Castro`s Kids Call for a Change

Habana, Cuba. With over half of Cuba`s population being 15 – 45, the word on the street is looking for change. 32 year old Yoani Sànchez has become a leader of liberalism through her controvertial blog which is breaking through previous forbidden barriers. Through Generaciòn X, Sànchez reports on the day to day hassles of life in Cuba: the food shortages at her 12 year old`s school; the daunting difficulties young couples face when they want to move from the family home. “I want to see how far we can posh the walls of this regime“, she proclaims, as she uses her site to draw awareness to change and the ideas that surround it.

Using a quote from Karl Popper stating that tolerance should not reach the intolerant because it ends up negating itself as a real posibility of existance. “La tolerancia no debe llegar hasta los intolerantes, porque termina negándose a sí misma como posibilidad real de existencia”.

http://generacion-x.blogspot.com/2006/05/cuba-juregui-aconseja-abandonar.html

What colour are you today?

Check out this article:

http://style.uk.msn.com/wellbeing/mindbodysoul/article.aspx?cp-documentid=7702500

´I am yellow´ was what I wrote on my FB profile morning. Baffled, the lovely Jenny wondered, ‘Why are you yellow mate?´ Today Beatriz is purple and George is rather grayish blue. Being a colourist (and not someone who dyes hair) I often find myself thinking about days, people, memories in colours. Not sure where this first came from, colours play a huge part in my wardrobe, casa and certainly classroom! Yellow seems to be the happy shade, green for mellow times with splashes of orange or naranja at intervals or madness.

Can we really express our emotions through colours?

Spending all day with such an eclectic mix of growing minds, life is diverse. Also, working in a profession that requires so much positive influences, enthusiasm and thought, I seem to ask myself every morning what colour I am? Meaning what mood am I in. Being so aware how my mood encompasses everything I am paid to do, communicate, inspire and more importantly, the develop and nurture the minds of my students. Teaching when your in a bad mood can hell on earth. Like a black cloud that won`t dispurse…a nagging woman who really does create a mountain out of a molehill! ahh! Whereas in contrast, yellow days are electric, energy flys to the moon and back, which both inspires and encourages leaving students believe that by follwing their dreams they really can do anything!

I teach a girl who sees people through colours. Her concepts of trust, friendships and knowledge about different situations are expressed in kaleidoscope colours. Knowing her well, in some ways it is her safety net, and also a pretty common sense way of working out what is good and not. Although, at times, her ideas blow my mind! She feels peoples aura and interprets the things they often want to hide. Telling me every morning my colour, I can infact confirm the acuracy of her predictions.

Taking this theory, can we use colours to give off different auras or is impossible to hide your true colour?

Are we attracted to people because of their colour? I know I most certainly am, give me a olive green man anyday, ain`t that right Han! (My sister and I like Olive men, I will leave that to be explained in another posting!)

Is it our colour that makes us live the way we do?

I leave you with these thoughts to think about!

So…what colour are you?

Replies greatly recieved! x

Fancy dress in Mexico

Welcome to a place where Men wear make up and tights (only for dressing up).  There are more fancy dress occasions that university times and the clothes are so cheap!!

When you think of Mexico, the general image of a tequila swilling machismo wearing a sombrero in the desert surrounded by Cactus´. Or again, a serenading Mariarchi. Since living here I have come to realise that is as realistic as British people having toilets at the bottom of their gardens or drinking tea at 4pm. Instead, the national love of dressing up is internationally anonymous to the outside world.

TBC!!

A Cup of delight!

Like trying on clothes from the Chloe spring wear, Magnolia Cup Cakes just as pretty, pastel and won´t wash you out or make you like you are really too old to be wearing such clothes.  They´re also a damn sight cheaper than the dresses my Sister and I were tempted by in Betsy Johnson last weekend!

So instead of damaging the credit cards, we found great pleasure in indulging in two rather small but perfectly formed cup cakes from Magnolia Bakery.  With shiny hundreds and thousands sequencing the cakes, those SITC followers will be familiar with the reputation of this Bleaker Street collection.  Available in flavours that fit in with your style, be in Red Velvet, powder pink, baby blue, lavender and rich and chocolate or as we found in the lead up to spring; mint greens, fresh peach and all things little bow peep!

So indulge and enjoy… with one being the operative word!

You really should come and visit!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/arts/design/29kahl.html”>

Check out this article on Mexico City. The kidnap alerts and pollution overload stories are breaking through to reveal the real reason this place is so addictive!

Come and see for yourself!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/arts/design/29kahl.html”>”>

Prince Harry in Afghanistan

After all the press protests, so it is that our Harry had been in Afghanistan all along. Well it makes sense really, I love the way he has had us all fooled! Go Harry!

Read about it….

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/feb/28/military.afghanistan

It certainly would be make interesting conversation in the palace!

Actually, Love is all around….

Being a Brit I can`t help being anything but synical about St Valentine`s day of love. Thinking about how school girls dream about being serenaded by a guy who is really too immature to have a clue what it is all about.

Magazines create propaganda campaigns of how a guy who really loves you should behave. Distasteful teddy bears and oversized tacky cards sell in droves; all in the name of Love.

The day seems to be responsible for a huge calorie intake amongst disappointed singletons and also, I wonder how may one nights stands or ex`s are contacted around this time? I actually started dating one boyfriend on 13th February. Maybe it was something to do with St Valentine that he found the courage ask me out?

Not realising it was Valentine`s day this year, I became ingrossed in a conversation in the staffroom in which a single colleague was asking her friends how romantic their evening would be. The tone in her voice and the wincing way she questioned, showed her disappointment at spending the day alone. Seemly distressed, she continued to pry in the preparations and replying that she would spend the day `all by herself`. The day was traumatically like an a uncelebrated birthday for her. The poor girl was clearly feeling at a loss. Why did St Valentine decide the day was only for lovers? Why can`t it to show love the people we love?

Here in Mexico City, Dia de Amor y La Amistad is just that. These people don`t need an excuse to exert their feelings. The official kissing capital of the world, it is pretty impossible not to spend a day without being kissed even if it is only on the cheek. Love is seen in the smallest of ways. Kissing in plazas, opening of doors, families spending time together. Chocolates. Roses. Serenading Mariachi`s over dinner. Only today, a student gave me three chocolates..just because? Being used to it, I have stopped asking just because what?

Here Dia de Amor y La Amistad is super special too although for everyone and not just lovers. Girls arrived at school with bunches of roses for their best friends, boys arrive with dozens and share them around. Even boys like to recieve roses. Teachers, whatever than means, in England it would result in months or even years of ridicule for giving your teacher a rose. I recieved three. In class we ate chocolates from pink paper and wrote love sonnets.

Spending my evening with Anglos was quite the contrary. We ate french crepes and talked about Valentine`s day. Swinging became the topic of the day. Is our western concept so detatched from old fashioned love that people see love and sex as totally different entities? I hope not…Some of my friends think swinging is justifiable and can strengthen relationships. Oh dear, I think. Maybe I am still clouded by the movies and fairytales. While others, need one night stands to keep them sane. Comparing these notions, it sounds too egocentric for good old fashioned selfless loving.

So next year change your ways….instead of splashing out on a new tie for your spouse or perpetuating sympathy for feeling unloved if you don`t recieve a floral bouquet. Share the love with those you love. Bake some treats, write a poem or two, some catch up emails and smile…for love is love and it is all around if we chose to see it and not wrapped in shiny red paper.

New year…new times

So here is where it all begins..as Stiff Gins said it…this is where it all began.  2008 in Mexico City, a place I never imagined I would be.  Not ever.

New Years Resolutions  as they stand this year.

1 Write

2 Write more…articles, reviews, humourous pieces.

3 Complete a book, yep, you heard it, to the level of publication. Being an ideas magnet who takes longer than the norm to actually put my ideas into practice, well unless it involves arranging other people, my students, holidays with friends, that kind of thing.  This year is about grafting, producing the real macoy..something with bite.  Like the spicy salsa that makes the drab salad edible and the thoughtful email that makes you fall into his hands. Something solid.

4 To critique, edit and appriciate writing.

5

What food are you?

Food..food food..it`s what we think about all day, right? Well, for some of us it is…eating is enjoyable and makes the day pass quicker. It is if you are a foodly like me. Food is the very essence of life as we know it. Thinking about what to eat be it green and healthy, carb free, laxo free or on the otherhand indulgently creamy and high colesterol can be a mindfield for the most intelligent of us.

Embracing culture is most pleasurable through flavours…we can simple travel all over the world without even leaving the kitchen or better still have the pleasure of someone making it for you! Take Mexican food for example; the full bodiedness of culture is as mouthwatering as tacos al pastor at 4am, as addictive as salsa roja and also as zesty like limes. Surviving without them for some Mexicans is pure impossible. A friend of mine`s daughter told me she couldn`t live the cleaned air haven of Aspen, Canada as they don`t have oaxacan cheese or limes!

This weekend I am visiting my sister in New York…the food is such a huge part of visiting the US, symbolising the variety of cultures, wholesome choices of some and also the extremities of the sweet taste sensations. Where in the world is there a whole aisle dedicated to sugared toppings for bread? We all know the obisity statistics.

I`m looking forward to eating a dense cookie without my weightwatchers book preventing that from happening, the opportunity to taste the deep flavours…rich, like a homemade yorkshire pudding only sweet. Eating eggs benedict rather than my usual all bran and banana. Choosing a unique salad from a range of more ingredients than I thought were possible and most of all. Drinking Cosmopolitans for Dinner!

Going home also back food habits. Where in the world do I suddenly find cravings for stuffing on toast? Or here, in Mexico city, eating chilli on mangos. They just don`t taste the same without!

One of my students sees the world in colours. To her, I am yellow or green, varying in shades depending on the day. Imagine a world of Gilliam Mckeith`s dreams where people are food. In this circumstance it could actually be interesting to be yellow or green although not a sicky shade in the middle. Rather that than pink, blue or even purple. I have visions of E numbered candy floss and teeth rotting blue alchopops. All in all, Blue food is so wrong. I think I will stick to being Mangos and Spinach.

Feliz Año Nuevo

Hello from Me. Since 2008 is the year of communication for Scorpios. I have decided to do just that…rather than just voice my experiences, ideas and thoughts, I am also going to log them or should I say blog them.