Monday, October 22, 2007

*OLD* September 17th, 2005- True and Not-So-True

The other day, actually wednesday to be exact, was the hundredth consecutive day that I had been in the southern hemisphere, so i decided to celebrate by completely unpacking my suitcase for the first time. I then burned the suitcase to dampen any second thoughts on re-packing in an effort to give a sense of permanence to my situation, like Hernan Cortez burning the ships when he landed in Aztec land in 1519.
In continuing with this tradition of community buildingness, I finally bought a chocolate and cookie treat that somehow permeates this society filled with lanky women and men with good teeth (I don`t understand because they literally give me six packets of sugar for my coffee which is really just a doppio. every. single. time.). And wanting to build the community whilst settling in, I gave my chocolate treat (I hate chocolate) to the homeless man who camps out in front of BancoPatagonia on Av Freire and asked his name which he said was Charles, who would`ve thunk?
Actually I would`ve thunk because I made that second part up right here on the spot. I`ve been reading tons and tons of stuff in spanish from store signs to warning labels to over a thousand pages on economics and the united states` utter responsibility for everything wrong to etcetera but wednesday i found an english bookstore but didn`t buy anything because i had brought a monton of english books from home. Actually, I`d only brought two books from home (bible and cs lewis greatest hits thingie) so I eagerly bought three books desperate for mental stimulation and as of friday night have read one in its entirety and am halfway through a second book of 700 pages and have a third expectantly waiting on my nightstand.
The titles are, in order, Where`s Waldo? (Blue Edition), A Complete History of Model Trains in 19th Century England (halfway through), and the autobiography of Green (Green who? Well, it`s a creative amalgamation of the lives of Mean Joe Green, Anne of Green Gables, and Kermit the frog). The real books are The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene (started reading in the afternoon and couldn`t stop until I finished), A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (It really is), and Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky.
My past week has been terribly exciting with my trip to Paraguay actually including seeing penguins in the 95 degree heat in the northern Chaco region, thus letting me kill two birds with one stone (No, Mommas, I didn`t kill any penguins...it`s just a saying). My past week has been terribly boring because I had to cancel my travel plans and start doing massive amounts of reading for school, because apparently we have tests and grades and icky stuff like that.
I`ve decided to make up meanings to words in spanish that I don`t know, for example, re (pronounced KING, except in spanish). Re means super cool or far out or groovy or flyin` (only one person on this list will get that last joke and if you being not-that-person write to me saying ¨Ha, ha, josh, flyin` I get it,¨ I`ll know you are lying). In any case, it makes readings about the external debt crisis in Mexico in 1982 much funnier if you`re reading along and it says, roughly translated, ...we experts have expertly concluded that the external debt crisis is obviously, well, obvious to us experts, to a (super groovy) inability to pay shortterm loans on longterm projects that haven`t (croqueted) yet. While I`ll probably fail my tests when I misuse the words, it`s a small price to pay for general hilarity.
I have to do something just to say I`ve done it and have stories to tell yàll next week (another witty remark that only one will truly understand, and others may pretend to. in any case this falls into the not-so-true sentence pattern. can i say that without the whole email falling apart???? Existential angst!)
sincerely,
josh bull.

ps Expertly (obviously) meshing the subject line with my email you`ll already have discovered that the sentences follow a True then Not-So-True (False) pattern and thus this addenum (I think that means add-on, at least in my madeup spanish) is useless. Otherwise, I know you`ll enjoy re-reading the main body and laugh with me as you discover the homeless man`s name isn`t really Charles, that I didn`t go to Paraguay or see penguins, etcetera.

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