my todos for this weekend...

1. despedida of the hilarious bulgaro petko and fabulous newest oman mc addition morales
2. birthday party of said bulgaro and newest lcp of eia andre
3. orientation at colombo americano, my new place of employment :)
4. eialito (translation: 50 aiesecers on a farm dancing, drinking, swimming, and star gazing for 24 hours...you do the map)
5. coming home on sunday and passing out

aaaaaaaaaaaaaand here we go :)

its a'hittin hard...

so i think the real culture shock is starting to set in. i realized it yesterday with the series of events that occurred.

first at work my boss told me that i was doing my work wrong and i wasnt putting enough information and social science material into the workshop ive been working on on learning environments, when the week before she told me i was putting too much information and that i needed to really simplify it, thought it seems like i simplified it too much because i missed all the other spanish around the word "simple". i had to basically redo all the work i had done that day (which was a lot...i was very productive) because of a language barrier.

then i got home and brought 2 friends (both male) home with me to cook dinner. mariana and i have been doing this for a while, but i hadnt told the señora i live with because before i had brought girls over without saying anything and she never seemed to have a problem. about an hour into cooking i get a call from the daughter of the señora who speaks spanish who told me that her mother was really upset with me for bringing home 2 boys without asking. i then immediately went to doña julias room to apologize because i felt horrible, and she explained that she lived during a really horrible time in medellin and that she doesnt associate outside of the people she knows because of the fear that was developed during that time. that is completely understandable and after that i felt horrible. she then continued on saying that because im from the US and havent lived through violence that i blindly trust people and shouldnt be bringing random strangers to the house because i dont know where theyre from (while adding that she trusted mariana's judgement more because she's also latina). after this comment im not going to lie i was a bit offended that she assumed i would be so dumb as to invite strange men into the house, but at the same time i understood where she was coming from and why she would base this thought off her stereotypes of americans because i never explained to her that i had known my friend since my first week in colombia and she had never heard about him nor spoken with him before he just showed up at the apartment with his roommate. when i went back to the kitchen they could tell i was really bothered, and when i told them what happened they immediately went into the other room and began a rather wonderful chat with doña julia. she actually later came up to me and ever-so-lightly apologized to me, but i told her wasnt necessary because it was my fault. that whole experience just shook me, making me realize that im in a completely different culture and that although i am living with just one woman and another foreigner, im still living with a colombian family, and in a family you have to follow certain rules. and no matter what, ill still always be the naive american in the room.

another huge culture shock component that hit me hard came at dinner. for those who know me, you know that my natural personality is a bit TMI, at times crude, and all-around really different from most other people. i dont know if it was the food coma or the excessive tiredness, but that version of sydney totally slipped out after dinner, evoking notable reactions from my friends. the worst part about it is i wasnt able to complete explain WHY my mind had landed on the subject because in the fast paced spanish conversation i just got lost and wasnt able to pounce upon the opportunity to explain myself. i dont think they minded as much as i did, but even if they did its really not worth fretting about, but i just dont like the feeling that im repelling people by being me.

i went to bed a bit unsettled with a tummy ache that night. but these days come and go, right?

my spanish

in total i have had about 5 months of real spanish practice in my life. i literally do not count high school spanish and my one semester of "continuing spanish" at the nell because honestly, the only thing i could remember when i stepped off the plane in ecuador in jan 07 was how to conjegate in the present tense, donde esta el baño, and no hablo español. (im really not exagerating) after 3 months in ecuador, i felt fluent...i felt i could carry on a real conversation with real people. then a year and a half went by where the only real practice i got was skyping sometimes with friends and being drunk.

now im here in colombia and have been here for 2 months. my spanish is at least at the level it was when i left ecuador complemented by the paisa vocabulary and idiomatic expressions, but im frustrated. im frustrated because when i want to have an intelligent conversation the words just arent there. my worst fear is looking incompetent and like an idiot, yet that literally happens on a daily basis here. dont get me wrong, i do appreciate when im corrected...its such a valuable part of my learning. i have about 3 people down here who help me with that; my boss, an eafit aiesecer, and an eia alumnus. honestly i like it most when my boss corrects me because she only corrects me when im making a grave mistake and in a strict but nonintrusive way. she also doesnt correct me until after im done with the comment and/or when she sees me faltering in the middle.

people have told me that this happens at a certain point in your language development, but it wouldnt bother me as much if people didnt make fun of me when i make mistakes here. i know its all fun and games and they really dont mean anything by it, but what they dont realize is that they are one of the MANY people who make fun of me throughout the day. its like when i was in the us and would tell people i was heading to colombia...theyd make an innocent cocaine joke and be done with it, but after 10 of those a day it starts taking a toll. there are some days where i literally find myself avoiding those people who either constantly correct me or make fun of me because i just cant handle any more bruises to my ego. sometimes i just want to speak and be heard, whether im using por/para right or not. at the end of a normal day i think im twice as exhausted as i ever was in the states due to this. but i know it will all be worth it in the end...

ok venting session over.

the comfort factor...

...is finally coming into place here in medellin. to clarify, i have been more comfortable here than i ever was in ecuador, but i used to get really happy when i felt comfortable. now i dont even feel the difference.

how did i come to this realization? the events of the past 4 days.

event 1: saturday mari and i left medellin for manizales at 9am, with literally NO plan and NO arrangements for where we were going to stay. but you know what? that didnt bother me, which is a HUGE difference from my former self. i worked my magic, called the right people the night before and that morning, and about an hour before we got to manizales i got a call from someone in manizales saying both mari and i had a place to stay and someone to meet us when we got to manizales. from there we proceeded to have a fantastic weekend despite a few upsets due to weather. this is all due to the fact that the trainees from zona west (and one entertaining german from bogota) as well as the aiesecers from manizales are just fantastic.

event 2: yesterday was mari's birthday, and as a result i decided it was a good idea to give her a surprise party! i pretty much left all the planning until yesterday at lunch time (minus a few details i sorted out last week), sent a few emails, called a few people, and at 830 there were about 15 people in fede's house to surprise the crap out of her! during this process i realized i have enough contacts and enough people who are friends with both me and mari to pull together a surprise party in a matter of hours.

event 3: after 2 months of hating my job, today i actually decided i kind of like it. and by kind of i mean if i worked in another department with a different boss i would love it. the people here are so fantastic and really appreciate the fact that i am here. theyre nice because that is who they are. they are genuinely interested in my life and i in their lives. ive begun to make strides in mending the relationship and maybe staying on as a part time volunteer once i start the whole english teaching thing.

all of these events made me realize that im slowly but surely starting to not sweat the small stuff and let things fall into place. that, to me, is comfort.

wtf is CINDE

as per request, i will describe what the organization i work for does. CINDE's mission is to improve education and human development of children in the most impovershed areas of colombia and around the world through a unique capacity building model that empowers community leaders and mothers to gain competency in educating and properly caring for their children at home and in community centers built by CINDE. this is done through CINDE sponsored projects, masters and doctorate programs that help in the creation of new knowledge about the effect of education on the prosperity of children, and utilizing their network to take advantage of resources and information to be used in the projects of CINDE. one of the parts of CINDEs mission is to create adequate environments both at home and in the community centers to foster healthy physical and psychological development within children. this is where i come in with the workshop proposal im working on that trains community promoters on how to improve the design of the environment so that they can in turn train the mothers within the communities. this project only developed like 2 days ago when it was brought to CINDEs attention that i am very unhappy with the work theyre giving me.

aaaaaaaand thats it.

i found it!

i was so excited about this discovery that i had to put it on both blogs! im doing research for a workshop proposal im putting together on design of learning environments for CINDE when i came across this quote, the quote of quotes ive been looking for to describe the last 4 years of my life:

"Ergonomic thinking considers the entire environment and how it supports and interacts with the human body. " (educase)

thank you lori gee of herman miller.

update

ive been ridic busy the last couple of weeks i havent actually updated on my life. so here is a quickie...

1. life
1.1 living situation: i fuckin lucked out. my roommate mariana and i just click. shes absolutely fabulous and so herself that even though we are very VERY different, we can talk for hours about anything, everything and nothing. i literally spend every day with her and during the work day we email each other. its really nice having a confidant here :) along with her doña julia (the woman i rent from) is amazing and her children are the nicest people in the whole world. she has a set of twins (victoria and ceci) who are like my role model (victoria) and my colombian mother (ceci). they help me with everything from finding certain foods to finding someone to fix my computer (i dropped it because im a fuckin doofus, but even tho my harddrive is damaged and they guy cant get any info off of it he can fix the whole thing for 160 bucks...aka ill bring the HD back to the us and get someone to do the impossible for probably more than im paying to get it fixed)
1.2 work: well, work sucks. i like the organization but what i do in it is just slowly but surely eating at my soul. the only saving grace are my english classes i get to plan and teach for tuesday and wednesday afternoons. i realize i really like teaching, and my students have said they can see it in my face. i like helping in a hands-on, personal development kind of way. my strengths lie with people and ideas, not excel sheets and translations.
1.3 hobbies: ive started to cook...and i aint half bad either. its really strange bc back in the us i relied on rice noodles, hummus, salads and trailmix for sustainance due to my dr. jekyl/mr. DISASTER complex in the kitchen, but here im actually learning how to cook (colombian food of course) and i only have minor scrapes and bruises. ive almost perfected my hogao and patacon recipes and am now working on arroz de coco and arepa (this ones fuckin tough, but i want to know it for when i get back to the states and am craving arepa). desipte all this, i still rely on rice noodles, salads and trailmix to feed me :)

2. love
2.1 friends: im actually making personal, deep, and substantial friendships here. of course theres mari, but ive also gotten close with natalia and jesus (my padrinos of aiesec) along with a bunch of other peeps, both in and out of aiesec. its really nice to be able to grow a support network for myself down here and gives me a huge sense of comfort. this means i HAVEEEEEEEEE to get a job for january down here. its a must.
2.2 travel: i love colombia. every day, every weekend im discovering new things about this country that i love. over the past few weekends ive gone to rio claro (where i went caving, and after 5 falls, about 8 bruises and a bit of dropped blood i would do it again in a heartbeat), hacienda de napoles (the estate of pablo escobar...its amazing what crap a blood-rich man can spend his money on...makes me sad because someones life was taken so that he could buy a hoard of hippopotami...i dont understand that priority hierarchy...), and a gorgeous finca (i dont remember that name but its the spanish word for when a soccer player fakes out his opponent), all of which have made me put "buying real estate in colombia" at the top of my "when i get rich what im going to do" list, next to "send my parents on vacation" and "buy a life-time supply of rice noodles"
2.3 the head-over-heels kind: not yet, but god theyre beautiful.

3. the pursuit
3.1 teaching: ive applied to 2 schools to teach english and am in negotiations with an org to be their language center coordinator. lets keep our fingers crossed...
3.2 design: am currently looking up design classes and have friend who are design students (architects, industrial designers, artists, etc.) help me get in with some higher ups to see if i can at least sit in on some classes next semester...forecast looks good :)
3.3 soliloquy: im starting to write in a way ive never written before, in both spanish and english. it feels oh so good...

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand done. kind of ;)

the day the world started moving again...

i was in the tv room, on a plaid couch, stealing internet from the hotel across the street. simultaneously i was watching the counter on cnn.com and flipping between fox, bbc, and cnn because those were the only news channels available. from 730pm when i got home from my first english class until 1130pm when the final speech was given i sat in that room, chatting to the united states, explaining the us electoral college process to my brazilian roommate (in spanish no less), and eating a ridiculous among of candy because when i get nervous i need something in my mouth (get your mind out of the gutter). i watched the tickers as they rose and got über excited every time i heard the cnn projection music come on. when they called pennsylvania, my heart skipped a beat. when they called ohio, that oxytocin-induced comfort came over me, because then i knew that was it. it was all over, or rather it was all beginning anew.

this is where i was when centuries of uncomprehensible hate and prejudice took a backseat to the pursuit of peace and fairness and justice. this is where i was when the united states behaved in a way that made me proud to call myself an american. this is where i was when barack obama became president of the united states of america.