Today I went to the UIC Theater to see Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. I really wasn’t sure what to expect because I had no idea what the play was about other than I knew that the title characters came from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Well, last week I saw Hamlet at the UIC Theater and I liked the production so much that I decided that I would see Stoppard’s play today. Okay, so I’ll never make a living writing reviews, but I thought today’s play started out rather slowly. There were some witty interchanges between Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but sometimes it didn’t hold my interest. Well, I actually dozed off for a couple minutes in the beginning of the play.
I supposed it wouldn’t have been so bad if I weren’t sitting in the very front row in the middle right in front of the actors. So there I was front and center. When I woke up, Rosencrantz was staring at me. I felt so embarrassed! After that I tried not to fall asleep again. But I dozed off again–at least two more times. However, no actor noticed me this time.
So about the play, well, since it is a spinoff of Hamlet and it was also produced by the UIC theater department, I was happy to see the same actors reappear. Some of Hamlet’s scenes were repeated for Stoppard’s play. It was very interesting, even though I fell asleep a few times.
Eduardo Garcia was the only real Mexican in the neighborhood. And no one could talk him out of it. Eddy, as he was known, was the neighborhood bully, the terror of the classroom, and the pride and joy of his parents. He had a stocky build, red hair, freckles, blue eyes, and light skin. But he still looked Mexican. His sister Graciela, who greatly resembled Eddy but looked even more Mexican, was also in our grade at Holy Cross School with Eddy and me.
Eddy was a year behind in school because he was so smart, or so he told us. I remember once in the second grade, before school started, he took off his belt and started hitting me with it. I tried unsuccessfully to defend myself. Eddy was much bigger than me. Then the school bell rang and we went in to school. Sister Bartholomew saw that I was crying and asked me why. I tried to tell her in my best English, but the class laughed when I said, “Eddy hitted me with his strap.” Of course, Eddy denied everything in a very believable fashion and that was the end of that incident.
Over the years, Eddy acted as if we were friends. One day, he invited himself to my house after school even though I made all kinds of excuses why he couldn’t come over. I was afraid of him ever since he hit me with his belt. He didn’t listen to me and he came over to house at 4546 S. Marshfield Avenue anyway. He was surprised that the hallway door was always unlocked. He saw my bike in the second-floor hallway outside our apartment door. We never locked the bikes up because no one knew the bikes were there. The next day, my bike is gone. My mother called the police and we go to Eddy’s house to look for my bike. I had described it in detail to the police. I only found the wheels of my bike on another bike. Well, the police made Eddy give me the wheels immediately. And he had to give me the rest of the bike by the next day, or I could call the police again and they would come back with me to Eddy’s house for my bike. Sure enough, the next day, the rest of my bike is in my hallway. After that, Eddy didn’t talk to me very much anymore, much to my relief. I think he over-reacted and took the entire incident way too personally.
A few years later, we were sitting on the stairs of the field house at Davis Square Park just hanging out until dark, but before curfew, on a warm summer night. It was one of those nights where we were all bonding talking about everything and anything. That night, everyone there at the park was Mexican, except for Chuck, the wannabe Mexican who was actually more Mexican than some of the actual Mexicans there.
Anyway, someone started talking about a previous trip to Mexico and soon everyone began recounting his or her favorite trip to Mexico. Suddenly, Eddy showed up. No one in our group liked him, but everyone was afraid of him. Eddy asked what we were talking about and we told him Mexico. He smiled and immediately took over the conversation, cutting off anyone who tried to say anything. Eddy asked a few questions of everyone such was when and where and how and what they did in Mexico.
Then, he said, “You call that going to Mexico? That’s not going to Mexico!” We knew better than to contradict him. “When I went to Mexico,” he continued, “we drove there in a pickup truck. That’s going to Mexico. I didn’t go to a city and live in a house with relatives. No! I rode on horseback away from all the cities and I slept in a tent. I wore a holster with guns and I hunted for my own food. That’s going to Mexico!”
Well, no one said anything and Eddy finally left. We were relieved when he did. But he really ruined the wonderful night we were having until he showed up. We all agreed that we should all pitch in and send him back to Mexico.
Perhaps I spend way too much time on the Internet. But I don’t think so. Am I addicted? Of course not. I could walk away from the computer at any time! I mean, once I finish this blog entry. And, I’ll stay away from my computer until my next blog entry tomorrow. So you see? I’m not addicted to the Internet!
Okay, I must admit that I have been using computers ever since Bill Gates invented MS-DOS and lifted the C:> prompt from UNIX, with enough slight modifications to make it look original. And, I’ve been using Instant Messages even before AOL offered IMing to their subscribers.
My friend Vito showed me how to send an Instant Message at UIC in 1991. We used to IM each other all the time. In a school of about 25,000 students, there were only about five of us at UIC IMing each other. I would always check to see who was online and then IM them. I really enjoyed IMing strangers out there in cyber space. I’m not even sure why. Now that I think of it, I’ve always loved talking to strangers since I was little–even when they weren’t listening.
Anyway, over the years, I’ve met a lot of people in cyber space through IMing and chat rooms. I love talking to total strangers and I’ve met a few interesting ones. One that I occasionally remember is joie.
One day, out of the blue, she IMs me. How she found me, I’ll never know. I did the asl thing and she told me she was f/27/Phillipines. That is the one thing I noticed about about every female I ever met on the Internet: She is always 27! I mean, ALWAYS!
So I met joie, her screen name, about four years ago when she introduced herself to me. I figured she was just another scammer, so I didn’t take her too seriously. Usually, I just like to chitchat online for awhile and then I never hear from that person again. And usually that’s how it happens.
However, joie was very persistent. I tried everything to discourage her from getting too involved with me, but she insisted. I was too old for her I told her. She lived too far away. Nothing dissuaded her. Age was not a barrier. She was actually an American dental student from Illinois. Her English was very good so I believed her. But something was really amiss. I just couldn’t figure out what it was. I kept waiting for her to ask for money or to lay some sort of scam on me. Then one day, I didn’t hear from her anymore.
About a year later, I receive another IM from joie. This time she’s in Singapore. But I thought she was in the Philippines! She told me that she was never even in the Philippines. And, get this, she was still 27! Just to confirm that she was the same person with whom I had spoken before, I asked her to describe me, which she did better than I had expected because she remembered almost every personal fact about me that I had told her.
She still had the same screen name, so I asked her what it meant. Again she told me that is was an acronym for “just on internet enough.” But something was wrong. But what? I still don’t know. Anyway, she still insisted that when she finished her dental internship in Singapore, she would return to Elgin, Illinois, so she could marry me. I could feel the scam coming on.
But wait! She was very serious and sincere about the whole thing. When we chatted, she always wrote in perfect English with very few typos. She was actually quite witty. Then one day, she says that she wants to e-mail me a very personal letter so that I may understand her better. In this letter, she explains how her father had died when she was fourteen. When her mother remarried, her stepfather raped her several times until she went away to college. She was afraid of what he would do to her, so she never reported the rapes. I didn’t know what to make of this letter.
When she IMed me the next time, I told her I was very sorry for what had happened to her. Anyway, she still wanted to marry me. I had been telling her all along that we would never get married for all the reasons that I had alread enumerated to her. But she was persistent! Then she sent me some pictures of herself. They were obviously taken by a professional photographer. She was definitely American, or so I thought as I saw her pictures. She was very pretty with short brown hair and blue eyes. Then, I don’t hear from her for about three months. I figured I would never hear from her again. Good riddance!
Well, one day, three months later, she IMs me again. Why hadn’t she IMed before? She was sick. I keep pressing her for more information and she finally tells me. She has malaria. I don’t really believe her. I’m sure that this time she’ll ask for money. But no! She doesn’t. She is continuing her dental internship despite her illness. She is bedridden for days. Some days, she interrupts our chat so that she can go to the doctor. She promises me that she will get better and then she’ll come to Illinois to marry me.
I keep telling her that we’ll never get married, but she’s persistent. Then, she suddenly stops IMing me. I figured she got sucked up by that mythical black hole in cyber space. Then, I receive this unexpected e-mail from her. She tells me how sad it was that we never got together. She even wrote a poem for me, or so she wrote in her e-mail. In the poem, she writes about all the things we missed out because we never met: our first kiss, getting caught in the rain, walking hand in hand, etc.
About a year later, joie IMs me again. She still has the same screen name, she’s still 27, she’s still in Singapore, she still has malaria, and she still knows enough personal facts about me for me to be sure it’s her.
However, she begins talking to me as if she had never met me. She tells me some facts about herself that I don’t recognize. For example, now she is no longer from Elgin, Illinois. She sends me some more pictures of herself. Only she is no longer white. She’s inexplicably black now. I broach the subject subtlely. But she insists that I’m mistaken.
I’m sure she only wants money from me. But she doesn’t ask for any. I am obviously IMing the same person as before, but something is terribly wrong! What? I don’t know. Suddenly, she stops all communication to me. And that was the last I heard of her. And she never even once asked me for money. I was always awaiting some sort of scam that never materialized.
This joie will always remain an enigma to me. Luckily, I knew better than to get emotionally attached to her. Who she was or what she wanted from me, I’ll never know! But I did learn to be “just on Internet enough.” No more, no less. That’s my joie de vivre.
I don’t know why, but I always wanted to learn Spanish. Although Spanish was my first language, I wanted to study Spanish formally in school. I wanted to read and write in Spanish, too, in addition to English. Both my father and mother spoke Spanish, but they grew up in different regions of Mexico so they each spoke a dialect that was different enough from each other, whichsometimes confused me. But I knew enough Spanish to communicate with just about anyone. When selecting my classes freshman year at Divine Heart Seminary, I picked Spanish I. The counselor looked at me suspiciously, which I didn’t understand why at the time. It never occurred to me that anyone would think I was trying to get an easy A. After the first Spanish class, Señor Mordini, the Spanish teacher, asked me why I was in Spanish I. I panicked, thinking that he wouldn’t let me take Spanish. I told him that I wanted to learn to read and write Spanish. He told me that I didn’t belong in that Spanish class. He was moving me ahead to Spanish II. I resisted. I told him that I wasn’t ready, but he insisted, and since I would still be in a Spanish class, I agreed. In my sophomore year, I enrolled for Spanish III and French I. No one understood why I wanted to study two foreign languages. I had always wanted to know many languages. I learned a lot of Spanish with Señor Mordini, more than enough to read and write in Spanish. Plus, I was learning French, too.
At Thanksgiving break of my sophomore year , my mother finally agreed to let me leave the seminary; I never wanted to attend the seminary in the first place. However, she didn’t let me enroll in a private Catholic high school as I had expected. I attended a Chicago public school in the Canaryville neighborhood called Tilden Technical High School. Since I transferred in the middle of the academic year and from a private school to a public one, the counselors had problems scheduling classes for me. I insisted that I wanted to take Spanish. The counselor told me, “But you know Spanish!” I said, “But I can’t read and write Spanish.” I persisted and the counselor finally put me in Spanish IV. I was very disappointed the first day of Spanish class because the Spanish teacher taught verb conjugations that most high school students learn in the first year. This class was really behind. After the first Spanish class, the Spanish teacher took me down to the counselor’s office and said that I knew too much Spanish to be in her class. She was afraid I would intimidate the rest of the students. I insisted that I wanted to take Spanish. I even offered to go into a higher level class, if necessary, but that was the highest-level Spanish class, even though they were so far behind. I really wanted to learn to read and write Spanish I told them. They insisted I already knew Spanish. “No, I don’t,” I said. “Why do I have to take English?” I asked. “I already know English.” “You don’t know English!” the counselor told me. “That’s the same reason I want to take Spanish. I don’t know Spanish,” I said. Well, I lost that argument, but the counselor couldn’t figure out how to fill the void left by the Spanish IV class that I wasn’t allowed to take. I said I wanted to take French. “But why?” the counselor asked in disbelief. “You don’t have to take a foreign language. This school doesn’t have a foreign language requirement!” “I want to take French,” I insisted. “I took French I this term at my last school.” Finally, the counselor looks for a French class. “You’ll have to take French III,” she said. “It’s the only French class that fits in your schedule.”
I was glad to at least have a chance to learn a foreign language. At first, I was afraid to say I wasn’t ready for French III, but then I remembered how far behind the Spanish IV class was. However, I wasn’t ready for what I was about to experience. The first day of class, I walk in and greet my classmates, “Bon jour!” My classmates stared at me with their mouths hanging open. It was as if I were speaking a foreign language to them. I soon discovered why. Our French teacher Mr. Hansen never actually spoke French in class. Ever! He didn’t actually teach anything, either. He was a rotund, middle-aged man with gray, balding hair who never had very much energy. He showed up to class on time wearing a suit and tie and sat at his desk at the front of the class while the class discussed everything going on in their personal lives. If Mr. Hansen found the conversation interesting, he would occasionally join in. The students didn’t mind since he wasn’t a very demanding teacher. I started at Tilden near the end of November and in December, the students were worried about their French III grade because the marking period was rapidly approaching. Mr. Hansen reassured us that we were all passing. Then, he made the big announcement. After Christmas vacation, the teachers were going on strike, so we wouldn’t have classes for about a month or two. After the strike, Mr. Hansen planned to have his annual heart attack and he wouldn’t return to school until after spring break. And he kept his word, too. The succession of substitute teachers taught us French just as competently as Mr. Hansen even though none of them had ever studied French! When Mr. Hansen returned to school in April, he said he would have to test us in order to give us our final French grade. The class panicked. No one wanted to study. Then Mr. Hansen announced that in order to get an A, you had to bring in your French-English dictionary to class. I just happened to have mine with me–I always brought it with me just in case we actually studied French in class by some unexpected miracle–and all the class glared at me in disgust. Well, I had my instant A, but the rest of the class was worried. This was French III and no one had ever bought a French-English dictionary! Silly me! I bought mine immediately after the first day of French I!
Then, my mother bought a house near Marquette Park and I had to transfer to Gage Park High School the next year. When scheduling my classes, I knew better than to ask to study a foreign language. So, I didn’t enroll for one. Sometime during the end of the year, the Spanish teacher, Señor Martinez from Ecuador, came to one of my classes and asked me to step into the hallway. He was recruiting Spanish-speaking students for a special Spanish class that he himself would teach the next year. I told him about what had happened to me at Tilden, and he reassured me that this class would be different. So, against my better judgment, I enrolled in his class. The next year, I was actually excited to go my Spanish class because I would finally learn to read and write Spanish fluently. On the first day of class, I see a lot of my friends who are native Spanish speakers. The classroom is filled with Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Ecuadorians, Filipinos, and others. Then, Miss Brewer walks into the classroom and announces that she is our teacher! What? She wasn’t a native speaker of Spanish. The entire class was disappointed. What happened to Señor Martinez? Miss Brewer repeated that she was our Spanish teacher and that was the end of the discussion. That would have been fine except for the fact that most of the class spoke better Spanish than her. But she insisted that she knew Spanish because she had spent a month in Puerto Rico the previous summer. Spanish was our worst class for most of us that year. Apparently, no one in the class knew Spanish, according to Miss Brewer. Hardly anyone got an A for the class and a few native Spanish speakers actually failed!
When I finally arrived at UIC, I was hesitant to take Spanish, but I told myself, “It’s now or never!” I took a Spanish placement test, which is multiple choice. I scored very poorly because I would choose the answer according to what I remembered hearing in Spanish. Apparently, much of what I had heard was improper usage. Then, I had to take another placement exam in the Spanish department. I was told to write in Spanish about why I wanted to study Spanish. It had been years since I had written letters in Spanish to my Tía Jovita in México. I surprised myself when I wrote. Some things came back to me instinctively. I was placed in the first semester in a class for bilingual speakers. Finally, I would learn to read and write Spanish!
My youngest brother Joseph’s name should have started with the letter D.
J should have been D. But he wasn’t. He was J. And for an incredibly good reason. My mother said so!
Well, I’ve already talked about my mother’s naming process in my previous blog entries. My parents had six children: David Diego, Daniel, Diego Gerardo, Dick Martin, Delia Guadalupe, and Joseph Luis. All of names started with D–except for Joseph (which starts with J and not D, as I’m sure you probably noticed. I have always admired the intelligence of my readers!).
The other notable oddity in the naming process is Daniel who has no middle name! I was less than two years old when Daniel was born, so I have no idea why he has no middle name. Were we too poor to afford a middle name for Daniel? Was my mother mad at my father for getting her pregnant again and so she denied my father Diego yet again the opportunity of having a son named Diego? I really don’t know because neither my father nor mother ever talked about how Daniel got his name. To this day, Daniel’s lack of a middle name remains one of the great mysteries of our family.
Before my youngest brother Joseph Luis was born, my parents were in the middle of a hostile separation and later a contentious divorce. How my mother got pregnant was a mystery to me even back then because I hardly ever saw them together for about a year. But somehow, she got pregnant. And my father was proud of the fact that he had gotten her pregnant.
However, there was never any doubt that Joseph was my father’s son because when Joseph was older, many people thought he and I were twins. The resemblance was that strong. So how did he come to be named Joseph Luis? Well, he was born in August of 1968, days after our Uncle Joseph, my father’s much younger brother, died in Viet Nam.
I remember when my Uncle Placido called to say he had to visit us to tell us something particularly important. He came after my brothers and I were already in bed, so I knew he had something important to say. I listened from my bedroom, which was right next to the kitchen where they sat. I heard my Uncle Placido say that my Uncle Joseph had died in Viet Nam. I could hear both my mother and father crying. I cried, too, in my bedroom. So, my mother named my brother Joseph in his memory. That was actually an incredibly good reason not to follow the D rule in naming us.
Our Uncle Joseph was everyone’s favorite uncle. He loved playing with all his nephews and nieces. Everyone cried when he died. It was the longest funeral procession I had ever seen–and I lived by a funeral home, so I saw a lot of funeral processions!
My father was one of his pall bearers. The day after the funeral, my father couldn’t get up out of bed. He was paralyzed from the waist down. Whether his paralysis was physical or psychosomatic was never determined, not even by the doctor who came to our house to treat my father. After about a week, my father just got up out of bed and started walking again. He wanted to go to work again.
Chicago USA 