Girl Anachronicles

A few months ago I came across a trailer that set my body hairs on end and gave me something to really look forward to. My life at that moment was a mishmash blur or Battlestar Galactica, the Sci-Fi forums and Heroes. The trailer I watched that day reminded me of all the fantastic things I was watching and reading. I would afterwards realize I am indeed a natural science fiction freak, since I ate Dune up like it was melted butter.

I failed to save the trailer among my favorites in YouTube, though, and a week later I couldn’t remember for the life of me the name of the movie. Several weeks later, someone mentioned Bridge to Terabithia in a local forum, so I went to look, just in case that was the movie… no such luck, other than it reminded me of yet another version of Chronicles of Narnia. Then The Golden Compass was mentioned, and I thought “This is it!”, but when I looked I was … well … disappointed is not it, because it truly got my attention also, but I had been looking for the name of that movie for so long, it was beginning to seem like I had dreamt it up! Besides, I didn’t recall seeing a talking polar bear in the trailer… However, I HAVE to see that! A talking polar bear as guardian to a little girl. I can feel tears galore forming under my eyelids already!

I sat this morning to breakfast with an old Wired magazine and I read a short interview with Bob Shaye talking about his latest film: The Last Mimzy… and it struck like lightning. This is it!

And lo and behold! It was!!!

Funny thing is, Bob Shaye is sort of the reason why Peter Jackson will not be directing The Hobbit, and he is also, I just found out,the producer to The Golden Compass. So there you go!

Those who know me, though, know that the selling point in that trailer for me was the whole allegory to Alice in Wonderland and the white rabbit.

Bueno, esto me parece que ya lo había hecho antes (o cosas similares). Pero nunca está de más auto-evaluarse periódicamente. (Sí, porque para eso son estas cosas)

1. Cada jugador(a) comienza con un listado de 8 cosas sobre sí mismo.
2. Tienen que escribir en su blog esas ocho cosas, junto con las reglas del juego.
3. Tienen que seleccionar a 8 personas más para invitar a jugar y anotar sus blogs/nombres.
4. No olvides dejarles un comentario en sus blogs respectivos de que han sido invitadas a participar.

8 Cosas Sobre Mí Misma (o algo…)

1) Prefiero pasar frío que pasar calor. El frío se resuelve añadiendo ropa. El calor no hay modo de quitarlo sin desvestirse y meterse en una ducha fría.

2) Aprendí a nadar a los 20 años de edad en la universidad. Desde chiquita le había tenido terror al agua. Pasé muchas vergüenzas por eso mismo, especialmente en escuela superior y luego en la universidad. Creo que lo que me puso a considerar cambiar ese detalle fue un paseo con unos amigos de la universidad: fuimos al Yunque, a una charca que hay allí, y mientras todos estaban tripeando en el centro de la charca, yo estaba parada en una esquinita mirándolos de lejos.

3) Hay comidas que me han comenzado a gustar “después de vieja” (y que no pasaba de chiquita): el queso roquefort (o blue cheese), las setas y los pimientos rojos. Estos últimos me empezaron a gustar hace apenas 2 años. De aquí a 20 años más, probablemente mi dieta haya cambiado considerablemente.

4) Me da pereza usar lipstick, pero tengo una obsesión enfermiza con los lip gloss y los plumpers, al punto de que aun no consigo el “lip gloss perfecto”.

5) Mi primer beso fue con uno de los hombres más encantadores que he conocido en mi vida, antes de que fuera un hombre hecho y derecho siquiera. Fue detrás de la cancha del colegio, temprano en la mañana, y me dejó las rodillas temblando. Lo besé nuevamente unos 13 ó 14 años más tarde y me causó lo mismo. El único beso que me ha dejado exactamente igual fue mi primer beso con mi pareja actual (y no, no lo estoy diciendo porque él lee esto).

6) Las películas de fantasía épica bien hechas, como la serie de Lord of the Rings o The Chronicles of Narnia, me hacen llorar de la emoción. También me ponen a llorar los documentales de animales y los muñequitos.

7) Mi primer sorbo de whiskey fue a los 3 ó 4 años de edad. Más o menos a esa misma edad mi papá comenzó a darme los desayunos con un vaso grande de café instantáneo con leche fría y mucha azúcar. Afortunadamente yo era una niña tranquila, porque si no, con ese combo hubiese sido inmanejable.

Me gusta el sabor de la sangre. Lo sé, suena gótico, suena a basura escrita por un niño emo falto de atención. Pero me gusta, especialmente cdo me corto el labio por falta de humectación, como ahora mismo. Si no me cuido bien, soy capaz de dejarme el labio en carne viva por la manía que tengo con pelarme los labios.

Bueno, ahora les toca a ustedes!

Ezequiel
Mika
Julio
Pepe
Kiwi
Chichi
Tattiana
Ricky (ahi está tu excusa para escribir algo)

I haven’t taken any pictures, I haven’t even found my makeup among all those boxes. Our living room possesses a unique topography comprised of boxes of different shapes and sizes. Our soon-to-be “guest room” requires a navigational chart, and the bed that’s supposed to be in that room is actually giving the “computer room” a “derelicte” feel (propped up against the wall).

I’ve taken to waking up to the sound of my cell phone’s alarm clock (since my proper alarm clock is buried somewhere in a box), and these past few days have been the least vain in my girlie existence: no barrettes, no pins, no headbands (my hair accessories box is … in a box).

Most of our clothes are in a dirty pile in the laundry, waiting for the first free moment I might get to wash them. As it has been, moving is quite an uncomfortable affair.

But I’m happy, comfy, more contented than I’ve been in a long, long while. Relieved. We’ve been exhausted to the point of tears, but we’ve been able to smile through the pain and bear it, ‘cuz it’s for us. Yesterday I paid the most I’ve ever paid for groceries and start-up items (like spatulas, coasters, glasses and ice cream scoops, etc). I remember a time when putting down my signature for a quantity such would have driven me mad in despair. Yesterday I realized that commitment does not include despair. There is a second glance, maybe even a joke or two about how we’re gonna have to sell our asses after paying for this first grocery list. But the familiar anxiety over “how my bank account is gonna look after this” was finally gone.

Because it’s for us …

I’m finally home.

Pictures later (because the camera is also in a box).

BTW: I’ve got to thank a few people that helped, or meant to help (the intention was clearly there) in the whole process:

- Eze’s parents, without whose infinite help this wouldn’t have been possible for a long while.
- My mom, who pleasantly surprised me by getting deeply involved in the moving process (I guess it has more to do with the fact that this time around, it is MY home).
- My brother and sister, and Eze’s brother: these three were the greatest last Saturday, sweating it out to the max, to the point of sickness too. My hat’s off to you guys.
- Abdelouakil Sebanna (a good friend to the family), for the laughs, the lift of spirits, the organizational skills and a vehicle to transport the huge items.
- My Dad and Martha (his wife), because even if they were not physically here, they have been praying for this for a long while. I’m sure their prayers helped in the odd way prayers usually do.
- Pepe & Jerry (hahahahahaha!!! Ben & Jerry’s no more!… sorry, sorry ….) Thanks to these two guys for immediately breaking our “Welcome Home” cherry, and bringing awesome company and acid-reflux-inducing pizza (which was yummy, btw, and I mean it in a non-sarcastic way)
- José “Banano”, because I know he meant to help, that’s just the way he is: sweet and caring, but trying for people not to notice.

As I was exiting the gas station’s mini-market (one of the few breakfast havens I have adopted in the past few weeks), I crossed a young girl (probably college-aged) attired so: head covered in mini-braids held back in a loose, low ponytail, huge, shiny sunshades, light-colored shorts, non-fashion (that means “practical”) tennis shoes with thick socks, and a baggy, green T-shirt with a cheap logo across the front that read “Entretenimiento de Verano” (Summer Entertainment) or some crap like that. It took me 2 seconds to realize this girl must work at a summer camp. What drove the idea home was the blow whistle slung around her neck. And then I remembered, I truly remembered my summer of 1997.

I was 19, in college, studying commerce, most likely still debating myself between a career in accounting and a career in information systems. I didn’t have a steady job, never quite needed it since I always fully qualified for a federal scholarship, but summer was always the weak link in that way of life: no scholarship meant no funding, no fun, no plans, no nothing. Summer was “the time to get a job” by excellence. The previous summer (1996) I had had my brief stint in a “healthy junk food” joint, lasted two months, had a miserable time (specially at the later hours of the afternoon, when kids my age would come into the establishment all sun-kissed, trailing salt and sand with their worn flip-flops – that was the year I met the bottled tan firsthand… never again!).

So, in 1997 I was ready for a breath of fresher air, and I let myself be led by a friend to apply for a job at a summer camp. I had never had any experience doing anything remotely similar to this, with the exception of babysitting my sister, and even that always brought skin-creeping memories. But I didn’t think it through: I handed over a filled application and got a call a few weeks later. We had to go through a screening process, which meant that we had to prove that we would be good camp counselors and leaders, that we would be able to keep control of a 20+ group of [rich, stuck up] kids. Incredibly enough, I (who have never considered myself to be a natural leader of any sort) got picked for the job, as well as my friend and many others. It was to be 4 camp leaders to a group. I got chosen as part of the leader team for a group of 30 5-year-old girls. Thirty Daddy jewels. Thirty princesses whose parents would keep an eagle eye on us at all moments possible.

It was an amazing experience, though as harrowing as it would seem. I realized that I had it in me to care for other people’s children. The girls grew onto me, we got close like family. A whole month of spending more than 8 hours a day with a child will automatically turn you into a secondary parent. Tending to their every needs, having to take it easy when at least 15 of them decide to scream at the same time for something they want, curing boo-boo’s, identifying lice …. even identifying what they cannot say, as it happened once with another group’s 2-year-old boy: he was crying and the girl in charge was to the end of her rope, she didn’t get it. The little boy could not express that the heat outside was smoldering to him. I held some icy water to his face and he immediately calmed down and went into a deep sleep. I gained a fan for the rest of the day!

That summer was one of the most active I ever had: I got a natural suntan by just playing in the sun with the children almost daily. I was starting to date a total idiot who was however highly social, so the outings were frequent, and sometimes even fun. I was fully immersed in social activities and pop culture. I became one of the clan. I think this was the summer that had me assimilated into the commerce student culture. I had begun the month’s worth of work with the idea that the $700 I got as payment would be used to get my first tattoo. By month’s end, I had dropped the idea. It would be 4 years later that I would get my first tattoo. By then, the sun-kissed, carefree, sociable Diana would be gone in favor of someone much closer to her own roots.

Summer is a time in which no one is quite content: unless you have copious amounts of money, you either stay at home and be bored to tears by the repetitive, mind-numbing TV programming, or you get a job that will keep you from having all the fun you intended to have with the money you earned. That’s the way it is for most college kids, unless they signed on for summer classes, in which case the misery is doubled because you have no time to earn money nor do you have time to chill out, and it will be something you will have to do also as soon as summer is over, so it annuls summer altogether.

I envied the ones that went abroad, though. But that took money, regardless of whether it was for studying or pleasure.

As a working adult, however, summer takes other undertones. Summer ceases to exist as “the free time you get between semesters”. It becomes “a time which I may get free as well as I may not”, and what you get is one or two weeks in which you try to cram as much enjoyment as you can, leaving you so exhausted that you need a vacation from your vacations. It’s even more absurd.

That summer in 1997 was the last one in which I held a college-type job. After that, summers became a blur. I never got as sun-kissed again, nor as sociable. Truth be told, I don’t miss it, however much I hold that memory in my heart. But it helped me recognize when people are having the same miserable fun at summer camp.

Just to let you guys know I rearranged my main page @ Flickr: Now photos look bigger and there are collections! Whoooo!

Anyways: go, visit, feel free to comment here or there (for better or for worse).