25 Books Latinas Should Read Challenge

In order to get myself reading more books and to get more in tune with my Latin roots, I am taking the challenge posted my Literanista. This year I will try to read all the books on the 25 Books Latinas Should Read list created by Latina magazine and posted on Literanista.

The books are:

1.The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende

2.One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

3.In The Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

4.When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago

5.Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

6.Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig

7.Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa

8.Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar

9.The Labrynth of Solitude by Octavio Paz

10.The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes

11.Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

12.The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho

13.Las Peliculas De Mi Vida by Alberto Fuguet

14.The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

15.The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

16.Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara by Jorge G. Castaneda

17.A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

18.The Aleph by Jorge Luis Borges

19.Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in the United States by Juan Gonzalez

20.Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda

21.The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

22.Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia

23.The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories by Horacio Quiroga

24.Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo

25.Men of Maize by Miguel Angel Asturias

 

A few of the books are out of print, so I may replace some with other titles. Right now I have Julia Alvarez's In the Name of Salome as a back-up.

 

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I want to revive this defunct personal blog and use it as a platform to talk about and review the books I'm reading during this challenge. I hope you'll follow my adventure!

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Having lunch with mom.

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Reading the new Brattle schedule

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My old bookstore.

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Rain murder crime scene

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Minuteman Mike Day 2. I see you!

Minuteman Mike Day #1

Day #1 log - Minuteman Mike is outside apartment building again today. Only variable is that he is parked on a different street. Regular spot taken. Possibly with lady friend.

Walking home in rain w/ bubble umbrella

Dulce De Leche Cookie Sandwiches with Macadamia Nut & Coconut

Oh Abra! How I've missed you!

Abra Moore is back!

Taxicab Nightmare

It was a quiet Sunday morning. I left my hotel early after the big show to head off to LaGuardia airport to catch my 10 o'clock flight. Little did I know what horrors would ensue. My first mistake, hailing a taxi cab. I should have just let the Hotel bellboy catch me one. But no, I was cheap and didn't want to pay a tip. The cab driver didn't quite understand what I meant by LaGuardia. That should have been the first major warning. And then when he accepted me in and we headed down the wrong direction on a one-way street (with 4 lanes of oncoming traffic), I should have asked him to just drop me off at the nearest street corner immediately. But no, I was patient. That is until I realize he didn't know where he was going. By that point we were crossing the Brooklyn bridge and it was too late. For the next hour and 15 minutes, I was taken on an excrutiately slow ride through Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens. At one point, I saw an exit sign for Long Island and almost fainted. I panicked. I pleaded with the driver, but he had no clue where he was going. He was constantly checking a map, calling another cab driver for advice, going very slowly, taking illegal turns, missing green lights and passing red ones. Then when my time started to slip away, I pleaded in tears to get me to the airport. I was going to miss my flight. I made a tearful call to my parents and continued to beg the driver to hurry up. He kept saying sorry and not to worry about the fare. I wasn't worried about the fare. I was worried about missing my flight!

Finally, we reach the airport and I breathe a sigh of relief. I tell the driver to drop me off at the USAirways terminal. The driver takes me to the first terminal he sees, the Delta Airlines one. At that point, I started screaming at him to get me to the right terminal. So he went around and only half-stopped at a stop sign, and then proceeded to rear-end the vehicle in front of him. The man from the other car started screaming and cursing at him. At that point I knew my contract with the driver had ended, he no longer could deliver me to my destination. I grabbed my things and bolted out of there without paying the driver one cent. I pleaded with a Hertz shuttle bus driver, who had seen the accident, to help me. I was shaking and sobbing uncontrollably. He was sympathetic and took me to my terminal. A couple on the bus, gave me some tissues as I told them about my hellish joyride through the burroughs.

I caught my flight just in the nick of time. They had started boarding when I got there. If the driver hadn't crashed into another car, he would have probably taken me to another wrong terminal or I would have had to negotiate some discount (the fare was at $45). But instead, I got a life lesson, free trip and a story to tell.

I'm so excited...

"and I just can't hide it. I'm about to lose control and I think I like it..."

Just one more day before I fly off to NY for a whirlwind weekend at the big show. I find myself trying to do 10 things at once getting ready to prepare. I figured just packing would be a 3-4 day process and I started on Monday. I can't say much about it specifically, so I'll talk generally. My schedule will be jam-packed with travel, customer service, networking, booth-maintenance and partying. Yes that's right. Us book-folk like to party hardy! We make absolutely any excuse to get together and have fun. You wouldn't necessarily think of book people that way, but we are social creatures by necessity. Our job is people and we are constantly connecting with each other. Authors are celebrities, teachers and librarians are nurturers, book buyers are demi-gods and publishers are creative beacons.

Off I go to do some more packing and fill numerous small 3 0z, plane-friendly tubes with various beauty gooks. Wish me luck! I'll try to post some pictures when I come back

Why I don't talk about work...

 
It's far too dangerous.
 
Publisher's Weekly Article: The Big Chill

Blast from the Past!

At the wee age of 17, after attending the Lilith Fair, I decided to marry my fervor for a new type of music with my desire to make a mark on the internet and created a fan website. The celebrity was Abra Moore, a talented singer, not terribly famous but well-known amongst a devoted following and in the late '90s, at the height of her success. The plan was that information was manageable and traffic would be moderate. Exactly what I needed to start up my very first website.

I never quite completed it. It was more work than I had imagined and I still to this day don't quite have the knack of HTML coding. But I'm proud of my little venture.

It's not up any more but thanks to Archive.org you are able to see a bare-bones archived copy of my site.

Raquel's Abra Moore Website
http://web.archive.org/web/20010711181029/members.aol.com/gerenukz/music.html

If you've ever had a burr stick to your clothes...

... and liked it, then please please please check out this website.

Joie de Vivre et Joie de Blog

I've been shamefully neglecting this poor blog. My mind wanders back to it on ocassion but when I start to contemplate it's future I only come with ideas for several other blogs. What hinders me most about this blog is it's title. I'm thinking of either changing it or abandoning it completely for other potential projects. For example...
 
A book blog would be fun to write. I'm not terribly good at writing reviews (I'll leave that to Bev who's a born professional in that department), so my blog would be more about the book business. But the business is so broad. Would I focus on publishing versus bookselling? Since I'm in children's publishing, would it be focused on children's books? All of this presents a major dilemma, which is personal and professional bias. I'd basically be raving about the company I work for and all the excellent books we produce. Plus it would be a financial burden to buy books from other publishers to keep up with the joneses. Who's going to send free galleys to someone who works at a rival publisher! Scratch that idea right off the bat!
More realistic ideas include a classic movie blog. That would be exciting. But it wouldn't be full of boring movie reviews. No! It would have movie-inspired articles. I could talk about my passion for blonde-Bette Davis films, how I'm half in love with Richard Barthelmess and how Norma Shearer is highly under-rated as an actress and as a woman. It would also be a vehicle to express my love and devotion to Turner Classic Movies and to recognize Netflix, which has an awe-inspiring variety of classic DVDs for rental which allows me to feed the fire!
 
My other idea, which is my personal favorite, would be a blog chronicling my Spring and Summer. I've made plans to have the most fun-filled summer ever! I'm filling my calendar with lots of exciting things to do. My goal is to develop my social life and become more adventurous and outgoing. I'm obligating myself to accept more invitations even at the cost of slight personal embarassment or discomfort, which is just simply a result of my deep-seated shyness. I actually started this new experiment in March and have so far attended or planned 10 social events. So if I want to chronicle this new chapter in my life, I need to start straight away!
 
Well here's to happy adventures in blogging and a potentially life-altering year!

 

Soaring

I'm flying to Indiana tomorrow for a business trip. Will be spending sometime looking at a warehouse full of children's books. Woohoo! If I weren't such a book nerd, this trip would be much less exciting. I was contemplating wearing my new bright red H&M trenchcoat, but I think I will chicken out and wear the khaki one. Ever since watching Love Actually, I've been desperate for a bright red winter coat. Now that I have one, I'm terrified to wear it. What if people stare at me?!

Anyways, I'm off to compensate for my weakness by painting my nails bright red. That oughta do it. Wish me luck on my trip, I'm terrified of airplanes and the one I'll be going on is super duper small! I'm flying white-knuckle all the way.

Brilliant Idea

It's amazing what you can think up whilst in the throes of ennui. The other day, I was driving with my mom and we had a lengthy conversation about various types of miscellanea. In the midst of this, I hit upon said "brilliant idea". It occured to me that IF milk can be produced into cheese that it would be possible to turn coconut milk into coconut cheese. You could possibly make a sweet soft cheese or maybe a more acidic hard cheese. I wasn't quite sure if bacteria or mold would need to be involved, as is often the case with cow's milk cheese. My mind thus began racing. I could introduce my new food invention into Latin American countries and call it CoQueso (which is the marriage of the words "coconut" and "queso" [Spanish for "cheese"]). And if it was popular there, I could bring it to the US as an alternate cheese for vegans or a great product for coconut afficianados. There could be coconut cheesecake, coconut cheese frosting for cakes, amongst various other desserts.

It wouldn't make my millions off of coconut cheese, but if it was successful it would be a nice venture. So why am I divulging my brilliant idea for CoQueso (patent pending)? Because 10 years earlier someone had already thought up the idea. Ahh well!

http://www.unido.org/userfiles/PuffK/ISED_R85.pdf

On the way to class...

I don't know how it happened, but when I started by current lit class for graduate school I was what you could consider a "non-writer". Sure I barely keep up this blog and I write e-mails and some papers for school, but I don't really do any creative writing. Now, with only a couple of weeks left for class I will come out of this course a bonafide "writer". And its not even a writing class. But the course is taught by a published writer, most of the students in class are Creative Writing majors and the atmosphere and dynamic of the class just encourages writing. We wrote responses to everything we read, and were encouraged to read as writers and to look for what the author was trying to accomplish and how he/she carried it through. We read our writing out loud, which, over time, became a performance that influenced our written responses. And our mid-term and final papers involved mimicking other writers in sytle and form to fully understand their methods and learn things for our own writing. And I wrote a non-fiction essay about a seeing-eye dog and by some miracle it came out very well and I got an A! Now, I can't stop thinking of things to write about. Each night I think of story ideas and scenes until I fall asleep. Then the next day my fingers are itching to get at the computer to tap away at the keyboard with the new tale. What happened? Where is the Raquelle who found writing so painful and difficult? Who is this new Raquelle who actually likes to, wants to, needs to write?

It's all very strange, but I'm very grateful.

26 Year Marker

On the 25th of November, I turned 26. I turned 26 on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. This day is in commemoration of the brutal Trujillo-sanctioned murders of the Mirabal sisters, Patria, Minerva and Maria who protested Trujillo's dictatorship. Trujillo and the Mirabals were from the Dominican Republic. My mom is Dominican and one of the many godchildren of Trujillo (he baptized kids like crazy).

So there is historical and ancestral reasoning behind my hatred for my birthday. This is a very good cover up for the fact that I just don't like getting older. On my birthday, I always think about what I've accomplished and its never enough. I'm a late bloomer in many ways and I get supremely jealous seeing other people younger than myself accomplishing goals that I still have on my "to-accomplish-list". Plus I'm starting to get pressure to get married and have children from family members. I was spared of this until recently.

So now I'm old, errr. Older. I found a grey hair. I plucked it. Now I just have to appreciate my 26th year and make of it what I can before I turn 27 ::shudder::.

If you want to buy me a present...

If you are ever so inclined to purchase me a present for ::insert gift-giving occasion here::, then this is your guide to what my greedy soul wants. Otherwise, take inspiration from this list for your own materialism! Do I sound bitter? Mayhaps. I am broke. So right now, these things are pipe dreams until I get a fat juicy bonus in the New Year ::fingers crossed::.

~ Alfred Hitchcock: The Master of Suspense, Pop-Up Book ~ Each spread is a different Hitchcock movie. Genius!
~TiVo ~ So instead of watching junk I don't want to see on TV because I'm bored, I can't watch junk that I DO want to see on TV when I'm bored. Cheers!
~ Coach KATY Travel Tote ~ I'm spoiled. I only crave Coach bags now. I'll have to wait until this is out of season to get it.
~ Kitchen Aid Mixer in Empire Red ~ Sexiest piece of kitchen equipment there is. You know you are a true chef when you have one of these sitting in your kitchen just waiting to go into action.
~ Laptop ~ Any. As long as it has MS Word and doesn't weigh 15 pounds like my current one.
~ Subscription to the New York Times-Sunday Edition ~ Its the only newspaper worth reading these days. And the added bonus is The Book Review!!
~ BOSE Wave Radio ~ So I can listen to NPR in any part of my apartment.
~ Digital Cable ~ So I can watch Turner Classic Movies. ::sniffle::
~ One Year Subscription to Real Simple ~ It's the NYT-Sunday Edition of the magazine world. I've been collecting them since 2003.
~ Vacation to France or Ireland or even Maine ~ I just want to get away!
~ iTunes Gift Card ~ Self-explanatory.

More Time Please...

Now, more so than ever, I am feeling a major time crunch. I feel as though there are not enough hours in the day to do all the things I need to do. And because of this I charge up a debt which carries over to the next day, then the next and then the next and I feel that I can only (barely) catch up on the weekends. In fact, I had to re-arrange my weekend plans just to clean and do homework. How depressing...

Right now I'm sitting at my computer, typing this entry and procrastinating on writing my 7 pages on 7 essays (1 page for each essay read) for class on Monday. I really do not want to do this. This weekly homework used to be an ok task until our professor started making us read them aloud in class. ::cringe:: Now there is the added pressure of making them worthy of other people's eardrums. Those other people just happen to be a group of writers. (kill me now!)

But all is not lost on the time issue. I feel that instead of looking for more time to do more things, I really need to give myself fewer things to do so that I can do everything else at a reasonable pace. I also need to become more organized with my time so that I don't waste precious minutes and hours having mini-nervous breakdowns. How do I do all this? I'm not quite sure. But I'm working on it. Wish me luck!

Cosmos are good for killing spiders

Who knew this women's magazine was a stealth arachnid killing weapon?!

Nothing expresses my status as a single girly girl who lives alone than my recent encounter with a spider. For anyone who has had the pleasure uhmmm... displeasure of watching Psycho (1960) , knows the tremendous feeling of vulnerability when your taking a shower. So when a spider decided to crawl in through the bathroom window whilst I was showering and park itself in a spot on the ceiling right above my head, I completely freaked out. I knew that the arachnid had to go. So I stepped out of the shower and dripping went tip-toeing into my bedroom to grab any available weapon I could. The closest thing I could find was the last issue of Cosmo on my nightstand. So I grabbed it and dripped my way back to the shower. I made a comical effort to kill the spider by throwing up the Cosmo at the ceiling and running away quickly, lots of girly shrieks ensuing. Now normally I'm not scared of spiders but being in this vulnerable position, especially living alone, I panicked. And what's most embarassing and what shames me tremendously is that I crossed the threshold over to impossibly girly when I grabbed the girliest magazine in the WORLD to kill this spider. Shame! Shame! The tomboy of my youth would be so disappointed. ::sigh::

Linkage

After finding my blog linked at an apartment site for "old-fashioned London apartments" (don't they call them flats over there?) I thought it would be interesting to list how some people have found my little nook in the world wide web. This is not a novel idea of mine, it's shamelessly stolen by the great bookyeti.

Keywords:

1. hearts cristiano ~ I hear ya! I don't care what the Brits think, he's a okay in my book.
2. boruc handsome ~ why yes he is! huhmanah huhmanah!
3. grown men don't cry music video code ~ I'm still trying to figure this one out.
4. old fashion high society names ~ Like Willoughby van Dyne IV?
5. beginnings are hard, endings are sad ~ It's the middle that counts!

Chocolate-Covered Raisins

Its been eons since I've had the pleasure of eating these little morsels. I grabbed a little bag of these from our office stockpile of chocolate and slowly picked at them one by one as I responded to some e-mails. These sure take me back. I remember the days when I was a little girl, my mom used to buy me a big bag of Raisinets to keep me occupied on our bus trips to New York. Such a strange little treat. The way the chocolate hugs around the raisin, with cute little dimples here and there. I love how the chocolate cracks and crumbles when you bite into one. I could wax poetic about how they shine and how they feel as I roll them around in my hand. I think its more about the happy memories and comfort they bring rather than their taste. I always find it amazing how smells and sensations transport us back to another place and time. Especially, when they bring you back to a happy time in your life. And chocolate-covered raisins definitely do that for me.

Sanctuary

For the past few months, I've struggled to find sanctuary in my new little nest. I am by nature someone who needs a little cove of comfort. It's where the participation in my favorite activities is enhanced by the overall feeling of happiness. It is not only a happy place in the physical sense, but also in the emotional sense. That joy comes solely from within but if I don't feel a sense of comfort in where I am, it is hard to connect with those feelings. They end up buried somewhere not wanting to come out. Over time, I find myself more and more accustomed to my apartment, but I'm not quite there yet. I feel I have a ways to go. I still wander back to my parent's home ever so often to nest. If I had moved further away or perhaps had a significant other to move in with, my new place might have already reached the status of sanctuary. I think the loneliness and the easy access to close family make it the most difficult. I also believe that the size of my living room doesn't help either. It's very long and dark. I find it too brooding and ominous for my taste. I've been trying to make it seem cosier and to add more light to the room. On the contrary, the bedroom is just the right size and very sunny. I've filled the room with creams, blues and browns (just like home) and its so easy to fall asleep there.
Maybe I'm picky or just plain eccentric, but home is so important to me. I need to feel like there is somewhere I can escape to and find my inner sense of peace. But for now, my little nest is a work in progress.

Shakira

I was a big Shakira fan back in high school. I loved her music and had much respect for her. I'm not really impressed by her now (in fact I'm kind of disappointed), but I found this video online and it was a great blast from the past. I used to listen to this song over and over again on my CD walkman (remember walkmans?!) while waiting for my bus in the mornings. Ahh memories. Enjoy!

Music Video:"ESTOY AQUí" (by Shakira)

Music Video Code provided by VideoCodeZone.Com

Ambulance

When I woke up this morning, I didn't realize that in a few hours I would be taking my very first ride in an ambulance. I have been very sick for the past week. I got, what I thought was, a really nasty bacterial infection in my throat which affected my ears and then went on to give me the worst sinus pressure imaginable. The pain was unbearable. I had gone to the doctor before the symptoms got really bad and was immediately put on penicillin. I had been a good patient taking the pills 4 X a day. They didn't seem to be doing much since the symptoms kept getting worse as the days went on. Finally, yesterday I started feeling better. My sinuses were clearing up, my sore throat and ear pain were gone and I was getting my energy back. But I still had to continue on the medicine for a few days until I finished all of the pills.

This morning, after taking my second dose of the day, I felt like something was trapped in my throat. I thought that the pill was somehow lodged in my esophagus and I drank some water to see if I could flush it down. Three bottles of Dasani later, I tried honey and a salt water gargle. As the hours past, the pain progressed and I started to get short of breath. Then came the hyperventilating and panic. I called my parents numerous times, but they were far away and couldn't help. I was frantic and in tears and called 911. Within 5 minutes, there were 10 men in my apartment asking me questions, taking my pulse and checking my blood pressure. Shorty afterwards, I was whisked away into an ambulance and strapped into a stretche. Luckily, I was being consoled by a very handsome firefighter who had gone to extra effort to make me feel comfortable. (I wanted to kiss him right then and there!!!)

I arrived at the local hospital, went through all the motions. Registration, more registration, waiting, X-ray (of my throat), waiting, examination, more waiting and another examination. Luckily, there was nothing lodged in my throat, but it is very possible that I developed an allergy to penicillin. The medicine caused my throat to close up (thus the pain and the shortness of breath) and it also caused acid reflux which I'm sure did wonders to the lining of my esophagus. And what makes me the most upset about this, the doctor who examined me said that I shouldn't have been on penicillin in the first place because the infection I had was probably viral and not bacterial! Since penicillin only works against bacteria, I might as well have not been taking any medicine at all. Grrr!!

My parents had driven all the way up to come pick me up at the hospital (bless their hearts!). And for the next couple of days, I'm on a liquid/soft food diet and will take it easy. I knew that once I became independent and had my own place that I would have some adventures. But this wasn't the kind of adventure I was looking for.

Simple Pleasures

I took some getting used to, but my apartment is starting to feel like home. My level of stress has gone down, especially since I'm away from my parents, so there is less bickering and my commute is down to 10 minutes from 2 hour + daily. I feel more independent and more responsible. The best thing of all is that I have the time to take pleasure in simple things. Here are some new rituals and some small things I get pleasure from:

• Taking long evening walks
• Reading the Sunday New York Times at a cafe
• Watching people walk their dogs
• Seeing the Prudential Tower from my bedroom window
• Trying out new restaurants
• Grocery shopping on Sunday afternoons (lot of local single guys do the same)
• Silence. Enough to be able to sit down and truly enjoy a good book or magazine
• Watching the sun set over the nearby pond

I plan to increase this list considerably! I just have to get used to the town and the area. I'm looking for new and fun things to do and places to meet people. Meeting people is the most difficult thing. Luckily, I have school coming up. I promised myself not to say no to any school or work-related gatherings! I couldn't say yes all that often before because of my commute. Now I have no excuse! Let the good times begin!

New Beginning

Hope Floats is not one of my favorite movies, but there is a quote from the film that I will carry with my for the rest of my life. "Beginnings are hard, endings are sad, but its the middle that counts." It was a reflection on life in general, but I think it can be specifically applied to any major change in ones life. I'm sad to leave my parents, who I love dearly. I find myself going back "home" to find solace, intermittently while I'm adjusting to my new apartment, which has yet to become my new "home" in the emotional sense. I'm waiting for that in-between period to come. One in which I'm comfortable with my new-found independence and do not rely on my parents for emotional support. I think it will take a while -- a long while. I'm very behind at being an adult. But I'll get through it somehow. I just have to.

So Tired...

I'm exhausted. On Saturday, I moved some things into my apartment and got my new sofa. On Sunday, I loaded up a U-Haul truck and moved a whole lot more. On Monday and Tuesday, I moved even more things and started setting up so that the apartment could be somewhat liveable. I assembled a coffee table, two side chairs, a dining table and after 5 hours of blood, sweat and tears I gave birth to an entertainment center. I can't believe how much work this is and how quickly I get tired and have to stop. This definitely shows that I need to be more active!

Gonna take a short hiatus as I'll be internet-less for a few days and will need to keep working on my apartment. Pictures to come! Woohoo! And also, the finals of the World Cup are this weekend so I'll be too busy having minor heart attacks to do anything at all productive. Bon journee!

Go Portugal!!!!!

Portugal kicked England's b-u-t-t today. This game was pure torture. No goals for 90 minutes, then no goals for 30 more minutes. Then Cristiano Ronaldo (shown above) sealed Portugal's victory with a third successful penalty kick. It was beautiful, but good grief I almost had a heart attack! The excitement was too stressful.

Grown Men Crying

I love watching the World Cup, but boy is it stressful. I don't think I could ever become a full-time devoted fan of football (soccer). I wouldn't have enough energy to deal with real-life emotions because all my stress, anxiety, heart-break and happiness, joy and elation would all be funnelled into games. What gets to me is the major disappointment when one team loses. Today Argentina lost to Germany in penalty kicks. Argentina managed to only get 2 in while Germany got 4. That last missed penalty kick by Argentina sealed Germany's victory. That poor guy Cambiasso who lost that one goal was crying! Even though I was beside myself with joy that Germany won (I think they are incredible), watching a grown man crying depresses me to no end. And then to see a whole team crying and leagues of fans cry, I can't take it! I even fell to pieces when I saw Cristiano Ronaldo cry after his leg injury prevented him from finishing the game. The highs are so high and the lows are so low, that I guess no matter how much I'd like to become full-time fan, I can only take football in small doses. Lets hope there is not a lot of crying this afternoon when Ukraine goes versus the blood-thirsty, elbow-throwing Italians.

Go Portugal!!!

Portugal (1) ~ Netherlands (0)

My apologies to the Dutch!

Anything to get out of doing my mid-term and packing up for my move!

Everytime I watch a match of the World Cup the announcers always bombard the viewers with random facts and statistics that to me, as an amateur football fan, seem way out of left field. I decided, out of pure frustration with these silly scenarios that the sportcasters create, that I would write some wacked-out statistics of my own.

1) Germany has never advanced to the final four, on non-European soil and when cheap American Budweisers are downed by their team's rival's fan's mothers-in-law's cousins during teatime in London.

2) Mexico has only ever scored 2 goals in the second stage of the World Cup, except that time when 50% of the other team had serious constipation.

3) Its the first time in 40 years, Portugal has advanced to the second stage of the World Cup in which one of their team members is a young, hot, Prince-William look-a-like, not from the mainland.

4) Ecuador has lost everytime that the majority of their fans do NOT participate in the wave, sing the national anthem and buy expensive FIFA merchandise.

5) The longest distance a player has ever slid across the grass while other team members were celebrating the wrong goal in their second game, was 5 feet.

6) The Brazil vs. The African Brazil (Ghana) game will be the first time a South-American team has played against an African team which, within their own continent, is considered to be equal of the other team in that other continent.

Retribution At Last!

This has been a really bad year for me, and yesterday I said to myself, "for all of the bad things that have happened to me, there must be some retribution coming soon. There is always a light at the end of the tunnel, I must be at least close!" Well, retribution is coming in the form of a bigger apartment! The tenant of the original apartment just wouldn't quit, so my realtors (God bless them) worked their magic and got me an apartment, on the same floor of the same building, with a bigger lay-out, better views and the same original price. I was blown away! Basically, I just got an upgrade. Now I can resume packing with the knowledge that I actually have an apartment (an even nicer one to boot) to move into! Thank you kharma!

My World Comes Crashing Down

This is a really bad day.
 
For one, my beloved uncle died this morning at noon.
 
Secondly, the tenant of the apartment I was going to move into July 1st now doesn't want to move out. So I'm apartment-less.

To add to that, its crisis after crisis at work and I can't seem to catch up. And I have a midterm exam this week and a final exam next week.
 
::sigh::

The Cup Overfloweth With Opinions

I have a lot going on right now. I'm going to moving into my first apartment in a few weeks; I'm in the middle of my grad school summer session with a mid-term right around the corner; I'm working like a dog at my job trying to catch up because of the time I lost during my vacation. But even with all of this going on, my main focus still remains on soccer and the World Cup. It's all I can think about and all I'm interested in. I allot most of my time to packing, studying and working but I've got a serious case of soccer-on-the-brain. Here are my thoughts on the World Cup so far (Disclaimer: I'm not a professional sports fan):

Germany-4 ~ Costa Rica-2 : Can someone say "hometown advantage"?
Poland-0 ~ Ecuardor-2 : I was mesmerized by the Polish goalkeeper the whole time.
England-1 ~ Paraguay-0 : Probably one of the most boring games, ever. ::Yawn::
Trinidad & Tobago-0 ~ Sweden- 0: I loved the fact that T&T were so happy with their score!
Argentina-2 ~ Ivory Coast-1: Eh.
Serbia-Montenegro-0 ~ Netherlands-1: It's interesting that Serbia-Montenegro is no longer one country. I was rooting for the dudes in orange. Go PSV Eindhoven!
Mexico-3 ~ Iran-0: I almost cried when all the Mexican players at the end went to hug the goalkeeper who's father passed away recently. What a touching tribute!
Angola-0 ~ Portugal-0: This fascinated me because I have family that was born in both Portugal and Angola. But I'd rather ogle at C. Ronaldo from Portugal anyday!
Australia-3 ~ Japan-1 : This is nothing to what Australia will face with Brazil. Good thing they have a 3 point advantage!
USA-0 ~ Czech Republic-3: I watched this at a bar with a bunch of USA fans, but I was rooting Czech all the way! I'm so not a good American.
Italy-2 ~Ghana-0: The Italians have really good hair. I wonder what conditioner they use?
South Korea-2 ~ Togo-1: I'm embarassed to say, I didn't even know Togo was a country!
France-0 ~ Switzerland-0: France isn't as interesting this year. Shame.
Brazil-1 ~ Croatia-0: Doesn't surprise me that Brazil won.
Spain-4 ~ Ukraine-0: The two countries rhyme! I love it.
Tunisia-2 ~ Saudia Arabia-2: I wish I could say I was interested in this, but I really wasn't.
Germany-1 ~ Poland-0: See my comments below in my last entry. Poor Boruc.
Ecuador-3 ~ Costa Rica-0: Wow, those Ecuadorians have lots of energy!
England-2 ~ Trinidad & Tobago-0: I missed this one. I wish I could have seen Rooney in action.
Sweden-1 ~ Paraguay-0: I think I was in panic-mode at work when this game happened.
Argentina-6 ~ Serbia-Montengro-0: Wow! Argentina swept the floor with those poor Serbs.
Netherlands-2 ~ Ivory Coast-1: Go Orange! Go Orange!
Mexico-0 ~ Angola-0: As exciting as watching grass grow, but gives Portugal an advantage.
Portugal-2 ~ Iran-0: Go Portugal! It's your birthday! This is my favorite game so far!
Czech Republic-0 ~ Ghana-2: What the...? How the...? Huh?
USA-1 ~ Italy-1: Brutal, complete with actual blood. Emotionally draining, but USA impressed me.

Issa/Boruc

I have a soft spot for soccer players, especially those who struggle to make it to the World Cup only to be harshly ignored by lady luck. Last time, it was Pierre~Issa. A Lebanese, South-African born, French-raised soccer player who played for the South Africa team in the World Cup in 1998 and 2002. I thought he was beautiful and graceful. He was sleek and tall and his movements across the field looked more like ballet than sport. In 1998, he tried to intercept two shots on goal from the French only to have the ball slip over his foot and into the net both times! And because he technically was the last person to touch the ball, he was counted as responsible for the other team's goal. I don't know how, but he made it to the 2002 World Cup only to get an injury during his first part of the first game and had to sit on the bench while he watched his team get eliminated! My heart yearns for him, because this is his career, his passion!

South Africa didn't make it this year, but now I long to comfort someone else. A certain Artur-Boruc on the Polish team. He's one of the most beautiful men I've ever seen. I set eyes on him and I thought to myself, I must be dreaming, I didn't think they came this handsome. I did some research on him and found out that he's a very successful goalkeeper who's played for clubs in Poland and Scotland. But being a goalkeeper must be very difficult, especially since every goal the other teams scores is basically a result of your mistake! Ouch! And my heart went out to him when Germany got a goal in the 91st minute of a 0-0 game. He looked absolutely devastated. This may be a beautiful game but the highs are high and the lows are terribly low and its more than just a game that's at stake.

Below are some pictures of Boruc for your viewing pleasure. Sorry ladies, he's married (shucks!). But if you want to ogle at him some more go to is official website!

Boruc3

Boruc2

Borac

Beautiful Game

Once every four years, something amazing happens. No, it's not a break in the time-space continuum but it's a phenomenon that is almost equally astonishing. For one month, I am glued to the television watching nothing but sports! Not just any old sport, but the beautiful game - soccer. Or, to call it by it's true name, football. Also, it's not just any old football game, but the World Cup. I, who abhor watching any type of sport for the other 3 years and 11 months in my 4 year cycle, became infatuated with football. Athletic men, from around the world, join together to run around a field and kick a ball around, and I'm entranced. There's the thrill of knowing the one goal can change the entire game. There's the international aspect of seeing representatives from so many different countries all in one place. And the most important part, there's the feminine-hormonal surge in me which swoons at the sight of slender, athletic men drenched in sweat and running around in shorts that reveal just the right amount of perfectly sculpted leg muscles. And, if they are running fast enough, their uninforms cling to their bodies revealing their amazing shapes. Their outrageously gorgeous model wives and girlfriends are no where to be seen, so the fantasy is kept in tact. In just a few minutes, another game starts, so off I go to drool over the beautiful game.

Salut!

I've decided that this poster will be the main focal piece in my new living room. Yes that's right, I've got a new living room meaning I have a new apartment! Yay! I will be less than 2 miles from work and only a hop skip and a jump away from school. Most importantly, I'll be at a distance from my parents who are still making plans to control my life while I'm away. Its going to be a great opportunity to become truly independent. I'll learn, mostly the hard way, how to be solely responsible for myself. I still see myself running back home for certain things such as mom's home cooking, our home garden complete with flowers, vegetables, fruit and herbs and my dad's mechanical expertise. I also don't want to give up my bank, my hair stylist, my dentist, my chiropractor, my aesthetician and my eye doctor. So I'll be doing lots of travelling home. But I do get to say goodbye to Monday morning/Friday afternoon commutes and paying outrageous amounts of money at the pump. I'm both excited and nervous because I know I have a lot of growing up to do! My move-in date is July 1st and I'll keep you in the loop on the details of the new pad!

Book Expo

Last Saturday was truly an unforgettable day. I woke up at 4am-ish -- which should be a crime by the way -- got ready, got on a bus and then got on a plane to D.C. Besides my disabilitating fear of flying, I was super excited. For one day, I got to go to Book Expo America, the biggest event in book publishing. It's a convention held every May (sometimes June) when book publishers and other business create elaborate booths in a grandiose convention center to show off their wares to booksellers and other folk. Authors and remainder buyers swarm around the booths like hawks hoping to court a publisher or two. It's all shmooze and all excitement. When I arrived at the Washington Convention Center I was in awe! I got to wander around for a few hours oggling at other publisher's goodies before going to my company's booth for "booth duty." My job was basically to handsell our titles, pass out free goodies (something Book Expo is famous for) such as galleys (pre-publication copies of books), tote bags, postcards and catalogs, and answer as many questions as I could. It was so great to see so many people excited about the industry. The whole experience reminded me why I'm in this business: because I truly love books. And being around so many other people who've dedicated huge parts of their lives to books, only made me more proud of my career! I still can't stop talking about the experience! I have made a Yahoo! Photo Album for you to see some pictures from my trip. Please enjoy.

Back for Good

I really needed a hiatus from everything and work on getting some issues resolved. So now I'm back for good. When I have some time, I will write a proper post. For now, I will just highlight some important things that are going on in my life:

1. I'm back in school, taking a class I like on a schedule that works for me.
2. My chiro sessions ended and now I don't have back and neck pain.
3. I'm slowly coming to terms with my dog's death, although I'm forever traumatized.
4. I went to Washington DC on Saturday to go to Book Expo America! And I saw celebrities! Pictures and details to come.
5. I think I found an apartment close to work. I will probably apply for it today.
6. I have a full week vacation coming soon. Finally!
7. I was a victim of identity theft. Again! Argh...I can't wait to catch up with everyone and get back to blogging!