2003-09-25|1:08 p.m.
Today is the first day of school. For me, it starts tonight. My professor for tonight�s class is supposed to be a new guy to the faculty. From what K let me know, the guy focused a lot of his political theory studies on immigration. Knowing this, I have already told myself that I have no excuse�I have to talk to this guy one-on-one and pick his brain.
I�ll write again soon about how the new classes are.
About three years ago my mother�s grandmother (my great-grandmother) died at 107 years old. She had been a cranky lady according to both my mother and her mother. My own memory of her is limited.
When I was six or seven, she stayed in my home to live for about six months. My great-grandmother only spoke Spanish and I could only speak English. Yet, we hung out a lot. Somehow, she taught me how to play Rummy and we�d play for hours. It�s a tradition of sorts. All the women in my family on my mother�s side all play card games. It was neat to be part of that with her.
At her funeral, no one really cried. There�s not a lot of reason to when you�re lucky enough to have someone around you for that long. Instead, it ended up being a huge family gathering.
My grandmother asked A and his family to come to the reception afterwards. The reception took place at one of my grandma�s brother�s home and it was all catered.
At one point A was standing next to me in line to get food and then left to find a restroom.
Not realizing this, I turned around to this guy, somehow related to me, behind me. He was about the same stature and, like A, is dark. It was late. I was tired. And somehow, I failed to look at the guy�s face. I started to mumble something to him and grabbed his tie (which to my further confusion was the same color as A�s) and ran its fabric through my hands. The guy must have been speechless, because he let me talk to him for a good 30 seconds before my mom turned around and asked me what I was doing.
I turned around to who I thought was A and was going to matter-fact-ly tell her I was simply talking to my boyfriend when I saw the unfamiliar face.
Crap.
In fact, the face was more than unfamiliar. It was positively bewildered and startled.
This is how I like to meet family.
My new girly friend AN is awesome. She has the cutest quirk where she blinks her right eye a bunch when she explains something. It�s been nice to eat and chat and watch movies with her. This is what I�ve been missing and I can�t help but think that lingering thought that she�s leaving in a matter of months.
Oh, the California Gubernatory debates were H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S. It was like a nerd-played version of professional wrestling minus (just barely) the actual wrestling. My guilty favorite part was this:
HUFFINGTON: (Schwarzenegger keeps interrupting Huffington) Let me finish. Let me finish. Let me finish. You know, this is completely impolite and we know this is how you treat women and we know that, but not right now.
(Schwarzenegger is ghost-white and shocked and the audience gasps)
MODERATOR: On that point, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me. Candidates please, let me take control of this for a moment. I'm going to decide it is my privilege as moderator that that was a direct and personal attack on Mr. Schwarzenegger, so would you respond?
(He pauses)
SCHWARZENEGGER: I would like to say that I just realized that I have a perfect part for you in 'Terminator 4.' That's it.
Ha ha. It�s so funny. When given a chance to defend himself as not being a mysoginist (from what even I thought was maybe inappropriate to say), he says basically says that he�d like to act in movie in which he crushes Huffington. You�re a bully to women, Arnold. What�s your response to that? I WILL CRUSH YOU, Arianna!
HA HA.
My not-guilty favorite of the night was what closed the debate on Prop 54. The Green Party runner, Camejo, impressed me to no end. In fact, for the first time since I�ve been able to vote, I am actually considering throwing my vote (out) for him.
This is the amazing thing he said regarding Prop 54:
CAMEJO: Well, you know, the issue here is this is a proposition that promotes ignorance. It says we will not know. Look, if you made a poll right now and asked people what you're income level is between right- and left-handed, we all know it would be about the same, or education level. But it isn't on race. If you ask the Latinos, do they have the same education? They have less. They have less income and they pay a higher tax rate. Do you know that? Latinos in California pay a higher tax rate than European Americans. But Prop. 54 doesn't allow us to know that. We're not allowed to ask the questions. So how can we correct problems that exist in our society, which are complex? And I welcome what Tom says and Arnold says that they are for equality, but if you're for equality you have to be willing to have the information so we can take the necessary action to change this. And Prop. 54 is a very dangerous bill because what it does is leads the people to begin to think that these problems are behind us. They are far from behind us. We still have enormous problems to solve in our society.
Wish me luck in my new classes.