El Santeguino

English
The other night my friend Pablo said to me, "I want us to have write a blog! On what its like to be a foreigner living in Cuenca. I want us to do that together," he said.

"Um. I kind of already have that. That blog you never read, because its in English? That´s pretty much the concept of it. But you can help! Why don´t you drop in every once and awhile and add your own special touch?"

So that´s how it started. Pablo, also not from Ecuador, but from Santiago, Chile might post some stuff here. He might talk about Cuenca, he might talk about HIV (he knows quite a lot about it.) If you ask nicely he might talk about all the Latin pop music sensations he interviewed when he worked for a magazine in Santiago.

He will most likely write in Spanish. I´ll try and translate. And in the spirit of bilingualness, I´ll try and write this one in Spanish, explaining and stuff.

We will see how it works. It´s a little experiment.

En español
El otro noche, mi amigo Pablo me dijo, “Quiero que escribimos un blog juntos sobre como es de ser extranjero acá en Cuenca. Quiero hacer eso juntos” dijo.

[¿Como se traduce “um”?]

“Um. De hecho, ya tengo eso, ¿ese blog, que nunca lees, porque se escribe en ingles? Eso es más o menos el concepto. ¡Pero tú puedes ayudar! ¿Por qué no nos visitas de vez en cuando para añadir su propio toca?

Así empezó la idea. Es posible que Pablo, que también no es Ecuador sino de Santiago, Chile, escriba algunas cosas aquí. Es posible que hable de Cuenca, de VIH (el sabe un montón sobre el mismo) Si le pides de una manera muy bien educada, capaz que el cuente sobre las sensaciones de música latina que el entrevistó cuando el trabajó para una revista en Chile.

La cosa mas segura es que el escribirá en español. Cuando pueda, voy a tratar de traducir. Y intentaré de traducir esta presentación, explicando y todo.

Vamos a ver como funciona. Es un experimento.

Welcome to the Dark Side

Charisse, reader of fat books of 18th century french literature and charmer of jaded south americans extraodinaire, has a new blog. We welcome her to the blogoshere.

Lots going on, but nothing much to say about it.

Life is nice, and relatively uneventful. Various notes of interest include:

I got robbed, mid-day, in a cafe where I go almost everyday. Of all the things I lost, (camera, flash, calender) I can´t decide which is the biggest loss, I think the calender is the thing I am the saddest about.

My friend Charisse was here and charmed the socks off of all my leftist, anti-yankee friends.

I went out dancing and was endlessly amused by a twenty two year old Manu Chau fan who decided he should talk to me. When I told him I was older than him he started guessing. 23? Hmm. Higher. 24? Higher. 25? Higher. I got bored of this by the time we got to 26 and left it at that. I confessed that I was actually 34 after a couple more songs, and he claimed he didn´t believe it. But it was dark.

In my inbox this afternoon from "Serious Singles"

Being over 40 doesn't mean you have to be alone. claudiacalhoon

Ouch.

A bad combination

One of my chief roles in lots of my different roles is to motivate people. I´ve found that my tendency to be a process person, insisting on discussion when the conclusions seem obvious to everyone, including me has served me well (and nowhere better than in my last job.)

Process doesn´t stand up well in the face of mulled wine and beer. My plans to write a grant proposal with members of one of the groups I work with were rudely counteracted by a box of Pilsener.