Nonsense, Drivel, and Balderdash

Summer is officially here now. It is hot. It is sunny. Various immigrant groups challenge the concept of "bare minimum" clothing, though I am sure islamic cultures would say the same of us. But I digress. Summer is here. I have finished with my adult classes (yay!), and now I am going to teach the wee folk (children, that is, not fairies and pixies). Camp starts tomorrow. Last summer I was at an english camp in Ciudad Real, my hometown, about 2.5 hours south of madrid. This year I am in Burgos, about 3 hours north of Madrid. It should be better that way in terms of the scorching heat of the southern spanish plains (contrary to popular belief, the rain in spain doesnt fall mainly on the plains. It falls in the northwest). Anyway, that is all for now.

You spend about 22 years of your life following a pattern, a map, that is laid out before you. When you are a child, you get up and go to bed when told. "Brush your teeth, eat your veggies, dont scream obscenities from the balcony"... life is pretty simple. Then you enter school and things do not really get more complicated, they just get busier... "do your homework, get up, dont be late for school, dont throw sand in anyone's eyes..." High School finally begins to give us more options, with the freedom and responsibility that accompany such things. "Choose your hobbies, choose your friends, choose your -gulp- college." But really, the options are limited. There are only so many colleges to choose. Once you go to college you have other options to pick from, "choose a major, choose a dorm, roommate, part time job..." But even so, they dont call your college studies "a track" for nothing... once you are on the way it is not too compl...

Today was the last day at one of the businesses that I teach at. I have been teaching there for 9 months now, which is a respectable amount of time. I have taught there for 5 hours a day during that period, making it my largest and most reliable source of income. Most of my students were middle managment types: lawyers, administrators, and accountants. Most of them were in their middle to late 30s. I was a bit surprised when, in the middle of one of my classes, the rest of my students barged in with a couple of presents. They gave me a 'thank-you' card and a few gifts. The gifts included a very nice leatherbound notebook as well as a fancy pen and mechanical pencil set. "These is for your writing" one of them said, "after 9 months we know you a little." So I was a bit touched that they did that, none of my other students will do anything of the sort I am sure. Hopefully I will get to go back there next year. But for now things are coming to a change... summe...

You hear it all the time... people are desensitized to sex and violence due to the media. Kids have no problem killing each other because they play too much Halo and have lost respect for sex due to hollywood and the porn industry. Sit 'em down for a 8 hour Tarantino and Rodriguez movie marathon and they could chop off their on hands with meat cleavers without blinking... or so some people claim. I think that kind of power is great. No, seriously. The desensitizing power of the media is awesome, it is just misdirected. There are a million things that I would love to be desensitized to. Take, for example, Moths. The Moth is my cosmic nemesis. In the vast swirlings of fate and the universe, the Moth and I are at an existential high noon standoff.... a standoff where it flutters erratically in my direction and I run screaming like a little girl. Yes. I have a case of Mottephobia , or "moth fear". Those hairy, dusty, vile little insects cause a panic in me that is completely ...

A couple of months ago I wrote about a pretty killer music festival called Primavera Sound . It was this past weekend, and yours truly was there. Let me say one thing about this festival.... its pretty friggin awesome. For one thing, it is very very well organized and set up. The Barcelona Parc Forum is probably the best place I have seen for a festival of this kind so far. For another thing, the ambience was great. The kind of people that go see bands like Múm, the Sonic Youth and Patty Smith, are my kind of people. It was all contemporary music nerds who liked to rock. I got along great with that kind of crowd. I also fell in love with about half of the girls there. Both the dread headed hippy chicks with their flowing skirts, short haired hipsters with their dark rimmed glasses... both the tanned spanish local girls and the blonde Northern european travelers... the deep thinkers and the party rockers... but mostly the girl who worked at the CD merchandising booth. Sigh... But enou...