run forest run

If you're in NYC, unless you live in a hole, you are probably aware that today was the ING NYC Marathon.

I never really cared about it. I knew it happened every year but up until last year, I had never even bothered to watch it. I remember sitting there with my jaw on the floor wondering how these people were running 26.2 miles in less than 2.5 hours. Ridiculous.

This year was very special and different because something within the marathon shifted for me; it was no longer just the NYC marathon. No it was the NYC marathon, where 4 individuals that I personally know, and one that I wish I did, were all going to run for the very first time. 

This year, instead of flipping through the channels, I got up, had the tv on by 9, and was out of the house around 12:30. I met up with 2 sorority sisters who had managed to nag a pretty good spot right on 138 and Grand Concourse, and I waited for my friends and "hero" to run by. I managed to see 2 of them...my hero [ie Edison Peña, miner #12] somehow managed to either pass by before I got there, or just went totally unoticed by me. [Which sucks because I had my big ole flag hanging from a barricade, but it still did its job because I managed to grab the attention of about 10 other Chilean runners and some of them even ran over to me.]

Regardless, it was a wonderful experience. I was standing around mile 21 and I couldn't believe how perfectly calm and collected most of those that went by us looked. Some were clearly in pain, limping, punching out a cramp in their hamstring. A couple fell. More than a few walked. But they all kept going. The human spirit is a beautiful thing and kind, encouraging words go a long way, which was evident in the fact that you could literally see the energy go back into the runners as the crowd tried their best to cheer them on by shouting out their country, names, ringing cowbells, or blowing horns.

So to everyone that ran, walked, limped, or rolled their way through the marathon [even if you did not make it to the end], congratulations. For your inspiration, your perseverance, and your spirit. Getting through 26.2 miles is no easy task, and the simple fact that you signed up for it, and you did it [or tried your absolute best], is more than most people would ever do.

:: thumbs up ::

You rock.

And to my Chilean miner, whose 15 minutes are sure to be up soon, but will always be remembered for his Elvis impersonation and his shocking decision to actually participate in this...te pasaste.

 

http://www.buffalonews.com/wire-feeds/state/article244867.ece

7 words

1 mine
where
33 men
have been trapped for
17 days
at a depth of
2300 feet
and in one instance
7 words
made an entire country sigh in relief






:: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/world/americas/23chile.html?_r=1&hp ::

La Rosa de los Vientos

A veces quisiera desaparecer del mapa
Volver donde yo nací
Pero no es tan papa, me achaca
Las duda no se saca es ta pegá
Como laca, el peso a lapa
Makiza es mi capa,
A veces quisiera tener alas como pájaro
Volar por el tiempo donde estuvo Lautaro
Y olvidar yo, por un tiempo que la mitad
De mi familia esta muy lejos
Hay días en que me quejo,
hay dias en que estoy bien piola
Hay días en queme río hasta del Guatón Loyola
Ay! Comadre lola, si usted supiera
Lo que estar dividida, no saber cual es su tierra
Ana chola, en la bola como ratón sin cola
Mi mama me hablaba a mi del C.H.I
Por allá bien lejos donde yo nací
Donde yo crecí
Y no juego a la gringa si eso tu creí
Nunca niegues donde tu provengas
Tengas lo que tengas,
Vengas de donde vengas
Vengas de Dinamarca/ o de chiloe
Si el mundo es una gran arca de Noe
Y si yo he nacido fuera
Estoy orgullosa y tengo sangre indígena
Mejor por que es hermosa, soy una trotamundo
Sin Fijo rumbo me fundo,
Al lugar donde yo tumbo, así es mi mundo
Soy del norte del sur,
Del oeste, del este,
Una viajería sin paradero sin nombre sin carnet,
Una Ulyse si tierra prometida Eh, eh
Creado en mi propia odisea moderna nene
Se eh, hacer camino al andar caminante
por eso no tengo bandera representante
da lo mismo mi nombre, lo importante es lo que hago
valorar el hombre por la calidad de su trabajo
y es que el mundo es tan grande
y uno tan pequeño,
sólo me dirijo por la Rosa de los Vientos

-Makiza-

Chile fundraiser

A Night Out to Benefit the Earthquake Victims in Chile

As many of you know, a magnitude 8.8 earthquake hit our beloved Chile and devasted the Maule & Bio Bio regions. The cities most affected in these areas, Constitución, Talca and Concepción, were hit by a tsunami shortly after the earthquake struck, flattening many historic buildings and severely damaging thousands of homes.

It is estimated the earthquake has affected at least 1.5 million people in the area and the International Red Cross estimates that it will take between 5-7 years and billions of dollars for the area to recover .

To support nuestro Chile lindo and help raise funds to aid the relief efforts in these regions, Barros Luco would like to invite you to a night out on Saturday, March 27th at 8pm. Food will be provided by Barros Luco and Niall's Pub will offer drink specials all night. A special raffle will be held to give away several prizes including gift certificates to local restaurants and bottles of Chilean wines.

All that we request is a $30 donation at the door which will all go to benefit the Chilean Red Cross (www.cruzroja.cl).

The Chilean Red Cross has been distributing food, hygiene articles and blankets to survivors. It has launched a domestic appeal for cash donations and has called upon the population to donate blood to supply the hospital network.

Participating businesses for raffle prizes:
- Mimi's
- Turtle Bay
- Zarela
- Pescatore
- Buttercup Bake Shop
- Jeffrey Wine & Liquors
- Niall's Pub & Restaurant
- DNY Hair Salon
- Vita Coco (giving away free samples)
- Inocente Tequila (giving away free samples)
and more to come...


March 27, 2010 at 8:00pm - 1:00am
Niall's Pub & Restaurant
218 E 52nd Street
New York, NY

comparing the telethons

hope for haiti ran for 2 hours and was broadcast domestically on ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, BET, the CW, HBO, MTV, VH1, CMT, PBS, TNT, Showtime, Comedy Central, Bravo, E! Entertainment Network, National Geographic Channel, Oxygen, G4, Centric, Current TV, Fuse, MLB Network, Epix, Palladia, SoapNet, Style, Discovery Health and Planet Green. It was also a global event that aired on BET International, CNN International, National Geographic and MTV Networks International.

They raised "over $57mil".

chile ayuda chile (or chile helps chile) was broadcast on one local Chilean TV station on both Friday & Saturday night, with a website informing the rest of the world on how to donate.

They raised approximately $57.2mil [give or take a little due to the currency exchange]

since everyone keeps comparing these two disasters and making it a competition, there you go.

jus sayin.

fuerza chile que si se puede.

i'm angry

and i've been this way since sunday. at first i started to think that my anger was selfish ... that my anger seemed "wrong" because this situation is so personal to me ... but i managed to touch upon this subject with a few people yesterday and they all had the same response: "I've been thinking the same thing."

my anger stems from the following question: why ... is no one ... stressing the fact that chile needs help? after haiti, facebook was BOMBARDED with ways to help. every single person had a status up on what to do. those little stupid emoticon hearts filled my screen, i read status over status about "using your happy hour money" or "using your lunch money" to make a $10 donation. you know what, it is march 2nd and i still see those stupid hearts, still get haiti relief happy hour invites, still see something, ANYTHING, about helping haiti.

now here is my disclaimer, plugged in midway through my post: i by absolutely no means think that aid should stop reaching haiti. they need it. their entire city was destroyed. they absolutely need the help. i did not hesitate to donate to them, as many people did. they have raised millions [if not billions] to help. they have a lot of money to simply start the reconstruction process, and we all know the tricky thing is going to be getting people involved in a year, or in 10 years. i know that. i pray for haiti and my heart goes out to them and i hope that somehow through this tragedy, they can finally become what they should have always been. i hope this somehow makes them stronger and puts that f*cked up government of theirs in check.

but ... that does not mean that the lack of interest or motivation to do ANYTHING for chile isn't pissing me off. i get it. we are not as underdeveloped or poor as haiti. i would say i'm sorry for that but i'm not. i'm proud of chile, for overcoming what it's had to and becoming fairly stable. but are we oozing with money? no.

and honestly, let's just forget about the whole money thing for a minute. I am fully aware that the US, and other countries, immediately offered aid to chile. I'm not really referring to large organizations/governments, but moreso, individual efforts. i mean, where is the humanitarian effort for this ... millions were still affected in some way. Lost their home, have no water, no electricity, no medicine. People still perished, got hurt, are in damaged hospitals. I don't want to sound like a baby and say why does no one care, but really ... why? CNN coverage has been reduced to a 10pt font size scroll line at the bottom of their page. Last I checked, it's been about 72 hours since and um ... the country is still pretty much the same way it was on Saturday. It seems like once that clock struck sunday, february 28th, everything went back to normal ... CNN went back to talking about dirty politicians and facebook went back to people saying FML because their nail broke.

I asked my friend if their job was collecting anything and on their home page, found the following:
"Generally ______ focuses its work in countries on the bottom third of the United Nations Human Development Index, which does not include Chile, one of the wealthiest, most developed countries in the region."

Um ... ok I suppose. I kind of feel the way I did in high school, when it came time to pick a college. Everyone was talking about that lovely HEOP program that magically pays for you to go to school and gives you money for textbooks and whatnot. There are certain criteria that need to be met in order to qualify. I met the money criteria in that my parents did not make enough to fully afford for me to go to RIT. But lo and behold, I was too "smart". What kind of shit was it that the fact that I had, I don't know, actually studied and passed my tests in school came to kick me in the ass at the end. Had I known, I would have been lazy and gone to school for free. It was really annoying because just because I had the grades didn't mean I had the money, and last I checked, tuitions were paid with check or credit card, not a GPA.

It kind of reminds me of Chile; a country that is by no means rich, but apparently isn't poor enough to merit the concern from the rest of the world. But that doesn't mean that they don't need help to get back to where they were.

sigh ... rant over, back to work.

interesting read

on why the earth suddenly decides to move on us ...

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/02/28/stark.chile.quake.haiti/index.html?hpt=C2

[ps., the title of this post is also misleading and doesn't get referred to until like the last paragraph ... the majority of the content is just explaining how/why plates move]

mi chilito lindo

What a freaking day; as crazy as it sounds i had a flashback to 9/11 ... waking up to seeing a place you love in pieces.

The crazy thing is that i knew about the earthquake at around 3am ET. I was trying to fall asleep and in my groggy state, i sleepily went to facebook on my phone and lo and behold, found a link posted saying that an earthquake had hit chile.

i got up and put cnn and there was nothing on. i searched online but all i knew was that an earthquake had hit ... i knew the magnitude and the general area but that's it. all that was said was that santiago "felt it". i quickly sent my cousin in puerto montt [a town further south and therefore closer to the epicenter] a message saying i hope she was ok.

i thought about calling my parents but decided not to scare them at 4am ... besides, my dad wakes up super early every day so by 5am he knew when he put on tvChile. i got a few hours sleep and woke up around 9 to calls, emails, texts, bbms, and facebook messages with people asking me how my family was. that's when i turned on the tv and saw what i had not been able to at 4am.

i saw that one of my cousins had [geniously] thought enough to try to get on fb and he wrote to my mom and i. one side of the family partially accounted for but no word from my moms side. i called home to my mom crying. it took hours but at around noon we were finally able to get in contact with her side; everyone ok ... scared beyond belief but ok. now all that's missing is my cousin and some of my moms friends, including her best friend ie my "aunt". i'm certain they're ok, just without electricity, but the uncertainty of it all is the scary part.

chris came over to keep me company for a few and as we watched the endless news reports, we sat in awe on how the chilean government was handling this disaster. totally calm and kept together. is this a disaster, yes. do we need money, yes. but we dont need donations until we see how much damage is done because we have a special fund for events like these.

you see, chile is no stranger to this. earthquakes aren't non-heard of events [although something this large hasn't been felt in YEARS]. buildings are built up to code [so much so that i saw that if a building fell because it wasn't up to standards, they will be dealt with accordingly], emergency teams are trained, systems on how to deal with an earthquake are in place, funds are set aside.

is this a disaster yes ... 2 million people are affected in some way. they either lost everything they owned or are dealing without basic ammenities like water and electricity. it's the end of summer. it's hot. there's been more than 30 aftershocks. and by aftershocks i mean things measuring more than 6.0 ... and i don't know how horrible this might sound, but while any death is tragic ... for the magnitude of this quake, to have a current death toll of under 300 is unheard of.

sigh

what a mess. as emotionally draining as it was, i didn't cry. and honestly the few times i did tear up, it was at the outpouring of support that i got. i received phone calls from people i rarely talk to, but they thought of me. i got hundreds of messages via phone, facebook, and email. i thank every single person who thought of me, from my bestest who came to keep my company, to my tashy who was ready to jump on a train from VA, to everyone who took 2 seconds to contact me to see if everything was ok. it means a lot to me and my family, who was on facebook seeing all of this.

for news, search banks, and to donate:

http://www.google.com/relief/chileearthquake/
https://www.habitat.org/cd/giving/donate.aspx?link=252

Red Cross


please keep chile in your prayers.

this is for ms. lauren charisse

ok this post is really for everyone but as she is someone who regularly reads it that i KNOW is into futbol [yes the correct spelling!], this bit of trivia is special for her:

in 1962 chile hosted the world cup. my people were so freaking excited and honored to be the hosts and so supportive of the chilean team, that a chilean rock & roll band named los ramblers made a song titled "El Rock del Mundial", or the world cup rock. [another tidbit is chile actually finished 3rd in this cup ... the one and only time we've placed that high]

i totally forgot about this song but just saw it on someones fb status and the memories of me dancing around to it as a kid came flooding back. why i'm not sure but i was in love with it. it got rewound many many many times lolol. [blame my mom for playing it for me and teaching me the words lol]

ssooo ... here it is with a video!!!



and here are the lyrics:

El mundial del `62 es una fiesta universal
Del deporte del balón como consigna general
Celebrando nuestros triunfos bailaremos rock and roll

Nos invade la alegría y de todo corazón
Agradecemos a quienes nos brindaron la ocasión
Y dispuestos a la lucha entraremos en acción

Tómala, métete, remata
Gol, gol de Chile
Un sonoro C H I
Y bailemos rock and roll
Tómala, métete, remata
Gol, gol de Chile
Un sonoro C H I
Y bailemos rock and roll

Tómala, métete, remata
Gol, gol de Chile
Un sonoro C H I
Y bailemos rock and roll

A los equipos extranjeros demostraremos buen humor
Y como buenos chilenos, hidalguía y corrección
Y aunque sea en la derrota bailaremos rock and roll

Tómala, métete, remata
Gol, gol de Chile
Un sonoro C H I
Y bailemos rock and roll

Y bailemos rock and roll

Y bailemos, alegremente, rock and roll

it's official!!!

guess who's going to the world cup ...

and i'm back ...

... unfortunately. going to chile has always been the most bittersweet thing i do. i'm always crazy excited to go and about 2 days before i come back to NY i start getting sad and emotional, crying myself to sleep. i hate the fact that 95% of my family lives there. i have no idea what it's like to grow up with cousins or more than 1 grandparent around, or aunts and uncles. my holidays are always 4 people ... my parents, my grandma, and me.

regarding my cousins, on my mom's side of the family i'm in the middle, with the 4 oldest [myself included] all being about 2 years apart from the next one. but my dad's side, i am the oldest. the oldest of 11. and everytime i've gone, i've had to reintroduce myself to cousins, who up to now, have only had a few vague, scattered memories of me, and have known i exist through pictures. i, on the other hand, have memories of these kids as ... kids. as babies who couldn't even walk, as toddlers, as 2 year olds killing spiders, and 9 year olds finding me amazing. it's so weird looking at them all and being able to tell them a story about them at a young age, especially since my trips to chile took a long hiatus for a bit. fortunately on my dads side, the baby is now 14 and remembers me just fine, but the cycle is starting again with 2 baby cousins on my moms side, ages 2 and 7. it never ends. :(

anywho .. despite the fact that i basically had no internet for 10 days [yes that was rough], i befriended my ipod as my only usable mobile gadget, and took random notes of things i saw/found out about along the way.

chile randoms:

• for independance day, it is a national law that every house/building have a Chilean flag hanging from it in the proper way. if hanging from a pole, the pole must be white. if hanging from lets say a window, you can hang it vertically or horizontally, and the blue square has to be positioned on the upper left.
• birth control pills are over the counter and you can buy as many boxes as you want.
• chileans seem to have a better understanding of internet security than we do. not once was i able to find a non-passworded wifi signal ... not once!
• although i had a great time, i could not get used to the fact that homes do not have radiators throughout. coming indoors from 40 degree weather sucks. having to use the bathroom with it being ice cold, sucks!
• mayonnaise is their bff.
• the internet cafe around me was 300 pesos for one hour. [currently, $1 is approximately 541 pesos ... you figure it out]
• the metro system is dope. you miss a train, no biggie. literally as the last car on your missed train disappears from view, the next train comes.
• their bip card [metrocard] uses blink technology everywhere. no swiping needed, just walk up to the turnstyle, touch your wallet to the yellow circle and go through [same for buses and bus stops]
• if you don't smoke, never fear. you can get all the smoke you don't personally inhale by just going out one night. chileans smoke too much and it's allowed everywhere.
• the bus/metro is 400 pesos per ride.
• if in chile and a chilean tells you they're coming around 3 and it's 2:45 and you're just getting ready, no need to stress. they're not getting there til at least 4 anyway [HUGE pet peeve of mine ... huge]

i am now sleepy so that's it for now. toodles!