Last term paper

It's 3am and I'm writing my LAST term paper. Wow! If it wasn't for the caffeine pumping through my body, I can assure you that I would almost be able to feel the premature nostalgia. Anyway, given that this last undergraduate all-nighter is a very special event for me, I hereby grant you blogfans the chance to read the intro paragraph to my (still unfinished) last term paper:

When writing about international affairs, newspaper reporters express themselves through a particular geopolitical discourse. Their news reports use claims about geography to paint a vision of the world that situates their stories and their arguments in a specific ideological realm. Given that most popular newspapers are owned by large corporations, the geopolitical assumptions inherent in the stories they publish can be indicative of their political or economic agendas. Thus, by analyzing newspaper reporting and identifying the particular inclinations of the writers, it is possible to challenge a story’s air of objectivity and unmask the hidden bias towards a specific discourse.

In this context, the present essay will explore newspaper reporting of a military deal signed between the United States and Poland on August 14, 2008, where Poland agreed to allow the installation of American missile silo’s in its territory. The move was controversial and aroused strong criticism from the Russian government, who interpreted the deal as an affront to its national security. The first part of the essay will present a brief history of the issue. Then, the essay will analyze four news stories on the issue that were published on the same week by four different sources: The New York Times, Fox News, The Independent, and The Daily Telegraph. By deliberately choosing two American and two British sources, and a left leaning and right leaning source in each country, the essay pretends to explore geopolitical differences based on the newspapers’ ideological lines. Also, choosing articles from the same week helps to control for differences in information that may accrue when comparing stories published within a larger time frame. The essay will ultimately argue that by favoring a specific world view while marginalizing others through their geographic assumptions, each news source displays a distinct political agenda.

Man in the Mirror

Now that "President is the new Black" and we're all buzzed about Change, I think it is appropriate to remember the wise words of a former black man:

"If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change." M. Jackson


(thank you Alex Munro for showing me the way)

p.s. I would suggest you start by trying to eat consciously. And consume no bottled water. And becoming involved...in whatever it is that you care about.

Gracias...totales.

Ya me voy, ya me voy. De retache otra vez al hogar 2.0. Pero esta vez me llevo grandes recuerdos, de mis papás muertos de risa subiendo la pirámide de Palenque, de Loren y Mauricio vestidos de tzotziles, de la peor banda del mundo en el Imperial el viernes pasado con Rodrigo, del Chakiraz y Chamo en esa reunión de sombreros, del desayuno con el Ñeri y de toda la banda en la fiesta de Godofredo. De Eva y la hookah de fresa. De Yesi y el combo mezcales con nieves de Roxy. La tlayuda con cilantro del museo de antropología; Mara, Orla, Elyse, y sus primeras quesadillas de huitlacoche. Jeff Wall ayer y Vik Muniz hoy.

Nanaimo Scuba

I went for my first cold water dive yesterday! I've been a member of the UBC Aqua Society since last October, but I was too fearful of the cold water during the winter to even try it. The idea of diving in rainy winter weather had no appeal to me whatsoever. I heard tales of people riding the boat to the divesite in their Goretex jackets with hoods and gloves, freezing with the wind and hoping to jump in the cold water as soon as possible. To me, diving has always been about flipflops, sunblock and my swimming trunks. Thus, the sunny weather of this past week just made it irresistible to go for a dive.
The dive site was the bay of Nanaimo, in Vancouver Island. We took the ferry and planned the dive while enjoying the beautiful views of the mountains. I reviewed signals with my scuba buddy Grant (the "international" scuba signs needed some translation) and learned that Jacques Cousteau loved to dive in this area.

Our first dive was a tugboat shipwreck at a maximum depth of 25 meters. As I soon learned, diving in the summer is terrible in terms of visibility. The warm weather causes algae and plankton to grow, so once you begin descending, the water looks yellow and green and you can't see further than five meters. (Dang! I guess I'll have to learn to dive with a drysuit in the winter.)

The wreck was interesting but not spectacular. You had to be literally on the boat to see it...and to me, the best part of a wreck is to see it lying on the seabed from a distance, and then slowly approach it. Once on the boat, we explored the inside of the main control room and peeked into the hull windows. We were told a large octopus lives in the boat, but we didn't find it.

(I got a little nostalgic of diving in the Caribbean... you either wear a short sleeved 3mm wetsuit, or you go with just your swimsuit... here, I had to use a 14 mm wetsuit with gloves, hood, thick boots, etc.)

The second dive was at a wall that is next to the Saskatchewan shipwreck. Again, the visibility was terrible but it was beautiful to see enormous white anemones and giant starfish. I was surprised that the starfish here have more than 5 arms! There were also hundreds of minuscule starlike creatures crawling on the bottom and many sea cucumbers feeding on the rocks.

(click on the pics to enlarge)

Tacubos Si, Tacubos No

En mi breve viaje al Defec, compré "SiNo", el último álbum de Café Tacuba (ya me había tardado, lo sé). Después de dos vueltas completas en mi iPod durante el avión de regreso y otra más mientras iba a clase hoy, puedo decir sin dudarlo que Café Tacuba me volvió a sorprender. Hoy es demasiado pronto para escribir sobre el álbum en si... generalmente necesito darle unas 10 vueltas a un disco para poder asimilarlo, para hacerlo mio y entonces ponerme a criticar o alabarlo. Necesito vivirlo en diferentes humores y esperar a que mi mente le asigne a las canciones memorias imporantes (los discos que realmente cobran vida son aquellos que me logran transportar a un lugar del pasado y me hacen revivir los olores y sabores de ese lugar). Como "Show" de The Cure me lleva al Ecole des Roches con Rodrigo. Como "The Life Pursuit" de Belle and Sebastian al asiento de pasajero del coche de Loren. Como "The Velvet Underground and Nico" a la carretera de Xilitla con Daniela. Como "Funeral" de Arcade Fire al periférico mientras cuelgo una llamada de Jessica desde Londres. Como "Andrew Bird and the Mysterious Production of Eggs" al RER B. Como "Comfort y música para volar" de Soda Stereo a Casa María con toda la banda. Como el unplugged de Nirvana a las islas griegas con Diego y Rodrigo. La lista parece interminable.

Lo que más me sorprende hoy sobre SiNo es la falta de reseñas en español. Fueron lo primero que busqué antes de escribir esto, para no sonar como un filisteo. Para no ser un simple repetidor. Pero las mejores reseñas que encontré fueron en inglés. La primera compara a los Tacubos con Radiohead y la segunda con los Beatles. Si alguien tiene alguna reseña en español que pueda curar mi malinchismo de hoy, por favor compártanla para que no me quede sólo con esta y piense que los comentaristas de Televisa Deportes ahora escriben reseñas de música ("la sensación épica que emite resulta CONTUNDENTE" ??? ayy no mames).

Para reseñas más casuales, Rodrigo pone a SiNo en su top ten del 2007 y Andrés le encontró algún parecido con los Sex Pistols (no encuentro su post...help!).

Nostalgias y cherry blossoms

He estado ausente de la blogósfera por motivos de salud académica (el fin de semestre es canijo), pero me han pasado diversas maravillas. Primero, el viernes pasado participé a medias en una protesta estudiantil en contra de un desarrollo privado que quieren hacer en el campus. Y digo a medias porque cuando vi a los policías con cara de "no estamos fucking around" me acordé de mi estatus migratorio (y que segurito aquí en B.C. tienen un equivalente a nuestro querido artículo 33) y me salí de la bronca. Habrá otro post con más sobre la protesta... pero por lo pronto les cuento que arrestaron a 19 estudiantes y el debate sobre la privatización de los espacios públicos se está poniendo sabroso. (Si les urge saber más, el grupo en Facebook se llama "WE CONDEMN the VIOLENCE of the RCMP, VPD, and VFD at the UBC TREK PARK") Los videos más mejorcitos son estos: fuego y arrestos. Y en este salgo yo en el minuto 1:17 en la orilla derecha.


Anyway, hoy conocí nada más y nada menos que a Douglas Coupland... el artista, escritor, escultor, diseñador, visionario, que ayudó a popularizar el término "Generation X" en su libro del mismo nombre. Resulta que vino a dar el "Last Lecture" a los estudiantes que se gradúan este año de UBC y me pidieron que me hiciera cargo de las fotos del evento. Las fotos quedaron re suaves y su plática estuvo genial. En vez de ser la clásica plática de fin de año extremadamente positiva y plagada de one-liners tipo poster de autoayuda, Coupland le dió un tono ligeramente pesimista pero sarcástico, bromista y a la vez muy serio. Nos contó cómo le costó trabajo encontrar algo que le apasionara en la vida y luego nos advirtió: "if you spend all of your twenties doing 'other things' and taking 'side jobs' while you look for what you REALLY want to do, by the time you're thirty you'll BE those things." Pero luego agregó, "the good thing is that by 25 you already know that you're not gonna be a rockstar."

Y me acabo de dar cuenta que mi título no tiene nada que ver con lo anterior. Pero como me rehuso a cambiarlo, tendré que confesar que, aunque acaban de florecer todos los cherry blossoms y me emociona ver Vancouver pintada de rosa...extraño a mis jacarandas.