so summer plans first. if you don't know, i will be off in europe for 65 days. i leave a week after school ends and return a few days before it begins again. this will be the first summer i have not worked since college. i ruin the myth of teachers lounging around for 3 months. i paint houses in the hot, humid sun. good money under the table, though i've never had travel stories to tell as other teachers have. i usual tell about being attacked by wasps or completing a mansion in 4 days with a crew of 15. but this summer i get to have stories. : )

this is the itinerary for the summer voyage. i believe there will be something like 15-20 teachers and 50 grads and 300 or so undergrads. it should be a lot of fun. i am planning on posting a lot of the photos i take on the trip. right now, as some of you know, i'm saving for an iphoto ipod so i can store photos on the run. i'll be using an iblog similar to santa's little helper weblog. but don't worry it will not be as naughty (unless i get some during the voyage) and wont be linked to santa's little helper. that's because i'm directing my kids and my relatives to this site. i don't need them thinking i am a bigger freak than i already am.

oh i do have a question for anyone out there: i need to make a page that is not an entry (like a cast.html) so i direct people off to other stored files. now i am confused by how diaryland explained it. i feel like an idiot. but help. : ) is there anyone out there that has a way to explain it to a slow person?

what else?

hm, well, we talked about the difference in anglos and latinos. now anyone who is latino knows anglos are weird. no, weird in a good way. you guys have all these ways of acting with others that make us feel different. but there are behaviors that we like and emulate. my mother and i have relatives that assume so much because we "are family" and it is becoming a problem. we have relatives that assume that since my parents are doctors they should float them any amount of money. they don't even explain it r ask, but ASSUME this will happen. this is not a purely latino thing. but i have seen it firsthand more often in my community than say in the african-american or asian or etc communities. so an anglo would just say forget it. and move on. tell em to get a job. this is what my father says and my mother having lived here long enough to say the same. but we STILL have that nagging feeling... for me it's less pronounced. the reverse of my mother's situation.

sigh. sometimes i envy anglo culture it's detached nature. this is one of them.

we also talked about the differences in european and american cultures. my mother wants us to go back to the family sunday and more leisure time and etc. you now like the germans or the norwegians. argh! there is NOTHING of value in their socialist life style, mom. in fact, they want to be more like us. europe as a whole is falling further AND further behind the USA in productivity. why? not because they are lazy, but because they take too much time off. they have too many vacations. work too short a day. and so their nations do not make enough money. AND it's worse. today their own baby boomers are retiring, with few to take their place, they have less money to keep their system of leisure running. we think we have problems.

BE HAPPY! you dont live in europe.

i once explained it to my students this way. a european is content to own a canoe and use it several times a month. an american wants a motor boat and will use it once or twice a season.

it's about MONEY!

the one thing we do better than anyone else on the planet is: make money!

and i'm sorry when things go bad (and they always do) i would rather have a BIG pile of cash than a BIG pile of vacation photos. and this is something the europeans are waking up to...a nightmare they can't seem to get out of.

and so then we moved on to interior decorating of her new winter home. a safer topic for everyone. i can't wait to see it. she also said there are two golf course nearby, so that will make a lot of my friends happy. how i got so many golfers as friends (and i DONT) is beyond me? but there it is.

then she left....

i put my back to the line for coffee, becuase if panther shows i don't want to know. she will probably go somewhere else in the store (like cookbooks) so i won't have to deal. and yes i dont want to deal. i've been shaking her off for a few days. part of it is the holidays. last year i spent it with her extended family to the anger of mine. i did it because it was important to our relationship. god am i stupid?!?

also i found a book i'd given her at blonde's house on tuesday. now readers know how angry i am at her ebaying my gifts to her. and how she told me to mind my own business when i found out. so finding it there crushed me. i tried to laugh it off. blonde said she got before we broke up when she was still pregnant (since it's a book on motherhood). but it's like seinfeld episode on regifting. it sucks! i have NEVER regifted. i have sold things but NEVER from a loved one or a former loved one. (i have burned them though) so this just threw me off...

sleepless nights and such. thankgod im off from school. and goodgirl has been so comforting to me.

and i think we've decided to slow things down there. though we are still very naughty. it's just i'm going to europe and she's going to cali. grad school. so it's all about comfortng each other. and that's so precious to me i can't even explain it to you. but i will. there's a poem perking up inside me. oh, that sounded naughty. but you know what i mean.

and speaking of helping me. huff. i'm feeling let down by some people i counted on as friends. i know i reach out too much to people. i know i take their silence to deeply. but that's how i'm wired. i am a life-long friend / lover / companion. i don't just do this for a few months and then drop off the radar. i am always trying to keep people intouch. there's holidays and b-days and just any days.

so i get disappointed when i get dissed. or even just don't hear from them.

now i've been to self-absorbed these days to really notice, but weds i did. mamabear (my team leader) got an easter "present" from c. it was a thoughtfully wrapped candy easter thing. now she showed to me as if i got one too. i was rocked. i kinda changed the subject. so i checked my mailbox in the office and found it empty. ugh. this after i, as you know, reached out to her. and yes you're right i was trying to get some. but i also --and i think that came thru-- tried to be her friend. most of our mutual time since Jan has been friendly. so what do i think? i feel like cutting her out like i did panther? i don't know.

i do know i am RAW and PARANOID. i can barely stand people in my life. even though i KNOW i can't survive this on my own. (the fuckin' reason FOR this diary) but i can't let this happen. i won't let people just knock me around with their indifference and silence.

....

......

some pretty boy just walked by my table. sigh. you know, and it's stupid, but he doesn't look like he has a care in the world. i do feel goofy, as some described me in a kind way i hope. : ) how could i have thought panther would have stayed with me? everyone of my friends took one look at her and ask me if she were blind or suffering from a mental disease. ugh. what was i think?

ok ok...i know...this is not productive. i will shake it off as i have all week. it's simply you havent seen it. i've been posting either nasty stuff or happy things. i guess i was defeating the purpose of this self-indulgent activity. this is indulgent, readers. i have never been one to expose myself, ESPECIALLY when i'm injured. but yes i've been hurt worse than i have ever been. and i need drastic help. so i took someone's advice (though i haven't heard much from her lately (and i hope that doesn't mean this ISNT working) and started this. i have no idea if this even working....helping....or is this just making me retreat from the world.

and that is my fear.

am i retreatng from people? when was the last time i made a friend in the "real world?" i have made friends and even lovers in the last few months but can i really say that's moving on? is it? is this how the 21st century will fashion itself? along the lines of the internet? faceless but still real. the proverbial tree in the forest. is it a hug if there are no arms around you?

hmm....

my kids hate it when i go off on a deep tangent like that. i just hear you guys groaning like them. sorry.

so before i got for the night i will leave a few links to some stuff i found of interest:

1. Micha Barton, our new favorite "lesbian," topless: Click here for a few of the pics.

2. Sexy iPod skins.

3. Here is an article that shows one of the reasons we Puerto Ricans do NOT trust the fedral gov't. We were promised autonomy in our laws. We have no death penalty. Yet we are being forced to carry out an execution simply because we are OWNED by the USA. Here is the BBC article which is NOT even news up here among anglos. You don't want to get mom started on it.