Norma Rodriguez's blog

perfeccion

entre la arena y las olas del mar, se siente la perfeccion de la madre tierra
en los rayos de luz de la luna y del sol,  siento su corazon
y tambien cuando la lluvia me moja el pelo.

en las cimas de montañas, cuando el aire nuevo de la madrugada me rosa la cara, ella me tienta
cuando los arboles murmurean
con arena entre mis dedos
con cada respirar profundo se siente la perfeccion de ella.

-NR

ven

Me tienes adicta a tu piel, a tu calor, a tus besos
cuando te veo a los ojos, me encuentro entre realidad y sueño
te traigo en la mente, te recuerdo en los labios
cuando te acaricie la neblina del mar, ven y buscame a la luz de la luna
te espero.

-NR

early morning

Early morning
chill and damp
I am still waking up

I head down to the beach,
still warm from your body
sunlight glistens on the water

I breathe peace
before the day starts.

-NR

que mas pido?? Reflections on grad school (so far)

Talking to my poppa the other day about how school and life are going for me, and after I had gone over the last few days with him, he said, "mija, que mas pides?" and I responded, "pues nada apa." And it's true. What a transition from corporate america unwilling slave to willing grad student? YES! You all know (since I can't stop blabbing about it) about how I started grad school about 4 weeks ago. So far I love it... some days are tiring but they are ALL great!! I'm starting to get overwhelmed but I just love what I'm reading, I like my cohort, I like that some of my friends were already attending UCSD. My professors are great, my readings fascinating, I just need to learn more on how to critically analyze work but so far so good. I know that some of my peers are cynical but I dare say that this will not be an affliction I will suffer from! I have always tried to keep my motivation up, theres no point in being bitter about something if you have to do it either way! I did my best to deal with my job and if THAT wasn't enough to make me a cynical bitter b*tch, pretty much nothing can. No doubt there will be times where school will feel like a tight choke hold around my neck, but I know that it will be all in good fun.

I feel so lucky to have gotten the fellowship, to have been admitted and to be right where I want to be. To add to the, I have sunshine and San Diego as the back drop for these adventures. I have great friends both in and out of school, I am involved with a great organization (JOB) which I feel will keep me anchored to community work while I am in school, and with special people in all aspects of my life!!!! Don't forget the running, YES!!! Talk about a happy blog, nothing can keep this good mood down, Normitas out in full force, watch out San Diego, RAWR! I have a weekend packed full of work and readings, bring it on!!!!!!!

Loving life.

por la carretera...

el viento viene el viento se va por la frontera... el viento viene el viento se va...el hambre viene el hombre se va... por la carretera... por la carretera... la suerte y la suerte se va por la frontera... Manu Chao

dia a dia conozco mas y menos... quiero verlo por los ojos de intelectual pero todo lo que veo es por ojos de humanidad.. me enchilo y me cala hasta las entrañas... y calmar mis emociones, mejor suerte en calmar la mar...mi gente sufre, mi vecino padece... mi familia... todos agobiados por sufrimiento... mis armas no pueden ser nadamas un libro y una pluma... tengo que venir aprevenida con gritos, con brazos... las respuestas no estan solo entre las paginas de un libro- esas paginas necesitan el poder de la gente marchando.

activist or academic?

Yesterday, during the Anthropology of Latin American studies discussion, we had an interesting conversation on being both an academic (who studies/analyzes communities) and an advocate (championing and supporting the causes of the community you are studying) and the implications of this. A lot of times, academics who are also activists for some reason don't get the same respect as those who maintain a sort of unbiased approach to their research. While I understand how perhaps the work of an academic that clearly symphathizes and is infuriated by the situations of the people she/he is studying, might be viewed as taking a biased view of the community (and thus perhaps even skewing the actual data) I still don't understand how you couldn't avoid becoming an activist as you do your research and see the inequalities and discrimination that the communities are experiencing.

One of the students in our discussion I believe from Chile pointed out that this trend of maintaining a distance from your research is unique to the US. She said that if professors did not take a stance in her university, they would get "black listed" as being "soft" and not wanting to show their true position. A lot of times this unbiased stance, was equated with quiet agreement to certain regimes and oppressive governments/institutions that were creating the inequalities/discrimination within the studied communities. I am inclined to be in support of this idea, academics are already making an argument based on their research which in its own way is a bias, so why not add adovocacy/activism to the work? They go hand in hand!

I found this discussion to be very interesting, especially given my belief in fighting for social justice. Of course, we always have to be careful to not become condescending our paternalistic with the communities that we are working with. We have to always make sure that we are working alongside and with what the actual needs of our communities are. This is one of the things that I enjoy about Justice Overcoming Boundaries- we work with community members, fostering their leadership qualities in order for they themselves to effect change on issues that are affecting their communities.

Back to the discussion, I personally don't think there needs to be a seperation between the two.
Besides, what then is the true aim of the academic in researching? For me, it is to effect change, it is not only to package a carefully crafted academic paper to the academic community so that people can have intellectual discourse on it. This is JUST one part of it. For research to be successful it should do more than just be a well written article, it has  to do more than generate discourse. Your academics must be tied to your activism, or vice versa. They should not be seperated.

This coming from the fledgling academic. :) 

half Marathon, Normita style!!!

5:50 am-- "atrevetete" starts playing- my alarm clock, I stumble over to turn it off and lay in bed for just  a few moments, only to be interrupted by knocking on the door- Karina and her husband Matt charge in and start blaring "eye of the tiger" from their laptop and start yelling that they are ready, I join them in the madness and our hosts- my friends Goretti and Eli are about to kill us, pobresitos, here they are dealing with hyper runners at 6am, they are dropping us off and also being our cheerleaders. We are pumped up! Running clothes thrown on, shoes tied, timing chips inserted, running bibs pinned, faces splashed with cold water. I grab  some toast, peanut butter and banana--- mmmm...gatorade.... okay, its 6:30, out the door! I'm nervous and can't wait! The gps is ready, the ipod shuffle is strapped on and ready!!! We get dropped off a block off, we jog over to the port-a-pottys and come across a battle fields worth of port-a-pottys, all with insanely long lines... after our run-in with the port-a-pottys, we go stand in the section according to what time we think we will come in at... only to discover AFTER the race, that we put ourselves with the slowest of the race... I didnt really pay attention to how they broke it down... anyway... this was a bad decision, we had to dodge walkers throughout the entire first mile and a half... my first mile I was doing 11:30! There was no room and too many people, but like I said it was my fault for not starting sooner ahead! The first 2-3 miles I felt a little tight but pretty good, I slowly started cutting my time down each mile... under or almost under ten minutes a mile... around miles 5-7 I feel great, I start picking it up and getting ahead. dodging and cutting in around people and walkers.. yeah!!! I am hyper and excited! We have around a 4-5 mile stretch of just sun-- that starts getting a little tough, but luckily it is early and we are a few steps from the beach.... I pick it up and keep going... When I get to mile 9, I take my gu with some water and wait for it to kick in. Mile 10 and I've already started picking it up even more. three more to go! mile 11--- feeling burning... the last two miles are torture, I am closely monitoring my time and know I can't slow down. I pick it up even more at 11.5miles... mile 12 and I am sprinting in. 12.5 and I am sprinting in full force...lungs, legs, muscles are all burning, arms are pumping... i shuffle through songs that I deem as inappropriate for ending a marathon and finally settle on a song by Gran Silencio... just about 100 meters away and I am passing people left and right, I always make it a game to pass as many people as possible in the last stretch... I feel as if I will implode from the pain and thankfully the finish line is just seconds ahead. I stop the GPS and am given a medal as I continue in a daze trying to find somewhere to throw up... unfortunately there is no space free from runners.. I hold it in and stumble over to get a water... My friends find me as I am still trying to regain my hold on reality... I finally get it together long enough to glance down at my time-- 2hrs 3 minutes!!! YES!!!!!! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!! a 9:23 minutes per mile pace, I PR'ed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, I just looked at my race results from 2006 for Americas Finest City here in San Diego-- and even though I was in good shape then, my time was 2:13-- a 10:13 minutes per miles pace-- I shaved off ten whole minutes-- next goal-- under 2 hours!!! :) WOOT WOOT! :) Can't wait for it, I'm ready! I'm ready! RAWR!!!!!

Normita Running MONSTER!!!!!!

QotD: I Smell Roses

What's your favorite scent?

this question could be taken a number of ways. I know I took it to mean, favorite perfume initially but then I just expanded on it.

favorite perfumes:

Calvin Klein-Euphoria (i LOVE it)

Prada for her (second favorite)

mens colognes, preferably on the men themselves, yum! (who's with me on this?)

regular life scents- orange blossoms, wet dirt from rain, carnations, homemade mexican hot chocolate, freshly baked mexican bread, me after running 10 miles (jk)

La Luna, a collaboration

Some of my last few days at work, I was gchatting with my fabulous, artsy, wonderful fellow nerdy side ponytail revolutionary, Rebeca, and we collaborated on this short poem/story/etc- I don't want to categorize it really...

It was a dark and stormy night.....
Perfect to hide myself from the moon.
she could always sense my mood
her pull could make me feel like child and I wanted to walk on my own

tonight I didn’t want her to see me like this.
What was it about her?
Her mystery or the fear of her being a mirror of me?

Confused I turned to peer out the window.
A glimpse of her in the midst of the roiling clouds and violent rain.

I could hear the foot steps of squeaky shoes walking on the broken street
I glanced around for the owner of the squeak in the shoes.
My heart skipped more than a beat as I saw who it was.

It was her, the moon. 
Walking on earth among us. 
She need not say who she was, I saw it in her eyes.

Should I run out, storm at its highest peak, to her?
Of course, without a second thought, I ran out the door, not pausing to close it behind me.
And no jacket, but it didn’t matter. I approached her as the rain had begun to blind me.

I began to cry. the rain the tears fell on my face and down to my bare feet.
she put her hands around me and held me tight.

I became aware of a scent so amazing, it sealed itself firmly into my memory forever.
The scent of ocean, breeze and orange blossoms and something else which I can’t describe more than, the moon. Still sobbing lightly I finally looked up.

we spoke no words to each other.  There was no need for superficially communication.  I was telling her my story through my heart beat. she was assuring me through her breathe that things would be alright but first there were things i needed to do.

As I felt her warm power beating through both of us, I began to remember who I was.
What needed to get done.

It was a feeling I had never felt.  maybe this is what it was like at birth.  Before anyone tells you who and what your suppose to be.  all you know is what you are at that exact moment.

I was the fresh clean breathes after you’ve cried yourself into calmness. I looked at her eyes again, and smiled. She slowly let go of me and walked towards the ocean. I continued to feel her pulse and noticed it had become my own.

I turned, with my bare feet and soaked clothes, began to walk on the broke street.  There were things that needed to be done and she had given me the strength to do them.  Enough time had been wasted.  I accepted who I was, lifted my head up and smiled in sweet relief.

a whirlwind! Normita the grad student!

This past week and a half has been such a change! I LOVE it so far! I met all of my cohort and have interacted with them and they seem like they will be great! I dont' have class on Fridays and I have tons of reading which so far is enjoyable. I am spending my time in class, talking to friends,and reading in awesome coffeeshops, I LOVE life. I got really really sick when I started school for about 8 days and finally felt better since yesterday. I finally have energy again and went running 7 miles this morning, I am doing one more long run this weekend and next sunday is the half marathon, woot woot! :) I can't wait, my goal is to average a 9  and a half minute mile for the entire half, and If I make it under 9 minutes a mile, I am going to go bonkers! I have been training all summer, and doing weight training and I FEEL GREAT! My usual Normita energy is even higher! WATCH OUT GRAD SCHOOL, watch out HILLs, watch out everyone, I am pumped up and ready to go, woot woot!