Hey, we're watching TV here." I don't know if he didn't understand, or if he just ignored me, but he kept going. I stand up next to the bed, and he starts kicking me in the groin. Finally, I get pretty annoyed, and just push him over so he falls backwards onto the bed. He thought that was the funnest thing in the world, so he keeps coming back, and I keep pushing him over. Then Salomé wanted to join in the falling over fun, and she tries to kick me in the groin too! Now, Marco Alejandro is 4, and weighs all of fifty pounds. Salomé is 10, and weighs maybe double that. Needless to say, I failed pretty hard trying to push back a rushing Salomé and almost fell backwards, cracking my head against the wall. Eventually, I lured them away by going downstairs really fast and hiding outside.

And a green Ecuadorian Cup: As part of the holiday festivities, we had a Secret Santa. I got Marco Alejandro as my gift-recipient, and so I bought him a bunch of cars and motorcycles. He liked 'em. He got me a green cup with parrots on it and a yellow (!) bobblehead turtle, both of which said "Ecuador" on them. I dunno whether Anita told them yellow was my favorite color, or what, but it's pretty nice. I'll upload some photos when I ~~care enough~~ have time. I'm working like a beast on FLVS (ten assignments uploaded yesterday for English!).

Thanks, Tom, for commenting. I do say it here, but I say it in English, so no one understands anyway. Thank you also to Ben and Kristina for commenting. Yes. Guinea pig is disgusting. I know. I ate it.

Also, I'm writing a poem about my time here in Ecuador, creating new stanzas as I go along. Here's the first one, and a new one's up at the top of the page.

On Sunday I walked with my head in a cloud,
My head in a cloud and my feet on the ground.
Above the stones, the silence was loud,
Except for the groans, I heard every sound.
And as I looked from Icy height,
I thought that I would die of fright.
For everything is far away
The wispy ring is dark and gray.

On Tuesday, I rode from the North to the South,
The North to the South with my heart in my mouth.
The green rose up and flew away,
The gray sunk down, and down it stays.
The chill swept in and gnawed my bones,
Until the yellow's colored tones
Held me fast and made me warm,
While insects buzzed in frightful swarm.

Ciao, y'all, and Feliz Navidad. Or Feliz Kwanzaa, if you're into that. Feliz fiestas.

ECRS (That's Eckers)

2008-12-23T17:16:00.007-05:00

So, tomorrow being Christmas Eve and me taking a four-hour bus ride to be with my host mom's grandchildren, I thought I might not have time to post. And, since I am committed to posting, I'm doing it today!

I thought I'd take some time and, since I talked about Virtual School two posts ago, tell you a little bit about ECuadorian Regular School (ECRS). I have X classes, where X is a number larger than Y, where Y is the number of classes I had in the United States, which is seven. I will list them in order.

Artistic Anatomy: I don't like this class. My teacher is a man (YAisI), whose name I don't remember. He's very very full of himself, in that he knows exactly the best way everything should be, and you have to defer to his judgement, regardless of whether his judgement conflicts with what he told you the last time you showed him your drawing. Basically, he shows us a picture of a bone, a pelvis, a hand, a foot, etc., and we have to draw it. But we have to draw it in the exact manner in which he says, regardless of whether his instructions conflict with the picture of the bone you have in front of you. Then he tells you to do things after you've already spent a long time doing them the opposite way, because that's what he told you. Like one time, I was drawing the skull, and he says, Great, go over it in pen. So I go over it in pen, and bring it back, and he says, Oh, the shape's wrong. Fix it. I can't, I just went over it in pen, like you told me to. Fine, do you want to do it over? Do over the picture of the skull I've been working on for the past three days because I can't fix something because you told me to go over it in pen? Yes. No. 10/20. I hate you. And he's so forceful in everything he says, but he's wrong half the time. He told us about how the first vertebra that connects our spine to our skull is called "Atlas," after Atlas, the guy from Greek mythology, which I can understand. However, he tells us that it's called thus because Atlas held up the Earth, causing earthquakes when he sneezed. I'm like, No, you're wrong. I didn't say that, of course. I learned my lesson from Literature class.

Literature: This class is in between on the Hate-Love scale. Some of the things are okay, some aren't. My teacher's a woman, whose name I don't remember either. In this class, we started out talking about the different genrés of Literature, lyrical, epic, so on and so forth, which was okay. Then we talked about El Cantar de Mío Cid, the first work of literature written in Spanish. It's like the way The Canterbury Tales is for us. We didn't actually read Mío Cid, because it's really really long, but we talked about it. What I don't like is the way, when something displeases her, she needs to take up a whole class telling us how displeased she is. She spent a whole class once telling us about how much better the other 4th course is than us because they made posters for a project when posters weren't required. Keep in mind that we've only had this class maybe eight times all year. Yeah. Luckily, most of the anger is directed at people she thinks can understand her, so usually I just sit there while she rants. Except this one time, when she was talking about the Greeks. The school here is even more Europhillic than my school back in the States, even the World History class that was two seconds of Egypt, two seconds of China, and the rest about Europe. So, my teacher was telling us that the Greeks invented literature, and I'm like, No. You're wrong. Except I actually said it, and tried to explain to her that there were loads of stories written long before the Greek or even European civilizations had writing. She didn't believe, and sort of mumbled into the next topic.

Sculpture: I like this class a lot. It's my favorite class. Here, the teacher tells us to make some kind of sculpture, and then we make it, and he walks around and offers suggestions, or helps if you ask for it. Which is the way art should be taught, I think. He presents ideas and then we incorporate them into the work. His name is the only one I remember, because on the first day of class he said, "I'm going to tell you right now that my name is Mr. Carlos Torres, because I've had students before that don't remember my name." All the teachers here go by "Licen," which is short for "Licenciado," which means "Teacher." Our last project was making a bas-relief of a fruit bowl. I thought mine came out pretty well. Interesting fact: I finish before everyone else, because I don't talk while I work.

Painting: I hate this class. I loathe this class. The teacher is a man much in the same vein as that of Artistic Anatomy. Usually, he just ignores me. I mean, he'll go around to every person in the room and give them suggestions, and pointedly walk around me to get to other people. Although, I actually prefer this to him "helping" me. Case in Point: I was working on my final exam, in which we had to paint a vase and a flower, and I was doing fine. He comes over and says, "You're doing it wrong," grabs my paper, erases the whole thing, and blocks it out the way he thought it should be. Of course, he did this standing at a different angle from me, Plus I suck at painting, which doesn't inspire any goodwill towards the class. But I used to suck at guitar, and I didn't hate that. I'm better now at that, by the way. Which brings me to my second point. I'm not getting any better at painting. I suck just as much at painting now as I did when I started. This class is a stupid, boring, pointless waste of my time, is what I'm getting at.

Tecnical Drawing: This class is all right in my book. I don't really get what we're supposed to do. All the rules for doing everything were made a couple of years ago, when I wasn't here, so I spent the first two months not understanding anything. In this class, the teacher (a man) puts a picture up on the board and we copy it exactly. Each picture is a line, a plane, or a letter, projected onto another plane. It is the most boring, mindless class ever, but it relies entirely on math, so I'm incredibly good at it. The homework takes literally four hours to do, though, so the class loses points on that. Overall, I am glad when this class comes up, because the teacher's nice, the classwork's easy, and no one gets yelled at.

Mathematics: If ever there was a time I felt like jumping out a window, it'd be this class. The teacher's a really nice guy, and when we started he knew I'd had way more math than he was teaching, so he tried to get me out of the class. The principal said no, because I'm there to experience the culture, and so I have all the same classes as they do. Period. So, every Thursday, I'm there, for an hour and twenty minutes, learning how to factor polynomials. First, this is tenth grade. They should be past factoring polynomials by now, but this is an art school, so I forgive that. But the teacher is teaching the subject entirely wrong. I'm not a math teacher, but my dad is, so I have some knowledge on this. The teacher taught several specific examples of "When the polynomial looks like this, you have to do this to get the right answer." There was no attempt to teach the theory behind factoring polynomials, which is how to multiply them together first. If you said to one of these kids multiply (x+2)(2x-3), they couldn't do it. So, I spend this class getting perfect grades and finishing first, which isn't all that bad when everyone else is better than me in almost every other subject.

Artistic Drawing: This is my other favorite class, and also the only other one whose teacher I remember, Mr. Lopez. Here, much like in Sculpture, the teacher tells us to draw something, gives us a model, and we draw it. Awesome. One of the things I've noticed here is that no one else besides me draws from imagination. We get an assignment to draw a landscape, and everyone rushes around trying to find newspaper clippings with pictures of a mountain. They draw them perfectly, but in the end, they're just copies. Now, the sixth course students don't have this problem, from what I've seen, so I guess they learn somewhere between now and then, but it was just strange seeing it happen every time. Which reminds me of one of the things that annoys me most about this school. All the kids here, all of them, even the ones who aren't in my class, have this inner compulsion to go around to look over people's shoulders at their work and critique them, just to make sure that their art is better than your art. This pisses me off so much. Now, when people do it, I just stare at them rudely until they go away. So far, only one person (not in my class) has asked if I mind being watched while I draw. One of the things I learned about this class is that I love doing perspective pieces. Any time we get a free assignment, now, I draw something that has to do with perspective, whether that's the main focus of the piece or not. It's really cool, and if I had a scanner, I'd upload some of my work.

History of Art: I used to hate this class. It was, and still is, in my opinion, a boring waste of time. We spent each class reading from the text book while the teacher threw in his own comments about how he missed the good ol' times when women knew their place. Plus, he was old, ugly, and smelled bad. But then we didn't have his class for two months through a freak of scheduling, and somewhere in there he broke his foot, and now he's not anymore! We have a new guy, who seems much more interesting, and at least doesn't smell like the way I think dead mice taste. We've only had him for one class, so I dunno how he'll turn out, but I figure he can't be worse than the last guy. Right? Right???

Social Sciences: This class is okay, I guess. We have a woman teacher. We don't actually do that much, but when we do stuff, the teacher compliments me really heavily because she doesn't expect anything from me. Like, I wrote a brief description of the physical features of Ecuador, and she just glowed over it, even though it wasn't entirely correct. It helps that I was the only one who actually did the assignment, though. This is also the class that forced me to learn the 22 provinces of Ecuador and their capitals, which I now know better than anyone else in my class. I always end up embarassing the other students too ("You're not even Ecuadorian, and you know them better than I do..." "Yes... Jacob: 1, the World: 0.").

Gym: I hate this class too. We have to wear a special uniform. My first day, the gym teacher made us do all this stuff on the parallel bars, and on the chin-up bars, not making the girls do anything, of course, because they're too delicate. And then he's like, Okay, now climb up that thirty-foot arch, shimmy over to the other side, and come back down. So, most of the students climbed up, went hand over hand for ten feet while dangling thirty feet up, and then came back down. I say most, because I and a few other safety-conscious (read, unathletic) students decided not to take part in this particular activity. And there's one kid, Jorge Vinueza, who's a little on the chubby side, and the gym teacher thinks it's a big laugh to call him "Gordito," or "Fatso" in English. What a jerk. I hate that class.

2-D Composition: This class is nice. The teacher's a woman who spent a year in the U.S. as a foreign exchange student, much like me here in Ecuador. She speaks English, but of course she didn't tell me that until after I spent forever trying to ask her a complicated question in Spanish. On the whole, though, she's pretty nice. We spend the class looking at different works of art and seeing how they work, the elements and principles and whatnot. Fun stuff. She did think very highly of Jackson Pollock, though, and that's a strike against her.

(OH MY GOD. IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL. AND SYMBOLIC. OF ART.)

English: This class is another mind-numbingly dull hour and twenty minutes. Since I already know English, I get to go down to the library and pass the time reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and translating the vocab from Spanish to English. Lately, though, the teacher's been asking me to "help" with her daughter's English homework, in which I basically work through one of the English workbooks. Sara's supposed to do the other one, but she decided she didn't feel like it, so she just spends the class reading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I've decided that I'm just going to avoid the other foreign exchange kids as much as possible. Not all of them, but a few act like they came here on vacation, skipping school, ignoring family requests, that kind of thing, and I just don't want to be around them anymore. Not all of them, but a few.

Computation: I own this class. Mainly because I'm the only one who uses a computer on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. I got a 19/20 average. Yeah. We go to the computer class, and the teacher explains about files, and emailing, and stuff, and I try not to get caught playing Hearts. It's fun.

So, that's all for the classes. There's more stuff I could talk about, but I don't feel like it right now. Maybe for Friday.

Thanks, Tom, for commenting. And thank you, Keri, for commenting as well. As to your comment, no, I can't do that. My English teacher put a little countdown timer on the front page saying "X days, Y hours, Z minutes, α seconds until January Fifth! GET EVERYTHING DONE BY THEN OR DIE." AP Classes get special privileges, like the right to deny me of everything that is good and wholesome in my life, in the name of being on a pace of their choosing.

¡Ciao!

Food

2008-12-22T16:45:00.004-05:00

One of the hardest challenges I faced on coming to Ecuador was dealing with the change in food. Not only the viruses and bacteria and all that (I did get sick from an unboiled juice, if you remember), but from everything about the food.

I'll start with a statement on when food is eaten. Basically, they don't have dinner here. In the morning, you eat a small bit, maybe a bowl of cereal, some bread. After I get home from school, around 1:30, 2:00, we eat lunch, which is the biggest meal of the day. And in the afternoon? It really depends on the family. Because my host mother works in a pizzería, she's out of the house all evening, from 3:30 to 10:00. So, I don't usually eat dinner. If I need a snack, I'll grab a piece of bread, or maybe a bag of chips from the nearest convenience store (it's no 7-11, but it'll do). If I'm really starving, and I'm usually not, I'll go up two blocks to the nearest Chinese place and order a "mixto especial," which I'll get to in a minute. Anita (my host mother) has been getting on my case lately that I don't eat enough, so the housekeeper, Rosita, usually offers me rice or a hard-boiled egg or something. I have lost about ten pounds since I got here, but I'm at a healthy, stable weight now, so that's good. My Body Mass Index is in the normal range, at least. But that's not where I'm going with this. What I wanted to point out is that in Ecuador, Lunch is the most important meal of the day, not Dinner, like in the United States. People here have a very hard time understanding that when I tell them. People don't get that school goes from 7:30 to 3, or thereabouts, so kids don't get home in time for lunch, and parents are almost always working at that time, so no lunch there either. Here, family is very, very important, and eating lunch with the family is the most common expression of that fact. This is actually where most of the other AFS kids are having problems with their families. They come home and then go right out with their friends, not eating with the family. One mother said that she felt like the kid was just using her house as a hotel. The issue is that that's not being related to the students, and so they're not modifying their behavior at all. But it's not my place to say anything, so I don't. I just hope the other American kid doesn't get sent home. I like having someone else here who understands how important it is to go to KFC every once in a while.

The content of each course is different as well. Breakfast, for me, is always one of two things: juice, hot chocolate, and bread, or juice and cereal. Sometimes Anita'll mix things up with chopped fruit, but not usually. Lunch always consists of two things, if Rosita cooks, and she usually does. The first course, "sopa," is a soup of some kind, which can be chicken soup, noodle soup (my favorite), soup with potatoes, soup with yuca (my least favorite. I mean, it's Yuck-a soup.), cream of peas, cream of carrot, rice, baby rice, or some combination thereof. Noodle soups are few and far between, but that only makes them all the better when I get one. It's like winning on a scratch-off lotto ticket, not very often, not very much, but it always gives you a nice feeling inside. The second course is "seca," or the dry plate. This usually consists of three things: rice, a vegatable, and meat. The rice is white, and plain, and it never changes. The vegatable is usually some variation of potatoes, though once in a while I get peas (which I hate), carrots (which I also hate), corn (which I like), chocla (which I love), and on very rare occasions, french fries. Choclas are what I think of as bucktooth corn. It's a type of corn that's incredibly messed up, not neat and ordered like normal corn, but sort of scattered all over the cob. It's very tasty. The meat is usually chicken, though sometime's is porkchops or beef. Ever since I stopped eating when I heard it was cow liver, Anita's been trying to slip stuff by me, getting me to eat it by not saying what it is. She's been successful too. I ate cow tongue, which she insists is a delicacy, and cow liver. The second time around on the cow liver, I thought it just tasted bad because it was fried. Let me get this straight though: I always eat what's in front of me, except I just couldn't do it that one time with the cow liver. I ate freaking cow stomach soup, knowing full well what it was, because I didn't want to offend my host (I was over at a friend's house). I am good at this. Sometimes, when I win the dry-plate lotto, I'll get pasta, which is served with a tomato sauce and no rice or veggies. Anita likes having pasta with wine, so she'll usually get a red wine to go with it. The best lunch I've had here though, was Noodle soup and a dry-plate with rice, pork-chop, and French Fries. Awesome socks.

Going out to eat is a mixed bag. Occasionally, you get guinea pig.

Yes, the animal that we keep as pets. Or rabbit. I haven't had rabbit yet, but I expect that's coming. There are your normal restaurants, like chicken, and of course my mom owns a pizzería, but then there's Chinese food. Oh. Mah. Gourd. You'd think that Chinese food would be the same wherever you go, but it's not. Here, it is the best thing I have ever eaten. Okay, not really, but it's really really good. I order a "mixto especial," which is half taularin and half chaulafan. Taularin is noodles and sauce with thirty kinds of meat and shrimp, and onions and peppers with this awesome sauce on it. Chaulafan is rice with veggies and shrimp and chicken. It is so amazingly incredibly good. I love it. I could eat Chinese food every day, but I couldn't afford it. Oh, speaking of affordability: full-sized meal, about one pound of this mixto especial stuff, $3.10. Bottle of Coca-Cola? $0.50. Yeah. It's that good. Almost more than I can eat, $3.60. Awesome. Socks.

So, thank you to Tom and the anonymous person for posting. I'm getting more traffic now that I'm hyperlinking to my blog off the MIT admissions page. I looked up LaTeX, but I couldn't actually find the program, so, I'm sticking with MathType for now. Tom, I'm not getting a big head, I promise. But I am getting big hair! So, peace out for now, everybody.

¡Ciao!

FLVS

2008-12-19T19:31:00.002-05:00

So, I figured that maybe I could take a little time out of my busy schedule to fulfill my promise of updating my blog every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So here it is.

In order to graduate from the Florida school system, I have to have one more English credit, a gym credit, and a health credit. Of course, when we started planning on my coming to Ecuador and leaving the IB system, which exempted me from these requirements, no one told us this, and so now I'm stuck having to get them from the Florida Virtual Schools system. Fun fun fun. Basically, my class list as of right now is Advanced Placement English Language and Composition, Gym, and Advanced Placement Calculus AB, which I'm taking for fun. On to the fun stuff. I'll go in order.

Advanced Placement English Language and Composition (APELC): This class is an über-fun example of how the inefficiency of the Florida School System kills everything that is good and sweet in my life. APELC is a "traditional pace" class, meaning it has two semesters of eighteen weeks each, or about four months, with the first semester ending on January Fifth, and the second semester ending in May, on the day of the APELC exam. This, by synthesis of knowledge, means that the first semester begins, for a student to be "on pace," as my teacher likes to say, in September. So when did I get placed into the class, even though my request was filled at the right time? The end of October. Meaning that I'm running at a seven-week defecit before I even start. And do I get extra time to make up for the time that was never given to me in the first place? No. I have to be finished by January Fifth, and for every two weeks behind I am, they knock off a letter grade. So, by doing just what is expected of me, and acing every assignment, I get a D. But, luckily, I am totally awesome (see below post about getting into MIT Early Admission), so this doesn't present much of a problem for me. Case In Point: since Wednesday, I've done twelve assignments, or roughly 15% of the semester, when the weekly requirement is four assignments. I intend to have twenty assignments done by Sunday. When I told my APELC teacher that (we talked, since I had an oral assessment on The Great Gatsby and some excerpts from Henry David Thoreau), she was like, "How did you do that?" Same response to me saying that I read The Great Gatsby in one night (which I did). Sometimes, when people come into contact with so much awesomeness, it burns out their eyes. But there is no charge for awesomeness. Or for handsomeness. My mom says I shouldn't get a big head, but I say that if there's anything worth getting a big head about this early in my life, it's probably getting into MIT early. But the class isn't all bad. I enjoy doing some of the assignments, like writing about how I'm declaring independence from the tyrrany of Florida Virtual Schools, and I did enjoy reading The Killer Angels, but some of the work is just annoying. The teacher's nice enough, though, Ms. Wasser. She, and my other teachers, tend to cut me some slack since I'm in Ecuador.

Gym: Whenever I tell people I'm taking Gym online, I usually get the same question: "How exactly do you take gym online?" Answer: I'm not really sure. I'm learning about flexing right now. Most of it is telling the teacher, Coach Lofgren, or Logfren, or Longfriend, or something, what you did to exercise. I'm thinking of just making it up. He wouldn't know. (Just kidding, Mom.) The Coach is a really nice guy. I got pretty behind in my other two classes, and so I asked him if I could get some time to catch up in those classes, and he rolled the clock back on my course to week one. Which is good, because apparently, the administrators are going through and ejecting anyone who's three weeks behind or hasn't turned in an assignment for three weeks. Without saying anything to us about it. Yeah. The Florida School System is garbage (day).

Advanced Placement Calculus AB (APCAB): So, because my mom thought that it'd be fun for me to take Calculus, I get a do-over on derivatives and integrals. I took the International Baccalaureate Calculus Standard Level (IBCSL), which covers almost exactly the same topics as APCAB, so I get a nice re-introduction to topics I learned a year ago. However, since APCAB does include more information than IBCSL, like trapezoidial sums that were a major part of the APCAB test last year, I can't go on to Advanced Placement Calculus BC, the second part of the two part class. And, since I took the APCAB test last year and scored a three out of five, I guess there's no harm in taking the APCAB test again, but better prepared. One of the most awesome things about this class is that it gives me access to a program called MathType. For anyone who has ever tried doing math homework in Microsoft Word (MSW), you know what I mean when I say typing equations into MSW is horrificly difficult. Microsoft fixed this somewhat with MSW 2007, but it's still garbage (day). MathType is the answer to everything I ever wanted in doing math on the computer. It's got a wonderful system for putting in every mathematical symbol one could possibly want, all correctly spaced and italicized and everything. With every assignment, there are a few extra problems that have to be typed up/scanned and turned in online, and writing them is the most enjoyable experience of my whole FLVS career. Maybe one day, my infaturation with this program will die out, but that day is a long ways away. Also on the plus side, since I know this stuff already, it's not that hard to turn out ten, twenty assignments to catch up to where I need to be. This class is taught by Irene Payne. I wonder if her father was in the military, where he may or may not have worked his way up to the rank of Major (pun).

I take a shotgun approach to FLVS, which is where I leave everything off for a while, then do thirty assignments for one single class in a row without stopping, switch to the next class and do thirty assignments, and so on and so forth, until I'm caught up all the way. This is probably the wrong way to do it, but that's probably not going to change until next semester, when I'm all caught up in APELC and APCAB and can work at a reasonable pace.

So, that's about all I have to say about FLVS for now. The above picture of the Help button is the fourth result from Google Image search for "FLVS". The first result is some really weird looking blonde teacher, and the ninth one is an advertisement for an "OLD SCHOOL PARTY" called Love Injection, featuring a black woman in an afro wig dancing. Yeah, the seventies were weird. Why do we want to go back? Why?

Thanks to Ahana Datta and my mother for commenting, even though I don't know you. Ahana, that is. Yes, I know you, Mom. And no, it's not surprising that I don't have many comments on my blog. After I took a month-long hiatus to write my novel, people stopped coming. I'm glad that other people are taking an intrest though that don't know me.

Also, I Really Love Acronymns, and I usually say them as though they were words, rather than saying the letters (like Ap-Cab and Ay-Pelk).

Ciao!

MIT

2008-12-17T19:57:00.002-05:00

Received at 9:01PM, December 15, 2008:

Dear Jacob,

On behalf of the Admissions Committee, it is my pleasure to offer you admission to the MIT Class of 2013. You stood out as one of the most talented and promising students in one of the most competitive applicant pools in the history of the Institute. Your commitment to personal excellence and principled goals has convinced us that you will both contribute to our diverse community and thrive within our academic environment. We think that you and MIT are a great match.

You have until May 1, 2009 to let us know if you’ll call MIT home for the next four years. Until then, we look forward to building our relationship with you and helping you to get to know us better. Over the next several months, we’ll be in touch via phone, email, and web.

Because there’s no better way to get a taste of life at MIT than to spend some time here, I hope very much that you will attend our Campus Preview Weekend (CPW) for admitted freshmen, held on campus from April 16-19, 2009. You’ll attend classes, share meals and conversations with current students, and experience all the ways in which people spend their time and live their passions at MIT. (And most importantly, you’ll get to meet your future classmates!) Look for a new CPW portlet in your MyMIT account in January, which will contain schedule and registration information.

And now for the requisite fine print – I must remind you that this offer of admission is contingent upon your completing the school year with flying colors. (Because you’ve been admitted early, there will be many temptations throughout the rest of the year to keep you from your schoolwork. Please don’t let that happen!)

I hope you’ll agree with us that MIT is the perfect place to prepare for your future. As a member of our community, you’ll join builders, scholars, entrepreneurs, and humanitarians. Together, you will make all the difference in a world that desperately needs you.

Many congratulations, best wishes for a wonderful holiday season, and welcome to MIT! Now stop reading this and go celebrate. :-)

Sincerely,

Stuart Schmill
Dean of Admissions

Received at 9:02PM, December 15, 2008:

Several strange looks from the other patrons of the internet café as I jumped into the air, screaming and yelling, "Yes! Yes! Yes!" and dancing to "You're the Best Around" from the Karate Kid.

About 5,000 people applied early action to MIT, and about 500 were accepted. And about 15-20 of those were from MITES.

Jacob "'13" Austin-Breneman

It Can Be Moar Photo Teims Now Plz?

2008-12-13T19:57:00.007-05:00

Yeah, I figured that since everyone stopped reading my blog after the month-long absence to write my novel, it's the perfect time to post pictures!

For this particular occasion, my class was participating in an AIDS day parade, in which we made a sign and walked for about half an hour before attending a decent concert and getting out 2 hours early.
So, from left to right, the girls shown here are Valeria, Blanca Tuqueres, Blanca Piñan, and Carina Arroyo, who I accidentally called "Cariña" because it sounded like that. Hilarity ensued, I assure you. ("Cariña" means "dearie" or "sweetheart" in my official capacity as person who translates things for me.)

This is Richard Aldaz. I think. He gets annoyed because when I come around to collect money (I'm class treasurer) I'm never really sure it's him or not. You'd think I know by now, but this kind of thing happens a lot. I'm not good with names.

This is Ricardo Castillo and MaiTé Charlar. Her real name is María Teresa, which took me a while to figure out. These two are seriously involved in school politics and stuff like that, Ricardo being on the student government board, and the both of them getting called out of class every day for mysterious projects. Ricardo's the guy I usually play pick-up football (It's not soccer, you Americans) and basketball with.

On the left is Sarah, the Norwegian girl who also goes to my school, and on the right, Andrea Guevarra. Sarah takes a really lax view towards school, attending it, doing assignments, taking tests, respecting teachers, that kind of thing. She's actually on the plane coming back to Ecuador right now, because she went back to Norway to attend her grandfather's funeral. Andrea is a really nice girl, and NO, Jesse, she is not my girlfriend, nor are any of there girls pictured here, nor anyone in the world right now.

The shortie on the left is Edwin Stalin (Yes, his second name is really Stalin, and we actually call him by that name rather than Edwin) Castillo (No relation to Ricardo) and the woman on the left is the person from the school who got us into the parade. I don't know what her name is, because kids here call all the teachers "Licen" which is short for "Licenciado," but I do know that she's a doctor, because she got really ticked off at Edwin when he called her Licen and not Doctora. And if you're wondering who that handsome, short-haired guy in the middle is, IT'S ME!!! OMGWTFBBQ? Yeah, my hair's growing back! I figure in June it'll be long enough for the Inspector to make me cut it again! Fun Fact: Stalin rides the bus an hour and a half each way to school. Don't ask me why.

As you may remember, the guy on the left's Ricardo, but the other guy is Diego Rivilla. He's another mini-bigwig in the world of high school politics, not to mention being an absolutely fantastic artist. Next Friday, we're going to make a sculpture out of flowers that he designed.

That's the sign we designed and painted, and by "we," I mean the teachers designed it and told us we had to use their idea, even though we came up with some good ones. It ended up saying, even though it's rolled up now, "Valora tu Vida, Protégete de SIDA-VIH" which means "Value your life, protect yourself from HIV-AIDS." My personal favorite was "¡No Tengas Sexo!" but Diego shot that one down with the quickness. The kid holding the sign here is Renan Cobo, who is quite possibly the most annoying kid I've ever met. He whistles really badly all the time, flicks lights on and off, opens and shuts windows and doors, and moves desks around. It's annoying, and sometimes I just go "Shut UP, Cobo!" But of course he doesn't understand.

This is what we painted on everyone's face. I think our school was more prepared than any of the other ones. Our sign was definitely the best. The administrators highjacked our Artistic Drawing class and made us work on it. Apparently, if it involves art, our school has to be the best. Or else.

This smiling kid here is Alexander Ramos, another good friend of mine, getting his face painted. Diego looks sternly at him, reminding him not to move. Alex doesn't like football, but rather basketball.

And here's a pretty decent shot of my class. The faces are small, but from Left to Right, it's Richard Aldaz, Blanca Tuqueres, Edwin Cuasque (A cool dude), Carina Arroyo, Alexander Ramos, Jorge Vinueza, Mishel Armas, Alex Tituano, Alex Maldonado (We've got three Alexs and two Blancas), José Romero, Ricardo Castillo, Diego Rivilla, and Edwin Stalin Castillo.

So yeah, after the parade, we went to a concert that had some interesting musicians, including an indigenous group that played pipes and drums. Then a really bad rap group came on, and the Doctor ushered us out.

SO, my computer's dead, something with the battery... *tear* "But Jacob, HOW ARE YOU POSTING ON THE INTERNET IF UR COMPUTERS DEAD??? OMGWTFBBQ." I'm at an internet café, which seems to be a really hard concept for people to grasp, because almost every time I tell someone about my computer, I get the OMGWTFBBQ response. Oh well. I find out Monday whether I got accepted, rejected, or deferred to MIT! I'll post on here the result! Unless I got rejected, in which case I'll be giving myself a lobotomy, Mr. Cheney and the Ice Pick style.

Peace out.

A History of Ecuador, Part I

2008-12-08T21:07:00.002-05:00

So, I've decided that I'm going to start posting interesting things about the history of Ecuador as people tell me them, with minimal fact checking because that means work, and I'm up to my ears in Florida Virtual Schools as is. Besides, this is about how people interpret history, not how "facts" or "books" "say" that "history" "is." Without further ado,

The History of Ecuador, Part I
As told by Anita Yepez.

Back in the distant past of the 1990s, Ecuador used a form of currency called Sucres. Sucres were doing okay for a while, but then the economy imploded and the value of Sucres went up to around 2,500 Sucres to one dollar. As you can imagine, this was pretty bad, even with the lower cost of goods and services relative to the United States. So, the president of 1999 decided that things weren't going to get better, so he instituted a radical change to make the Dollar the official currency of Ecuador, doing away with Sucres. Now, I didn't ask, but it must have been really crazy for a while, with people having to exchange Sucres for dollars and some people accepting Sucres while others didn't, and no one really understanding what was going on. I imagine something similar must have happened in Europe with the switch to Euros, but in Europe, 40% of the economy isn't made up by informal trading (Meaning a man on the street selling corn, or a woman at a booth selling chickens). But, the switch was made, and there was no going back.

However, the change included some inherent problems. For example, Anita's mother, who was and still is retired, was earning a pension of about 250,000 Sucres a month. When everything switched over, that pension went down to 100 dollars a month. There are a few places where you can live comfortably off of 100 dollars a month, I suppose, but Ecuador isn't one of them, not if you've got a house and bills. Now, you might be saying, "But it was the same amount of money before, why didn't it work?" And I'm asking myself that too. But what I think is that people had a sort of natural control on inflation, after a certain point, and kept prices down to a not un-reasonable level. That is to say, when the switch was made to dollars, lower prices were upped a bit because there was a new cushion for what was acceptable. Keep in mind that I'm not an economist, and I have no idea if what I'm saying is even remotely right. But whatever. Anyways, things like that, that were on a fixed level, were insufficient, and for a few months, my host grandmother lived off of 100 dollars a month. Eventually, things got straightened out and things were okay. And it was a very good thing that Ecuador switched to dollars, according to Anita, because inflation was incredibly rampant, and it was just going to get worse from there.

And a little bit of money-related bonus not-quite-history information: The Sports Minister of Ecuador just absconded with several million dollars' worth of government funds. How does the Sports Minister get access unguarded to that kind of money? Also, you may be wondering how exactly an informal economy works. Well, basically, much of if not most of the business transactions here take place in some form that is not taxed by the government, for one reason or another, whether it be a guy on the street with clothespins and batteries or a fruit vendor in Otavalo's giant farmer's market. So, the government raises the sales tax to 12% to cover the difference. Can you imagine buying a car with 12% sales tax? It's insane. You get small benefits in buying a pound and a half of strawberries for fifty cents, but trying to buy a house? It's murder. Things work differently here.

So, I finished my novel, and I'm buried under work from my online classes. So, I'm not really sure how often I'm going to be posting. I haven't written in my diary, and I'm not sure when I'm going to start that up again. In January, I should be in a better situation. Oh, and I'm entering a novel-writing contest in February, sponsored by Penguin Books in which the winner gets a $25,000 publishing contract against royalties, so if you read my novel and have feedback for me, please send it to me. I'd love to hear it. Ciao.