Thanksgiving was great :)!!

Many tenkius to the boy's parents, his sister (and husband), and the cool uncle for sharing their holiday with moi. It was good seeing you guys again... and it was a fun turkey lunch, and an exciting game... good times :)

**

Una corta oración de agradecimiento...

I am grateful to you, truly grateful and aware of how much you have blessed me. You've blessed me, most importantly, by blessing my family and the people I love. This year has been one of both terrible and wonderful news. But you have been the powerful hand behind our blessings and my source of strength when all seemed to go wrong. Gracias, Señor. You've also blessed me with the wisdom I found in my parents' advice and the peace of mind that Q's tempered reason and loving support always produce in me. Gracias por sus vidas.

I am grateful that my friend Janie is well, and I am grateful to have been able to be with her for just a bit. I am grateful that though it has been a tough transition for her, she is a strong woman, determined to be happy. She IS happy, and she deserves to be. I thank you for her strength y por las promesas que tienes para ella.

I am grateful that Fer is doing much, much better. And I am grateful that he will be graduating this may, conmigo este año! Gracias Señor.

I thank you Lord for my new roommie.

Te doy gracias por este año, por todo lo que pasó y lo que no dejaste pasar. Por todas tus bendiciones, Señor, te agradezco. En el nombre de Jesús, Amén.

Many great news :)

Abi's first basketball game was this Wednesday!! She did very well, according to what I hear. She worked hard and was focused and was in the bench for like 3 seconds of the game. I'm so proud of her!! Misael is too, even if he won't admit to it... hehehe...

I also got to see the new place where I'll be living next semester. I'm actually moving in soon, since I need to leave this room by December 1st. It's exciting stuff!! The place is beautiful and comfortable, the company is absolutely wonderful, and there is a church accessible through the back door of the house :) The place is also very close to the ocean! I bet that will be fun next semester when it starts getting warmer again :))

Also this week I talked to the lady in charge of Field Ed at HDS about Susana Wesley School. I might have just found a way to network for the Anapra Mission!! I'm very happy at the possibilities this one little meeting might open for us. Wuju for connections... :)!!

The semester is almost over. I can't believe I'm already starting to think about my final papers!!! Im going home sooon!!! wuuujuuuu!!! and of course there's also thanksgiving coming up. wonderful times ahead of us all :))

My siblings were followed around by CNN reporters today (do I have the channel right?). My friend Ceme and her sister went down to Juarez to do a report on Mexican kids going to high school in the States. Pobrecitos... lol... my siblings love having the cameras all over them ;)

What else? ooOOH... given my Spanish, English, and public-speaking skills but also -mostly- given my lack of folklorico dancing skills (Im a beginner), I will be MC at the event on Saturday! It will be a show given by both the Mariachi Veritas and the Ballet Folklorico Aztlan (my dance team). Wuju!! It was nice being invited to do it... I'm very excited. I like the mic. Jaja.. Hice verso sin esfuerzo.

The security guard at HDS IS Italian. I knew it!! hehehe... Nice, big, elderly man. He says hi to me now :P I feel special. He even stopped the other day to ask me if I was a vegan and to talk to me briefly about how vegetables, which used to be the food of the poor (who could not afford meat) is now so popular it's become expensive --the food of the rich! So now he finds it hard to eat veggies... *SMILE* ... what can I say? it was great.

Other than that, I haven't been sleeping or eating well, but that will change next week. Let me just get done with all of this insanity, and I will be back to normal. In my defense, sleeping and eating well IS normal. de veras.

Night at the Museum... LoL...

So it was a crazy night tonight. My friends Ceme, Ma. Cristina, and I snuck in to the Peabody Museum. LoL. I’m not sure if it was completely necessary… we had tickets. Sort of. Miraculously, Prof. Carrasco behaved like a Latino and was nice enough to get us 3 tickets. Maybe because we had just been at the meeting on the Latino Studies chair. But I digress… Carrasco’s strangeness was not the issue tonight. The thing was that we had 3 tickets…. and well, the problem with that was that… huh… it was 5 of us. The solution? All three of us crazy girls decided we should sneak in to give two of them our tickets. The event was a fancy (much, much fancier than the working-class Dia de los Muertos original celebration in Mexico) version of a traditional Catholic holiday…. Lol… But it was SOMETHING Mexican! I wanted IN! Knowing that an event was being held about Mexican culture exclusively for/by/with rich white people gave me a pang in the stomach. I gotta repeat this. I wanted in. Heck, we ALL wanted in! What’s this weird appropriation of our culture, and what’s this disrespect of not INVITING us? I’m not saying give us an important place in it… not saying give us a chance to be the rightful spokesmen of traditions in Mexico… I’m saying freaking LET US IN! SO yes.. LoL. We wanted in. And well, we got in. We snuck in through a side-door…. LoL… Although not until we had tried a couple other ideas: I could get in as a part of the Ballet Folklorico, which I technically am a part of, even though I wasn’t going to be dancing tonight. But my group WAS performing… lol… OOOooOOor Ma. Christina could try to go in saying she needed to reach her office in the Museum, which she does have, even though she didn’t exactly want to go in to *work.* But neither one of our oh-so-well-thought-out ideas worked... as was expected… so we walked around the perimeter of the building (lalalaaa) until someone came out a side door and left it open. We ran to it before it closed… and we got in!! LOL… we were SO excited! We felt we were reviving the monumental feat of illegal immigrants going into the States… we felt we had forcefully broken through the class barrier... we thought we had gotten back at the darn policemen (yes, policemen, not security guards) that almost pushed Cemelli down the stairs last year because she didn’t “look” like a student and should therefore not go in the building “until she proved she was a student.” !!! Grrrr…. !!!!!!! *Instert a crazy girl with her fist shaking all up in air trying to get her anger out* The marks on the floor are still there. Luckly she was okay. But oh… the VICTORY!!! LoL… We thought right!! Yes… I know… I am all too easily pleased… hehe… but what can I say? It felt good. Even though it was silly… and maybe a just bit dangerous… Dad… not really. dont worry. and I know… lol… but they didn’t push us out though… because they didn’t see us sneaky Mexicans coming! Muajajajjajaja!!! The anarchist in me is ALIVE!!

*GasP* So last year there was a protest against the Mexican government for doing nothing about the rapes in Juarez during the event. This year, they tried avoiding such unsightly protests by giving out tickets. A couple of my friends tried getting tickets for the event. It’s supposed to be open to students, you know. They are supposed to give students some preference…. But nope… Nada. Not even though they requested the tickets in advance. Maybe they thought they were protesters. LoL…. sigh… I didn’t even try. LoL. Last year I didn’t go and this year, if it wasn’t because we got tickets from Carrasco, I have to admit that I would have never even tried to get in in the first place. Would have gone elsewhere. But it was magical. Lol. Seriously. The *expo* was awful, and the music was barely alright, but when people saw us dancing (yup. that's what some music is for) they were so happy to join us... and we had SUCH a great time! Very few times do I get to dance with my friends here in Boston. And it was amazing. We were being silly… enjoying the moment’s sweet victory… and we were dancing, singing… jumping around …teaching others how to salsa… it was GREAT. The white people easily relaxed to the music and were having fun. We gave the event some much needed life. I think they realized they were finally being a part of the culture they were celebrating (I dont think the awful "Mexican" fake chocolate was doing it.) And knowing I have my ticket to remember the night makes me feel our small victory rushing through the veins all over again.

Some things one just HAS to do... and some things one can only do with one's gente.