Take a long drive with me on California One

So last night went to see The Decemberists at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco. It was so fun. It was so good too. They played a couple of new songs (Valerie Plame and Days of Elaine) which were bananas amazing. They played a lot of old wonderful stuff too which included, Billy Liar, 16 Military Wives, July, July, Sons and Daughters, and the Engine Driver. The encore was especially awesome because they played California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade as well as The Mariner's Revenge Song. Both were amazing! It was so great to finally get to see them live after missing them first year when the were in Post Lobby and then last Fall I bought tickets to see them in Chicago but was still too ill with pneumonia to go see them. Altogether it was fab.

San Francisco was pretty neato. We mostly shopped. You know the usual suspects, Old Navy, Gap, and H & M. Whatever. Ate Vietnamese food for dinner. Pretty tasty.

Today. I have a list of things that need to get done before I leave for Santa Rosa, which include going to the bank, picking up for pay check, and other boring tasks. But then it will be a go go to Santa Rosa and all my wonderful friends that live North of me. I am pumped.

To my wonderful readers- I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Odalisque

So today I am heading north to San Francisco to see The Decemberists in concert! I am pretty pumped about this! YEE-UH!

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

Today at school was a day of mixed emotions. Coming into my morning classroom my teacher Ms Townsend was acting funny so I came in and talked to one of the other AmeriCorps people that works in the classroom. Apparently this little boy Luis has been being bullied and he got beat up this morning. And the little boys have been telling him that if he told his parents or Ms Townsend that they would end their uncles that are gang members after them. What? He eneded up telling Ms Townsend and the boys got in trouble. Parents were called, the works. The most heartwarming part was when the class clapped for Luis when he came back in the classroom and how they went up to him and thanked him for being brave. Ms Townsend also talked to the class about being a family and how we take care of our family. LAter on in the day I heard that they were taking care of each other at recess. That made my heart smile!

At lunch we had a fantastic Thanksgiving feast. All the teachers and staff brought in the most delicious food! It was so touching the air of community and family that we had in the lounge. Ms Jimenez said a prayer, which at first I was apprehensive but by the end her kind words had people in tears and it was so heartfelt and emotional. I was reminded of all of the things in life I do have to be thankful for. It is hard for me to do that most of the time lately because for the most part I feel unhappy with my current situation. It was magical to be surrounded by such love. It renewed my spirit and now I can go into my week off feeling a little revived.

We Shall Overcome

I had an amazing time at school today. Amazing but also heartbreaking, but lets get back to that in uno minuto, por favor.

I cannot believe what is happening while I sit on the couch. My room mate Caitie is eating dinner with another girl from AmeriCorps and oh I had no idea that I moved back into the land of Passiva Aggressiva. So I am on my computer and watching Friends and these girls are having a nutso conversation. A) number one both are so pretentious. Caitie said that she could not sit on the couch and watch TV for more than an hour, which she said that she would kill herself if she did. Here is a dig at me because most of the time I am here on the couch watching TV or doing other things with the television on. She is also hypocritical here because most nights her and the other roommate Nick stay in his room and watch TV. This is where I started dying in a fire. The next thing she started talking about was how she was cleaning today and how she cleaned the kitchen and that she was not going to clean the bathroom because she had been the only one to clean it so far. Oh here we go, this is where I almost lept off the couch and choked the bitch. Because bitch listen to me, I clean that bathroom every GD week. I bought the cleaning supplies to clean bathroom (Lets also note here that the shower cleaner I bought is the expensive Seventh Generation cleaner that she uses as an all-purpose cleaner, it says shower cleaner on the bottle you stupid whore). I mean I just did not know what to do. I guess I would prefer to pretend I am just so engrossed in my own thing so that I can continue to listen to them and there self-absorbed chatter. I also really like to hate on this bitch. DIAF.

YMCA

Oh so I have been watching Ugly Betty this fall because here on the west coast, TV shows come on an hour later than they do in the MidWest (which I hate). And on Ugly Betty tonight they were having pozole, and guess what I had for lunch? POZOLE! How weird? I mean it was the first time I had it and it was bananas amazing. I like could be eating it right now.

So the other day during after school I was sitting with the 5th graders and I think it was Nancy who started singing YMCA. So I decided to do the hand motions for YMCA. After that they made me teach them how to do it. It was really funny how serious these kids were about learning YMCA. I loved it.

Tomorrow is Friday which means the last day of work this month. We have next week off for Thanksgiving. I love it. So I am pretty pumped about that!

What it's like being male, middle class, and white

So I mean two of those are still true.

I went grocery shopping today and used the rest of this month's food stamps money. And I knew that was coming and won't need to buy anymore food this month which is fine. Except when I am in Santa Rosa for Thanksgiving. So as I was checking out and I had to pay for the part of the bill that my food stamps would not cover. The older woman checking me out asked if I got the cash option on my card and I said that I didn't think so to which she leaned in and said that, "I was the wrong color skin." I was so taken aback. It was just so disturbing.

And its like what do I do? Try to change her mind and set her straight? I just kind of froze and then told her that I was a volunteer and she could not believe that I was not getting more. I just never know what to do when faced with such ignorance. Do I have the strength to say something and try to change the world? I dunno.

loving during the war years

Protest in Santa Cruz today. Prop 8 blows. There were some amazing signs as well as cool people. I wish I could remember some of the fantastic signs. A guy was wearing a sign that said "I kissed a boy and I liked it" and the girl he was with was wearing, "I kissed a girl and I liked it." Those were pretty awesome.

It was very cool to do something so positive. Because we are all human. And there was this fantastic family that the guys are trying to get married and they have five kids and have been together for 17 years. How awesome is that? The County Clerk spoke and said that her office is so boring now and is definitely not as well dressed. Hilarious, and true I am sure. There were other fantastic speakers. Santa Cruz county said No on 8 with like seventy something percent. 93% of UC Santa Cruz students said no. Thats pretty cool too.

All around a good day fighting for equality.

Kids

I keep forgetting to talk about school. Guh. I have some good stories too.

Today I walked around the corner by my room at school and found a group of girls in a huddle giggling. So I asked them what they were talking about. After a few moments pause one of the girls responded with, "School." This resulted in a chorus of giggles from the group of young ladies. Then another girl confessed that they were talking about, "Boys." Which resulted in even more giggles. It was quite comical!

Another story of young love happened one day at recess. I was standing with some of my teacher friends and one of their students from last year came up and was talking to us. Ms. Blanca asked him if he had a girl friend, because last year he was girl crazy apparently. So he told us who his girlfriend was and Selena asked him if he was in love. Which he replied, "Yes." Ms. Blanca asked how he knew it was love, and asked if he got butterflies in his stomach, or how he knew. He said that his eyes sparkled when he saw her. It was awesome.

The last story I have is one that made me feel pretty awesome. My favorite Joanna asked me for advice on what she should do about a girl that she was having problems with. She said that my advice was better than her sister's which was to punch her. Yeah!

What Dreams May Come

i had this strange dream this morning that a friend from high school died. I was very upset by this and then had this strange flashback wherein I saw her as a young kid. I mean so far it is more sad than strange, but this dude was hassling me about it so I decided to punch him and ended up actually punching my wall and then waking up. I thought it was quite strange.

Hope everyone enjoyed their Veteran's Day. I did not a god damn thing. It was bliss.

Bittersweet Symphony

OK. So lets talk about election 2008 for a second. Ohmagod I was so emotional the entire day. I was a wreck, on the way home I was listening to NPR and when I heard that he won New Hampshire I just started crying. I am a cra cra obviously. His speech in grant park was amazing. It was just so wonderful that I cannot even begin to speak in words about it. It was so beautiful. I was just crying and crying during it!

But, can we also talk about what happened in California. It sickens me that a state, wherein 6,308,161 people which is 61% of the vote will cast a vote for Barack Obama, but will also pass Proposition 8. In an election of historic change for this country, California, as well as Arizona and Florida can pass measures to get rid of people's rights. I mean come on. Maybe I will pray for these people or something, because someone needs to pray for their sins.

I just hate that there is such a dark cloud on such a momentus occasion like the election of Barack Obama.

Great Romances of the 20th Century

There is just so much going on right now. I hav so much to talk about. First, lets discuss Halloween/My 23rd Birthday/Homecoming. It. was. fab. It was exactly what I needed. I mean I definitley did not need to fall down the stairs at Old Snu, blackout, and vomit on myself at Adam and Zacks, but when in Rome I guess. I had a great time otherwise on my birthday. I was greeted by Peter Pan (Scotty) and Tinkerbell (Larry) with, "Welcome to Neverland!" at Duffy's. Woke up Saturday morning at ten and knew it was business time. I made my way back over to Duffy's and met people there. We had Duffy's Island (Hot dogs from Coney Island at Duffy's). It was amazing. Went to the football game, a little drunk and then went over to the Choir Brat sale. It was just so fabulous t osee all of my friend's. It definitley helped with my heartbreaking homesickness that has been plaguing me for so long. Actually the worst of that was definitley conquered by seeing Sigur Ros in Berkeley. The trip home just gave me what I needed to feel whole again. I wish I could have stayed forever, but I now live in California and am trying to forge a new life for myself here. December 13th I will be back. And that is such a short time. Loves it.