1. Is there any one piece of your writing that you are especially proud of?

Damn, David asks tough questions. The answer to this question is simple. No, I don't have one piece of writing that I feel more proud of than the others. The main reason for this is that I've written hundreds of pages in my short life. If I was forced to pick one, it might be my personal statement I wrote for grad school. I put a lot of time and effort into the statement. I got feedback from three people on different aspects of the 4-page statement and wrote about 6 drafts. The statement served me well, since I was admitted to each school I applied to.

I also took some time to pick some (certainly not all) of my favorites in this blog. I tried to put them in some category and ordered from most recent to oldest.

Poetry

Hailu on a life altering trip. Written during my 21-day trip to Mazatl�n, Guanajuato and Mexico City last August.

Academic:

Caf� Tacvba�s Re: Mestizaje Redefined and Renewed in Mexican Music. A few paragraphs of the paper are in this blog post.

For the love of my family. My reasons for going into a PhD program; includes short excerpts of my personal statement I used to apply.

How I got to UCLA. Three part series on my college choice process. Some of the posts were adapted from a paper I wrote for a class.

Favorite papers. Includes titles of a few more papers I wrote as an undergrad that I was pretty proud of.

Short Brown Hair and Stuff. Written for my Bilingual Autobiography course in fall 2000.

Family:

An open letter to my father. Half review of a Los Lobos concert, half letter to my father. He loved it.

Life altering experiences. Reflection on how immigration has affected my family.

It's bad when he doesn't even eat. Poor little brother.

Mi hermano mayor. I finally learned to appreciate my older brother.

On alcoholism. My dad is winning the battle against his own addiction.

Prayers work (proof). Pap� Chepe is not invincible, and I hate admitting it.

Cuento. The girl in the story is my sister. I'm the missing sister. This really did happen, unfortunately.

Why my mom rocks. Quite self-explanatory.

Work:

The woman with the serpent skirt. After two years, I left my position with Calmecac. Working there changed me for the better.

Juan for the road. A student I called Juan made me realize that we were doing something right at Calmecac in regards to retaining Chicana/o and Latina/o students.

Relationships:

Contradicciones. I dated a Republican for all of 5 days.

And he said, "sweet dreams, beautiful." I fell for a friend, hard. I told him.

I wish I didn't miss you anymore. I dated a Redhead. The break up was tough to deal with, and back in 2002 I still felt comfortable enough writing about stuff like this here. Posts like this are now hidden under lock and key in a private blog, or don't even get written down in the hopes that I'll forget quicker.

It's over (for now). Post-breakup with the Redhead, it seemed like I had it together. 'Seemed', of course, is the operative word here.

Random:

Missing: Mis Ganas. I had trouble actually getting to work on an exam... one of my best procrastination efforts ever.

Be�sbol. The reason I like baseball so much rests with my father.

Decide for yourself. On right-wing attacks against a student group I'm very close to

Not a Fetish. My rant against mainstream media depictions of brown women.

Nannies and gardeners. I've been meaning to follow up on this post.

Vivir. I haven't lived until... (a list).

Words, thoughts and actions. The best words bring about actions.

Me siento: amused
Escuchando: under the bridge - the red hot chili peppers

M�s reciente:
Searches - 09.16.05
the big move - 07.29.05
mother and daughter: a comparative analysis - 07.28.05
jardineros y dom�sticas - 07.27.05
tough question - 07.25.05

antes // despu�s