technology

when i think of even the word technology, i can't help but think of the movie Napoleon Dynamite and the part where his brother sings all about technology at his wedding. And about how many times I and my friends watched that movie the year it came out, I'm not sure what that says about me or my friends.


I had a conversation with Gillian last night about how much more technology is at everyone's fingertips in the states. About how it's hard to even have a conversation with someone face to face without them checking their email, sending a text or talking on the phone. I remember thinking it was weird three years ago when I first moved to Peru because it seemed that there weren't any manners about cell phone usage, any where any time. And I thought that that had been different in the states, that someone wouldn't answer the phone while talking to you, but maybe I was wrong or maybe I was just living in my own imagination. Is that something that has changed? I understand the attractiveness of all the new advances in phones, ... but are people also giving their priority over to their phone instead of the person they are physically looking at, without a webcam?  Mind you, we were having this conversation -through skype/her phone- while she was on her way to meet a friend for a movie. But at least we hung up when she got to where she was going. 


All of that kind of confuses me and makes me think that I'm going to have to take a crash course in telephone technology to be able to operate when back in the states. And here I was excited this week because I got a new phone.... and I can plug in a headset and listen to the radio!! That's not to say that Peru doesn't have its own share of smart phones. There are the cheapest a company has to offer that are prepay phones, all the way up to iphones and blackberrys. Actually, finally I don't feel so bad laying my phone down on the table when teaching, bece my students, nearly all businessmen... are all up to date with the latest. 


Recently a funny thing happened in a class when I asked my students to pull out their agendas for an activity in class. As I pulled out my notebook which I had recently written in my own dates and spaces for activities... the girl in my class pulled out her agenda with a popular comic designed all over it, and the guy, the owner of the business, pulled out his Ipad. So as you can see, there are variety and I happened to be at the bottom of the chain on that one! It was comical. And personally, I prefer my notebook, but it may just be because I know how to use it and I can control it. If I need five spaces of notebook paper between weeks, well then I can do that :D  (what's ironic about that situation is that Peruvians have this image/stereotype of Americans that we all are rich..which is why it is important to be careful because you can be taken advantage of based on that stereotype)


I also know some other people, actually... the majority of my students, have three if not four phones. And they all ring, all the time. Between Nextel, Movistar, and Claro, which are all companies in Trujillo - if you run a business chances are you have all three companies, because its too expensive to call someone that has another company. So you need to have a phone in their company to call that person. Bleh. Talk about no room in your pockets. I heard that there's a phone out there that combines all of your chips from the different companies so that you can use it like one phone, but it must not work well yet because I don't see it around. There are still three phones in a row on the desk of my students. 

a read.

Source: npr.org via Julie on Pinterest

To travel internationally is to become increasingly unnerved by the way American culture pervades the world.

"[McDonald's] golden arches do not represent our most troubling impact on other cultures," Watters writes. "Rather, it is how we are flattening the landscape of the human psyche itself. We are engaged in the grand project of Americanizing the world's understanding of the human mind."

This book seems very interesting to me. Sometimes, as an American living in Peru I catch myself in some confrontation and say why can't you just get it? Or why is this a problem? And we just want the other person to see things our way or for us to be able to put them in a box. But then you start to see some things about their culture that make sense and start to feel iffy about your own... wow how great is our God to not only have created us but such intricate and different systems of people...


Go check out this article at NPR.


I recently went from reading nothing at all, as far as books... to having several to choose from. I'm reading...

It has been very interesting and helpful in seeing anxiety and 'codepence' aka peer pressure in a bigger way. Welch calls how we feel when we base our decisions on others, be it in a positive or negative way, a fear of man, and traces it back to the first sin. It makes anxiety seem like such a bigger ballpark when you think of it in that frame, you fear people more than you fear God. wow. Where I am in the book now, he is talking about Abraham when he asked Sarah to pretend to be his sister instead of his wife, and discussing that as a fear of man instead of fear of God, or trust in God. When you think of a Biblical figure such as Abraham struggling with something like that, it gives you perspective. 

roses are red.

my students are too good to me, they spoil me, even in the midst of me trying to do a good deed for them they one up me.


since this past weekend was Mother's Day, I knew that my students that have flowershops, would be quite busy. and as on that last day of class, they listed all they had to do, and the 36 hours they had to be up putting together orders and shipping them out... i started planning. so that when they were out of the office on a business trip i slipped back into the office and planned with a colleague, a surprise for them. These two students in particular have always been really good to me, and have nearly spoiled me. They invite me to breakfast and coffee, are incredibly understanding and learn fast. Basically they are the greatest. So for this holiday I wanted to do something for them. At 4 AM Saturday night Julton and I took a taxi over to where they were staying up all night putting together mother's day flower arrangements and surprised them with late night coffee. They were surprised to see me, if not even more surprised to see Julton "but you woke up your husband???" They were working hard away, a group of about 15 of them, putting together flowers. Roses to be exact, long stemmed. 


We spent a little while there chatting while they drank their coffee, then it was back home to sleep for the two of us, while they had to continue working. A couple of days later in class we were all laughing about it and talking about the weekend... when a box of roses came in the door. They sat it down on the desk, and commented that they were for me, but I didn't believe them because at the moment they were laughing (they are always laughing). But as I was leaving the office for the day, they followed me saying 'don't forget your flowers!' and handed me a card that said 

"Gracias por tu apoyo Julie"

(Thanks for your support Julie)

it's going to be hard to give these students up one day!