reality dating

So, on a first date, one is always trying to make a really good first impression (unless of course you really don't like the other person). So I wonder how a date would go if you just spilled all the bad stuff first:

Guy: Hi! I'm asking you out because the last 4 girls I made out upon meeting didn't like commitment.

Girl: Oh that's great! I accepted even though I'm trying to date 3 other guys.

Guy: Well what do you know! I dated 3 guys once too!

Girl: huh. I pick my nose and eat it--it helps me with my bulimia problem.

Guy: No kidding? Hear it's a healthy diet. Like my diet of hot pockets and top ramen. I don't cook because I think only women should do that. I'm into that whole chivalry, I mean, chauvinist thing.

Girl: Chivalry? I failed sculpture class...I don't remember what that means.

Guy: That's fine--women don't need to be educated...unless they want to be my sugar mamma of course. Chivalry is this thing that existed but that feminists destroyed.

Girl: You mean babies? I want 16. I've named them already and matched them with your last name already to make sure it sounds good.

Guy: Any name would sound good with mine. I like to look at myself in the mirror and flex everyday just to make sure my muscle mass hasn't diminished from the day before. I take steroids just in case.

Girl: Oh kinda like how I weigh myself twice a day! We're like twins! 

Guy: Totally! Oh I like your sunglasses btw. Remind me of stuff I used to steal from the mall. I gave up petty theft though.

Girl: Oh good for you!

Guy: yeah, bank robbery is so much cooler.

Girl: uh huh....

Guy: I mean... um...like on the video games I play.

Girl: You still play video games?

Guy: just 6...no...wait...10 hours a day. It makes me feel invincible, but my mom sometimes has to come down to the basement to remind me it's time for dinner.

Girl: You live with your mom? How old are you again?

Guy: 30. Or was it 32?

Girl: 33. I stalked you for 4 hours on fb each night for last week. I just asked your age to throw you off. I got yo back, no worries.

Guy: Gee thanks!  

Girl: Yeah I know the names of all of your past girlfriends, when and where you dated them, and if the relationship was 'complicated' or not. That way I know who I should be jealous of. I basically should be a professional stalker. I'd go into that if I wasn't failing college. I only went in b/c I thought I'd find my Orlando Bloom look-alike hubby by the end of freshman year and planned on quitting school as soon I got preggo on the honeymoon. 

Guy: Don't worry, I barely graduated high school. Super senior pride! I totally understand. It's tough when juvie gets in the way.

Girl: Oh...right.

Guy: So what kind of stuff do you like to do?

Girl: ummm....weigh myself....throw up....weigh again....but when I'm not doing that I'm stalking my potential boy toys. I thought we already covered that. And you?

Guy: check my muscles...seduce girls....and all that other jazz I talked about.

Girl: Seduce girls? You mean you help women give birth? I know all about that. That's pretty noble. You know, you're not that cute, but I'm desperate so I'll date you anyway. Please date me. Please say you love me. Please father my children. No one else will ask me out anymore--all the boys in the ward dumped me because they said I had jealousy issues. Please marry me! I've even picked out the ring and talked to the owner about getting a discount. pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease....

Guy: Don't worry, I stole one recently. I'm way ahead of you. But I just plan on having a nice NCMO with you and then going for the next desperate girl I meet. Don't take it personal. I have commitment issues and I know I'm irresistible.

Girl. Oh. That kinda sounds like what my shrink tells me. I guess that means we're a good match. But don't worry, I'll get over you tomorrow after cutting myself to release the emotion.

Guy: Oh, I thought the scars were from dialysis. That's ok. I cut people too.

Girl: Hmmm....I'm starting to get the feeling that you're kinda creepy. But my feelings of desperately wanting to eat your face are too overpowering. You're really good at seducing. 

Guy: Great! You're too sweet.

Girl: Thanks.

Paraguay (where's that?)

 So, roughly 7 weeks ago (that long already???) I returned form serving a full-time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a little-known place called Paraguay. For the geography-challenged, it lies in almost the middle of South America, surrounded by Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia. It has NOTHING and I repeat NOTHING to do with Uruguay...in fact, contrary to popular belief, they don't even touch. Also contrary to popular belief, Paraguayan food has NOTHING to do with Mexican cuisine. In fact, the Paraguayan tortilla resembles a Mexican one as much as a cat resembles a dog. Same species, different animals. The next time you make pancakes, add a lot more salt and deep fry it in oil and that's about what a Paraguayan tortilla looks like. They are quite delicious if I say so myself. I think I might make myself one soon...I rather miss them.
    Actually, there are a lot of little quirks about Paraguay that I miss, although to a Paraguayan they aren't quirks. Actually, when Paraguayans learn that United States residents actually think it's incredibly offensive to call someone fat to their face, their minds are blown. One of our quirks. I didn't know how different cultures could be if fact, until I went to this place I have learned to love. I consider myself a pretty well-traveled person--before my mission I had the wonderful opportunities to go to England, the Caribbean islands, and study in Italy, but none of that could prepare me for the culture brick that was to unmercifully high-five my face every time I walked out the door after putting my missionary name-tag on. Even the fact that my brother had served in the exact mission couldn't adequately prepare me....so here's my little tribute to Paraguayan culture, many of them things I miss.
   Here's one--did you know that there are culturally different ways to eat an orange? Think of how you eat yours. I imagine you do one of two things--cut it into little wedges, or when found without a knife, you hand-peel it and eat the God-created convenient wedges that make up that sphere of citrus goodness.  Not so in Paraguay. Let me teach you:
1) grab a knife and peel about half a centimeter of the peel off, beginning at the top and rotating the orange as you go until you reach the bottom. The orange should look like a white sphere now with only half its peel.
2) slice off the very top of the orange.
3) hold the now exposed part to your mouth, squeeze your orange, and suck.
4) keep sucking. Yum!
That's how to eat an orange. One of the Bishop's whose ward I served in told us once in a lunch appointment that when he was young, his dad told him if he wanted to learn how to kiss girls, he should eat oranges. HA! Unfortunately, I was having an awkward time eating my orange (I still don't have it down the way they do it there--cutting it takes practice, and I am a less-than graceful eater), and consequently was brutally made fun off after the Bishop's once funny comment. >:( Oh well. It was funny at the time and makes me smile more now.

Anyway, moving on. To keep this shorter I'll just bullet some little things those trying to broaden their cultural knowledge might find interesting.
-in Paraguay anything drunken out of a bottle is always done with a straw. Plastic, glass, 2 inches tall or 2 liters, doesn't matter: "Pajito?" upon purchase. (Unless you are a liquid deprived North American sweating-their-body-weight-out missionary and just need to chug that cold 2 liters of liquidized heaven right there....)
-"sopa" Paraguaya is not soup at all, but something that visually resembles corn bread
-food safety can be best summed up in 2 words: "what's that?"
-Spanish is the national language, along with Guarani, which kind of reminds of what African languages kind of sound like (without 'clicks' though, but with lots of nasal and throat-ish syllables). Or speak Spanish with your mouth slightly open and don't move your lips, and emphasize the last syllable on each word. Guarani is fun (or embarrassing) to learn, because one letter difference can make an innocent phrase into something dirty or vulgar.
  example: Ikatu ñañembo'e? = May we say a prayer?   Ikatu ñañembo'i? = May we all get naked?

-meal time: don't expect a beverage until after you've eaten everything, even if it's one bajillion degrees with 1000% humidity. Why? Because most beverages served are juice or soda, and Paraguayans believe that putting the sweet before the salty in your tummy will 'hurt' you, which I interpret to mean give you some serious chivivi (diarrhea)

-hamburgers often have a fried egg on top of the patty (sooo good!)

-deep fry or add unhealthy amounts of veggie oil to all of your meals

-add 1 cup of salt to your meal...wait...taste test...I think it needs more....

the buses are all Mercedes...but look they were salvaged from a junk yard and ride like a possible Disneyland ride. Don't be fooled--this bus was one of the nicer-looking ones.

-beware of the bugs. The 1st pic is of a mosquito I killed compared to a dime. The 2nd was in my last area. The third is a picture I took within my first month sometime. I had the following in my living quarters: 1 bat, 1 frog, 1 giant spider, a few lizards, a few or more cockroaches, several mice (which would get in everything--including the oven...), and lots of daddy-long legs (the least threatening, but which became permanent flattened wall ornaments).

  Those black things around Mickey are the presents it left before it died.                                                                

yum.

-translating. So, in Paraguay store owners often sell products that have English written on it to make it 'cool'....or what they think it English. Here are my favorites that I captured:

Please be sure to read the "Pooh" at the end of this second one when reading the whole text. :)


Other things I miss: despensas (pantry-sized shops owned by your neighbor that sell snacks and necessities), cobblestone roads, the red dirt, motos, mangos, seeing terere or mate (herbal drinks drunk through special cups and metal straws), hearing "tss tss tss Que hermosa que sos!!" 5-7 times a day on average (okay I really don't miss that one...), and the warmness of the people. 
    Aaah Paraguay....oh man I can feel the sweltering sun just thinking about it...yikes get me an electric fan. Or two. Here are the 4 seasons of Paraguay: hot, I-think-I-smell-my-flesh-cooking-and-I-am-creating-a-sweat-puddle hot, hot, cold and rainy. I had a comp that would wear peds over her knee highs even on the hottest days....I think the heat must have destroyed her brain cells....

Well, I think that's enough of Paraguay for now. I'll share more fun stories later. :)

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Love Every Sandwich--tribute to (one of) my hero(es)

So, I want to start this blog by explaining the title. Let me introduce you to Benjie.

  So when I was fifteen I was interested in taking some private art classes. Through another lady in our group of Chinese exchange student host families, we were told of an "excellent art teacher", and my parents hopped on the info.
   When I got to meet her, her house was easy to spot out: it was the only one on the block (and in the city to my knowledge) that was lilac, green, sun yellow and rosy pink, with an equally bright mural on the fence, ceramic/pottery collaged little wall, and completed with a giant metal-wire lizard "climbing" up the wall of the house. And when I met the actual teacher, she seemed to match her house--she was a woman in her late fifties/sixties and had neon pink, spiked hair. My curiosity was peaked from the get-go, as you can imagine, and I knew I was in for a good art education. And thus began a relationship that has already branded its affect in my life forever, and an education that was much more than about art.
  Her studio itself was small--six students of any range of age or sex (we even had a hermaphrodite for a time) in a cozy room, adorned by pieces of art by the maestra, many of which were self portraits of herself...only completely bald, and other paintings which I deemed a little scarring for my innocent eyes and eventually learned to ignore. But the "Bald Benjie" paintings ever fascinated me.
   Now, before you judge Benjie for her dazzling 'do, (after all, what is a woman that age doing with a mane like that?) well, let me explain a bit and I think you might appreciate the next time you see some flaming locks interrupting your vista when you wander out in public. Benjie had been fighting breast cancer for some time, and naturally from the chemo, her hair fell out. Well, when it grew back, it emerged as a distasteful mousy color and one of Benjie's students was in beauty school and needed a willing volunteer to practice on. So, to make lemonade out of lemons, Benjie decided to mix things up. Hence the hair. During the terrible ordeal of cancer, she also needed something to do to distract her, hence her imaginative house.
    And so, for one night a week, I created art under Benjie's guiding hand, while also listening to the enlightening discussions that ranged from a smorgasbord of topics that generated between us all. One night, Benjie mentioned a little female student (who she'd probably met on one of her many school trips as a guest speaker) who made this lovely statement: "Enjoy every sandwich." What a wonderful tip. Think about it. Enjoying the details of life. And if anyone ever lived that three word sentence, it was Benjie. By the time I had met her, her doctors had told her she would be dead several months ago. But Benjie was a fighter. I can see her as the kind of person that upon hearing the diagnosis, gave that cancer the bird and said, "We'll see about that!" I never saw a more vibrant woman...both visually and personality-wise, and I think most of her students will say the same. My younger sister eventually began taking classes, and began to also blossom under her watchful eye. Even when I left for college, I would take a class or two from her when I came back because I loved her classes so much. But I don't think it was so much the class it was the woman herself.
     But her cancer came back a few years later. She still continued to teach as best as she could, until she got too sick to do that. A few weeks after entering the MTC, I received an e-mail from my sister, informing me that Benjie had passed away.
   And so, this blog really is a tribute to Benjie, a woman that is still impacting my life--because of her I am pursuing an art education degree. I have learned to not judge people with neon pink hair. And I am learning to enjoy and love each sandwich.