Blogcritics Author: Saint Juanchos

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

In the End, Only Kindness Matters

Saint Juanchos — Fri, 18 May 2007 17:00:13 EDT

I was standing in line at the bank hoping to get some customer service quickly. Half an hour later, it was finally my turn. There had been some problems with my account and, before it could be fixed, I was asked to deposit the money I had come to deposit, quickly, hopefully running, and then come back to speak to the man behind the desk.For some odd reason I couldn’t think (just one of those days,) and I tore up three deposit slips before I got it right. I approached the Automatic Deposit Machine and cringed at the thought of making a mistake or the machine going “Hal” on me (Yes, I’m a Kubrick fan). I wrinkled my forehead and began to press buttons hoping I’d get it right (time was after all ticking at the service desk) when suddenly I heard a voice behind me.“Excuse me, young lady?”I turned around to see an old woman wearing a rusty brown coat that had seen better days. “Ah, yes?”“I don’t know what little paper to use to withdraw money from this account, “ she said in a soft voice while displaying a savings account booklet.“Little paper?” “Yes, you know, for money…“Oh! You mean withdrawal slips. The green ones over there…”The lady hesitated for an instant and stood next to me, looking at my fumbling fingers on the machine.“Could you fill one out for me?”“Ah… ok, just let me finish here.”I had flashing thoughts of the man behind the desk not waiting for me, of something terrible happening at the office while I was away or my boss wondering why I was taking so long. I managed to finish the deposit and looked at the lady.“You know, any other day I’d have all the time in the world, but I’m on office hours, the man behind the desk is waiting for me, and how about I get you a bank guard to help you out?”So I went in search of one, but the only guard around (in one of the biggest banks in Puerto Montt) seemed to be busy directing human traffic towards the many bank lines.“Great,” I said below my breath.I turned to the lady, “Ok, I’ll fill it out for you.”I took a look at the green deposit slip that contained at least ten blank spaces. Walking in a hurry to a small table, I realized it was rude of me to leave the lady behind, but I was getting rather annoyed. Then I felt guilty at being annoyed when asked to help an old lady.I took a deep breath and wondered what God must be thinking of me.I asked her for her information and proceeded to fill out the slip. Then I handed it over for her to sign. She asked me where she had to sign. I showed her, and she asked me again. I showed her again and looked at her.“I want to withdraw this money to fix my house,” she told me. And then as I watched her grab the pen and make a huge effort to write her name it dawned on me.“Young lady, I think the space was too small for me to sign my name. I think I made a mistake.”She was illiterate.The overwhelming feeling of guilt that spread over me is hard to describe. I gently held her by the shoulder and told her that if she or I had made a mistake, the cashier would fill out another deposit slip so she needn’t worry. Then I led her to a shorter line for the elderly while she thanked me three times.I approached the man behind the service desk with an increasing sense of sorrow as I looked over my shoulder to make sure the lady was o.k.

Ms. Saint Juanchos is a part-time blogger, full-time interpreter living in Puerto Montt, Chile. She currently employs her time thinking of ways to make better chicken soup while mentally analyzing the facts of life.

Ladies, Ten Ways to Boost Your Self Esteem

Saint Juanchos — Sat, 5 May 2007 06:59:08 EDT

In view of Hollywood's eternal trend of making their celebrities skinnier and more youthful-looking every day, thus making us normal women feel worse about ourselves, the time has come to fight back and change the way we relate to our bodies and understand the concept of beauty.First things first. As women, beauty is an issue for us. We like to feel beautiful; it's part of our female inner workings. The problem is that the beauty standards the media has imprinted into our brains have very little to do with the average woman. They are, at best, impossible and fascist standards. Women have become enslaved to them.The long road back from slavery is possible. It mainly involves saying no to the system and trying to change the way you perceive your body and those of the women that surround you. More often it would seem beauty is a competition with other women instead of a nice gesture to our guys or a nice gesture to ourselves. Make beauty a thing of gestures more than a competition. Understand that we all can be beautiful, even though we haven't lost those five pounds.The following are some tips that have proven helpful to the guinea pigs my friends and I are: 1. When standing in front of a mirror and taking a look at what you think are "problem areas" (problem areas according to the media's beauty standards), focus on your dazzling smile, killer hair, and great cleavage instead of how you don't have great abs. 2. Take a good look at Rubens' nudes and Renoir's bathing beauties. You will find they are beautiful. If you look like that, you too are beautiful!3. Apply make-up (but not in an amateur way; browse the 'net for information on techniques that will suit you). The high you get from seeing your face come to life is unbeatable.4. Develop a fabulous strut. Try to walk swaying your hips a little. Don't be afraid to get in touch with your feminine side.5. Highlight what you like about yourself by buying clothes that draw attention to these areas. Got a great cleavage? Show it off a little!6. Believe you are beautiful. Think beautiful and live beautiful. Walk on the street and feel beautiful. Hold your head up high, toss your hair, and take a deep breath. If you don't believe you are beautiful, how will others see you as beautiful?7. Smile, smile, smile. Nothing makes a woman seem more attractive than a friendly smile.8. Avoid programs that show impossible beauty. Don't get caught up in the lie!9. Don't be afraid of the mirror. Look at your body and bond with it. Feel those curves and be thankful you are healthy.10. Understand that the most important part of beauty comes from within. Outer beauty fades through time, but inner beauty lasts throughout your whole life. Cultivate your spirit, read, soar, and don't spend so much time in front of that TV!

The World Needs Us

Saint Juanchos — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 21:23:17 EDT

In his 2003 book, El Hombre Light, Enrique Rojas states that men are caught up in a materialistic routine of struggle-to-acquire where values become relative, dreams get lost in concrete jungles, and there are no ideals left for which to fight."Can it be true?" I asked myself. Can idealism. and therefore romance, be dead?Was I alone out there, with my belief in “the one”, though many have told me to “get real”; my daily contemplation of ocean waves while wondering where the day might take me; my habit of calling stray dogs on the street and petting them for no reason other than to make them and me feel good?I refused to believe idealism and romance were dead. "They're merely dormant," I told myself and decided to launch a Dream-More-Dream-Better-Be-An-Idealist-Be-A-Romantic campaign within the confines of my four walls and, well, maybe the Internet.Dreamers, idealists, romantics, closet poets, observers, smilers, closet musicians, amateur writers, existential detectives, seaside walkers, music lovers -- the world needs us!It’s been made cynical by too much Seinfeld and long working hours, overdosed on too much E!, stressed out on all those credit cards that need to get paid and all those many fine products that need to get bought.But we can learn. We can learn to look at the world with the wide eyes of innocence, expecting and hoping for serendipity, believing that every day might bring new ladybugs that will get entangled in our hair and we’ll probably stumble trying to get them out and crash head straight into “the one”. Yes, we need to dream so badly! We need idealism and romance injected straight into our blood torrent.And they are possible, even in the midst of all those bills on the coffee table, the job we may not enjoy all that much, the television that dreams its own dreams for us, the media that numbs us. Viktor Frankl once said that the thought of his wife, the image and feel of her, kept him sane inside the horror of the three concentration camps he stayed at. He survived the camps and went on to write a book that became one of the foundations of existential therapy. I guess you could say Frankl was a dreamer, and remained one even in the face of adversity. Adversity can bring out the best in us, adversity can be a catalyst of dreams. Don't let adversity be an excuse to dream less.So next time you’re feeling blue, grab your partner, play that Unchained Melody and dance in the middle of your kitchen. Dare to become a hopeful romantic, a crazy dreamer, and a stubborn idealist. Remember, the world needs more of us.

Ten Reasons Why We Latinas like Older Men

Saint Juanchos — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 17:06:11 EDT

A couple of nights ago, a group of different-aged women and I were chatting in the kitchen. We had just met, really, introduced by my landlady and we hit it off really well. There were four of us, one single (me), one a widow (my mother), the other divorced (my landlady), and the last one also divorced and dating (my landlady’s sister).Over coffee and cigarettes, we began to discuss men (what else can four single women do?) and I quickly realized that we Latinas follow a pattern. Whenever I get into the “men” discussion with friends and acquaintances I see that Latinas usually like older men. The reasons range from the physical to the emotional and end up in the intellectual realm. You see, Latin American men in general (please note that I say “in general”) are different from their counterparts whose personality was shaped in the Northern Hemisphere. There are positive traits of course, like a Latin man’s warmth of character and their very physical nature, which involves public demonstrations of affection (and private ones as well). Nothing makes a woman feel better than to know she is wanted and that her mate is not afraid to show it. Latin men are usually tender, romantic, and very sweet.But sadly, these traits don’t seem that amazing when we begin to think about all the other things that turn us off.First of all, the “kangaroo syndrome” thrives in Latin America (men and women who live with their parents well into their early thirties). This is mainly due to the fact that in Latin America, colleges and universities are located inside the cities, so very few people have to move out when they’re 18. So much for maturing away from home. Secondly, it is very difficult to work and study at the same time. Salaries in Latin America are low and the working hours long. So actually holding an 8-to-7 job and on top of that studying nights becomes quite a feat. And the possibility of a part-time job is scarce. I live in Chile, the country with the best economy in all of South America, and over here, very few people can handle working and studying. And the salaries in this “country on the road to development” are, well, you guessed it, low. Just imagine what the rest of Latin America is like. So the above entails getting your first job at 24 and until that time, living off your parents. There goes maturity gained through hard work and financial independence.So, topping the list at number one : 1. We like older men because they are more mature, their lives having been shaped by their previous experience of living on their own and holding a steady job.2. We like the wrinkles around their eyes and the gray hair at the temples. It gives them character.3. We love the fact that they can actually invite us out because now they can afford to.4. We like their cultural baggage, that they have more knowledge gained through a longer life span (more books read, more movies watched, etc).5. We like how they protect us, instead of us mothering them.6. We like their anecdotes. When you’re 40+ years old you must have a lot of anecdotes.7. We dig their car. And are thankful they actually own a car.8. We like the fact that they are gentle, and usually know how to properly treat a woman.9. We like that they are quieter, less of the party animals they used to be when younger.10. We like that they have lived long enough to realize that appreciating women for who they really are is of the utmost importance.Of course, finding an eligible older man who isn’t married or divorced is a whole other story. But we can always dream. And keep our fingers crossed.

The Point is Living an Extraordinary Existence

Saint Juanchos — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 09:20:31 EDT

The daily hassle, the trying to make ends meet, the never ending work routine, the cabs that won't stop when you're running late, and the bills that keep piling up - in short, all the bits and pieces of a struggle that just wear you out. On occasion, it makes you wonder what the point is of it all.The point, my friends, is living. Contrary to what the media will have you believe, you will not be famous (not even for 10 minutes) and you will not be a millionaire. The bills will keep piling up and you will be stuck to a routine. When your car breaks down (because you only have one and it might not be a Mercedes), you might be forced to hail a cab.You are a normal, run of the mill human being. What is so wrong with that? Nothing at all. Every individual is a microcosm - unique, glorious in its complexity, dazzling in its happiness, touching in its sorrow, and heartbreaking in its weakness. If we could only see ourselves for who we are: a spirit encased in a body of flesh, a spirit that could soar were it not for the mental entrapments that weigh us down - then wouldn't we find some of that happiness, or at least the contentment we all long for?Yes, the media will continue to bomb your brain cells with messages that are only detrimental: you are not cool enough, you are not thin enough, you are not successful enough, you need this product in your life so badly, you need more income, you need a credit card, and the lives of the rich and famous are so much more interesting than your own.As Jeunet's extraordinary film Amelie states so well, every life, no matter how ordinary, can become something extraordinary if you choose to live it that way. Thinking we have only sixty or seventy years on this earth, do we not want to live better and dream better? Make our lives a simple yet extraordinary chain of events?I walk by the ocean, breathing the salty air, thinking I am starting anew in one of the southernmost cities in the world. I am scared, perhaps, of beginning from scratch and trying to make some sense out of this thing we call living.I now realize I spent many years striving for things that in the long run, do not account for happiness or joy or even contentment. I was trying to achieve what the media would had me believe was the best way my life could unfold. I was trying to look the way the media told me I should look. I owned what the media told me was pleasurable to own. I thought my un-extraordinary life was not the way I had pictured it in my teens. I didn't have a house or a car and I did not have a great, glamorous job. I was 28 years old and still not married. My family and friends would give their opinion, "I think you should find a job where you can make more money." "When are you going to buy a house; you're already 28?" "Any boyfriend yet?" "You know, you'd look great if you lost three pounds."I hadn't conquered the world as I thought I would when I was a teen, and in the eyes of many I seemed to be a bit of a 28 year-old failure. Did I ever take the time to just sit down and process? Could it be that society (and the media, above all) has shaped our minds in such a way that anything falling outside the media's notion of success (money, a career, a house, a great car, vacations abroad, and impossible beauty) is looked upon as a failure? "He's really successful. He's a top engineer. He has a gorgeous wife, makes a ton of money, and you should see where he lives." Is this the way we define a life as successful? How about the issue of living among others? Did I ever take the time to look around and notice there is pain? Did I notice if I just listened a bit more, I could help - and that helping another person find comfort was in itself an extraordinary achievement? What a waste to spend most of my life striving for others and the notions of happiness they conveyed to me.I had to lose everything: my job, my house, my prized material possessions and be left out in the open to realize that you only live once, that life, as it is, is precious. You don't need what you don't have. Every life is a chance to do the best we can, under dire circumstances or pleasurable ones. Every single one of us can achieve something extraordinary, no matter how simple it appears in the eyes of others.This is a truth that liberates us. It allows us to dream better, allows us to smile even when the bills pile up or when we sit at our desk in our rather unglamorous job. It is a truth that allows us to look at others and give them our broadest grin. This just might be the core of a successful life and the point of living - to live true to your heart, not to the TV screen, to live true to others and perhaps, if you're tuned in enough, you'll catch a glimpse of the extraordinary even in your morning latte.So give thanks for what you have and for what you don't. Smile and hold your head up high, every day is a brand new possibility to live better.I have found grace in my journey. May you find grace in yours.

Welcome to the Third World

Saint Juanchos — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 12:34:02 EDT

So, you thought your life was difficult. Traffic jams every morning on your way to work, Starbucks way too crowded, Britney Spears sporting a shaved head - ah, the perils of life in the developed countries of the Western World. Try getting up every morning and going outside into the freezing cold, lighting a match, and placing it inside a stainless steel contraption called a "calefón" which will ignite after say, 20 seconds - during which time you cannot let go of the ignition knob. You have to do this every time you want warm water. Sound barbaric? Welcome to Chile. A long, thin strip of land located in the Southern Hemisphere, Chile runs alongside Argentina, separated by a chain of mountains called "Los Andes" and facing the Pacific on its western shore. Living in a Third World country such as Chile entails having a good sense of humor (especially every morning when you light the "calefón") and understanding that, as is the case in most Third World countries, you will experience things that definitely shake your foundations.You will see major political scandals involving misused government funds and no one to account for it, public transportation systems that don't work when implemented and putting the very presidency in danger as a result, devastating effects of unplanned capitalism on the lower classes (the culture of low salaries and high consumption), and high rates of unemployment that increase delinquency, even though the news say otherwise. You might find a Starbucks in Santiago, the nation's capital, but a cup of hot coffee will probably cost you your firstborn. Is it all bad? Well the "calefón" part is really bad. The rest is, so to speak, charming as you discover it along the way, and it even makes you ponder the facts of life - the important ones, that is. Next time you're hyperventilating in a traffic jam, remember that you took a nice hot shower in the morning with instant hot water and that your job, which you probably hate, pays a lot better than mine. It even enabled you to buy a car, something I can't even dream of without giving my soul as collateral.Count your blessings; after all, you're living in the First World.