Wednesday, December 25, 2013

First impressions of India

It has been a difficult week. I am so overwhelmed by all that has happened and I'm fairly sure that, given my current state of transition, I very well won't receive the well needed time/energy/coddling to really get back to 100%. Oh well. I can't even really flesh this out into a fully fledged blog post. No pictures because my iPod (my excuse for a camera) may or may not have finally died.

negative things:
Sick. To the gods above, am I sick. Cold/throat/fluids/nose/Delhi Belly/other places SICK.
it is also very COLD. Freezing to the point where I am angry about it. And it won't stop for like a month, allegedly.
I have the feeling here that everyone here is trying to fleece me/doesn't care about what happens/ignores me once they figure out I can't speak Hindi
I got bit by a FUCKING DOG.
The ensuing rabies vaccination was painful and continues to ache in the tender spot where it was given (read: my butt cheek)
the bed where I'm staying vacillates from "GOD WHY" to juuuuuust shy of being too uncomfortable to sleep in


positive things:
I am learning how to "India"
I'm getting a good sense of what the campus will be like
I met the primos from my very good friend's friend in Buenos Aires. They are AMAZING people.
I am not sleeping outside.
I washed my hands with hot water and it was better than sex.
I am getting all of the sickness and confusion out of the way, so that when everyone is here I will be able to offer advice/medicine/forlorn, bitter condolences
I may (if I can get myself together) be able to find an apartment
There is Wifi. Sweet, sweet Wifi.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Brief week in Berlin

 Probably all too brief. I had purchased a round-trip ticket from Berlin to Buenos Aires (because it was cheaper), which meant that from December 10th until December 17th, I was all up in Berlin.
I took this picture on the way to a job interview on my last day...yep. I was trying to keep it jam-packed. 

playing reindeer games and whatnot

But then, after all of the festivities, it was time to go. I somehow managed to get myself to the airport. The (giant) suitcase got there with the help of very good friends. I'm ever grateful for the support system I've found. Now, I find myself in India...
I will write a more extensive post about my first impressions. I'm not entirely sure that coming here at this point was such a good idea...because reasons. India at this point is not turning out to be so !ncredible...



Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Another farewell

*Insert quote about Argentina and crying for me here*

I just spent four months in a country that I had never been to before and, honestly, didn't know much about. It's going to take me a while to process everything and to really deal with the fact that I'm not actually living there anymore.  

My last week was quite eventful. I had to move out of the apartment I'd been living in, and a friend of mine was awesome and gracious enough to take me into his house for eight days. Because of him, the last days I had in Buenos Aires were pleasant and way easier than they could have been. One day, I'll grow up and be someone like him: someone who helps people out of the goodness of their heart. I was able to go to the library and work on the various essays that I had to complete by the time I left Argentina. While they're not all 100% complete, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get everything edited and complete by the time I touch down in Berlin
 


 I was able to go through the city and get some gifts for my family and whatnot. Luckily, there are street markets on Sundays like the one above in San Telmo.

On the way home, I caught Evita Peron peaking through the trees

After the lovely last afternoon, I got to meet up with a few of the lovely people I met in Buenos Aires and a couple from the GSP. My fiesta de despedida was small but good 


So now, I've left Buenos Aires. It was an experience that I'm really grateful I got to have. The opportunity to live and work and play in a new city is always welcome. I'll have to think more about what I got out of it but, all in all, I'm glad I decided to go. One of the things I'm certain to miss: the pizza!








Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Winding down

Just another 11 days until I'm off to Berlin once again. The semester was a lot shorter than I thought it would be (in some aspects). So much to do before I leave, though. I need to move...again...and write approximately 836 thousand pages.


Here is the lovely Biblioteca Nacional de Maestros



Okay. Slight exaggeration. The tally stands at: six for a take home test (which is actually more like twelve because of the font size and spacing), five for one part of a class, fifteen for another part of a class (they'll be given the same weight which totally makes sense) and then maximum of eight for another class. Add to that the fact that I'm also doing research interviews for my thesis...well..we'll see how it all comes together. I really would like to be done before I fly off back to that frigid snowpocalypse...

This weekend was quite nice. We had "Fangsgiving", a thanksgiving celebration offered by someone whose family name is Fang.


So. much. food. 

After which, I got convinced into going to "La Bomba del Tiempo" which was an awesome drum performance/party/dancing thing. Stayed out until all hours of the night listening to crazy compound meters. 

So that was fun. And now I have 11 days to make the most out of the rest of this crazy Porteño experience before I move on to the next adventure. 




Sunday, November 24, 2013

Radio show

A few weeks ago, we had to give a presentation for our class on research methodologies. I decided to do my proposal on the actual topic of my master's thesis: study abroad. After many technical difficulties and interruptions, my presentation was over and our Professor offered his feedback. One of the most valuable things he mentioned was that one of his PhD students is currently writing his dissertation on a similar topic to mine. He offered me his contact info and of course I jumped on the opportunity and sent him an email. Funnily enough, the PhD student happened to be an American who co-hosts an English-speaking radio show here in  Buenos Aires and asked me if I'd like to be interviewed. I hesitantly said yes (one of the stipulations was to be an "expert" on something, which I'm pretty sure I'm not). I headed out to Palermo the following Tuesday to meet up with him for coffee, talk about the show and discuss our research. It turns out that they  wanted to talk less about the Global Studies Program, and more about my experience comparing Buenos Aires, Heidelberg, Berlin and San Francisco, and, for some reason, the Queer scene in each city.

The venue where the interview took place was gorgeous. It was a joint cafe-radio broadcasting studio, that was designed and initially conceived as it is now, instead of being converted later. Here is the foyer/entrance for the cafe area.

The rest of the building is a restaurant dining area on one side and recording/broadcasting studios along the other side. All in all, the ambience was great



Really cool, super high-tech recording equipment stuff juxtaposed by chicy-chic eatery
Also, there was a cool upper floor terrace overlooking a small area that I assume could be used for live performances

And this is where the actual interview took place
And aside from a few minor blunders on my part (two minutes to answer that last question!), I think I did an okay job of saying things that needed to be said. I was definitely grateful to be a part of the experience and think that it was a cool opportunity to do something new here in Argentina :)

Here is the link to a recording of the interview. It's under "Global Studies Nov", lasts about an hour and starts after about 3 minutes of advertising.


Monday, November 18, 2013

Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos

On Friday, I had the opportunity to visit the Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos (Space of Memory and Human Rights) of Buenos Aires.
From the outside, the compound of buildings seems like any other collection of official-looking buildings of vaguely colonial style in the city. However, after learning the awful history of this institution, the overwhelming importance of what it represents became clear. 

The Ex Esma ( Escuela Mecánica de la Armada) was a naval institution that was turned over to the municipality of Buenos Aires in order to be used as a clandestine detention center. This mean that over 5,000 people were involved in the process of illegal detention,very often resulting in torture and murder. The Desaparecidos (the disappeared ones) were kept in small rooms, hooded so that they could not see and not given any information about where they were, all because of their leftist ideology. From 1976 to 1984, they were detained and denied basic human rights. The legal process is still continuing as well (which is why I couldn't take pictures inside). It was a very interesting, heavy tour that showed me a side of Argentina that I hadn't realized existed. 

Monday, November 11, 2013

La marcha del orgullo gay/La noche de los museos

Friday was an interesting juxtaposition of two somewhat different cultural offerings: Buenos Aires' Gay pride march and the night of museums. I thought it was interesting that the events happen simultaneously; a friend told me that he thinks the government is attempting to split the population. Hmmmm...

At first, the celebrations seemed quite tame. I was watching the crowd and thought to myself "Okay, this seems like San Francisco...on a tuesday" but later that night, things got a lot more exciting. 

Crowds and crowds of gay men, trannies, pretty girls in high-heels, goths, attractive bearded dudes, porteños and everyone else just kept coming and coming. The march was literally that: a giant stream of people chanting and dancing and playing music. It was definitely the most interesting people watching spectacle I've experienced in Buenos Aires. 

After that, we went to the night of the museums, which was essentially a network of free museum activities open to the public all night. The thing that I enjoyed the most was that every exhibition or showing I went to included some kind of  music.

Here is a baritone singing a lovely collection of songs written by Latin American and Spanish composers

The offerings were spread throughout the city, and although I was VERY tired from the night before, I managed to get to see a few museums before heading home around midnight
Here I am looking thrilled at the Argentinian center of culture

I have to say my all time favorite moment of the evening was when we went to a church that happened to be featuring a chamber vocal ensemble. They sang a lot of works that I hadn't heard before but right at the end they closed with Haydn's "Abendlied zu Gott". It was such an emotional rush to remember singing that with both the SFSU chamber singers and The Camerata Carolina in Heidelberg. This small group sang it very well and the acoustics were excellent. It was quite a sweet moment to end a long and eventful day.













Wednesday, November 6, 2013

La Orquesta

About a week ago, I had the pleasure of attending a concert in the beautiful Teatro Colón


This beautiful venue is located no less than 4 blocks away from my apartment and the night was warm but crisp for a nice jaunt over to hear the Orquesta  Filarmónica de Buenos Aires. The inside of the building was just as impressive as the outside



Our tickets were standing room only (the highest possible seating placement) but the acoustics were great so it didn't matter. There was also a place to sit near the back of the standing area so most of us got to relax instead of stand for the two(ish) hours. The concert itself was okay. It brought back a lot of memories of my undergrad. They even played Sibelius 2, which I remember playing with the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony back in the day. It definitely had some interesting moments. That piece is all about dramatic musical shapes and at times the orchestra was surprisingly not together which tended to ruin the effect, in my opinion. The second was Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet Overture which, of course, is a lot of fun to listen to (other than Prokofiev's unfortunate inclusion of saxophone) and the final piece was a cute and playful rhapsody by Enesco that I'd never heard before but did a good job of showcasing the woodwinds' ability to stay together with each other despite their questionable ability to maintain ensemble with the rest of the group. One thing that I noticed, even though the trumpet players were playing German horns, they still had a bright and brassy (latin american?) tendency. The first player was very precise, which was nice to hear.
All in all, the evening was quite enjoyable. 

Monday, October 28, 2013

Tigre

Last Friday, our group was lucky enough to have the opportunity to make a day trip to the delta. The place, Tigre, has a system of canals and areas that are only accessible by boat. It was a great time that was only marginally dampened by a small amount of rain. Here is a picture of the train station (which I had also never been to) that reminded me of the large train stations in Europe.

After a perilous and slightly moist excursion on a very loud boat, we ended up in a beautiful location that I unfortunately was too distracted to take pictures of. I did manage to get some pictures of the natural area behind our beautiful locale. Here is the boat ride:

And here is the lovely marshland (?) behind the place where most of our festivities took place. 
We had a nice meal, chatted and enjoyed the various amenities including hammocks and comfortable chairs. The others played volleyball while I watched (I still have no hand-eye coordination) and mostly enjoyed the experience of being outside of the city for a while. I'm mostly grateful because it's not something I would have necessarily chosen myself but I'm glad I got the experience to do. 









Thursday, October 24, 2013

Break

Our school had a break for a week. I haven't been posting (or doing much of anything else really) for a number of reasons. I haven't been feeling too well, The weather, blahblah excuses excuses. Anywho, here's a couple of pictures of things that I did over the break
what I did consisted largely of wandering around San Telmo, an older barrio of Buenos Aires, and meeting up with folks that I've met here in Buenos Aires. I also went out to a lot of language exchange meetings, which was fun other than the fact that I apparently annoyed my roommate by coming home late. Here is a picture of La Casa Rosada, Argentina's version of the White House 
I quite like it. It seems like I must have passed it 7 or 8 times last week on my random walking adventures with Argentinians. 

Now, the last stretch is beginning. We have tests and forums and presentations. I've emailed a guy about getting into the field of research for my thesis. There's a lot of reading to do. I'm sick and I don't know with what. Trying to get everything in order for my visa to India. Lots of stuff going on. 

Friday, October 11, 2013

Not doing things

So I've been in this whole phase of instead of wanting to do things...I want to not...do...things. But then I end up doing them and am grateful that I did. Some examples include: going out to a club with some Brazilian friends, starting to research my master's thesis, working out and, most recently, making pancakes for dinner. All of those things (except maybe the club night) had a beneficial effect on my life. So, I'm thinking I need to start dealing with my lack of motivation. Go go go!

It has finally gotten a bit warmer here, after a brief stint of rain, and I couldn't be more relieved. I have come to realize that my mood is probably completely dependent upon the presence of the sun. If it's there, I'm good. If not...well...ya know.

I finally decided to go to the most beautiful bookstore in Buenos Aires: "El Ateneo". This was part of my anti-not-doing-things effort and I think it was mostly successful. Here are the pictures I took














Oh, also I bought my ticket to India! That is I thing. And I did it.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Los trabajadores

Last Saturday, we went on a research excursion to a remarkable part of Argentina's diverse cultural landscape. La fábrica Brukman, a suit and textile factory, was (and still is) the site of a revolution indicative of the indomitable spirit of the people. The story begins in the mid to late 90s; a difficult time for Argentina. As our vivacious guide Matilda (an older lady who spoke very rapid Spanish) told us, there began payment disputes that resulted in the workers of the factory ultimately taking over the company. After many tense negotiations, occupations and even arrests, the workers of the company who are all women, Matilda was proud to tell us, have successfully adapted the company from a hierarchical, profit-oriented business into a co-op or "colectiva". This means that all of the dozens of workers earn the same amount, the decisions are made democratically and the processes are notably more transparent. Here you can see Matilda explaining the ups and downs of the lengthy journey.



To hear from someone who has actually accomplished something just how people can affect change was an awesome experience. The company is still in sort of a limbo state at the moment but it has served as a beacon of hope for many other factories who were subjected to the same unfair conditions that started the revolution. I'm glad that I got the opportunity to hear Matilda's story and see something that is undeniably a part of this country. 

Monday, September 23, 2013

Todavia hace frio

It is still frigid. And this makes me very, very sad.

I have noticed, as a creature of the sun, I become despondent and ill-humored whenever the temperature drops below a certain point. And Buenos Aires is proving to be much colder than what I thought it was going to be. Why can't all positive stereotypes be true? I was expecting tropical weather...This saturday, we had an excursion to an open air market to do some observational research for our methodologies class. This is what it looked like:


...terrible. So, instead we ended up going a second market that was located inside. It was actually quite interesting. El Galpon, an organic market, featured a lot of gluten-free, hoidy toidy stuff which was cool to see in Spanish. 


All in all, it was an interesting experience. Much like this entire semester; it would be better if things were warmer! 


Thursday, September 19, 2013

why am I happy?

After recently reading this article about the problems of my generation (the GYSPSYS), I gave pause and reflected upon the assertions made by the author and how they pertain to me. I certainly don't believe myself to be superior to others but, I have often hoped that I'm different, or special, or what have you. At least I try to be.

Then, I happened upon this article and considered the (admittedly defensive and priviledged) response. It highlights some valid points in that it says that not everyone feels "entitled" and that certain rights are inalienable. While I agree on some level, I don't think that some of the points of the former article are invalid...

Of course, both of these articles are really only relevant if I think of myself as UNhappy. Which I'm not! Of course, there are things that I would change about my life (i.e. Im always tired, I have social anxiety and am not sure what I'm doing at any given moment) but I think, in general that I am a satisfied person. Someone referred to me as the "exception that proves the rule" of the first article. Im not entirely sure what that means. I know that I am fortunate, and exceptionally so, to be doing what I am doing. Learning languages and living and working in a foreign country is EXACTLY what I need right now. Not many people can say they are getting that. I must say, I'm quite pleased with how this is turning out.

Friday, September 13, 2013

what a difference

a day makes.
gainful employment makes
warm weather makes.

I went out with a new friend to a museum near Plaza Francia as well as the cemetary where Eva Peron is buried. It was quite beautiful...the only photo I took was this:


from the top of the museum overlooking towards the Law faculty of the Universidad de Buenos Aires. It was quite a nice, warm day. 

I've now entered a period with which I am comfortable: flourishing in a foreign country. I managed to find a well-paying job, to set up my time so that I can do everything I need to and to be able to enjoy things. I'm finally starting to get what I need out of this whole experience. I'm going to use the money that I'm earning to buy delicious food and my ticket to India. This degree is going to happen.

Which isn't to say that everything is perfect. The next wave of classes that I'm taking is rather less than ideal. It seems as though, although the teachers know a lot, they lack the capacity to communicate it in an effective way. I am most disappointed by the offering of the class "Latin american culture and identity". Such promise and yet it is proving to be severely underwhelming. In addition to the huge amount of (mostly unnecessary) reading, I think that the academic aspect of my life is taking a backseat to the largely positive other aspects. Like my roommate, for example. He is proving to be the best shared living experience I've had so far.


Despite all of the difficult stuff in my life, I really DO enjoy it.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Moving

I did that. A few days ago, actually. It was quite the ordeal.

Near the beginning of the month, I decided that the place where I was living wasn't exactly right for me. A bit too loud, not enough Spanish, etc. I told my landlord that I was moving out and everything was fine. I found a place with a nice Argentinian roommate who told me I could move in September 1st. We maintained contact and I got excited to finally get settled into my semi-permanent residence. No problem, right? Wrong! I send him an email about 3 days before I was set to move, asking for the key. He responded with "I need to tell you something...." Long story short; his cousin needed a place to stay leaving me with 3 days to play the "let's not be homeless" game. Too bad for you, Buenos Aires. I'm super good at that game. So i neurosesed-out and emailed literally (figuratively) everyone. And the next day I found a place soooo crisis averted. whew!

In other news, I've been trying to do stuff amidst reading many, many pages for school. Here is a protest I stumbled upon going down one of the main streets of Buenos Aires (conveniently near my new apartment)

It was quite a shock. All of a sudden: noises! and people! and flags, so many flaaaags!!

It's been quite an adventure. Speaking of new things, I also managed to find a new translating gig! It was a funny coincidence. I was looking at Craigslist and saw an ad for someone looking for translating experience and strong Spanish. While my Spanish isn't exactly what you would call "strong" (I'm working on it) I do have a lot of translation experience with German. So, I sent an email explaining that and it turns out  a German to English translator was needed as well! It all went quite fast, the guy who runs the agency was very personable and now I have 8000 words to translate by Tuesday....in addition to all the reading and whatnot. Luckily (?) we just had a test so there isn't anything big to prepare for on the horizon but it's still good to stay on top of things. 

I'll end the post with this picture of the beautiful kinetic sculpture in the heart of Buenos Aires. I had the good fortune to have a new friend of mine show me around the area. We drank mate on the grass nearby. Todo piola :)



Monday, August 26, 2013

Getting the hang of it

I'm slowly but surely figuring things out. I'm not entirely sure why but this city seems hard to me. There's an energy of gotta go gotta go gotta hustle...but that might just be me projecting. It's definitely a work in progress. I feel like this mural I found while out exploring the city
Ready to go. There might be a lot going on around  me but I have the peace of mind to be successful. At least that's how I feel in the moment. I have been getting messages from people who support and love me, which has more of an effect on me than they know and that I even realized it would have. 

In other news, I've been walking around the city quite a bit. Here are some pictures from a recent excursion


                                 

                                                                                              
                       
                                    


From the top: a monument near the national bank of Argentina, a surprise concert from the municipal police wind band in the botanical garden, a cool alleyway and another concert from the Israeli philharmonic that I actually planned to go to because it was awesome and free. The next up and coming adventures will be my first big test and moving into a hopefully permanent apartment. I feel good things coming. I happened upon this sign on my way back from eating dinner with some new friends:

I'm pretty sure what it says is a good omen: Soon you will enjoy the city more :)