On Soccer Moms

Since returning from Guatemala I’ve been doing my running at the Temple City High School (Go Rams!) track after work. There’s usually several AYSO* soccer practices happening on the field at that same time. It’s kinda cool to have the activity going on around me while I run… it keeps me from getting bored.

Seeing these kids play soccer takes me back in time. AYSO was such a big fixture of my childhood. Every fall was soccer season. Two practices during the week at Live Oak Park. Games on Saturdays. Oranges at halftime. Drinks at the end of the game. Pizza party at the end of the year. And… parents.

I feel genuinely convoluted about Temple City, about the culture that I grew up in. I guess that’s normal. But… erggghhh…. there’s just something about these soccer parents and the suburban Temple City ethos that really gets under my skin, that just doesn’t sit well. I see these parents supporting their kids and I assume the worst. I assume they’re way too involved in their kids lives; that they’re living their athletic dreams vicariously through their children. I assume they just want to gossip about who’s daughter is the most athletic and who’s kid is an honor roll student at Cloverly Elementary. I can see them cussing out the refs after bad calls: C’mon, I want to say, these kids are 9 years old. Who cares if the ref blows one?

I’m trying to think back, trying to find an incident in my AYSO days that gave me a reason to have this bad vibe. But none comes to mind.

Maybe I’m way off. Maybe I’ll be that parent someday and taking my kid to sports practice will be the most normal thing in the world. Maybe I’ll view those parents differently. I hope I will. They can’t be all bad.

*AYSO stands for American Youth Soccer Organization.

The Side-Ache

Read an article several months ago that gave a simple trick for dealing with running related side-aches.

If you’re like most people, when you run, you exhale as your right foot hits the ground. This puts downward pressure on your liver (which lives on your right side), which then tugs at the diaphragm and creates a side stitch, according to The Doctors Book of Home Remedies for Men. The fix: Exhale as your left foot strikes the ground.

Click here for the full article.

Travel Joys

I think all of us can relate to the good feeling one gets upon hearing:

“Please fasten your seatbelts. We’re making our final descent into Los Angeles.”
Loosely translated: your hellish four hour journey onboard a tightly packed metal tube is about to end.

Then there’s the joy of seeing your luggage (finally) make its way down the conveyer belt.

Pure bliss.

And finally…
In spite of the fact that the entire Islamic world hates us, there are some nice perks to being American. Like, for example, having a US passport. Getting back into the country is really, really, REALLY easy. (or maybe that’s just because you’re coming back from Guatemala and not Yemen).

Questions

Today it dawned on me that I had significant doubts regarding my job. I’m not talking about big picture philosophical questions such as “what is the nature of teaching?” My uncertainties were more along the lines of…

-What time to do I need to wake up in the morning to go to work?
-How do I get there?
-What am I supposed to do when I get there?

Thankfully, I was able to provide answers to these questions after about 15 minutes of careful thinking.

Guess my vacation was longer than I thought.

Guatemala Pictures

Pictures from my Guatemala trip are now available on Flickr.

A few samples…

Feeling like a foreigner

ugghh… two days in row of feeling like you´re definitely not from around here. I don´t get that feeling much in Antigua; it´s way too touristy to feel different. But then you walk to some of the neighboring pueblos or take the “chicken bus” that all the locals take. You feel the eyes on you and you wonder what they´re thinking. You feel tall, you feel white, you feel rich. I don´t know what to make of it.

Tikal

This weekend I went to Tikal, site of stunning Mayan ruins. Again, I’m stealing pictures from the web, but I hope this will wet your appetite for my return to the states when I can post all of my own pictures.

Tikal exceeded my expectations, and that’s saying something, considering I was very excited about making the trip.

First, let me give you a little orientation. Tikal is located in the northern part of Guatemala, amidst terrain much different than Antigua, which is in the southern, more mountainous part of the country. Tikal is essentially right smack in the middle of the jungle. Okay, now here’s the part where you conjure up your stereotypical images of a jungle: dozens of weird insects, monkeys swinging from trees, and sweltering heat. I’m here to tell you… it’s all true. Insects were in full force (thank you Jesus for mosquito repellant), I saw monkeys swinging from trees, and my underwear stuck to my skin like pancakes on a griddle. Good times!

Second, Tikal was a Mayan capital city. In my imagination, I thought of a fairly contained area perhaps a couple football fields wide. Instead, I found myself walking several miles to get from one end of the park to the other. Our guide, a friendly guy named Josua (Joshua in English), explained that Tikal’s residents numbered over 100,000 at points in history. The main ruins functioned as the city’s downtown, used mostly by the elite upper class. The rest of the residents lived in surrounding huts. Apparently, the Mayans survived by slashing and burning the forest to create farmland, a technique that still exists today (though it often is quite damaging to the environment).

When Tikal was eventually abandoned in approximately 900 AD, all the farmland and open space the Mayans had created was retaken by the jungle. Over time, the jungle also hid the larger structures, burying them in thick vegetation. So when local people rediscovered Tikal in the middle of the 18th century (a thousand years after it was abandoned), all that was visibile of the city were unnaturally large mounds of dirt and trees. In fact, 80% of Tikal is still yet to be excavated. This fact blew me away! How could there possibly be more? There’s already a lot to see as it is. Much of the yet-to-be-excavated ruins look like this:

A special memory from my day: In the afternoon, my group decided to head back to one of the buildings we had enjoyed the most, the Pyramid in Mundo Perdido (Lost World). From the top you’ve got breathtaking views in all directions. But as if on cue, it started to rain just as we climbed the last stair to the top. The 2 girls in our group promptly decided to head back down in fear that more rain would make the steps too slippery to descend. My buddy and I took the “it’ll pass over quickly” approach.

Then it began to rain harder.

We stayed and got soaked, trying (poorly) to hide our packs underneath our jackets. Thankfully, our optimism was not without basis. The rain passed after about 20 minutes, rewarding our patience with bright skies and a transformed view of all the temples. And from the jungle spanning out around us, we listened to the coarse cries of a single monkey, repeating again his name to the world.

That was Tikal.

Prepare to be amazed

It´s my vacation.
It´s something I´ve always wanted to do.

I´m taking salsa lessons.
Dancing with the Stars, watch out!

My view

I hesitate to put up pictures of Antigua that I did not take. But, until I return to the states and have a chance to post my own pictures, this will have to do.

I hiked this trail and had this same view last week.

Ridiculously gorgeous, no?