Am I ready to say goodbye to latinoamerica? No! Am I ready to take a risk and give it all up for love, even if it doesn't work out? Yes!!
Sunday, October 12, 2014
As i was in the madrid aiport coming home i felt like a teenage girl looking in the mirror
Childish corporate warrior. Pinterest collection after some middle eastern desert abuse? Drunk girl at an airport. ...Middle school slumber party? Frumpy girl nearing 30 who still buys everything teal colored. 60s American Girl doll travel gear. Will I look like a backpacker when I travel for work, when I'm old? Is growing up something that doesn't happen anymore?
Getting introspective during a long layover in Barajas...
Leaving mexico
Almost 3 years ago, I said "name that city", absolutely at awe of the monstrosity I had been invited to conquer (or that I was about to invite to conquer me... Or at least my gut flora).
If I can flourish in mexico city, I can do anything. I thought of it as thE most challenging enactment of an extreme dream I had always had-- go to the emerging world, go work in tech, in impact work, in an underrated, underground art-house megamonster of smog and charm out its humanity and delicate cultural vibrancy like a snake charmer charms a beautiful, multicolored, sensual fanged viper. I thought, this place must be the most impenetrable wonder I can imagine, of wild importance to civilization itself and a microcosm of all the past and all the future of people. Yes, the intensity of India, in just a couple hours' flight to the US.
And then as the NYTimes began to unfold love affair pieces on the chic romantic gourmet side of DF, and as my own Instagram became more baroque, oversaturated and gluttonous, mexico city began to feel small and approachable - even driveable. The contemporary design, art, and gastronomical scene felt more contemporary than possible anywhere else on the continent of America and I became convinced I lived in the most distinguished city in the hemisphere. Don't mind the sulphuric smell, of course, or the volcanic ash which covers the marble balconies every so often, which coats the soles of your feet as you walk around the house with too many open windows.
And then amidst the galactic waves of yuppism and gentrification of the previously ghetto neighborhoods, I left for Tel Aviv, the dilapidated "Caribbean" utopia where all are equal, poorly dressed, overly fit and educated, and when I came back I saw that mexico city was mostly the same as it was a thousand years ago, a tranquil, disorderly, cheaply made megatropolis with huffing sooty buses, hideous people everywhere, eternal cycles of inequality and a still-unapproachable vast multiverse of rich local cultural diversity. This place is still screwed, but it is amazing, outstanding and the whole world should be learning lessons from it every day.
What kind of lessons? Well, how corruption comes to be; the origin of creativity; the philosophy of revolt; gastronomic sensory systems and food science; microbiology, ecology, anthropology, architecture & archeology, urban planning, sociology, psychology - all fields, when approaching mexico city, become of phD-advanced proportions and defy logic entirely. The contrasts, the Machiavellian counter-intuitive twists, the ability of the people to be resilient, employed, fat and quite happy all seem like paradoxes. I think all truly ancient places have this quality. This place is amazing and everyone should come here to learn from it.
So? Will I stay? "Maybe", I would always tell myself, since amidst chaos, grime, soot, smog, & violence, the quality of life here can be extraordinary - don't mind four-hour lunches, truly relaxing weekends, a thriving folk culture and year-round 75° weather. And the rollercoaster of fulfillment, excitement, betrayal, privilege, gluttony and emptiness churned forth. Am I constantly on vacation? Yes, yes I am. Am I safe? Well, I don't know. Am I happy? Very happy! Am I so frustrated I want to do something drastic? Yes all the time! Am I a better person to expect that nothing works, to dishonor the concept of time entirely, to fall into avoidance of ownership, accountability, and neuroticism? I think yes, for a while, but I may have been damaged by it, too. This much acceptance may lead to a disappointing life in a bubble. It's been easy in some ways and hard in others. Everything seems accidental and entitled simultaneously, somehow. Nothing, good or bad, feels deserved because the world is much wilder and unpredictable and uncontrollable and sneakier than any individual can take credit for. Rewards and setbacks feel stumbled upon. Mexico is the real wonderland.
I will leave Mexico not truly because there are no opportunities here, nor because it is too dangerous (though it is), nor because nothing works (though it doesn't), because the people are good and the profits are good and the live-to-live attitude is inspiring (though it is). I will leave Mexico because I need seasons; something to track progress by. I need to go on a quest for role models who think much bigger than me and work on their own. I have so much openness right now, it may be the perfect time to exploit it.
Where will I end up? Uf, in a city by the sea, I'm sure. Worldly but humble at last, traveled, eccentric, full of raw passion, raw art materials, raw foods and cobblestone streets. Somewhere where I can talk to people often and much; somewhere where I can eat slowly and open a book and not get up for a while.
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Tel Aviv at War
Feeling eons better. No air strikes since morning. Everyone has been taking good care of me and people are business as usual. I am cheerful and even chipper because I feel safe and I have girlfriends from work and its such a relief to not be scared. And Google will move me to a hotel for a week so I can sleep near a safe room in the case of more rockets.
Hoping everyone near targets in more dangerous parts of the country is feeling a similar start to peace, or at least safe with family. So grateful Tel Aviv is protected; this is a good city.
A New City
Tel Aviv feels like Louisville compared to Mexico City. Where are all of the coughing trucks? Overpopulation? Gigantic potholes and riots? Oozy pools of taco grease? Sulfuric clouds? Color? Obesity? Ancient market yelling? Cleansing Aztec dancers, tinted-window escalades, hair-gelled godínes and fumbly clown-women in stilettos? Can a city really be this smell-free? Why aren't there food wrappers everywhere?
All I see are well-groomed bike lanes, taupe, espresso, athletic youth and European cars.
Lingering frustrations i got out by writing articles to myself
Advice. Avoid all people who say "don't". Anyone who brings discouraging energy brings bad luck and will try to ensure that you fail
Dear repressive bosses, discouraging humans, and people who say "don't try": good people will avoid you; you are destined to be resented. Those of you who button your collar up tight against your neck: your wealth is misleading. You are poor, jealous, and by repressing others, you repress yourself. Soul-suffocators, send yourselves to rehab in the mountains and realign yourselves - and stay away from me please!
Note to self: avoid repressive, macho cultures. Never waste your time with people who hide unless you want to live a life in hiding.
To jorge never sent-
Also FYI semion is the biggest dick of all time. I've had to defriend him and will from now on treat him as he is, a robot with no soul. What a toxic element in google, repressive paternalizing autocrat!
Goodbye mexico
Its just dawning on me what's about to happen to me. These goodbyes are real. My whole world is about to shift and I will enter this new universe as the new girl 100%. When I come back, I will be different.
"And when there is a promise of a storm, when you want change in your life walk into it. If you get to the other side you will be different. So if you want change in your life, wade into the water, cuz lord, its really gonna be troubled water." - Sweet Honey in the Rock.
The great news is, I do not need change. I get change. The storm is benign. It is my time to understand what freedom means.
What i did in madrid
WhT I did in madrid
Got sick on icky churros. Sooo not as good when sober. Ogled the fact that everybody in madrid is over 70 years old and stares too much. Rediscovered my favorite underground cinema spots in the African neighborhood. Was reminded that personal space is nil and felt prepared to have my phone snatched every ten seconds. Remembered why to avoid sol.
I close my eyes
I close my eyes to the grit of mexico city because the wonderful parts have always seemed so amazing, mesmerizing, and enchanted. For the first time tonight, I'm curious about the grit, and the daily life of the 20 million people who live in the peeling, concrete, muscley parts. A kid pops a wheely at night, prostitutes walk back and forth, a rock band of old men practices in a meat garage, a bald man in a tank peers over a bare concrete rooftop as his mom does the wash behind thin ripped cloth curtains below. For a minute, I allow myself to be swallowed by the seas of stained concrete which I am usually blind to.
We drive up on a hill and I see hundreds of thousands of lights that go thirty miles in any direction.
Scale is so difficult for us to grasp in our mortality. My bubble is infinitesimally small, by my parks and sashimi and dates with perfect German military hair and handkerchiefs, hanging gardens, hardwood and careers related to innovation. There is a lot of mysterious music that rolls through the streets on a hot friday night. Old romance ballads warm the yellow insides of those concrete homes. We arrive in the airport. "To serve you," says my driver. I thank him and take out my baby suitcase and walk away alone.
It's wild to be young and independent and capable of so quickly cutting yourself clean from anything you know. I suppose you never really move away in the digital age. But there are so many layers here I never got to see.
In a week I'll cut myself from this place and go to the other side of the world.
And I'm off again, independent and foreign, to a conference on a tropical beach, with a view, an audience, a cause.
Things that made me mad and how i solved them in a private note to myself before wriing something far more generic later
For our next performance 1-1, we need to figure out how to not be so damn discouraging. My heart deflated that we would focus the entire hour on not being inspirational, not expressing oneself, and not "scaring people." It was probably the worst 1-1 I've had in months
I hope we can try to change the format so it's not 90% discouragement. I promise to work on everything constructive you guys give me, I also really beg for us to be less spirit-crushing. Today was still really disheartening. Please be open with me on what I can try harder to do too.
Tianguis
For tianguis.drew this today in my meetings in cancun. Happy, thinking about the travel business, a crush, a whole life ahead , clear resolve. You know. It was a day a little like high school. I used my whole brain and they were ok with me daydream focusing. Ill deliver. Was nice.
On expectations
On expectations though, this is what makes mexico city so amazing. You Kindof generally expect things will be shitty - polluted and trafficky and clausurado. So when you end up on a rooftop and the sun is shining in dont-know-where Colonia with a dj and some really hot new friends, who are actually friends of your friends, and you can see the volcano's erupting and the music is good so your first beer makes you feel on fire ----- this is why I love this city so much. You can't predict when things like that are about to happen.
Spring
Just excited and inspired.
This is a recurring effect.
Its not just because I had three burratas today (who do I think I am), learned a song on my guitar and spent time dreaming of geek classes at Harvard.
I am so happy for my roommate and happy to be here in Mexico. I want to live vicariously through her.
There is so much to enjoy and analyze it's overwhelming.
Life is all ahead.
Feeling alive
Career building. An excerpt of inspiration that went nowhere.
I am looking for a change
I am ready for a new challenge
I'm looking for an opportunity where I can prove my ability to execute flawlessly
And do something smart
Really, I love technology. I consider myself a technologist.
And use my energy in a way where the amount I put in will be directly productive
Sometimes sales is spinning wheels
I've gotten good at breaking down barriers but I want to use it for impact work. Or at least, real knowledge development.
I am really insanely passionate about Geo.
And how it relates to this fantastic country, mexico.
I brought evidence.
Working in tourism promotion was undoubtedly the coolest introduction to mexico I can imagine. I feel like I really know how to sell this country. And I've learned invaluable things about how business is run. And now I have a lot of local confidence after a couple of years, I want to build something here. I want to be a part of this movement, this data equality and access movement. I care more about the human tech experience than I do about media. For me, media is a distraction to tools.
It's in the next integration of digital tools which gets me excited. And jesus, imagery. Holy moly.
What is your teams mission?
What are the engineering expectations?
What are you looking for in an ideal candidate?
The position describes target cities. Do you have a list in mind?
Appreciation
I appreciate you photocopy list to people I appreciate
I appreciate you in a spiky bubble
Everyone at work basically
Ricardo - mail
Torey- mail
Mama - mail
Betsy
Kate
Kim
Kelly Sc
Kelly St
Here:
Marie
Eme
Charlotte Lim
Gemma
Vladi
Bren
Rafa
Anna
JC Calles
Tell brian and roger straight up haha
Work:
Cami
Marco
Jorge
Christian
Rafa
Dopi
Ivan
Mayra
MC
Vero M.
Majito
Edson
Thursday, June 5, 2014
leaving repressive mexico for three months. coming back different.
My new boss in Tel Aviv for summer told me today, "it's going to be hard, but you are going to have to get your creativity brain on when you come here."
This is like someone telling me, "now, you can shave your head and everyone will still love you." or, "go ahead, cook naked."
This is going to be the most liberating experience ever.
And the words of Steve Jobs suddenly come to life, suddenly shed their cáscara: "Avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. YOU ARE ALREADY NAKED. There is no reason not to follow your heart."
... And in my heart, Picasso talks: "I am always doing things I can't do. That is how I get to do them." So here I am, in my kitchen without real clothes on, hair up, thinking how in the heck am I going to decorate my new apartment. Make jokes in Hebrew to the Israeli bus drivers; ooo! Doodle through meetings. Be as weird and as beautiful as possible. Let go of the expectations of Mexico for a while. Find a totally new type of exhilarating.
I guess I've gone through this before. Patterns of restraint, release; restraint, release. I think I've found it. I think I've found release in this corporate cycle. Not the last one, but a damn important one. Some sort of 'me' ness is let out, like a little bird or mosquito in the wind, wings flapping.
Now if I can just add data science and changing the world, I'm freaking found.
This is like someone telling me, "now, you can shave your head and everyone will still love you." or, "go ahead, cook naked."
This is going to be the most liberating experience ever.
And the words of Steve Jobs suddenly come to life, suddenly shed their cáscara: "Avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. YOU ARE ALREADY NAKED. There is no reason not to follow your heart."
... And in my heart, Picasso talks: "I am always doing things I can't do. That is how I get to do them." So here I am, in my kitchen without real clothes on, hair up, thinking how in the heck am I going to decorate my new apartment. Make jokes in Hebrew to the Israeli bus drivers; ooo! Doodle through meetings. Be as weird and as beautiful as possible. Let go of the expectations of Mexico for a while. Find a totally new type of exhilarating.
I guess I've gone through this before. Patterns of restraint, release; restraint, release. I think I've found it. I think I've found release in this corporate cycle. Not the last one, but a damn important one. Some sort of 'me' ness is let out, like a little bird or mosquito in the wind, wings flapping.
Now if I can just add data science and changing the world, I'm freaking found.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Ok. To make it less overwhelming. Let me put it like this. For me, Mexico City is not a destination. It is a mirror of the past and the future of civilization. It's an intellectual explosion of what humanity itself comes from and is going towards. This is why I am excited about this city.
When you begin to unpeel the layers, you begin to time-travel in both directions at once, and there is so much to think about, and so many secrets.
As you begin to read these articles, you may begin to understand what I'm talking about. For me, Mexico City is Rome combined with Thailand. You have fat ladies with children strapped on their backs selling organic hand-smashed tlalpapas in-between traffic on four-story megahighways which bend around an old abandoned 16th-century church.
If I am a good curator, these articles (all of them) should serve the purpose of making your brain crawl. This brain crawliness is exactly what is most enjoyable about Mexico City. The purpose is not so much to show you tour guides(just accept that you cannot digest the geography of this city), but rather historical context for this place. Today, we are in a wild transformation point that reflects where development all around the world can and may move. This is where my enthusiasm comes from. Being overwhelmed is the drug in itself.
hat to read if you are excited
Its a wildly chaotic international overdeveloped 3rd world capital, but its also the fanciest gourmet playground full of jungle plants, palaces, infinite art galleries, museums, and more.
Ok.
My favorite topic EVER which makes me go into a hallucinogenic fit is this (sorry... I'd say I was exxagerating but it makes my skin crawl since this is like, unwrapping millennia in both past and future):
Things to do in my neighborhood
Bakeries tour - tiny pastry tasting
Art gallery crawl
Architecture (art nouveau, deco, palaces, mansions) tour
Tacos tour
Amazing tropical plants tour
Cool repurposed spaces tour
Vertical gardens tour
Vivid colors tour
Local/artesenal food goodies tour
Beautiful courtyards and painted allies tour
Nooks and Books tour
Wonderful chefs tour (1 small plate perhttp://highlife.ba.com/
Community movements tour
What can you make with a cactus tour
We can do all these things in my neighborhood alone! And combine them. Maybe we can play bingo with your top 5 categories of interest while walking around drinking papaya juice.
Tour guides and portraits of the city
Interesting thought to consider MX: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/
Oh, do you like design and architecture? These are all AMAZING in my personal opinion...
The basics:
Social conversation:
Water house:
Upcycling:
Smog eating tile:
Vertical garden mania: (no good article on just mexico city but I'd say we have 30+):
Oh good! Mexico city vertical gardens:
Hotel Downtown:
La Palma:
Condesa DF:
Mercado Roma:
Mobile art library:
Portal of awareness:
Cool house:
Cool apartments (green wall use):
The Willy Wonka of beer industry:
Tea room:
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
MexiArabia
I am the only woman in the Aeromexico lounge, which is full before the 6am flights. With all due respect to Persians and grandmothers, I feel like I am in Iran, or 1942.
It doesn't help that it is freezing and I feel invisible in my all-black business suit hidden by gigantic black pashmina. Under the capes instead of jewels and corsets, I have PowerPoint. Today Mexico is cold and dark. Thank goodness I land in the Caribbean in under two hours and have a full day ahead of important men listening to me. I am proud to be a subversive from the north.
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