Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Transitions
Monday, November 14, 2011
first week and a half in class
Unfortunately, it takes an hour and a half to two hours each way, but it’s possible I'll get a “carrito” to drive to the capital (although that's going to take some courage!). Let's just say that Manhattan looks like a quiet country road compared to here...
While it takes forever to get to the capital, I'm happy to say I'm finally comfortable navigating my way around Guatemala City. It's HUGE, has a HORRIBLE reputation, and is SUPER busy. When you get past that and realize it's just another big city, it suddenly becomes more manageable. The first day I left at 5:30 and the trip was pretty fast, but leaving at 6am, the traffic was crazy. With time, I'll get myself into the groove.
The first day started off with a few of the big wigs talking about school and the most entertaining part was how they really drove in that we're no longer in [the Guatemalan equivalent of] high school – this is the university and it's TOUGH. Apparently about 30-40% of students don't survive the first year. Upon hearing that, I suppose I can agree with the MCAT's tactics a little bit more than I used to (although I still hate it), as it predicts success in the first year of medical school quite well. So instead of screening beforehand here, the class will just shrink a bunch the second year I guess. If I heard correctly, there are only about 1000 graduates from the school which makes 50/year. This year there are about 100 in my class.
This month, I'm only taking a review of math, chemistry, physics, and biology. In the spring, the real classes begin. So far, they’ve all started off well. Chemistry looks like it's going to be especially easy. As for biology, I'll start with the initial arrival of the professor – I could tell her Spanish was a little different and even struggled to understand her at times. When I went up to her after class to ask a couple questions, it turns out she's American, but has been here since she was 12. She went on to explain that most professors are bilingual and I'll be able to answer in English on the tests if I'm not sure how to say it in Spanish...boy I wasn't expecting that kind of special treatment!
We talked quite a bit Thursday and Friday and it appears I'll likely be able to skip chem, physics, and math, but it'll probably be a good idea to take biology even though most of it will be review. Since it's cell bio, they go into detail of some things I somehow skipped at Berkeley. Kind of odd, if you ask me...I read it over today, though, and it doesn't look too bad.
So we'll see how the rest of the month goes, but in any case I'm very excited and know it will turn out well. I'll keep everyone posted on any new updates. :)
Friday, November 4, 2011
Starting School Soon 11/3!
- UFM Medical School
- Article about correspondence between one of the Koch brothers and Hayek: Hayek wrote for years about how horrible social security is, yet gladly used Austria’s socialized medicine when he had problems with his gall bladder. Fearing he wouldn’t get such good care in the US, he couldn’t come to work at the Koch brothers’ think tank. They wrote back reminding him his work in Chicago advocating against social security qualified him for it, so “come on down!”
- Random article on Austrian Economics, if I read it correctly it’s saying that the analogy about broken windows (or disasters, in real life) are good because the money goes toward industry for making the window and pays someone to fix it…hooray! Except that money was always there and could have gone to something more productive, otherwise we’d want to destroy the city so someone could make money rebuilding it!
- And on last article I found tearing apart Austrian economics explaining why it's wrong
Thursday, October 20, 2011
homecoming
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
update on the power outage
Monday, September 5, 2011
even stranger weather!
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
mating
Screaming children…dirty diapers (or finding your niece in a puddle, as was my luck on Saturday)…getting hit…ruined furniture. Goodnight kisses…hugs good-bye…singing lullabies…learning to talk …playing games. It’s a tough call…something to anxiously look forward to and rush into as fast as possible or something to dread and put off until, well…until that maternal or paternal instinct does whatever it does to make us forget about that first part.
There’s no doubt I’m in the “waiting” camp. Waiting…until I am no longer in school. Waiting…until I have a real job. Waiting…until I won’t pull my hair out regretting having put myself in that position (granted, at the rate I’m going, I won’t need to worry because there will be nothing to pull out).
The sudden urge to express my thoughts on childrearing entered my mind for a few reasons. I finally spent a few hours alone with my niece the other day, which gave me a better taste of what having a child is really like…on second thought one could call it a misconception because it was only a few hours until she was no longer my problem. But I also help take care of her when her cousin is here as well. The two together is much more challenging because the word share is simply not yet part of their vocabulary. Going through the famous “terrible-twos” stage, they demand everything (and unfortunately are accustomed to getting it) and must EACH receive a toy when Min (their name for me, since they can’t say Benjamin) brings back any toys from his travels. I was getting somewhere this weekend, when Wendy and I were playing with them, passing a little man on a skateboard back and forth, but it did not last long, as my niece would throw a tantrum every time her cousin received the toy. Someone remind me what age you’re supposed to start learning how to share!
As many of you know, I’ve begun a personal growth process. The main focus I’ve taken is eliminating negative thinking and behavior (gossiping, even if we try to call it an intelligent discussion between two rational adults about someone we happen to not like being the most important of those behaviors) because in the last year my efforts to minimize these two things have made me so much more happy. An important part of this process, for me, is how we interact with children. Their bonding and love for us is good for ourselves (the limbic system, specifically, according to the latest book I’m working through) as well as for them because unconditional love is what they need more than anything. For exactly this reason, I take notice of everything I see, perhaps in an effort to recognize what not to do as well as things I see here I wouldn’t have imagined in the States that are probably extremely beneficial to a child’s development.
Volunteering in a public health clinic, a big proportion of the patients I see are children under ten. Most of them are the most misbehaved children you can imagine. From what I see, discipline consists of hitting, belittling (calling them dirty instead of acknowledging behavior that could get them sick or is “socially unacceptable,” for example), or the easiest by far to do – permitting the bad behavior and giving in to the children’s demands.
When I see that such negative energy does nothing to help the child, I can’t help but ask myself what the best thing to do is. I’m certainly no expert, I’m in no position to criticize, and I know that bad behavior needs to be corrected, but how to do it? Here was one idea I had. Excellent, theoretically, if I do say so myself…but it didn’t quite work. My nephew likes to run around charging at people with a plastic stool. If he’s not charging full speed ahead with it out front, it’s on top of his head. Either way, it’s very dangerous and every so often, he falls and bangs up his face. I try to keep an eye on it and tell him not to do it, but he’ll just run away. One day, I decided to talk to him about it. Instead of screaming at him, as is the custom here, I grabbed him, putting my arm around his little belly – as is the easiest way to restrain a child, I’ve found, as it’s so much more loving than violently grabbing their wrist – and stopped him. “Why are you running around with that stool on your head?” Laughter. “Anderson, you can’t run around like that because you can fall and hurt yourself! Remember when you fell the other day because you were running around with this?” He seemed to remember and even seemed to be responding that he wanted to fall. Since then, whenever he sees me and notices there is a stool nearby, he picks it up and runs around with it exactly in the manner I don’t want him to do, just because he knows he’ll get me upset. So much for a rational adult conversation with a two year old, trying to explain rationally why he should do something for his OWN safety…
So…I ask…what is the right answer? There are so many traumatic things we can do to children when punishing them in a seemingly harmless way. But, how can a child know the difference between having an accident being called filthy because pee is dirty versus direct insults, leading them to believe THEY are filthy for having wet their pants? Or, what are they supposed to think, being called dirty, just for exploring their bodies…that part of their body is a dirty thing that can’t be touched or shown to anyone ever? I’ll keep practicing, hoping my guinea pigs don’t get too traumatized and that it’s nothing I’ve said that they have to carry into their adult life to work through. And as for me…there’s no doubt I’ll be waiting quite a while before having my own creatures to look after.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
updates
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Strange Storm Last Night
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
latest news
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
el gringo que pincha
Monday, May 2, 2011
busy day today
Saturday, April 30, 2011
learning to ride a motorcycle
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Navigating Uncharted Territory In Guatemala City
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
El Ranchero en la Ciudad
Despues de comer, yo di una vuelta para explorar el barrio. No solamente me había ido del metropolis en el Petén, sino que la gente y los edificios parecían como los de San Francisco, California. Por Dios estaba confundido. En el centro comercial solo había tiendas de ropa de moda, electrónicos, y cafeterías con menus mostrados por pantallas planas.
Yo arreglé todas mis cosa y me fui para los antecedentes penales. Desde la Zona 10, el edificio donde los encontraría estaba cerca en la Zona 9. Disfrutaba el clima fresco de las montañas. Me encanta el calor, por eso me mudé al Petén en el primer lugar. Sin embargo, me gustaba el calor esa mañana. (Excepto cuando salía del bus sin sospechar que hubiera tanto frio, en ese momento me grité estoy congeládome el trasero ahora...) Tal vez me dio un sentimiento de nostalgia. Perdido en esos pensamientos, caminaba para los documentos para mi visa cuando había un patrullo de policías a la vista. Lo único que me podía decir fue que siempre los policías me habían tratado bien. Bueno, había una un poco chismosa, pero no importa. Si no me molestan, está bien. Pero de repente, sin siquiera hablarme, me señalaron que me pusiera contra la pared con las manos arriba. ¡Pues, ya no eran tan amables como antes! “¿Adónde vas? ¿De dónde sos?” “Pues, soy de los Estados Unidos. Y estoy caminando para conseguir mis antecedentes penales...” “Solo tiene el billetero” dice uno al otro. “Y qué hacés en Guatemala? ¿Vas a trabajar?”
Apenas pude contestar todas las preguntas. No llevaba nada importante y fue obvio que solo me quisieron molestar. Lo siento, muchá, solo me divirtieron con sus tonterías. Cuando me dijo “no problem” me fui caminando rapido, intentando a no reírme todavía.
Despues del primer obstaculo, llegó otro. ¡¿Cómo cruzar estas carreteras?! Wendy me había dicho que contruyen puentes para peatones más que nada para los extranjeros. ¡Ya comprendo por qué! Fue como un juego de “Frogger” (veáse la foto abajo). Creo que había hasta cuatro carriles a la vez. En total, para cruzar esta carreterota, había que cruzar ocho o diez carriles, pero por lo menos había banquetas para tomar un descanso en medio. Y por fin, despues de esta larga excursión, llegué al edificio de antecedentes penales. Yo y otras 150 personas.
A pesar de tanta gente, el proceso iba rapido y salí con mis papeles dentro de media hora. Cuando esperaba, leía que había más tareas para los extranjeros. Despues de recibir este documento oficial, había que autenticarlo. Y despues, había que autenticarlo de nuevo. Sí, dos veces. Lo miré despues de recibirlo y vi que tenía la firma y el suello. Le pregunté al muchacho si estaba bien así y me dijo claro que si y que yo fuera a la corte suprema para autenticarlo de nuevo.
Cuando llegué al palacio de justicia, me dijo que no, no estaba bien. “Mirá pues, tenés que regresar al mismo edificio. Necesitás una firma y un suello original; estos son digitales. Cuando los tengás, regresá pa’ acá.” Bueeeeeno le dije. Regresé adonde acababa de salir y me dieron lo que buscaba. Regresé al palacio de justicia para que mi nuevo amigo me pudiera decir “Lo siento, pero tenés que comprar timbres de diez quetzales.” “¿No hay aquí?” “No, buscalos afuero. Todos los venden.” Y despues de comprarlos, por fin estaba listo para terminar todo esto. Regresé y al darselo, me dijo que estarían listos el día siguiente. “¿CÓMO?” Le dije. Sí. Despues de todo, tuve que esperar otro día.
Por lo menos, hasta entonces, me había acostombrado a andar por la capital y tenía un poco menos miedo. Fui a la oficina de migración para hacer preguntas y empezar a arreglar mis asuntos con ellos. Despues, regresé al apartamento donde me quedaba para el resto de la tarde. Salí solo para cenar, donde gasté más por una cena que se debe gastar por comida para toda la familia por todo el día.
El próximo día, me traveseé a tomar el transmetro bus. Despues de probarlo, me tuve que preguntar que en el diablo estaba haciendo malgastando tanto dinero con los taxistas cuando el sistema de transporta era tan bueno. Regresé para recoger mis documentos y despues visité al médico. Cansadisimo por caminar tanto y sin poder respirar despues de soportar tanto humo en la ciudad por dos días, por fin me encuentro descansando en Antigua, listo para disfrutar de la Semana Santa.