Babble

Babel with Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett and assorted foreigners. An alternate title for this film is "Stupid People Doing Stupid Things", I get the message (I think) the director was trying to give. In our globalized world the deeds of people thousands of miles away have drastic effects on the world we know. It's a message I can approve of but something about the film just didn't stick right with me. Maybe it was the fact that virtually all viewers needed subtitles since the likelihood of someone being fluent in English, Spanish, Japanese and Moroccan are slim. It smacked of the pretentiousness of a director who thought making a film almost exclusively in foreign languages would make him (and the film) seem worldly and intelligent. Also, one can't help but notice the odd unintended moral of the story: the carelessness of Mexicans, Arabs and Asians end up in the near death of beautiful and innocent white Americans.

In other news, I went to a career presentation at the U of A for the Foreign Service. I went in with an open mind but didn't think the program would ultimately appeal to me. But after the presentation I'm giving it some serious consideration. It's a hell of a lot more exciting (and lucrative) than the Peace Corps, which I had also considered joining, and as a diplomat I'd get better accommodations than a thatch hut on an anthill. They mentioned something to the effect of four years of service would finance grad school and pay off student loans. I'd learn languages of the countries I'd be sent to and interact with cultures on diplomatic missions. If I hypothetically made a career of it I could retire at 50. The only problems I see with this is a lack of autonomy; I go where they need me to be and I stay there from anywhere to weeks or years. Which means sure I could get a request to be stationed in Sweden approved then 6 weeks later, "Oops, we need you in Gambia." Also, they said one of the jobs is to explain US foreign policy. Now does that mean I have to advocate Imperialism or just merely diplomatically explain it to the locals while mentioning I personally disagree? There are some places you're not allowed to take children, or even one's wife. That, combined with moving every few months or years to foreign lands might get lonely after awhile. I never got a chance to ask about that part. The diplomacy and traveling bit sounds pretty sweet, and quite compatible with my goals of being an anthropologist. The hang up, as I gather is true in all jobs, is choosing higher pay or higher autonomy. Also, I wonder if doing one for a few years and then doing the other later would impact my chances of getting either job? Would the universities want to sponsor a former government pawn, or would the US government consider someone with potentially years worth of international contacts too great a security risk? Hmmm, things to consider....

Húmedo

The Labor Day trip to Mexico went quite well. Aside from the fact that the first night was so oppressively hot and humid. I have never been in a natural environment that disgustingly sweltering. This of course made going to the clubs all the more interesting. As if drunk girls weren't already predisposed to take off their clothes, in the club it was so hot everyone was taking their shirts off. For those of us that decided to keep our shirts on for modesty's sake, after a little while it looked like we had jumped in the ocean. We were so drenched in sweat we had to leave our shirts out to dry the next day. Also, the clubs, like one would expect in Mexico, were rather seedy, but thankfully not as terrifying as I have heard they can be. The stripper they hired at one club they were filming and projecting onto a giant screen so everyone could watch. Yeah, that was kinda gross. Plus who knows what kind of diseases the drunk frat boys got from her when they were grinding with her.
One interesting side effect of all that profuse sweating was no matter how much free beer and shots we took we never got more than a little buzzed since we sweat it all out. Another unfortunate, but slightly amusing, discovery is that in Mexico all mixed drinks are made with tequila. Kamikazi? Red Bull and vodka? Rum and coke? All made with tequila. One thing we did learn was that amid all the putrid rotgut tequila they were serving at the clubs they also had the smoothest, tastiest tequila any of us had ever encountered: Agavero. As it turns out it's actually a tequila liqueur, which would explain its unique taste. I would also like to thank the gentlemen who bought us those shots, as it takes a special kind of awesome to buy not just for the girls but the guy they're with as well.
The condos we stayed at were simply amazing; beautiful view of the ocean, spacious and such comfortable sofas. The air conditioning was also quite lovely, so lovely in fact that it led to brown outs several times during our stay. The water was quite literally like bath water. To be honest, that first day it was not very refreshing to swim in the ocean. It was almost the same temperature as the air. The water was fine later in the trip, though, good enough for all of us to go swim to a random buoy and prove how out of shape most of us were. In fairness, however, that was the longest I have ever swam in my life.
The trip back was notably long, it took us four hours to get across the border the line was so long. Thankfully we left in the late afternoon so we were in line at night. The other group left before us and were caught in line in the middle of the day. Their car overheated and they were stuck in line with no AC for three hours. The weather really was out to get us the entire trip, but holy crap was it awesome.

Words of the Day:
feckless-ineffective; incompetent; futile.
bathycolpian-Having deep cleavage; deep-bosomed.
and just to be fair: callipygian- having well-shaped buttocks.

The inebriated young man's efforts to woo the pulchritudinous, callipygian and bathycolpian girls proved feckless.