Today I discovered a wealth of Spanish short films on YouTube and I've watched about 10 in the last 45 minutes. I think that short films (cortometraje) are a lot more popular and mainstream in Spain than they are in the U.S. With the exception of film buffs and industry insiders I haven't met anyone here who is interested in this style, much less knows anything about it. If you understand Spanish decently (there are no subtitles), search "cortometraje" on YouTube and you'll get a ton of results. Besides being amazing films, they're also a great way for me to hear Spanish every day without having to spend a lot of time on it. Another way that I've decided to practice my Spanish is to translate every entry I make here. I'll start at the beginning and translate my way through this blog and eventually translate every entry I've ever written. I'll also keep track and highlight the words that I had to look up in the dictionary. Please feel free (and encouraged) to correct my translations in the comments. Thanks!
Hoy descubrió un gran fuente del cine cortometraje español en YouTube ý he visto casi diez en los ultimos cuarento ý cinco minutos. Pienso que los cortometrajes son mas populares y normales en España que en los Estados Unidos. Aparte de los fanaticos del cine y la gente de la industria, no he encontrado nadie a quien se interesa este tipo del cine, tampoco alguien quien sabe algo de lo. Sí entendáis algo de español (no hay subtitulos), busquad "cortometraje" en YouTube y encontraras un montón de resultos. Además de ser peliculos fantasticos, tambien son una buena manera para mi a oír español cada dia sin tener que pasar mucho de mi tiempo. Un otra manera en que decidí a practicar mi español es traducir cada anotación he hecho aqui. Voy a traducir desde el principio hasta el fin del este blog y eventualmente traduciré cada anotación que he escrito al cualquier tiempo. También apuntaré y daré énfasis a los palabras que tengo a buscar en el diccionario. Por favor, sientase libre (ý alentando) a correctar mis traducciones en los comentarios. ¡Grácias!
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
truth #3
There is a very specific type of American that I keep encountering in this new grown-up life of mine. They're usually white, middle-aged and very perky. They smile and smirk a lot, and while their sense of humor can be sarcastic, it's never truly clever or original. They use expressions like "Golly!" and "I'll be back in two shakes of a lamb's tail" on a regular basis. When they get angry, they huff and puff and use only the mild forms of curse words. They have a learned authority, a practiced confidence and an extremely high guard. I dislike dealing with this sort of American, but recently I think I found their weakness. I mean 'weakness' very literally because it seems to only come out when they are feeling ill or in pain.
I saw this side of my former boss one day when she was suffering from a headache so severe that her eyes started to water uncontrollably. I walked into her office to ask her a question and she gave me a look of such utter fatigue and vulnerability that I felt like I was in the presence of a child that needs taking care of. I barely noticed that the tone of my voice became soft and mothering as I told her that whatever business I had to take care of could wait.
The second grade teacher I work with also falls into this category. The week before Christmas vacation she caught a mild cold and was constantly on edge with the kids. Her mildly sarcastic jokes turned to mean ridicule and neither I, nor the kids knew quite how to react. Although I felt sorry for both my boss and the teacher, I couldn't help but enjoy this theatre of humanity playing out in front of me. Their very physical condition used up so much of their energy that they found that they did not have enough left for the mental process that goes into putting up such an flawless facade of assertiveness.
I saw this side of my former boss one day when she was suffering from a headache so severe that her eyes started to water uncontrollably. I walked into her office to ask her a question and she gave me a look of such utter fatigue and vulnerability that I felt like I was in the presence of a child that needs taking care of. I barely noticed that the tone of my voice became soft and mothering as I told her that whatever business I had to take care of could wait.
The second grade teacher I work with also falls into this category. The week before Christmas vacation she caught a mild cold and was constantly on edge with the kids. Her mildly sarcastic jokes turned to mean ridicule and neither I, nor the kids knew quite how to react. Although I felt sorry for both my boss and the teacher, I couldn't help but enjoy this theatre of humanity playing out in front of me. Their very physical condition used up so much of their energy that they found that they did not have enough left for the mental process that goes into putting up such an flawless facade of assertiveness.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
say it isn't so
You know you're getting older when you realize that all of your concert t-shirts slowly, one by one have migrated from the every day wear t-shirt drawer, to the workout/sleep shirt drawer.
Friday, January 04, 2008
a 2am post on Mike Bloomberg
Why am I up researching the drawbacks of Mike Bloomberg at 2:30 in the morning? Well, I'll tell you why. It's because he's a great... no, actually it's because I'm a great idiot who should be getting her 8 hours of beauty sleep, but instead I insist of wasting my time and throwing wrenches into the fine cogs of my REM cycles. And now to Mike.
I've been trying to research what kind of things he's done or said that I may disagree with. It seems that the only public controversy he's faced has been the sexual harassment suits in the early 90s. The following article does a really good job of trying to pry into his head and find out what his stance is on women in the workplace.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/bloomberg-on-bloomberg-and-women/#more-1067
From that and other sources, the conclusion that I come to is this. Mike Bloomberg is fine with women in the workplace. Not only fine, I'd go as far as to say that he encourages gender equality in the workplace. It's not really about gender for him, it's about people working ridiculously hard and non-stop. I can't say that I personally agree with that. I don't think that working non-stop is healthy, I don't like that Americans have such short vacation time and sick leave, I don't like that Sarkozy is trying to cut time-off in France. I like Google and their work ethic, I would prefer if the whole world worked that way, but the fact of the matter is that none of that is about gender. He doesn't want a pregnant woman in the boardroom any more than he wants a worried expectant father in that boardroom, and to be honest, neither do I. He measures his employees to the same standards that he measures himself and as he writes in his book, during the steepest part of his corporate climb he was the first one to come in, the last one to leave and he absolutely was not married and didn't have children. Neither women nor men can do it all, if by all they mean getting to the top of one of the toughest corporate ladders out there. Solomon Brothers was not a place for maternity or paternity leave, and neither is Bloomberg LP, though I'm sure they provide plenty of both to workers on the lower stress, lower responsibility levels of the company. Just the fact that one of the women that filed a lawsuit reported that she personally walked into Bloomberg's office and told him the happy news of her pregnancy tells me that she must have been pretty vital to the company and probably didn't realistically have time for a baby, so why have it? Of course no one should tell her to "kill it" (as he is rumored to have done... say it, not actually kill it) but I can also imagine the stress that it would put on a growing company. There is a place and a time for children in the modern world, and perhaps the time wasn't then and the place wasn't Bloomberg's company. Am I a feminist? You bet. What I want to see is more men getting fired for the same reasons from places like that and then hired by places like Google.
Now it is time for sleep, but soon I plan on taking on his property tax hikes in NYC and that tax break for Goldman Sachs...
If anyone else is as intrigued by Mike Bloomberg as I am, please tell me what you think of him! Does he suck? Does he rule? Do you know something I don't? There's a high chance of that, you know.
I've been trying to research what kind of things he's done or said that I may disagree with. It seems that the only public controversy he's faced has been the sexual harassment suits in the early 90s. The following article does a really good job of trying to pry into his head and find out what his stance is on women in the workplace.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/bloomberg-on-bloomberg-and-women/#more-1067
From that and other sources, the conclusion that I come to is this. Mike Bloomberg is fine with women in the workplace. Not only fine, I'd go as far as to say that he encourages gender equality in the workplace. It's not really about gender for him, it's about people working ridiculously hard and non-stop. I can't say that I personally agree with that. I don't think that working non-stop is healthy, I don't like that Americans have such short vacation time and sick leave, I don't like that Sarkozy is trying to cut time-off in France. I like Google and their work ethic, I would prefer if the whole world worked that way, but the fact of the matter is that none of that is about gender. He doesn't want a pregnant woman in the boardroom any more than he wants a worried expectant father in that boardroom, and to be honest, neither do I. He measures his employees to the same standards that he measures himself and as he writes in his book, during the steepest part of his corporate climb he was the first one to come in, the last one to leave and he absolutely was not married and didn't have children. Neither women nor men can do it all, if by all they mean getting to the top of one of the toughest corporate ladders out there. Solomon Brothers was not a place for maternity or paternity leave, and neither is Bloomberg LP, though I'm sure they provide plenty of both to workers on the lower stress, lower responsibility levels of the company. Just the fact that one of the women that filed a lawsuit reported that she personally walked into Bloomberg's office and told him the happy news of her pregnancy tells me that she must have been pretty vital to the company and probably didn't realistically have time for a baby, so why have it? Of course no one should tell her to "kill it" (as he is rumored to have done... say it, not actually kill it) but I can also imagine the stress that it would put on a growing company. There is a place and a time for children in the modern world, and perhaps the time wasn't then and the place wasn't Bloomberg's company. Am I a feminist? You bet. What I want to see is more men getting fired for the same reasons from places like that and then hired by places like Google.
Now it is time for sleep, but soon I plan on taking on his property tax hikes in NYC and that tax break for Goldman Sachs...
If anyone else is as intrigued by Mike Bloomberg as I am, please tell me what you think of him! Does he suck? Does he rule? Do you know something I don't? There's a high chance of that, you know.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
...in with the new
I woke up this morning to find my mouth completely parched. As I peeled my tongue off of the roof of my mouth I remembered that the cause of the dehydration, as well as that terrible taste is a very mild cold, symptoms of which I started to feel last night. All day I have been feeling tired, old and generally out of sorts, with achy joints and muscles. Last night I slept over at Timi's, watched an old favorite movie and talked until I fell asleep. This afternoon went to the beach for a little while, then came home and ran online errands consisting of credit card bills and necessary emails. Tonight, Timi, Kriszta and I went to the movies and watched Enchanted, which turned out to be really funny and cute. Then for coffee and conversation. Overall, a good day, and yet as I was driving home I couldn't help feeling as if I'd missed something. As if there was something I should have done and didn't. The more I thought about it and the more I talked through it with Timi, the more I realized that it wasn't just a temporary feeling. It has slowly been snowballing all year long, and is something so basic that I couldn't believe I haven't felt it this strongly yet. So now it's time to face it.
I am lonely.
There. Happy? Yes, I am in fact lonely, and in need of being touched, in need of attention - sexual, mental, whatever! That is what I should have been doing throughout this year, and haven't. The responsibility I felt was to myself, and I have been very negligent in this respects. There are definitely some very big reasons for why I have denied myself this, and have sometimes gone out of my way to avoid certain encounters, it is still no excuse for letting myself get so out of practice in the art of coquettery. But now it has been too long and I will be parched no more.
I am lonely.
There. Happy? Yes, I am in fact lonely, and in need of being touched, in need of attention - sexual, mental, whatever! That is what I should have been doing throughout this year, and haven't. The responsibility I felt was to myself, and I have been very negligent in this respects. There are definitely some very big reasons for why I have denied myself this, and have sometimes gone out of my way to avoid certain encounters, it is still no excuse for letting myself get so out of practice in the art of coquettery. But now it has been too long and I will be parched no more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
