Hey Screensaver,

Hil #2 aka Hil B is completely showing me up in the email department so I feel that I should send more updates to you , and feel free to post – provided that you fix my mistakes. Look I’m using punctuation and everything. Damn Spanish keyboards.

I survived the plague and am back to 100% now, luckily the advisors who run my program are really amazing and took me to the hospital right away when I asked and the hospital was really efficient – I was in and out of there with a handful of prescriptions in less than an hour. I don´t know what it was that I had, but my friend thinks it was scarlet fever or strep that I let go for much too long before taking antibiotics.

Now I am appreciating being healthy much more and as classes are picking up we are all slowing down a bit. I am doing a LOT of reading in Spanish and I use my dictionary so much the pages are actually starting to fall out.

The housing situation has gotten much better. My roommates and I decided that we were not going to switch families after all for several reasons. 1- we are in a really great part of the city. We are right off of a main street and we are in a safe place. I am not scared about walking home from the bus stop at night whereas some other people have to worry about that, and all the other available housing options were in questionable neighborhoods. 2- most of our close friends live within a 10 minute walk from us and we spend so much time with them moving away would isolate us. 3- We spend a lot less time at the house than I thought we would. After classes I usually go to the library on campus to use the internet, like I´m doing now, or I go to a park or somewhere outside to do homework or read.

The biggest park in Sevilla is a short bus ride from me and I love going there because there are water fountains and doves and peacocks and GRASS which is really rare here because it is dry as a dessert and grass is a waste of water. 4- Our house mom, Yolanda, has actually become more receptive to us. She has been with our program for a few years and one day was explaining to us what her previous students were like. She said they were “siempre barachas” which means “always drunk” and they spoke really poor Spanish and were not friendly to her. So I can´t blame her for being wary of us. Yesterday I saw she was reading a book about Buddhism so I struck up a conversation with her about philosophy and we had a great talk about it and other subjects and we definitely bonded. 5- My roommates are amazing. There was a pretty good possibility that if we moved we would be split up, and we would rather stay together. Both of my housemates (not roommates i guess because I have a single room and they share a double right next to me and we 3 share a bathroom) are named Natasha and they are both Indian. Weird coincidence, right? One of them is a complete introvert and is quiet and independent, but she is so interesting and insightful she slows me down and centers me. The other one is an extrovert and loves being around people 24/7 like I do, I joke that she is the Indian version of me. She is from New Mexico and the other is from Maryland. Somehow the 3 of us are a perfect balance and I really love living with them.

I have been doing a good amount of traveling, and the next few weeks are going to be really crazy with that. 2 weekends ago my whole group went to Granada, a city a few hours from here. The main attraction was the Alahambra, an ancient walled Muslim city with beautiful gardens and huge elaborate palaces. This past weekend we went to the monastery where Christopher Colombus lived when he drafted the proposal to Isabel and Ferdinand to go to America, and we got to see some things he had actually hand-written and the first map of the world that had America on it. Afterwards we went to the beach!

This coming weekend I don´t have school Thurs, Fri, or Mon, so I am going to London! Matt Dinneen is studying there so I am going to stay with him and he will show me the city. I’m going to meet up with my mom’s friend Joanna who lives there too. I have never been to London so I am so excited! The weekend after that I am going to Morocco with my group. I wasn’t going to go because it’s a little expensive, but when I found out that we would be riding camels in the desert, I decided it was worth it. Camel rides in Africa!! I can’t believe I get to do this.

After Morocco are midterms and lots of presentations and possibly a trip to see my sister in Switzerland, money permitting. The weekend after that my mom will be here. I know she is never going to want to come back home after coming to this city though, so say your goodbyes because she will be posing as a student here with me till December. The day after my mom leaves my whole group is going to Paris for three days. Then my grammy will be here for a week, then my sister comes for Thanksgiving, and then, as our dear Cortney says, “holey manoley” it’s December. It seems so quick when I look at it like that week-by-week, so I’m trying to enjoy each day.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you and Mateo should come visit if you get bored in Action Acton. Wyoming’s got nothin on Sevilla.

Since you love cathedrals and you should definitely come here. I like them too, but it always feels like I’m sneaking into them, like I get to see a window into a different time and place, like its a secret that belongs to someone else. There is a little tram that runs in from of the big cathedral in the center and I always think about the juxtaposition of the new and the old. I don´t think the people here appreciate what they get to walk by every day.

I get to do live people watching every day and the people here are honestly a feast for the eyes. The things they do, the way they dress, how they dress, the use/misuse of personal space, concepts of time, what is acceptable to do in public, and so much more is so fascinating.

How are you and Matt doing? Is this the hard part now, when everything settles, but not back to “normal” because you have to figure out a new “normal”? Is Matt working/enjoying working at Middlesex? Are you taking good care of my mom? Not that she needs it, but you know what I mean.

Will write again soon.
Much love
Hil
(NICKNAME!!
suggestions: mousepad, hard drive, printer, Linux…)

I Knew Gene Kelly. The President Is No Gene Kelly.

To the Editor:

Re “Soft Shoe in Hard Times” (column, March 16):

Surely it must have been a slip for Maureen Dowd to align the artistry of my late husband, Gene Kelly, with the president’s clumsy performances. To suggest that “George Bush has turned into Gene Kelly” represents not only an implausible transformation but a considerable slight. If Gene were in a grave, he would have turned over in it.

When Gene was compared to the grace and agility of Jack Dempsey, Wayne Gretzky and Willie Mays, he was delighted. But to be linked with a clunker – particularly one he would consider inept and demoralizing –
would have sent him reeling.

Graduated with a degree in economics from Pitt, Gene was not only a gifted dancer, director and choreographer, he was also a most civilized man. He spoke multiple languages; wrote poetry; studied history; understood the projections of Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes. He did the Sunday Times crossword in ink. Exceedingly articulate, Gene often conveyed more through movement than others manage with words.

Sadly, President Bush fails to communicate meaningfully with either.

For George Bush to become Gene Kelly would require impossible leaps in creativity, erudition and humility.

Patricia Ward Kelly
Los Angeles, March 16, 2008

I Knew Gene Kelly. The President Is No Gene Kelly.

To the Editor:

Re “Soft Shoe in Hard Times” (column, March 16):

Surely it must have been a slip for Maureen Dowd to align the artistry of my late husband, Gene Kelly, with the president’s clumsy performances. To suggest that “George Bush has turned into Gene Kelly” represents not only an implausible transformation but a considerable slight. If Gene were in a grave, he would have turned over in it.

When Gene was compared to the grace and agility of Jack Dempsey, Wayne Gretzky and Willie Mays, he was delighted. But to be linked with a clunker – particularly one he would consider inept and demoralizing –
would have sent him reeling.

Graduated with a degree in economics from Pitt, Gene was not only a gifted dancer, director and choreographer, he was also a most civilized man. He spoke multiple languages; wrote poetry; studied history; understood the projections of Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes. He did the Sunday Times crossword in ink. Exceedingly articulate, Gene often conveyed more through movement than others manage with words.

Sadly, President Bush fails to communicate meaningfully with either.

For George Bush to become Gene Kelly would require impossible leaps in creativity, erudition and humility.

Patricia Ward Kelly
Los Angeles, March 16, 2008

Hil K

Hi everyone – sorry it’s taken me so long to put up pictures, but we have been so busy moving and we jut got our internet up in the new house.

Anyway, the riot was so crazy. I don’t really think we expected Umass to win the national title, we were the #3 team and Appalacian State was #1, but because of the riots following the Red Sox victory in 2004 there seemed to be a general concensus that current students wanted to do something even bigger. The riots took place in my section of campus, Southwest, where the towers are that house about half of all students who live oncampus – about 5,000 students. All during the day of the game there were extra police patrolling the campus and they even installed “riot lights” on the sides of the towers. which made it super bright at night.

When the game was over at 11:30 we looked out our window and saw people pouring out of the dorms into the quads below. It really didn’t seem to matter that we had lost. I went outside with my friends, but we stayed around the edges of the crowd, not wanting to get crushed in the big moshes. In the beginning of the riots people were cheering “Go Umass!” and it was as positive at atmosphere as a riot can be. Then, things started to go downhill.

The cops showed up around 11:45 in full swat gear. Nobody was really out of control at this point, but the police immediately began going to extreme measures to try to get everyone to leave. They started setting off flash bombs, which are so loud they make the whole ground shake and are so bright if you’re close to them you can’t see anything for a few seconds. They launched tear gas cans into the middle of the crowd, which sting your throat, lungs, and eyes and make you cough uncontrollably. Then, they started shooting rubber pellets out of what looked like paintball guns. Some of my friends got hit with those and they leave big bruises and really hurt. I managed to escape unscathed by those, but I inhaled a good amount of tear gas.

The riot then turned into an anti-police rally. Not that I am saying I support what my classmates were doing when they were lighting trees on fire, throwing rocks through windows, and throwing trashcans at the police, but i think the police responded inappropriately. They were shooting innocent onlookers and being overly-forceful. If they hadn’t been so harsh right off the bat, the students wouldn’t have responded in such a way and the whole situation wouldn’t have escalated so much.

It took the cops until 1:30am to dispurse the crowds. There were campus police, Amherst police, police on horseback, and state troopers called in to assist.

It was quite an experience to be a part of. My friends and I stayed right near the door of our building so we weren’t in too much danger of being shot at. I didn’t have my camera so I don’t have pictures, but there are many vidoes on UTube by students who were there.

This one I found is from the local news channel. Click on the “Watch the Video” link below the article.

This one was taken in front of my dining commons looking at my building. In the upper right-hand corner is my buliding. We were standing behind those bushes.

Here is the view from the tower next to mine.

Crazy, huh?