Hola Niño

Airports usually aren't too pleasant of places to be near Christmas.  Airports in late December are basically collections of hundreds of people who do not want to be there (transportation disutility for all my transportation nerds).  These people want to be somewhere else.  But, when people are really determined to get somewhere else  in December, they are even motivated enough to drag their children into airports. So this unusually high proportion of children in airports in December is about the only plus of traveling during this time.  They say the darndest things!  At the airport today, I found myself in the middle of a very forward little lady flirting with each a little fellow.  As I was standing in line to check in my bag,  in the lane right behind me, there was a little girl, maybe 5 who was eyeing a maybe 6 year-old boy in the lane in front of me.  She shouts 'hola niño' and then extends her hand for him to shake it.  The poor little guy is a little stunned and I'm not sure that he understood Spanish. And I am literally standing between this puppy love.  I move my very large piece of luggage so that the little boy can without question see the little girl's hand extended.  The little girl's mom laughs and scoots her daughter along in the line, forever separating this adorable encounter.  I later encounter this little girl in the security line and she is totally over it.  I overhear her mom saying something about Disneyland.  I ask the girl, 'a donde vas" and she replies 'a Disneyland.'  Yeah, I'd be over a six -year old boy real quick if my mind was on getting to Disneyland.  Don't worry mija, he is way too confused to appreciate your friendliness.  Give him about fifteen years, give or take.  

Puppy Love

There are also a lot more tiny dogs flying this weekend.  They are mostly chihuahuas.  I'm not a big chihuahua fan, so I don't have much to report on them.  The kids are way cuter. 

True North

Spoiler Alert: (not really, I just talk about one scene in Lincoln, plus, I don't really think there can be spoiler alerts on movies about history all Americans should have learned in 11th grade).  

I'm not one to go to the movies much.  In fact, I can definitely count on one hand the number of times I went out to see a movie while in grad school.  Even before grad school, I was definitely not a movie type of person.  Rare are the moments when I say, today, I want to go see a movie.  But, Lincoln looked to me like a movie I was going to go out of my way to see. 

And was it worth it.  Given how I just struck my movie critic credibility down in the previous paragraph, I can hardly say that I am the movie critiquing authority, but I'm pretty sure Lincoln was a great film.  There was one scene that I found particularly excellent.   It's a private conversation between Lincoln and the abolitionist Congressman Thaddeus Stevens as the fate of the 13th Amendment begins to appear just within their grasp.  I felt like it summarized a key lesson I've come to realize about my experience in government, my politics and my general approach to life.  

"A compass points to true north,” says Lincoln, “ but it gives no indication of the swamps and marshes along the way.  If you just use the compass you will get stuck, and what use is knowing true north if you are drowned in a swamp?”

Ugh, compromise.  The dirty word compromise.  

Compromise in fact is a dirty thing.  When compromising, you can stray from the truth.  You may say things you don't really want to say, perhaps that you don't really even believe.  It can be ugly and probably result in some things that just shouldn't be out in the public view.  

You know who can often be thought of as the ultimate non-compromisers, martyrs.  Martyrs die for their faith.  They refuse to back down and say something they don't mean, even though they could hypothetically compromise their beliefs and go on to say continue their work caring for the sick or whatever saintly activity they were engaging in.  The world does need martyrs. 

But, I'm not a martyr.  I fall into the compromiser category.  Compromise is exactly what our country was based on.  Democracy requires compromise.  Compromise accepts and embraces the reality that we as a society are better off when there is competition of ideas.  

Of course, I don't really know if Lincoln really said that compass quote.  He probably didn't.  And it was just this topic that when I asked a retiring employee at my office who has seen over twenty-five years of policy and politics she said  that the most valuable thing she learned during her time she said that she learned that change takes time and compromise.  Compromising is simply being patient and accepting that you will get further by taking smaller incremental steps than only being okay with giant leaps.

On a related somewhat related note, I discovered the joy of  word clouding.  So, I did a word cloud of Obama's reelection speech.  Here's to compromise.  

I Have a Flight in 6 Hours

Thankful
I haven't been too consistent with this blog thing.  But, I think if there is ever a good time to reflect and write about what the past year has brought, it's two nights before Thanksgiving.  Yes, two whole nights before.  Thanksgiving Torres-style is a two day production, hence not too much time to think about thankfulness.  We have this strategy of cleaning the house  and doing a lot of the food prep work the day before Thanksgiving.  I'd say it works pretty well.  Each of us have our own dish.  Mine is a sweet potato casserole.  I actually even started the Thanksgiving good prep even earlier this year.  I did a practice run on the casserole on Sunday night.  This year has definitely been one of a change.  I completed the biggest life goal that I've set for myself thus far.  I finished my masters degree.  I am the first one in my family to do so.  I join a small percent of Mexican-Americans who have an advanced degree. Pretty awesome considering the odds. And with that comes a pretty big responsibility to give back.   That leads me to the next awesome thing for which I am thankful.  Although it took a little while, I have a job where I feel like I am making a difference.  I work with excellent people and have enough freedom to bring my ideas to fruition.  That is probably the most empowering feeling in the world.  that is actually what I get out of my job.  Sure I get enough money to feel like I can take care of myself and my future, but I get the satisfaction that I my ideas are powerful enough to affect change.  That is about the almost the best thing anyone could ask for.

And those are just things and ideas.

What is even more awesome than those things and ideas are people. I am blessed with loving and compassionate people all around me.  I have friends from Kentucky to San Francisco to Washington DC to Sacramento to Los Angeles who have throughout the year dropped everything to listen to me, to support me, to laugh with me and to cry with me. This year we've spent hours at coffee shops finishing client projects, powered through coaching sessions for upcoming interviews, celebrated birthdays in downtown LA, hit the wineries, devoured some tacos on Tuesdays, run half-marathons, and so much more.

And then there is my wonderful family.  I guess you could say that we've had better years, but I think we've come out of it stronger.  We lost our Abuelito, but we are still together.  We know how to better express ourselves and we know even more so how much more we love each other.  The little cousins are getting cuter every day and all the big cousins are off doing great things, educating the world, and raising great families.  I miss you all when I am away and think about you all quite a bit.

And last, but not definitely not least is my Sean. This Thanksgiving marks the first time that we really get to spend it together and I am so excited.   Thanksgiving is just one of the moments when I get to think about how much I love him.  Even though we are away from each other right now, that is one thing that I get to do when I am not in the same place as him.  I really have time to think just what it is about the man that I love so much.  He motivates me because he chases his dreams without hesitation.    He reminds me to have fun with his endless pursuit of adventure.  He shows me an example of unconditional love with his, well, love.  The love that tells me I look beautiful even though he hasn't seen me in weeks.  The love that makes me feel like things will get better when I'm down.  The love that disagrees with me sometimes, but can still get over it when I am always right ;) The love that will hold my hand through thick and thin.  The love that makes me feel like I can begin to grasp forever.  I know, barf, as Tina would say.  But, seriously, I really could not ask for a better life.

Happy Thanksgiving and many blessings to you and your family.

Lucky

I walked into my office this morning and there sitting on my chair was the November issue of Lucky magazine.  Thinking that it belonged to our office tech, since she is the only person in the office who has pulled out a magazine at work, I say, oh thanks Jenn for bringing me the magazine.  Except she didn't bring it in.  Which is weird because a. I've never even seen a magazine at work except in her hands, b. it's Monday morning at 9 and I was at my office on Friday until 5:30 meaning someone brought it to me pretty darn early Monday morning (the magazine was apparently already on my chair before Jenn got to the office at 8 am, and c. I don't even read fashion magazines.

Naturally, I'm intrigued by the mystery magazine gifter.  I try to deduce who would have brought it to me.  I only have so many friend, friends at work.  You know the kind who would come bring you a present first thing on Monday morning (and most of them don't just stop by my office randomly). My next clue is that this person doesn't really know me that well because I don't actually read fashion magazines.  In fact, that might be the first time I've ever looked at a Lucky magazine.  I flip through the magazine to see if there is some picture or article that made someone think of me.  Like maybe an article on what to wear when riding your bike to work or an article on the secret lives of UCLA color guard alumni or how to survive dating a musician.  Nope, just the standard articles comparing 7 different types of canary yellow nail polish.  And then I look at the cover again.  The cover is a picture of Sofia Vergara.  Did someone leave this magazine on my chair because they assumed I'd like it because Sofia Vergara, hot, Latina mom from Modern Family was on it?   Kind of a stretch, but it did seem quite possible after I thought about it.  I mean forget all the stupid stuff that Sofia says during the interview basically saying she just sells her body and she knows that's why she's famous.  There was a woman with brown hair and a Spanish last name on the cover.  But, the fact that someone assumed I'd like it because I too have brown hair and Spanish last name was not really what bothered me.  Once I thought about it, not one other Latina professional staff in the entire department came to mind.   I work at a place that mostly employs scientists and engineers, meaning disproportionately men and not Latina/o.  I could think of a few Latinos and some women who work as support staff, but no other professional Latina staff.   I'm sure they are out there given that the place has over 500 people working there.  But, I could not think of a single one.

Papi!

My mom has fewer wrinkles than I do!

Yay for education. 

Now, I have not felt out of place at my office at all.  People respect me and the work that I do because I've earned it. And my section of the department is actually quite diverse and young for state government.  But, when I had a chance to reflect on it, the whole experience reminded me of two things.  First, it really spoke to the lack of Latinos in the STEM fields due to the litany of issues that make succeeding in science for people of color (that I won't go into in this post). Second,  it reminded me of why I need to strive to not just be a good worker bee in my rank and file position, but that I have been lucky to have the tools to be a leader in a place like my office, where women like me are thoroughly underrepresented.  And lucky to have the support to have gotten me to where I am today.  I can think of two particularly awesome Mexican people who I have as examples, my mom and papi.  Without them taking a step towards a better life by attending UCLA, neither me nor any of my siblings would be where we are today.  Plus, I'd like to see   Sofia in 10 years try to look as awesome as my mom does today.

Mosquitoes

I heard the Dalai Lama speak a year ago.  He was an engaging speaker and of course, full of great insight. Unfortunately, the thing I remember most vividly was his response to a question from the audience.  He was asked if he'd ever killed anything before.  His Holiness spoke with a bit of disdain in his voice and started talking about his dislike of mosquitoes.  Yes, the Dalai Lama had in fact ended the life of a mosquito before.  The man won me over.

Unfortunately, mosquitoes love me.  At the moment, I have seven mosquito bites.  And its not even summer anymore. When I first lived in Sacramento, I had unreal levels of mosquito bites during the summer months.  This go around is proving to just as lovely.

So why do mosquitoes love me more than say everyone else around me?  From my preliminary research online, it seems like the jury is still out on why exactly mosquitoes some people more than others. One site said it was partially based on blood type.  A couple of sites said that mosquitoes like people who have been drinking beer.  Apparently if you have stinky socks, they like that too.  Given that I didn't drink beer today nor was I wearing socks (wore sandals), I think the field needs a bit more research.

Any other theories?

So as much as I love Sacramento, I have to say that LA definitely wins in the lack of mosquitoes category.  (and LA wins in the awesome car-free street event category.  Today, was LA's 5th cicLAvia.  Photo for today's post is from a previous ciclavia)

Usher Says it Best

Why the Title?

This blog has gone two whole posts without an explanation of its purpose.  If this was a document for my line of work, my supervisor would have slammed it back in my face and told me to learn how to structure a report.  But, it’s not and I’m sure my audience will forgive me. 

I’ve entitled it “Neither Here Nor There” and described it as musing on life in transition. While I won’t likely write explicitly on transition and lack of permanency in every post, I think my generation is all about change.  A lot of us are having to make a decisions without much certainty in our daily lives.  For example, maybe ten years ago, having a masters degree from a well-respected school meant that you could safely bet on a solid job.  Today, that is hardly the case.  Another excellent example, I dare you to find a twenty-something that hasn’t moved less than five times in the since starting college.  I’m sure even a generation ago, moving around was pretty frequent, but not quite as common as today.   Since moving out to go to college, I have resided at over seven different addresses (not counting moving back and forth to my parents’ house and a summer commuting from Temecula to West LA).  The latest of which was a move to the other end of the state to take a short-term job. Talk about transiency.

Baby Cousin Campaigning for Obama 08

And I don’t just mean transition in a negative sense.  My generation likes change. My generation elected President Obama for his promise of change.  That change (or transition) was about hope.  A persistent, fervent expectation that things will get better.  A lot of us think that we need to change how humans interact with our environment.  We are the generation who thinks news that is over 5 hours old, is just plain out of date.   And some some ways that might be a good thing.

We have had all this inconsistency thrust upon us by the economy.  There just aren’t as many opportunities for us, so we have to settle for less than ideal and change our lives around frequently to deal with it.  I have a theory about how we are handing all this change.  I was in 7^th grade in my yearbook class, when I saw the images of the planes going into the Twin Towers.  That changed my life and my perspective on what it meant to be a citizen of the planet Earth.  My generation saw the harsh reality of that global tragedy.  That day opened our eyes to the rest of the world and that someone way on the other side of the planet can directly influence our way of life.  That one event I think also impassioned my generation to be more globally conscious.  We no longer just want a job where we can make enough money to buy our burbs house and have a nice car.  We want to make a difference.   We have this sense of bigger than ourselves.  That is how we deal with the difficulty of this period of transition.

Here’s a  little illustration of what I’m talking about.  Not exactly the same point, but related.  Take it away, Usher & David Guetta.  

I'm Bad at Two Things

Mom and I on a train in Europe, just days after the LSAT

Three years ago, I was wrapping up my last week of studying for the LSAT.  I had always wanted to go to law school ever since my AP Environmental Science class.  My internship working at a city attorney's office had gone super well. I actually liked doing the work that the attorney's were giving me and I was good at it.  Plus, I got to save the environment!  There were plenty of women working there and they loved it. They had both a great career and time for their families.  So, I, unlike so many other law school applicants, knew why I wanted to go to law school.  I had the grades, the extra curriculars, the personal statement.  Needless to say, I was feeling good about being a law school applicant.  I just needed to get a great score on the LSAT.

So like all good future law students, I didn't take a job that summer and only focused on getting myself an awesome LSAT score to match all the rest of my awesomeness.

Only problem, is that it turned out that I was not actually very good at the LSAT.  Even after my not-so-cheap prep course, I was still not getting it.  It was kind of a problem.  I had only even been not great at one thing.  That was trig-based calculus.  I was okay with being not great at calculus, but I couldn't be not-that-great at two things.  So, I kept studying and took the test.  The day of the test, I went in and felt amazing about the first section.  But, then I got to the second section.  And I panicked.  The second section was a repeat of the same types of questions as the first section.  Which meant that the first section did not count because it was an experimental section!  All my confidence drained away.  I kept looking at the clock, which I never did during practice tests. The test wore on and finally the test was done.

Notre Dame before some yummy crepes

Luckily, my mom and I were hoping on a plane to Madrid for my graduation present 24 hours after that whole ordeal, so I didn't really have to think about it too much.

Given that I now have MURP after my last name and not Esq., some things have changed in the past three years.  I didn't exactly get a top score on the LSAT and within a year and a half I realized that I actually didn't want to go to law school.  Flash forward three years to today and I'm chatting with my friend whom I met volunteering at the Hispanic National Bar Association.  We talked about how years later we are both very happy that for one reason or another, neither of us went to law school.  About how it was probably a good thing that the LSAT was there to actually stop us from going to law school.  It made me think back to high school where if you were smart, you were either going to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer.  I was blessed to have the support of my family to explore urban planning when I signed up for my first course at UCLA.  And, even if it took a couple of years, they were happy for me when I said no for the last time when my mom asked if I was going to apply for law school.  And I think they are especially happy now that I only have 1/3 the debt I would have had if I'd gone to law school.  I'm not trying to say that law school is bad.  No, in fact, one fo my favorite classes in grad school was a course I took in the law school.  Nerdily, my environmental law case book is one of the five personal objects I have in my cubicle at my new job.  Reflecting back on the journey that brought me to where I am today, I am grateful for all the experiences and people that helped me realize where I really wanted to be.  You all know who are you.  Thank you (especially to my mom, whose birthday is tomorrow!)  Send her some happy birthday facebook love.

Volume I: Rummikub and Texting

Abuelito laughing at Robert's tebow.

I've been meaning to do this for a long time.  

That's generally what I can say about a lot of good ideas I've had over the years.  I am definitely an ideas person and sometimes it takes a little push for me to get going on an idea.  What pushed me to start this blog on what I anticipate will cover everything from cute puppies to urban policy?  Well, last week, my family laid my grandfather to rest.  He was a man who brought his family to this country in hopes of giving his children and his grandchildren a shot at a better life.   My grandfather, or Abuelito, always had a smile on his face and a joke up his sleeve.  He enjoyed the simple things, like playing rummikub.  He was pretty hip (as in he had a facebook page, an email and was a texter).  And he loved the Lord, meaning he snuck his way into to seeing Pope John Paul II so the Pope could give his blessing to the Familia Torres.  It's been hard to think about how I'll never be able to get a hug from him again, but it made me think about living my life in a way that  would make him most happy, or as Father Seamus said at my grandfather cemetery service, to carry on the Torres family flag for his legacy.  So, I've decided to just to start doing some things that I've always wanted to do.  One of which was starting a blog.  Another of which was trying new recipes (I baked a peach pie tonight, which was delish).  I also read that writing about the loss of a love one helps with the healing.  So, here I am kicking off the blogging.

         But, back to carrying on my grandfather's legacy.  

       I really remembered how much I wanted to write about my grandfather     on my new blog after listening to Michelle Obama's speech at the DNC.  She reminded me about how I am where I am today because of those who have come before me.  I am not in my fortunate circumstances today just because of what I have done.  No, I am where I am today because "unflinching sacrifices" from my family.  I stand on the shoulders of my grandparents who took risks to come to a new country where our family had a chance at good jobs and education.  I wish I had asked my grandfather more about what it was like coming to the US and what it meant for him to be here.  Still, I go forward knowing that my talents and education don't just below to me.  They belong just as much to my grandfather as they do my future grandchildren.  They belong to the past and to the future.  I shoulder that responsibility to lead a meaningful life because of those sacrifices.  But to also remember to enjoy the simple things and to, of course, stay hip.