We Are The Initiators

Being as it's a day, I'm drinking coffee. My mug? Well, she's a beaut! Averagely crafted with a kitten sitting amongst some flowers watching a butterfly, a butterfly that happens to be on the inside of the mug. Can you imagine, a picture in stead a mug? Merica!

We are the initiators, a quote taken from the rally call of Sendero Luminoso, who terrorized the Peruvian Andes for almost 15 years. The speech was delivered by Abimael Guzman. I've been reading, Death In The Andes, By Mario Vargas LLosa. The story talkes much of average Peruvians living in remotes areas of the Andes struggling with SL's (Sendero Luminoso) violent reign. This sparked my interest in learning more about the SL. In reading Guzman's speech, I found myself to be conflicted from sentence to sentence. I would read a sentence that contained, words, phrases, and meanings with which I identified. He calls for positive action, a time to make voices heard. But then I am in strong opposition of what he is saying, a call to action, for bullets, for blood. A communist society in Peru. Guzman spent time in Mao's China, and he had, much to my imagination, the same reaction that I had in Cusco. He feel in love, everything over there just made sense to him. So, on that front, the xenaphoria, that would be the opposite of xenaphobia, Guzman and I are like brothers, we both saw a need for change, and a desire to institute that change...but his route is different that the one I am taking. Guzman: Massacres, Jason Moss: Education....I know mines better because it has more syllables.

I had the same conundrum while reading some of Ernesto Guevara's writings. I see myself as a good person who stills to see the best in people and help everyone, through education, to reach their full potential...to the moon!! When I read, and I believe and buy into what these communist revolutionaries are saying, I question my own beliefs. I've never been pretentious enough to claim that communism is "the way." For me the struggle I feel is the beauty of reading and the beauty of knowledge. Through reading, I am challenging my beliefs and growing a stronger more well rounded system of knowledge....makings mes alls smarts.

From the abstract to the pleasures of being 21. I will be making my first Las Vegas trip since I tenia 15 years. One week after that I will be going back to Boise. Both of these trips focus on night time activities that happen in buildings that look normal but play loud music, don't have waiters but do serve drinks, and require some form of age verification to enter. I haven't really had a good night on the town, painting the town yellow, I don't want to choose red and pick a side. Peace side!

10 days after I get back from Boise I will be starting my program at USC. Janurary 10th, I'm quick excited. Being as that the program is online, so was the orientation. And it's been a doosy. I've loved it. I've actually had assignments I need to complete before I have to start my first class. In fact, I'm still not done with them all. The 2 most interesting ones are, that I need to video tape a self interview and video tape me teaching a small lesson and then my thoughts about the lesson. My professors will not be in the classrooms with me so I will be video taping a lot of my work with students and uploading online. These 2 assignments were designed to get me used to that format. I'm glad they did too. It is strange to put myself in front of a camera. Like most people, I had the sound of my voice when it's been recorded, now I have to listen to myself...for school...gross. Luckily, I'm at my most confident when I'm teaching...so that should help. I bought a super awesome Sony Bloggie camera for my filming. It's just one button and shoots in HD...which is EPIC! I've loved all the work and time I've already put into the orientation at SC. I've gone a little bonkers and have bought 2 sweatshirts, 3 T-shirts, and 1 hat all with the SC logo. I really want some athletic shorts..but all in good time my readers. Good job Trojans on winning the crosstown showdown.

Random Factoid: Clipper nation unite!

La Cultura Cura

Mighty Morphin Mascots Marathon

As a lowly youth I was a leaf...from a mighty sycamore tree.
For a brief stint the leaf attempted a transformation to a shark but because of a lack of water that idea didn't float.
From the humble leaf, I grew into a panther. Might and bold, the panther reigned for 2 years.
One animal wasn't enough to contain the epic beast within. A magic spell and a couldren stiring sesh later and I was a whole wolfpack. For four years the wolfpack ran the I.E. with iron grips....but California wasn't big enough to handle the rambunctious animal within. A lone wolf emerged from the pack, but wasn't discovered, upon entering the state of Idaho that he was in fact a coyote in wolf's clothing. The yote enjoyed a fun and prosperous life span of 4 years, making many friends and experiencing so much. However, for 2 years after that my spirit was only a witness to the rider and the roadrunners. In the fall of 2010, I emerged, without any really difficultly, as a leopard...but the leopard wasn't the right mascot, but the leopard didn't exist too long before it reached it's full potential was a might man of troy, my trojan spirit is strong and is a dream manifestation for all I want in my education.

Random factoid: I don't get tired of reading or hearing people say, "Welcome to USC."

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Fight On!

De Colores

No invoco tu nombre en vano
"Soy y estoy en la luz que me produce,
Vivo en la sombra que me determina" (Neruda)

Para hacer un efuerzo a escribir los versos mas felices
recientemente solo escribo los versos mas gloomy

Puedo oir las voces de mis 2nd graders
De colores, de colores
Se visten los campos en la primavera.
De colores, de colores
Son los pajarillos que vienen de afuera.
De colores, de colores
Es el arco iris que vemos lucir.

Una cancion para los niños
Pero, para mi es un aviso para recordar los colores de mi vida

Mis ojos, verde y azul
Miran el amarillo del atardecer
El brillo de mi Ipod
blanco de cada sonrisa, es imposible a odiar una sonrisa
Azul, anaranjado, y amarillo de mis pulseras
Verde, de los arboles


Puedo escapar de vida hasta una tierra de colores
Tambien puedo tomar unas clases que puede enseñar me a escribir en español

Random factoid: Neruda described autumn as the "yellow dance"

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Breathy Pianist

It's not easy to be able to justify, within myself, the seperation between my dreams (goals not the one about the space crab eating Hariet Tubman's head) and the things that I can control. A vezes pienso que yo soy jugete, un marioneta de my dreams and also de my day to day world. When I let dreams be the way I see the world, I get let down when each day isn't what I expected from my dreams. On la otra mano, I find myself getting too into my day to day life and let my goals slip out of my sights. In a world of a short man traped in a mind of too many metacuartos, I myself thinking that while I have lived "the good life" where I was in a school everyday and I was in Peru, I was in the branches of a great tree, but it wasn't my trip, I shared it with many others. In the past two months I considered myself to be an acorn (remember, that's the long A sound, the one where A says it's name) drifting from the branches until the forest flower....where in the future my tree will grow. It's not easy being an acorn, I am falling, but while I fall I can understand that I can neither go back up to the branches, but I watch them as I fall, uncontrollably, towards the forest floor. I am starting to deal with this transitional phase, really I need more distractions...that help my goals. I need to make my reality to work for my goals...but that ain't no easy thang to do. I'll find a way, but until then, deja me pensar

Random factoid: Shakira wears Silly Bandz!

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Heart, Hazing, and Horcruxes

Manifesto for my discontent and disappointment with School A: 1. Heart and 2. Hazing....not so much Horcruxes...they're evil...mustn't touch. Lets start with heart before we move onto hazing (p.s. I wish I could find a font that will cross my "z"s like I do when I write on papers) At school A, I have no connection between my heart and my classes. I didn't start my classes with the intent to be disheartened....nah nah says he. This process evolved week in and week out when I wasn't challenge and wasn't taught with the assumption of intelligence, which a graduate program should have. I felt, I feel, as if I'm not being taught as someone who has completed four years of undergraduate education and hold a degree already. If I knew a 16 year old who wanted to get on the path for teaching I would put them in the classes that I am in now. I, by no means, am gifted or overly intelligent, nor do I claim to want to be educated on my heels with my back against the wall. I want a program that assumes I'm intelligent. I want professors who will challenge me with new and interesting ideas, but I feel as if this semester at School A has been comparable to the two weeks training that I got in AmeriCorps. It has just been watered down and stretched to last an entire semester. But week seven weeks in and I've leaved the amount of information I've received has been about two days worth of AmeriCorps training. At this rate, SERVES could give someone a masters in three weeks.
As for hazing, school A didn't offer any. I would've longed to have had been stripped down and beaten with a fig plant...but that's not what I mean. I mean, the way a personal feels more allegiance to something group or org. that they had to earn membership for. I am currently applying to school B, and they are a big awesome school that not a lot of people get into...so, if I get in I'll be part of a club...But, at school A there was no challenge to getting acceptance. My interview consistent of showing up...there were no questions asked. As I drive around town, the #1 most seen license plate holder is the one that says, alumnai of School A...I'm not part of a special club, I'm not special...I don't feel like I belong, because there doesn't seem to be a process of acceptance other than a pulse.

Well, I've rambled enough....P.S. I'll take 80K if you're giving it away.

Random Factoid: My calves are sore, I really need to stop trying to compete with Henry VIII's calves...his calves are royal.

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Heaven Knows I'm Treading Jello

I am getting to be quite well verse in the art of sitting around my house doing nothing, well that’s to my obligations as an American citizen I was given a break in the heart pounding sitting around action in the form of jury duty, dum dum dum!!!!! However, this turned my sitting around and doing nothing from a home game into an away game. I reported to duty at the courthouse on Tuesday. When I hear, since I was reporting for the government to do my civic duty I kept saluting everyone…and I got plenty of weird looks. Sadly, this isn’t true, but I think that if I had arrived at the courthouse and walked up to the security guard and saluted saying, “Jason Moss reporting for jury duty, at your service,” I’d be the coolest person ever. Next time. While I didn’t salute they must’ve liked something about me because I was actually put on a jury…as an alternate. As an alternate I got to be witness to everything about the trial…except the deliberation. Me, and the other 2 alternates, spent the deliberation time on the computers facebooking and reading the news…but this was the day that I discovered that Mario Vargas LLosa had won the Nobel Prize for literature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Vargas_Llosa, He is a Peruvian author and I was actually reading one of his books during my time in Peru. I have yet to finish it but my next book is to be a Spanish book, I think I’ll pick up where I left off in Travesuras de La Niña Mala or I’ll start La Ciudad y Los Perros. I am currently reading Alicia en el Pais de las Maravillas, it is an easy read because I know the story, and it’s not on the same literature level as Vargas LLosa. To read real literature in Spanish is much more challenging meaning that I will need to bring a dictionary with me every time I go to read in a park or coffee shop.

Fiddlesticks, I’ve been sidetracked…I blame the Nazis. So, I was picked for a case in the courtroom S, for Special, so says Ted, our bailiff…who seemed to leave a lot to host lectures and put them online…he he, ha ha I is funny. The trial didn’t actually start until Wedneday, where we began by being read to…dear Heyzuez was that boring. The judge read us basic instructions for being a jury…which I’m sure he’s read thousands of times before. I wish he had taken some liberties and added random words and phrases just to spice it up, like some pilots do for their speech before takeoff. “The presumption of innocence states that the defendant is innocent until the prosecution can prove him guilty, which is unlikely because I had the tie the prosecutions shoes this morning…things are looking up for the defendant,” Or something funnier. We heard all witnesses on Wednesday and then heard from the defendant on Thursday. Finally deliberations started on Thursday…ergo the one of facebook started on Thursday. Around 430 on Thursday, the judge called us all back in and told us that we had to come back Friday, I think he just really wanted to make sure that we got all of the facebooking done that we could…I must’ve known that facebook is how I communicate with my international amigos ( I really wanted to make an alliteration there…too bad, yes, I’m rambling). It was getting on lunch on Friday and we were worring how much longer we’d be stuck in the amazing luxurious couthouse in Pomona. Around 1130 we got called in and finally the verdict was read…we got out of there around 1230. I rushed over to watch my dad in a concert put on by Pomona College. I hadn’t seen one in probably ten years and it was nice being there.

Jury duty paid…and it has actually doubled my bank account in the three days that I served…gross I know. I got a lot of reading done, I raced through George Saunders’ Civilwarland In Bad Decline in three days, it was a great read but I still would like to memorize his story, I Can Speakä, I can’t get enough of that story. JD, not the scrubs guy, really messed up my work out schedule…I actually didn’t work out one of the days…a first in about a month….luckily I had done a double workout the day before…I mean I’ve already run 4 miles today and I’ll probably go to the gym later today too….why, because I have the time.

So, I still have homework that needs to be done by tomorrow. The Internet tells me that my homework will take me just about an hour. How does the Internet know how long my homework will take? Well, because my homework is to make something for a multicultural potluck. Being that I have no culture, I have decided to make something Peruvian, a culture that I am forcing my way into. I am going to make Lomo Saltado, which is quite simple…I’m not a great…lets face it, I’m a bad….cook. The dish is really just meat, veggies, french fries, and rice…I’ll find a way to make it taste not the best. Oh well, I have to stay connected with my Peruvian experiences. I have been noticing a curious thing. I walk by many meaningful objects in my room 10+ times per day. There are my flags on my way, with all their signatures, a ltter from a study right by my TV, my amazingly technologically advance cell from Cusco, and countless other things. Each day though, I focus on them longer and the memory becomes stronger than the object. This is completely nature, however, at times, I do feel as though that parts of my life are atrophying. I haven’t used my Spanish since I’ve been back, I haven’t done any teaching, and I haven’t done any community service, major staples of my life seem to be just distant memories…I suppose this is normal. My mind is always thinking of countless, and most ridiculous, metaphors for me to get a better understanding of the way things are unfolding. One example being that I’ve been off to the races but someone has put a big chunk of Jello in the middle of the track and I find myself treading Jello.

Random factoid: USC really needs to get their D sorted out

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