Sing Muse… The Beginning

NOTE: I was without Internet for the duration of this trip, so I typed up my blog posts in advance, while everything was still fresh.  All of them will be posted in quick succession now.

Friday August 24 ATHENS, GREECE –

Greece in August is hot as balls.  It’s actually quite remarkable.  But, setting that aside, it really is a lovely country.

I had already been to Athens and various islands before I started blogging; so my post on Athens will be admittedly lacking.  But, to catch you up…

The National Archeological Museum is definitely worth a look (my family spent about three hours just wandering the first time we visited, but then we’re really into archeological museums.) and the Forum, the Agora, and the Temple of Olympian Zeus are worth stopping by for a few minutes to take pictures (there’s really not much left of any of them). 

Those are the major sites I skipped this trip.  Retrospectively, I wish I had made the trip out to the Archeological Museum (basically everything except the Museum is within walking distance of Syntagma Square) instead of going to the Benaki Museum; but at least I now know that the Benaki museum isn’t really that interesting.

The Benaki Museum essentially takes a look at Greek art from Neolithic to modern day.  I like Classical Greek sculpture as much as the next girl (actually, considering my peer group, I like Classical Greek sculpture quite a bit more than the next girl) but I get mildly annoyed when it isn’t clearly curated.  I’m pretty good with mythology, but I don’t know all the symbols tied to each God; so it’s nice to have a sign telling me what I’m looking at.  Personally, I walk pretty quickly past the religious Icons.  I do informally study religion for my Global Scholar certificate, but I can’t even come close to keeping the saints straight and the older paintings of the Madonna and Child are kind of creepy looking, so they’re mostly lost on me.

As you work your way up, the exhibits get more and more modern.  The stuff from the Romantic period is especially interesting to me because that is the period of the Greek War for Independence.  There are lots of gloriously nationalistic paintings to be found from that period.  Interestingly, during the period of occupation by the Ottomans, the Greek Orthodox Church served as the safeguard of Greek history, culture, and language.  Most of the precious sculptures from antiquity (for example: the massive, ivory and gold statues of Pallas Athena from the Parthenon and Zeus from the Athenian temple of Olympian Zeus) were stolen away by the Ottomans and were destroyed along with most of Istanbul in a fire, but the Church protected the history of Greek culture even in the face of occupation.  So that’s pretty cool.  When I was there, there was also a special exhibit on about artists as jewelry designers, which I have to say was much more interesting solely because it was better curated.  It was very easy to figure out what I was looking at, which is always a plus.

After the Benaki Museum, I pretty much just wandered around down a few side streets.  While I can’t tell you what streets I was on, I found a few blocks of chocolate shops, a few super fancy looking jewelry stores, and a supremely creepy store run by a “poet sandal maker”.  The walls were essentially lined with pictures of famous people – and occasionally family members of famous people – who had shopped at the store, but that didn’t stop it from feeling incredibly creepy.  According to my guidebook, that particular store is a must see in Athens but I must disagree.

And, of course, I visited the Acropolis and New Parthenon Museum.  Not quite realizing how close it was to my hotel I took a needless metro ride one stop from Syntagma to Akropoli.  Trains in Athens come about every 6 minutes at around 8 AM, which, if you’ve just missed a train, seems like an interminably long period of time.  On the plus side, everything still looks very new.  To me, it’s insane that the Parthenon is still standing.  Thanks to a few architectural tricks, it has withstood a number of earthquakes, but the universe has basically worked to destroy the building since the Persians invaded Athens.  The first time the Persians came after what is now Greece, they burned down the Parthenon so Pericles (Full disclosure, I thought he was another one of Shakespeare’s inventions until I went to the Parthenon the first time I was in Athens.  Then I found out he was a real dude.) organized a campaign to rebuild a newer and better temple to Athena.  That actually stuck around for a while.  Then the Byzantine Christians came and turned it into a church.  To do this, they felt it necessary loot the place and chip off a lot of the pagan friezes and decorations.  A little later it was turned into a mosque when the Ottomans took over.  These same Ottomans later stopped using it as a mosque, and started using it to store explosive materials.  This did not end well for the walls of the temple; the ordinance exploded and took out about half of the building.  After this, the ravages of time took over.  And you know what, there’s still a building there.  The propylea and the Temple of Nike is pretty damn intact; the Estrucheon is in really good shape; the Carytids (now located in the New Museum) are in pretty good well preserved; there’s still an olive tree where Athena supposedly planted it; and the columns of the Parthenon are still standing.  Sure there’s been some restoration work done (ok a lot of restoration work), but it is amazing to me that so much is still there.

Of course so much more would be there if it hadn’t been for that asshole Lord Elgin.  It’s actually weirdly sad to walk through the New Museum (which is gorgeous) because about half of the artifacts have notation saying “reproduction, BM” because about half of the remains of the Parthenon are in the British Museum.  Now I get that the British stole their diamonds, the Rosetta Stone, and a bunch of other stuff fair and square, but I find it mildly annoying that they won’t give back the Parthenon Marbles.  Greece was never a British colony.  Those marbles need to go home.  I mean hell, the Greeks built a whole new museum for them.  They’d have a lovely home.  In fact, the way the New Museum is laid out, they’d have a better home.  In the British Museum, the marbles are basically at painting height, which (if you’re even close to on the smaller side or too shy to push through masses of people) makes them kind of hard to see through the throngs that come to look at them every day.  At the New Museum, they’re raised so that you have to look up at them.  This makes them a lot easier to see.  So, in summation: seriously England, give back the Parthenon Marbles.

Finally I will leave you with this link.  It will take you to my creative writing blog where I have told the story of the patronage of Athens for fun.  It’s definitely at the top of my list of favorite stories from Ancient Greece, so it was kind of fun to retell.  Enjoy.

A Tale of Two Interviews

This, as the title suggests, is a tale of two interviews: one disastrous, one quite good.  It's a bit unfair of me to say disastrous; after doing the requisite pre-interview research, I knew for a fact that I was not going to Reed College.  Their Physics and Religion departments leave a bit to be desired.  But even setting that aside, the interview was pretty bad.  But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Preparing for the Interview!
A vital part of any college admissions interview is preparation.  At the very least, you need to know the goal of the interview.  So far I've only done admissions interviews, so they've all been evaluative; the people I've talked to are trying to figure out if I'm the right fit for their respective colleges.  Interviews come in one other flavor: informative.  These are more for the student to figure out if they're the right fit for a given school on their own.  These interviews, from what I can tell, are usually administered by alumni.
But there's so much more to prep.  Firstly, know thyself.  Seriously.  I went through my life story and reminded myself how awesome I am.  Ostensibly, this is to prepare you to answer questions like "what are your academic/extracurricular passions?" and "how do you see them extending through your college experience?" but this step is also a nice ego boost, which - if you're an anxious wreck like I am - is really nice to have.
Secondly, know thy school.  Mostly, go back through the books and read up on the numbers.  You don't want to be asking about class size or about how many books are in the library.  That shows you're not engaged in the school and, quite frankly, makes you look a little silly.  Prepare some decent questions about the school.  Mine are:

• What is your study abroad culture like?
• Did you attend [insert college/university here]?  If so, what did you like most/least about your experience?
• If not, from an administrative perspective, what do you like most/least?
• What was the most controversial issue on campus this year?
• If school is urban: What is your relationship to the city you are located in/near?

They show preparation and interest while being useful.  Personally, I like to know the answer to the first and last questions already so I can pay attention to how the interviewer answers the question.  For example: with regard to the urban question, I know I want a school where the campus life is focused on campus.  If the interviewer stresses the proximity of the city too much, it's a warning sign for me.  But I'm a little crazy, so there's that...

The Interview!  Reed College
Reed was my warm up interview.  The representative of the college: Crocket Marr (I got his name wrong on my last post).  I managed to avoid calling him by name for the entire interview, so I think that was a note of success.  All in all, it was kind of a weird interview.  Of the 45 minutes I got to spend with him, 20 were spent talking about neutral hydrogen transfer and radio astronomy (both very interesting topics but not particularly relevant to the focus of the interview), another 15 were spent reading his senior honors thesis on Plato and Egyptology, and 10 were spent talking about Reed College.  I know I did not come away from the experience any more informed, and I'm pretty sure he didn't either.  Note to self made: try not to mention anything too interesting that I've done until later in the interview.  I'll call it a mitigated disaster and move along.

The Other Interview!  Swarthmore College
This one went a lot better.  Of the hour, Ruby and I did not get heinously off topic.  This was a plus.  We had a lovely conversation about religion, astronomy, stage tech, grammar, historical context for literature, fencing, and sororities.  All in all, very useful.  Swarthmore stays very true to it's Quaker roots, which is one of the things I love about the campus.  I always leave wanting to create world peace.  30 minutes on the New Jersey Turnpike usually cures me of that desire, but it's the thought that counts.  In any event, Swarthmore is incredibly inclusive.  This manifests itself in a particularly interesting way in their attitude toward their club fencing team and toward sororities.  Swarthmore's Fencing team is ridiculously good.  But they're not varsity. They're a club team, and they plan on staying that way (as far as I can tell from the interview).  The team benefits from very serious fencers, but novices can pick up a blade for the first time and join the team if they are so inclined because it's a club team.  Becoming a proper varsity team would require a degree of choosiness with regard to skill level, and that's just not the Quaker way.  Similarly, in the 1930s, Swarthmore abolished it's one sorority because that particular organization had a policy against admitting Jewish students.  The administration realized that didn't jive with the college's values, and sororities haven't had a presence on campus since then.  However, they're revisiting the issue now because there's a certain degree of curiosity in the student body.  There are two fraternities on campus and about 6% of guys participate; and the girls realized that, if they were inclined to join a greek organization, they had no outlet.  Because of this discussion on campus, the administration has decided to allow one sorority on campus starting next spring.  Clearly, the interview was informative.  All of that was completely new information for me (check here for my previous impressions of Swarthmore).  So total success.

I have interviews with Washington and Lee and The University of Chicago scheduled for September, so look forward to those posts.  I'm leaving for various foreign countries tomorrow and I will be without internet; so look forward to a whole mess of blogging the day I get back.

Actual Final Visit

Remember how I said I had finished the college visit circuit? I lied.

Yesterday my dad and I drove into the City (which is to say New York City) for an info session and tour of Columbia University.  Now I know Columbia is a good school.  That's just a fact.  But it's also not for me which is kind of unfortunate since I know some really cool people who go to Columbia or who are starting there this year.  Que será, será I suppose.

I am relatively confident I have not met "the one" quite yet, which is to say that I have no idea if and where I might apply Early Decision.  Early Decision is kind of scary because it's legally binding.  My college counselor told me that, as the weeks progress here in September and the beginning of October, some schools are going to re-rank themselves as I figure out what I really want out of a school.  After my Columbia visit, I know there's one major thing that would make me simply say no to a school: academic rigidity.  I know that, at the very least, I want to study Religion and Astronomy.  I can't go to a school that's going to lock me out of certain classes.  The way Columbia's core curriculum works, Columbia prescribes about 6 classes that you will take at certain times.  I am not willing to sign up for that.  On a semester system in which an average student takes 4-6 classes, I am not willing to blindly give up one of my classes to the core.  Don't get me wrong, I like distribution requirements.  I also probably wouldn't function well at a school like Brown where there are no Distribution requirements whatsoever.  But I know I don't want to be told what classes to take when; that reminds me too much of my high school experience.
There is, however, one requirement at Columbia that I think is pretty cool: swimming.  Back in Alexander Hamilton's time (he's an alum of Kings College, which became Columbia), there was a minor concern floating around that the British might invade.  Completely unfounded, right?  Anyway, the college decided to add a swimming requirement to their core curriculum that would mimic the distance across the Hudson River to New Jersey.  If the British did in fact invade, Columbia students would have to be able to swim to safety.  More recently, the students of the Engineering college pointed out that they wouldn't have to swim because they would build a boat or a bridge or a catapult or something in real time so the engineering students don't actually have to pass the swimming requirement.  Personally, I think they should have to pass a time trial for catapult design to prove that they wouldn't need to swim, but that's neither here nor there.

Today I'm gearing up to take the next step in a college courtship: interviewing. I'll be heading into the City later on to meet with Crockett Marrow, the assistant dean of admissions at Reed College.  This is the one school I haven't actually visited in person, simply because of distance, so I have a lot of questions prepared for Crockett (I don't actually plan to call him by his first name; I just think it's hilarious that he's named Crockett).  We'll see how it goes...

The Dacha of the Lost

Talking to a friend about Uncle Vanya, he asked me if it was "that one where they go to the country house".  While the answer to that is yes - as it is for basically ever Chekov play - the production from the Sidney Theater Company does it especially well.  This translation especially makes the play worth while; it's not stilted or awkward in anyway.  Andrew Upton did an excellent job of making the text seem colloquial and easy-going.
But the words are the only easy-going aspect of the play.  In reality, Uncle Vanya is about people refusing to listen to each other tripping and tumbling through a humid, heavy summer at a Dacha stirred up by the arrival of Yelena, the new, young wife of The Professor (he has a proper name in Russian, but I think it's mentioned twice, if that; so I feel safe simply calling him The Professor).  The Professor is about as old and crotchety as you can get.  He, like many of the characters, refuses to listen to others: his doctor, Astrov (played by Hugo Weaving, which was rather surprising to me because I had no idea that he was in this production) diagnoses him with one disorder and he insists its something else; his new wife, Yelena (played by Cate Blanchett), insists that she's satisfied while he complains both about making trouble for her and about not being paid enough attention.  Astrov talks to Sonya, the Professor's daughter from a previous marriage who adores him, about being unable to love while she sits and grins, remembering a moment of companionable physical contact.  Sonya makes it clear to Astrov that she loves him and he doesn't listen.  Admittedly he is hammered at the time (Astrov is an alcoholic even by Russian standards), but Sonya is obvious to the point where Yelena comments that everyone - even the servants - at the Dacha knows except Astrov.  Vanya, the Professor's brother in law, makes it clear to Yelena that he loves her; and, while she hears, she refuses to listen.

The characters stumble (and dance and run) desperately through their own little worlds, refusing to hear each other, in an incredibly physical performance.  Moments of physical contact are almost always blundering here, as if people don’t know the rules for connecting, though you never doubt that connection is what they long for more than anything. An entire complex relationship is established through the ways in which Vanya and Yelena paw at each other in irritation and affection and (in Vanya’s case only) something like love.  In contrast, when two characters are unconditionally, magnetically attracted to each other - like Yelena and Astrov are - their movements explode.  I honestly can't say I've ever seen a more passionate, immediate, and acrobatic kiss as the one they share in the final scene.  It's really quite remarkable.  

But that's all they're allowed.  Uncle Vanya is all about missed connections and cues (metaphorically speaking).  The characters are consumed by lethargy, boredom, and regret over their unsatisfactory lives. They bemoan their old age, mourn the years that they have wasted in drudgery, pine over lost loves, and muse bitterly over what might have been if their lots had been different.  They suffer from a sense of loss without knowing what they forfeited.  Mostly, they seem to think they have lost their place in the world.  They describe themselves as "strange", "eccentric", or "alien".  Astrov especially seems out of place.  His devotion to forestry and conservation would make him right at home among certain groups in modern America.

Even if they begin feeling out of place, the arrival of Yelena further unmoors the characters.  Schedules are changed, work is ignored, and habits violently displaced by the arrival of this beauty to the Dacha.  Because of her, the residents of this small town are set pacing, dancing, wrestling with the air, burying themselves under blankets, and shooing one another away like flies.  Chekov always begs the question: are these characters farcical or tragic?  The director, Tamas Ascher, seems to answer this question with a resounding both.  The play's climax features as weapons a pistol and a bouquet of "sad, autumn roses" in a scene as rowdy and demented as any Marx brothers production and as despairing as a Sophocles chorus.

Final First Visits

Today I ostensibly finished visiting the colleges and universities on my list that I'm seriously interested in.  The only two schools that remain are Reed (which I will very likely not be visiting because of the prohibitive distances between Harrison, New York and Portland, Oregon) and Columbia (which is literally 45 minutes away so I can really decide at the drop of a hat to go).

My dad and I started the day off at Skidmore in Saratoga Springs, NY.  It's waking up at 4:30 to drive upstate that reminds me that the state I live in is actually quite large.  Three hours on the dot later, I was in the middle of opening day at the Saratoga Race Track and about 15 minutes later I was at the admissions building.  Skidmore is an incredibly welcoming campus.  It says something about a school when someone tweets back at you to welcome you at 7:26 AM in the middle of summer.  Skidmore did that.  It was nice.  They also seem dedicated to bringing you resources at Skidmore.  Of course they participate in the Interlibrary Loan System (like every college), but they also make it doable to get a non-Skidmore study abroad program vetted and approved.  Our guide was working with the administration to get a U of Chicago program approved so that he could study history in Istanbul for the fall of his Junior year.  Generally speaking, they're a very encouraging and welcoming bunch.  Facilities seemed modern and clean (by contrast Colby's labs seemed a little dingy and Bowdoin reminded me of a horror movie insane asylum in its architecture) and rooms looked comfortable. Skidmore meets basically all of my criteria for a college/university.  Is it at the top of my list? Probably not.  I think I would be very happy at Skidmore, but it seems to lack some major resources.  For example: a Middle Eastern Studies professor.  Our guide said that the college was working on getting one since it's such a popular field of study, but it strikes me as odd that there wasn't already someone with that focus on the faculty.  It's little things like that.  But like I said, I think I would be very happy there.  It's very welcoming and encouraging and seems to have a good attitude toward it's students.

My dad and I also visited Williams.  These campuses could not have been more different.  We essentially made this trip out to Williams as a favor to my mother who has not been able to join us on any tours because she heard the campus was pretty.  Which it is... kind of; the Berkshires are beautiful, Williams not quite as much.  The campus gives off a cold, competitive vibe that could not have stood in starker contrast to Skidmore. Even with no people on campus in the summer, Skidmore was a more welcoming campus.  Williams still had a bunch of students, but it seemed somewhat hostile.  While I admit it might have had something to do with our catty, preppy guide, I basically stopped listening to her after 15 minutes and still felt ill at ease.  She actually described the typical Williams student as an aggressive, over-achiever.  I consider myself an achiever, but I would not consider myself an over-achiever.  I do not achieve for the sake of achieving.  I do what I do because I like it and because I am interested.  I'm not the kind of person to join 20 clubs to put them on my college app.  That's more or less how a typical Williams student was described by our tour guide.  I think that's a little unhealthy.  There's no denying the cachet of Williams.  It's a very good school.  But it's so combative.  Most of the school's I have liked have described themselves as collaboratively excellent.  Williams is cut throat.  You can feel it in the campus.

So that's it.  18 Campuses later, I get to start filling out the common app on August 1 when it opens for the 2012-2013 season.  Fun fun...

A Guest Post to Celebrate Independence Day

Note from Lauren: Today I turn over my blog to a friend of mine, Pia.  You may remember her from my last post where I linked to her tumblr.  I did so again.  I turn over my blog to her for a post because she grew up in Puerto Rico and is therefore more familiar with Puerto Rican history.  Take it away Pia:

Until now, I never thought I’d actually need any knowledge of my little island of Puerto Rico other than, “it has been invaded a lot and the mongooses are always rabid.” I think I spent most of the time in Puerto Rican History class doodling on the back of my exams and seeing how many pencils I could stick in the curly hair of the girl in the previous desk before she noticed. However, it looks like now a little bit of that knowledge would come in handy. So, in order to help me with this post, I’ve pulled out my old seventh-grade textbook. It’s called, Historia y Geografia de Puerto Rico and it’s very second-hand. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were third, fourth, fifth, or even over-nine-thousandth-hand. It’s so old that Tito Trinidad is mentioned in it as being a young, promising boxer. Yeah.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Despite the rumors, Puerto Rican history does not begin and end with Tito’s career. Instead, we must travel far back in time to find a beginning…

A long, long time ago, though quite a bit after the Big Bang, the Earth formed out of the extra gas and dust floating around our newborn Sun. (Or, if you prefer, God/s made it magically appear out of nothing, because he/she/it/they are/is awesome like that.)

The Earth turned out to be a good place for things to live, and live they did! Bacteria became worms, which became fish, which became amphibians, which became reptiles, which became dinosaurs, which died out, thus saving us from the evil reign of the hyper-intelligent lizard-men that surely would have evolved down the line. Mammals did not die out, though. They prospered in the newly dino-free world. Eventually, some of them became apes. Some of these apes became hominids. Some of these hominids became humans. Then humans, being the travel-hungry and sex-crazed parasites we are, walked around and had so many babies that we covered the globe.

Some of these fertile people ended up in Puerto Rico. Actually, several different waves of them did. According to Historia y Geografia, Puerto Rico was inhabited at different points by various native tribes such as the Arcaicos, the Igneris, and the Sub-Tainos. They treated men and women equally, made ceramic pots, smoked hallucinogenic leaves, ate roast rodents with yucca, shared everything communally, and walked around naked. In other words: they were like hippies, only a really long time ago.

The most famous and well-studied tribe of natives, though, is that of the Taino Indians. They were pretty similar to the tribes mentioned earlier. They lived in little towns called “yucayeques,” which literally means, “where yucca is grown.” They were animists, and their primary god was named “Yucahu.” He was, of course, the god of yucca. (What was it about that little root that the Tainos were so crazy about? The thing is, that stuff is DELICIOUS. Also, parts of it are terribly poisonous, adding a very worship-able life/death connection to a great meal.)

I could write about these folks for ages; they were the most friendly and relaxed natives ever. They gave the island a beautiful, fitting name: “Borinquen.” They were lovers, not fighters. Despite this, they were great at defending themselves against the nomadic Caribe tribes that would come around periodically to plunder, rape, and pillage. However, eventually they would come face to face with an enemy they couldn’t defeat: the sadistic Spaniards.

So, let’s move away from our lovely island and focus on somewhere else for a moment. Spain, in the year 1493, was a complex place. Just one year earlier, its paranoid and fanatical Queen Isabella had ordered the expulsion of all Jews and Muslims from Spain. This act left Spain devoid of doctors, teachers, architects, and other useful people. Also Portugal, Spain’s baby sister, had recently turned out to be a child prodigy at trade and conquest. Spain, ever the jealous older child, needed a new source of wealth, and it needed it fast. Luckily, the navigator Christopher Columbus had found a route across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492. In 1493, he set off on his second journey across the Ocean. This time, though, he used a slightly different route, which led him – you guessed it – right to the shores of Puerto Rico.

Columbus arrived on the 16^th of November of 1493. There is a verse in our national anthem that describes that moment. It goes: (translated, of course)

“When on our beaches stepped Columbus,

He exclaimed in full admiration,

‘Oh, oh!

This is the lovely island

I’m searching for!

It’s Borinquen, the daughter;

The daughter of Sea and Sun[…]’”

LIES. Columbus probably never set foot on the island, and he certainly wasn’t impressed. He just jotted down the island’s position and name (San Juan Bautista, or St. John the Baptist) before setting off. He never even met our Tainos. He spent much more time on the Hispaniola (modern-day Haiti and Dominican Republic) killing theirs.

Although there was one failed attempt at colonization, the Island wasn’t properly taken over by the Spanish until the summer of 1508. Juan Ponce de Leon, the famous nutcase who went hunting for the fountain of youth in Florida, brought 50 men over to St. John the Baptist from the Hispaniola, and they proceeded to take over. The mining town of Caparra was built near the location of the modern day city of San Juan. The natives were taken on as slaves and were used to extract gold. (The native women, of course, were mostly saved for the beds of the colonists, the original sex- tourists.)

A Taino revolt in 1511 came to nothing, but a ridiculous number of natives died in the process. After the massacre, the Spaniards found that they were running out of workers, so they began to do what everyone did back then: import African slaves! So, the three races that modern Puerto Ricans are descended from finally began to mix: the Spanish, the Taino, and the African.

While all this was going on, many new towns and cities were being founded around the Island. There was a lot of gold around in those days, and many ports grew as trading centers. Gold and ports in the Caribbean can only lead to one thing: PIRATES!

Puerto Rico was definitely a hub for pirates. There were hundreds of men running black-market connections between the local islands. However, there were also much larger-scale hijinks going on: Spanish ships were prime targets for privateers such as Sir Francis Drake and Sir George Clifford. (My old history teacher described these two especially as “filthy racist blue-blood pirates.”) At one point, Sir George actually invaded Puerto Rico and claimed it for the British. Unfortunately, we Puerto Ricans were deprived of the chance to become monocled tea-drinkers when most of his crew died of dysentery and he ran away. Stupid pirate.

When gold ran out, Puerto Rico began to be used as farmland. Many crops, especially sugar cane and, later, coffee [Lauren’s Note: the nectar of the Gods.  I happen to be a particular fan of Caribbean blends.], were grown here. Slavery continued until the 19^th century, when it was abolished without much issue. Throughout the years, Puerto Rico’s culture, social order, and lifestyle began to deviate from Spain more and more. Even the dialect of Spanish spoken on the island became very distinct from that of the old, Iberian Peninsula.

The people of Puerto Rico became very dissatisfied with Spain. Many began to collect in the town of Lares, where eventually a march known as the “Grito de Lares” or “Shout of Lares” was held. While the rebels from this event were defeated, more soon appeared. Eventually, events led to Puerto Rico receiving the “Letter of Autonomy” from Spain, which essentially granted it independence.

So, Puerto Rico was doing well for about three months with its newly democratic bi-cameral government. What could go wrong?

The Spanish-American war broke out, and America invaded Puerto Rico [Lauren’s Note:  Liberated.  America LIBERATED Puerto Rico from their independence.  It wasn’t American enough.]. Yes, you read that right. It was ridiculous, but it happened. The Americans raped and pillaged their way across an island that they mistakenly believed to be Spanish. Because, that’s how America rolls [Lauren’s Note: Damn straight.]. Puerto Rico got Teddy’s big stick up its backside, and stopped caring about who was in charge.

America built factories. The Island got poorer and lots of people moved to places like New York and Chicago. Certain governors - like Luis Muñoz Marin who is like our FDR - tried to fix things, and managed well enough. People still left the island, but no one was starving. Agriculture was pretty much abandoned, and a middle class finally truly formed. Two political parties, which are both essentially Democratic, but differ in their position on Statehood, formed. (The third, the independence party, has no influence whatsoever.) Globalization, and all the associated problems, hit.

Nowadays, the Island is an interesting mix of the old and the new. There are no real Tainos, Spaniards, or Africans remaining. Everyone’s a wonderful mix, as is our culture. Like the Tainos, we eat yucca boiled and seasoned. We are mostly Christians and speak Spanish, like the Spaniards. Most of our music and dances have distinctly African roots. We watch MTV and wear Aeropostale t-shirts and Uggs. (No, I’m not kidding. Even in this heat, Uggs abound. As does athlete’s foot, I’ve heard.)

And for the future? Well, who knows? I doubt that the question of whether the Island will become a state will be solved any time soon. Yet, it seems to me that even as we continue to assimilate global culture, we Puerto Ricans will remain connected to our own history and culture. Because, there really is a lot of it, and it is worth preserving.

Thank you, Lauren.

[Thank you Pia!]

Navigating Healthcare

Let me tell you a story:
One morning a girl named Lauren was brushing her hair as girls are wont to do.  Suddenly, something in her neck popped very loudly.  Or at least so it seemed to her.  This neck pop proved to cause such pain that she was sent to her knees immediately with a cry of pain sounding something like the first name of the author of a certain book she is required to read for her school called The Fountainhead.  Side note: I maintain that Ayn could only be the cry of pain of a woman giving birth and that inspired her parents who previously had no idea what to name a girl.  That would explain why she hates women so much.  In any event, she slowly got dressed and made her way to breakfast where her host mother took one look at her and decided that she needed to see an orthopedist.  She was quickly whisked off to the hospital.

True story.  I had to go to a hospital in Puerto Rico on Thursday the 28th of June, 2012 and let me tell you, I am so glad I did.  Other than the expected hurry up and wait of walking around a hospital, it was one of the most efficient healthcare experiences I have ever had.  We did not have to wait for bureaucracy, only for our turn in the cue (and even then my host mom somehow managed to get us to the front of the line at the orthopedist) and for x-rays to be done.  The doctor wanted a weird angle of my neck so the x-rays took a bit of doing, but we got it on the fourth try.  Then we went back to the orthopedist and he promptly told us that a muscle spasm had kicked the curvature of my cervical spine out of place.  I am now on some pretty trippy muscle relaxants and a really good pain reliever.  Somewhat hilariously one of the side effects of the pain reliever is neck stiffness, but once that wears off they work really well and for the most part don't make me feel like I'm high.  I'm in a neck brace and taking my drugs religiously and things are improving steadily.

However I would like to make the point that this is why studying a foreign language is awesome.  I take spanish and, while my parts of the body/visiting the doctor spanish is a little rusty it really helped that I knew how to piece together a sentence during the times when my host mom and my friend Pia could not be with me.

The moral of this story: the hospital in Arecibo is really efficient and speaking multiple languages is awesome.

Me in my sexy neck brace with Dylan (another friend who left on Friday) and my friend Pia with whom I'm staying.
I've linked to their tumblrs.