North Carolina with great friends

10/12/11

Today we woke up to the giggles and laughs of Katka and Stanko. I (moni) woke up first and went to meet Kataka  immediately. She was soooo soooo beautiful and "comible" (like you can eat her).

But after taking different gender sociology classes in undergrad and reading bunch of different articles about gender I have try as much as possible to stop using traditional adjectives used with girls and boys.  Why? because those pave the road for a perception of inequality amongst genders that is perpetuated in society today. The only true is that girls can be brave, strong and boys can be sweet and emotional and vice versa. So, why only call them one or the other. If we keep doing that we limit each human being to a small dimension of itself and run into the danger of spoiling their potential. 

Because I don't surround myself with many kids I took this opportunity to practice. I told  Katka,  you are so strong and brave. But I was not wrong, this kid was strong, she would latch at you to stand up and do all sorts of maneuvers in order to get to her mom. 

I truly appreciate Ivana. I lived with her for 2 years in grad school while working to earn a doctorate in Genetics. Grad school is not easy and it requires and extreme amount of self-confidence.  I believe living with Ivana helped me gain a less stressful perspective of grad school and brightened my days with easy living. She was not the type of student that tried to hide the fact that a PhD is hard,  but she was equally not the type to keep complaining about it; all of that with a positive and sunny attitude.  In addition, she brought a lot of cultural insight to my life. Ivana is from Slovakia, an Eastern European country. She would cook a smoked sausage soup with cabbage that was so comforting. She would make simple and delicious green salads and drink tons of tea during winter. She definitely turned me into tea, although she might not know that. Imagine, my symbolical self, how exciting is to visit her and hang out with her kids.

Not only that,  North Carolina has more goodies waiting for me. For some reason a couple of my friend from WASHU ended up in Durham- Raleigh. In the view of us coming here I had contacted Jane and Javier but did not gave them another heads up until the same day. Fortunately they were available to meet, so we planned to see each other that night.

In the mean time I became good friends with Stanko and was the only one allowed to built the trains tracks for him. Also we got into a mood of car photography. Paul had much more luck with the girls and spent some time charming  Katka with different toys. 

We decided on a dinner meal to cook. We went to the groceries to get the necessary items, in our way back we were joined by Mica my other Washu/NC friend. Luckily for me it was Mica's day off, hence, Ivana and I got to catch up with her. She is such an inspiring woman. On her own, she has ventured to many wonderful places in the world not just to look and take pictures but to make a difference. 

Paul and I prepared a simple meal of chicken wrapped in bacon and Gouda cheese with roasted potatoes. While doing so OTČE (father in slovak)  arrived. There was such a commotion for Jacobs arrival that I imagined -that- to be Jacobs best part of the day. Stanko got so excited, just at the sound of the car approaching that he waited for his dad in the front door. Once OTČE arrived he hugged and jumped on top of him.  

We all (including the kids) sat at the table and ate the meal talking about the hardships and gratitudes  of an anesthesiology residency. Later we had a bit of a photo shooting, cars included. 

It was time to get together with the Revollo's so we parted to Moonberries. Unfortunately for some reason the GPS gave us the wrong address so we got really delayed. Finally we got to the right place. Again, Javier is one of those people (like Ivana)  that I will always keep in a special place in my heart. He was along with Ericka, Abhi and Tejas one of the  persons that help me to establish a healthy social lifestyle  in WASHU. They were my family. It is difficult to describe Javier because he is such a wonderful person, but he influenced many aspects of my life ranging from open-mindedness and philosophy to lab rotations. I was really excited to see them. It was very delightful to sit down, talk and laugh with them. Obviously, a big part of the conversation we spent talking about our friends in WASHU and Paul and I tried as much as we could to give them an update. The best part was really talking about all the possibilities of fun in Bolivia and the fire in Javier's eyes as he talked about the  wonderful place who saw his birth. I was really please to see they were so happy and carrying away with their lives so successfully. 

We got to the Nadler's residence and went to bed.