I've been tagged by the lovely Vickie over at http://ahealthyappetite.blogspot.com/ This particular tag has me describe myself in 6 words then I must tagged 5 or more bloggers.

My words:

1) Loyal
2) Loving
3) Passionate
4) Fiery
5) Opinionated
6) Giving

Who I'm tagging:

http://www.hungryandfrozen.blogspot.com/

http://shoppingmakesyoupoor.blogspot.com

http://www.whateverradio.com/website/blogs.php (both Alexis Stewart and Jennifer Koppelman Hutt from Whateverradio.com)

http://www.tinanealis.blogspot.com/

Oy! It's been a month since I last wrote. I'm sorry for being such a bore. I just haven't really been in that head space I suppose. Also, I've been helping my uncle out with my grandfather's new apartment. Boy, I love home-improvement type projects.

Anyway, for the first time in a long time I have that deep desire and passion to do something. To create something. To get it from my mind and out into full frutation.

See, for years I'd read LAWeekly and Seattle Weekly and think of how desperately Puerto Rico needs something similar. It wasn't until the other day that I decided that I needed to stop hoping for someone else to create it and for me to start doing something. I decided to place a sort of add for writers on Facebook and a guy that I haven't seen since 8th grade responded with the revelation that he too is truly interested in seeing something like it in PR. Great! Now I have a partner. I'm sure two minds, even if they clash, could work better than just little ol' me.

I don't know what the heck I am going to call it or how it's going to look like or where I am going to get the money. I just know that I have this idea and this deep desire and I'll be damed if I don't get at least one issue out.

This is how I see myself... you see. I don't think I could be the manager of a store, but I do see myself being the leader of a group of writers, artist and all-around creative people. I see myself having lunch meetings, or coffee meetings rather, with papers strewed around me and a guy full of inked fingers telling me about the newest art exhibition that he saw and how this one painting is his inspiration for the picture in an article talking about the newest gourmet restaurant. LOL sounds silly for many, but sounds perfect for me.

It combines my love of words, culture and madness and it's simply something that I know I will love doing.

I'm passionate about this... I just hope I can get other people to share my vision too.

Wish me luck!

Making a decision

Sometimes it seemed that some of my classmates had registered for college in first grade. Then by second they were booked for their Masters and would then go on to get themselves a reserved seat in an office centered on the subject they would go on to study for. It was like their whole lives were planned before their birthing. I never understood it and still can’t.

I always had an idea of what I wanted and I was quite aware of what moved me, but I was always hard pressed to find someone who could tell me how to get there. By the time I reached my last semester of high school I was scared shitless. I knew that Journalism moved me, but I started to feel that if I studied that I would end up resenting it and hateting it and then loose all desire for it.

I was right.

Cokie Roberts, a well known news anchor in Washington D.C., once said something around the lines that if you want to be a Journalist don’t study Journalism. Study something that would add depth to your being. And she couldn’t be any more correct. I should have listened but I didn’t. Here I am in my room in Caguas, Puerto Rico writing this this blog that I opened in hopes of having it help wake up that profound desire I once had to find the truth about everything that mattered to me.

Progress has been made I must note. Just last week I finally decided on my masters. I will go on to study for a Masters of Art in Gastronomy from the University of Adelaide in Australia, which has partnered with Le Cordon Bleu to provide the world with this deeply interesting topic of study. I'm going to do it, but by e-mail correspondence.

It sounds a little wacky, but it’s a topic that greatly interest me. Sometimes I think that what I should have studied was either Cultural Anthropology or Art History or both, so in a way, a masters in the history of Gastronomy is almost just that.

Classes have already begun, so I am too late, but I will be registering for next year soon. This is what I want and can see myself doing combined with writing. Now all I need is luck and strength to help me get through two years of deep research and I’ll be set.

http://www.gastronomy.adelaide.edu.au/

A culturally confused hamburger

So this American classic was seasoned using Southern rooted Paula Deen's House Seasoning, British Worcestershire sauce sent to me by my friend Brenda in Northern Ireland. It was topped with ketchup and spicy Coleman's English mustard sent to me by another friend in England and it was tucked inside a type of Puerto Rican bread called "pan de agua." This delicious burger was served alongside homemade fries.

I didn't make it that way on purpose. It was right about the time that I was going to sit down and enjoy it that I realized the complexity of this non complex meal. I quickly took a picture of it and off I went to enjoy it. Yum!

Schering Plough

Yesterday was my first Conversational English class at Schering Plough, a pharmaceutical company dedicated to producing medicines that treat everything from Hepatitis-C to brain tumors. Again I failed at pretending that I was an expat from California. It could work- I'm pale enough, have blue eyes, and mousy brown hair, but my insides are as Boricua as a Coqui. I can't help who I am and I can't even begin to pretend that I don't know Spanish. I try, but when the student stumbles on a word and says it in Spanish, I quickly repeat it in English and there she/he catches me and realizes that I do know their native tongue. I try and cover it up by suggesting that my Spanish is at a high elementary level and could never survive in the business world. That is partly true, but not so much.

I'm not suppose to allow any Spanish at all other than their respected names, but I often find an excuse for exception. Like I allow the word "tapon" which is Spanish for traffic jam and "friolento(a)" which is a way of describing a person who gets cold easily. Some may say I'm being lazy at not trying to help them find an option in English and I suppose you could say that is true, even though I often do give them the translation or suggest a phrase that they can use in lieu of, but it's just that I can't bare the thought of having them loose their "Puerto Ricaness." It's who they are… it's who I am.

You see, I'm a lover of culture, sub-culture, counterculture and any other word you could use for it and lately I've been kicking myself for not having studied Anthropology instead of Communications. Some say that Journalism and Anthropology work hand in hand and that many have yet to discover that and I can't help but agree. Journalist are observers of everything that goes on around them. This leads me to a quote that I love because of how closely I identify to it- "Some reporters think it's political content that makes a story memorable. I think it's the people you find... their quirks, their flaws, what makes them funny, what makes them human. Journalism is just the art of capturing behavior." -Shattered Glass

I think that you can add that where the person comes from and where they are now also adds to the discovery of who they are. That I think is a topic that could evolve into so many things. So many things that I can't wait to discover.