Vale Verga? The Worth of Students and the Values of Education

This  a link to another blog I was invited to be apart of called "The Plenary". It was written as a final assignment in response to some time I spent observing and working with a local ELD classroom. ELD stands for English Language Development. It's a program that was designed to help English language learning students, though there is still much to be discussed on it's effectiveness.  I share this in the hopes that you all enjoy it and be motivated to search for solutions to the shortcomings in our education system! Even if it's just dismantling unknown personal biases, as I myself have also been challenged to do.


http://theplenary.sites.ucsc.edu/2015/05/05/vale-verga-the-worth-of-students-and-the-values-of-education/


Also, I'm going to SPAIN! hopefully this blog will be more active during that time, as I offer my reflections abroad. If you would like to help me on this journey, you can donate here

Desde Ayotzinapa a Ferguson El Mismo Dolor.

Desde Ayotzinapa A Ferguson El Mismo Dolor

These last couple months, thousands have been taking to the streets in Mexico and across the United states to seek justice for 43 Mexican students who disappeared in Ayotzinapa. It is believed that the oppressive government, under the presidency of Pena Nieto, has ties to their disappearance.





Speaking as a woman who has roots in Mexico.

Who spent her summers in Guadalajara, exploring the rich culture and beauty the city has to offer

It hurts my heart to say it is a deeply corrupt nation.

A nation where money rules, and power is in the hands of the few.

Does this remind you of something?

Speaking as a woman who lives in the United States

Who spent her summers exploring TV shows and eating bags of chips

It hurts my heart deeply to be LIVING in a CORRUPT nation.

A nation where money rules. And power is in the hand of the few

 I am ashamed to be named after a country so ruthless.

I've been working on a poem these past few days, I think it's fitting to share it here...

It's about waking up from going through the motions. The trance of silence.  About choosing to be empathetic to other's pain. About growing sore but growing stronger. About the rays of hope behind these dark clouds.

May we anchor our hope for a better society in something deeper. May the God of peace and restoration be present in these tumultuous times.

Porque Ya Me Canse! From Ayotzinapa to Ferguson, the same pain. and I'm tired of it

Walking somber streets of the city

Walking sullen streets in the rain

Walking the seductive streets with this pity

 Walking the stuffed streets with this feign

Eyes hanging down like weights pulled to the ground

Makeup and cover up faces cover up

The lonely places

The silent spaces

The heart ached heart beats hard

Beats to the tasteless hum of motion

Of being awake but not awakened

The Heart ached heart breaks

Breaks when we remember

The sun behind the clouds of a city in raining

When heavy eyes are lifted

Muscles so long sedated

To grow is to grow sore

To break from the ache of the motion

Awkward Pictures with Dad

My dad is a 61 year old man child

He still laughs at fart jokes

takes naps in the afternoons

Makes midnight craving trips to McDonalds (regularly)

And cannot, absolutely cannot, take normal pictures.

This is for you pops…

A mini series we’ll call...

Awkward Photos with Dad!!!
My mom's going to kill me for this

We'll start with the classic deer in the headlights. 

  

"Alright dad, so when you see the little flash come, make sure to look at  the camera"

 "mija... I know what I'm doing,..."

"Dad.... look at the camera"

Dad! 

look at the camera!

When he finally looks at the camera. 

...And when he thinks the camera is not looking at him.

 when he's bringing sexy back

Or when he just can't wait for those tamales

When we realize this is just who he is. 

A man 

Who is a child

Who sees the world and is fascinated by it

And maybe that's why his eyes wander

And maybe to be a child isn't so bad

And maybe we've forgotten

  

Coming Up! Stoic pictures with mom!

"mom, can you at least smile at the camera?"

This Is Tobey

   

This Is Tobey

He has taught me many things.

Mostly how to love.

What it means to be loved.

How to live simply

How to live in dependence of those who love you. 

How to not want anything else but to be in the presence of that love.

Tobey follows me.

When I’m home, he seriously follows me. As I walk around my house,he treads behind, a little slower these days because he's getting to be an old timer. Over the years i've learned that all tobey wants, is to be with me. I don't even live at home anymore and he still searches for me, goes into my room and howls, and is always waiting for me at the front door when I walk in.

The crazy thing is that i'm a MESS. Unworthy of such adoration. Sometimes I straight up ignore him for a few days. I forget to take him on walks, and more than once have forgotten to refill his water and feed him.

And knowing all this about me, my stumbling nature, Tobey still wants to be apart of my life.

It's that he knows something else about me.

He knows something worth noticing.

Kids in Chiapas, Mexico I had the pleasure to learn from and be humbled by

A friend of mine once told me about her experience in Nicaragua on a volunteer missions trip working with a  school for disabled children. The kids, she remembers, just wanted to be loved. They would run up to her and embrace her without judging who she was. All they knew was that she was wonderful, and worthy of love. They showed her how to love. They showed her how to be loved. Really working with any kids will show you this.


That they know something else about us.

Something worth noticing.

A life, a life without love, is lonely. It seems simple but it's at the heart of every social issue our species has ever known.

See rather than live a life of this love, we follow a less demanding route. It's the truth lurking  beneath why we have vices, why we watch so much TV, why we're so attached to our smart phones. Anything we do to self medicate is an attempt to replicate that love, it's a cry from souls, from our need to be loved. To try to, for a moment, feel less lonely. Or forget that we are lonely.

And whoever said you fall in love is lying. I'm calling it out.

Because you invest in  love. And because love takes compassion. And to have compassion is literally to have passion. And  passion? Passion in Latin means literally to suffer.

 TO SUFFER!

 It's mind blowing!

But who wants to suffer, right? Certainly not me!! Where's the not suffering page group on facebook? I'll be the first to like it. I'd rather self medicate. I'd rather forget. If at least for a moment. Because in a finite world, that's all it really lasts.

But what I've learned from tobey, is that sometimes, we don't want to believe that we are worthy of a love that has suffered for us. We don't want to bear the weight of such a sacrifice. Because we've done things that bring us shame, because we forget to give water to our dogs, because we would rather not work, than to work or not think than to think.

See at the core of not accepting this love, is really just not seeing ourselves as worthy. And if we're lonely, (which we are, it's just the reality) it's hard to imagine that we are worthy of anybody's love.

But this love is a love that looks out, over a nation that's aching, a crowd that is longing, and weeps. It weeps in solidarity, aches in compassion for those below, for those who suffer.

This love is a love that is patient.

This love is a love that is more than love.

What tobey knows about me, that is worth noticing, is that a  life, a life without this love is not a life worth living. A lonely life is not a life worth living.

There is something so pure about this affection that can be felt the moment we let go of our fears, and  especially our insecurities about being unworthy. Tobey, those kids my friend worked with… they know this truth so universal...

Nothing is more satisfying than to love, and to let ourselves be loved.

In a world so often overshadowed by darkness, greed, and injustice, our vision can sometimes get clouded. And there is a danger in becoming cynical, in developing an apathy that can become crippling. I only know this because I've been in those dark waters.

But the only thing that makes sense in a  senseless world...

Are moments when we experience affection like Tobeys', who nestles beside and quietly whispers

This Is Love

Moments when we experience kids running up to us with open arms demonstrating to us that

This Is Love

moments when we experience that earth shattering, reality redefining moment when we realize that our entire lives have been lived in fear. And anyone, which is to say all of us, who has contributed to this world of injustice is doing so out of fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of being unknown. Because we are cowards. We are cowards too afraid to admit our frailty and utter dependence upon this love.But perfect love casts out all fears. And the only way to really make a difference in this corrupt landscape is to realize that this...

This Is Love

"And we are put on earth a little space,

That we may learn to bear the beams of love"

let's take advantage of the little space that we have and learn to bear the beams of love.

Just Me

A year ago this month, I cut my hair into a pixie.

It wasn’t supposed to be so short.

She wasn’t supposed to cut so much.

But it was cut.

And what followed was a year of, if I’m being honest, a whole lot of awkward.

Here’s how the year went down.

Month One:

·       

        This is nice. 

   Something new. Something young.

    I like how it shapes my face.

   I look more feminine. 

   So many styles! 

   I think I just might keep it short.

Month Two:

 I can’t go outside. 

 
I can’t.

What’s considered an unhealthy amount of time for someone to spend in their room? 

No, I don’t want to go out to eat , just bring the food to me!

Maybe if I put some gel in it…

Month Three 

My google search history looked something like this:

How not to look like a boy with a pixie cut

        Does putting egg in your hair really make it grow faster?

   How to Outgrow a Pixie Cut Without Wanting to Hide in Every Dark Corner

    

      What's considered an unhealthy amount of time for someone to spend in their room?

Month Four

I discovered hoodies. 

And beanies. 

Lots of beanies. 

And probably still spent an unhealthy amount of time in my room. 

Month Five 

 It got really shaggy,

 So when I went in for a trim....

·         Though it looked good...

   I was basically back to square one with growing it out

Months Six  Seven and Eight

awkward mullet stage

   no pics were given those days

Month Nine

Awkward slicked back ponytail stage

and whatever face that is...

After months 10 and 11 it grew out pretty decent and manageable

And well here I am.

Month twelve.

And what have I learned?

Well...

1.  Santa Cruz is probably the best place to live if you’re the “make decisions on a whim” type. A lot of pixies... A LOT
2. Bravery is a wonderful quality to have, but it has to be met with good judgement. (otherwise you end up putting egg in your hair to make it grow faster)
3. Putting egg in your hair will NOT make it grow faster. (It makes you smell like an omelet)
4. A mullet is NOT ok.
5. A mullet that smells like an omelet is worse
6.   Hair grows. Like we do. And if we let it, it grows stronger. Smoother. More resilient. Above all, it grows natural. There's a lesson in there somewhere. I'll let you figure it out
7. We can, and we do,  hide behind our appearance. Behind an image of ourselves that we spend so much time and money in creating. My hair before the cut was actually pretty dry and dead. Fried from too many colors that I tried on. Colors that weren’t my own. Cutting my hair was like ripping off a mask. When I looked in the mirror and didn’t see me, my long flowing hair, I realized I valued more the image I was presenting people. And when that image was cut off, I had nothing to hide behind. It was just me. And all I had to give people was just me. I had to ask myself, is just me enough?
8. Spending unhealthy amounts of time in your room forces you to ask deep questions. 
9. Just me is just enough.

 It took me a while to figure that last one out. If you're wondering if just you is just enough, you ARE! Give yourself patience to figure this out. Give yourself patience to grow.

A mullet is still not ok.

Summer Sundancin

I like to set a light mood for these blogs, usually that means an awkward story about my name.

Here goes,

     

 So I had the pleasure of observing the Native American way of life out on a reservation this summer. As with any cross cultural experience, my guard was up and I was very mindful about what I said so as not to offend anyone. When I was introduced to the chief, he looked at me straight in the eye and with no shame at all said, 

“what ARE you?”

My friend couldn't contain herself and started crying with laughter, as I tried explaining to him that I was of Mexican descent, living in California. Then we told him my name and then he started crying with laughter.

Since they didn't allow cameras on the reservation, here's a picture in San Miguel Allende. I'll write more about that in a later post.

Anyways, here’s a poem,

As you read it, remind yourself of who YOU are and what sort of things DEFINE you. What sort of things don't need to define you?

You can find yourself when you find a home

When you know where you belong

So why do we wander

Why do we wait?

What are we looking for?

Will we find it out in the seas?

Or waiting at the shore

A love poem

I love writing poetry, but it seems that whenever I do, I come up with one or two decent stanzas and get lost on where to take it. So I have a lot of potentially solid poems with interesting ideas, but they end up having no real substance. Here for the first time is a completed poem. My hope is that it is of substance.  It's a rookie poem, as I continue to write, I hope to improve.

When we were young

Our compasses aligned

To this love that never turns away

When we ran with our bodies

Under the wholeness of the sunbeams

And this love that doesn't pass away

When the days grew older

Our spirits kept dancing

With this love that is just a touch away

When we tripped on the branches

Of the tree that shadowed

This love that begins to slip away

When our compasses were shattered

And our needles stopped pointing

To this love that feels so far away

When we learned to cope

With this life that kept pushing

This love so beautiful away

When we searched under the moonlight

With our compasses still broken

For this love that was torn away.

When we built up our towers

Desperate to find it

This love that blows fears away

When we finally fell silent

And heard the still harmonies

Of this love that always finds a way