American Animals

ANIMALZ
I remember one of my favorite things about Chilean Spanish was that it loved animals. Men and women were gallos/gallas (roosters). If you were telling someone some sensitive information, you had to be careful because hay monos en la selva (there are monkeys in the forest). Those weird bus-lookout gimps that helped the buses race each other (see previous post) were called sapos (toads). 

When I was living in Viña del Mar, I learned from my host mother that there was actually a book written by a famous Chilean caricaturist named Lukas about the phenomenon. The book was called Bestiario Reyno de Chile, translated as the Animal Kingdom of Chile. It illustrated Chilean society and culture through animals, representing the types of people you might see on the street in Valpo as fanciful and grotesque bestial creations. It was even complete with a taxonomy, showing the evolution of different Chilean animals. 

Every country has their Mouth Breathers

Recently I was thinking what, if possible, the (North) American Animal Kingdom would look like. Here are some of the ones I came up with:

Offenda-Fishes: Schools of these beautifully scaled fishes can be seen swimming in ponds across the US. When threatened by reality, the fish emit a high-pitched screech until the offender backs away and agrees with them. Can create thousands of complicated compound-screeches that confuse their opponents out of even remembering the reason they came to the pond in the first place.

Hipster Piglets: Suckling for years on the Globalized Sow, the Hipster Piglets cannot take the strain of the extreme comfort they are subject to on a daily basis, and can be seen Tweeting about it. They constantly judge their piglet peers because they were never forced to take a real objective stance from which to obtain satisfaction from their lives (#2meirl4meirl). But they do have a cool neo-peasant fashion sense.

Yuppig: The rarer and richer adult form of the Hipster Piglet. Sizable populations of them exists as rings around large cities, especially San Francisco. Fat with pig-man-boobs or overly fit with apple watches. Too smart for their own good, the Yuppigs can convince themselves of anything, so they usually choose the most convenient thing.

Freaky Dented-Head WhiteSnake: This animal can be identified by its constant Don't-Tread-On-Me attitude and propensity to spit venom at everything that does not pose a threat, especially anything that is not a Freaky Dented-Head WhiteSnake. Since they are ectotherms, they need to bask on rocks for a large part of the day, and this is when they usually construct their conspiracy theories. They share this behavior with the Freaky Dented-Head BlackSnake. Genetically, one of the oldest species in the United States.


Anyway let me know if you think of any animals that should be added to the list. Chao!
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Above all else we admonish them to refrain from grumbling. Rule of Benedict 40.9

But as an American Jew, grumbling is my life-blood....

Grad School Update

A Badger in the DC Rat Race (i.e q la chinga es bioinformatics)

**** Cough Phlem Cough  ****

Um, wow that year went by fast. My last post was in May right? I feel like I just time-jumped in the DeLorean. I really don't know why I continue this blog, but now its serving as an excuse not to face Monday Morning. Plus it will be a good chance to document what has happened so far in my move across the country.  I guess I'll be going against some good advice to just shut the hell up and not let people know what I'm doing, but I can't fight against the ingrained generational tendency to overshare. 

The move was quick and dirty. Got myself in a bourgeoisie neighborhood here in Northern Virginia. What's the best way to describe it. It's similar to a lot of new, more expensive, yuppie - hipster (yupster) neighborhoods being built across the country in its aesthetics. I mean it has everything I could ever buy in a mile radius, and of course a Whole Foods (with 2 dedicated cheese walls!). But along with this type of contemporary living, it does have some parts that are distinctly DC.

One of the most DC things here is the way people cross the street. I remember when I was in China, people took a very pragmatic prospective on walking across a thoroughfare. Succinctly it could be summed up as: "if you were safe, go." So like the proverbial Frogger I would look both directions and bend at the knees, ready to feel any oncoming 2-ton vibrations, and bound across the street.



Now in most of the US, this a quite unheard of prospective. In the US, it doesn't matter if all my animal instinct say DO NOT CROSS, if that light is green I'm crossing, with unshakable faith in God above that all motor vehicles will stop as I do so, my head, forward, straight, and firm. We are a nation of rule-followers and crosswalk users. We love the idea of our haughty laws. I mean really, what the hell is Jaywalking, crossing a piece of land when regulation doesn't permit. What a Mickey Mouse law! http://muse.jhu.edu/article/215409 -the truth is in our money-loving Yankee hearts

Anyway, in DC this professed civility has combined with the "gimme, gimme, gimme, take, take, take" attitude of the capital to produce some funny results. Basically no one can stand here to be not crossing the street when an opportunity arises. Letting that opportunity slip away would mean letting some other rat get ahead of you in the race. People are very antsy while waiting, and constantly crossing when they shouldn't. Getting stranded in shrubbery islands on the middle of some large two-way street, their eyes shiftily darting back and forth as they curse their delay under their Starbucks infused breaths. People drive here the same way. My favorite is when I'm crossing the street, and some left-turning mouth-breather looks me in the eye and proceeds to turn on top of me, rationale being now he can immediately go when I finish crossing, and doesn't need to wait for the oncoming traffic to pass to make his left turn.

Aside from the traffic everything is okay on this end. Still studying Bioinformatics, which if you haven't heard, is the smallest biggest field that no one has ever heard of (like Reno, Nevada!). Bar-tended at a Hilton Garden Inn for a good 5 months there and met some cool people. Bombed a recent job interview and had to go to lunch with them after. Maybe I'll talk about these things later, maybe not. Anyway I've already ate up too much of my pre-Monday beauty sleep. Keep kicking out there and I'll see you all later.

-RE Roane

PS. The biggest thing that has happened is than Anh and my book club now has four members and has been creaking along for almost 2 years. Little miracles.

PPS. Bioinformatic Memes