Work and Home

No puedo creer que hayan pasado ya dos meses que no escribo. It just goes way too fast. And here I am getting ready to travel again in another month. Pero sólo por dos días esta vez. Oh - I forgot the overnighter coming up in a week and a half for the Hispanic affairs conference dealie. *sigh*

Dicen que se reconoce lo que te es importante por cómo pasás tu tiempo. While I agree with that in principle, I don't think it's accurate for my own life. I would love to be home with mis niños instead of working, for example, pero no puedo. Si no trabajo, no comemos. Y aunque mi trabajo me es importante no me es más importante que ellos. And I would give up the job and the professional organization positions and the travel etc. in a heartbeat to be able to stay home.

So maybe it's better said that you can tell what's most important to me by how I spend my non-work time?

Nerudaaaaaaaaa!!!

Pues aquí estoy en mi oficina un sábado. The stupid campus library doesn't open until noon on Saturdays, so I had two and a half hours to kill once I was in town. Limpié la capilla esta mañana comenzando a las ocho. Sólo yo y un hermano llegamos, and I had been working a little while before he arrived. Then about ten past nine another couple came in thinking the project was to start at 9:00. I didn't mind. I like cleaning the church. Siempre siento mucha paz al hacerlo. Me gusta llevar a los niños para ayudar también so they will get the experience and develop the love of the service as well, but I didn't bring any of them today. That's because I was heading for the library afterward!! I'm working on a project on Pablo Neruda - más específicamente sobre sus obras. He escogido una sección de "Alturas de Macchu Picchu" de su Canto General para presentar en la clase and I'll do my final project on that as well. I'm thinking maybe I will do a comparative analsis of that and "Taki Ongoy" by Victor Heredia. I love that piece, and there are thematic similarities up the wazoo.
At least these 2-1/2 hours weren't completely wasted. I made about a dozen interlibrary loan requests via the library website. Ahora tengo que ir allá para sacar unas revistas y libros que tienen en su collección miserable.
Chau.

Live from San Antonio

I guess this will be a monolingual posting because my laptop doesn't do Spanish characters, apparently, and if I can't spell it right I won't post it.

I like San Antonio. The Riverwalk is very cool. Last night I took a river taxi with some friends, which I really enjoyed, and we went out to dinner. I liked the backwater end. Lots of neat creeping plants, partial mosaics, and that sort of thing. The active end of it was pretty neat, too, but for completely different reasons. I could live here and like it very much.

The hotel staff has been great. They were very supportive during the conference and made things so easy for me. Our liaison was very efficient. She not only reacted well to our needs, she though preemptively. Response from the membership was overhelmingly positive, and the food was outstanding. Anybody out there looking for a hosting hotel in San Antonio? I strongly recommend the Crowne Plaza Riverwalk Hotel.

I love being in a town where Spanish is spoken alongside English. I can visit in Spanish with someone anyplace I go. I can conduct business transactions in Spanish here. When I lived in Idaho, speaking Spanish in public was frowned upon, while here it is celebrated. I'm for celebrating.

Viva la lengua de los dioses.

Some spring break

So the U had Spring Break last week. Not that it matters to staff like me, who have to come to work anyway even though all if the students we normally serve are off in Key West or Aruba or some such good place. But I digress. Turns out that the spousal unit wound up in the hospital for five days. Resulta que le pegó una infección durante su cirugía más reciente, en enero. So the doctor opened the surgery site back up and cleaned out the infection, but had to culture it to see what the bug was. Llevó tres días el análisis. Aunque recibimos buenas noticias en que no era la variedad que resiste los antibióticos, era Staphylococcus aureus. And staph ain't pretty no matter what. Así que se quedó dos días más en el hospital y le mandaron a casa el martes como a las 20 horas. Los chicos andaban medio muertos de hambre because we were told the discharge would happen around 4 in the afternoon and we hadn't planned on still being out past a mealtime. Then when we got home everybody was T-I-R-E-D!!! Even though we're all home now, we have to deal with IV antibiotics three times a day. Yep. There's a long-term line installed. Le dicen PICC line, que quiere decir "peripherally insterted cardiac catheter." Le entra en el brazo y pasa por sus venas para descargar los antibióticos cerca su corazón. Lovely. And looking at the site where it enters the skin gives us both the heebie jeebies. But we've made it thus far. It's been a tough six months, though.

Mi viaje

Volví ayer de Filadelfia donde asistí a una conferencia profesional. The last morning I was there I hoofed it from my hotel to Independence Hall because I very much wanted to see the Liberty Bell before leaving. Me quedé bastante melancólica al llegar allí. While I was looking around to find the entrance to the hall (I'm so stupid - the bell isn't even in the hall anymore) a guard from the grounds blew his whistle and hollered at two guys trying to cross the street near where I was standing. Resulta que no se puede simplemente cruzar la calle y entrar. ¡No! Hay que pasar por una security checkpoint primero - more detailed and sensitive than getting on a plane. Cuando supe eso casi me puse a llorar. Here I am standing on a spot highly symbolic of personal and political freedom, and I'm not even allowed to cross the street.

Ah, la ironía.

I did finally figure out where to go, passed through security, and saw the bell.

Hmmm

Wasn't really planning on starting a blog. Just wanted to be able to post comments to one I'd been invited to read, etc. But maybe this will be fun, too.