I once was a writer...

I realize I'm not married yet, and that I am asking for advice well in advance of my real needs. However, last week we experienced a situation that neither of us (my fiancé and I) knew how to handle. Since I do not want to get into the personal details of our lives (I promised Honey I would never do that), I will present the situation as an analogy... We happened to find ourselves, one day, without toothpaste at home. After all the normal bickering (Honey: How can you NOT notice that we are running out of toothpaste? You know all you have to do is ask for money and I will give it to you so that you can go buy toothpaste!  Me: How do YOU not notice? You brush your teeth daily, just as much as I do, and since you have the money YOU could have gone and bought it... ), we decided to go together to buy the toothpaste. We quickly kissed and made up because it is stupid to quarrel over toothpaste, and it was neither of our faults. I mean, nobody wants to wake up on a Monday morning and ...

Michel Foucault said that he who holds the language holds the power  -- and that is why translators are the people who are changing the world, and have been doing so for centuries. Millennia, even. It is not enough to posses knowledge, it is important to be able to transmit that knowledge, to share it, to teach it. The problem is that not everybody will be able to understand this knowledge, unless they, too, are in possession of the skills necessary to understand. Translation is not just a matter of identifying the word in the source language and replacing it with the equivalent in the target language. If that were so, we translators (and I dare now include interpreters as well) would have proven to be obsolete in the late 1980s. Our success, our importance to the world, even, is the task that we perform, the impossible that we achieve: we are able to find the perfect oxymoronic juxtaposition of faithfulness  and beauty  in a target language from a source language. Ye...

Say you have a friend. A very dear friend. And one day, he tells you he met someone. And you're all, like, OMG that is so awesome! You encourage your friend and, in trying to show your support for the relationship, establish some kind of virtual connection with the new girl he's seeing. It's all going great: you like her, she likes you, your friend likes her, she likes your friend, you and your friend like each other - it is like the mecca of friendship/love relationships. And then you decide to hold a birthday party. Only this is a very special birthday party, because it's one of those milestone thingies and you will hold a huge party -- not huge enough that every single contact on your facebook friends list is invited, but huge enough that you are spending all of your savings in said party. Family from around the world is flying in... like, OMG WOW. Of course your friend is invited -- he is your very best friend, after all. And since you like the girl he is dating...

As I was lying in bed earlier today, devouring my third easter chocolate bar, I said to Honey, "If it doesn't rain, I will ride my bike to class tomorrow." Honey made a face, and I --my mouth filled with chocolate, teeth brown and all-- said to him, "I need to have some kind of movement, Honey, some kind of exercise. I feel like a cow!" He stopped what he was doing. I believe the world stopped spinning for a split second. As he was about to make some mean, evil comment about the fact that I am, in fact , a cow, I yelled at him to stop - to shut up. In the midst of my screaming I even spit a little chocolate onto his back. "Don't you dare say a word," I shrieked, "don't you dare agree with me that I am a cow. Choose your words wisely, Honey, because the wedding can still be cancelled." He looked at me with the loveliest puppy-dog eyes, the ones he uses when he knows he messed up. He looked at me with those eyes and said, "I ...

If you have a half an hour to spare, stop reading and watch this video: Make Kony Famous 2012 If you don't have 30 minutes free, don't watch the video but continue reading. Do save this link, though, because you should find the 30 minutes. Really. (I am talking to you, Mami, you who are reading this and have no time for anything other than PEP and my wedding... find the time!) When we are small, young and naïve, we are taught that we can change the world. That ONE person can make a difference. That we, every single one of us, can help. But then, unfortunately, we grow up. We grow up and we start to realize that no, one voice does not count; you need a million, at least. And no, your vote does not make a difference; you need half-plus-one in order to make a difference. And unless you are a philanthropist and have millions and millions of dollars, or even better, euros, you cannot change the world. And the sad thing is that you don't only realize it, you live it, you ex...

I had my first ever oral exam last week. I had never before had an oral exam. I don't consider my thesis presentation an oral exam, because I had two hours to present and support my thesis, and then answer questions from my panel - questions which I had already discussed with each one of the panel members individually. So that was no stress. And my thesis was awesome. But the German system is very interesting, and I had to take one 15-minute oral exam for The Alamo Seminar. It was one whole semester on The Alamo and how it was represented in film, literature and popular culture. I am now an Alamo expert. I challenge my historian friends Julie and Joe to ask me anything they want. Not everyone is required to take this oral exam for this seminar, so out of a class of 30, I think I was one of three who took this exam. I figured that the teacher would let us go easy and just make sure that we did do the readings; since I event to every single class (perfect attendance) and particip...

What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet - right? But then, when remembering who you are, you need to know where you come from, or so said Mufasa. And both of those require your name. So your name is you . And changing your name changes you. Right? If a rose were called "violet" it would not be a rose. Yes? I don't know. I'm not even sure what side I'm arguing for. Or against. All I know is that right now I am faced with making the decision of what the heck to do with my name. My name is really long (last name, that is), because in Colombian culture people use both their father's as well as their mother's last name. It used to be that when women married, their name would be legally changed: They would lose their mother's name, keep their father's, and become "of" the husband. For example: my aunt was born Graciela Murillo Salazar. But when she married (a half a century ago) she legally became Graciela M...

I hate marketing. I hate it. I hate it -- because it works. You see, I'm getting married in seven months (yay me! Check out our wedding website ), and I need to do all the planning here in Germany for a wedding taking place in the Caribbean coast of Colombia. It does seem like a challenge, but I am an amazing planner and I can do it. Also, my mom and sister/Maid of Honor have it all under control. But, as I said, since I'm in Germany, there are many things I need to do online. So I have to rely on websites to kinda figure out what I want. Before I went online, I took advice from my good friend Hope (who also recently married) and closed my eyes and imagined my perfect wedding. This is what my perfect wedding looks like: At the beach, hopefully getting our feet wet while saying "I do", at sunset, with only our closest family and friends (so, no more than 20 people), drinking piña coladas and eating fish and coconut rice, listening to soothing background music a...

I couldn't sleep a couple of nights ago. I must have eaten too much. But that happens more often than not. I try to finally "go to bed" (as in, go to sleep) when I can no longer keep my eyes open. But that takes a while. I have been known to surf all the things  on imgur on my iPhone until the battery runs out, which really bothers Honey. He says that we should sleep together, at the same time. I try not to think, I try to free my mind. But that doesn't always work. And, like I said, I really couldn't sleep the other night. I "went to bed" at 10 pm, but I was really, really tired. I could hardly keep my eyes open, I could not focus on anything, I could not stop yawning. So I figured it was about time. Of course, as my friend Murphy would have it, it was only when I turned off all the lights, hit the mute switch on all the phones, turned off the TV and the laptop, found the perfect pillow position and sighed what I expected to be the last sigh of the ...

I'm not the God-fearing person I'm supposed to be. And I'm alright with that. Having gone to university in the US Bible Belt, though, I had my fair share of people trying to "save" me, which I appreciated. I mean, you have to really care about a person to want to save them from going to hell, right? I was lucky (blessed?) to have all those people around me, and am still lucky (blessed?) to have them put up with me and my agnostic ways after 10 years. The thing is, I don't believe in blaming nor accrediting God with everything. If something good happens (something over which you had some kind of control, like a good job offer or a raise or that your self-made dinner tasted delicious), then why should you claim that God did that? I mean, God surely gave you the talent to be the best you could be, and He (She?) even "blessed" you with strength and courage and whatnot. But there are certain things that YOU do for yourself. No one does them for you. At ...

I think there is nothing worse in life than being average. That is actually my biggest fear - well, right alongside the crocodiles under my bed finally eating my toes, and the guy sitting in the corner of the living room walking towards me. There are (thank god) no monsters in my closet. No, but seriously: I am terrified of being average! I think it is terrible to get lost in the masses. Especially now that the masses have reached 7 BILLION (and according to the BBC World Citizen Counter I am number four billion six hundred ninety-seven million six hundred and one thousand eight hundred twenty). I mean, we have got to find a way to stand out. But then again, if all us, if all seven billion of us try to stand out, we will, ironically, not. So I guess some, the majority, would have to actively NOT stand out in order for a few of us to do something *special* that will differentiate us (whether positively or negatively is up to each of us) from the rest. It's not easy. And that'...

It was in that moment when she realized that she had to make a decision. Right then and there. There was no time for stalling or doubting or waiting. A decision had to be made, and she was the only one who could make it. It had to be her decision, because it would change her life forever. Yes, it would of course also affect the lives of the many people who surrounded her, of the many people who surrounded her because they loved her - because they love her. Yes, their lives would also be affected by her decision; but they would not be woken up in the middle of the night with the question, "Did I make the right decision?" circling in their heads. Their lives would too be affected, yes, but with time they would forget, the pain would go away, the anger would fade, the incomprehension would wither. But not for her - no, most definitely not for her. This decision, the one that she was facing in this very moment, would transform her in ways she had not even become to fathom. This d...

I don't know why I used that phrase - I hate it, and I'm not sure I quite get it. But I'll give it a try. Why must we (or is it only me?) have the need to have our cake and eat it too? Why can't we just let the cake be, knowing that the cake is ours. Why must we eat it? To not make the analogy more complex than it needs to be, why do I want to get married?! I live with a wonderful guy who loves me, who cooks deliciously, and who pays for all my expenses while in a foreign country (that last bit of information is sadly important, right?). Yes, we live in sin. But for all intents and purposes, we're married. Minus the document from the Holy Church. We do what married couples do: we sleep together (fully clothed, of course, just in case my parents are reading this!), we eat together, we go out together, we don't see other people, we don't behave ourselves inappropriately with other people; we go shopping together, sometimes I even manage to dress in the s...

So, I've been having this recurring nightmare for about 10 months already. It doesn't come as often as it used to, but it comes often enough to be recurring. At first, it used to be night after night. Now it's more like once a week, or every two weeks. It's not always exactly the same, but the same situation happens and the same people are involved. Settings may vary, but the same thing ends up happening. The situation, although unlikely (I hope) is quite possible. What I mean to say is, my nightmare does not include demonic clowns coming from under my bed to kill me (actually, I've always thought there are crocodiles under my bed...), nor is it anything supernatural or including aliens happening. All of us involved are human, with human feelings and human actions. The first thing I do after I have these dreams is try to calm down (I wake up crying sometimes) and realize it is nothing more than a dream; everything within that dream (though likely) is impossible. I...