As usual, Borges says it best...


East Lansing

Los días y las noches
están entretejidos (interwoven) de memoria y de miedo,
de miedo, que es un modo de la esperanza,
de memoria, nombre que damos a las grietas del obstinado olvido.
Mi tiempo ha sido siempre un Jano bifronte
que mira el ocaso y la aurora;
mi propósito de hoy es celebrarte, oh futuro inmediato.
Regiones de la Escritura y del hacha,
árboles que miraré y no veré,
viento con pájaros que ignoro, gratas noches de frío
que irán hundiéndose en el sueño que con el tiempo serán hábitos,
despertares en que mi diré Hoy es Hoy,
libros que mi mano conocerá,
amigos y amigas que serán voces,
arenas amarillas del poniente, el único color que me queda,
todo eso estoy cantando y asimismo
la insufrible memoria de lugares de Buenos Aires
en los que no he sido feliz
y en los que no podré ser feliz...

I've been thinking a lot about feminism.  A friend of mine goes to a very conservative Christian college which recently hosted a forum on women's issues.  One of the key speakers was a professor's wife, who effectively stood up in front of a room full of extremely intelligent (this is a difficult school to get into) college girls and told them that all the career planning they're doing, all the decisions they're making about internships and majors and jobs, are part of their "fun time" as single women, and that all that is to take second place to the only true callings in their lives, marriage and motherhood.  That only as soon as they leave college and marry can their real lives begin. 
When my friend first told me about this lecture I wasn't sure how to respond.  I go to a (very liberal) college where everyone is encouraged to treat others first as fellow people, students, coworkers, etc, and second (if at all) as male or female or anything in between.  To me this kind of thinking has become natural and it was hard for me to believe that not only do the kind of views expressed by this woman still exist, but that they are still taken seriously.  At my school and with my family and friends, people make jokes about beliefs like this that are so widely accepted as archaic and ridiculous that they generally offend no one. 
And yet, the sort of culture shock that I experience when confronted secondhand by beliefs like this are nothing to what my friend experiences on a day to day basis at her school.  People tell her that she is crazy for being egalitarian in her views and that she should pray that God will help her work through these "problems" and help her see that her true calling is not to have a purpose of her own in this world but to serve her (hypothetical) husband's.  Any argument she makes is either treated as ridiculous or given little attention because she, as a female, must have evil intentions if she is trying to shrug off the purpose God has given to all women.
This line of thinking is so far from anything that I've been exposed to that I would truly have no idea how to respond if I were in her place.  How do you respond to someone who refuses to take you seriously merely because of your gender and yet believes they have God on their side? 

Today I sliced my finger open on a wire hanger.  Ouch!!!  Right on the cuarto!  I put this big bulky band aid on it and now it's hard to type.
However, the other day at the doctor's they made me step on a scale, which is something I haven't done in a long, long time.  Apparently I've lost *all* my Chile weight!  Hooray!! 


The double chin, apparently, is for life though. 



P.S. I did officially drop German, and my quality of life has dramatically improved.  Kein Kafka mehr!!