it's time to move on

switching over blogs...you can now visit me at:
http://trinayeo.blogspot.com

tengo hambre! soy cansado! amo mi vida!

One thing I love about my job is shifts with Judith, oh, and Yola; preferably night shifts. We've learned to nonverbally communicate, or at least not in real language, where i've learned from her animation and dynamism to grunt and laugh and swing your arms, and stare blankly when you don't understand. She does things like grab you by the neck with a smile as big as a jack-o-latern, after rude customers make unreasonable demands, she laughs uncontrollably and almost violently. Tonight, she came over by the sink, as I washed dish after dish, filling up rack after rack, saying in my horrible spanish: "Necesito limpiar y limpiar para mucho tiempo! Quiero parar! Soy cansado!" She grabbed her calves and stuck out her lips, grunting about her sore legs, she then pulled up the pant legs to her black slacks to reveal beautiful purple bruises on her shins. "caí un tazón grande en mi pierna - i, uh.... dropped a bowl on my leg," she laughs as she points over to the stack of porcelain bowls over by the grill.

Kristen told me when I first started working there, that Judith just recently started working here because Alberto gave her a job after her husband kicked her out of the house. I like that our relationship is simple and surface and happy....sometimes. But some days I want to tell her, in my worst accent, "Judith, pienso que eres muy bonita y divertido y simpatico y compasivo y maravilloso! no se porque tu esposo te dejaría! Pienso que el esta loco!"

Kristin left Jack Johnson in the cd player, and I like when Margie plays Fleetwood Mac, so I tried to put those on when we were closing (which I left at 10:45pm, and her and Yola were still there, and I have to open in the morning) but I accidently put on the cd before which was Mariachi, and the second it turned on, Judith did a little bull fighting chant of "aahh eeh eeeaaahh! arrrrrriba!" -- "te gusta el musica? ---- really?" her face lit up once again and I left it. She makes me happy, because the joy she inhabits, which surfaces from the littest of things, seeps out of her, and she shares just enough of it with me.

lost in translation

I've found it's a dizzy, enchanting, delightful feeling: being lost in translation. Already falling over backwards, tripping, spitting, sputtering clumsy words onto the greasy kitchen grill at work with my miniscule linguistics en español, it's like a blur of spinning lights, a ferris wheel ride that keeps spinning in circles and I don't dare let go of the railing, or step off the ride. (it does have its perks though, like my daily consumption of fish tacos, homemade walnut ice cream, orchata, sangria, tortas, salchica, and i like my enchiladas with chicken and colorado sauce). Needless to say, last week, at the apple store, I purchased Instant Immersion, 102 language learning - and I haven't even put the disk in attemps to learn Khmer. It's going to start all over in less than a month.

I watched Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" on the travel channel, and realized on paper, he seems a lot more vulgar and serious. On screen he appeared much more buoyant, positive, and in good spirits. But it's rather doubtful that the food network would allow you to be so unconstructively critical of what you ate in almost every country (even if it is technically your job to play the pretentious snob). Anyways, I purchased a copy of "A Cook's Tour" mostly for its chapter on Cambodia. Yet was disheartened to find the first sentence of the chapter to be: I was going to the worst place on earth. Cambodia does not hold the most cheery of reputations, as mass genocide underneath the khmer regime took place only in the last 30 years, and after watching skull upon skull piled upon each other in memorials in the travel DVD gramps taped for me, I realized that maybe this year might just change me more than I would think or could ever imagine.

Life happens so fast, although you most often hear its too short, and others claim its the longest thing we'll ever do. It's hitting me slowly - the weight of my decisions. Please keep me in your prayers. I have no strength on my own. But I am excited for life and all that it could and may hold.

short recap on my life if you don't know me:
currently: a gringa (not a guera, but just a non-speaker of español, who found she is definitely far from fluent from her two years of high school spanish) who is employed at a mexican restaurant, who knows it inappropriate to expect any latino/a to order from an ignorant all american- hablo ingles solamente....?
close future: southeast asia travels, and not only travels, transferred residence. I am going to live in pnom penh for the next 10 months! (yes, capital of cambodia, in a sketchy country with a crazy history, mostly khmer or buddhist, and there is probably a reason why they're is just about 0% tourism) but I am going to live at an adventist school and teach english with my friend liz, and we're going to live in an apartment in the steeple of the church, and i am nervous and excited and scared out of my mind and ecstatic. i leave august 22.

rain of secrets

I was bored today at work, reading the SLO County New Times, and there was a section called the fiction 55, the basic premise to write a short story in 55 words, a tribute to Kurt Vonnegut. I liked one called:

Rain of Secrets
Star and Moon quarelled, each wanting to acquire the other's secret.
"Tell me how to shine like you," said Moon.
"Tell me how to dream like you," Star replied.
Their voices fell as rain on the planet below.
A woman who had lost her umbrella stood in the street,
hair and skin soaking with secrets.

Currently, my life consists of restaurant work - I'm employed as a waitress, cashier, and the ocasional dishwasher and busboy. I work at a mexican restaurant called Tio Alberto's, and so far it's been my favorite job in food service yet, and those jobs haven't been few. My spanish is just enough to scrape by, and a lot of times, it's worse than that, confined to small phrases, unconjugated verbs, incorrect grammar, and single vocab words: tengo hambre, quiero un pescado fajeta taco, por favor. para aqui? o, llevar, senor? And my comprehension of the language is horribly slow, i am retarded, quite literally, when it comes to understanding espanol. cook: "deseas la cebolla en tu burrito?" me: "eh....uh....cebolla? oh! si!"

update

Currently, i'm in newport beach with my family and grandparents and aunt and uncle and cousins. We've rented a beach house on W Balboa, and my mom and I biked to 32nd street and got italian frozen yogurt at fiore's this morning - blackberry pomegranite with raspberries and kiwi. I used the word "ornate" today in boggle, lost terribly in dutch blitz, and bought a black dress, gelato, and a book about "the heart of a volunteer" in Laguna Beach, while perusing the many art galleries around Laguna Niguel. I must admit to liking the galleries in San Francisco (a week earlier) much better. Wyland really isn't my style. I also beat all 40 levels of roadblock. And I also just got off the phone with good friends. They mean a lot. They make life a lot easier and much more fun.

My passport also finally arrived, and just found out from Cambodia, that it only takes 3 weeks to recieve my visa from ministry of foreign affairs. Other than having horrible nightmares last, waking up in a sweat and racked with guilt from events that never even took place anywhere other than my one night of twisted psyche. Life is pretty okay. We're going to Catalina Island tomorrow morning, we take the boat at 8am.

I swam in the ocean at sunset, and as I came out, a hispanic hobo collecting cans told me I was beautiful, and my grandpa got worried and made me come back inside.

on the drive home

♥

arts & crafts study breaks

just a little something i do to keep me sane in the midst of finals
oh! it's so fun to make useless junk! ♥
but the loves of my life: are books and shoes

moleskin journal
mixed media- spray paint and images

cheap white shopko flats
stripes hand-drawn with permanent marker