Mixed Nuts

I want you to take a good, long look at this container. Look past the elegantly simple black-on-blue & white color scheme. Pay no mind to the beautiful pop of the contrasting nut color. Ignore the dirty joke that just entered your perverted mind.

Look closer.

Notice it doesn’t simply say “Mixed Nuts.” No, no – that would be an understatement. It says “Deluxe Mixed Nuts.” And not only does it say that, if you look closer as previously instructed, you’ll notice that the word “Deluxe” is in bold. In case you had any grievous misconceptions about the product you were considering, you’ve just been shocked into reality.

And why shouldn’t it be deluxe? Look at those vivid pictures! Or simply look at the list on the side. Cashews. Bam! Who doesn’t LOVE cashews? Nobody, that’s who. Pure, sweet energy in those. Almonds. Boom! Everyone’s favorite non-meat source of protein. Pecans. Whoo! Be honest – you didn’t even know you could get pecans outside of a pie, did you? Well, the word’s out – you can.

But wait – there’s more!

Brazil nuts. Kap… – wait, what the hell are those? Who knows? They’re in there, though. That’s what it says. I’m not exactly sure why Brazil gets its own nuts, but it’s written right on the Deluxe container there, so they must be real. They’re big. Like Brazilian butts? And do Brazilians simply call them “nuts”? To be honest, I’m not convinced they belong among the Deluxe group. Not to be racist, but I don’t think they’re all that special. They’re weirdly shaped, weirdly colored, and weird tasting. To be clear, I’m talking about the nuts.

Anyway, there’s one last nut. Wait for it… Pistachio. Nuts. Mother. Humper. Pistachios! No fingernail ruining shells. No shirt ruining red dye. Just those delicious little nuggets of nut joy. The mere presence of pistachios, in my humble opinion, makes this a masterful motley of mixed nuts. One might even call this mixture…deluxe.

So there we have it. Cashews, almonds, pecans, Brazil nuts, pistachios. Five-nut draw, indeed. They call it “Deluxe” – and why shouldn’t they? Have you seen the ingredients? With the exception of those weird Brazil nuts, it has all the best nuts. And you’d better believe it come with a deluxe price tag, worthy of the mixture. Why, it costs almost as much as the one with that terrifying, anthropomorphic, bespectacled, aristocratic peanut on the label.

So here’s the point. I bought this deluxe, ridiculously expensive mixture in order to have daily access to a reasonably healthy snack. Cashews – energy, almonds – protein, pecans – improved digestion, Brazil nuts – who knows, pistachios – antioxidants. All along with healthy fats and high fiber content. Perfect snacks for healthy people and old folks. Oh – another thing I like is there are no peanuts. When I was a kid, all mixed nuts contained peanuts. And it was more like a can of peanuts with a couple of broken pieces of other nuts sprinkled in. So, no peanuts means a more proportionate mix. One would think.

As you may have surmised by the last three words of the previous paragraph, the mixture isn’t quite balanced. But, you know what? It’s not the end of the world. It’s not like I expected an equal amount of each nut – that’s crazy. I didn’t open the container looking for a utopian society of nut equipoise. It was only after snacking from this container that I noticed something. And it wasn’t a visual discovery, but one of taste. Texture. Consistency. Crunch. Brazil nuts are tossed of course, because – well, they’re stupid. But cashews, almonds, pecans, and pistachios all have their own distinct texture. Pecans, being the most individual. It’s more of a “soft crunch,” if you will. They require less jaw pressure, less tooth strength. So as you’re unconsciously tossing back small handfuls of these deluxe mixed nuts, you tend to notice, more often than with the others, when you have caught the rare pecan. That difference provides a respite of sorts from the hard work your mouth must put in to crunch the cashews, almonds, and pistachios.

Rare. That’s the word I have chosen. Because this is what pecans are in this can of so-called mixed nuts. As I noticed fewer and fewer respites, I began to pay closer attention to the innards of the container. It was almost all cashews and almonds. Now, what with cashews and almonds being the kings of the nuts, this wouldn’t usually be a thing worthy of complaint. But I was promised a “Five-Nut Draw,” not a “Two-Nut and the Odd Other-Nut Draw.” There were also far fewer Brazil nuts, but those are loser nuts anyway, so good riddance. But where the hell are the pecans? There’s pretty much one pecan for every ten or twelve cashews and almonds. Excessively disproportionate, I think. At this price? Unacceptable.

What can I do about it? Return it for lack of pecans? It doesn’t explicitly say how many of each nut the container should contain. The very name “Five-Nut Draw” is a play on Five-Card Draw, which is a version of poker. It’s a gamble. You may get 50 pecans, you may get 15. That’s the chance you take, I suppose. I bought another can, and even bought the more expensive Planters version of this same mixture. It was all the same! A conspiracy on the part of the powerful nut cartels? Are they keeping the pecans to themselves? Is there some pestilence affecting the pecan crops around the world? What could possibly be the excuse? Cans of just cashews and just almonds are almost as expensive as this deluxe mix, so it can’t be that they’re filling the can with cheaper nuts, as was done during the great peanut despair of the 80’s.

You may ask “If you love pecans so much, why not just buy a small bag of pecans”? I would respond by saying it’s a matter of principle. It’s not that I’m infatuated with pecans. In fact, I could take them or leave them. But they’re supposed to be in the mix. And I like the consistency when pecans are mixed with cashews, almonds, pistachios, and the nut that shall not be named. I paid for a deluxe mix, and dammit, that’s what I want.

Lemme learn ya somethin’

Learning new things. Scary sometimes. Almost always difficult. Many of us have been conditioned to think that the way we learn things is by listening to someone else explain how to do it. And by the same token, we are also conditioned to think that the best way to teach someone something is to explain it to them. Think about it. Think all the way back, centuries ago, when you were in school and you were surrounded by those miserable meatbags each and every day, for hours on end. You know them. Your teachers. Many of them, standing in front of you and spouting gibberish for an hour, expecting you to remember it. Many of them standing in front of you writing gibberish for an hour, expecting you to remember it. How much of it do you remember? How much of what you actually know and apply each day was learned from these people? How much of it did you learn from some other source? I’d wager most of it didn’t come from people talking at you or writing things down for you to copy. You learned from actual practice; usage.

Learning something, anything, takes practice. You have to try it and possibly fail many times before you can truly say that you know it. Think about a baby who is just learning to walk. If the baby was surrounded by people who never walked, but only crawled around, would the baby make any attempt to walk? What if those odd people in her life did only crawl around, but they sat the child down and explained to her the intricacies of walking on two legs, but never showed her and never propped her up on her feet to make her try it. Would that kid ever walk?How should I know? I’m not a doctor. But my feeling is that no, the kid probably wouldn’t walk. Most of us can ride bicycles. Do you think that before you ever got on a bicycle, if your parents had explained to you how to ride one, and then gave you one, you would be able to ride it perfectly? No, you have to get on the bike, fall down and scrape your knees several dozen times whilst being laughed at by the neighbor kids before you can successfully and confidently maneuver a bicycle. Riding a bicycle can’t be learned by reading about it, or hearing about it. You have to get on a bike and make it happen. This same principle applies to learning any other skill.

Reading, writing, dancing, biting, jumping, skipping, swimming, flipping. Can’t do it perfectly the first time. Can’t know how to do it simply by hearing someone explain it to you. The theory is fine. Learning how to play an instrument or learning how to drive a car. Theory comes into place, of course. But true learning takes place in practice. If you want to learn a new language, you will never speak it properly by simply buying a dictionary or phrase book. How would you ever know if you are speaking properly? You have to communicate with someone who speaks that language! Yes, studying from a book is almost necessary to perfect it, but speaking and using the language is the only way to truly learn it.

When I was in culinary school, we would have 2 types of classes: in the classroom, and in the kitchen. In the classroom, we would discuss recipes and ingredients and what made certain things work. In the kitchen, we would put it into practice. What I noticed was that no matter how much I studied a written recipe, it was always difficult to remember it. But once I actually worked with the recipe and made it, I could always remember the recipe. Your mind isn’t the only thing with a memory, as I’m sure you know. Every part of you has memory. And when it all works together to remember something, you’ll never forget. That’s why once you learn how to ride a bicycle, you’ll never forget how to do it, even if you go 30 years without riding one. It’s not just your head remembering how to control a bicycle; it’s your head, your arms, your hands, your legs, and your feet. Everything is used to work the bicycle, so it’s one big memory. One memory triggers another, which triggers another.

When’s the last time you read or heard a word that was new to you? Your reaction was probably along the lines of “Hmmm I did not know that”. But then a week later if someone asked you about that word, would you remember it? Probably not. You didn’t practice it. This applies to learning a new language just the same as learning a new word. Once you learn it, you have to put it to use. Say it out loud, put it into a sentence. Use that word every day for a few days and BAM. You have added another word to your vocabulary. We learn from practice, not simply from listening or reading. We teach by enabling our student to engage in the activity, not by talking at them.  Learning something new can be daunting at first. You start to doubt whether or not you could ever learn how to do that. But of course, you can. Just takes practice. Every habit you have, good or bad, you earned from constant practice. You want to write? You want to know how you can become a writer? Just write. You want to be able to cook? Just cook. Sure you may be terrible at first and send a few loved ones to the latrines, but eventually, if you keep at it, you will improve. Or maybe go to jail. But a skill is a skill. Keep cooking whilst incarcerated – it’ll help pass the time.

Imagine a giraffe with a sore throat.

It’s almost as if this blog is becoming a journal to document my various ailments here in Honduras. This time it’s a simple sore throat that plagues me. Today makes a week since it reared its despicable head, and it hasn’t gotten progressively better since its inception. I mean, is there any ailment that is more just plain annoying than a sore throat? It is a fortunate thing that I received 2 bags of lozenges just before Christmas, because they have helped. Today I made a tea of lemon juice, honey and hot sauce, which worked well as I was drinking it (despite the obvious choking fits I had to endure), but soon after finishing it, swallowing once again became quite the chore. Anyway, I’ll give it a couple more days and if there’s no improvement, I shall seek out some antibiotics.

So, we’re back in school after close to 2 and a half weeks off for Christmas break. Fortunately, most of the kids don’t seem to have forgotten everything we were working on, which was a fear of mine. I assigned them all a bunch of work to do over the holidays, and even made a schedule for them to follow so that there would be a consistent flow of learning the entire vacation.  Of course, it turns out they all made it their mission to finish it all in the first 2 days of vacation. The very same kids that have trouble remembering to do homework or copying 3 sentences off the board.

Let me also mention that the school scheduled exams for the week after returning from Christmas break. Where’s the logic in that, you ask? Do me a favor and email me if you can find it, because I can’t. My moaning and whining aside, the kids did relatively well on the exams; though I have no doubt they would have done better with another week or 2 to prepare in class. My class size has also dropped by at least one. One of the kids was taken out of school the last week before break, evidently because they are having financial problems. It stinks that it came down to that, but hopefully they have found a cheaper alternative and placed him there. He was one of the slower kids, so he really can’t afford a long break in his education now.

As for the Christmas break itself, it was rather uneventful. I didn’t go anywhere, I didn’t do anything (other than complete a 750 pc puzzle), and oddly enough, it didn’t snow. I was invited for Christmas Eve dinner at the home of one of my kids, and I spent Christmas day watching Christmas themed movies, so that was entertaining enough for me. The only really hard part about coming off vacation was getting used to waking up before 6am again. It’s not so much the waking up as it is getting enough sleep the night before.

Right now I am in the process of deciding if I wish to stay for another year. A big part of me wants to, but a big part of me is unsure. I still have to find a way to pay for my TEFL certification so that I can get a job teaching English when I’m done here, whether that is this year or next. If nothing else I would like to leave for a couple of weeks at least to get a break and see family, but it’s hard to imagine how that would happen. There is opportunity for a teaching job over the summer right here, teaching adults, and it pays well (for Honduras, anyway), and I could support myself here on that, but it doesn’t solve any long-term problems.

Anyway, I have faith that things will work out as they are meant to. Faith has gotten me this far and I see no reason to despair or worry over things at this point. I just wanted to say that everyone’s encouraging words and support are well appreciated, and I’m happy that everyone understands what it is I am trying to do here. That’s about it for now…take care.

Sports, Weather & Other Important Things

The thing that bugs me about weather is that any sudden, extreme change in temperature is an almost guarantee that I´m gonna get a cold. I mean even if I´m feeling as healthy as I ever have, hopped up on vitamins and minerals daily and dressing appropriately; if the temperature hits a high of 90 one day and a high of 65 the next, I am bound to begin sniffling and sneezing and coughing. But I can´t complain about it because I love cold weather, which is what makes it even more annoying that I get sick whenever the weather turns.

A few nights last week I had to resort to sleeping in long pants. I don’t think I´ve done that since I was living in Dallas, which was quite some time ago. The weather was low and cool during daylight for almost the entirety of last week, then a break on Friday, and back to the cool yesterday. Today the sun has come up, but it´s still relatively cool. The nights have been consistently nice, though…which is nice. Today I got up and decided to go to the Sunday Market and purchase a blanket, which is almost a guarantee that it´s going to warm up again very soon. But no matter. Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it, am I right?

So why have I written all this endlessly fascinating information on my blog? Is it to give people an accurate idea of how the weather is here in Cofradia? Is it to complain about getting my 5th cold in 3 months? Is it simply to fill up this blog post with words so that it is bigger than it needs to be? We may never know the answer to that question, but rest assured, I will continue my search.

So I mentioned the decent weather on Friday (aside from some slight drizzles in the afternoon), which was pretty warm. Friday was the day we had the school Olympics. Kids from each grade in the school, along with the teachers and volunteers, are split into 5 ¨houses¨, represented by the colors blue, green, orange, red and yellow. Kids are awarded ¨house points¨on a daily basis based on different criteria. For the Olympics, each house was designated a country, often determined by the nationality of the volunteers. For this year´s event, the countries were: Australia, The Bahamas, Canada, Ireland and Japan.

The kids took part in 8 different events throughout the course of the day. Only 2 were traditional sporting events, those being the sprint and the relay. The other events were the ball toss, limbo, sack race, 3 legged race, tunnel ball and tug of war. Of these events, the volunteers also took part in limbo, sack race, 3 legged race and tug of war. Of course it goes without saying that I fell over whilst attempting the sack race. I am not too proud to admit that I am not adept at hopping around with my legs bound up in a tiny sack.

The kids had a blast, and the day as a whole was pretty fun. The only negative to the day is that even though we don´t know the official results yet, I´m pretty sure The Bahamas team finished no better than 4th overall. Actually it´s not really a negative because honestly it means very little to me, but it was the team I was on, so doing better would have been cool…oh well. Another positive to the day was that I was able to procure a jar of guanabana (sour sop) jam, which is rather tasty indeed. Sorry to say I do  not have any pictures to post at the moment, but pictures were taken, I assure you. Just not by me. If I find some that are worth posting, I will. Otherwise, it´s just a matter of time before they are posted to the Cofradia´s Bi-lingual School page on Facebook, so you can see them there.

So that´s the news for today. My sniffles are slowly going away, but the pesky phlegm filled coughing is still in full force. Oh yea, and there are only 2 weeks left until Christmas break, so if anyone wants to be Santa for me and send me a box full o´surprises to help pass the time while I´m stuck here (mostly by myself because pretty much everyone else is going somewhere), then it would be greatly appreciated. Now that my shameless begging is complete, I will stop typing.

How about this heat

I have a problem with small talk. For the most part, it’s completely useless. The only real purpose it serves is to distract us from real issues that might be difficult to talk about for whatever reason. Current affairs, social issues, politics, religion, the economy; no. I want to talk about the weather! Fine weather we’re having, huh? Sure has been raining a lot! How about this heat! Who cares???? The weather is the weather; I can see it just as well as you. There’s no need to discuss it. Ok then, let’s go over the excruciating minutia of every single little detail of your boring life. What time did you wake up this morning? Oh, you got to work late, huh? How inconvenient! Wow, you had ham and cheese for lunch again? Sucks to be you, doesn’t it?

Why is it so difficult to talk about things that are not boring? Everyone says that they hate being bored, yet they love to embrace it in their discussions. I find it difficult to believe that there are that many people walking this earth that have absolutely nothing interesting to say. Nothing new to talk about. No valid opinion on what’s happening around the world. I mean if that is the case, then what a sorry state this world is in. Even if you spend all day everyday locked in a cubicle punching numbers into a computer, you still should have something to say about something other than spending all day everyday locked in a cubicle punching numbers into a computer. I mean they haven’t turned us all into robots…yet.

Is it that people are just afraid to voice their opinion? Maybe they think they will sound ignorant, or maybe they feel their opinion isn’t valid, so best to keep it inside. I am in no means advocating jumping into a conversation that you know nothing about, but if you know something, anything, and have something to say on it, then share. Don’t be afraid. If it leads to an argument, then fine. Do your best to win the argument. It may not, though; it may lead to quite an intellectually stimulating discussion, and you may learn some things as well as teach some things. The point is to share, get involved, and have something to say.

On the flip side, we all need to learn when it’s best to say nothing; many times even quiet is better than unnecessary small talk. Listen for a while, and if you feel you have something worthwhile to contribute, then speak up. If you can think of nothing other than the weather, you can probably go ahead and keep it to yourself. Silence can be golden, as they say; especially if your lack of silence will lead to a case of foot-in-mouth disease. Don’t speak for the sake of speaking; speak for the sake of sparking a lively debate, an interesting conversation. Speak with the intent to learn something or to impart some knowledge. Just don’t be afraid to speak if you feel that what you have to say is worthwhile. As for not being sure of that, play it by ear. Use your instinct; if it feels like it will add something to the room, go ahead and take the chance. Don’t, however, interrupt a real conversation with uninteresting, unnecessary drivel. That should be kept to yourself, please.

Small talk just seems to be permeating our society at an alarming rate. More and more people have less and less to say about important things, and more and more to say about stuff nobody truly cares about. Society has become weak-minded, afraid to take the chance of hurting someone’s feelings, or worse yet, having their own feelings hurt. I have news for you: it happens. It’s an unfortunate part of life; nobody, regardless of how much you may try to shield yourself or others, is going to make it to their deathbed without ever having their feelings hurt. Not gonna happen. Accept that, deal with it, and get on with your life. I don’t advocate going out of your way to insult someone; not at all. But if you are going to say something that is about something, and not just engage in frivolous small talk, understand that there is always a chance someone won’t like what you’re saying, and they may reply with something you yourself won’t particularly care for. But that’s the way it works. Hopefully it can be resolved with a friendly debate, but if not, no need to get your panties in a bunch.  Agree to disagree and move on to something else. That or poke them in the eye and run away.

Let’s all make a habit of having at least one important/interesting discussion a day. With anyone, it doesn’t really matter. Of course, some people will yield better results than others; but that’s fine. I think it would be good practice for everyone. It changes your mindset; it opens you up to learn new things, possibly change your opinion on something and if nothing else, gives you experience in the forgotten art of conversation. So the next time you run into some artsy fartsy know-it-all who has an opinion on everything under the sun (stop looking at ME.), you can give it right back to them and maybe even put them in their place. How great would that be? Here comes this loudmouth who wants you to know how smart he is, and you shut him up not with your fists or angry words, but with wit and charm. They hate that, you know.

We don’t have to be up to date on all the happenings of the world. That’s what CNN is for. Just pick bits and pieces that interest you and learn something about them. Or listen when others who seem to know what they’re talking about are speaking, and see what you can pick up. Just leave the weather out of it. Leave the little details of your daily life out of it. Leave the stories of your past that interest only you out of it. Realize that not everyone wants to know your opinion on everything, but if you pick the right time and the right place and the right words, I believe you may open up a whole new world. Your next family get-together will be much different and entertaining as well. For you anyway. Uncle Bob is still worrying over those clouds outside.