Barely Breathing

I have just tumbled out of sync with my blog posting. My days are so full with teaching duties, committees, or a small portion of exercise to attempt a balance, that my reflective presence in cyber-space has gotten the shaft. I have a lot to say and I've thought about it considerably, but for some reason I don't put finger to key.

In 2009 I'll be going to Russia in March on a teacher exchange. In June, my girlfriend and I have plans to go to Turkey. There'll be plenty to blog about. Until then, I'll try to get my life back in balance to make space for journaling.

Ensenada Adventures

Movie theatre in Ensenada. $4 for a ticket!

Well the language studies have been continuing had a good pace. Today we learned the imperitive or command form, which is very good for handling a room full of hormonal adolescents. Sientente (sit down)! Trabaje (work)! Afternoon activities have been slightly robotic in drills, but I guess I need the practice.

My "social" life outside of class has certainly been worthy of quotation marks. I´m on my own, just here for a week, so making friends or going on outings with others hasn´t happened. Today the school went to the winery, but alcohol isn´t my thing, so I skipped on that and conjugated irregular verbs in the preterite and imperfect for 90 minutes. What fun!

I did make a point of walking 1.5 miles to the cinema to watch "Hancock". Just my luck, the movie started 5 minutes before I arrived. It was in English with Spanish subtitles, so I got a little reading practice while I mostly just enjoyed listening to the dialogue. During the movie, this woman´s cell phone kept going off and she had no problem chatting away during the movie. I almost turned around and gave her the evil eye, but then I realized that she´s just reading the subtitles and doesn´t need to hear the English because she and the other watchers may not understand it anyway. I chalked it up to another cultural moment, laughed, and read the subtitles along with her.

Tomorrow`s my last day of class, then I retire to my favorite local hostel for a day of r&r from my mostly relaxing week. Just a way to kill time cheaply before I go to San Deigo for my AVID conference.

Ensenada Un Otra Vez!

Staying with a Mexican family for a week in Ensenada to study Spanish in an immersion environment. My first impression is that I´m getting a lot of walking done. I live like a mile from the school, and my host mother and sister have given me walking directions to all the places I´m asking about: post office (2.5 miles), tourist district to get post cards (.5 miles), getting exercise and a feel for how most citizens get around here every day (priceless).

Classes are 6 hours a day, four being conversation and grammar exploration, 2 being activities like games and guided discussion. As a language teacher myself, I´m being quite scrutinous of how we´re learning as well as what. But I also realize that being too picky will taint my experience too. So mostly I´m just going with the flow. Unlike Russian, French, Jamaican Creole, or Japanese, my Spanish learning experience has little immersion to cement chunked phrases into memory. I realize that I have to really think about all the conditions for using the preterite or imperfective, ser or estar, este or whatever before using it. The result has been increased shyness for speaking in public. Either that or its been a general trend in the past two years for me to be more reserved instead of wrecklessly talking to perfect strangers on the street.

I have the afternoons to explore and practice conversation. Today I went on an adventure to the post office, asking directions, changing large bills, and inquiring about tickets to San Felipe along the way. I stopped in McDonald`s for an ice cream and to write some postcards while I relaxed in the cool air conditioning. I`ve come 180 degrees from my 22-year-old position on patronizing establishments of American commercial imperialism. At first I was totally against it, thinking it would ruin my immersion experience and support the tainting of local culture. Now I just see it as a refuge of comfort from a tiresome day that I take every once in a while. I´m not going there because McD´s is the only food I want to eat, far from it. Its just a public place where I don´t have to spend much money to rest for a while on my journey between immersion experiences. Sort of like a ¨pause^in the game.

I´ll be here for the rest of the week, then come up to San Diego on Sunday for a teachers` conference. Hopefully I can post an entry about a trip to La Bufadora, the blow hole!

Coming into the Closet

As a child, my walk-in closet was a refuge for idle thoughts and possessions. It was the largest closet among my siblings and the only one with a window. Even though I would cloister myself in it for hours on end, I could still look out on the street and have a connection to the world. I can imagine myself around age 11, going through old letters (almost every one I’ve kept) and trinkets kept from an even earlier childhood. As the realm of current clothing and after thoughts, organizers and can’t-figure-what-to-do-with-its, my childhood closet was full of present needs and past memories.

After a few years of unscrupulous hoarding, the closet’s manila particleboard and aluminum-braced shelves where hammocked under the weight of misorganized models and pitiful pinchpots that I somehow couldn’t bear to liberate from neglect. In a clandestine raid of guerilla goodness, my parents hired professionals to redesign and reorganize the closets of my older sister, younger brother, and myself while we were away at summer camp. Gone were the sad, saggy shelves; in their places were sleek white spaces with hanging crates for undies and laundry, drawers for everyday clothes, and dowels for the stiff suits and sweaters that I’d have to wear to Grandma’s.

My closet could be organized to the hilt on days right after my usually messy mom threw down the cleaning hammer. But most other times it was cluttered with my daydream escapades into yesteryear’s trophies and treasures. There was the green and grey fighter jet I made out of chunky 2x2 wood blocks at camp. It only collected dust in its hangar shelf until I finally sent it on one last mission to the trash bin. As a lover of maps, I kept shoeboxes full of exotic locations like Madagascar and USSR from National Geographic, as well as rest stop freebies of the Midwest highways and backwater towns that my family would visit on weekend trips in our 1989 Ford conversion van. The closet was mission control for a weekend afternoon of mental voyages outside of the actually shy childhood that I led.

In my high school years, I’d won my bout with nostalgia and excised a great deal of the cumbersome wood funny awards and the paper trees of old tests and essays. Now thrift store corduroys and an Illinoisans’ idea of Aloha shirts hung from the racks – further evidence that the closet was the only safe place for my kind of fashion. It was also the last time when all siblings would be living at home. As a fully equipped a fallout shelter, the closet could sustain me against a sister-and-brother tickle raid. I could hole up there for minutes with a stashed soda pop and Doritos until brother scrounged up a Q-tip to pick the locking mechanism on the door. No closet is impenetrable.

Eventually we all have to come out of the closet that is our childhood and face a world that scoffs at daydreamers and story collectors. But there’s nothing to keep us from coming into the closet for a memory or a moment to rekindles that place of safety.

First Professional Presentation

The day of our presentation. We've been eating breakfast at 7, waking at 6. Our room faces East look out over grazing fields for sheep and horses. The fields have been frosted over these past two days, its that cold. Breakfast is big: cereal and fresh fruit salad, tea with jam and bread, ham, sausage, egg, baked beans, baked tomato, and mushrooms. Juice, too. I finish it without being full; its just enough.

This morning I would remember my vest, scarf, and hat but leave my rain jacket and pants. It would rain in the afternoon. This whole trip is a lesson in "inappropriate clothing"! Jen and I practiced our timing on the walk to the bus, the other Jen timing us with the watch. We go a bit over, but stopped to discuss the details to share or omit. We feel comfortable we'll stay on time.

Today's bus connections were better and we arrive in time for the plenary session of some professor from Korea talking about World Englishes. I come late because I need to take care of the photocopying of our handout. The print shop took care of it right away and I had 50 cut, color bookmarks in 5 minutes. I think i went to a session spelling mistakes by Arabic students. it gave me ideas for doing the same thing with my Spanish students.

At the tea break, Jen and I came to our room to set up. We put bookmarks on each chair, loaded the powerpoint on the computer and made sure the room was a comfortable temperature. Jen said she had trouble sleeping last night out of worrying about this and that for our presentation. I was surprised because she made me rest assured that I would do fine. Perhaps those of us who can comfort others also need to be comforted at the same time.

When we started our presentation the room wsa packed with 50 attendees. One of the Teacher Development Interest Group leaders introduced us, then sat in front of the door. She actually had to turn away latercomers because there was no room for them to sit or stand! Jen and I traded off slides and speeches very fluidly. We stayed within our 30 minute time limit and had 5 minutes for questions at the end.

I experienced for the first time that there is something beyond the author/presenter's content that draws, engages, adn enriches the experience of audience members. Each person brings his/her expectations and filter for information. They didn't necessarily come because I was presenting but because the topic interested or already meant something to them that they brought to filter their perspective for better or for worse. But, by the end, I was associated with their interest. Two to three people stopped me afterwards to say how much they enjoyed it.

One of those people was Andrew Wright. He came to our session as a 13-book author or storytelling. He asked a question about ease of uploading video/photo content to a blog. He wants to create a website for his work. [I actually learned this on Friday, when I went home.] The fact that people want to hear what I ahve to say makes me want to share more!

IATEFL Conference in Exeter, England

Internet access has been few and far between on my trip. I think it as a benefit because I think everyone needs to decompress and disconnect from the Wired world a few times a year.

Since I last posted, I spent a busy day in London seeing the British Museum, The Victoria and Albert Museum, Brixton's Jamaican community, Harrod's Department Store, and the Greenwich Observatory. More details on those when I can upload pictures.

I took a 5-hour bus (coach as they call it here) ride to Exeter on Tuesday. The rolling hillside of Devon county is quite charming. Hedgerows, sheep, and green fields are quite soothing to the eyes.

We're staying at a quaint country inn, Heath Gardens that is outside of town. Aside from being a hassle to get to and from on the bus, it is a lovely place to relax after a full day at the conference.

IATEFL is the European/UK centred organization for English teachers, so I am out of my element in networking and understanding the on-going conversation. I have eased my way into things, gradually starting to get business cards and make friendships.

As for the city of Exeter itself, I haven't had too much time to explore it. They've recently refinished the High Street (main street) to be a pedestrian mall with bus right of way. I can believe the amount of people on the pavement (sidewalk) for the relative size of town (40,000). This is a pedestrian friendly town. There's a castle and cathedral to explore, so I think I'll get out today to see it. Stay tuned for more!

Snowy Arrival

After 20 hours in transit, I landed at Heathrow airport amidst 4 inches of snowfall and wintery mix. We were delayed in landing because the ground crews were trying to keep up with the first snow of the year: in April! Fortunately my flight was one of the first in, because I would later hear that other flights were cancelled due to congestion.

I made my way out to Woking Station where my college friend Miranda picked me up. We relaxed at their home in Godalming (what an old English name, eh?). Then we went to a Principia Club function in Weybridge featuring the CEO and interim president of the College and Headmaster of its k-12 School. The school's been through a rough period, so this was kind of a clean slate PR stop to let everyone know that things are on the up and up. Of course when 4:00 came around, we had tea and cakes. Yum yum, but I didn't get some because many people were keen on talking to the random Yank who showed up. I found it interesting too that I would be in town from California for such a local meeting.

We retired home for a light dinner of French cheeses, Marmite (first time, conservatively spread on buttered toast = palatable), Pate, and tea. Miranda's mother is in town from her home in the French department of Dordogne. She showed me pictures of her country cottage where she lived for 10 years without electricity or running water, by choice! Now it's done up with wiring and a swimming pool to boot!

I showed pictures of my family and places where I've lived, as well as the obsolete British Pounds I'm carrying around from my girlfriend's 1997 stay in Sheffield and my mother and aunt's 1965 European Tour. The 1965 1-Pound notes evoked colorful stories from Miranda's mum about how much that could buy back in the day: a tank of gas, a Christmas extra gift, compared to now when it won't even buy a Liter of gasoline (yes, Americans we complain about gas approaching $4/gallon; over here it is already over $8. Get over it and get efficient!)

After 3pm I started nodding off. Now it's 10:30 and I'm tuckered out. An early day tomorrow where I'm going to Bank of England to exchange the old 10 Pound note, many have told me to keep the 1-Pound notes for their potential worth 40 more years in holding. Stay tuned for pictures.

You Make My Day

Last month, my blog was given the "you make my day" award by Geoffrey Philp, a Jamaican author whom I've met through blogging and from whom I have learned a lot. I believe the original award was conceived (or at least given to Geoffrey) by Lady Roots. The guidelines for the award are:

1. Write a post with links to 5 blogs that make your day.
2. Acknowledge the post of the award giver.
3. Display the You Make My Day Award logo.
4. Tell the award winners by commenting on their blogs with the news.

Here are the blogs that make my day:

Musings of an International Nomad: My friend Verity is teaching at a girls' school in Harare, Zimbabwe. South African by birth, Verity has chosen to work in a crumbling country with 100,000% inflation to make a difference for at least one student. Her blog is a vital link to a country in the midst of a tumultuous election.

Turtle Vision: Nicole frequently posts her artwork and musings on topics that give richness to life. It is always comforting to visit her webpage after a stressful day.

Pickeled Eel: another blog friend whom I've met through the blogosphere. He's based out of Sydney, but has traveled to Iraq and beyond to bring interesting stories to his viewers.

Deceleration of Time: Erinn, or Madeline as she is known is some circles, is a JET teaching in rural Shikoku. She takes me back to a great year that I also spent in Japan.

Wanderings: Jenn is an English Language Fellow in Estonia. Her blog post titles are often flooded with the vowels and umlauds of Estonian, but her entries are always ripe with reflection.

This blog entry marks my return to the craft, after almost 2 months of trying to keep up with everything else in my life! Later today I'll be flying to England for a conference of English teachers. Finally, I get to blog internationally again. Stay tuned to a flurry of postings and pictures!

Garrapata State Park

As promised, with a little delay, here are some photos from last month's outing to the hills over the Pacific Ocean in Big Sur.


Here's our hiking group, "the happy trails club" on our first outing of the year. This big log was our point of no return: continue climbing to the peak, or go back through the canyon. Of course we went to the top! And what a view!


The misty Big Sur coastline in silhouette. What a place.



Sunset from the trail.


This last post is for Travis and Joy. Four years ago I helped them move this couch into their apartment by hoisting it onto the top of the moving van to enter through the second floor window. Fast-forward to today. Troy have sold me the couch. I tried to get it through my front door and only succeeded in gashing the dry wall. It would turn out that the only way to get this couch into any dwelling is the second floor patio window!

Some thoughts on immigration

My uncle sent me and 20 other people this video on YouTube. I watched it twice because I was concerned about the bias of what it was telling me. I've spent the past 90 minutes crafting a response to all who were included on the email because I think that one benefit of the Internet is not just the mass and cheap distribution of information, but the democratic discussion of that information. Family is one of the few links that we have left in the age of personalized-to-my-world-view news where we encounter other people who don't share our same views. And therein lies the space for healthy discussion. Here's the response I crafted. What do YOU think?



Dear Uncle Bill and all,

Thank you for starting a dialog on an issue that is eminently important: immigration. I just wanted to comment on a few things that were in (and not in) the video, not for the purpose of arguing, but starting a conversation. I'm interested to hear the perspectives of anyone else included in the email.

The rising graph and inexhaustible gumball supply of "third world immigrants" were very striking, but I noticed a few things. In the graph, the bottom line was "200 million" instead of zero, so when the projected year 2030 population of 392 million soared above the zero sum population of 240 million, it looked like a 500% oversupply instead of the actual 163%. To me, the premise for one gumball as 1,000,000 poor people whose standard of living is raised upon emigrating to the USA doesn't reflect the entire gamut of US immigration policy. Only a small percentage of yearly immigrants are refugees, those who may bring no marketable work skills but whose quality of life would increase from the move. Roy Beck's premise seems to be that all 1 million of US immigrants in 1990 (that was the date where hard statistics ended and projected ones began) were allowed in solely to take them out of poverty.

The main purpose of immigration is to boost the economy, which Roy Beck did not mention at all. He did emphasize the expense-side burden of building schools and other infrastructure. As an English as a second language teacher in California, I see this every day. But I also see how hard immigrants of many income-levels work and can imagine how the steady growth of our economy in the past 18 years (since this video was created) has resulted from it. By how many trillions of dollars has our GDP grown with this influx of human capital?

The 4.5 billion people who make less each day than Mexicans probably included 2 billion people from China and India, two countries that have made huge strides economically since 1990. Now they are global competitors. Just read Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat to see how the world situation has changed since 1990.

As for the ravage that the inundation of immigrants would have on our infrastructure and environment, that is surely something to be concerned about. We could look at how countries with much higher population densities (USA ranks 172 out of 238 countries, I think we might be able to squeeze a few more people inside our borders) deal with it: become more efficient with the resources we already have. This could take the form of smart-growth city planning, higher fuel economy, and high-speed train networks that condense the sprawl of communities built around widening roads & freeways. Yet these capacity-building efforts don't seem to get as much traction with voters as protectionist immigration policies do.

As for his recurring mantra that current immigration policy would "totally destroy our social fabric", I am not so sure about that. Roy Beck's call to reset immigration quotas to 1965 levels refers to the Immigration Reform Act of that year, which changed the face of the USA from receiving mostly white European immigrants, to a more global mix. As a Returned Peace Corps volunteer, I was proud to serve my country with a diverse group of people who represented the children of those immigrants.

I am concerned about the effects of overpopulation on global resources and geopolitical issues. I really benefited from reading Critical Masses by George Moffett on this subject. I certainly don't support illegal immigration. I think that if a country based on rule of law can't enforce the laws that it has, it should change the laws one way or another so it can enforce them.

Well, if you've read this far, I guess you can see that I'm interested in this issue. I look forward to hearing what you and others have to say.

Sincerely,

Double Yikes!!

Another month has gone by, and no posts from me. I've had some New Year's resolutions to get underway, so perhaps implementing them has put off my weekly reflections on the blog. Also, I've been keeping up a blog for a teacher research project, so that has taken priority whenever I have the time to blog.

I returned to Salinas from Chicago on Dec 27. I went to a friend's wedding in Stockton on Dec 29. It was good to see people I hadn't seen since college, nine years ago. I welcomed the new year with my girlfriend with quiet night at home. For the rest of that week, I slowly prepared for the resumption of school.

We had 2.5 weeks of classes until the end of the semester, which just occurred this Thursday. I was glad to see that several of the writing skills had "sunken in" over the break. However, some of the students resumed their old antics to disrupt the class. So I've made classroom management a priority for the new semester starting this Monday.

As for my New Year's resolutions, I'm off to a good start. I've visited two gyms to potentially join. I've joined the local Kendo club as a way to stay in shape and keep in touch with my Japan experience. I've also enrolled in a Spanish for Professionals course at the local adult school. The biggest impasse for communicating with parents is my limited vocabulary while talking on the phone. So I've set a goal of improving my skills in this area. Three New Year's resolutions seems like enough for me.

So far this year we've had some pretty dubious weather in Salinas. Rainstorms from the North Pacific have left snow on Mount Toro, leaving the impression that we're in more of a winter wonderland instead of a mild mediterranean garden.

We also took a nice little 5 mile, 5 hour jaunt to Garrapata State Park. The strenuous climb made the wonderful vista at the top all the more lovely. Photos are forthcoming, and won't take another month to post!

Yikes!

I haven't posted in over a month! This hasn't happened to me since I first started my blog seriously in 2005. My humble apologies to my devoted readers, where ever you are! My postings have become fewer and father between because my workload at school has increased. The effort it seems to take to post a visually appealing blog entry with pictures uploaded and an interesting story has seemed daunting with all of my other responsibilities at school.

Ok, enough excuses. Here's what I've been up to since I last posted. My brother and sister-in-law came up to Salinas to celebrate Thanksgiving with me. We had a very active four days while they were here. We returned to Pinnacles National Monument for a day-long 8 mile loop hike. We learned that it doesn't matter which side of the park you enter, it is still the same loop. We didn't see any Condors this time, although we had a nice chat with a Condor-tracking Park Ranger who knew our cousin Jessica from the Ventana Wilderness Society.

We played 9 holes of golf in Pacific Grove. It was painfully frustrating for me because I couldn't drive the ball in the air for more than 30 yards. I had a nice walk out on the greens however. This was my opportunity to try out the golf clubs that my brother was giving to me. With all the other sports that I'm good at, why should I bother picking up one that many people spend their entire lives being frustrated with?

As for our Thanksgiving meal, we spent it with some family friends in Santa Cruz. They cooked the bird and stuffing, we made the mashed potatoes and brussel sprouts. Pumpkin pie for dessert was followed by a walk on the sea cliffs as the sunset. It was a nice way to wrap up the day.

From Thanksgiving to December 14th, we had three weeks of school. I was behind in the curriculum, so I decided to use that time to finish it up. I could tell that my students and I were a bit tired and looking forward to our break. Yet, I had a job to finish. At times it wasn't pretty, but we came to a point of closure where we could enjoy three weeks of holiday without loose strings dangling over our heads that we would have to tie up when we return on January 7th.

Gilda and I went to San Francisco for the day so she could take the CBEST test. She's thinking of other options for work, and substitute teaching is one of them. While she took her test, I went for a run in Golden Gate Park and went shopping at an art supply store for my Christmas presents' material. After the test, we went to the Presidio for a nice view of the Golden Gate bridge. The drive home on 280 was congestion-free and scenic.

I'm starting to think of New Year's resolutions. The end of 2007 has snuck up on me. I couldn't wait for 2006 to be over. 2007 has been filled with plenty of transitions, it has seemed like a long year. Perhaps 2008 will afford some routine and stability to accomplish my goals. Stay tuned. I'll be back before a month has passed this time!

Close Encounters of the Condor Kind

Gilda and I decided to get out of Salinas for the day and head towards Pinnacles National Monument. It's about 30 miles south of us, in the Gabilan Mountains. The drive through the Salinas Valley is always a liberating one, with wide open views of the sloping Gabilan Mountains on one side and the Santa Lucia Range on the other. Route 146 carried us past vineyards and wineries and into the bubbly foothills. The road narrowed to one lane at places, evidence that it was a road less traveled.

We pulled into the Chapparal Ranger Station, ruffling the feathers of the park rangers because we parked in the lot before paying our use fees. The nerve of us! wanting to park once instead of twice! I got the routine spiel from the head ranger there about places to go. The drone and precision of his pronunciation gave me the impression that he's done this for a long time! Gilda and I looked at the display detailing the hikes we could take. We passed on the all-day hikes because it was already 3pm. We either would go on the 100 ft-elevation-change hike to the Cliffs and Cave or the 1200 ft-elevation-change to the High Peaks. We both agreed on the peaks. Once underway, we discovered what kind of a hike we were in for.

Our approach took us through Juniper Canyon with an impressive view of the Pinnacles and a gradual slope. We met maybe 10 hikers on their way down. We were the only ones going up at the time, as the shadows across the mountain tops were getting longer and the light struck the rocks with brilliant orange and red hues. Then we started up the switchback climb to the peak. This was pretty strenuous, with plenty of water breaks and photo ops taken. Halfway up, we spotted what we thought were juvenile California Condors, an endangered but slowly recovering species. We could tell by their underwing pattern that they weren't golden eagles or turkey vultures. Gilda remarked that they were probably checking us out, too. I doubted that, I mean, we're alive and walking right? They're only interested in us if we're staggering to our deaths, right?

Thirty minutes later we've huffed and puffed our way to the top of the Pinnacles. We sit on a little bench, near the top of Scout Peak. From here one can look down both sides of the mountain. The sunlight was amazing, so we decided to take some self-portraits with the scenery in the background. We had to do a couple of takes because I was getting cropped out of the picture. Little did we know that a creature as large as us was approaching from behind. In the first picture, you can see a bird flapping its wings in the center, just above Gilda's head. Just as we took our last picture, I see this colossal bird fly past us at eye-level. The "Viiwhoozh" of its gliding wings startled both of us before we knew what it was. The second picture was captured just after it passed us. The bird's wingtips were like long fingers grabbing every spare gust of wind. Its head was fuzzy and small, with deep black eyes. I remember a blur of white and black feathers, probably its under wing and back feathers. Of course, something that big and flying could only be a California Condor. And one of 127 surviving in the wild. How rare an encounter is that? After it passed us, it circled higher overhead and turned its head to pan the area where we were standing. Gilda was sure that it was checking us out and now I conceded a "yes". (Later on I would confirm this with my cousin Jessica, who runs the bird lab in Andrew Molera State Park. Condors can see color and are quite curious as juveniles.) After circling, it withdrew behind the ridge to the east side of the park.

I scrambled up to the highest point to see if the condor would circle around one more time. But s/he was gone. With my point-and-shoot camera I could barely zoom in for details, so you'll have to click on these pictures for closer looks. Gilda and I tried to recreate the situation a little later, for posterity of course. We wondered if these condors didn't quite have the "street smarts" to avoid humans because the collective memory of their small population and captive breeding doesn't pass on the message "if you see a big thing in an orange jacket, its a human, so stay away!" We didn't mind because we had an exhilarating experience getting close to something most people have never seen. Two other blogs have recently posted some condor news. Laura's Birding Blog reports that a new California law bans the use of lead bullets in condor territory. Simon Bisson in Big Sur captured a great photo of an adult condor near Nepenthe.



Our descent down the Pinnacles was faster than our climb, the setting sun left us little time to dawdle. Gilda and I recounted our reactions to the event, speculated the chances of it happening again, and wished we had a zoom lens or the video footage of its approach. The red and orange Pinnacles were now an ashy grey, shutting off their splendor to rest for the night. We made it to the parking lot by dusk, eager to come back to the Pinnacles while our 7-day use pass was still valid.

Maybe we'll come next Saturday to see the caves. Who knows, maybe we'll have a close encounter with another magnificient flying creature: a bat!

Oh Where Oh Where Have I Gone?

I have almost been gone from the blog for a month. That's indicative of my work schedule and weekend obligations which have kept me from the blog. To justice to an entry, I feel like I need to upload pictures, set up hyperlinks, and have someplace interesting to write about.

Since my trip to Seattle, I've gone to LA for my brother's birthday. That's about it. The soccer season ended at the middle school, so now I have 90 minutes back to my planning time after school. I still end up leaving school around 7 pm each night. I am slowly getting out of the habit of just preparing enough for the next day and onto week-at-a-time planning.

And it seems like I can't write anything without talking about school. I've made an effort to keep up a weekly posting at my teaching blog. That was mostly for the sake of my proposal to present at the TESOL conference in NYC. But, alas, our proposal wasn't accepted. A little bit of a let down, but there still is hope. An identical proposal was submitted to the UK's TEFL organization and accepted.

Life's duties and chores haven't been put into little boxes lately, either. My living arrangements still feel temporary. The apartment's furnishings bare. Somehow, my lack of roots has translated into a scant blog for the past month. Given some grounding, I'll be back to blogging on a regular basis. Until then, brief notes will have to do.

Wedding and Birthday Bash in Seattle

At first I was apprehensive about it. My cousin's wedding in Seattle coinciding with my birthday. I don't like to make a big deal out of my birthdays, so I thought my celebratory-loving cousin would try to make a big deal of it. In actuality, it turned out that David and Shelly mentioned it along with a few other birthdays of wedding guests. I wasn't the only one.

Seattle was a welcome respite from the routine of school. I took Friday off so I could make the rehearsal dinner. The area has so many trees and green foliage, it makes the Monterey area look quite dry in comparison. We were lucky to get some sunshine on the day we arrived. It was forecast for rain on the other two days of the weekend. That never panned out though.


We did the major tourist things in our free time away from the festivities: Pike Place Market, Space Needle, and Westlake Center. It was Gilda's first time, so we did those things as her introduction. I just happened to take this quick snapshot as we were passing by the skyline on our way home. JK! I'm too lazy to upload my pictures that I borrowed one from another site. Visit the School of Law at Seattle University as a courtesy for them letting me link to the photo!

Greek EFL Teacher beaten by police

Another blogger that I link to, Teacher Dude BBQ in Greece, just published some pictures of the election campaigns there. He moonlights as a photographer, too. Got quite a talent, so its hard to pin him down as one or the other. Allegedly, he was bruised and scraped by riot police while taking some of his pictures. Please visit him to show your ESL/free press/photography solidarity.

His post about the blog response to his published evidence of the beatings have brought a lot of people to his site and an interview with local media. I think it goes to show that our published entries can go anywhere once we hit the "publish" button!

Meet some of my friends

I haven't posted for a while because I've taken a few trips (Bay Area, Monterey, Santa Cruz) that have pictures waiting to post, but they all require stories that I have to sit down for a while to tell. With my new teaching job, those moments are preciously few. So I'm spending my Friday evening to sit down and tell you about some of my blog friends. This is a "shout out" and "big up" to all those people's blogs that I like to read and an attempt to share them with you, too.

This first one is Geoffrey Philp. We met in cyberspace while I was blogging in Japan. I'd subscribed to a feed of caribbean blogs to keep up with news on the ground over there. Geoffrey had recently written about a soccer match he'd played with Bob Marley. I wrote a post about it, he found it, and we began a dialogue which has continued on and off to this day. Geoffrey is an author who lives, writes, and teaches in Miami, Florida.

Pickeled Eel is another interesting story. I don't know how I found his blog, but he writes about his travels, like me, but on a bigger scale of audiences. I was surprised to find out that he's currently on location in Iraq now. Check out his blog for some interesting footage and narration.

Red Squirrel is a linguistics student at Moscow State University. I think we met through the mybloglog feature that puts the pictures of registered users in a panel when they've visited my blog. Its a great way to make blogging correspondences a little more personal. Maria writes about her studies, interactions with Russian language, culture, and people. All of these things I miss since I studied at St. Petersburg State University ten years ago.

A recent blog friend I've made is Ulla. We actually met face to face via my friends Travis and Joy Long, who also happen to run their own blog about home improvement after 9-5 jobs in Pacific Grove. It was actually the first live conversation I'd had in a room where everyone else kept a blog. We got to talk shop for a few minutes, and its from Ulla that I got the idea to link to more blogs and make more comments on others blogs. An interesint thing about Ulla is that she's an Icelandic-American who runs a design company with her sister and blogs about cooking.

Hippie Gypsy runs an interesting blog musing about whatever comes to mind. She always has something kind to say.

And one last blog that I enjoy peeking in on from time to time is "Back to Living in Paradise". Lee is an expat American living in Belize. She's just dodged her second hurricane in as many week. She's got a great sense of humor and writes about the Caribbean life that I miss from my years in Jamaica.

It's on the way to Santa Fe

In the middle of my move to Monterey, I had to take a trip to Albuquerque. Its an annual retreat that I take, and I haven't missed it for nine years despite living in Africa, the Caribbean, and Japan during that time.

This year's trip was another short one, just 36 hours to see a little bit more of the city, attend the meeting, and then fly back to LA. I mostly hung out around the University of New Mexico, pretending to be a college student by sitting around reading my book, listening to the water trickle from the fountain, and peruse the people passing by. Passing for a local is a fun way to really get to know a city that you're visiting for a short time. Just ask Rick Steves, he's the expert!

As for Albuquerque's local flavors, I got my fill of sopapillas (lightly fried flour tortillas with a pocket to squeeze honey in) and other New Mexican culinary delights. Over dinners at Garduno's and breakfasts at Waffle House, I caught up with the other attendees of the retreat that I usually only see once a year, but keep in touch with during the rest of it.

The sky seems so much bigger here, with space for the cumulonimbus clouds that threaten but do not thrill with rain. The earthy adobe architecture recalls a simpler way to live (albeit Albuquerque is one of USA's fastest growing metropolises) that helps me relax from bumping elbows with the upward ladder climbers of LA.

Well, once I came home from this trip, it was just two short days before I loaded the last of my belongings into a U-Haul trailer and made the 350 mile trek North to Salinas. That's another story for another blog. One to be updated soon, I hope!

Destination: Monterey

After a year of searching for a good fitting ESL-teaching job in Long Beach, I've had to face facts that the local school district isn't offering me just that. So I set my sights further afield in California. And I got a nice offer from a school district in Salinas, home of John Steinbeck and the nation's summer vegetables. So it made a good excuse for a road trip. Just as soon as I finished an interview in West Covina, I drove straight up I-5 through the San Joaquin Valley and arrived in Monterey about 6 hours later.

I spent 3 lovely nights on cousin Jessica's couch cushions on the floor in her apartment, which happens to be the apartment we lived in together when I was studying at MIIS. Wednesday and Thursday were spent catching up with friends, talking to the career/alumni director at MIIS for job leads, and talking to some of those leads. My challenging experience at Constellation made me think twice about teaching middle school again, so I've been considering to teach at community college, adult school, or university levels. It was a good feeling to get some offers to teach at the MIIS ESL programs just by showing up. Woody Allen was right, 80% of success is just showing up.


Thursday afternoon was Jessica's birthday. We celebrated with her ornithology labmates at Lover's Cove in Pacific Grove. Jess was surprised and we all enjoyed the hot dogs and cake!



Friday I went over to Salinas to meet face-to-face with the assistant Principal at La Paz Middle School. They've been very enthusiastic about hiring me, so it was a good feeling to met her and get a tour of the school. There was a bit of a snafu with the district office with what position they could offer me, so I ened up going to another middle school in town that also had a position available. Both schools extended offers of great support and desire for me to work with them. This is 180º from what Long Beach USD as given me with a year of subbing and cold shoulders in HR (with the exception of Constellation teachers who always had my back), so I left there in the afternoon with a smile of strong consideration towards how my life could change if I took the position.

Fast forward a week. I accepted La Paz's offer to teach ELD on Wednesday. Now I'm frantically trying to get packed and moved to Salinas/Monterey by next Tuesday. I have certainly accumulated a lot of stuff here in the past year (no fault of my own as my sister sent a lot of things out for me to keep the family legacy alive). Craig and I will sort it out on Sunday.

Sadly, though, I had to cancel my Jamaican vacation because school starts in Salinas on August 22. Well, hopefully I can go in December with 3 weeks of vacation. Nice! Next stop: Albuquerque, New Mexico!

3 more days

Three more days until school is out. I can't wait and neither can the students. August portends many days of relaxation, travel, and reflection on my next steps. Stay tuned for what they can be.