'Twas the Day of the Huelga

Keeping in the tradition of "'Twas Christmas in China", I present to you "Twas the Day of the Huelga". For those of you unfamiliar with the student strike at the University of Puerto Rico, some of the names and references may be lost on you. I apologize, but enjoy.

Twas the Huelga in Puerto Rico

‘Twas the day of the huelga, when they claimed it illegal to strike

And the campus of Rio Piedras was beginning to resemble the Third Reich.

The snipers were positioned on the rooftops with care

With the hope that the huelguistas soon would be there.

All the students were nestled all snug in their beds,

With visions of Chicky Starr bashing their heads.

And de la Torre in his suit, and I in my mask

Had just settled in for a long disagreeable task.

When out in the quad there arose such a clatter

I flew from my bed to see what was the matter.

Through the zona de libre expresión I flew like a flash

Jumped over the barrier and ran in a dash.

The palm trees swayed high in the Caribbean sky

As a low flying police copter did pass us by.

When what to my wonder there soon did appear

A fuerza de choque was fast marching near.

In a row they marched making quick steady clicks

As they beat their clear shields with long black night sticks.

Walking like somber pall bearers they came

And we whistled and shouted to them all by name.

“¡Fuera policía, Doña Cuota, Fortuño!

¡Solo queremos estudiar en este recinto!

¡Vete de los portones, las aulas, el campus!

¡Sal de aquí, and end all this madness!”

And up high in her office Ygrí Rivera did say,

“The cuota is coming, they’ll all have to pay.

And if the strike continues the answer’s simple to me,

We’ll sell off the school and privatize it you see.”

But out in the streets the students did stand

Not wanting to see Fortuño’s vision for this land.

In an isle with poverty twice that of the states’

The PNP cared not what the students said at the gates.

For the governor had done what the tea party dreamed

He brought austerity and right-wing values it seemed.

And in the U.S., the right thought it a gift of Saint Nick’s,

What Fox News had longed for, except all the Hispanics.

And outside the police and the students were beginning to clash

Rocks flew from one side and from the other tear gas.

While the officers looked on the commotion with glee,

Figuera Sancha figured where the new campus barracks would be.

Inside their offices the administration let out a great sigh

That of their mismanagement the government had cast a blind eye.

Loudly, I heard them say while they watched this holiday fight,

“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

'Twas Christmas in China

Twas Christmas in China

Twas late in December one cold cloudy day
When out of his bed a boy woke in dismay.
He looked at his calender and saw with a shiver
That Christmas day had already come hither.

He looked outside and said with a sigh
“It appears that Christmas has passed me by.
There are no carols, no snow, no bells,
Not even a sign of jolly Papa Noel.”

In his apartment there hung no mistletoe, no tree
His kitchen was filled with only cheap ramen and tea.
Then out of his bedroom he somberly walked
And slightly to himself he thought,

“How can there be no Christmas in this land?
Santa visits every child with presents in hand.”
But as the boy continued to think for a minute,
He became cold and bitter, a hardened cynic.

“It's this country, that's why!” he exclaimed with a hiss
“It's China, it's Mao, it's those damned communists!”
And as he looked out his window again once more,
Twas but signs in Chinese, a Christmas eyesore.

On the internet he saw with a quiet low sob,
Snowmen and Santa at the top of yahoo.com.
And with sadness and pause he slowly did click,
To see that China's Yahoo had no banner with Saint Nick.

For Christmas in China is no place to be,
With no Santa at all, no wonder they wish to flee.
And out on the street no one seemed to care
That the Christmas spirit was not in the air.

As he stood outside with a dreadful stare,
His neighbor Dave did fly down the stairs.
“Merry Christmas!” the boy did exclaim with a shout,
“Bah humbug” was the reply that came from Dave's mouth.

“Christmas and Santa are not dear to me
This day means nothing, I'm Jewish you see.”
And so the boy's Christmas hopes they were dashed,
“But perhaps we could smoke some holiday hash?”

“No thanks” said the boy with a pitiful sigh.
“How about a holiday dinner, with turkey and pie?”
“No” said Dave “no turkey, no pie on Christmas for me”
“There's Chinese food as far as the eye can see,”

Back to his room the boy went with a fit
He picked up the phone and nearly twenty numbers he hit
"Pick up" he muttered, "at least it's Christmas back home."
But in America all were fast asleep in a different time zone.

“Surely downtown some holiday spirit exists
It's there I must go to find some Christmas.”
So off to the crowded bus, ten cents he did pay
To find some sign of the holiday spirit he prayed

The town was abuzz with people and trade,
But their only concern was the money they made.
No ringing bells were heard, no “Ho! Ho! Ho!” was said
There was no sign of Santa, no reindeer, no sled.

To McDonald's he went to escape the worst cold he could remember
But instead of carols, inside they played “Country Roads” by John Denver.
The McDonald's was void of decorations and cheer,
That establishment of the West forgot that Christmas was dear.

“The church!” He thought as he ate his lonely meal,
“It's there that I will find real Christmas zeal.”
But alas the Cathedral was empty of manger and tree,
The Catholics too had forgotten what Christmas must be.

So off he went alone down the street,
Sulking and walking with his eyes at his feet.
“Christmas's a fraud, a hoax, a sham
There's no Santa at all for sure in this land.”

As the people walked by, “Merry Christmas” he cried
But they just stopped briefly and stared with their eyes.
The traffic went by and theirs horns loudly beeped
Taxi drivers swore at him as he blindly crossed the street.

But then up ahead what was this he did see,
A bright smiley yellow face, looking from a building with glee.
Then there was something that the boy did hear, quietly at first and then with a blare,
“It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas” filled the polluted air.

He rubbed his eyes, and smiled merrily
A super Wal-Mart, “But it truly can't be!”
And the sign proclaimed on a blue and gray wall,
“Everyday Low Prices, Low Prices For All!”

And quickly he went to the main entrance door,
Took a step in and looked in at the store.
And inside were stockings, presents, and a green Christmas tree
The Christmas lights shone as men in suits shopped hurriedly

“Have I found Christmas?” he quietly thought
“At last, the holiday spirit I've sought!”
And out in the aisles there stood Christmas treats,
Hot cocoa and chex mix, next to shrink wrapped pig's feet.

In one corner of the store stood a crowd of Chinese
Watching several TVs showing holiday treats.
And there on the screen sat Santa Clause on his sleigh,
“Maybe it is Christmas after all on this day”.

Then he filled up his basket with holiday cheer
As the sounds of the carols still filled his ear.
Merrily he thought “Christmas in China, it was always here”
And he took from the shelves several bottles of forty cent beer.

A green plastic tree he now carried with him
“No more will my apartment be barren and dim.”
And off to the check out he merrily skipped
To prove to that Christmas had not been gypped.

Outside the exit stood a tree with presents and bows
And outside it was dark and beginning to snow.
Neon lights on the stores glowed green, red, and white
The holiday spirit had at last come on Christmas night.

And in the doorway their stood a man the boy knew
“It can't be, it isn't, can it really be you?”
In his plump red suit and his fluffy white beard
He grinned and winked at a boy's holiday cheer.

From Santa's slanted eyes the boy did glimpse
A sign that even China could not stop Saint Nick.
And as Santa looked at the boy and this magic Christmas night's sight
He said, “Merry Chris-a-mas to all. And to all a good night.”

Unemployed No More

After a month long stint of being unemployed, the lack of money, permanent home, and near limitless amounts of free time has come to an end. So, you may be wondering, what does an employed college grad take for his first job? Starbucks, Barnes and Nobles, office work? No, one takes a job in China.
Where else but China could a 23 year old become a university professor. As opposed to the ire some leech on society that preceded my life in China, I am now viewed as the gatekeeper to English, the key to that mystical Disney World known as the United States. I am an expert not only on English, but also such important matters as basketball (no, I don't know how the Rockets are doing, stop asking), music (no, I don't know who the fuck The Batteries are), and the differences between the United States and Canada (one is cold, one isn't; one uses metric, one doesn't).
These many benefits do have their disadvantages though. If one ever doubted the need to reduce pollution, come to China and see why. Everything, even the trees, are coated in soot. The air gives you headaches. Even after treating the tap water with chlorine to kill the bacteria from the raw sewage, it is still loaded with toxic levels of chemicals. The architects must have all studied in the Soviet Union, and as such everything looks like it could be the headquarters of an evil organization. Someone from the government is reading this blog and everyone speaks Chinese.
But these are the prices that one must pay apparently to be a professor without actually going to school to be one in the U.S.

Slim 101

For those of you who thought this was a weight loss blog, I am sorry to disappoint you. But since you've traveled this far anyways (I'm amazed you made it here in the first place), my advice would be to exercise more and eat less (eating nothing but prunes will enable you do both at the same time). Rather, I'm going to take this time to introduce myself in the third person.
Nicknamed Slim to avoid confusion, Slim was born in Boston during that terrible decades of the 80s (and no city was harder hit than Boston during the 80s). Despite the cocaine, hair bands, and general awfulness of all things creative in this decade (except for the Atari, but that was Japanese anyways), Slim grew up to the refinements and educated wonders of the western world. Writing children's books by age 6, Slim was self-educated through a confluence of Sesame Street and Penguin Classics. Despite the tireless struggles of his parents to earn a meager living by auditing taxes and counseling suicide hotline callers, Slim grew up hungry, unable to put any muscle or fat on his increasingly vertical growth. Still the enlightened culture of the bright Northeast city lights enthralled and provided Slim with the environment necessary to thrive. The path towards writing a blog was already being paved during Slim's childhood. However, like all good things, this lifestyle was not meant to last.
The great yuppie onslaught on the city of Boston during the late 90s, proved too fierce for Slim's parents to endure. Like countless other refugees, Slim's house was bought for far more than it was worth by childless couples with Master's degrees and Saabs. Thus Slim was forced to flee the land of his childhood until the sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2007, when at last the yuppies realized they were in over their heads.
Slim moved on with his mother and brother to the coal barrens of Pennsylvania (later to be made famous for its undying hatred toward Hispanics and a TV show about how weird this locale really was). Slim's father, unable to leave his ancestral homeland, remained to fight in the struggle against the yuppies. It was here that Slim was to face some of his most difficult struggles. With the skyscrapers, universities, and culture replaced with shale mounds, wal-marts, and corn, Slim struggled to survive, both intellectually and metaphorically. Not much can be said about Slim during this dark time. His thoughts were occupied by cable tv, napster, and getting laid by high-school girls he was incapable of understanding. However, these times would soon come to an end. With an escape possible through the institution of post-secondary education, Slim struggled to find his way back to the great cities of the Northeast. With money both he and his father had secretly saved, Slim secured passage to Philadelphia (Boston, still being plagued by the great yuppie onslaught, was still far too dangerous and expensive) and thus sought to make for himself a better life than the one he had suffered through for four long years.
In Philadelphia, Slim found his new home. Immersed in a culture of creativity and college freshman shenanigans, he excelled academically and financially (as best a college freshman can). These for Slim were the happiest of days. Eating an abundance of the finest foods that the city had to offer in the cafeteria, drinking malt liquor, and even gaining acceptance on the prestigious track and field team, Slim made a name for himself within the bubble of the university. It was here that he also realized his true calling in life, to write blogs, though he did not yet know it.
However, this chapter too was not to last forever. With any possible reasons for staying in college any longer exhausted, Slim was forced to move on. Taking temporary jobs in the wilds of New Mexico, Slim was able to live a peaceful and humble life while he pondered what to do with his new-found independence and responsibilities. Having received news of the sub-prime mortgage crisis and of the retreat of the yuppies from his childhood homeland, Slim returned to Boston determined to make something of his life.
It is here then that we find Slim. Having no job, and a college degree, Slim at last came to his great destiny.
Before you lies the blog which has been 23 years in the making (plus 9 months in the womb). The results of such an impact on the world of anonymous people writing whatever they feel like without scrutiny or editorial oversight on the internet remains to be seen.