Rebellion...or defeat?

I've never been one for formal. Or suits. I'm still not quite sure what fork to use at fancy events. I detest having to wear heels. I feel a bit awkward around a bunch of strangers who think (and probably are right) they are smarter than me. That being said, the legal field was probably not the best place for me! My first suit was purchased my senior year in college. From Pinky's (think, Forever 21). My suits since there were from the same kind of discount stores or Target. Not that there's anything wrong with them, but they're not quite "power" suits. I didn't get one of those until my second year in law school, when Katie and I had one of our ADR competitions. I was surprised at how much of a difference it made, even if it was just to me personally. I felt more comfortable, like my fellow law students and attorneys weren't judging me for wearing a $40 suit.

I remember working with a non profit attorney for one of my volunteer opportunities, and going to her office for a meeting to review the work I had been doing. She was wearing a super cute skirt, flats, and a cardigan sweater over her shirt. Cue the chimes and angels coming out of heavenly clouds. (Sidenote: it just took me two minutes to remember what those white things in the sky are called. Clouds. They're called clouds. Go me.) That's the kind of attorney I want to be. The one that's comfortable with whatever she wears, and who doesn't let a power suit define her intelligence or her comfort. And who works in a field where it's ok.

I've been testing these boundaries at work lately. I don't have to go to court much anymore, so there's no need for a full suit, but definitely business casual attire. I've been wearing my flats and skirts every now and then, and I cherish those days. I should be clear: what I love about these outfits is that you accessorize them, and they become quite fancy, not totally casual. AND, I would never dream of wearing this to court. I would not want to appear before a judge in anything less than full attorney-combat attire. Anyhow, a couple weeks ago I had to attend a continuing legal education course for attorneys. I woke up that morning knowing exactly where I had to go in the evening. Knowing that I would be surrounding by individuals in their power suits, briefcases and high heels. I went to my closet...and decided it was going to be one of my cherished days. I went for the skirt and flats, black cardigan. This was my moment of rebellion. No power suit for me. Not gonna lie...I was proud of myself the whole day at work for making whatever assertion I thought I was making. Even parking my car outside the venue. Even walking through registration. At this point, I could already feel everyone looking at me like I was crazy. It didn't help that my co-worker had saved me a seat...at the very front...right next to the beloved panel speakers...including a judge. I think the worst was having to make the small talk as five of us waited for the waiters to refill the coffee. I was waiting for them to ask: "So....did you forget you were coming here tonight?" Rebellion. Failure.

I'm still confused. I know I don't need clothing to tell me who I am, but what if it's just part of the gig? Was I disrespecting all attorneys present by wearing what I wanted? Am I a disgrace to attorneys everywhere? haha, I gotta laugh at that one, mostly because I don't know that I would care much if I was. I would be embarrassed, but that's about it. I think it's easier to get away with more comfortable clothing in a non profit sector then say...bankruptcy law...but at least I tried. For one day...I stood my ground.

Charity of the Month: Common Hope

Some of you may remember the storm Agatha and the volcano eruptions that affected Guatemala a few months back. It was because of this that I heard about Common Hope. They rose to the occasion to help with relief efforts after the storm, but they've actually been involved in and around Antigua for years now. The beginnings of Common Hope are actually pretty interesting: husband and wife go to Guatemala to help out, come back to the US due to safety concerns at the time, husband and wife plan to go back, wife dies, husband and son go back to continue work they started, husband joins seminary to become priest, son continues and expands organization. Not bad, huh?!

Anyhow, Common Hope works primarily with sponsorships for children, but they take a wholistic approach to things: you don't just educate the child, but you help the entire family. The parents must take responsibility for the child's education, and the whole family works together with a social worker to see how the families situation can be improved.

In their own words:

The work of Common Hope is based on personal relationships with people. We work with sponsored children, their families, and the communities in which they live. We believe it is especially important to work with the entire family, because a child cannot be healthy unless his or her family is healthy.

Our work is comprehensive and holistic. In everything we do, we strive to support families in their struggle for independence and dignity.

Our programs are carefully and thoughtfully developed in response to the expressed needs of the financially poor. We try to do only that which people cannot do for themselves.

Each program falls under one of these four areas: Education, Family Development, Health Care, or Housing.

I know not all of us are in a financial position to sponsor a child every month, but there are other ways you can help:

• Make a one time donation
• Visit Guatemala
• Volunteer
• Collect supplies
• Host a party to spread the word

Please check out their website, see what they're about, see what they do and how they do it. Then see how you can help.

Music Video: Shakira

Many of you have probably already seen the link through my Facebook, but I couldn't help but share it through here.

It all started with a challenge from Shakira: to come up with your own Waka Waka dance in support of 1Goal. 1Goal's purpose is to support universal education.

Hands on Disaster Response, through Lenka, rose to the occasion and organized a dance off in the middle of Leogane. I get teary eyed every time I watch this video. Enjoy!

Really, dude?!

So there I am, driving in the far right lane, minding my own business, driving at a reasonable speed (obviously). I get closer to an intersection, green light, keep my foot on the peddle, and notice there's NO ONE AROUND ME. As I'm about to cross into the intersection, I see a car inching towards the intersection, it's about to make a right hand turn into my direction of traffic. And here's the thing, if you can make that turn before I get to you, by all means. Especially considering the two lanes to my left are COMPLETELY EMPTY. So yeah, make your right turn, just make sure you go over a couple lanes. If out of three lanes you can turn into, two of them are void of oncoming traffic, why on EARTH would you turn into THE ONE lane that has oncoming traffic?? Why?!

So now I'm either slamming on my brakes to give you a chance to speed up, or changing lanes to avoid hitting you. While I'm doing either of these, I'm probably telling you you're an idiot, to myself of course. I understand I'm driving in the "slow" lane, but that doesn't excuse you from being a dorkus major. The only reason I write this is because it's been happening to me quite a bit lately, and I just don't understand why. It seems like common sense to me, if I'm at a red light, about to make a right hand turn, and I see a car on the "slow" lane, and the other two open, yeah, I'll turn, but make sure I move out of your way. Why would I turn into the one lane where I run the risk of being rear ended, or dying from someone's road rage because I just so happened to drive them over the edge by making them slam on their brakes?

Maybe we're losing some common sense?

You scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream!

I was having a conversation with a good friend the other day. A quite important conversation, actually. A conversation about ice cream. Do you guys remember when ice cream trucks came around regularly to neighborhoods? When kids actually played outside, so it was profitable to have an ice cream truck? When you would get all giddy and excited when you heard the music, would run inside the house and beeeeeeeeeeg your mom for a couple bucks (price depends on how old you are...) for an ice cream?

And then...the choices, the decision you had to make was monumental! I wasn’t often able to buy ice cream, so when I did, I had to make sure I picked the right one. You could stand in front of that ice cream truck for hours, if you didn’t feel that he would drive away in two seconds if you didn’t make up your mind. Ninja turtles, red, white and bluc space shuttles, Flintstone pops, big pops, chocolate covered vanilla ice cream cones. These were the decisions that mattered in life. Personally, I knew I could always count on Mr. Pink Panther and his gum ball eyes.

It’s funny that back then, those decisions seemed as monumental to us as our critical decisions now, at least in the eyes of a seven year old. I just wish all my choices were laid out before me, and all I have to do is point and pick!

Research Project!

*Nerd Alert* *Nerd Alert* *Nerd Alert* *Nerd Alert*

When the World Cup began last month, the usual jokes about Guatemala's failure to qualify began. As most of my friends know, I'm the first to admit that our soccer team is terrible. There's a phrase we say over there: "jugaron como nunca, perdieron como siempre." They played like they never have, they lost like they always do. Case in point: a couple years ago we went to watch an Argentina vs. Guatemala match at the LA Coliseum. I knew we would get slaughtered, that was a given. I admitted defeat to my Argentine friends before we even got in the car. That's not to say I didn't support the team, I did, but I was aware of the outcome. (I'll also go on a tangent here and say that the behavior of some of the Guatemalan fans was quite embarrassing. Again, I wasn't shocked. The Argentine's were surprisingly quiet, especially given the 7-0 deficit, but I think they knew the odds they were up against.) Anyhow, there was a Guatemalan father and son sitting behind us. As people started emptying out, the father turned to his son and said, "I'm sorry we lost son." To which the four year old (or so), replied: "we always lose, dad!" There was such innocence casualness in the way he said it, like "duh dad, what did you expect?"

Anyhow, I started thinking about the reasons why some teams always make it past the qualifiers, and why others never seem to make the cut. Obviously talent and leadership are two of the largest factors in determining a teams success. But there are also obvious economic factors: can you pay talented players enough to attract them? Can you attract the right trainers? Can you afford the infrastructure for training? How much money can you invest in soccer, when half of your population is starving? I'm sure it's an obvious conclusion, and I'm not the first to make it. But my curiosity has gotten the best of me, and now I want to see the numbers! This has led me to a research quest: I want to compare advancement in the last 3 or 4 world cups to a countries GDP per capita, see if/what the correlation is between the two.

As Jeff mentioned last night when I was starting my research, I'm sure I could goggle this and find what I'm looking for; I did a quick search and found similar stuff, but nothing like what I really want. I didn't look too deep though. Honestly, I think I want to find out for myself. I'm excited to pretend I'm still in school, gather numbers, make charts and comparisons, and make my own conclusions. So, if you know of similar research, don't tell me until I'm done with mine :) If you have specific suggestions on what correlations I should try to find, please do. As for me, I'm gonna add some more statistical numbers to my excel spreadsheet, yesssssss.

Guatemalan Coffee!

Fresh ground coffee. MmmmmMmmm. Aside from the smell of fresh cut wood, dirt after it just started raining, and maybe Guatemalan smog (not kidding), this is one of my favorite smells. I guess more specifically, fresh ground “quality” coffee. I’ve been drinking coffee probably since I was a baby. Brooke and Jeff can tell you that I’m not usually a coffee snob. As long as I have a pound of creamer and sugar in it, I could care less what the actual coffee tastes like. BUT, that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a good cup of coffee much more than a mediocre one.

Jeff and I had the pleasure of being visited these past few weeks by a good friend from Guatemala, Isabel. Being as amazing as she is, she brought us one of our favorite things: fresh whole bean coffee from Guat. (Our other favorite things from Guatemala: champurradas and black beans). Um, I honestly think this coffee just turned me into a coffee snob. It was ridiculously delicious. I could instantly tell the difference when we ran out of it and we had to go back to our store bought ground coffee. Such sadness of heart.

I was excited about the prospect of purchasing this delicious coffee online, since the label had a website on it. And yes, they actually do sell it online. And it’s actually reasonably priced (roughly ten bucks for a little less than a pound), but as with all things you buy online that are reasonably charged, the shipping charges are ridiculous. So here’s what I’m thinking: let me know who’s interested in getting some, we can pool our money together and just pay for one big lump sum shipping charge!

CICIG Update

The Secretary General of the UN has chosen a successor for Carlos Castresana, who up until recently was the Commissioner for the CICIG. Mr. Francisco Dalle Anese Ruiz is currently the Attorney General in Costa Rica. I haven't read much on the appointment yet, but I hope Mr. Ruiz will try to work some miracles in Guatemala.

Music! Conor Oberst

Came across this through a friend who said he was reminded of it by the title of this little blog of yours.

El cielo es azul! Thanks Reuben for the heads up.