I've been watching Euro 2008 for the past week and a half or so. For those of you who don't know, the Euro tournament is like the World Cup but for European teams only. One could argue that the Euro Cup finals are harder than the World Cup itself since every team is extremely strong as opposed to the, being realistic, the relatively weak African and Asian teams. While some of the teams are strong (Senegal and S. Korea come to recent memory), over all they are weak, especially compared to a European only tournament. Anyway, not surprisingly, I am a huge Spain fan, and they beat Italy 4-2 in penalty kicks after regular time was tied 0-0. Certainly nerve-wracking for a Spain fan considering their penchant for crashing in big tournaments. However, they finally cracked the quarterfinals and are on to play Russia, a team they killed in the group stages, but it's the semi-finals and you can't take anything for granted with the Finals on the line. Anyway, the point of the entry isn't to talk about this Spain-Italy game, but rather the last Spain-Italy game I saw, World Cup 1994.
So 1994...Year the World Cup was in the US (I went to a Saudi Arabia-Morocco game with my dad. Don't remember anything about it except that there were a bunch of ethnic fans, I say that because I don't remember what country they rooted from at the time, and they were playing drums and such and it was awesome.) and the first time that I was sent to sleep away camp. Except, I wasn't like every other 11-year old being sent away to sleep away camp, I went to sleep away camp in Spain which is an interesting experience because sleep away camp is an interesting enough experience without it being in a language I was semi-capable in. I will say that my parents didn't completely abandon me to the wolves. I technically did the camp with the son of a family friend of my parents who I was friends with. However, he slept in a 2 bunk room with a friend of his and I joined up in the 6 bed room with some guys I didn't know. Probably my first real independent experience, and I think I passed it pretty well. There is actually another fun story from that sleep away camp, but you'll have to ask me about it another time. Overall, it was a pretty good experience. I think it was for about a week, met some cool people, did some neat things, and was probably the first time I really started to notice girls in a non-cootie way. Back on track, soccer, I'm sorry fútbol, in Spain, like many other European countries, is a huge deal, and one of the things I did with some of my camp friends was watch fútbol, including the Spain-Italy quarterfinal match. I don't remember much of that match, but I do distinctly remember Spain losing 2-1 and, more specifically, remember a Spanish player getting cracked in the face by an Italian player in the box, necessitating a penalty shot, that was not called. Now, to describe how egregious of a blown call this was, the Spanish player had blood streaming down his face from the elbow ot the face. It's not like he took a dive or something, he got fucked up. To make things worse, this was fairly late in the game, so that penalty shot, and presumed goal, would have changed the landscape of the game, sending it to extra time and a possible Spanish victory. Also would have changed the landscape of history since Italy went on to beat Brazil in penalty kicks in the final game. That game is also imprinted on my mind because I was watching it with my abuelo and he somehow predicted every single penalty shot. To this day, I can't figure out how he did it because I'm pretty sure we were watching the match live.
Anyway, I think back on that whole sleep away experience as my first really good memory of Spain. Not to say that Spain was a bad experience, but most of my time in Spain on vacation was spent in la casa de mis abuelos doing not a whole lot. Really, until I met my peña in Marcilla I didn't have a lot of fun Spain memories. Sure, it sounds great that I went to Spain every summer, but my immediate family was small and most of my primos, and I use that term in the loose way that Spanish always uses family terms with virtually no attempts to distinguish degrees of separation, were older than I was and didn't live near boy so I didn't spend much time with them. Also, I didn't speak the language well until high school, so that played into the difficulty of enjoying Spain. Anyway, the point being that sleep away camp in a foreign country speaking a language I was okay at, could have been a very intimidating and sucky experience. Instead, it was pretty fun and paved the way to the future awesomeness that was my Spanish experience in high school. Today's Spain-Italy game brought back those memories, and I thought it would be fun to share with whomever actually reads this blog.
Music listed to while writing this entry: Girando bari-Ojos de brujo Nouveau Flamenco music that I think is pretty cool.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Edumacation
So, sometimes I feel that every once and a while people need to be reminded as to what this country was founded on and what makes it GRRR-eat compared to many other countries in the world. I'm not saying I agree with everything this country does, but permissible dissent is one of the things that this country was founded on. It's not always intelligent dissent, but among the many freedoms of this country, unintelligent dissent is one of them.
I was watching this I-report on CNN.com about how California is now allowing same-sex marriages. There was a nice little fluff piece yesterday about this lesbian couple who'd been together for like 50 years, spearheaded lesbian acceptance groups in California, and other good things that really shouldn't be as difficult to create as they were/are. They were the first couple to be given a marriage license the last time San Francisco issued them before the courts stepped in, and they were one of the first to get the new ones. Good for them.
The video isn't particularly comprehensive, but it does show the Yolo Country Office issuing marriage licenses, and, more importantly, some guy protesting the issuing of said licenses. Now again, I don't have problem with protests. Among the things that this country is based is freedom of speech. Let him protest. Whatever. What I take issue with is when he says that his religion thinks that homosexuality is a sin and therefore it is illegal. Okay...strict Christianity does hold that homosexuality is wrong and a sin. Fine. It probably also finds many other aspects of our society highly sinful. I don't know my Christian doctrine; I don't profess to being a religion expert, but I'm willing to bet money that many other once “sinful” activities have since been modernized to not be nearly as sinful. The fact that they pick homosexuality as one of the sins to not get modernized is annoying.
What really annoys me though is that because homosexuality is a sin, it is therefore illegal in this country. WHAT!!!! One of the things that most people seem to forget is that one of the founding principles is a separation of church and state. The point being that there is no official religion in this country meaning you can believe anything you want and by extension you can't infringe one person's or group's religious beliefs on others. I always get annoyed when people find religious convictions and beliefs to be important in their political candidates. Their religion is not supposed to affect your laws! I don't understand why people think this is a good thing. The Founding Fathers (Go TJ!) knew this was a bad idea so they wrote it in to the Bill of Rights. Why people want someone else's beliefs to determine their life is beyond me. Back on topic...You can't have Christian belief as the basis of law. That would be unconstitutional and unfair to non-Christian believers or even Christian believers who don't think homosexuality is a sin.
There were also comment posters saying that they should put homosexual marriage up for (to?) state-wide referendum. That is also just as idiotic. Now, I know that the idea of democracy is put on a pedestal, and I think that democracy is for the most part a good thing, but sometimes the democratic method isn't ideal. One of the few things that I learned in my Latin American politics seminars (and there were very few things I actually learned in those classes) was that democracy is actually the negative popular government. (I think plutocracy is the positive) Now that seems weird, but a democracy is actually a vote by the majority in the interest of that majority. Ideally you'd want the majority to vote in the interest of everybody, but they don't. So even if you put it up for referendum, you still only get a decision that favors the people who voted for the majority decision. Don't ask me how they should vote or how it should be decided, mayhaps it depends on the thought process of the people voting, whether if they are voting in the interests of everybody or just themselves. Either way, referendum voting doesn't really solve anything, it just gives you another opinion that not everyone will agree with.
To sum up since I'm not even completely sure how I got to the last paragraph: If people want to get married, regardless of sexual orientation, then let them get married. They aren't going to suddenly make you marry someone of the same sex. 2nd...On top of that, you can't base law on religious belief. The Bill of Rights forbids it. Not everyone has that same belief so to enforce something they don't believe on them is no different from any other dictatorial society. The point of this country is that everyone is free to believe what they want, regardless of how popular or common that belief is. 3rd) Um...there really isn't a third point except that...well, I'm awesome. I hope all that made sense.
Music listened to while writing this semi-ramble: Some Made Hope-Matt Nathanson
I was watching this I-report on CNN.com about how California is now allowing same-sex marriages. There was a nice little fluff piece yesterday about this lesbian couple who'd been together for like 50 years, spearheaded lesbian acceptance groups in California, and other good things that really shouldn't be as difficult to create as they were/are. They were the first couple to be given a marriage license the last time San Francisco issued them before the courts stepped in, and they were one of the first to get the new ones. Good for them.
The video isn't particularly comprehensive, but it does show the Yolo Country Office issuing marriage licenses, and, more importantly, some guy protesting the issuing of said licenses. Now again, I don't have problem with protests. Among the things that this country is based is freedom of speech. Let him protest. Whatever. What I take issue with is when he says that his religion thinks that homosexuality is a sin and therefore it is illegal. Okay...strict Christianity does hold that homosexuality is wrong and a sin. Fine. It probably also finds many other aspects of our society highly sinful. I don't know my Christian doctrine; I don't profess to being a religion expert, but I'm willing to bet money that many other once “sinful” activities have since been modernized to not be nearly as sinful. The fact that they pick homosexuality as one of the sins to not get modernized is annoying.
What really annoys me though is that because homosexuality is a sin, it is therefore illegal in this country. WHAT!!!! One of the things that most people seem to forget is that one of the founding principles is a separation of church and state. The point being that there is no official religion in this country meaning you can believe anything you want and by extension you can't infringe one person's or group's religious beliefs on others. I always get annoyed when people find religious convictions and beliefs to be important in their political candidates. Their religion is not supposed to affect your laws! I don't understand why people think this is a good thing. The Founding Fathers (Go TJ!) knew this was a bad idea so they wrote it in to the Bill of Rights. Why people want someone else's beliefs to determine their life is beyond me. Back on topic...You can't have Christian belief as the basis of law. That would be unconstitutional and unfair to non-Christian believers or even Christian believers who don't think homosexuality is a sin.
There were also comment posters saying that they should put homosexual marriage up for (to?) state-wide referendum. That is also just as idiotic. Now, I know that the idea of democracy is put on a pedestal, and I think that democracy is for the most part a good thing, but sometimes the democratic method isn't ideal. One of the few things that I learned in my Latin American politics seminars (and there were very few things I actually learned in those classes) was that democracy is actually the negative popular government. (I think plutocracy is the positive) Now that seems weird, but a democracy is actually a vote by the majority in the interest of that majority. Ideally you'd want the majority to vote in the interest of everybody, but they don't. So even if you put it up for referendum, you still only get a decision that favors the people who voted for the majority decision. Don't ask me how they should vote or how it should be decided, mayhaps it depends on the thought process of the people voting, whether if they are voting in the interests of everybody or just themselves. Either way, referendum voting doesn't really solve anything, it just gives you another opinion that not everyone will agree with.
To sum up since I'm not even completely sure how I got to the last paragraph: If people want to get married, regardless of sexual orientation, then let them get married. They aren't going to suddenly make you marry someone of the same sex. 2nd...On top of that, you can't base law on religious belief. The Bill of Rights forbids it. Not everyone has that same belief so to enforce something they don't believe on them is no different from any other dictatorial society. The point of this country is that everyone is free to believe what they want, regardless of how popular or common that belief is. 3rd) Um...there really isn't a third point except that...well, I'm awesome. I hope all that made sense.
Music listened to while writing this semi-ramble: Some Made Hope-Matt Nathanson
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Good News!
So...I don't know if you've heard the good news yet, but I got a job offer. :D I'm pretty psyched about it. It's for an academic publishing company called Lexington Books, a division of Rowman and Littlefield, and my official position is called Associate Acquisitions Editor. Basically, I'm going to be in charge of a couple of subject sets, currently sociology and literature with a third coming my way once I figure out what I'm doing. I think it might be religion. Within those subject sets, I'm in charge of reading proposals submitted by mostly junior professors hoping to get their first or one of their first books published. I'm not actually in charge of determining the pure academic validity of their books. They contract professors in those fields to do that. However, I am in charge of making sure that those proposals sort of fit into what we want published and that they aren't completely ludicrous. Then I create contracts for these books and have to follow up on them to make sure that these books are getting completed if they aren't complete yet. Also, currently their literature set is pretty small and I'll be in charge of aggressively trying to expand it. It's pretty much one of the ideal things I thought of doing in the publishing world. That being said, it's in Lanham, MD, which, if you think of the beltway as a clock, is about 3 o'clock. Basically I'm going from one suburban area to another. Not exactly my ideal job location, but I can deal with it. I'm going to have to spend a day sort of driving around and getting a sense of how far it is from other places/driving around the area to see what's there. If anybody knows anything about west DC or that Maryland area, please let me know.
I haven't officially accepted yet as I'm waiting to get the benefits information from them first, but there's virtually no way that I'm going to reject the offer. I just want to make sure that I'm making an informed decision and know what I'm getting into first. I'll be starting on June 23rd, and they'll be sending me out to the big sociology conference in Boston the first week of August. This also means that I'll get to go to the wedding I was hoping to go to in Spain the first week of September. Super psyched for that.
Other than that, I've had a pretty good past few days. Met up with some UVa chaps Friday night, helped my friend Alex celebrate his 26th birthday on Saturday (He's ye olde), and saw an old friend of mine who's currently living in Spain for the first time in 4 years for brunch with his parents on Sunday. They are very old family friends. Dan's actually a year older than I am, and it's his sister whose wedding I'll be going to in Marbella in September. Also, I went and watched the US-Argentina friendly with T at this awesome place called Babylon Fútbol Cafe in Falls Church. I was pretty impressed that the game ended in a 0-0 draw. I expected a bloodbath, and it looked like would be because in the beginning. Argentina was just too fast for the US. That being said, the US defense held and Howard played well but as the game played on, it became painfully obvious that the US simply lacks a premier striker. I understand that neither Ching or Twellman, perhaps 2 of the best American-born strikers in MLS, were called up, but that line up they fielded against Argentina just isn'tt going to cut it. It's time Eddie Johnson gets demoted from being the starter because he can't do shite. Lastly, I've been watching Euro 2008, that's like the World Cup but for just Europe, and felt an incredible amount of glee when I watched Spain demolish the Russians 4-1 on Tuesday, including a David Villa hat trick. It was actually pretty dicey early on, but towards the end, La Furia Roja simply showed why they are the 4th ranked team in the world. Let's just hope they keep it up.
Until next time.
Music listened to while writing this post: Viva la Vida or Death and all his Friends-Coldplay. That's right. I downloaded an advance copy. :P If anyone wants it, let me know and I'll make you a copy.
I haven't officially accepted yet as I'm waiting to get the benefits information from them first, but there's virtually no way that I'm going to reject the offer. I just want to make sure that I'm making an informed decision and know what I'm getting into first. I'll be starting on June 23rd, and they'll be sending me out to the big sociology conference in Boston the first week of August. This also means that I'll get to go to the wedding I was hoping to go to in Spain the first week of September. Super psyched for that.
Other than that, I've had a pretty good past few days. Met up with some UVa chaps Friday night, helped my friend Alex celebrate his 26th birthday on Saturday (He's ye olde), and saw an old friend of mine who's currently living in Spain for the first time in 4 years for brunch with his parents on Sunday. They are very old family friends. Dan's actually a year older than I am, and it's his sister whose wedding I'll be going to in Marbella in September. Also, I went and watched the US-Argentina friendly with T at this awesome place called Babylon Fútbol Cafe in Falls Church. I was pretty impressed that the game ended in a 0-0 draw. I expected a bloodbath, and it looked like would be because in the beginning. Argentina was just too fast for the US. That being said, the US defense held and Howard played well but as the game played on, it became painfully obvious that the US simply lacks a premier striker. I understand that neither Ching or Twellman, perhaps 2 of the best American-born strikers in MLS, were called up, but that line up they fielded against Argentina just isn'tt going to cut it. It's time Eddie Johnson gets demoted from being the starter because he can't do shite. Lastly, I've been watching Euro 2008, that's like the World Cup but for just Europe, and felt an incredible amount of glee when I watched Spain demolish the Russians 4-1 on Tuesday, including a David Villa hat trick. It was actually pretty dicey early on, but towards the end, La Furia Roja simply showed why they are the 4th ranked team in the world. Let's just hope they keep it up.
Until next time.
Music listened to while writing this post: Viva la Vida or Death and all his Friends-Coldplay. That's right. I downloaded an advance copy. :P If anyone wants it, let me know and I'll make you a copy.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
The Return!!!!!
So, it's been over a month since I've last posted anything, though really much longer since the last few postings were some creative stories. I actually have felt quite guilty about not writing anything recently, so I'm forcing myself to start writing again. I actually have a couple of books to review, so that should get done in the near future.
To sort of sum up how the last month has been, I haven't really done much of anything. I've of course been applying to jobs, but haven't really had any hits. Well...that's not completely true. I do have an interview tomorrow with Lexington Books in Lanham, MD. Played around on the web site for a bit, and it seems pretty cool. It's an academic humanities publisher meaning that most of the books they publisher are academia based in a variety of topics that are all pretty interesting to me. History, Politics, Literature, Psychology, etc, etc. Hopefully it'll go well. You who know me know that I'm very good in person, and I keep telling myself that just give me three interviews and I'll have a job. Well, this here's the third interview, so... One of the things I've given a lot of thought about is my interviews and my answers. I mean, “Tell us a little bit about yourself” is the most difficult and annoying question to answer, and, thinking back to my first interview, I think I gave a disaster of a response. I think I've got a really good idea in my head of a response now, I just get worried that in my attempts to give that answer, my mind will go off on another tangent and I'll leave out all the good bits I thought hard about.
I've taken a good amount of time sort of thinking a lot about this job search, and its frustrations. I just wish I knew why I can't get call backs. In a way, I feel like I'm stuck in limbo. I don't really have the job experience that goes along with my education level and the salary it commands, but said education level also makes me overqualified for the entry level positions that my experience level dictates I apply to. Sigh. I interviewed at a temp agency recently and asked my resume handler exactly a question about that sort of thing: How does my graduate degree translate to experience? She couldn't even give me a definitive answer which was annoying. Maybe I'm selling myself short by not demanding more money when they ask for salary requirements, but I feel that I need to undercut my position in order to not price myself out of these jobs. Of course, the job market is still weak so there aren't even a lot of jobs out there. Just have to keep plugging away. Still, Starbucks is becoming very appealing right now, even though they fired my sister...bastards.
Otherwise, I've felt very lethargic in the past month. I haven't gotten inspired to learn that many new guitar songs in the last month. A couple of Incubus songs, but not much else. I haven't done very much reading either. Once I finished the Fountainhead, I sort of took a break. Well, not completely, I then had to do my McSweeney's reading which I'd been putting off, but then once I did finish it (not a very good batch this time I must say though one was pretty creative), I sat on it for like 2 and a half weeks before sending in my recommendations. Not particularly responsible on my part. I haven't really done any creative writing either or gone back and worked on those stories. I haven't really been struck with a sudden awesome idea. I sat done one or twice and starting writing, but it just felt like crap and I stopped. Or rather, it felt very cliché. I think part of the point of those two stories were that they were meant to be a little different. Walter's Story certainly posed an interesting idea, and Runaway Fist was meant to sort of reflect my own interesting way of talking/saying ludicrous things to get a reaction. Walter's Story was also meant to reflect this from a narratorial perspective. I'm just having difficulty figuring out how to combine those things into a modern story that isn't pure dialogue. (PS. It's raining so hard right now that I can barely see out my window. I hope it stops. I'm supposed to go into DC tonight.) I've been looking at some of the stories and books I've been reading and examining how they do it when the author writes in a way similar to how I want to. I'd really like to take a creative writing class and see what they have to say, but that is one of those wants as opposed to needs, so I'm going to hold off on that. Either way, I hope to get back into it soon because I do enjoy it. Hopefully, once I get a job and I'm back in a situation where I need to use my brain again, I can break this lethargy. Until then, just trying to stay strong and positive.
Think that'll about do it for now. I'll write again soon.
Music listened to while writing this post: Andy Mckee
To sort of sum up how the last month has been, I haven't really done much of anything. I've of course been applying to jobs, but haven't really had any hits. Well...that's not completely true. I do have an interview tomorrow with Lexington Books in Lanham, MD. Played around on the web site for a bit, and it seems pretty cool. It's an academic humanities publisher meaning that most of the books they publisher are academia based in a variety of topics that are all pretty interesting to me. History, Politics, Literature, Psychology, etc, etc. Hopefully it'll go well. You who know me know that I'm very good in person, and I keep telling myself that just give me three interviews and I'll have a job. Well, this here's the third interview, so... One of the things I've given a lot of thought about is my interviews and my answers. I mean, “Tell us a little bit about yourself” is the most difficult and annoying question to answer, and, thinking back to my first interview, I think I gave a disaster of a response. I think I've got a really good idea in my head of a response now, I just get worried that in my attempts to give that answer, my mind will go off on another tangent and I'll leave out all the good bits I thought hard about.
I've taken a good amount of time sort of thinking a lot about this job search, and its frustrations. I just wish I knew why I can't get call backs. In a way, I feel like I'm stuck in limbo. I don't really have the job experience that goes along with my education level and the salary it commands, but said education level also makes me overqualified for the entry level positions that my experience level dictates I apply to. Sigh. I interviewed at a temp agency recently and asked my resume handler exactly a question about that sort of thing: How does my graduate degree translate to experience? She couldn't even give me a definitive answer which was annoying. Maybe I'm selling myself short by not demanding more money when they ask for salary requirements, but I feel that I need to undercut my position in order to not price myself out of these jobs. Of course, the job market is still weak so there aren't even a lot of jobs out there. Just have to keep plugging away. Still, Starbucks is becoming very appealing right now, even though they fired my sister...bastards.
Otherwise, I've felt very lethargic in the past month. I haven't gotten inspired to learn that many new guitar songs in the last month. A couple of Incubus songs, but not much else. I haven't done very much reading either. Once I finished the Fountainhead, I sort of took a break. Well, not completely, I then had to do my McSweeney's reading which I'd been putting off, but then once I did finish it (not a very good batch this time I must say though one was pretty creative), I sat on it for like 2 and a half weeks before sending in my recommendations. Not particularly responsible on my part. I haven't really done any creative writing either or gone back and worked on those stories. I haven't really been struck with a sudden awesome idea. I sat done one or twice and starting writing, but it just felt like crap and I stopped. Or rather, it felt very cliché. I think part of the point of those two stories were that they were meant to be a little different. Walter's Story certainly posed an interesting idea, and Runaway Fist was meant to sort of reflect my own interesting way of talking/saying ludicrous things to get a reaction. Walter's Story was also meant to reflect this from a narratorial perspective. I'm just having difficulty figuring out how to combine those things into a modern story that isn't pure dialogue. (PS. It's raining so hard right now that I can barely see out my window. I hope it stops. I'm supposed to go into DC tonight.) I've been looking at some of the stories and books I've been reading and examining how they do it when the author writes in a way similar to how I want to. I'd really like to take a creative writing class and see what they have to say, but that is one of those wants as opposed to needs, so I'm going to hold off on that. Either way, I hope to get back into it soon because I do enjoy it. Hopefully, once I get a job and I'm back in a situation where I need to use my brain again, I can break this lethargy. Until then, just trying to stay strong and positive.
Think that'll about do it for now. I'll write again soon.
Music listened to while writing this post: Andy Mckee
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