Prison, Mexican dancers, frogs and plantains
The title gives you a brief summary of last weekend for me. It was a good weekend, but a very busy one.
Friday night, I had my first night teaching math at San Quentin prison. Disclosure rules limit the extent to which I can blog about this, so I'll play it safe and just say that I'm incredibly glad I signed up for this -- it was an incredibly rewarding night and I'm sure it'll only get more so as I get more used to things. Hopefully, my stomach won't turn quite as badly during the few seconds we're locked in the sally gate next time.
Saturday night, I went to St. Joseph the Worker's where Bp. Cummins was visiting to bless their new icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The service was interspersed with music and dancing from the Ballet Foclórico and was in general great fun. While it's always good to see a full church, it was especially good to see so many young people and to see so many people in a Catholic church for a service other than the Mass. St. Joseph's is the main Hispanic church in Berkeley (I think it's the only one with at least weekly Spanish Mass) and I think Americans with Latin backgrounds have done much better than, say, the Irish or Poles at preserving Old Country extra-liturgical devotions.
After that, I went home and watched Magnolia with rdore which was quite good. I felt the sound track overly dominated at times, it could have been a bit tighter timewise and they should have synched the monitors with the cameras in the bar scene, but apart from that it was good.
Sunday night we had the department holiday party which I'd been organizing with Bianca. Bianca had really been the brains behind the operation, but I'd put in quite a bit of leg work so I was keen for it to go well. Which, I think, it pretty much did. We sold 80 tickets, the space was great, the food was good and I enjoyed the bar service (other people were complaining about the speed but I guess I must have got lucky).
Right now I'm just winding down for the semester. Pretty much finished my Christmas shopping (just need to pick something up I've got on reserve at a store and I'm done). Now, to get started on that reading I wanted to get done over break...
Friday night, I had my first night teaching math at San Quentin prison. Disclosure rules limit the extent to which I can blog about this, so I'll play it safe and just say that I'm incredibly glad I signed up for this -- it was an incredibly rewarding night and I'm sure it'll only get more so as I get more used to things. Hopefully, my stomach won't turn quite as badly during the few seconds we're locked in the sally gate next time.
Saturday night, I went to St. Joseph the Worker's where Bp. Cummins was visiting to bless their new icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The service was interspersed with music and dancing from the Ballet Foclórico and was in general great fun. While it's always good to see a full church, it was especially good to see so many young people and to see so many people in a Catholic church for a service other than the Mass. St. Joseph's is the main Hispanic church in Berkeley (I think it's the only one with at least weekly Spanish Mass) and I think Americans with Latin backgrounds have done much better than, say, the Irish or Poles at preserving Old Country extra-liturgical devotions.
After that, I went home and watched Magnolia with rdore which was quite good. I felt the sound track overly dominated at times, it could have been a bit tighter timewise and they should have synched the monitors with the cameras in the bar scene, but apart from that it was good.
Sunday night we had the department holiday party which I'd been organizing with Bianca. Bianca had really been the brains behind the operation, but I'd put in quite a bit of leg work so I was keen for it to go well. Which, I think, it pretty much did. We sold 80 tickets, the space was great, the food was good and I enjoyed the bar service (other people were complaining about the speed but I guess I must have got lucky).
Right now I'm just winding down for the semester. Pretty much finished my Christmas shopping (just need to pick something up I've got on reserve at a store and I'm done). Now, to get started on that reading I wanted to get done over break...