Kasie.Branwen

Meggie (classmate) - No
Kristina - Yes

Dear Professor,
In class today we talked about memory, specifically long term and short term memory and what makes people remember certain things and forget others. I was left with the question: why do some people have better memories than other people? Personally, I have the type of memory that would remind you of a senior citizen. I get somewhere and then forget why I went there, I forget names, forget faces, forget where I put my cell phone while I’m holding it in my hand. You talked about remembering what you at for breakfast on September 12th, but I have a hard time even remembering what I ate for breakfast yesterday. What makes me different from a senior citizen, though, is that a senior citizen can typically remember their life before they started having memory troubles, but I cannot. I’ve always been like this. I feel like I live in a constant fog; the only thing I can see clearly is what’s right in front of me. The farther away, the more blurry everything becomes.

-Early Memories-
Today you asked us about our earliest memories. Most people described memories from when they were two or three years old. My earliest memory is when I was nine. But even then memory didn’t magically switch on, I can only remember about one or two things from all six years of elementary school. I have a handful of memories from middle school, and more from high school, but they don’t even come close to the amount that other people remember. It’s like I’m trying to remember some movie I saw awhile ago. I can remember some things about it but it’s all fuzzy. I might remember a few details here and there, but I’m not even sure most of what I’m remembering is accurate.

I remember asking my mom when I was little why I couldn’t remember anything that happened to me. Correction- I do not actually remember the event of asking her, rather I remember THAT I asked her, because I later repeated her response over and over to myself, waiting for the day when it would come true. She told me that children’s memories aren’t completely developed, and that when I was older it would be much easier for me to remember things. Every time the teacher asked us to recall the time we spent six weeks studying dinosaurs a few months ago, for example, and I could barely recall it, I would tell myself “when I’m older I’ll remember all this stuff.” But it never changed.

Granted, I’m sure I do remember more now than I did when I was little. Then again, I might not, because I can’t really remember how much I remembered when I was little… But nevertheless, it’s not that I have some neurological problem. I follow all the normal memory patterns that we talked about in class. If something is very emotional, I’m more likely to remember it. I don’t have too much trouble studying, because I’ve learned tricks to slip facts into my long term memory. My memory problems don’t even bother me that much. Other people get all caught up in the past, but I live almost solely in the present.

-Faces-
What’s difficult for me is that other people notice, and it tends to offend them. I remember one specific time last year (yes I actually remember this, since it was pretty emotional for me) when I spent a whole evening hanging out with a few of my boyfriend’s friends. I spent a couple of hours having an animated conversation with one guy in particular. This was all well and good; the problem occurred two or three weeks later when my boyfriend and I decided to hang out with some of his friends again. I saw someone I didn’t recognize, so I went up and introduced myself. That’s when I found out that it was the same guy I had had that lively conversation with only a few weeks earlier. Needless to say, he was rather offended.
It’s not that he got a haircut, or shaved his beard. He was exactly the same as when I had met him, and yet I could not even recognize that I’d ever seen him before. For the record, when my boyfriend pulled me aside to explain to me that that was the guy I had been talking to about [I don’t remember what], there was no light bulb that went off in my head. It took some coaxing for me to even remember the night when I’d met that guy, then the conversation we had. When I finally pulled it back out of the fog, I knew who my boyfriend was talking about, but I still couldn’t match the face I was seeing with anything in my memory, because my memory just hadn’t kept a copy of that face.

I’ve had this problem of forgetting people’s faces so often that I’ve finally stopped introducing myself to anyone. I now wait for them to either come over and greet me as if we knew each other, or for someone else to introduce me to them.
Let me clarify that it’s not that I can’t remember faces at all. I know who my family is, I have friends and I can definitely recognize them. It’s just kind of hard for someone to acquire a spot in my memory.

-Facts-
Although forgetting someone’s face is embarrassing, it happens with people who I do not know very well and therefore is a minor issue. What becomes much more of an issue for me is forgetting things about my friends. When you get to know someone in college, one of the first things you ask about is their major. Not surprisingly (after what I’ve told you so far), I will often ask someone what their major is a few days after they’ve already told me. It doesn’t really become embarrassing until after the third or fourth time they are forced to repeat it to me. Eventually I get to a point where I can remember that I’ve asked before, but can’t for the life of me remember what the answer was. And I’m not talking about random acquaintances; I’m talking about people I spend a considerable amount of time with.

-Loved Ones-
But, ok, some people are forgetful, and maybe it isn’t uncommon not to remember your own past, but there’s one more thing that plagues me, and this one I really hate. When I’m not with someone for a certain amount of time, I almost completely forget them. We all stop thinking about not-so-close friends if we don’t see them for a long time. But this is different. When I try to remember a person, I pull up the ghost of a person with adjectives attached. I can see their hair color and the shape of them, although all details, including the face, are blurred out. Attached to this blurry image is the blurry image of their personality. I no longer remember what they were like at all. I may remember adjectives like “sweet” “talkative” “easy-going” which I have formerly used to define this person, but I do not really remember their personality.

I’ll give you a poignant story to show you what I’m talking about: When I was 19 I had had enough of school. I had been studying my whole life, and being from State College, I wasn’t even going to get to go somewhere exciting for college. During high school I had been to Mexico, met some people down there, and I decided that now that I was free of school, I would move to Mexico. I’m not one of those kids who got along horribly with their parents as an adolescent. I was very lucky and had an extremely close relationship with my whole family, especially my mother and my sister. My sister was my best friend, we did everything together.

When I got to Mexico, I wounded my whole family, because I fell almost completely out of contact with them. It’s not that I’m a cold person, as many have called me. I really loved my family. But when they weren’t there, I could barely even remember them. My sister missed me so much. I had been the person she could confide in, we had done everything together. And yet I didn’t really miss her at all, or anyone else, because I didn’t really know them anymore.
It’s not that I didn’t love them. When I came back home after my two years in Mexico, I was overjoyed to see my family. Seeing their faces, hearing their voices and listening to them kid around, everything flooded back and I felt at home again. Although I had not missed them, when I had them with me again, I knew that I preferred to be with them than without them. My life felt fuller and I had people around me who understood me and loved me unconditionally. I could see the scars of the pain I had inflicted with my carelessness, and I vowed that I would never again leave home and completely disregard them. Whether I could remember them clearly or not, whether I missed them or not, I needed to make time for them, because they are an essential part of my history and of me.

-Experiences-
This forgetfulness is not always a bad thing though. When I moved to Mexico, it proved invaluable. Most people experience homesickness while away. I never, not once in two years, felt homesick. As soon as I arrived in Mexico, my life in the United States started fading from my memory. When I could still remember what it felt like to be American, I was so excited to be living in a new place. By the time the excitement faded and most people would start feeling out of place and homesick, ‘home’ had become such a distant memory that Mexico felt as if it had always been my home. The dirtiness of the city, the inefficiency of practically everything, the Mexican way of life- this was all I knew. Life in the U.S. was something we watched in movies.


I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back to forgetting those you love. Now let’s say you’ve got a boyfriend and things aren’t going well. You’re ready to move on. You meet a new guy, and he’s everything your ex wasn’t. You break up with your boyfriend and… It’s not an uncommon scenario. Yet this same scenario has gotten me the labels of ‘bitch,’ ‘cold,’ ‘unfeeling,’ ‘a fake,’ etc. Why? Because when most people break up with a serious boyfriend, there’s a transition period. A period that you spend getting to know the new guy, and getting over the old guy. For me, there is no transition period. As soon as my ex is out of my life, his memory starts to fade. I remember THAT we were together, but I don’t remember what it felt like. It doesn’t hurt me; I don’t miss him and I don’t need time to get over him. Within a very few weeks, I’m completely ready to throw my self full force into a new relationship.

That is not to say that this has to happen with everyone. It happened because I was no longer happy in the relationship I was in, so I WANTED that person out of my life. It might have been easier for me than it should have been, but it would have happened whether it came easily or whether I had to struggle to do it. Conversely, if someone leaves my life but I do NOT want to forget that person, there are things I can do. Modern technology has made all the difference. An email may not mean much to me, but talking to that person with sound and image keeps them alive for me. The few times I talked to my family on the Skype, things were completely different. For a day or two, I would start to miss them.

Volver a ser amigos es muy dificil. Muchas personas dicen q ya q has tenido una relacion romantica, no se puede volver a ser amigos. Ps la neta, nunca he podido. Recientemente me rendi de intentar hacerlo funcionar con Armando. El tenia todas sus opiniones de mi, y la neta ya no lo soportaba. El siempre cree q tiene razon. Cuando me enoje de sus ideas bn feas de mi, me dijo "no sabia q te molestaria tanto la vdd." Mira, tu no me conoces. Tu crees q me conoces, pero la neta no me conoces. Conocer a alguien por internet no es conocer a alguien. Salimos unas cuantas veces en persona. No me conoces. Punto. Nada de lo q dices es "la vdd."

Luego Rodrigo kiere salir. Ps todo con el era muy loco. La neta hasta Junio le estaba diciendo q tal vez habria posibilidad de regresar, bla bla bla. La neta vi mucha potencia ahi y pense q podria hacerlo funcionar. Pero un dia me di cuenta q ya habiamos pasado el punto de "no return." Ya no se podia...

Y ps segun el, rompimos hace mas de 5 meses. Y es cierto. Pero la neta solo han sido dos meses desde ser completamente final, entendido por los dos. Y no, no estoy lista para salir con el. La neta el tampoco, solo cree q lo es. Pero se pone muy deprimido cuando habla conmigo, y kiere algo bn chido, y ps la neta no puedo.

Bueno, ese es mi mini Rant del dia :) La neta si soy feliz. Siempre escribo aki cuando no estoy feliz, pero ps eso significa q porq llevo mucho rato no escribiendo, q estoy bn feliz. Mi Esperanto va chido, mi relacion va chido, mis amigos van chido. Ps siempre hay problemas de dinero, pero asi es la vida... La neta si he sido muy feliz :D solo q este pekeño problema con los exnovios me ha estado molestando un pokillo esta semana... :(

No manches, ayer comi huevos con pan en la mañana, y una hamburguesa, y unos chocochokis, y es TODO LO Q COMI EN TODO EL DIA. Hoy tengo tanta hambre q no puedo comer :S Eso te ha pasado?

La neta, hubo un CHINGO de drama por tantos meses, q cuando deje de hablar con Rodrigo, me senti alivianada. Yo diria q unas tres semanas pasaron en las q ni pensaba en el, y vivia feliz con Hector. Pero hace una semana, cosas empezaron a recordarme de Rodrigo. Lo empece a extrañar. Empece a recordar cosas de el. Me volvi a meter a su facebook. Como q... No kiero volver con el, la neta. Pero me ha empezado a doler. La neta estuvimos juntos mucho tiempo, y hay un chingo de cosas q me encantan de el. Vivimos muchisimo juntos. Pero no estuvimos felices, y no funcionaba. Simplemente. No me arrepiento de haber cortado con el, pero si me siento muy mal por haberle hecho TANTO daño. Primero voy con su mejor amigo, luego le dejo ahi esperandome, luego le digo q si, luego le digo q no, peleamos mucho. La neta le hubiera dicho desde el principio q ya se habia acabado y ya, pero me gustaba mucho y no kise perderlo para siempre. Pero cuando lo hice, no lo pense para nada. Yo se q era la decision correcta. Pero ahora, despues de casi un mes, han llegado los sentimientos dolorosos. Tuvieron q llegar, vdd? Nadie puede cortar con alguien y no sentir nada. Especialmente despues de q lo kise tanto.

A veces me duele un chingo...

You know what’s funny about getting older? When you’re younger you are different, special, have a unique outlook on life. Then you get older. And you realize that everyone else was right. The world really does suck as much as they all said. Guys really are all jerks, love really is a huge horrible mess, you really can’t be happy without money and things. How depressing! I used to think that there were exceptions. That not ALL guys only wanted sex; that you could love someone happily and settle into a nice relationship; that people didn’t really need all the things they thought they needed. WRONG! Life is a fucking mess, and it SUCKS.
Let’s start with guys being jerks. Ok, there is the OCCASIONAL exception (I still refuse to believe that Rodrigo is a jerk) but for the most part, yes, every guy you meet just wants you to spread your legs, and while you’re fantasizing about him caressing your face and falling madly in love with you, the idea of doing just that makes him sick. If you don’t give them what they want, they get angry and think of you as just a stupid prude. But if you do give in, then you become an easy whore and no one respects you. Wh-wh-whaaaaat? Since when is this EVER fair??
Now love is even worse. When I was younger I thought love could be sweet. And love that wasn’t sweet, was just love gone wrong. Right? Wrong. When I got a little older, I decided that a lot of love is what we call in Spanish “querer.” Querer is liking the way that someone makes you feel, liking the attention and the physical intimacy, but without a really deep connection in any other way. So I began to think a lot about the difference between “querer” and “amar” (the other Spanish word for love) and decided that querer has it’s values, but amar is the real gem. Wrong again.
Let me tell you a little about my own experiences. I’ve loved four guys in the “querer” sense. Keaton, Dustin, Armando, and Héctor, in that order. It was fine, typical. Nothing really amazing. Of course. Hence the use of the term “querer.” Then there was this one guy. Rodrigo. Oh, it was amazing. Let me tell you, AMAZING with all capital letters. But things never really work out right, do they? All these problems came up. I was too sensitive, I wasn’t clean enough, I needed too much attention. So we broke up. It happens. But we loved each other. We really couldn’t break up. I started going out with someone else. The wrong someone else. He went crazy. I went crazy. We wanted to get back together. We didn’t. We weren’t sure. We loved each other. We were scared.
JESUS CHRIST.
Just TOO HARD.
Let’s talk about a specific problem. I always wanted to go out on the weekends. I always begged to go out. But he always wanted to stay home. So I gave up, I stayed home. Then I find that he has told at least one person “estar con alguien tanto tiempo me hizo ver que necesito estar la mayoría del tiempo solo. No salgo con mis amigos tanto que digamos” which translates to “being with someone so much time made me see that I need to be alone most of the the time. I don’t go out with my friends so much, so to speak.” Whaaaaat? I wanted to go out and you always said no, and now I’m the one who was holding back? What fucking universe do you live in, boy? And now while you’re begging me to come back to you, I’m going to be hearing the words “being with someone so much time made me see that I need to be alone most of the time” repeated time and time again. Either you need to be with me or you need to be alone, you can’t need both.
Y además, you told me that you EXPECTED to feel like you needed more time alone, but IN REALITY you were just so happy and content being with me. Thanks for the lies. And I thought not all guys were jerks.
Sorry about the mini rant. Like I was saying. TOO COMPLICATED! But every time I decide that I’m going to leave this all behind me, I see him, and I fall in love all over again, and it’s as if every problem we ever had never existed. I decide to be with him, and everything falls apart. I decide to run away, and I can’t.
Love in the “amar” sense, is just a waste of time. Yes, you’re right, maybe you could never spend the rest of your life with that person that you just love “querer.” Maybe they’ll never really understand you. Maybe you won’t feel that wonderful “click” when you just know that this is RIGHT. But hey, when everything is just superficial, you never have to work that hard.
Now, onto that other forgotten topic that I brought up way back at the beginning of this conversation. I used to criticize the people that married for money, or crazy things like that. Now all I can think is, if only I had a little more money, I could buy that moped that I want, I could buy all the food I want, I could buy the clothes I want, the tattoo I want, the haircut I want. It’s really hard to live without money. It really sucks.
So there you have it folks. At my 19 years, I’ve made a huge realization. Life really does suck.

Kara Martin,

Saluton! Mi neniam vidis la retpoŝton de Fernando, sed mi demandis al Sara kaj ŝi diris ke ŝi ja respondis. Ŝi sendis kopion de tiu retpoŝto al Mallely.

Nun pri la kurso ĉi tie en Guadalajara: Ni havas sep personojn kiuj preskaŭ ĉiam venas. Mi pensas ke nia kurso sukcesas, sed estas iomete malfacila. Niaj studantoj estas bonaj, ili studas kaj faras liajn hejmtaskojn. Sed la kurso kiu ni uzas nur havas gramatikon, kaj ne havas multajn tipojn de ekzercoj, do ĝi ne estas tre interesa. Post kelkaj semajnoj, estas tre teda nur traduki frazojn kun novaj gramatikoj esperanten. Ni nun pensas pri manieroj de fari ke la kurso estu pli interesa. Ankaŭ, la kurso instruas la aferojn tre rapide, kaj kelkaj studantoj petis ke ni plimalrapidiĝi. Kelkaj studantoj lernas tre rapide, kaj aliaj pli malrapide, do fojfoje ni havas problemojn.

Sed mi pensas ke ĉi tiujn problemojn ĉiuj havas kiam ekas instrui unuafoje. Mi ne zorgas multe, nur provas plibonigi la klason. La sekvonta fojo kiam mi instruos, mi uzos alian kurson (fakte, mi nun kreas novan kurson, bazita de "Ana Pana"). Mi volis peti al vi, se vi povas rekomendi bonajn ludojn aŭ ekzercojn por praktiki la gramatikon.

Pri miaj planoj kaj mia vivo, vere mi ne scias. Mi ne laboras nuntempe. Ĉar ĉi tie en Meksiko la laboroj estas de ok horoj ĉiutage, kaj multfoje ses tagoj ĉiusemajne, mi hezitas antaŭ ol komenci labori. Mi ne volas tiel rapide perdi mian liberecon. Ankaŭ estas iomete malfacila trovi laboron ĉar mi ne estas ĉi tie laŭleĝe. Antaŭ mi nur havis turistan vizon, kaj ne havis laboran vizon, sed nun mi nek havas turistan vizon, do mi estas ĉi tie tute neleĝe.

Do, mi ne havas laboron por fini, ĉar mi ne laboras. Sed mi ne scias kiam mi finos mian restadon en Guadalajara. Mi ŝatas esti ĉi tie, kaj mi pensis pri doni kursojn al la universitataj centroj de la UDG (kaj eble al aliaj universitatoj se mi povas). Mi parolis kun grava viro de unu el la centroj, kaj li diris ke ili havas specialajn ĉambrojn por personoj kiuj volas doni senpagajn kursojn. Mi pensas ke mi povus trovi inter tri kaj sep personojn de ĉiu centro, kaj tiel mi povus havi plimalpli dudek kvin studantojn. Mi nur volis lerni kaj praktiki iomete kiel instrui antaŭ ol komenci instrui multajn kursojn. Mi vidas multajn aferojn pri kiuj mi pensas "mi faros tion malsame la venonta fojo." Mi ne havas multan sperton, kaj kun ĉi tiu kurso mi lernas multe.

Mi ankoraŭ ŝatus vojaĝi kaj diskonigi Esperanton, mi nur sentas ke mi havas pli laboron por fari ĉi tie ankaŭ. Kion vi pensas? Kiu afero estas pli grava, evoluigi Esperanton en Guadalajara, aŭ diskonigi ĝin en aliaj partoj?

Pardonu min por ne skribi antaŭ! Mi havis kelkajn personajn problemojn, sed nun ĉio renormalas do mi povos dediĉi pli da tempo al Esperanto! Dankon pro via retpoŝto.

Kati

The eternal human struggle between what you SHOULD do and what you WANT to do. The GOOD people choose to do what they SHOULD, and the HAPPY people choose to do what they WANT.

Who am I?

La lucha eternal de los humanos: hacer lo que uno debe, o hacer lo que quiere. Los buenos hacen lo que deben y los felices hacen lo que quieren.

Quien soy yo?

La eterna humana batalo inter tio, kio vi DEVAS fari, kaj tio, kio vi VOLAS fari. La bonuloj elektas fari tion, kion devas, kaj la feliĉuloj elektas tion, kion volas...

Kiu mi estas?

Once upon a time, there was a young girl living in Mexico. Yes I know, there have been many girls that have lived in Mexico over the years, but this one was rather peculiar. She was only 19 years old, and wasn't originally from Mexico. She actually came from those United States of A-Mer. She had a rather tough childhood, you could say, but no one else could understand this. Everyone that she tried to explain it to judged her, and this made her a very lonely and maybe just a little bit missunderstood. But she was no Avril Lavigne, and didn't spend her days belting out just how little people understood her. Instead she tried, and tried, and tried, and tried, to just forget it all. But in the background, somewhere tucked into a little box in the very back of her brain, was always that nagging pain, left over from her childhood, whispering to her just how awful of a person she was.

So when she got to Mexico, she was pretty screwed up. She met someone incredible, and I mean really incredible, but in the beginning she did a lot of very bad things because she didn't know how to handle herself. It was like she was lost in a very big world, just trying to soak up every drop of attention that she could. She would bound about at everyone's ankles like a tiny awkward puppy. She was so eager to be appreciated and noticed by people, that she attracted all the wrong kind of people.

But one day, our scared little girl grew up a little bit, and she realized that there was only one love she wanted, and that was the love of one special boy. She left all the others behind, for good. On the outside, she was much more adult. Poised, graceful, kind. But on the inside, she still felt scared and weak. She clung to him, because he was the only TRULY good thing that she had. All the while, she tried to find herself, getting into different activities and building her own life for herself. But she knew that way back there in the darkest closet, lay that box full of self-hate just waiting to spring open when she was most happy.

And it happened. Our little puppy was hurt in her most fragile state, while she slept. Little did she know, those fingers were not just touching her in forbidden places, but wiggling deep inside of her soul to open the one box that should never be opened. There he left it, lid partly dislodged, no longer sealed tight from evil. But it was someone else who would rip that lid open and shake the contents all over until there was nothing else she could feel but the thick, boiling liquid engolfing her body, burning away her flesh, and strangling her, until there was nothing left...

It was him, the one that she had trusted, loved without condition, and allowed herself to need as she had never needed before. The one closest to her heart, was the only one that could really hurt her. Bad men and their bad fingers were already distrusted, but this total breach of confidence was a turning point. In her darkest moment of fear, with the goo seeping from the little crate where it was contained, instead of being her bright star, the one person that could make her turn her back on the pain that once was, he pushed her over into the abyss, pushed her to where she could never come back. He didn't trust her, didn't love her, didn't want her. He threw her away.

And where would she go now?

There comes a pooint in your life where there's no where you can go be safe. Not in your own house, not where you used to live, not in the streets, not with the ones you thought loved you, not in the home you left behind. Everywhere you go, you can't even be safe. You know that in that moment there is no where, no where you can go. You can't go and you can't stay.

All I want is just a hug and some support from someone who isn't going to hurt me. To curl up and be safe in someone's arms. To not always be the enemy, to not always be the bad one, to not always be the one that screws up, the one that ruins everything. To not have to hate herself. Just to be loved.

I'm tired of being the horrible one who always burdens everyone. I just wish there was somewhere I could go to just dissapear, but not even that is possible. I just wat to lie there forever until I shrivel up and don't exist anymore.