Next time

With only two weeks away for my wedding, I don't think I will have time to blog.  Next time, dear reader, I will be married.  I wish you could all be there, but of course that is not possible.  I hope to have pictures to post as soon as it is happens!

Here we go!

Changes

The other day, like most days, I was talking to Beloved.  This time it was special though because I was talking to him about my blog and the fact that I don't seen to interest readers with my thoughts.  I told that Leo thinks and has expressed it repeatedly that I need to include pictures. I asked Beloved, if he would become my editor.  Sweet man, smiled and said that he would love to. For a man who does not like the Internet, this is quite a commitment.

I have been thinking about the possibilities of change. How having a full time editor will help me develop as a writer.  I also have been considering the changes of the nature of my blog and how the upcoming changes of the context of my life is about to change.  As my life changes, so will the expression of my life.  As a celebration of that milestone, I have two options:  1. Closing End of the Street and opening a new blog or 2. Archive End Of the Street as it is now, and start over at the same place, but new.  There is something in me that wants to cling to the dribble of an lonely little girl finding her voice and the friends she has made in her blogsphere, but recent disinterest makes me wonder if the first option might me the most viable. Many thoughts are being considered right now and the blueprints for my blog, whether becoming a New End Of the Street or a new blog altogether, are being drafted.  Lookout for these upcoming changes.


Mr. Good Teacher has also encouraged me in my bloggery.  He would like to see is developed so much that blogging would become a source of income for me.  That is an interesting idea.  In the past, writers sold their expressions to newspapers and magazines.  Nowadays, bloggers sell themselves to advertisements.  But still, with my BA to finish paying for and a house yet to build, writing for an income does not sound like a bad idea.

So readers, if you are out there, NOW is the time to speak up.  What changes would you like to see in End OF the Street?  How do you see change?

Womanness

It has been an exciting week.  I really don't want it to ever end.   I spent the last couple of days, looking at information to include in my last paper for the semester and making arrangements for the wedding.  Today, I went to the doctor, and had a little chat about the magic little pill that is suppose allow me to keep balance in my life: be married, have a job, and go to school. I really struggle with the idea of taking the magic pills (I can't seem to even say the c-word in my blog, although I had fun talking about it with my family doctor). I did find out some interesting information about the magic pill and those nasty headaches I get from time to time.  Very interesting.

I guess I struggle with the idea of taking magic pills because I struggle with the idea of myself.  I still, I am beginning to realize, struggle with my identity, my role in my family and my society, my womanness. I see this whenever we sit down with to Pastor Officiator and Officiator Wife and have pre-marriage counselling.   I also see it whenever Mother In Law, the conservative dear that she is, tries to impose her good old fashion cultural values on me (values that Beloved grew up in, and are part of the reason I love him). I also see it whenever Mother and I discuss what nuptial traditions I will keep (like wearing a white dress) and what I will discard (like wearing a veil over my face or wearing a grater).  I see this when I wish my big sister Renee was here to help me choice which picture to include in the wedding invitation.  I also see this when Beloved, my sweet Beloved foots a bill that I caused.

You may wonder why I choice the non-word womanness over femininity.  If you do, you are a very thoughtful person.  I use the non-word over the word because femininity, which is defined by google as the traits of behaving in ways  considered typical for a woman, is just that.  It is typical, socially acceptable,defined.  It is something you can find in books and google.  Womanness on the other had is personal to me.  At age 25 I feel like it is something I am still stepping into. Personally I love words that end with the suffix "ness", which denotes the state of something.  Womanness to me is the state of being a woman.  What does that mean exactly?  I can't tell you exactly. I am one woman with many sisters, and they are still discovering  their own womanness. One of the things that is tied to my womanness is taking a magic pill.

Why do I?  I wish I didn't have to.  I know I don't have to.  In fact, the voice of the doctrine of the church I went to as a teenager tells me it is sin.  The voice of the science teacher and the moral decision teacher at the Catholic junior college I went to tells me it is sin.  The voice of my mother in law and her good old Mennonite ways tells me it is bad for me. The voice of the electronic representation of my older sister who is so far away from me tells me there are other ways. Basically, for me, as a woman in Belize, a university student, and an employee, I  need to.  Any other options are not a) available b) financially viable c) would cause me to sin against myself and deprive me of my purpose at the present. Since Beloved and I have decided to shack up in his little house after the wedding, there would not be space for a baby anyway.

I realize this post is probably way more personal them any of my readers care for, but this is my thoughts.  This is who I am.  Who I am going to be: a magic pill popping wife, student and herbalist. Call it a contradiction, but I call it the crazy balance in my life.

Changes

So the semester is over.   I have to write to more papers, one on how gender roles work in a short story given my my lecturer, and the other on a topic of my choice based on the novel Dreaming In Cuban. Other then that, it is time to think about the wedding. Nine weeks to go people.

I realize that I Beloved and I are two very different people.  I am a tough fighting go getter.  I am working hard to make something of myself. Beloved is relational.  He hates running around getting things done.  He would much rather relax and smell the roses.  I always loved this about him. Last weekend, I learned to cherish this quality in him at a all new level.

See, Saturday I worked, as usual in the health food store.  It was a busy day and I was feeling good. we had many customers and a lot of shelves to stock and products to re-bag.  I should have watched out because that mixed with a couple of other realities mixed together to cause one massive headache.  Now I get migraines from time to time.  Usually I take a hot and cold shower and sleep it off.  This time, however, it was like a volcanic explosion in my head.  None of my home remedies helped.  Beloved, who usually drives me home after work so a) I can quickly take a shower and go out again or b) we can hang out with Mamita. This Saturday night however, we went to the hospital. Beloved took me, despite my protest when I began to choke on my vomit. Mamita called the Doc in Guatemala, who spoke to the nurse, who, at minutes to 9 pm administered some strong drugs that eased the pain and put me to sleep almost instantly.  I know such unprofessional medical practices would unset some of my American friends, but really, if the Doc knows what I need, do I really have to go through the whole emergency scene and spend hundreds of dollars?

Beloved took me home and put me to bed. I don't remember him leaving.  I remember being half awake and knowing he was gone, but I was too asleep to protest. The next morning I woke up at 11 am!  That's right I spent 14 hours.  I felt real dizzy. Almost loopy. I called Beloved and he came right over.  All day he was my person nurse,giving me water, making sure I ate, make sure I did not eat too many sweets, took me for a walk around the block.  He was good and gentle and sweet.  Mix that with the worried boyfriend who held my head back when I tried to vomit and carried me into the hospital because the pain in my head was too much to stand, and you have a winner.  I love my man.  I love the way that he puts our relationship at the forefront of everything.

We may not have the biggest house to live in after we are married, but you know what, we can work together to build our dream house. I love my beloved and he is mine.....

The world goes 'round

This morning I was chatting with a friend and an interesting phrases came to my mind, ran through my fingers, pressed on the key of my laptop, and appeared on my screen: "I'm just doing my parting helping the world go 'round".  What a crazy phrase!  Afterwards I thought about what I meant by saying something like that.  It comes out that it is a key signature of my key phiosophy.

See, the world going around, or rotating is a very important phenomenon. Without it, life would be very different because  there would be no change from day and night.  Half of the world would be in utter darkness and except for a few rarities, nothing would grow.  It would be a cold dark place.  The other half, the day half would also struggle to live because it would have too much light, too much day.  It would be extremely hot, and it would be hard to rest.  This would have its toil on the growing cycles on plants and animals.  Things would be pretty horrorible. Doing your part to help the world go 'round is extremely important.

On the other hand, it is not.  See, the world rotates without our help.  The earth is capable of maintaining its cycles (life, death; night, day; growing, resting etc...) without us.  The Creator was very clever at giving us essentials without demanding any imput from us.  So on the other hand, doing your part to help the world go 'round is essentially vain... it amounts to nothing.

So there you have it.  My balanced approach to life.  I am both important and essentially nothing. What I do is extremely vital but it can be replaced.  The way I help others can mean the different between life and death but at the same time, without me, the cycles of life would continue.

So my challenge for you READER is this:  Go about your life doing your part to make the world go 'round.  Remember that you are both crucial and unnecessary.

Mirror, Mirror, In the Book

"Gringa Pichinga, Gringa Pichinga"
It used to ring in my ears, all the way home, well not home, but to that place in the middle of the bush.  At first I used to ask T what they are singing.  I knew it was about me.  I knew because they would stare at me as this strange little phrase would ring out of their mouths.  I do not lie, the whole bus load of childring going to the village would sing it, sometimes the whole way.

When I left the village, I left like an uncaged bird. It is not so much that I hated the pristine jungle and the beauty of nature that surrounded the primative farm.  I got used to life without electricity and running water.  Before that we lived in rural California, so it did not bother me that the roads were not paved and some times impassable.  I loved the exotic free trees and the wildlife.  I was, however, glad to leave.  Glad to leave being misunderstood.  The village, all my nieghbours and the people around me, did not understand me.  They did not understand how I spoke to boys my age or even older, how I dressed, how I spoke.  I confused them because I rode horses, read books, enjoyed riding in the back of the pick up with the others.  Horror of Horrors, I used to walk places by myself.  To them I did all the things that a pichanga did, so I must have been one; Sucia, Skettle, Bitch.

I remember the first time I told one of my neighbours that I had a relationship with Jesus, that I read the Bible and prayed.  He laughed in my face and exclaimed "What kinda Church gyal you?" When I told him I wasn't a "Church Girl" I was a "Jesus Girl", he laughed, said that sweet him as the funniest thing ever.

I am no longer bitter about the village.  A couple of months ago, Beloved and I took a drive out to the village.  He won tickets to zipline at a new eco-lodge back there and we made a day out of going.  I was nervous going back there, and showing him the place of my personal darkness.  I should him different places of trauma for me.  I told him about the neighbour, who years later was arrested for raping a young girl, and how I felt like I betrayed the little sister I never met with my silence.  I told him how riding horses through the jungle was a mixed pleasure and dread for me.  I cried a few times, and I stared straight ahead much of the day.  The crowning momement was during the zipline, the tour guide knew me.  I felt like copying the lines from  Finding Forester " You couldn't break me!"  but he did not personally have anything to do with it.  He was just one of them.... he did not understand me.

Today, I presented to my class, the most meaningful book that I have read so far in my life.  I choice to present on Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez'  2008 Chic/k Lit Novel The Dirty Girls Social Club.  I love Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez because she understands me.  Of course we are different, but we are very much the same.  She is a New Mexican writer, used to be journalist.  Her father is a Cuban, her mother a white woman with Scottish hertiage.  Alisa grew up poor, misunderstood and labelled.  There is something about how she rose about it all with a positive attitude that speaks to me.  Her novels and her blog do not come across as ultra-Feministic, or bitter. Sure she has earned the rights to celebrate her womanness, celebrate the fact that she was not destroyed by public opinion, or the dominate society. She celebrates.  She celebrates and discusses rather then moans and cries about her lose.

I now follow Alisa's blog.  She writes on it everyday, sometimes twice a day, so I can't keep up with it, but when I can, I stop in at her site. I have not read an entry yet that I could not contact with. As a woman, reader, Latin American, educated person, and general person she provokes thoughts in me.  My heart sings as I read things like "people are people, they are complicated", and "submission has to do with loyality and trust".  I feel like her blog reflects my heart.

According to chicklitbooks.com, Chick Lit is a genre of books written by women for women.  I protest that.  The first person I recommended The Dirty Girls Social Club (that so happens to fall in the category of Chic Lit) to after I read it the first time was my brother.  After I read it the second time, I lend it to Good Teacher (who happens to be male). When I read it again this last time, I share bits and pieces of it with Beloved (who is male).  I shared it with my class that is about half male.  I hate the idea that women's issues belong solely to women.  I want to share my life's exeriences, my female powers, and my empowerment with my brothers and my sisters. I think keeping Chic Lit among the chicks only continues the cycle of alienation between men and women.  Now  I am not saying I want my brothers to thrive on soft femi literature, I just want them to stomach it.  I want them to understand it: to understand me.

"I understand the need for political boundries, but I certainty do not think humanity has boundaries"

Balance or Whole hearted

SO today, while I failed every duty given to me by the expatriot lady that is sponsoring my education, plus the few I gave myself, I was thinking about my personal philosophy....

Context:

Today was American thanksgiving.  Unlike the Belizean form of this holiday, Harvest, which is a more church practice in which people express gradatute by giving something they will either be sold to help the church with a project, or giving to the less forunate, American thanksgiving does not make sense to me.  I don't understand this ritual.  I don't understand how over eating rich food is tied to giving thanks.

While I was serving food and entertaining guest, I had a thought.  Am I a balance person or am I one of those people who does things to the extreme?  I am an-all-or-nothing type of person?


I was reminded of the proverb that says "zeal without knowledge is destructive". I am sure that the answer is in there.  Zeal is important to life.  It igives us a cause to do and passion for our beings.  Balance however, helps us to see the other side, keep things in preceptive and understand things.  For me it is also important to be patient. Just waiting to see how things work out often makes things more natural and less forced. In otherwords, I have decided to be balance about being zealous.

For example:  I love Jesus.  He became my friend and saviour when I realized and confessed my sins. And asking for his help as  THis however does not make me a Christian in the normal sense.  I question much of Christiandom and its world view and guiding principle. You may call me a luckwarm believer, but this is me. You probably won't see me hitting the streets, protesting againsts things, and at all sorts of rallies.  I would rather sit down and have a discussion about something then parading my position on the streets. 

Another thing about my balance attitude that does not fit well with others is that my positions on certain issues is fluid.  I am open ot change.  I am also open to argueing a point that I do not necesaarily hold. I can be polite and I can also give food for thought and add some alternative preceptive.  Also, I understand that things do not necassarily work out the way you thought they would.  Because of that, I do not make a lot of public statements that support a particular issue.  For that reason, I don't vote.

Beloved votes and he is a avid supporter of a particular political party.  This does not mean I am going to become one.  I may begin to vote, but that also means I am going to have to start informing myself.  I don't like minding people's opinion and  I am love to contradict public opinion so that is going to be a fete.

Anyway,  for now I am wondering.... How can I become a caution, balance person, but still be dedicated to my work and activities?

Copy and paste Psycho-analyst

Last week I wrote a paper psycho-analyzing two of Joyce Carol Oates characters from two of her short stories.  I am going to post the paper here at End of The Street. This paper was particularly interesting to write.  I love Joyce Oates writing style and her realistic approach.  Some how she can sketch her characters and the circumstances around them in an unbias but realistic way.  She is niether cyntical nor hopeful.  I like the balance she adds to the literary world and psycho-analyzing her work is like talking to Best Friend and hashing over issues that come our way.  

This particular piece was very meaningful to me for two reasons: I grew up distance from my father and I basically built my life (with the help of friends) to be what it is and I am proud of the independence that I developed because it; I am in the process of surrendering my independence (but not my empowerment) to Beloved.

Hope this essay gives you some insight.

Psycho-analyst of Joyce Oates’ characters

When people say there is too much violence in [my writing], what they are saying is there is too much reality in life (Joyce Oates).

American writer, Joyce Carol Oates, is a known for the verity of genres that she writes. All of her writing, however, is tied together with a realistic approach, having been said to write fiction “about real people in a real society” (Meyer 969). The authenticity of her characters allow for readers to analyze the psychological position of her characters, as they represent a particular era and trend in American culture. Main characters Grace Burkhardt and Connie from her short stories, “The Night Nurse” and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”,respectively, are two prototypical Americans that Oates uses to show the psychological process of people of specific groups.

Grace Burkhardt is an example of an independent woman, very commonly found in post-feminist American society. She is has a driven, self-determined personality that are revealed by her inner thoughts regarding her fall and hospitalization. She is determined to behave well and exert her good health (970) even though she is obviously ill. The character’s internal monologue give readers sight into her subconscious struggle, while a third person narrative tells the events of the story. These monologues tell readers Grace’s subconscious fears: being helpless, and alone and dying (972). In the end, Grace has to face the reality of her situation. This wipes her of her entitled feelings about herself as she learns what it means to need a stranger’s help (974). She also has to face the ugliness of her past actions and how she treats people. The nurse, Harriet Zink, forces her to relive her college days when she was politely mean to the odd person out in society (978). Harriet forces Grace to understand the pain of being rejected and misunderstood (978). In the end Nurse Harriet shows Grace that she cannot excuse her behavior but must take ownership for it. Grace also learns to put herself in other’s situations. She realizes that she is not a strong independent woman after all (980).

Independence is also a theme in her 1991 short story “Where are You Going, Where Have You Been?”. The main character, Connie, is a teenage girl in the 1960’s who is struggling to develop independence. While her desire of independence is really a displacement for other pains in her life, Connie, acts out her desire in misguided ways. She engages in risky behaviors that eventually render her vulnerable to Arnold Friend, a serial abductor. Connie struggles with her father’s workaholic-ism that leads him to a sort of absenteeism, even though he is physically present in the family (1). She displaces her feeling about her father’s emotional abandonment by earning the affection of boys her age and ignoring older men (1). Her risky lifestyle, that is a indirect reaction to her father’s lack of influence, is also indirectly responsible for making her prey to Arnold Friend’s attack. He signals her out during one of her escapades (1) and targets her because of her reputation as a serial dater (4). In the end, Connie is unable to handle the situation and her real desire for her parents’ protection surfaces as she cries for her mother (5).

In her writing Joyce Oates confronts the hypocrisy of Western culture’s value of independence. She gives readers sight into how independence is actually a projection of a subconscious desire that characters cannot confront. She uses her short stories to analyze the psychological develop of women who hide their deficiencies in order to attain a feeling of autonomy. Unfortunately, concealing these deficiencies estrange these women from important issues in life such as health, family and safety. Because these issues are subconsciously hidden, Oates uses acts of violence to wake up her characters and her readers to the realities of life.

New Bucket List Entry

Seemingly ironically, I am reading both the works of Junot Díaz and Edwidge Danticat in two different classes. The more I read them more I want to get to know these authors. I have also read several online articles written by both these authors collectively and individually. The more I read, the more I love them.

Junot Díaz wrote a rather long list names to acknowledge at the end of his powerful novel The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. One of the entries reads as follows "Edwidge Danticat for being mi querida hermana".... be still my heart! It warms me to see such colaboration among authors.

This touched me so much that after reading the novel, I went to the author's web page, found his email address, and wrote him a fan message. I have never done such a thing both because I always thought doing so would bother a writer and because I never really connected to a novel so much. I was moved. Everything made so much sense to me in his novel that I thought that Junot was talking to me personally. I know I sound cliche, but  I really feel that Junot is one of the "Lena Boys" I meet on the street in my hometown, and stop and "hail" for a moment.  I can just hear him call me "Sistah Bets".

So now I have a new entry in my bucket list. To meet Junot Diaz and Edwidge Danticat either individually or collectively. Junot is a lecturer at MIT. Any one up to going to Massachusetts with me?

Girlish Wedding Plans

This semester has been quite an adventure. Along with Ms. Melanie Smith's Sciology course and Mr. Jhon Florez Nature and Structure of Language class from my first semester here at University of Belize, I am taking some of those life changing courses that widen perceptive. I have become a nerd once again, and my love of studies has been renewed. At this moment, I never want to graduate.

While I am working one more semester towards my BA in English, I am also making some major wedding plans. Everything is working out nicely. The invitations are almost ready. Thanks Artist Friend, they are looking very sharp. I hope to print them soon and have them in the mail. Surprisingly, it is very difficult to find the right paper. Everything is either a version of regular typing sheets, too soft to do any good, or are of Bristol board thickness and are too hard. The location has been set, Beloved and I and probably spent the most time looking for a spot. We have settled on a nice lawn wedding, at his house, soon to be our home. It won't be fancy, but let's just be real. I am not a fancy person and I think Beloved is secretly relieved that we won't rent any of the nice jungle resorts in the area. All of them are wonderful but there always seems to be a set-back or two that just won't work for our wedding.

Since we are getting married in our back yard, Beloved and I thought of a wonderful little ritual, something that I think just might become a tradition. In our wedding ceremony we are going to plant a tree. While we both agree that it is very symbolic, we are yet to agree on what kind of tree. He wants a mahagony tree, because let's face it, he is patriotic. I want a "Haman's tree" also known as terminalia catappa or Sea Almond Tree because someday I want to have babies, and I want my babies to learn to climb trees. Wouldn't you want to grow up climbing an Almond tree?

Anyway, enough is enough. If I don't get to class, Critical Writing and Research will happen without me.