Moroccan Gems

Here are some of my favorite images from Morocco that you might have not seen. I took the first one and thanks to Eunice and Tomoyo for the rest! Sunsets, riding camels, and having random Moroccan men playfully dress me up pretty much characterized my entire trip. Loved it.

One week, really?

I have one week left in Barcelona. I have just been darting around the city, to the library to work on my paper due on Tuesday, to the shoe store to by those sandals that I haven't had time to get yet, to my friends' apartments to say last goodbyes and have some cava, to cafés trying to suck down every last ounce of café con leche that I can have before I leave...

My program made a "yearbook" and many of us made a page to go inside it. Here is a much smaller version of my page.


It's one of my famous "half face" photos as my mom would say.

The end is near...

Yes, I've been in a blogging funk. Finals, papers, and end of my stay here in Barcelona, have all been impeding me from sitting down and writing a good blog entry. I tried writing one the other day but it just came out all groady, with poorly structured English sentences and nothing all that exciting to read.

Things that have been going on:
-Endless papers and studying that I have to complete
-Emma coming to visit me for a few days this week! (schmoozing around teterías and cafés was glorious)
-Final dinner for the program last night. Though it was hardly classy seeing about 80 Americans get TRASHED on blush wine and dancing sloppily to the hoaky music sung by the 50-something year old DJ. I felt like I was at a Bar Mitzvah. All we were missing was Hava Nagila and some hoola hoops to get the real party started.
-Great weather! The weather has finally decided to warm up to the 70's. How exciting...and distracting.

And here's a little something for your viewing pleasure. Eunice and I went to La Nit dels Museus about two weeks ago. During this night from 7pm-1am almost all of the museums in Barcelona are free. We decided to go to the Pedrera because the first time we went there we had just gotten here, and now that we go back we are almost about to leave. It's a metaphoric way to celebrate our nine months here.



Laterrrrrr!

Algunas fotos

Have little time for leisure writing right now. Distracting myself from my papers, I took these photos this week.


"Otra vez con las verduritas, Jackie??" Yes, this is a typical "Jackie" meal.


My mother at 16. There might be a slight resemblence between the two of us.
Other letters and postcards that I've received from people. Why don't we write letters anymore to each other? Written correspendence is so poetic.


If any of you have ever been in any one of my rooms (in Barcelona, Los Angeles, Champaign, Mahomet, etc.), you know that my shit naturally collects in piles one my desk, just like this one. Fake Ray Bans & beaded necklace from Morocco, Hungarian coins, an American dime, rings, Sephora lip gloss that I got for free, strands of my hair (I shed way too much).


The bane of my existence. I mean who doesn't get off in their sleep when they have the chance to read literary criticisms about 17th century customs?! That would explain my messy hair...

Papers

In the library, en la sección de hispánicas. Seated by large bookshelves and a pretty window with a a tree right outside. Need to write papers. I have completed 2 of the 6 I need to finish, joder. Leaving Barcelona in 3.5 weeks. Again, joder.

"How to be happy"

Step #234,023,082,777: Lead a more poetic lifestyle (see above photo). Carry a pen with you everywhere so you can detail your future assassinations. And then talk about your feelings if you have any spare room on the page.

Step #234,023,082,778: Congratulations, you've made it step #234,023,082,778 of "How to be happy." Doesn't that make you feel good inside?

Step #234,023,082,779: Commit suicide. If you're not happy by now you're not going to be. But a job very well done on making it all the way to step # 234,023,082,779. You must really have some type of fortitude for life (or at least for reading really long and overly-generalized guidebooks that feed hackneyed sayings and perpetuate general bullshit).

Step #234,023,082,780: Maybe committing suicide really isn't for you. I mean, you didn't do it after I told you to in the previous step. Give yourself a pat on the back.

Step #234,023,082,781: Why are you reading this if you're not going to take my advice? I don't know what will make you happy, damnit. I don't even know you and we've already covered the other typical approaches toward happiness (to review some of the most successful approaches like retail therapy, cats, anorexia, compulsive eating, and lying, please review steps 13- 234,023,082,776 of this guide. Should you have relapsed on your journey toward happiness somewhere between steps 13 and 234,023,082,781, it's understandable. A lot of time has passed. Just make sure you revisit steps 1-12 because sobriety is really something to aim for. Take those 12 steps.)

Step #234,023,082,782: You have issues. Are you happy now? I said it because, wow, someone needed to.

Wednesday's Kidlets and Thursday's writings

Took this photo of the kidlets and myself yesterday, 5 May 2010. I teach Marcel and Paula English every Wednesday.


After I finished with the niños yesterday I walked outside onto Balmes and saw pretty clouds and a perfect light was shining on Tibidabo. Now that the hour has changed the sun doesn't go down until 9pm. This photo was taken around that time.

Today I went to my Don Quijote class and afterward spent the rest of my day with peanut butter and jelly and Picasso. Together we sat by a window in the facultad de letras library on the Gran Via and I wrote my paper about all the women that Picasso boned in his life. He robbed their spirits and then put them on a canvas. At least he came out with some interesting stuff.

The Dream

Oh, sweet and innocent 17-year-old Marie-Thérèse. You lied to your mother so you could spend afternoons with a genius and you ended up with a dick in your face and a daughter named Maya.

And here's to my pen

yes, there's supposed to be a K at the end of "in."

Happy Birthday Uncle E.