Spring in my backyard

J

Weekend Update

 

Lope de Vega - Arte nuevo de hacer comedias

Podemos dar las gracias a Lope de Vega por la regla de no más de dos horas en el teatro (cine ahora).

Aquí están sus reglas de cómo hacer comedias:

1.       Nunca dejar el escenario vacío

2.       Hacer “tragicomedias”

3.       Tener siempre dos planos de intriga – uno para la nobleza, otro para el pueblo

4.       Tener un desenlace feliz

5.       Actuación es más importante que caracterización

6.       No tardar más que dos horas

7.       Mucha acción – acción verbal y decoración verbal

8.       No se respeta las unidades clásicas (de lugar, tiempo, acción)

9.       Aplauso: más de un significado y nivel (acudir a la audiencia para ver cuándo y para qué aplauden)

10.   Función: divertir y educar (y servir como un medio de propaganda de la monarquía)

 

Que no pidan explicaciones – yo no sé tampoco.

725 Rack Pull

me

life without facebook

I don't know how long it has been - a week maybe? But the simple fact that I would want to write about it can indicate that it is on my mind. I don't think that I was (or am) any more addicted to Facebook than anybody else I know but not having it makes me much more aware of how much time I had been spending on it - and I haven't really found a productive replacement for that time. This week I have spent a lot more time reading news stories on Google news. I guess it is a similar distraction - just that the headlines don't update as often as status updates. Inasmuch as nobody I know is in the news the similarity to Facebook ends (which is to say, there really isn't much similarity besides the way that they are both just distractions).
All in all, I feel a little bit more alone without Facebook than I felt with Facebook. I don't have a whole lot of close friends that I stay up to date with in other ways. But Facebook isn't a sufficient replacement of more meaningful relationships for me to reopen my account right away.
me

Sights seen

I am sitting in the Salt Lake airport on my way back to Memphis. Here are a few of the photos that I took over spring break.

Snail's pace

Without a car, Gabriel and I set off for the nearest zoo on foot - about 4 miles away. So far we have gone about a half a mile and seen lots of interesting things: snails snuggling up, a homeless people tent town, lots of orange flowers, and beautiful green leaves.

grisáceo, mojado

Mojado, lluvioso, húmedo…. No creo que importa la palabra – el tiempo es lo mismo. Es la primavera; pues, no es la primavera – es el invierno, pero sólo según el calendario. Me siento cansado hoy. No quiero salir de la casa.

Cancelé mi cuenta de Facebook. Tengo varias razones por haberlo hecho.

 

En todo el día hoy el color del cielo no ha variado nada. Es un gris blancuzco o tal vez un blanco grisáceo – no sé cuál. No quiero levantarme. Anoche casi no podía dormir y miré una película en mi computadora mientras yacía dos horas en un baño de agua que cambiaba poco a poco de caliente a tibia. Me bañé pero no me lavé y ahora me huelo y no me gusta mi olor.

Hoy no tengo mucho que hacer. Necesito enviar correos electrónicos a mis clases y hacer mis maletas. No tengo internet en casa pero puedo escribir los correos ahora y enviarlos luego. Mañana tengo que ir al aeropuerto a las cuatro y media de la mañana.

Aquí, he adjuntado algunas fotos que he sacado esta semana.

 

me

New news

I bought a new camera today....
More to come later.

row, row, row your boat...

life is but a dream. <<...>>

Snow in the Mid South

Already this year semester school has been cancelled about a half dozen times (even as I write that it seems like an exaggeration to me but I think that it is accurate). School was cancelled yesterday at 12:30 pm and it is closed today. Why, you may ask. What sort of catastrophe could cause the University to miss at least one day every week so far, you might wonder. Well, it has been terrible. It has been almost unbearable. Right now the entire city of Memphis has come near complete stand-still because there is so much snow outside. I mean it, folks, right now there are almost  two whole inches of snow outside. Seriously – hide your kids, hide your wives, and hide your husbands, too – it is end-of-times bad out there. I don’t know how much more of this intermittent snowy weather I can take. If you don’t hear from me, assume the worst. I am holed up and might perish if this weather doesn’t improve.

Here are a few photos to illustrate just how terrible we have it here:

I know that some of those pictures might look beautiful, but don’t be decieved – it is really cold stuff. And those photos that look like fluffy cotton – it is SNOW. Please, pray for me – I am not made for this sort of horror.

It is cold outside

I don’t really have anything to write about but I have been wanting to blog more. I moved into a new place – still in Memphis. I am only renting month to month because the owner of the house has it on the market to sell and she thinks that it could go pretty quickly. I guess she must be dealing with a different real estate market than the rest of us but for me the price is good and the house is really nice. It is a four bedroom place and I live here without roommates.

The weather has been really crazy here – typical of the region though, I guess, but right now it is cold enough to keep me indoors for the time being.

I am working as an adjunct professor at the U of M now instead of teaching as a graduate student. I also enrolled in a couple of linguistics classes for the semester – just for the heck of it. With these two classes I will have 18 hours of linguistics, which would theoretically allow me to teach linguistics at a junior college in addition to being able to teach Spanish.

Oh, well. I guess that that is about all for now.

Dr. Fung

Every week I tutor a retired economics professor at the University. This is a video that he shot this past summer in San Jose. He is a really nice guy and some of the time I wonder if he pays me to tutor him in Spanish or just to show up and chat with him.

Monday's Music

I am coming back.

Turkey in a bag

Lookin good