Inception and Math

I went and saw Inception yesterday; it was fantastic! There were some inconsistencies in the plot, like what happens when people get shot (Do they die?? do they go back up one level?? Does it depend on their level of sedation??), but the fight scenes were original and the plot kicked some serious ass.

Spoiler Alert -->

And, make no mistake -- I did not miss the math references in the movie. They said that every time you go into another dream-within-a-dream, the time expands by a factor of 20. So, 10 hours in real life is "about a week in a first-level dream, about a month in a second-level dream, and about 10 years in a third-level dream." They then did a similar analysis towards the end of the movie, to figure out how much time they still have left in each dream to get stuff done. --Not to mention there was a good amount of Geometry -- transformations (reflections, rotations), and even a discussion of impossible Geometric constructions (ie. infinite-loop staircases)! Beautiful.

Awesome WCYDWT material, once I can get my hands on a copy of the movie. :)

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If you are an aspiring PreCalc teacher (like me!), you might be looking around for tools or demos that will illustrate / elucidate the sometimes-confusing concepts of radians, degrees, arc lengths, etc.

Fortunately, Mr. H has a slew of good tools you might be able to use. :) He creates things with GeoGebra that I had no idea were possible! AMAZING.

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I am frustrated that Geoff and I don't have cell phones while visiting in the States. I waited for a friend for an hour yesterday at the corner of Columbus and 82nd, but still missed her in the end! argh. I felt really bad because we were waiting at two different places, and I didn't have a phone to call her with. Boooo.

But, on a good note, I did get to hang out and catch up with my friend John for a bit, before he rushed off to the airport. (This seems to be a trend with me/him.) :) It was lovely, and totally worth the two-hour commute from Jersey to grab breakfast with him at 9am in the city! (That meant I was waiting outside for the bus at 7:10am, after catching only about 5 hours of sleep!)

In other news, Geoff and I went swing-dancing on Thursday, and it was lovely! Geoff sweated through 3 t-shirts; that's a pretty good measure of how great the night was. Now my old people knees are hurting, and I'm hoping that they will recover by next Thursday (the next Fram). :)

In the meanwhile, I am going to look at property with Geoff. I anticipate this being loads of fun. (Not.)

Not-so-good Recent Happenings in El Salvador

Yesterday saw the declaration of another Alerta Naranja -- an Orange Alert for possible landslides as a result of the recent rain. It is worrisome, because we are only two months into the rainy season, which is supposed to last through October. The heavy rains do not affect Geoff and me, fortunately, because we live in well-insulated concrete areas of the capital city. But, everywhere else, things are awful when it rains. Most Salvadoreans live in huts built with mud walls, at the foot of deforested hills. :( In this most recent bout of rain, the restaurant that Ali's boyfriend helps to run down by the beach had collapsed. Its original base of rocks, sand, and silt had been entirely washed away by the river, and before his family can rebuild the restaurant, they will need to first fill the base with rocks and concrete...

In other news, while I was still in China, I read a news article about a bus that was set aflame by gangsters in El Salvador. 16 people were trapped inside that bus and burned to death. It's deeply horrifying and sad. --Will justice be served? I hope so, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Some suspects have been arrested*, but the prison/judicial system here is so lousy that there is really no guarantee what fate they will receive.

*By the way, Geoff heard that the reason why cops wear masks when they make arrests in El Salvador is so that they cannot become the target of a counterattack of vengeance. I don't know if this explanation is true, but you can see in the pictures from XinHua that they are indeed wearing the famed masks.

...Maybe some day, the conditions in El Salvador will improve. Sadly, if that day does ever arrive, it will take a really, really long time. In the meanwhile, the disparity between the have's and the have-not's is heart-rending, and the plight of the poor continues unabated.

Winter Holidays

Geoff and I had an amazing trip back to the States for the holidays! Not only did we get to see a lot of friends and family, but we also got to spend some time in the city, revisiting our favorite restaurants and checking out the current Broadway shows -- and we even managed to swing-dance for a hot second! It made us miss being back in the States, for sure, but also helped us appreciate things back in San Salvador (ie. the ridiculously warm weather and things being reasonably priced). In any case, it will likely be a good while before we get to take another vacation to the New York area, so we cherished this opportunity to catch up with everyone.

Since it is costly to fly directly from San Salvador to the States, Geoff and I had decided a few months back to try instead to fly through Guatemala. On paper, that saves us about $200 per person round-trip, which is a kickass deal. But, in reality, the bus + extra nights in a hotel + extra food expenses just about balance out the savings we would have had. And actually, the hassle of traveling by bus through Guatemala isn't worth the savings, regardless of how comfortable and luxurious those busses may be.

Still, Geoff and I thought this particular trip through Guatemala was well worth it, because we got a chance to check out Volcano Pacaya, which had been our only regret from our previous visit to Guatemala. There is a reputable tour group that takes people up the volcano at night, camps overnight, and then hikes up to the flowing lava just before sunrise. But unfortunately, 1. they're not too flexible with their dates, since they need to rally 4 people in order to make it worth their effort to lead such a trip, 2. the boss is kind of an asshole to his employees. In the end, we booked another day trip instead. The day trip only costs $10 per person, plus about $5 for entrance fee to the park and tips for the guides. The afternoon hike, which Geoff and I had gone on, left at 2pm and was supposed to catch the sunset as we were descending the volcano. But, since our group had a few old ladies and children, the group hiked extraordinarily slowly, and it actually worked out to be to our benefit. We didn't get to the flowing lava until sunset, so we saw an amazing sunset right over the lava stream, and we got to enjoy the lava in the dark before descending the hill! (Most other day-hike groups only see the lava in daylight, which just isn't the same.)

The experience was truly phenomenal, and I would highly recommend it. Although, you definitely feel when you are up there, that you are tempting fate. Even as we were climbing the volcano, the local guide pointed out chunks of rocks where lava had flown only months -- or weeks! -- ago. He said that the lava flow changes its direction or location sometimes within a day. Then, when we got to the mini-crater about 200m from the main (top) crater, the hot river of lava was breath-taking. At one point, the rocks near where Geoff had been standing collapsed, and everyone was pretty freaked out from the keen awareness that we were standing on only a thin shell of rocks above a huge reservoir of hot lava. Later, as we got further away from the lava, and we looked back, we could see two different places where the volcano was erupting, and see heavy smoke coming from the top crater. One of the guides told us "no es normal", which only hastened our steps down the mountain.

Geoff and I spent the next couple of days just relaxing in Guatemala, getting over our sickness (which we had acquired in the below-freezing weather of New York) and easing our way back home to the tropics. I posted the complete set of vacation pictures on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/averyseriousmimi/sets/72157623154596774/show/ , which you can watch as a slideshow.

Take care! Hope you (whoever and whereever you are) had a lovely holiday season. :)

Weekend Excursion

Geoff and I spent the weekend by ourselves, because the rest of the new international teachers were busy settling into their apartments. In El Salvador, we have thus far met a lot of really nice locals, but because of the disparity in income, we think that many of them would not be able to afford the lifestyle that we want to have, ie. going out regularly. To give you an idea of what a "regular Salvadorean" makes in income, Geoff and I could go out and have a FULL meal -- with two pupusas and a drink for each of us -- and the total for BOTH of our meals would be around $2.50. And many "restaurants" and snack stores are holes-in-the-wall that are run literally out of someone's home or front yard. You can get a chocolanana, or frozen chocolate banana, for around 35 cents. Clearly, that's not a very high profit margin; the vendors make those right at home and sell them through a little window that faces the street, in order to keep their costs low.

International school teachers are considered upper-middle class here. In truth, my salary here is far lower than my salary back in NYC, but because the cost of living is so much lower here, our life is much more luxurious than what we once had back in NYC. Geoff and I could afford a 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom apartment here, with a pool and 24-hour security, in a nice neighborhood. In NYC, for the same amount of money, we couldn't even get a single room in a shared apartment in Manhattan!

Anyway, on Friday, we had gone out in Zona Rosa, which is a posh partying district here in the city. After having a delicious steak dinner and drinking in an outdoor bar typical of this area, we checked out another indoors bar, Riconcitos, which had an awesome vibe and a cover band. The band's music was upbeat and diverse -- I think they started out with some electronica and ska, and then wrapped up with some reggaeton and salsa. The crowd was young; here in San Salvador, high-schoolers can go out and drink and party as well, and you definitely can spot their young faces in the hip bars around town. Afterwards, Geoff and I went and danced in another cool little spot across the street, where they were playing some American music, mixed with a lot of merengue. --All in all, a really fun night. :)

We ran some errands on Saturday, and then headed down to the beach. We had our minds set on going to el Tunco, which is a beach named for its giant pig-shaped rock. (Actually, the rock looked awesome, but it also looked more like a whale to us than a pig.) This beach is a famous surf spot, but we didn't get to surf this weekend. Instead, we swam in the ocean and had some delicious pupusas and seafood. We also stayed with a semi-creepy artist at his guesthouse, and that was very interesting. While we were hanging out with him on his porch, the electricity went out for the whole village, and momentarily we were sitting in complete darkness -- with a creepy guy who had already demonstrated his prowess with his machete and had reiterated his love for Asian women! Yikes. ...Fortunately, everything was OK in the end, and we even ran into our friends Alison and José the next day at the beach! :)

On Sunday night, we drove our rental car back to the city and went to a barbeque at the school's complejo, where the rest of the international hires live. That was fun, because teachers are almost always a social bunch. I'm hopeful that once they are settled in, they'll be up for going out and exploring the neighborhoods with us. :)

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A pictoral illustration of a crazy bus that went into the lane of on-coming traffic in order to pass cars in our lane; it eventually gave up and came back into our lane. (Taken on the way back from the beach.)




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As you might have read, the swine flu has been in full-swing in El Salvador for 4 months. Well, the ministry is closing schools for two weeks -- this week and next week. What that means is that we are not allowed to go into the school itself, and all of the paperwork and professional development meetings we were supposed to have this week have been moved to another location. School will be delayed at least one day in opening, which I'm certainly not complaining about. Other teachers are keeping their fingers crossed that the school will be delayed even further, to allow us a last long weekend before school re-opens.
We'll see about that, I guess. I'm not too worried.