Holly

Are we already in Week 2?? Where does the time go?

There is so much going on this week at Evergreen and in the Olympia community. Today there is a speaker from Nicaragua named Yamileth Perez presenting at a café downtown called Traditions about free trade, the burden of debt, and immigration for the Nicaraguan people. I learned that Nicaragua is the second-poorest country in the western hemisphere and the presentation is in Spanish with some of my fellow Greeners doing the English interpretation.

Tomorrow there is a reception for the release of the book Let Me Stand Alone: The Journals of Rachel Corrie, and I think I would really like to read her book. For those of you who don't know, Rachel Corrie died tragically in the Gaza Strip in 2003. She was an Evergreen alumni and community activist, and I started to read her book in the bookstore just last week. I remember hearing about her death five years ago, and I think it is important that her journals and story have been published for everyone to read.

Ok, time to get busy writing a paper in Spanish. I just finished reading the first book for my contract called Y nunca te he de olvidar (And I shall never forget you) by Julianne Clark. It's the memoir of Clark's experience married to the famous Chilean author Manuel Rojas and their adventures living and traveling in Chile, Cuba and Europe. Julianne Clark is from Seattle where she teaches Spanish, and her story about her first husband was absolutely one of the most beautiful love stories I have ever read in my entire life. Not only was it academically fascinating (Clark writes about her encounters with people like Salvador Allende and Mario Benedetti), but her prose in Spanish was lucid and entertaining. I think everyone should learn Spanish just to be able to read this story... ¡Qué lindo!

Eso es todo por ahora... ¡Ojalá que no llueva toda la tarde!