Culinary, Cultural Identity

Today let's talk about identity.

One of the English classes I'm taking this semester is Transborder Chicano Literature. I've been kind of wanting to take it for a while since, living in the Southwest, I always wish I learned more about this particular area (reading Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony, which takes place in New Mexico, in my Major American Novels class, for instance, was great--but moments like that are infrequent). So much of this literature, so far, has dealt with questions of identity. And discussions like this make me wonder, do I deny part of myself and my identity?

You see, let's put it this way: three of my grandparents were from Mexico. But I grew up speaking English and probably thinking I was white until I don't even know when. Even though when I was in kindergarden, it was a normal thing to visit relatives and hear more Spanish than English, in my bilingual class (that was my second kindergarten class--I started late here so the bilingual class was the only one open) I was with the English-speaking kids. It's kind of funny to think of now: I was probably the only Mexican girl grouped with the white kids, even though I realized no such discrepancy (kids really don't know race exists, do they?). But that's the funny part, too: I think I tend to look racially ambiguous. Especially before I came to Phoenix for college and got a tan: I used to be very white, and I still am light. Usually it was only the people who actually were from Mexico who could tell that that was my background, too. So I guess I always grew up on that line between worlds. The question I have now is whether that is a bad thing, whether I have missed out or repressed anything or some such thing like that.

But what I find funny when I consider these questions is what I have, in some ways retained from that cultural background. I don't really speak Spanish, though I can understand some of it if people aren't talking too fast or if I can see it in print. I'm pretty sure most of the songs in Spanish I listen to are by Josh Groban. But I have the influence of food.

That's right, I'm turning this into a food post. You see, especially because I live in Arizona, I don't always realize certain tendencies in what I eat--some of them are just normal to this area, no matter your background. But I have Abuelita hot chocolate in my cabinet right now next to the Earl Grey tea--but that's something they sell at Target. I have tortillas in my refrigerator--but they're from Trader Joe's. I made pinto beans last week that I bought at a farmer's market--but I also have a bag of black beans that I got at Whole Foods. I once got sad looking through all the stores because I couldn't find any jamaica (hibiscus) to make iced tea--but I don't remember ever drinking that until I was maybe twelve. I usually like tortilla chips best--but that's also because I'm part hipster and avoid the junk food Lay's/Cheetos/etc. I have Cholula hot sauce--and I can't think of an excuse for having it besides that I bought it at World Market. Oh, and I've been known to put hot sauce on eggs. And butter and sugar on toast (do they do that in the South, too? I'm not sure. Although, lately, it's true that I've been switching the sugar for a mound of raw honey).

What amuses me most is when I blend these things together: that, I feel, is me marking my culture. To drink my hot chocolate while eating scones or wrap salmon and spinach in a tortilla or drink jamaica while eating potato salad, those are the types of things I find entertaining. Because I think, ultimately, culture lives inside you. Identity is partly given to you, but also partly formed by you. And I have always grown up on those borderlines between cultures: and there I am happy to remain. Perhaps that's one reason I have come to have such affection for Arizona, despite not having been born here.

On Returning to Classes

Today was the first day back at school for what I expect to be my last year.

It's strange, really. On one side, it felt nice to be back in the same familiar place, surrounded by so many bright and intelligent people. But it's also daunting: walking here and there, my mind calls up images of due dates and deadlines. In a phrase, stress starts walking in my steps across the school.

Stress about the immediate: turning in those forms, updating such and such online, ordering my last batch of books, starting in on reading and other assignments. Stress about the longer term: organizing the work for my honors thesis, setting up other honors credits, planning out what classes I need to take next semester. Even longer term: if I graduate in May, that's really only a few months away--what do I do then? Am I sure I don't want to go to graduate school? What direction do I want to go in job-wise?

At least I had my nice bike ride back home to distract my body from my mind.

(Last note: I have no idea if senior year busyness will mean I won't be able to keep up the rate of posting I have had this summer. It may be harder to find the time to post, but I also find that classes help me think of topics to write about. So we'll see; I promise at least not to disappear entirely.)

Campus Ramblings

It's story time today.

So I got to campus a little early today since I had one or two things to do before class. Those done, I found I was getting hungry, or at least I knew I would be after sitting through two classes. So I found myself something to snack on and headed toward some shady benches near my first class's building.

But the benches were gone.

You see, they're replaced a lot of the cement benches and picnic tables with some of a new material that looks like metal but doesn't heat up in the sun (try sitting on a cement bench in Phoenix while wearing shorts or a short skirt . . .). This corner of campus wasn't part of that switch months ago, but more recently they removed a group of picnic tables . . . and didn't replace them. I would hope that the plan is to replace them eventually, but in the meantime, a nice lunch spot is gone. The shady benches I was looking for are right by where these tables used to be; when they tables were removed, they stayed (right? I think they did . . .). So I lost my shady spot to sit, even though I didn't really have time to walk too far to find a new spot. Note that it reached 100 today, so not any sunny bench would do for even just a few minutes (at least, I didn't feel like that much sun today).

I ended up in a spot nearby, but still I find that rather unkind of my university to take away my poor snacking bench.

Another event caught my interest, this time from my second class. Although finals don't officially start until Thursday, we were taking ours today for this class. After we got our tests, the professor walked out for a few minutes to go to her office. While she was gone, nobody talked, passed around answers, or did anything out of the ordinary. Why is that?--the question endlessly amuses me. Even just a high school class would at least have to giggle at the prospect of being able to cheat, even if they did nothing more. But we, I suppose, had no reason to react. By asking for an answer, you would probably only be able to add a point or two to your score, anyway; there wouldn't be much point. And if you need more help than just a quick question, you're going to do badly no matter what. And even just a quick comment is pointless; it also takes time, and we all want to finish quicker rather than slower so that we can leave (high school students have to stay the whole class time, anyway). Not that I finished any more than three or four minutes early . . . but I got an A+ on my mid-term, so speed isn't my main object.

Just curious ramblings about my day. Now a shout of excitement that I only have a final project to finish, a final paper, one final, and another writing assignment/project before I can submit to summer. Just four more things to do . . .

Procrastinating

What do I do when I don't want to write a paper? Blog about nothing. Consider this my attempt at Post-Modernism, if you will.

I have written an amazing one and a half pages out of a total of about five and a half. The bad thing is that it is 5:42 in the evening and this paper is due tomorrow morning. In my defense (since of course I must make a justification) is that tomorrow I have this paper due along with two final projects and their written defenses. The first of the final project pairs is done; the second project is almost done, with its written defense on my agenda for tomorrow. But I still have four more pages to write tonight about Paradise Lost.

I had meant to hang around campus for at least a couple of hours after class today, writing away. But it was cloudy today and the wind and the cold were growing, so I came home and wrapped the first Christmas present to go under the tree instead. Wrapping presents is much more fun than writing papers.

Now I sit at my desk and still find reasons to get up. Oh, it's time to turn on the light. Oh, I have to go get my power cord. My, but my fingers are cold. How am I supposed to type if my fingers are cold? So I go get my blue "Bella" jacket (yes, it is the jacket), deciding that ought to cheer me up. I pause to choose new music. I decide I can take the time to look up synonyms for words. I double check something on the assignment. I spend more time than necessary looking through my notes and secondary sources. I take another sip of the strange writing drink I have this time, Mayesa's Cacao Mint (which is rather good).

Then I write a couple of sentences. Then I check what length I'm at and recalculate how much I have left.

Then I wish that I could just extend my fingers at the laptop screen, hum, and see my thoughts all perfectly typed out. I have an outline, so why can't it just write itself?

I decide that looking up what percentage of my class grade this paper is worth might give me some motivation. It's 20%. Oh, that's not that much, I say to myself. I guess that didn't work.

But it's okay. I have six hours left before I go to bed: that's plenty of time to write four pages.

I'm Not a Very Good Rebel

As soon as I caught up from my "I'm more behind in reading than I've ever been" state, I had two midterms (for which I would actually have to study, though I usually do fine without much studying) and two papers within eight days. The last paper was due tonight, so the plan was to write half of it yesterday and the second half today. But I was just so exhausted yesterday that when I sat down (more than once) to write, I just couldn't. It just wasn't working.

So I decided to rebel--I departed from my desk and watched Netflix while lying on my bed instead. I called it "recovering" and promised that I would work diligently on the paper the next day (today).

But when I got home today around one, I still didn't want to work on that paper. So I took the time to slowly finish a movie I had started, have lunch, and then watch some YouTube. I believe I was mentally making faces at the paper, thinking I was better than it because I was refusing to work on it. I didn't get out my notes to begin until about five o'clock. But I told myself that was okay: I could take an hour per page and still finish with two hours to spare before the due time.

I wasn't finished pretending to be rebellious, though. I made some coffee, poured it with a flourish into a teacup, served a square of almond toffee on a dessert plate, and started brushing on lipgloss at random, often intervals (I don't really wear this gloss much anymore--I never much liked lipgloss and now that I have discovered the superior Revlon Just Bitten lipstain and Burt's Bee's tinted lip balm, the couple of glosses I have sitting around have been officially neglected). I used these three elements as my "inspiration" to begin. Then lo, and behold, I finished the paper in less than three hours.

The verdict? That twenty-four hour time that I took off must have allowed the ideas to properly stew in my mind. And slight distractions actually aid in writing. I've talked a little before about either eating or drinking (as in coffee or tea or hot chocolate or acai juice, of course, nothing other) while writing, or listening to music. It's quite true, as well. Instead of actually distracting, I find that little things like this help me focus, ironic as that may be.

Oh, yes, and I've learned that I am a terrible rebel. Seriously, coffee, toffee, lipgloss, and Netflix? (And it was even black coffee, not some sugary concoction.)

In Need of a Break?

I confess that I have never been so behind in schoolwork as I am this week.

I am hundreds of pages behind in reading.

I had only read half the assigned reading for class yesterday, yet I still passed the pass or fail quiz.

I think I must resign myself to spending my whole weekend catching up--though I usually need to take a part of the weekend to get started on work for the coming week, not for the previous one.

Even, however, in times like these, there must be pauses. Enter my friend Netflix. (Let's not talk about the plan/price changes--even with them, it's still a great deal.) Although I sometimes end up giving more praise to the movies that affect me more and make me think more, sometimes I also turn to movies to allow me to pause. It was for this reason that I watched Dear Lemon Lima last week and rejoiced in its complete simplicity and the knowledge that I would never find the need to ponder this movie. It was for this reason that I clicked on the Switched at Birth pilot last month, finding myself watching the entire ten episodes in the days that followed. Sometimes I just need to watch simple things.

And sometimes I add many movies to my Instant Queue, more than I can watch; when they are about to expire from streaming, I finally watch them, even if they are not quite what I was looking for that day. So tonight, even though I am so behind in pages of reading and nearly bewildered by so many stories already, I watched In the Time of the Butterflies because this was the last day that it was streaming. That was just a bit more thought-provoking of a movie than I would have chosen for tonight and a bit more emotionally draining than perhaps I needed today.

Stories. My mind is filled with stories. This movie reminded me of the martyrdom in "The Life of St. Margaret," which I read this afternoon for one of my classes. It even reminds me of the themes of home in The Wind in the Willows, which I finished earlier in the week for another class.

Do the themes never cease to converge?

It would not be our world if they did cease.

Miraculous, No?

I have lately taken to riding my bike to classes. Because I am a newcomer to biking and because it is very much still summer in this place where I dwell, I only ride halfway, taking the bus for the second half. It sounds rather too complicated, but it's beginning to suit me. I have the chance to get a little exercise in during my daily routine (and spend some time outdoors) and it doesn't take an extraordinary amount of time to get to campus.

But here is the thing about spending time outside in Phoenix: you sweat. No matter if you're just sitting outside and you're not even uncomfortable, if the temperature is over a hundred, you will sweat. It's inevitable. It just happens. So if you're riding your bike, even for just fifteen minutes (although I must add that my route does have a bit of slope to it, as well), you will sweat just a bit more. And the thing is, I like to wear makeup. In summer, I have to be conscious of what makeup I am wearing. For one thing, blush and bronzer are out of the question: your face gains enough color on its own. I worry about my eyeshadow not sticking, but thanks to the wondrous Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion, no matter how much I am outside, my eyeshadow will stay on from dawn to dusk. Eyeliner is a little more iffy, I always feel. I usually carry my eyeliner with me in case I need a touch-up.

But I hardly ever do. It's almost like sweat acts as another primer, glueing the eyeliner in place. I get to campus and glance in a mirror cautiously, but the makeup is still on. I get home and do the same, and though my face be reddened from the afternoon sun, there sits the eyeliner not so different from how it was in the morning. Amazing, no?

(All of this rambling is simply my way of putting off writing my first paper for the semester. I have finished practically all my other work for the week, so I don't have too many more reasons to put off the paper. But it can at least wait until after lunch, right?)

New Classes

My class registration for spring opened on Monday.

I was so anxious/excited/something-like-that to sign up for the three classes I knew I wanted to take that I did so from my phone an hour after my slot opened up (a whole hour later because I had been in class).

Then I spent a week, unsure of what other two classes to add. Today I finally realized I couldn't take it anymore; so what if some people's registration still isn't open, I feel late/remiss/something-like-that not choosing the last two classes.

The result? Many English classes. I hope I didn't swamp myself in reading too much. I'm almost done with general, required classes, so the only one I will be taking next semester is Latin 202 (which, by the way, will probably be my last Latin class -- I don't know if I would enjoy going any further). Also on the agenda: Intro to Contemporary Lit., Major American Novels, American Indian Lit., and a Tolkien-based class on medieval motifs in modern culture or some such notion.

The amazing thing is that they all sound interesting. This is what I remember looking forward to in high school: digging into specific topics, topics that you yourself choose. Latin is a crazy puzzle, I know I need better insight into modern works, the reading list for the novels class is probably my list-of-books-I-need-to-get-to-someday, Native American studies are just fitting for the Southwest, and a class based on Tolkien is just ideal.

The other perk? Only two classes on Monday and Wednesday, one on Friday, one on Tuesday that isn't until 4:40, and nothing on Thursday. So even if I have a lot of reading, I think my in-class schedule will be loose enough that I'll manage.