Anti-climatic Endings and Confusing Verb Tenses

[Author's note 1: I'm having a really hard time with writing in English right now, so the grammar might be off in various portions of this post. I could wait until later to post it, but I've already missed n weeks of posting, where n > 0, so that's not going to fly. But my brain is currently (for better or worse) filled with science and numbers and pretty much everything except how to write in standard English. So you may have to bear with me a bit through this post. Thank you, in advance, for your patience.]

Welp, this is it.  In less than 24 hours I’ll be done with my penultimate semester of college.  This semester has been an incredibly full, busy, stressful, and rewarding one.  I’ve given over two hours of presentations, attended approximately 96 hours of lecture, spent at least 240 hours (and probably a good deal more than that) in lab, and written (at a complete minimum) 100 pages worth of stuff, 20 of those pages in another language (and another 30 probably look like they’re in another language, to anyone not familiar with what I’m doing in lab).  I have one three-hour exam left, and I should probably be worried for it.  But I’m weirdly not… It’s hard to tell if it’s Senioritis hitting or what, because I’m definitely not as prepared as I could be for this exam.  

It’s mostly weird because this really is the beginning of the end, as evidenced by the fact that the page with all the important academic information on it now includes a link to apply for my degree.  I could fill it out right now.  I could apply for my degree.  Obviously I couldn’t actually get it, because I’m two classes short of the Institute requirements, and two other classes short of my Major requirements (all of which I'll be taking next semester- no worries, parents).  But I could go and put in all of the necessary information (like what name I want on my diploma, and how they should pronounce my name at the ceremony), and hit the little button at the end that says “Verify the Application”.  And with that, I could apply to be done.  Which is bizarre, and terrifying, and weirdly anti-climatic.

But then, in some respects, the whole thing is kind of anti-climatic.  I gave a 10 minute presentation in Spanish, that ended with teaching my entire class how to dance, and I was done with my Spanish concentration (I think… that one’s a bit confusing. At the very least, I am done with that class).  I gave a 10 minute presentation about six months worth of work in lab, and handed in a 30 page research report, and I was done with 7.18 and had fulfilled all of my communication requirements.  I gave an hour long presentation to my lab (to real scientists, whose opinions I respect very strongly) and I was done with lab work for the semester.  And I had been dreading that presentation for as long as it had been scheduled.  But all of a sudden, it was just over.  And I was told that I gave a very clear, well-thought-out presentation.  But other than that, life went on.  And now, all I need to do is hit one little button (after figuring out how to communicate how my name should be pronounced at graduation) and there will be one less obstacle standing between me and the rest of my life.

I’m obviously not freaking out at all about this.  I definitely sound like a reasonable, well-adjusted person, who definitely isn’t starting a ridiculous number of sentences with the word ‘And’ (something I’ve been told not to do since as long as I can remember).  Okay, fine, I’m freaking out a tiny bit.  On the one hand, I want to sit back and savor all of the moments, because obviously they’re going by way too quickly.  On the other hand, if I take the time to do that, it feels like everything is going to just pass me by.  And on the third hand (where did I get three hands?  No idea.  I should probably get that checked out.) I want to forget about the future and focus on the fact that dessert study break is tonight, and I can eat cheesecake until I honestly feel like I want to burst.  The last one is obviously the adult way to deal with this situation. :P

I have a wall (see above), in my room at school, that’s dedicated to photos of my friends (I had no family photos when I was printing this... and there were none on Facebook to steal :P), and to things that make me happy (photos, postcards, random things I’ve picked up along the way throughout 3.5 years of school). Because I printed the photos when I was a freshman, in order to compete with my freshman roommate’s decorated wall, they largely feature the person I was back then, to a much greater degree than the person I am now.  And it’s kind of weird, because in general I don’t think I’d say that Senior-at-Holy-Names-Alycia is that much different from Senior-at-MIT-Alycia.  But when I really sit here and think about it, those two people are, in fact, completely different.

[Author’s note 2: Tenses are weird when one is trying to refer to oneself both in the current moment and four years in the past.  As a result, although it may be grammatically incorrect, I’m going to just use the past tense when referring to both time periods in one sentence.  Apologies in advance for any confusion.]

Both Alycias were concerned with doing well in school, but that means something entirely different today than it did four years ago.  Former Alycia was a straight-A student, and Valedictorian (1 of 16 or 17 Valedictorians, so take that as you will) of her high school class.  Current Alycia isn’t really sure where she stands compared to the rest of her class, but it sure as heck isn’t Valedictorian material (if MIT even named Valedictorians, which they don't).  Former Alycia would have been appalled by this knowledge.  Current Alycia is occasionally appalled by the knowledge that she’s not top of the class, but is gradually accepting that it might have something to do with the fact that she is attending a very demanding school, and was almost certainly not in the right major for 3 of the years she’s been here.  Former Alycia rowed, a lot.  Current Alycia is dreadfully out of shape.  Former Alycia couldn’t have dreamed of doing half of the research that Current Alycia is doing.  Current Alycia just turned in a 30 page paper suggesting that some of the things we thought we knew about how DNA is repaired may not be as correct as they could be.  Former Alycia never asked for help, if it was possible not to do so.  But Current Alycia is slowly learning to ask for help from a select group of people, and can see how her life is better for it.

Talking about myself in third person aside, the point is that there are a lot of things that have changed, both for better and for worse from where I was sitting four years ago. Four years ago today, I was sitting in the HNA auditorium after crew practice, getting ready for my last winter concert of high school.  Today, I’m sitting on my bed, writing this post instead of getting ready for my last winter final of college.  Four years ago tomorrow, I found out that I got into MIT.  Tomorrow, I will take my last winter final of college.  After that, who knows? Four years from now, I’ll probably look back at this and wonder how I could have changed so much from the person that I am right now.  Here’s to taking those next four years to figure out who the person wondering that is going to be.

Science as Storytelling

I have been absolute crap at communication lately...  I could try to explain it again, but it’s mostly going to be a series of me complaining about how much work I’ve had, and how little sleep I’ve gotten, which really isn’t all that interesting.  So, instead, this is going to be a post about storytelling.

Storytelling sounds easy, but it’s actually quite difficult.  You need a beginning, middle and end, and they somehow have to be both coherent and interesting.  You have to consider your audience, and your word choice, and the most relevant parts of the story, particularly if you have a word limit.  You have to be able to explain what you’re talking about in a way that doesn’t bore your reader to pieces, the way I’m sure I’m doing right now (boring you to pieces, that is, not being particularly enlightening).

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a storyteller.  I always wanted to be the next great American novelist.  There are more half-written stories scattered around my room than I can count; most of them are complete trash.  Some have some interesting points, but none have enough interesting points to make them into a full story.  And, certainly, none of them are the next great American novel.  None of them are even a good novel.  Most of them are five pages long, if that.

My storytelling abilities always got hung up on the fact that I couldn’t cause a story to spring from my pen fully formed.  I couldn’t sit down and write a complete, coherent, compelling piece, which frustrated me to no end.  I thought that being a good storyteller meant that you could write without thinking about it.  I’ve since learned that I was completely incorrect on that count.

This semester, I’ve learned that a large portion of science is storytelling.  I don’t mean storytelling in the fictional sense, of course.  I mean it more in the sense that your data will probably make zero sense to anyone but yourself without some explanation.  It’s also storytelling in the sense that the success of your research completely hinges upon your ability to present it in a coherent, interesting manner- much the same as the stories that I was discussing earlier.

I’ve gotten to do a lot of storytelling this semester.  The class that I’m spending the most time on is 7.18, which is Project Lab.  It’s basically an extension of my UROP, in that I’m doing lab work in my lab, and then using that lab work to do class work for several hours a week.  The class is a “CI-M”, or Communication Intensive Class- Major (not all of our acronyms make sense... I don’t think we even tried with that one :P).  What that actually means is that it includes three major presentations and over 20 pages of writing, a portion of which are turned in in draft form and then revised. Twenty pages of writing really doesn’t sound like that much, but to an MIT student used to communicating in numbers and problem sets, a paper that long can be a touch overwhelming.  And then you remember that the paper isn’t written in normal English, but in that strange language that is “Science” and you figure out why I haven’t written a blog post for the past three weeks.

But anyway, back to storytelling.  My research topic is reasonably complex, and fairly specific, meaning that there’s a great deal of background information needed to fully understand what’s going on.  In my paper and in each of my presentations, I have to explain that background information, as well how my results relate to the previous research that had been done on the topic.  And it has to be done in an interesting way.  Granted, this doesn’t necessarily mean interesting in the traditional sense- it’s probably more accurate to say that it has to be interesting to scientists studying similar things.  Which, granted, is a fairly niche group.  But even I occasionally get bored with my research (which is why I’m currently writing this blog post and not the revisions of my paper).

Presentations are even harder.  Most of the time, the people reading scientific papers are going to be people who are already interested in the topic (believe me, those papers are way too dense to try reading them without reason to do so).  Presentations, though, are quite often given to people with little or no background in the topic you’re talking about.  You have to be prepared to walk them through the information, without sounding like that’s what you’re doing.  It’s kind of a delicate balancing act.

At the beginning of the semester, our first presentation was just an introductory presentation about what we were doing.  I think I would be justified in saying that I did quite poorly in that presentation.  I’ve never been a good presenter, largely because standing in front of people and talking terrifies me.  It was the same with singing, or giving our mini-presentations at Christmas time... I hated having all eyes on me with the expectation that I was going to do something interesting.  This presentation was no different.  Although I knew what I was talking about, I didn’t manage to communicate that well to my class (as evidenced by their blank stares back at me throughout the presentation).  In my meeting with the professors to discuss my presentation, I was told that I sounded condescending and bored.  This, of course, upset me rather a lot, and my grad student and my friends go to listen to several minutes of ranting about the fact that I can’t give presentations, and that it’s not my fault that my voice is the way it is.

Several weeks of grumpiness and general hatred of presentations passed.  During this time, we were writing papers, but there was a break from presenting for a while.  And then it came time for our second class presentation.  This one went a lot better.  I think this was in large part because I finished the slides before 5 am on the day that the presentation was due (unlike with the first presentation), and was able to practice it several times over, in front of different audiences.  The storytelling aspect became particularly clear when I transitioned between different audiences.  When I initially gave my presentation to my grad student, he followed all of my logical jumps, because he has also been working on the project, and knows what the ups and downs have been.  In contrast, when I gave the presentation to my friends, they were generally able to follow the science, but got super confused by the logic.  As a result, I restructured the presentation into a more story-like form.  When I presented that version to my class, it went over surprisingly well.  I was the only one in my class who was applauded after their presentation (which may have been more about the content than my presenting skills, but it was still nice).  And this time, in our post-presentation meeting, I was told that the professors knew they had put me through the ringer after the first presentation, but that I should actually count presenting amongst my skills, because the second presentation was just miles better than the first one.

The comment about sounding bored and condescending this semester was not actually unique- I’ve gotten that one before, in previous semesters, and I think even in high school.  So the idea that I could actually be good at presenting, and not just “not abysmal” was kind of weird.  And honestly, it’s still a weird idea.  Why you would want to listen to me talk, I’m not sure.  (For that matter, if you’ve made it this far in this highly disjointed and horribly written blog post, I’m very impressed.)  But presenting requires storytelling in a way that writing doesn’t.  Both require knowing your audience and presenting your data in the most effective way for that audience.  But only presenting requires you to do it orally.  You don’t already have a captive audience when you’re presenting- you have to grab them and hang on to them.  And in that way, I think that presenting is actually harder than writing a paper (feel free to disagree with me... but I think capturing a captive audience is pretty darn hard).

All of this has been an incredibly long-winded way of saying that storytelling is important in science, and I’ll get to do a great deal more of it, both in the rest of this semester (which is only like three weeks.... AHHHHHH) and throughout IAP and the rest of my career.  I mention IAP specifically because I’ve been invited to speak at the MIT Biology Undergraduate Research Symposium, which means that at the end of IAP I'll get to give a 10-15 minute talk about what I’ve been doing for the past semester-ish, and convince people why it’s important in the grander context of science.  No pressure at all.  I’m actually fairly excited about this- I’m just kind of freaking out about the idea right now.  Particularly the questions afterwards... there are about 15 minutes after the presentation for questions, and I’m sure any professors in the audience will quiz me.  So I’ll have some studying to do over the Christmas break. :P

That’s most of my big news right now.  Most of my time is being taken up with paper writing and trying to get results in lab so that I can write my paper, and last minute grad school application things.  It’s possible that I’m turning into a ball of stress.  But I get to make yummy food for Thanksgiving, so there’s that to look forward to!

Also, because my storytelling has already been horrendous in this post, and because I’m still procrastinating on everything else I need to do today, I’m going to end by sharing one of our assignments from 7.18.  It’s a really interesting assignment- the goal was to write the abstract (sort of a summary paragraph) of our paper so that it could be read and understood by a group of non-scientists.  Like I said, my topic is fairly complex and very specific, so you’ll have to tell me if things are unclear.  This was a rather difficult assignment for me. :P  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I hope you weren’t too put off by my horrible storytelling, and that you don’t get too bored by this version of my abstract. :P

Abstract 

Everyday, our genetic information is being damaged by things all around us.  When the damage is not repaired, it can lead to diseases such as cancer, or to cell death. As such, our bodies have various methods of repairing this damage, and specific types of damage are repaired by specific methods.  For some types of damage, such as the etheno C lesion, the specific repair method is still in question.  In this paper, we used a newly developed test to examine the possible methods by which etheno C lesions are repaired.  The test uses fluorescent reporters to measure repair of specific types of damage- when fluorescence is present, the damage is repaired, and when it’s not, no repair has occurred.  Using cells with differing abilities to use each method of repair, we looked at the amount of fluorescence, and determined the likely methods of repairing etheno C lesions.  In the larger context, this research is interesting because it provides information about the methods by which specific types of DNA damage are repaired, which could help assess or prevent cancer risk in the future.

On Exhaustion and Burning Out

Okay, fun stuff first and then the think-y things.  Because I obviously have nothing better to do than write really thoughtful blog posts.  Like I said last week, (or the week before that... I don’t actually remember) I am the queen of procrastination.  So today, you get an examination of my brain.  Because that sounds fun, right? :P

Anywho, fun things first.  Halloween was last Friday, which means yours truly turned 22.  I worked (either in lab or at desk) for 17 of the 25 hours that made up my birthday (I stayed up until 1 am on November 1^st) and the other 8 hours were spent either sleeping or chatting with family on the phone while I threw together some dinner.  Never let it be said that I don’t know how to have a good time. :P

Saturday was something of a long day as well.  I went shopping for Apple Bake supplies in the morning (more on that to come).  The afternoon was spent largely pretending that I didn’t have any work to do, which tends to be how Saturday afternoons are spent.  In the evening, my friends and I went to Boo’s Cruise.  Boo’s Cruise is an MIT tradition where the senior class rents out a boat (The Spirit of Boston) and takes it out into the harbor for drinking (booze, haha, we’re so punny!) and dancing.  Unfortunately, the weather prevented the boat from actually leaving the dock this year, so I have yet to venture out onto the Harbor at any point in my college career.  Perhaps I’ll do so over a long weekend at some point in the next several months.

Sunday was also long (to be honest, I’m a bit surprised I can actually tell you what days things are on, because they were all long and sort of blurred together).  Apple Bake was on Sunday, and it was as enjoyable as always.  I made two dishes this year, which was substantially fewer than in years past.  I was trying to simultaneously run around making sure we had enough ingredients, and deal with some unrelated errands, on top of trying to make sure that the floor picked up the appropriate ingredients so that we didn’t run out of things randomly in the middle of the day.  As a result, I think two was about as many as I could handle.  And it turned out for the best, since one of my dishes won 3^rd place in the “Appletizer (Meat)” category.  For those interested, the dish was Mac and Cheese with Ham and Apples (recipe to follow (I know you’ve been waiting for that one Dad!)).  Overall, the floor did very well- we earned back all that we spent on ingredients in prize money (plus a little bit of extra) and we placed second out of all the floors that participated.  Not bad, if I do say so myself.

Alrighty... that sums up the fun things, I think.  So, then, on to the weighty stuff.  I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between exhaustion and being burnt out.  The distinction is, I think, an important one.  Last year, at about this time, I wrote a post about how I was struggling with a particular protocol, largely because every time I tried to make it work, the results were extremely error-filled, despite my best efforts.  At the end of last semester, after trying to make this protocol work over countless weeks, to no avail, I was burnt out.  The only thing I really wanted to do was curl up at home (real home, not Burton Conner home) in one of my family’s pink armchairs, and read a book that had absolutely nothing to do with science.  I think, at that point, that I would have been quite happy to never look at that protocol again.  I’m still fairly sure that if I were asked to run the protocol, I would do so, but it would be with a significant amount of trepidation. 

For me, burning out is characterized by the desire to take about five steps back for a while, and just never look at what I was working on again.  The combination of that horrible protocol and my classes (which were still all bioengineering-y, and thus very math-heavy) lead me to a place that wasn’t exactly uncomfortable, but was certainly not where I wanted to be.  It was a bit like walking around in a haze, and just not really caring, I guess.  I didn’t want to go to lab, because that meant I would have to run the hated protocol.  

If you’ve heard me talk about lab, you probably know how significant that last statement was...  I love lab.  If I’m being completely honest, lab is probably the place that I feel most comfortable these days.  Which is good, since I’m probably there more than I’m awake at home (Burton Conner home, not real home. Although also technically real home, since I’m generally not even in the same state as real home.  I digress).

In contrast, there have been a lot of times in the past several weeks when I was completely exhausted, but not at all burnt out.  I’m tired, and I wish that my work would do itself, and I really wish there were about 500 more hours in each day, and 500 more days in the semester on top of that.  But I’m still excited about lab.  I still go into work everyday, mildly dreading working with the 40 plates of cells that I’m growing, but excited for the results that I know will come out of those plates.  When the DNA was stuck in the wells of my gels, I was so, so frustrated.  But I was still excited to go in to lab and try to figure out the problem. 

There were days this summer (after I was done with the evil protocol) when I did nothing but complain about lab.  There are still days when I do nothing but complain about lab.  But I’m still excited about it, which is a definite juxtaposition.  For me, the excitement is the part that tells me I’m not burnt out yet.  My grad student told me to come in late one day last week, and I was more grumpy about the fact that it meant I had less time to work than I was happy about the fact that I got to sleep in for an hour.  It’s possible that I have a mildly unhealthy love of working... but at least I’m enjoying my work! :P

I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again at some point- I'm extremely fortunate to be where I am.  There are any number of things in my life that could be different, that could make it slightly less enjoyable, or that could be the difference between being exhausted and being burnt out.  I'm incredibly lucky that my lab was looking for a UROP when I was looking for a lab to UROP in, and that the grad student I'm currently working with agreed to work with me when the postdoc I had been working with left the lab to do other ridiculously cool things.  I'm lucky that I followed the other seniors on my floor to dinner when we were freshmen, and that we're still friends now.  I'm lucky that the new members of our floor are so awesome.  I'm lucky that I'm at MIT, that I went to my high school, that I rowed, that my family supported me through all of my craziness.  And at the moment, I'm lucky that I'm just exhausted and not burnt out.  Here's to staying that way until my 23rd birthday (which, knowing me, I'll spend working again... I'm cool like that).

Mac and Cheese with Ham and Apples

source: www.thelawstudentswife.com

Healthy Ham and Cheese Casserole with Apples and Sage

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 55 minutes

Yield: Serves 6-8

A healthy version of a baked ham and cheese pasta casserole with apples and sage that is just as comforting as the original. Your entire family will love this dish, and it makes great leftovers too!

Ingredients

For the Pasta:
• 1 pound whole wheat penne
• 12 ounces diced ham (I used thickly sliced Virginia ham from our deli)
• 3 medium sweet apples, cored and cut into 1/2-inch dice (I used Gala)
• 1/2 cup loosely packed fresh sage leaves, thinly sliced, dived
For the Sauce
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 small yellow onion, chopped
• 3 teaspoons garlic
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 cups non-fat milk
• 1/4 cup half and half
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 cup plain non-fat Greek yogurt
• 1 cup freshly grated sharp white cheddar cheese
For the Bread Crumb Topping:
• 3/4 cup Panko bread crumbs
• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Directions

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add the pasta to the water and cook until al dente, according to package directions. Drain and set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, and lightly grease a 9x13 or similar baking dish.
2. Melt the butter in a Dutch oven or similar large, deep pot over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until beginning to soften, about 6 minutes. Sprinkle in the flour and garlic, then cook whisking often, until the flour is golden brown, about 2 minutes. Gradually pour in milk, whisking constantly, then the half and half. Continue to cook until the sauce simmers and thickens, about 7 minutes. Remove from heat, then stir in the salt and nutmeg, then the Greek yogurt, cheddar, and 1/2 the total amount of sage. Add the drained pasta, apples and ham, toss gently to coat, then transfer to the prepared baking dish.
3. Combine the bread crumbs and olive oil in a small bowl and sprinkle over the top of the pasta. Cover the dish with foil, then bake for 10 minutes covered, then uncover and bake 10 additional minutes, until the crumbs are golden and the pasta is hot and bubbly. If necessary, turn your broiler to high to finishing browning the crumbs, watching them carefully so that they do not burn. Remove baked pasta from the oven, sprinkle with remaining sage, and serve.

The Right to Dream

I had big plans for this post.  I was going to talk about how I’m done with standardized testing forever, or how hiking (and really just getting out of MIT for a while) is wonderful, or how I spent stupid amounts of time in lab this week, or how I completely killed my presentation (in a good way).  This was going to be an action packed post.  But it came time to write it all down, and I found that I didn’t really feel like writing any of those things.  There are a lot of things I’m writing this week- I’m drafting the Results section of my ‘thesis’ (in quotes because it’s a culminating paper, but not technically a thesis), and I really, really need to get a draft of my Statement of Purpose down.  So when it came time to write about myself (again) I wasn’t really keen on the idea. 

While I was procrastinating, I decided to do my Spanish homework.  This week, we’re going to be discussing a piece of writing by Eduardo Galeano, an Uruguayan journalist and writer.  The piece is an excerpt from a larger work, and it’s titled “El Derecho de Soñar”, or “The Right to Dream”.  I really don’t feel like putting my own words down on paper right now, so instead, I’m going to give you some of my Spanish homework.  I’ll copy the Spanish below (because works should be read in their original language, if possible) and then I’ll translate it, which is a portion of my homework for the week (but you should probably read a professional translation also, if possible, because I’m not great at translations (There's also a video here of the author reading the piece, if you'd like to listen to it in Spanish)).  I’m not sure how I feel about the entire piece, but parts definitely resonated with me.  There are some very powerful things that Galeano says, even if they are mildly controversial.  And honestly, art should be a little bit controversial.  There’s a great quote by Cesar Cruz that says, “Art should comfort the disturbed, and disturb the comfortable”.  So, without further ado, here’s a dose of comfort or disturbance for your week:

El Derecho de Soñar

Eduardo Galeano

(Patas arriba: la escuela del mundo al revés, 1998)

Vaya uno a saber cómo será el mundo más allá del años dos mil. Tenemos una única certeza si todavía estamos aquí, ya seremos gente del siglo pasado y, peor todavía, seremos gente del pasado milenio.

Pero aunque no podemos adivinar el mundo que será, bien podemos imaginar el que queremos que sea.

El derecho de soñar no figura entre los 30 derechos humanos que las Naciones Unidas proclamaron a fines del 1948, pero si no fuera por él, el derecho de soñar, y por las aguas que da de beber, los demás derechos se morirían de sed. Así que vamos a delirar, deliremos por un ratito.

El mundo que está patas arriba se pondrá sobre sus pies.

En las calles, los automóviles serán pisados por los perros.

El aire estará limpio de los venenos de las máquinas y no tendrá más contaminación que la que emana de los miedos humanos y de las humanas pasiones;

La gente no será manejada por el automóvil, ni será programada por la computadora, ni será comprada por el supermercado, ni será contemplada por el televisor;

El televisor dejará de ser el miembro más importante de la familia, y será tratado como la plancha o el lavarropas;

La gente trabajará para vivir, en lugar de vivir para trabajar;

En ningún país irán presos los muchachos que se nieguen a hacer el servicio militar, sino los que quieran hacerlo;

Los economistas no llamarán nivel de vida al nivel de consumo, ni llamarán calidad de vida a la cantidad de cosas;

Los cocineros no creerán que a las langostas les encanta que las hiervan vivas;

Los historiadores no creerán que a los países les encanta ser invadidos;

Los políticos no creerán que a los pobres les encanta comer promesas;

El mundo ya no estará en guerra contra los pobres, sino contra la pobreza, y la industria militar no tendrá más remedio que declararse en quiebra por siempre jamás;

Nadie morirá de hambre, porque nadie morirá de indigestión;

Los niños de la calle no serán tratados como si fueran basura, porque no habrá niños de la calle;

Los niños ricos no serán tratados como si fueran dinero, porque no habrá niños ricos;

La educación no será el privilegio de quienes puedan pagarla; ni la policía será la maldición de quienes no puedan comprarla;

La justicia y la libertad, hermanas siamesas condenadas a vivir separadas, volverán a juntarse, bien pegaditas, espalda contra espalda;

Una mujer, negra, será presidente de Brasil y otra mujer, negra, será presidente de los Estados Unidos de América; y una mujer india gobernará Guatemala y otra, Perú;

En Argentina, las locas de Plaza de Mayo serán un ejemplo de salud mental, porque ellas se negaron a olvidar en los tiempos de la amnesia obligatoria;

La Santa Madre Iglesia corregirá algunas erratas de las piedras de Moisés. El sexto mandamiento ordenará: "Festejarás el cuerpo".

El noveno, que desconfía del deseo, lo declarará sagrado.

La Iglesia también dictará un undécimo mandamiento, que se le había olvidado al Señor:

"Amarás a la naturaleza, de la que formas parte".

Todos los penitentes serán celebrantes, y no habrá noche que no sea vivida como si fuera la última, ni día que no sea vivido como si fuera el primero.”

The Right to Dream

Eduardo Galeano

(Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World, 1998) 

One may want to know what the world will be like after the year two thousand.  The only thing we know for certain is that if we are here, we will then be people of the past century, and worse still, people of the past millennium.

But even though we can’t know what the world will be like, we can imagine well what we want it to be like.

The right to dream didn’t feature among the 30 human rights that the United Nations declared at the end of 1948, but if it weren’t for this, the right to dream, and for the water that it gives them to drink, the other rights would have died of thirst.  So if we’re going to dream, let’s dream for a bit.

The world that is upside down will be above its feet.

In the streets, the cars will be crushed by dogs.

The air will be clean of the poisons of the machines, and it will not have the contamination that emanates from the fears of humans and from human passions;

People won’t be driven by automobile, nor will they be programmed by computers, nor will they be bought in the supermarket, nor will they be watched by the television set;

The television will be cease to be the most important member of the family, and will be treated like the iron or the washing machine;

People will work to live, rather than living to work;

In no country will those who refuse military service be forced to do so, unless they want to do it;

The economists will not refer to the standard of life as the standard of consumption, nor will they refer to quality of life by quantity of goods;

The cooks will not believe that the lobsters enjoy being boiled alive;

The historians will not believe that countries enjoy being invaded;

The politicians won’t believe that the poor enjoy eating promises;

The world will finally not be at war against the poor, but rather against poverty, and the military industry will never again need to have a remedy for declaring bankruptcy;

No one will die of hunger, because no one will die of indigestion;

The children in the street won’t be treated as if they were trash, because there will not be children in the street;

The rich children will not be treated as if they were money, because there will be no rich children;

Education will not be a privilege of those who can pay for it; nor will the police be a curse for those who cannot buy them;

Justice and liberty, Siamese twins condemned to live separately, will be together again, stuck together, back to back;

A woman, black, will be the president of Brasil, and another woman, black, will be the president of the United States of America; and an indigenous woman will govern Guatemala, and another, Peru;

In Argentina, the crazy ones of the Plaza de Mayo will be an example of mental health, because they will refuse to be forgotten in times of compulsory amnesia;

The Holy Mother Church will correct some of the errors on Moses’ stones.  The sixth commandment will order: “Celebrate your body”.

The Ninth, which declares desire untrustworthy, will celebrate it.

The Church will also declare an eleventh commandment, for those who have forgotten the Father: “Love the natural world, of which you are a part”.

All of the penitents will be celebrated, and there will not be a night that is lived like it is not the last, nor a day that is lived as if it were the first.