Hola numero 2

Cosas son buenas acá en Buenos Aires. Terminé mis clases de español y
el lunes, empiezo mi trabajo. La empresa se llama "Banking Consulting
Services." Soy un poco nervioso porque mi comprensión de la lengua
aún está en desarollo, pero todos me dicen que necesito tener
paciencia. El sitio web es acá --> www.bcs.com.ar. Tienen un versión
en ingles.

Observations interesantes de la ciudad...
1. No hay espacio para nada. Es como viviendo en Manhattan, NY. Hay
parques (plazas) con verde, pero hay gente en todas partes. No hay
descansos en este ciudad.
2. La hora de cenar empieza más o menos a las 8.45 no a las 6 como en los EEUU.
3. No hay grandes cafés acá. Un café es approx. 5oz.
4. Hay mucha arte de la calle que es muy extraño. Empieza más o menos
después de la crisis de 2001 porque muchas personas no tenían trabajo,
y los emociónes estaban muy fuertes. Arte es una manera en que la
gente expresa sus pensamientos. Pero, como puedes ver, no tengo
ningún idea lo qué provocó esos pensamientos. Puedes ver mis fotos
--> http://picasaweb.google.com/joe.petrides
5. Los "boliches" (nightclubs) están interesante si no quieres hablar
y solamente bailar. Sin un gran dosis de drogas fuertes y peligrosos,
después de una hora o dos, me aburren. Ponen música electonica por
toda la noche. Por una razón, Madonna electronica es muy popular.
Los boliches cerran a las 6 o 7 de la mañana.
6. Hay marchas o protestas casi todos los días. Algunos marchas
bloquean toda de la calle 9 de Julio, la calle más ancho del mundo.
El tránsito tiene que mover a otras partes. Eso es MILES de coches
cada día.

Hay muchas más observaciónes que yo tengo en un cuaderno. Publicaré
las que son las más interesantes y después de mi viaje, yo publicaré
todos los más importantes para mí en ingles.

Ojala todo sea bien para todos mis lectores. Más fotos pronto.

Hola de Buenos Aires

Hola todos.  Yo he vivido en Buenos Aires para 2 semanas y es una ciudad muy interesante.  Hay muchas cosas para hacer, pero el accento aquí es muy difícil comprender.  Supongo que no sabí tanta español que pensé.  Se me olvidé traer el cordon para mi cámara, pero voy a tener fotos pronto. 

 

La semana pasada yo tenía clases con dos brasileños y una chica de Los Angeles que solamente tenía 17 años.  Está en Buenos Aires sola, viviendo en un Hostel.  Todos en mis clases son muy amables, pero va a ser difícil hacer amigos porque la más de las personas solamente se van a quedar en Argentina por 3 o 4 semanas.  Ellos van a salir y yo podré buscar en otras lugares para amigos por que no voy a tomar clases después de este semana.

 

Vivo con un madre de 4 (hijos(as) se han mudado de la casa).  También estudiando español son 2 mujeres de Bélgica (belgium) y un hombre de Denver.  Es interesante porque yo puedo hablar mejor que los otros, pero ellos pueden entender mejor que yo.  Por eso, los conversaciónes durante la cena son muy interesantes.

 

¿Qué más?  Los bares son lugares muy interesantes.  Sí, se llaman "bares" como nosotros.  Yo voy a un bar que se llama "bar duck" (el sonido "barduck" en Hebrew significa "caos") en que los dueños son de Israel.  Desafortunadamente, no es un buen lugar para practicar español, pero los hombres son amables y es solamente una cuadra de mi apartamento.  También hay clubs que se llaman "boliches."  He ido a dos y son ridículo.  Todos son barrachos y todos bailan por toda la noche. Ellos cerran a las 7 de la mañana. Es normal salir a los 4 o 5.

 

Pues, tengo que ir por ahora.  Esperen más comentario en las días siguientes.  Y, lo siento sobre los fotos.   Los subiré cuando tengo una cordon.


¡Salud!
 

El viaje ha empezado

Después de un vuelo de 12 horas, estoy en Buenos Aires. Voy a incluir fotos tan pronto como descubrir un locutorio en que puedo usar mi tarjeta de memoría en mi cámara. Pero ahora, necesito una siesta. Más luego amigos!

Spanish Translation

My blog will change to Spanish soon, though I expect the posts to be mainly comments on the photos I post. Here is how you translate it. Download google toolbar for either firefox or internet explorer. There should be an option to add a page translation tool. I've used this to translate some English pages into Spanish and it works pretty well. This should convert all my Spanish text to English for your viewing pleasure. If the translation is horrible, that's probably because my Spanish grammar needs serious work.

See ya later, Hillsdale College

As most of you know, I recently left my job at Hillsdale College to move on to other things such as money, women, power, and the occasional acid flashback (kidding). I intended to work there for 2 years which is exactly what I did. Now, this is the time where former employees burn bridges by lambasting former bosses, co-workers and/or the executives in the company, but as much as I think about it, I can't really complain about much and here's one reason why.

As a student, I thought I knew some glaring weaknesses that the school either chose to ignore or simply denied the existence of. After "working for the man" for a year, I learned many more weaknesses the school had. However, whenever I voiced my concerns in these areas, I found myself surprised that just about everyone that works for the school was fully aware of these issues and was just as concerned as me. Hillsdale is by no means a perfect college, but it is remarkably self-aware regardless of what bantering students (including me) may think.

I do have several good things to report about the school. I truly do believe that its students learn better stuff than the students of any other school in the Midwest. While the University of Michigan or Kalamazoo College or some of the other highly ranked colleges may have bright students that change the world, I think that Hillsdale students learn better because the environment of the place helps them understand the purpose of their education. Because of this, Hillsdale students tend not to float around lost for 4 years. ..... It does bother me, though, that many of these bright students end up working for think tanks instead of Wall Street, silicon valley, and other places where they can really make a difference. I dream of the day when I hear of a Hillsdale grad raising 40 million of venture capital to start up some cool new firm. I suppose that's my responsibility...... Moving along, if you throw in the fact that Hillsdale teaches in a conservative environment and all the "good" colleges in the Midwest are far off to the left (Oberlin, Kenyon, Michigan, MSU, Kalamazoo, Macalester, even Notre Dame and U of Chicago to some extent), then there really is no other choice for the household that wants a Midwest college for its child and doesn't want the status quo of academe which seems to be intolerent of folks who believe the "old way" of doing things still holds water. I do fear that the Hillsdale College employees who see this blog will look at the last sentence and wonder how I got through Freshman English. Well, I got an A- and B, so trust me, at one time, I was able to write.

Another good thing about the college. It has a TON of money. Calculated per student, Hillsdale's endowment is nearly twice that of any other college in the state of Michigan. This includes the University of Michigan's 7ish billion dollar endowment. The endowment is only going to go up as donors continue to pour in money. Hillsdale's sales pitch is pretty easy since almost no other college says the things we say. If a donor agrees with Hillsdale's message, there is nearly no competition and next thing you know, we have a new student union.

Next, "it's the people." That's the sign that greets comers on M99. I really can't describe how great the people there are, but let's just say I will be very lucky to meet and work with better people again in my life. The students there are a unique bunch, and they are pretty much all conservative, but the students there bring so many different personalities and experiences to the table, it's impossible to keep up.

I could go on, or maybe even edit my prose a bit to make it worthy of a Hillsdale College graduate, but I won't for two reasons. The first reason is, I majored in Economics and subsequently forgot most of the words I once knew. I was thinking a while ago and realized that I really only know about 30-40 words, so I can only write for so long. The second reason is, I'm headed to Buenos Aires in a couple days and I have a few final affairs to get in order. This is a blog after all, not an essay so why make it pretty? The bottom line is that despite its inevitable problems, attending Hillsdale College and working there were two of the best decisions I've ever made.

ok, there are my nice (and truthful, mind you) compliments - now GET A TENNIS TEAM

Greatest Wimbledon Final Ever?

Yesterday, I may have witnessed the greatest Wimbledon final ever in the history of tennis. Roger Federer, the world's #1 lost to #2 Rafael Nadal 6-4; 6-4; 6-7; 6-7; 9-7. It was the longest match in the history of Wimbledon, spanning 4 hours and 48 minutes. It symbolized the changing of the guard as Rafael Nadal is probably the world's best tennis player after finally beating Federer on his turf after losing to him the last 2 years. Truthfully, Nadal dominated the first two sets because he won the most important points, converting over 50% of his break point opportunities as opposed to Roger going 1-13 for the match on break points. The one break he did get in set 2 was squandered as he was subsequently broken twice later in the same set. Then, I had to leave. We conceded that Nadal would probably win the match, so we hit the road from my friend's cottage, a 2.5 hour drive. About an hour into the drive, we checked the score on a cell phone and found that Federer had just recently taken the third set in a tiebreak. A rain delay bought us an hour and a half. We raced home and followed the match on a cell phone seeing Federer win the 4th set in a tiebreak. We rushed into her home in Grand Rapids only to see another rain delay. When play resumed 20 minutes later, an epic battle of two heavyweights, two champions in their own right battle it out. The shotmaking was incredible. Both held serve until the 15th game since there is no tie-break in the 5th set in Wimbledon. Darkness began to fall over London as the match spanned 7 hours including rain delays pushing the match to 9pm. Both players admitted that it was very difficult to see going into those last few games. Talk about a scene! It was one of those few moments in sports where I knew I was witnessing something historic.

There are few other situations in sports that create this kind of pressure. Think about being down by one with nothing left on the clock while you sit on the free throw line. It's all over in about 25-30 seconds as you shoot your free throws and the result is known. This match had that sort of constant tension every single point in the 5th set. In 24 years of watching sports on television, I've never felt my heart beating this hard for such a period of time and this includes all those Michigan-Ohio State games. I can't imagine what these guys felt.

So what does this all mean for tennis? Well, maybe a few more people will become interested in the sport, but unless these people watched the match, I really doubt it. The United States drives popularity in professional sports and unfortunately, our attention spans are too short to digest tennis. What happened yesterday will be forever etched in tennis lore and will never be forgotten by even the moderate enthusiast. So what does this mean for tennis? It provides great satisfaction for those who appreciate the sport. These enthusiasts can sit with quiet satisfaction, knowing their fanhood is not wasted and they caught a glimpse of something great to which the mainstream doesn't give the necessary credence.

He's still the No. 1, He's still the best. He's still five-time champion here. Right now I have one, so for me it's very, very important day. -Nadal

Probably later on in life, you know, I'll go, 'That was a great match,'" Federer said. "But right now it's not much of a -- how do you say -- a feel-good thing, or a positive thing to end this match. … I'm happy we lived up to the expectations. I'm happy the way I fought. That's all I could really do.