Travel tips for Buenos Aires

If the volcano that has been acting up doesn't delay me, tomorrow I'll be in my hometown, Buenos Aires. Yes, this is a scheduled post, I'm on my way to the airport.

One interesting thing about marrying an American is that, for the first time, I got to show him Buenos Aires as to a tourist. At least the first time he came. I even bought a travel guide so we could read it together and decide where to go. Both travel guides I've seen give good but usually conventional advice. There is nothing wrong with that, but I thought it can be a good idea to add a few things for those who want to visit the city.

1-Buenos Aires is not a beautiful city in a typical way. Sure, it has tourist-pretty neighborhoods, like Recoleta, but the best about the city is the energy. So, obviously, the best way to absorb it is by walking. A lot.

2- Buenos Aires is also a very big city. What tourist guides suggest, though, is limited to the most touristic places. A good and safe way of getting to know other parts of the city is catching one of its multiple bus lines, and ride the bus for a while. You won't see anything particularly interesting, just what every day Buenos Aires looks like. The lines 106 and 109 are very good for this purpose.

3- If you are traveling with your partner, you have to try a "telo". Since it might be difficult to get your own place until you are in your mid-20s, this is how Argentinians have a healthy sex life. You pay for a "turn" (usually two and a half hours), or just for the whole night. They are all over the city, and range from the really sophisticated to the really gritty. According to my husband, the existence of "telos" is the sign of a civilized society.

4- If you are a book lover, you have to visit the branch of El Ateneo bookstore located in Santa Fe Ave. It is located in a former theater house built in the early XXth century. It's a chain, but a well-stocked one. If you speak Spanish, however, you might want to stroll through Corrientes Ave between the streets Riobamba and Parana. It has more bookstores and used-bookstores. If you work in the humanities, the bookstore Prometeo is especially good. Another option to find used-books gems is Avenida de Mayo. Take your time, and you will find something unique in the bookstores located there.

5- This tip is not original, but you have to visit the MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires). The building, the collection, and even the shop are wonderful. If you are staying in the city for a while, and you speak Spanish, you should check their cultural offers. They range from alternative cinema to seminars and lectures in a variety of topics. The museum is the private collection of Eduardo Constantini, one of the richest man in Argentina. You can see how careful he was in the paintings he purchased. Contrast this with the Museo Fortabat, the private collection of Amalita Fortabat, one of Argentina's wealthiest woman. The latter looks like what a rich woman who has too much money does: spend without criteria.

6- In Time Out Buenos Aires, I found this interesting suggestion for a tour guide: Diva, of Bitch Tours. I don't know her nor have I hired her services, so I am not endorsing her. But I would certainly contact her if Buenos Aires wasn't my hometown (I can't bring myself to pay for a tour guide in my own city)

7- Contrary to popular myths, tango is not something that every Argentinean does in its spare time. In fact, you'd have a hard time finding a native from Buenos Aires, who lives there, is under 50, and dances tango. Tango dancing is our "exotic" export, mostly (although not always) geared towards the tourist. Music, however, is different. If you want to watch an excellent and contemporary tango group, try the Orquesta Tipica Fernandez Fierro. They play here every Wednesday.

8- Finally, as the complete opposite of what I described in point 6, no visit to Buenos Aires is complete without going to Caminito, probably the most ridiculously touristic place in the city. It's a two block street where Italian settlers lived more than 100 years ago. Now, the shacks have been painted in really bright colors, and there are dozens of couples of tango dancers dancing on the street. It's as fake as it comes, and I guess that's why you should do it. I had never been there until I was 30. Now, if you want to add some adventure to it, get off the bus a few stops before and get lost, as it happened to me my first time. The surrounding neighborhoods are really rough. I was with two white Americans. We arrived to Caminito unharmed, but let's just say that the walk in itself was "interesting".

All of the above, of course, doesn't even begin to explain how much Buenos Aires has to offer. They are just a few ideas I have from somebody who's had both perspectives: as a local, and with tourists.

Why do personal injury lawyers get copies of police reports easily, but my insurance company can't?

The story is brief and not very dramatic. About a month ago, I was involved in a minor car accident. A lady run a red light taking a left turn and rear-ended me. Her story is the opposite, but it doesn't make sense if you see the point of impact. Thankfully, it was pouring rain and visibility was really bad, so I was driving 25 miles an hour on the slow lane. We called the police and gave our statements. I asked the police man when could I get a copy of the report, and he said that it would take me around 5 days to get one, but that my insurance company should be able to get one almost instantly. Then I call Geico, my insurance company, filed the claim, and arrange to have the car fixed. The customer representative at Geico asked me about a police report, I told her what the cop had told me, and she agreed. A week later, my mail box starts getting filled with letters from personal injury attorneys offering their services. A few of those letters had copies of the police report.

It took a little to arrange to take the car to the garage, but I did it. There was no problem, except my annoyance at having to pay the $500 deductible when clearly the other lady was at fault (although the police report said it could not be determined). So a few days ago, I called Geico and ask them if they were doing anything to try to recover the cost from the other insurance company (the total bill for the repairs were 3K, so you'd think they would at least try). They said they would call me back. So today, I receive a call from somebody from Geico, where they say they can't proceed with the investigation because they don't have enough information about the other driver (I had given them her name, phone number and insurance company and policy number), and they didn't have a copy of the police report. I was stunned. I repeat the conversation I had a month ago, but this customer service representative says that it's very difficult for them to access a police report. I just can't believe it. Are they dumb and lazy, or am I missing something? Finally, I just told him that I would scan a copy of the police report and send it to them as a PDF.

So my question is, how come I get a copy thanks to a personal injury lawyer trying to get me to sue, while Geico can't? It makes no sense.

Structure and ADD

On my previous post on ADD, Shedding Khawatir asked me to expand on "the structure/routine aspect [of managing ADD], and particularly if there are things to take particular note of for ADD versus general college student disorganization". As I said, I'll try. However, take into consideration that I did not do my undergraduate degree in the United States, and what I know is mostly what I've observed in my own students. Here are some (disorganized) ideas:

1) First of all, buy a daily planner, or an electronic organizer, and use it!!!! All the time. Put there what assignment you have for the class on a particular day, whether it's just reading, handling something, homework, a project, etc. Make sure that you are up to date with that for at least two weeks in advance. Then, of Friday night or Saturday, go over everything you have do the next week. See what you've already done and what needs to be done. Make a realistic estimate of how much it will take you to accomplish whatever you need to do, and try to write down on the planner when are you going to do it. It doesn't need to be scheduled by the hour (e.j: Monday 1-1:30, read chapter for History class), just when you plan to do it. Then stick to it.

2) Always start papers or longer projects before the rest of your procrastinating classmates. The piece of mind you'll get from this is invaluable. Having a prescription for "A" or "R" or whatever doesn't mean that now you can pull all-nighters in case of necessity. Yes, you can. But the quality of your work will suffer accordingly. The same applies to studying for exams. If you pull an all-nighter under the influence of a pill, chances are that by the time the exam arrive, you'll either be too exhausted to remember much or too wired to be able to write down your knowledge correctly.

3) To professors with students with ADD (not those you suspect have ADD, but those who have the papers and have presented them to you): I've had many students where the corresponding office have sent me the paperwork saying that X student has been officially diagnosed, and therefore is allowed to have special accommodations during exams, extra time, etc. In my experience, many students don't use this. It may be because they are embarrassed or because (as is the case of a language class) it requires extra planning and coordination with the professor (for example, for a listening comprehension part). It is a mistake. When I was in high-school and in college, I remember the anxiety I had when I felt I didn't have enough time to finish an exam. I could know the subject perfectly, but if I started feeling the anxiety, everything went to hell. I was too much in a hurry, feeling that I wasn't expressing myself properly nor demonstrating my knowledge. I would rush over things that needed more attention. As a consequence, I usually ended with a lower grade than what I could have achieved. It is a delicate matter, but if you have a student that you know has ADD, try to insist and remind the student to take the extra time they are allowed. I try to do it with my students, and the difference is astounding. I had a student that went from getting Ds to getting Bs.

4-Finally, it's important to remember that, in the same way one shouldn't be embarrassed for having ADD, being diagnosed and taking medication doesn't imply that now you need to be perfect. Know your strengths and flaws. I can take all the "A" in the world, and I still will be horrible at science. Also, remember to enjoy time off. One of the problems of people taking medication for ADD is that they constantly hear that, since they have the advantage of the prescription medication, they should be ten times more productive and do everything perfectly. This is tied to a more general discourse that insists on productivity, and that is especially prevalent in the U.S. It shouldn't be that way. Taking time off is important for your well-being. It might have to be scheduled and planned (see first point), but it has to be there. Otherwise, you'll be burnt out before you know it.

An excellent analysis of The Chronicle of Higher Education article on Antonio Calvo's death.

My fellow blogger at Hispanic Studies Forum has an excellent post where he criticizes the Chronicle's coverage of the Antonio Calvo's case. Everybody should read it.

Critical thinking in the classroom, and in our daily life

First of all, let me say this isn't a post about cultural relativism per se. With all its flaws, I am a fervent believer in the Enlightenment ideas and in the project of secular modernity. However, I also think it's very important to challenge established ideas in yourself and in other people. As somebody whose job puts her in the position of teaching other cultures to American students, I know how hard this can be and has blogged about it in the past.

When I teach my Latin American Civilization I class, one of the first texts my students have to read is Michel de Montaigne essay On Cannibals. They read it in English, by the way, I don't torture my students soo much. The essay is very useful in many respects. It was written in the late XVIth century. Montaigne had never left Europe, but he had witnessed the horrors caused by the religious wars that affected that continent. He compares the concept of barbarism among Europeans and a Tupi (Brazilian) tribe. Montaigne had never been in Latin America, and wrote solely based on another person account of his stay in the region. The essay has historical inaccuracies, and inscribes very well in the whole "noble savage" line of thought. However, it also subverts common hegemonic discourses of the period (like the "cronicas de Indias") regarding the barbarism of indigenous Latin American tribes and therefore the moral superiority of the Europeans.

Montaigne explains the cannibalism of the Tupis in the following terms:

After having a long time treated their prisoners very well, and given them all the regales they can think of, he to whom the prisoner belongs, invites a great assembly of his friends. They being come, he ties a rope to one of the arms of the prisoner, of which, at a distance, out of his reach, he holds the one end himself, and gives to the friend he loves best the other arm to hold after the same manner; which being done, they two, in the presence of all the assembly, despatch him with their swords. After that they roast him, eat him among them, and send some chops to their absent friends.

He compares this behavior with the Europeans, and says:

I conceive there is more barbarity in eating a man alive, than when he is dead; in tearing a body limb from limb by racks and torments, that is yet in perfect sense; in roasting it by degrees; in causing it to be bitten and worried by dogs and swine (as we have not only read, but lately seen, not among inveterate and mortal enemies, but among neighbors and fellow-citizens, and, which is worse, under color of piety and religion), than to roast and eat him after he is dead.

This provoking observation allows for an interesting class discussion that (hopefully) prolongs throughout the semester, and challenges students natural assumptions about civilization and barbarism.

I was reminded of this yesterday, while reading the last issue of The Economist. It contains a review of the book In Defense of Flogging, by Peter Moskos. I haven't read the book, so I will only refer to the review. The review starts by posing the following question:

IMAGINE that you—or, if you prefer, a younger, more reckless version of you—committed a crime. A bar brawl, driving home drunk again, some tax fiddling, getting caught with a more-than-trivial but less-than-kingpin amount of illegal drugs: something, in any event, that got you sentenced to a few years in prison. And say you were offered a choice: you could either spend those years behind bars, or you could get ten lashes. Certainly painful, probably humiliating, but it would be done under close medical supervision by a licensed flogger, and it would be over in minutes. You would recover, except for the scarring, in a few weeks. And you could get on with your life. You may think flogging is barbaric, but is there any question which you would choose if you could?

It then explains how the modern American prison system evolved as a "civilized" alternative to flogging:

penitentiaries were designed to “cure” prisoners of their criminality—to render them penitent—rehabilitating them into productive members of society.

It is pretty obvious that this goal has failed. It is also a broken system, where for-profit companies benefit from it and have an interest in keeping the broken status quo. According to the reviewer, the author doesn't say that everybody should be spared jail time. Some people must be kept away from society, because they are too violent. But for many others, it is frightening to realize that flogging might be a more humane and rational punishment.

The review in itself is short, and I would have like to read more of the author's arguments on it (maybe I need to read the book). The reviewer concludes by saying: Mr Moskos’s proposal begins as a provocation and ends bleakly plausible.

But flogging is still flogging. There may exist little political will to legalise drugs or rethink how and why criminals are punished, but America is not about to start whipping people again anytime soon. Perhaps the most damning evidence of the broken American prison system is that it makes a proposal to reinstate flogging appear almost reasonable. Almost.

Indeed. What does this kind of statement say about American society, and the supposedly "civilized" nature of it? It is definitely tough-provoking in more than one way. Maybe, I'll include a fragment of the book next time I teach my Latin American Civilization course.

Antonio Calvo on The Chronicle of Higher Education -UPDATEx3

Antonio Calvo's story has been featured prominently on The Chronicle Of Higher Education. Unfortunately, it's a for subscribers only article, so I'll just point out to any additional information that hasn't already been discussed in the story in previous posts in this blog.

The article describes how Calvo was abruptly terminated, his increasing desperation with the situation, and his suicide. According to the article,

Two dozen Princeton graduate students, current and former professors, and alumni wrote an open letter to university leaders complaining that it had "mistreated" Mr. Calvo and asking the university to issue a report explaining why. But Princeton has steadfastly refused to discuss the specific charges against Mr. Calvo and has advised professors not to feel obligated to talk, either, arguing that personnel matters are confidential. Most of the faculty have taken that advice. Two who signed the letter refused to speak with The Chronicle, as did the head of Mr. Calvo's department and its graduate students and lecturers. Robert K. Durkee, Prince­ton's vice president for public affairs, told The Chronicle that the university had scrupulously followed its policies and suspended Mr. Calvo only when campus officials became "concerned that this is a person who might be inclined to violence."

Former students describe Calvo as a friendly but really demanding professor, trying to get the best out of them. The most interesting bit of information that hadn't been mentioned before is, in my opinion, what the previous Director of the Spanish Program had to say. The Chronicle describers how

the job—which offered a three-year contract with the possibility of renewal—is a difficult one. It is up to the senior lecturer to decide who teaches early-morning classes, to discipline instructors who fail to show up for class, and to deal with undergraduates' complaints.

"You have to please everybody," says Celia Pérez-Ventura, who left as director of the Spanish-language program in 2006 before her contract expired, because she found the job overwhelming and felt that the department didn't appreciate her work. A predecessor had nearly lost the position because of a run-in with professors. "The job is rife with conflicts," says the language professor who asked not to be named. "There can be graduate students who don't want to teach language because they see it as an inferior activity and they want to focus on their dissertation or on teaching literature."

The article then describes his run-ins with a lecturer married to a newly hired professor in another department, and the controversy over the email telling a student to get out of his ass and go to work (using a Spanish expression that involves genital parts). The article describes the proceedings that lead to his death, and how they have been criticized by many since he was never informed of the charges against them. The Chronicle explains

The policy under which Princeton suspended Mr. Calvo says faculty members "shall receive a statement in writing of the reasons for the action ... ." In an e-mail message to The Chronicle, Mr. Durkee says the policy does not "specify the level of detail to be provided." Princeton clearly felt it had fulfilled its obligation. Mr. Durkee says Mr. Calvo would have had ample time to make his case in the meeting with the associate dean if he had made the appointment.

But Mr. Calvo's supporters say Princeton made other missteps in handling the case. The policy the university says it used to suspend Mr. Calvo applies to professors, never mentioning senior lecturers, a fact that Mr. Calvo's supporters say would have made it confusing for him to know how his case was being handled.

It also addresses the administration refusal to say anything concrete regarding the case, Ricardo Piglia speaking up and trying to be shut down by the administration. As you see, there are not many new details brought to light, but it interesting that such a widely read publication in the United States has it as the cover story of its online version. This case will be read by far more many people than Princeton would have wished.

UPDATEx3: If you are on Facebook, here is a copy of the article. You will need a Facebook account to log into it. And no, I am not the person who posted the note, nor do I know her. See first comment See second comment.

Soccer and politics

As most people who know Argentina in a certain depth would tell you, Argentinians have to passions: soccer and politics. Many times, both activities are combined, and who control certain soccer clubs (they are not private, they don't have an owner, like the US model) have repercussions in the political realm. The most clear example of the above is Mauricio Macri, the current mayor of Buenos Aires, a rich-spoiled good for nothing man whose popularity arises from the fact that he was the President of Boca Juniors, one of the two most popular soccer teams in Argentina, for many years.

I respond to the stereotype. Politics and soccer are two of my passions (film is the third one, and literature a distant fourth). So you can say I had a very "Argentinean" weekend, and a pretty bad one at that. First, yesterday, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner announced who would be her running mate when she seeks re-election in October. The Kirchner period (her husband was president from 2003 to 2007, and she was elected in 2007) has been a complicated one (like everything in Argentine politics). There were many good things (Supreme Court nominees that were outstanding, prosecution of human rights violators from the past, passing a same-sex marriage law, a growing economy), mixed with bad things (increasing authoritarianism, a problem with inflation that they deny and just altered economic indicators, etc). CFK announced Amado Boudou as her running mate. He is the current minister of Economy, and represents a lot of what I don't like about "kirchnerismo". In my opinion, he is an opportunist and, whatever the president says, he represents a turn to the right. He is also the type of cabinet member who would never contradict the president, and that to defend her and the economic policies can say something like: "Inflation only affects the upper classes, it's not a problem for the working class". This is absolutely false. As a consequence, they deny that Argentina has had 25% yearly inflation for the past 2 or 3 years, and my fear is that everything will explode at some point.

As for soccer, something unthinkable happened. My beloved River Plate, the second most popular team in Argentina, just descended to the second category of the Argentine Soccer League. This is depressing and embarrassing at the same time. And I'm freaking pissed off. So I think I'll go and bait a few more people on Facebook regarding politics. Beah....

My favorite beauty products.

Since I dedicated a post to mock beauty products, it is now fair that I list what are my indispensable products, the ones I love and buy over and over.

1- Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer SPF 20 in Nude: Sheer coverage, but it definitely covers those pesky skin imperfections.

2- SkinCeuticals Retinol 1.0: I've tried prescription Retinol, but my skin was too sensitive. This one is perfect. Be careful, though, you need to build up tolerance to it, so you can start by a lower concentration or applying it twice a week. And ALWAYS use it at night. Never use a Retinol product during the day, since it can accentuate sun skin damage.

3-Olay Regenerist Daily Serum: I love this one. I always apply it before the sunscreen.

4- Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Sunblock, SPF 85: Any Neutrogena sunscreen does the trick for me, this is the one I'm currently using.

5- Maybelline Volum' Express Turbo Boost Mascara: I love experimenting with Mascaras. This is the one I'm currently using, with good results.

6-Sugar Plum Tinted Lip Treatment SPF 15: A hint of color and protection for the lips. You can use it by day, or apply it more strongly by night for more effect.

This are the cosmetics I use on a daily basis. Of course, if I go out at night and want something more dramatic, I add eye shadows (MAC and Bare Escentuals are my favorite brands) and lipstick.

I'm a troublemaker...

I just spent one drunk hour teasing Argentinean friends on Facebook who have to fake to be happy that Cristina chose such a lame candidate as her future VP. I probably lost a few friends, but I love doing it!!!! Nothing like a good political tease to fire me up!

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will announce her VP candidate

...in less than an hour. Somehow, politicians in Argentina can keep a secret better than in the United States, so although there are rumors about possible candidates, nobody knows who will be. As the political junkie I am, it's driving me nuts. Some possible candidates are: Eugenio Raul Zaffaroni, Juan Manuel Abal Medina, Armando Boudou, Carlos Zannini and Hector Recalde.

Zaffaroni would be a great candidate, even though it'd be weird because he is a Supreme Court Justice. Of the other names, I personally know one of them (I'll blog about that if he gets selected). Still, whoever she chooses, I'm not sure I'd vote for her in October. But the opposition is even worse.

UPDATE: She chose Boudou, the current Minister of Economy. Mediocre choice at best.

Strategies to manage ADD

In my post about my story with ADD, Shedding Khawatir asked me to expand on the topic. So here are some additional ideas and issues that I thought about.

Before I begin, an explanation. According to the Terms of Service of this site, I can't say anything that appears to promote prescription drugs. Therefore, if I refer to any drug in particular, I'll just put the initial in parentheses. For some of you, that will be enough. If you would like to know which one I'm talking about, feel free to email me and ask. I don't want to get in trouble with Google and Blogger. So here are some ideas:

1- Not only every prescription drug is different, but every person can have a different reaction to each of them. Therefore, if you are prescribed a medication, it might take some time to find the right one for you. In the case of college students, given the fact that their access to medical help might be limited, it's not surprising that some of them refuse to take their prescription medication on a daily basis. For example, my husband, who also has ADD, can't tolerate any amphetamine-related drug. It makes him feel speedy and overly anxious. He finally found a non-amphetamine based prescription drug (W), and is helping him a lot. In my own case, I was first prescribed the famous "R". It was awful, I felt like I couldn't stop doing things nor relax. Another famous prescription drug, "A", suits me much better.

2- For me, it's essential to have a structure and a routine. I develop it without knowing I had ADD, as a coping mechanism for what I thought was my laziness. This doesn't mean that I have to plan my life a month in advance. For me, it's enough that every day, before I go to sleep, I think and structure what I will do the next day. Therefore, I have a guiding path and a goal, and I don't feel disoriented.

3- As I mentioned in the previous post, "A" helps me with my creativity. It is really good for brainstorming. However, it's not so good for writing. I had a proof of that when I submitted an article for a journal and it came back with a rejection that said something like "This manuscript is full of excellent ideas, but they are all disconnected". I can write drafts while I took a pill, but I can't go over what I wrote and revise it. I'm just too speedy, so I will overlook obvious problems. So I don't take anything while I am revising manuscripts that I intend to send for publication. That manuscript I refer to, by the way, was revised and has already been published.

4-I don't take "A" on a daily basis because I don't feel like I need it. As I mentioned in the other post, one of the particularities of ADD is the capacity to hyperfocus. So for example, when I go to teach my classes, I'm perfectly fine doing it without "A". I love teaching, and I really get involved in the moment. Add to that the energy and good feedback you receive from your students if you are a good professor, and that's everything I need to be a good at teaching. For every individual, it's a different process. It's very important that you know and understand yourself very well, to know how you act with or without the drugs and why.

5- Finally, a recommendation. Driven To Distraction : Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood Through Adulthoodis a book that has been very helpful to me. If you know somebody who is struggling with ADD, you might want to suggest it.

Please, let me know what other topics you might want me to talk about. I'll be glad to do it.

Jose Antonio Vargas, undocumented Pulitzer winner journalist.

By now, many of you have probably heard about the story of Jose Antonio Vargas, a former Washington Post reporter and Pulitzer winner journalist who came out this week about his immigration status: he is an undocumented immigrant. Of course, this has not only shocked many, but also allowed the xenophobic right wingers to spew hate.

In an essay for the New York Times Magazine, Vargas tells his story. In a sense, Vargas is the perfect example of why the U.S needs to pass the DREAM Act bill. His story is heartbreaking. It particularly shocked me the paradox he faced: the higher he rise in the journalistic world, the more paranoid he became about somebody discovering his true identity. He was at the same time achieving the so-called "American Dream" and risking losing everything by his triumphs. That is one of the many paradoxes that affect this country. In the past, politicians from both sides of the aisle had the common sense to try to find a solution. Nowadays, it seems more and more difficult. I hope the U.S reverses this course before it's too late.

Rick Perry and Latinos

In the latest installment of a politician appointing somebody of a certain ethnicity to try to get that group support, Rick Perry, Texas' governor, addressed the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. Instead of answering the criticisms that this Association had for his policies, he touted his appointments of the first Hispanic women to serve as secretary of state and to both of the state's highest courts. Moreover, according to the Huffington Post, he also tried a really bad joke that obviously fell flat. He joked about

how perfect it was to appoint Jose Cuevas to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission because his name sounds like Jose Cuervo -- a brand of tequila --

Note to politicians: we are not stupid. And by that, I don't mean Hispanics in particular, but minority groups. As far as Hispanics in particular go, we have the fresh memory of Alberto Gonzalez. So if you want to win a certain constituency's votes, policies are better than token appointments.

Products in beauty store catalogs

One of the things my husband enjoys doing is going over the catalogs I receive in the mail from different beauty stores (Sephora, Bliss and similar ones). As an English major, he is fascinated by the nonsensical blurbs used to describe some of the products. I received one of those catalogs in the mail yesterday, and here are his top choices (in no special order):

1- Laboratoire Remede 360 Cellular Concentré, described in the catalog as a serum that

prevents the signs of agins by teaching cells to look and act like those found in younger skin.

That is an amazing teaching process, no doubt!

2- Phyto Phytophanere Dietary Supplements for Hair & Nails: this caplets

deliver health to hair, ooh-la-la to lashes and nirvana to nails naturally.

3- Acorelle Hair Growth Inhibitor Skin Glorifier for Body: this lotion

shrink[s] stubble and fade[s] fuzz... Developed to regenerate new skin cells rather than form new hair growth.

Now, how does regenerating new skin cells prevent the growth of body hair, I wonder?

4- And, his favorite one, the Bio-Medical Research Bottom Lift. On this one, you need to click on the link. My husband sarcastic comment: "An electrical garter belt! Sexy!"

Now, I will say that I swear by one of the products featured in the catalog. I buy it all the time, because I have a real problem with ingrown hairs. It's the Bliss Hot Salt Scrub. It's expensive, but worth every penny. I haven't found a better body scrub yet.

Is there an app. for learning and improving Spanish grammar?

Does anybody know if there is any Apple application for learning and improving Spanish Grammar? My husband has an intermediate command of the language, but he is a perfectionist and wants to improve. He's found a way to increase his vocabulary through a flash card app., but he can't find any app. specifically for Spanish Grammar. Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated.

ADD in Academia

I've been reluctant to write this post for a while for different reasons, but I've finally decided to do it. I'm ADD (according to the last doctor I spoke to, there is a trend not to call it ADHD anymore). Why haven't I written about this before? Well, to begin with, there is a lot of mistrust and misunderstandings about the condition in the general population. For some, it's just an invention by pharmaceutical companies to push more drugs. Many people also believe that it is over-diagnosed, and it just applies to any kid considered disruptive in the classroom. Of course, this has a lot of social implications. Do we just medicate kids so that they conform to a certain pattern of accepted behavior? Do we medicate kids so they are not troublesome? I do think that ADD is over-diagnosed in the United States, and I don't necessarily think that every kid who has it needs to be medicated. But what I wanted to write about was about adult ADD, and my journey until I was diagnosed. I also wanted to point out to the gendered nature of the diagnosis. Although ADD affects men and women, the symptoms are not the same.

In Argentina, ADD has entered the medical vocabulary only recently. Therefore, when I grew up, I didn't know something like this existed. When I was in high school, I was really good at a couple of subjects, and completely unable to grasp many others. I was also bored to death in most classes. One of the common misconceptions about ADD is that everybody affected by it is hyperactive. That is not true, specially for girls. As the article I linked above explains,

For instance, girls are much less likely to display hyperactive or impulsive symptoms. Instead, they may just appear “spacey,” unfocused, or inattentive. Or they may have trouble staying organized or remembering directions or homework.

Another little known symptom of ADD is that inattentiveness can combined with hyperfocus. That was exactly my case. I spent hours studying Math and History, my two passions in high school. When I was 15, I was probably able to do first year college math problems. At the same time, it had to be abstract. So I was brilliant with number theory and abstract problems, but I was completely utterly clueless in how to solve a geometry problem. Why? Because it had a visual dimension that I could not deal with. Similarly, science classes (and I had to take 4 years of physics and 3 of biology and 3 of chemistry) were torture to me. I just couldn't understand them. Like I was blocked. Other classes, I was just bored by it (geography, literature, etc) because professors were just bad. I had to force myself to study. I graduated high school with the reputation of being brilliant but terribly lazy, and I entered college. For a long time, I thought I was going to study math. What made me change my mind was the realization that to have any kind of career in Math, I would have to study Applied Math, and I just was not good at it. So I went for the social sciences instead.

In college, I developed strategies to cope with what I thought were my laziness and my procrastination problems. I would force myself to study for 12 hours in a row. That was the amount of time that it took me to process material that it would take my classmates 4 hours. I graduated with decent grades (probably the equivalent of a 3.2 GPA in the USA), but I still felt dumber and less productive than my peers. I came to the U.S to do my grad studies, and my parents recommendation was that I shouldn't be a slacker. I continued the same strategies in the US. I would start a paper three weeks before it was due, envying my classmates that were able to do the same job in 5 days. For year, I had the feeling that I was under-performing, but on the other hand, I had mostly As, so that wasn't a problem in my academic life. I was terrified, though, of graduating and starting my career. How would I be able to juggle everything, if I was barely able to do it in grad school, when things are much easier. Teach, publish, do administrative work, keep track of things? I thought it was impossible.

The last year of my PhD, I met my now-husband. He is ADD, and had been diagnosed a few years early. He had his own set of issues as a consequence of being undiagnosed for so long. After we got to know each other better, and I confided in him my lack of confidence, my feelings of being a procrastinator, my fears, he said: "Maybe you have ADD". I kid you not, that was the first time I had heard of the words. So I research about it, and made an appointment on campus to get tested. Because that seems to be the most sought-after diagnose on a campus, I got an appointment for four months later. I went and did the test. The first part, you have a split screen and you are given something that resembles a joystick with two buttons. When a dot appears on the upper part of the screen, you have to click on one of the buttons. When it appears on the lower part, you click on the other. It takes 20 minutes, and it's as painful as you can imagine. Then, you go onto the other test, which resembles an extended IQ test. Overall, it took three hours, and at the end, I just wanted to finish it, because I was hungry!!! So two weeks later, I got an appointment with the doctor to go over the results. It also happened to be a month before I defended my dissertation. So I go to see the doctor, and he explains that I do have ADD (in the mild-range), and then he added: "You are borderline gifted in Math, and you have a reading disability". I just started laughing, and commented: "Well, somebody should have told me that before I decided to do a PhD in Literature". And, know-it-all as I was, I just said that he couldn't say I had a reading disability since I am not a native English speaker and many of the mistakes I had on the test were probably due to that. Now it was his turn to laugh: "Everybody comes here for a diagnosis, so they can get a prescription. You are the first person that actually argues with me as to the results".

Reading and researching about ADD helped me a lot to understand myself. Do I take prescription medication? Sometimes. I do have a prescription, but I don't use it regularly. However, if I have a pile of 100 compositions to grade, yes, I do. It also helps me to brainstorm ideas for articles. It doesn't help me in the writing, though. One of the things I discovered when I became a professor is that ADD in Academia is something nobody talks about. I've heard snarky remarks from people who do not know I have ADD as to how professors who take prescription medication just want to have an advantage because they are not good enough to do their work without drugs. ADD drugs in academia are instantly associated with undergraduates who buy it illegally to pull all-nighters. There is some sort of stigma associated with it. However, it exists, and I would love if it was something I could talk about more freely. I don't believe it will happen any time soon, though.

Any thoughts, comments, etc?

AP Spanish Language Exam - some thoughts

Although it was mind-numbing, being an AP reader was an instructive experience (and the pay wasn't bad either). There are still a lot of things I don't know about it, but it was a good introduction into high-school teaching, high-school education, and high-school politics.

To begin with, most of the readers were high school teachers, so I learnt a lot about it I wouldn't have otherwise. Although I didn't have a clear idea of what AP was, I always equated it with some sort of honors class. Well, not so. Or at least, not always. To begin with, thanks to No Child Left Behind, each state has its own guidelines for assigning a ranking to the school. Add to that how popular Newsweek and U.S News rankings have become, and you have a variety of reasons of why a school might push students to take AP exams. For example, the Washington Post is among the publications that rank high schools across the country. One of the things they take into consideration is number of students taking AP classes and exams. One of the things they do NOT take into consideration, though, is how students score on those exams. Now, although I do not have a specific example, I wouldn't be surprised if the same applied to the way public schools are measured in some states.

Related to that, one of my biggest surprises was the amount of exams I graded that were either blank, written in incomprehensible Spanish, in English, or just mumble about random things. Why, I asked the high school teachers, would a student go through an AP class if they obviously don't have the skills? Their answer surprised me: in the past, you had to be invited by the teacher to take the AP class. Nowadays, every school is a different world. In some, this continues to be the case. In others, any student can enroll. Not only that, but school administration push students to take those classes in order to boost the school ranking. The result is a nightmare for the teacher, who has to teach students of very different levels in the same class.

Another problem of the AP Spanish Language Exam is the scoring guidelines. Here are the scoring guidelines for the writing and speaking parts. They are in English, so anybody can take a look at them. One thing that happens often is that there is a big discrepancy between "Task Completion/Topic Development" and "Language Use". When you ask to the leaders which ones should you prioritize, you get a vague answer: "You have to grade 'holistically'". In the end, task completion/topic development do have more importance, so while a student who doesn't have a good command of the language will not get a 5, some who make awful language mistakes can end up with a 3.

Another question is, are the AP classes worth it? In a sense, they seem a more rigorous "teaching to the test" kind of classes. Now, considering how loose the standards in some states are, that is not necessarily bad. But it can certainly stiffed students creativity. However, a student who gets a 5 in an AP Spanish Language Exam is really good. Despite some students opinion, it is really hard to score a 5. Here is a link to examples of all the subjects where AP exams are offered. They have exams and scoring guidelines. What do you think about them? For example, those of you who are English professors, what's your impression of AP exams? What about those of you who are professors in the sciences? As I said, I am new to the topic, so I would like to form my ideas. Please, share your opinions so I understand the AP world a little better.

New blog from frequent reader and commentator

Dear readers, I just wanted to let you know that Focasvista, a frequent reader and commentator on this blog, has started a blog. This is the link: http://cookingprofessor.blogspot.com/, and, as the name suggest, is dedicated to cooking. Yummy!!! Bookmark the link, head over there and say hi!

The U.S and the theory of evolution.

It really blows my mind that the US is the only First World country where only 40% of the population believes in the theory of evolution. Moreover, the right to teach "intelligent design" and/or "creationism" in public school is still being debate in many States. In 2007, during a debate in the Republican primaries, the host asked the potential candidates which one of them did not believe in evolution, and 3 of them raised their hands (Tancredo, Brownback and Huckabee). Of those, only Tancredo can be conceived as being on the fringe. Sam Brownback is the current governor of Kansas, and Mike Huckabee is the former governor of Arkansas. And, on the same level of intelligence of what we've been talking about, only two of the 2011 contestants for the title of Miss USA believe in evolution (California and Massachusetts). Fortunately, one of them won. I really don't understand a country where half its population does not believe in science. Or better yet, they don't believe in science but they certainly go to the hospital and not to a faith-healer when they are sick.

Lady Gaga and Slavoj Zizek

In the domain of frivoulous gossip, Lady Gaga and the well-known theorist Zlavoj Zizek have become friends. According to the that paragon of high quality journalism, The New York Post,

In a recent blog post titled "Communism Knows No Monster," Zizek called Gaga "my good friend" and said, "There is a certain performance of theory in her costumes, videos and even (some of) her music." He says her infamous meat dress is a reference to "the consistent linking in the oppressive imaginary of the patriarchy of the female body and meat, of animality and the feminine."

Although The New York Post seems to suggest something else (comparing Zizek to Salman Rushdie in their ability to attract beautiful women), Zizek denies anything is going on. I would believe him, if it wasn't because I actually heard some background story on Zizek failed marriage to an Argentinean model (and literature major). So I wouldn't put it past him (no judgement here). When Zizek married the Argentine model, in ended up in the cover page of every People-type magazine in the country. The best part was seeing photos of well-known professors and intellectuals in the Argentine equivalent of US Magazine. Let me dream: if he marries Lady Gaga, who do you think we'll have the honor to see inside the pages of People Magazine? And what other celebrity - intellectual duo do you think would be a good match?

The Creation Museum.

This post is dedicated to Nicoleandmaggie, with all my love.

So God has its mysterious ways. We finished early the last day at the AP, so I had the chance to go and visit the Creation Museum!!! A Museum completely dedicated to prove that Earth is only 6000 years old and to illustrate the that what the Bible says is the Truth. The 27 million dollar museum was built by Answers in Genesis, a religious "organization" that looks more like a big corporation. However, my curiosity won the battle over my resistance to give $25 to religious freaks (admission price). I can say that, in a sense, it was worth it.

Although I am a literature person, I have a very logic mind. In fact, while I was in high school, for a while I thought I would study Math. That obviously didn't happen, but the logic mind is still there. I love to analyze arguments and uphold them or tear them apart on its merits, but, above all, I like to understand whatever logic underlines certain movements that might look completely irrational to an outsider. And creationist, as much as anybody else, do have their own twisted internal logic to support their arguments. Every museum narrates something. It is organized within a certain framework. That is also something present in the Creation Museum. It narrates the story of how secularism and rationalism are to blame for all the evils that affect the world today.

To begin with, the place was packed. There were all sort of people. Some were obviously religious, like groups of Amish-looking women and their families (I'm sure I'm wrong about this, but I have no idea to what denomination a woman that dress like a XIXth century peasant belongs). Other look like suburban families: soccer moms well dressed, father in jeans and a polo shirt, soccer mom with mommy pants, etc. And most of them had their kids with them.

You start by an exhibit of an animatronic girl feeding a carrot to a squirrel while dinosaurs roam happily around. These dinosaurs, supposedly, were vegetarians. Here are a few photos (note: I stole them from the internet, I didn't have a camera with me):

And

So far, I hadn't even given my ticket to the employee working at the entrance, so I knew I was in for a good ride. After you hand your ticket to the employee, you start by a few rooms that depict, in the same style as the photos you can see above, Adam and Eve before the Fall. Then, after the room where Eve eats the apple, you go into a very different room. It's dark, narrow, and its brick walls are covered with graffiti, newspaper clips of famines, wars and natural catastrophes, all accompanied by heavy metal as the soundtrack. The analogy is obvious. You go trough a few rooms where it explains the consequences of not being a good Christian: your son will do drugs, your daughter will get pregnant. It is not enough, though, to go to Church every Sunday. Everybody can do that. You have to live your whole life according to the precepts of the Bible. Otherwise, you are not only sinning but every possible maladie will befall your family.

In the whole Museum, I don't think I ever saw the words "carbon 14". There is a room, however, where you are shown a video that compares a "Christian" paleontologist with a "scientific" one. The video says that the Christian paleontologist believes Earth is 6000 years old, while the "scientific" one believes it is millions years old (don't remember the exact number). What is the explanation for the discrepancy? "They both have the same facts, they just arrive to different conclusions because they have different starting assumptions". Both of them, supposedly, equally valid.

How did the continents separated, you would ask? Well, it was obviously during the great flood and Noah's Ark. An ark, by the way, that included dinosaurs among the animals that were saved. Other gems of the Museum:

- The Scopes Trials were an attempt to stop the introduction of Nazi ideology in the United States.
-The dinosaurs were vegetarians before Adam and Eve sinned.
-At the end of the museum there is a suggestion that maybe dinosaurs did not dissapeared forever, and they will be find in some unknown land living happily.

Basically, the museum guides you through their linear, non-questionable interpretation of the Bible. The dichotomy rational science/faith-based science repeats numerous times. Of course, the implication is that rationality, modern thought and science create more harm than good, and society wouldn't be decomposing if everybody lead a faith-based life. The last hour (I spent 2 and a half hours there) becomes boring and repetitive. Overall, however, I will say that it was worth the money. It gave me a fascinating insight into a really scary religious mindset.

Foreskin Man I

My previous post (titled Foreskin Man) hasn't showed up on anybody's blogroll. I'm writing this just to see if it's one of Blogger's perennial problems, or there was an issue with the post in itself.

Update: It updated perfectly. If you are interested in the post, it's the previous post. Hope you enjoy it.

Foreskin Man

Update: I edit the title of the post, because for some reason the post wasn't updating in anybody's blogroll

Today, after finishing my work as an AP reader, I exit the room where I had spent 7 exhausting days feeling like an over-caffeinated stoner. I felt dumb and brainless, but also wired thanks to the tons of caffeine I had ingested. In the hallways of the Convention Center, they had huge screens with headlines from news agencies: "Anthony Weiner resigns (AP)", "Arizona's wildfires spread (Reuters)", etc. Today, when I left that room, looking for freedom, I glanced at one screen. I read: Anti-Circumcision Comic Hero Called Anti-Semitic (AP). For a moment, I thought I was hallucinating. It was as bizarre a headline as I could possibly think. But now, I was seeing correctly. Of course, I had to find out what it was about. It is about a comic book called Foreskin Man (I won't be linking to the web comic site, but you can find it on your own). The title is only the beginning.

Foreskin Man is the creation of Matthew Hess, the president of an organization, MGM Bill, who aims to ban male circumcision in the United States. They succeeded in putting on the ballot in San Francisco a bill that would make male circumcision illegal. A $1000 fine would be applied to those who violate it, and there would be NO exceptions for religious reasons. I am aware that male circumcision can be a controversial topic in the United States. Those who oppose it consider the practice archaic and barbaric, and deny there is any medical benefit to it. Others hold a different point of view, obviously. I have no strong opinions on the subject. I find the comparison that some who oppose the practice of male circumcision to female clitoris mutilation outrageous. On the other hand, I don't think that not doing it is similar to parents who oppose vaccination. I think it should be left to individual parents to decide. But I've known a couple who almost got a divorce over the issue while the wife was pregnant, because she thought that doing it would be to mutilate her baby while the husband wanted to do it for health reasons. So I know that the topic can arise passions. What I never thought was that it could led to such blatant antisemitism. Of course, I'm sure the guy is nuts and just a fringe of the movement, but it just left me speechless.

Here is the cover of one issue of Foreskin Man. You will notice the blond, ripped super-hero, fighting against those Orthodox rabbis and the couple who are trying to perform the bris on the little baby (for some reason, the ceremony seems to be taking place over a pool table, I wonder if that has any meaning). Foreskin Man has to battle Monster Mohel, an evil rabbi from whom (presumably) innocent Jewish babies should be saved.

This is Monster Mohel. He looks scary, doesn't he? According to the AP report,

San Diego activist Matthew Hess says he conceived the Internet comic series last year as a way to boost his budding national effort to outlaw circumcision, an effort that has led to a measure on San Francisco's ballot in November that would make it illegal to perform a circumcision on a boy under 18.
Recently, though, the series has drawn criticism from those who deride Hess' imagery as anti-Semitic and liken Foreskin Man's confrontation with a sinister-looking Monster Mohel to 1930's Nazi propaganda.
In the comic's second issue, the mohel (a specialist in Jewish ritual circumcision) barges into a San Diego home, snatches a baby boy from his mother, and proceeds to circumcise the infant on a pool table before being stopped by Foreskin Man.
"The (Monster) mohel has a dark complexion, hook nose and is practically drooling at the thought of apparently doing harm to a child," said Nancy Appel, associate director of the Anti-Defamation League. "He even has claws on his fingertips. He is blood thirsty just like the grotesque Jewish stereotypes that appeared in Nazi propaganda. It's absolutely a direct parallel."

In addition, most of the "good" characters in the story are either blond or have light-brown hair. What is Hess defense against charges of anti-semitism? Again, according to the AP report, he

said the character's blond, Germanic features reflect his own heritage and that the comic is not anti-Semitic because the superhero saves a Jewish baby from genital mutilation.

I think "I'm not a Nazi, I have a Jewish friend" would have been a better defense.

I'm not very good at analyzing comics. Instead, I'll leave this blogger and comic book artist to do the work for me. His post is hilarious. To round up, guess what will Foreskin Man next adventure be? He will go to Africa to save babies from an African tribe from being circumcised. I'm not making this one up. You can only imagine how many stereotypes this defender of innocent babies will be able to come up with.

The Antonio Calvo case on Spanish TV

Thanks to an anonymous comment, I was informed that last Tuesday, Spanish TV channel Antena 3 showed a report on the Antonio Calvo case. In case you are interested, here is the link. I haven't watched it yet, I'll do it as soon as I can.

AP Spanish Language - Interpersonal Writing

Here, on page 2 of the document, are the directions for the interpersonal writing exercise of the 2011 AP Spanish Language exam. Here, also on page 2, are the 2010 scoring guidelines that readers receive. For those of you who teach Spanish (or teach something else but have a good command of Spanish), what do you think are some of the problems that arise from this exercise? What do you find problematic?

I'll blog more later about the topic.

DISCLAIMER: All the materials I'm providing are online, so I'm not violating any confidentiality with this post.

What I learnt today...Part II

And the fountain of knowledge continues to share with the blogosphere:

Bogotá travels a lot throughout the world
-The bike protects you from terrorism
-The bike has a negative impact in the world because socialist governments try to impose it on people
-London is a paranoid jungle (no metaphorical intention here)
-In London, the police thinks that if a person is on a bike, he/she is a terrorist.

Has there been any new development in the Antonio Calvo's case?

I ask because in the past three days, I've had an enormous amount of hits on my multiple posts about the case. The one that get the most hits is the one about Gabriela Nouzeilles and Antonio Calvo.

What I learnt today...

London is a jungle where you can't bike because it's very difficult to bike in between trees.
Real Madrid is a city where people bike a lot.
I hate freaking bikes!!!!

Tips for bloggers

Don't treat your students the way you treat some of your readers: dismissing their ideas with condescension. The readers can take it, and I guess the students too. But it's not good pedagogy, and it makes you look like an ass***le.

Dear readers...

I'll be checking the blog and answering comments this week. I will also try to post occasionally. But I am on a secret confidential grading mission this week, so you won't get substantial posts from me. I'll make it up next week, with a post on Scholars and ADD.

Feminism, paid domestic labor, research interests, and more.

Feminism is a topic that has come up a lot lately on the blogosphere. The issue of paid domestic labor (maids) has been mentioned in some comments to those topics, but not as often. I've had a post about feminism, and so have ABD Mama, Historiann, Clarissa , feMOMhist and others. The issue of paid domestic labor is a strange one for me to talk about: on one hand, it's widespread in middle and upper classes families in Latin America (it ranges from a live-in maid to a cleaning lady that might come to your house twice a month). On the other hand, the exploitation of domestic labor is also pervasive (both in the Latin America and in the rest of the world). Furthermore, I've always felt there is a "moral" stance in the United States against employing a cleaning lady, which I found ridiculous.

Today, doing research for a completely different project, I found an article that I immediately started reading because it addresses many of these topics. At the same time, and for completely different reasons, I found a great example of what interest me in a problem, which might be completely different to why somebody else is concerned about it. The article in question is titled "Domestic Relations in Brazil: Legacies and Horizons", and appeared in Latin American Research Review in 2010 (45.2). I linked to the article, but I'm working at my institution, so you probably need to be in a place with access to Project Muse to view it entirely. It's written by Patricia de Santana Pinho and Elizabeth Silva, two social scientist specializing in Latin America. Part of the abstract reads:

Grounded in literature review and an ethnographic study, this article examines contemporary Brazilian domestic life. Relations among women (employers and maids) and between women and men are analyzed with a focus on the home as a space in which gender, race, and class inequalities are constantly reproduced. The article argues that what happens in domestic life is constitutive of wider social divisions and that the domestic is a universe integral to the national social context. (90)

Brazil is another country where the presence of maids is ubiquitous. Because of its specific history one of the consequences of this in Brazil

is the naturalization of black women as subservient, complementing the pairing of whiteness and class entitlement. (90)

However, note the authors,

The transference of middle-class domestic labor to a paid-for woman...is becoming an ever-increasing practice in many countries. In virtually all contexts, paid domestic work is characterized by the facts that the workers are poor, female, and from racially marked groups (Ehrenreich and Hochschild 2002), that they work long hours and are frequently exploited (Williams and Gavanas 2008), that they do the dirty work of cleaning (Anderson 2000), and that they are many times referred to as fictive kin (Lan 2002). (94)

Drawing from their ethnographic study, they find that one of the patterns in Brazil is men's disengagement from housework. Furthermore, upward mobility of women have only accomplished the transfer of work to paid domestic labor (109). The ethnographic part of the article is fascinating, contrasting the complaints of the maids (overwork, almost no time to themselves or their own family) with the satisfaction of the "patronas" because their maids are capable of being in charge of the house and take care of everything. However, I find some of their conclusions slightly patronizing. For example:

The everyday routines of the women in the wealthier households (upper-low and upper-high-income levels) that employ domestic labor appeared fairly disengaged from their children's routines (see figures 1 and 2 herein). Well-off mothers' child-care activities involved taking children to school and picking them up, feeding them in the evening, and putting them to bed. Nannies or maids predominantly got children out of bed and fed them breakfast and lunch. (99)

Is it a moral imperative that a working mother is involved in every possible activity of her child? How is it wrong to rely on somebody else (provided that fair salaries, benefits, etc are paid) to relieve them from some of the work at home?
According to the authors,

Even among academics, leftists, and feminists, there is little interrogation of the widespread phenomenon of paid domestic service and of the home as a place where inequalities of class, race, and gender are reproduced. (99)

Now, at least part of this statement seems contradicted in the last pages of the article. Here, the authors write almost in passing,

...a lot of feminist ideas have been debated in Brazil, and many have been productive in bettering women's social stand. Changes in the domestic in Brazil have also occurred as a result of the struggle of unions of domestic workers and nonprofit organizations dedicated to defending their rights, among which are guaranteed access to payment of late wages and retirement pensions. Brazil has also taken several actions to combat informality and increase the professionalization of maids' relations to employers. A law approved in March 2006 (Medida Provisória No. 284, March 6, 2006) allows patrões to deduct from their income-tax expenditures related to contributions made toward a maid's social security. Maids have also become entitled to a monthly payment of at least one minimum wage, paid vacations (30 days per year), sick leave, 120 days of maternity leave, and at least 1 day off per week (Law No. 11.324 (July 19, 2006). (108)

Now, I'm not saying that the article in itself, or its focus is wrong. Only that what would interest me if I were to study paid domestic labor in Brazil is different. The gender relationship aspect is certainly relevant, but I would have included the economic and the political in it. Brazil is a country where maids have the power to form unions? How did that happen? A law has been passed that states what benefits they are entitled to? Has the law been enforced or ignored? All of these are the issues that I would like to see explore. Again, it's not a question of who's right and who's wrong, but about what a scholar research interest is, and how they can differ widely when analyzing the same phenomenon.

In the article, however, these facts are almost brushed aside. Right after the above quoted passage, the authors continue:

Yet although domestic relations have been affected over the past decades, no significant change has affected two main tenets of Brazilian domestic life: men's disengagement from housework and the transfer of housework to paid domestic labor.The growth in women's paid jobs has not changed the patterns of domestic living in any significant way, and homes are still run by women in paid and unpaid arrangements. In general, gender relations in well-off homes are not perceived as requiring change. The tensions regarding housework are deflected onto lower-class women, normally women from racially subordinated groups. (109)

It's a shame. Something tells me that if maids have been able to form a union and - at least in some regions- they are powerful enough to lobby for a law (or even if the law was passed by politicians to cater to their votes), then a lot more than what the article suggests has changed. Not only in the economic aspect, but also related to gender and race relationships. It's just an intuition.

Medicine and gender

It's not breaking news for anybody how your gender can affect the kind of treatment you get. And I am not referring to obvious biological differences, but the approach a doctor might have to your problem. Yesterday, I had a great example of this.

As I've mentioned before, my husband is a graphic artist and illustrator. For the past five years, he's also had chronic pain in his forearms and wrist. It can get pretty bad, but it's not disabling. It's not carpal tunnel syndrome, nor tendonitis. Since we moved to my current job and have health insurance, he's tried everything available. Western Medicine, Acupuncture, weird smelling lotions, massage therapy, electro-massage therapy, you name it. He is able to control the pain up to a certain level, but it's never really gone for more than a month.

Last week, hubby went to this doctor who just look at his file and all the material available, and honestly confessed there was nothing he could do about it. He referred him to a pretty famous Pain Management Clinic in town. We looked at it online, and it sounded pretty good. The founder is a board certified anesthesiologist, but he also specializes in acupuncture, includes nutrition and other things in the treatment. So yesterday, my husband called to see how much it cost (they don't take any insurance), and maybe make an appointment. He spoke with the (female) secretary, and told her that Dr. So and So had refer him to the clinic, because he didn't know what to do with his case. The secretary replies: "Oh yes, those are always our patients. The ones that traditional doctors have given up on, because nothing seems to work. Actually, we get more calls from men than from women. If you were a woman, your doctor would have already suggested that you talk to a therapist. With men, doctors are more willing to accept that you do have a physical problem, and that they just don't know how to treat it."

Isn't it amazing? And the weirdest thing is that, although I do believe there is a physical root in his pain, I also think it's a combination. It's not a coincidence, in my opinion, that the worst flare ups tend to happen when he is under the most stress.

Worst dating stories... and a weird coincidence

Here are my two top worst dating stories, one from Buenos Aires and the other one in the US.

1) Before coming to the US to do an MA, I worked in the storage facility of a comic book store (I have plenty of anecdotes about that job). There was this guy with whom I flirted a lot, but nothing happened. After I finished my MA, I went back for a year to Argentina. I went back to visit my old place of employment. The guy was still working there. We started flirting again, until the owner looks at him and says: "Why don't you invite her out?" And so he did. We went to see a movie the following Saturday, and then we went to have a few beers. We really didn't know each other much, so we started talking about random things. Like hobbies, or things we like and dislike. The first red flag came out when he said he was passionate about German military history. In Argentina, that's usually a bad sign. I let it pass. For some reason, 10 minutes later, he takes out his key chain. It had an SS symbol on it. I just looked at him and said: "You know I'm Jewish, right?". He seemed surprised, but answered (I kid you not): "Oh, I have a lot of Jewish friends". My answer: "Well, but I don't date Nazis nor have one-night stands with them. Sorry". Stood up and left.

2) My first semester doing my MA in the US, there was this guy doing a PhD in Film that I had a great crush on. One afternoon, out of the blue, he calls me and invites me out, to see a movie. I gladly said yes. We chose a movie, and he said he was coming to pick me up in an hour. He did come, and somehow, his mood had completely changed. I asked him what was going on, and he starts ranting about all those people who speak Spanish in the city and refuse to learn English. I told him: "Do you know Spanish is my native language, right?" "Yes," he replies, "but you also speak English". At that point, we were 20 miles away from my apartment, in a city not known for its public transportation. So I was stuck. Things only got worse from there on. At some point (and luckily we were a mere 5 miles away from my apartment) he said something so offensive that I just waited for the next red light and got of his car, walking back to my apartment in the Southern summer heat.

A weird coincidence: when I started dating my current husband, talking about past flings, we realized that at the same time we had dated a former couple that still lived together (they had separated, but they had bought a house together and had decided to remain roommates). So before knowing each other, I had dated the man and he had dated the woman in that broken couple. And they were both still pretty damaged.

Do you save money during the summer, or do you spend more?

I've found out that I save money during the summer. The biggest jump in expenses is, of course, electricity. I rent an apartment, and heat and water are included in the rent. For some magnificent reason I haven't been able to figure out, the electric bill are always really low. In the winter, they are $20-30 a month. In the summer, they jump to $70-80 a month, but never more. When I here how much my friends who own houses in my city pay for electricity ($100 for a good month, up to $400 in the summer), I find another reason as to why I don't want to be a home owner.

I also spend more going out. Having beers with friends is hard to resist, and I am not so tired as to decline. However, that is offset by the fact that I eat out less.

How do I save money during the summer?

1) The biggest reason I save money on the summer is that I don't go to my office everyday. That cuts down on gas and, above all, that coffee you buy or the lunch when you've been too lazy to bring something from home. During the school year, it really adds up. I know, I could cut down on this expenses during the rest of the year, but it's easier said than done.

2) For some reason, I don't feel too compel to impulse buying on the internet. It's not that I have a problem with that or something, but during the school year, I probably need some sort of outside gratification. So those emails with discounts, great deals, etc sometimes are too difficult to pass up. During the summer, most of the time I don't even open them.

3) I have more time to do grocery shopping. So I can go to Whole Foods to buy some items, to my chain grocery store to buy others, and to Costco once every two month to buy large supplies of staples (toilet paper, etc). As I result, I get better deals and I also spend less money eating out (although my husband is the official cook of the house, if he is not up to it I am more inclined to do it instead of just suggesting the wonderful Indian restaurant around the corner).

What do I feel tempted by, in the summer?

There is this wonderful swimming club less than a mile from where I live. A friend of mine is a member, so I've been there several times. For two summers in a row, I've been tempted to join. But the initiation fees turn me off. The yearly fee is $600 (for a family). They are open from June to the end of October. I could justify paying that, but if you join, you have to pay a one-time only initiation fee of $600. And I can't bring myself to pay $1200.

What about you? Do you spend more or less during the summer? Why?

Critical thinking in the classroom

I've blogged before about the ways I try to introduce critical thinking in my courses. For example, here and here. This applies mostly to my Latin American civilization classes, although a lot can also be said in that respect about language classes. Last week, Tenured Radical had a post on Constructive Disagreement and Classroom Politics. She asks:

a central issue for all social sciences and humanities scholars, regardless of field, is that our very work and identities are built around the idea of constructive disagreement as a path to knowledge: truth is not a priori, and that which is obvious and . If students do not believe they are empowered to disagree with us, and if disagreement itself is viewed as destructive in a classroom context, in what context can students be transformed into scholarly thinkers? Conversely, if all student views -- no matter how factually incorrect of interpretively flawed -- have to be deferred to for fear of being charged with "indoctrination," under what conditions might a class acquire a body of knowledge about a subject, or a set of intellectual tools that constitute a recognized approach to that body of knowledge, at all?

The post that elicited different replies, mostly centered about classroom strategies and pedagogy and made me think about the issue again.

Unlike others, I don't believe in leaving politics out of the classroom. For once, the mere act of designing a syllabus implies a selection, and is never neutral. I will not give my personal opinions about Bush presidency in a class, but how can you talk about issues of colonialism and postcolonialism in a Latin American civilization course and pretend you are being "neutral"? Conversely, Tenured Radical points out to another phenomenon:

a growing source of resentment among students: faculty often tell them things that don't support, and even contradict, the world view that they brought to college in the first place. What many teachers see as factual information, such students perceive as "opinions" ...

What strategies do you employ to win over students' resistance, and make them critically think about issues? This doesn't imply that they have to agree with your position on a particular subject, but that they are able to construct a reasoned and well-supported argument.

In the comments, somebody mentioned an article that appeared on Mother Jones on "motivated reasoning". It's a really interesting article, but for the sake of brevity, I will copy and paste the summary of the article included in the comment:

Human brains are not open to evidence unless it is couched in terms that our emotions can handle.

My approach is what I called playing "devil's advocate", not to be confused with neutrality. As I wrote in the comments,

I am as liberal as it comes, and I don't hide it from the class at all. I've also found that there is usually a well-constructed logical argument that will be ideologically opposed to what the student is saying, whether it's liberal, centrist, conservative, etc.

It shows students the different arguments that can be constructed about historical processes and their significance. It also exposes them the fact that historical processes and periods are always more complex than what their worldview allows them to see. I'll show an example:

For my Latin American Civilization I class (Colonial Latin America), at least a week or two is devoted to the discussions that arose in 1992, and the projects to celebrate/mourn/reflect about the 500 years of the Conquest. My students read 3 very different texts about the event:

a) a short essay by Eduardo Galeano called Cinco siglos de prohibición del arco iris en el cielo americano

b) an article by Mario Vargas Llosa: Questions of Conquest: What Columbus wrought, and what he did not (I have a PDF copy of it if somebody is interested in reading it)

c) A fragment by Carlos Fuentes in El espejo enterrado

Oversimplifying a lot, these three texts can be labeled the left (Galeano), center (Fuentes) and right (Vargas Llosa) wing positions in the debate. Now, my students have spent a whole semester reading about not only the historical facts of the Conquest, but also primary sources that showed them how was America perceived by the Europeans, how this evolved throughout the times, and how the Conquest also shaped their own perception of themselves. At this point, the (good) students are prepared to have a sophisticated discussion about the consequences of colonialism, and it's usually them who tie it to the United States and the contemporary world. I have always enjoyed those discussions. I've never been accused of "indoctrination", even though my political opinions are not a secret. And I think I help quite a few students open up their minds and consider possibilities that their narrow worldview had always hidden from them.

Student evaluations

Unlike some professors, I pay a lot of attention to my students' evaluations. First, because I work at a primarily teaching institution, so they are an important component of my future tenure package. But also, I believe they are important tools in fine tuning my teaching, and my student evaluations tend to be fair in their praise and in their criticism. In the language classes, they let me know how effective or not I've been in developing the students' skills. In the "content" courses, where I design my own syllabus and do not use textbooks, they let me know what has worked and what has not (of course, sometimes students like certain materials and others hate it. Still, I can find out if something has worked for everybody or if a majority of students hated a certain section or assignment of the course). There are, however, students that write really crazy, unfair or downright mean things in their evaluations. Here are a few that I've gotten, or that someone I know has received.

1) In a language class (Intermediate Spanish II), a student once wrote that my institution should hire native English speakers to teach Spanish, because they know what it means to learn another language. As if I hadn't learned a foreign language myself, and I was born speaking English (my spoken English is very good and clear, by the way)

2) Another time, in an Advanced Spanish course, a student got really paranoid about me. Not only did he/she wrote that she/he felt that I was trying to fail him/her on purpose, but her/his main criticism was: "Spanish Prof divides as into groups to do activities, and then she walks around the classroom checking on us. I felt persecuted. I wish she would leave as alone while doing in-class exercises. I didn't like her constant presence, supposedly to make sure that we understood the concepts and that we were doing the exercises correctly". I think what surprised me the most about this is that I didn't see it coming. Usually, I have a pretty good idea whether a student likes me or not, and I can sense hostility very easily. Not this time

3) But by far the meanest comment I know about was one that a colleague in another department received. It was a pretty good evaluation, and it praised her on knowledge of the subject, it also said that the class was interesting and entertaining, etc... But it ended saying: "However, Professor X clothing and haircut is not appealing, and it distracts the student from the learning process". I know Professor X. She doesn't look like a model from Vogue magazine (like 99% of the world), but she dresses perfectly adequately and there is nothing wrong with her hair. What the hell was the student thinking???

What are your most memorable moments in this regard?

Guilty pleasure films

We all have films that we enjoy despite the fact that they don't have a good reputation. One might enjoy those films because one think they are misunderstood, or for some other personal reason. Some of my guilty pleasures are:

1) Showgirls (1995), by Paul Verhoeven. It's campy, catty, but oh...so enjoyable. And I have a thing for Gina Gershon, what can I say?

2) Point Break (1991), by Kathryn Bigelow. This one, I actually believe is a great action film

3) Speed (1994), by Jan de Bont. What can I say? Action movie + Keanu Reeves + no crappy philosophy = the perfect combination

4) Wayne's World (1992), by Penelope Spheeris. I believe this movie has a better reputation in the US. But I was in Argentina when it was released, and nobody understood it. It was trashed by the critics.

5) Miami Vice, the series. A piece of nostalgia. But I rent it every so often, I really enjoy it.

6) Mexican telenovelas. I can't get Univision through my cable company in this city, and I really miss them.

Favorite movies by canonical American directors -

There are certain directors (Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood) that are "canonical". Although their fortunes might vary, and their movies might not be top box-office success, they are considered "masters". When one of their movies comes out, even if it's awful, film critics will find ways to praise them. Or at least, not to be derisive. I agree that most of those directors are very good, but my favorite films by then are not necessarily the ones that the critics say are their masterpieces. Here is a list of my favorite movies by some of this directors:

Francis Ford Coppola: Rumble Fish (1983) and Tucker (1988). This does not mean that I consider The Godfather a bad film, just that I like these other two better.

Martin Scorsese: Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1983) and After Hours (1985)

Clint Eastwood: The Bridges of Madison County (1995) and Unforgiven (1992). Yes, against many, I believe The Bridges... is a masterpiece. And I think Million Dollar Baby (2004) is crap.

Steven Spielberg: Yes, I know, he is a commercial director, he is not an "artist", whatever. A.I .- Artificial Intelligence (2001) is a great movie, though. And I usually don't like science fiction.

Although not a "great" movie, I really liked Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown (1999), probably the best thing he's done since Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). And yes, he is an awful person, and no, he is not a pedophile.

Contrary to many critics, I've never been very fond of Roman Polansky. This has nothing to do with his very well encounters with the law. I just never fell for it, not even for Chinatown (1974). That's why I was pleasently surprised when I watched The Ghost Writer (2010). The construction of suspense is this movie is one of the best I've seen since Hitchcock.

How to analyze a movie - Part II

In a previous post, I wrote about books and specific intellectuals that have shaped the way I look at films. I've also had written possible Latin American films to use in a non-film Latin American course. Here, I will like to give an example of how to analyze a movie in a non-film classroom, moving beyond the basic "and the plot in the movie illustrates the 'issue' we've been reading about", in a way that is both accessible to the student and that treats the film as the main text. Since I have a lot of non-Spanish speaking readers to whom I believe the post could be useful, I chose an American film to illustrate my ideas. It's The Hurt Locker, by Kathryn Bigelow, which won the 2010 Oscar for Best Picture.

SPOILER ALERT: I will be revealing parts of the plot. I've you haven't seen the movie and intend to do so, I suggest that you watch it before reading this post.

The Hurt Locker centers around three characters, all of them belonging to a bomb squad unit of the U.S Army in Iraq. It has 97% positive reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, the website that compiles film reviews about specific movies. As a movie about the Iraq war while the war is still being fought, it is somehow unique (most movies about wars have been done after the conflict ended). Quite a few controversies surround the movie. The first one is whether it's realistic or not. But the most interesting one is whether it's a political or an apolitical movie, and, in conjunction with that, whether it's pro-Iraq war or anti-war. I will offer different readings of the movie, and then my own. None of them is necessarily more valid than the other, but it points out to how a narrative construction can have different readings for different people. I will leave out the director's own words about the movie, because in a sense, I think they are irrelevant. This post is about how to read and analyze a film, not about its author.

The movie opens with a quotation from war correspondent and journalist Chris Hedges: "The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug". We are soon introduced to Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner), whose brave but reckless behavior put him in constant tension with two of his comrades: Sergeant JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty). J.R Jones, in a positive review for the Chicago Reader, writes:

In The Hurt Locker there are no liberals or conservatives, no doves or hawks, no bromides about freedom on the march or trading blood for oil. The soldiers here fall into two groups: those who count the days until they can go home and those who, returned home, count the days until they can go back.

For him, the quote that opens the movie not only refers to William James' personality but also

goes a fair way toward explaining the invasion of Iraq, whose political rationales crumbled one after another, leaving nothing but the suspicion that many Americans love war as long as we're winning.

The review that appeared in Slant Magazine considers The Hurt Locker an excellent movie, in part because it's not political. This is how it is described:

An ostensibly apolitical chronicle of a U.S. bomb disposal unit's activities in occupied Baghdad, it's a smashing piece of visceral filmmaking and a trenchant visualization of reporter Chris Hedges's quote about the perilous high of combat: "War is a drug." Shunning piety, bellicosity, and even conventional heroism, Bigelow gets closer than any other recent filmmaker to the often unbearably tense, ground-level spectacle of people stuck in the middle of a morass and a mere wire-cut away from death.

Jonathan Rosenbaum, my favorite living American critic, has also analyzed The Hurt Locker. He says:

I’m really tired of hearing from American reviewers that Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker “isn’t political.

He then adds:

First of all, the notion that any American film made today with an Iraqi setting could possibly be apolitical in any shape or form strikes me as being extremely naïve and myopic. Secondly, I can’t imagine what could make the notion of an apolitical film on this subject sound even remotely attractive. Are we really that helpless and hopeless? And are we so blinkered in our perceptions of what politics consists of that we think it’s limited to how we vote in elections?

David Sterrit, on the other side, remarks:

While the film is excellent in some respects, its politics are worrisome – not because they’re wrong, but because there are no politics in a film about the most politically fraught conflict in recent memory. And the eagerness of critics to overlook or excuse this bothers me just as much.

On the contrary, in the reviewed quoted above, for Jonathan Rosenbaum this supposed lack of politics is part of the politics of the movie:

This is a film whose most courageous character is shown to be myopic to the point of insanity when it comes to perceiving Iraqi people in his midst....This kind of blindness surely implies something about American perceptions of the Iraqi people, the ones whom American soldiers have allegedly been fighting for. It even, I would argue, implies something political.

Outside the United States, the movie has been seen as political and criticized because of its politics. For some, like Joanne Laurer at the WSWS, THL is a glorification of American imperialism, where the director

seems to be celebrating a dedicated, fearless military caste, permanently on call. Has she thought about the consequences in the twentieth century of the activities of such forces?

Luciano Monteagudo, a well-respected film critic from Argentina, praises the technical aspects of the movie. The narrative is superb, and the suspense holds the viewer on its seat from the beginning to the end. But he questions the movie because, according to him, it forces the spectator to identify with the point of view of William James, the protagonist. William James has no understanding of the Iraqi people, they are an indistinguishable and nebulous threat and as such appear in the movie. They are always the OTHER. According to Monteagudo, William James character is modeled upon that of the individualistic hero of the classic Western, and by appeal to that myth, it also compels the viewer to see the Iraqi population as a potential threat.

The most controversial aspect of the movie is the ending. When his tour ends, William James returns home, but we see that he is unable to adapt to domesticity. He literally misses the war, the adrenaline. He is a true addict, and he is miserable at home. So he volunteers to go back to Iraq, and the final shot of the movie portrays James, descending from a helicopter into a US base, walking in slow motion, with a magnificent smile in his face. For some, like Monteagudo, this is a celebration of the hero. I absolutely agree with Monteagudo description of how the whole movie is unable to portray the Iraqis as real characters, of the blindness of Americans to understand what is going on around them. But I think that is the subversive force of the film. It shows exactly what happened in Iraq (and Afghanistan), where the Army invaded a territory without bothering to try to understand the region they were invading. It perfectly depicts American arrogance. And more than a glorification of the hero, I found the ending terrifying. That smile in William James face is creepy beyond belief. And so is the war, in my opinion.

Whether that was the intention of the director or not is beyond the point. In this post, I've shown how a movie can have very different readings, and how you don't need technical knowledge to be able to talk about it in a non-film class. I've used one specific example, but you can use it for foreign films as well. That is what I try to do with the movies I show in my Latin American civilization courses, and the discussions are always very interesting.