I'm intrigued by kids, especially those with imagination and drive. This is because on the other hand, I've seen my fair share of the typical kid and his/her antics. I know it's not their fault these kids have nothing new to offer; it's mainly their parents fault and in light of that, I think the majority of parents today are really proactive about how their kids develop and how they are stimulated. It's a sign of the times, I believe.

Which is why it's no surprise that some very close family friends back home have accomplished something that I too hope to accomplish when I have children: they're raising women leaders who wish to make this world a better place.

I reject the idea that if one is a girl, that girl needs pink and needs dolls and needs cutesy this or that. Girls aren't bubbles, fragile and likely to burst if poked. Further, girls, just like boys can very well be encouraged to run, explore, climb, question, think, laugh, build, rearrange and a series of other active verbs that right now escape me but that are traditionally seen as boy behavior.

Our family friends have three girls: Kylie (11), Devon (10) and Piper (8) and these three girls think big. They started a club called Earth Savers Club for Kids about two years ago, initially with the belief "think globally, act locally," with the purpose of picking up trash around their neighborhood in Northern California. But big thinkers and doers don't just settle on the first idea that comes to mind, no matter how old or young they may be. No, they decided that to go BIG would mean reaching kids in other parts of the State, country and world and encouraging kids to pledge their commitment - however they can - to saving the Earth. Some kids pledge (via the website) to eat as much organic food as possible, others pledge to pick up garbage and recycle more, while others pledge to save the Earth by simply walking more. Um, did I mention these are KIDS making said pledges?? Rock star kids, all of them.

A local newspaper called "The Almanac" did a short report on these three girls and their hope for the future. But the real gem that lets one truly appreciate where these girls hope to go and what they hope to accomplish is the actual Earth Savers Club for Kids, a colorful, interactive website that invites kids from all over the world to join the global effort to save the Earth's natural resources. As 10-year old Devon reminds us in the article she wrote for an e-magazine, "the Earth can't be saved without kids." Call me crazy, but if I were a parent, I'd definitely use this site to encourage my kids to participate in their own way.

An epilogue to ponder ....
On a personal note, I've known these girls since they were babies. In fact, I've known Kylie since she was 4 months old and I "met" Devon and Piper days after they were each born. My mother used to be their nanny when we lived in California and we were as much a part of eachother's lives as any blood-related relatives. We've had the opportunity (and honor) to watch these girls grow up, celebrating with them, vacationing with them, sharing with them and to watch them individually become exactly who they chose to be ... They are the reason I reject the notion that girls - and women - aren't capable of excelling beyond our everyday imagination (and expectation). I've seen it first hand numerous times and in the simplest of forms, such as conversations with them or everyday play with them. In any case, I'm proud of them and of the girls they have become ... I look forward to marveling at the women they will be and I hope that one day, if I have a girl, I too can accomplish the feat of encouraging her to look around and consider how she can help make things better.

Labels: California, friends, how it should be, memory lane

One year ago today was the last time I would wake up in my own apartment; the last time I'd be living my single life; the last time I would drink the best latte in the world from the best neighborhood cafe in the world (Borrones); the last time I would have a sleep over with my best friend, where it would be just me and her in my apt.

A year ago today, I left California and boarded an American Airlines flight to Santiago, to begin my new life here.

It was the last time I walked down the tree lined streets of Menlo Park.

The last time I could call California my home, with a permanent address and a mailbox that proved I lived there.

It was the last time my Uncle Pato ever went to pick me up at my apartment.

It was the last time I walked through the kitchen, the living room, my bedroom ... and realized that what I had accomplished alone was passing. I had gone from being a pathetic mess over one failed relationship after another, feeling like a failure who lived with her mom for so long and couldn't branch out on her own, feeling like my career was going nowhere and in short, feeling stuck ... and I turned a new leaf and began to own my life and my choices in a way I had never done before.

That apartment embodied all of that and all four small rooms contained a memory of each and every little accomplishment I had ever set out for my single self.



Leaving California was hard. It was hard to see my beloved apt reduced to nothing more than wall-to-wall carpeting and window blinds. It was hard to say goodbye to my best friend, knowing that I would NEVER, for as long as I would be away, ever form friendships as strong as I have in California.

It has been hard adapting to a country that has amazing resources and great potential, but that, realistically, is light years behind more developed countries like the U.S.

I miss home and sometimes G gets sad when I tell him that. But the thing is, he's the reason I'm here. He's all the reason I'll ever need to motivate me to move from Pole to Pole. I said to him the other day: "I would follow you to Afghanistan and back, so long as I was with you." And it's true.

But the reality is that to me, being in Chile is not an accomplishment and it's so far from where I thought I'd be in life, it's almost comical.

However, HE is the accomplishment and what we have together is also so far from where I thought I'd be in life. I was convinced I'd never find someone like him, amazing in so many ways. I am truly blessed with him - because of him and because of who I am and who I want to be when I'm with him. Just better, all around. Does he make the move to Chile worth it? A million times yes.

But as an independent woman, someone who values strength and autonomy as well, I want to find my own path in this narrow land ... so far it's been hard.

One year later, I've taken steps, but I'm miles (or kilometers) away from making strides.

Labels: California

When I was 15 and in high school, I was required to take one semester of driver's education as part of the basic curriculum of all students. This practice is all but gone in many schools across the U.S. but during the 70s and well into the early 90s when I was in high school, the course was alive and well. We all looked forward to this semester our sophomore year because it was the first step we embarked on towards the freedom that a California state Driver's License offered us.

Part of the excitement of Driver's Ed was the mystery that surrounded the infamous "Red Asphalt." Red Asphalt is a series of instructional driver's education videos produced by the California Highway Patrol. And to put it bluntly, all it did was feature gruesome scenes of bloody accidents, most of which were caused by drunk or speeding drivers (or both). Before Driver's Ed, we'd only heard about the film, which supposedly featured bodies cut in half, strewn on lawns, cars a wrangled mess of metal with blood splattered on the windshields and seats ... and all we had to frame our own reactions of the film, were those reactions of students older than us. Some were overly dramatic and claimed to have had to walk out of class; others were sadistic and took it all in gladly. In either case, it was the talk of the school whenever the sophomore class had seen the film that particular week.

Below is an 8 minute clip of the original Red Asphalt, though I can't recall if this was the one we saw in 1992/1993. I doubt it, but even if we had a more updated version, what they would have updated would be the statistics... the general idea of the video is nicely conveyed in this short clip, should you wish to take a gander.



So not only did we have a semester's worth of learning California driving laws, but this was mixed in with curriculum focused on scaring the living sh*t out of us by outlining every possible factor that could result in a deadly accident the minute we stepped foot behind the driver's wheel. I'm not condoning nor am I criticizing this tactic, I'm simply stating how it was presented to the general student population at our school, and from what I hear, how it was presented in general in the State of California.

Further to this semester of education and scare tactics, our school also hosted "Drunk Driving Awareness Week" once a year. This involved assemblies where we'd hear first hand about how real people were affected one way or another by drunk driving, movies featuring images of drunk driving accidents and also included what was left of a car on our school's front lawn. This was an actual car that had been involved in an alcohol related collision, mangled doors, shattered windshields, dried blood - the whole nine yards - on our front lawn so that every day for a week, we saw it on our way into the building. I have memory of the cars looking something like this every year:


Perhaps not this exactly, but similar enough that I recall thinking "How did anyone survive that?"

And so, if it isn't already obvious to you, my conclusion about all this is that, in the early 90s at least, California CLEARLY favored educating teenagers about the rules of the road while at the same time, scaring us into never wanting to step into a car either as a driver or a passenger for the remainder of our lives. And at least with this teenager, fear tactics work their "magic" in such a way, that I'm like one of those dogs who wears those collars that send electrical charges through them whenever they bark.

As we got older, the messages surrounding driving under the influence continued. They evolved into more sophisticated messages of the "Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk" nature and stopped featuring gross, bloody scenes that bordered on resembling bad Hollywood movie types. The bottom line being that in California, we were constantly fed, via the formal education system or the media, messages that it was simply NOT OK to drink and drive. Even if one had done it, that person carried with them the GUILT learned through all of the above, because it's embedded in our brains that no matter how you slice it, it's.just.plain. wrong. And trust me, I've seen that guilt scare the few people I know who have driven drunk into NEVER doing it again. Those are the happy cabby people (i.e. they take taxis left and right a la Paris Hilton post jail stint).

THEREFORE, dear blog reader, you can simply IMAGINE my disgust at the seemingly culturally accepted tendency in Chile to drive regardless of the number of drinks one has consumed. I'm not talking about evidence on the news (which, believe it or not, shows bloodier scenes than in the U.S.!) but occasions I've witnessed FIRST HAND of this acceptance. The "no he's fine, he hasn't had a drink in an hour and I just gave him a cup of coffee." Or "no she's fine, she lives just about five blocks from here, and I asked her to call us when she gets home." And I've experienced FIRST HAND being in the car with someone DRIVING who has whipped out a can of beer to drink it while driving (that time, I made him stop the car, I got out and told my two cousins who were in the back seat, after refusing to get out with me, peace out. Baby don't play that game.) The shadiest part about that story is that the guy driving is a DETECTIVE for the Investigations arm of the Law Enforcement here in Chile. Nice, right?

No one wants to be the "mala onda weon" who tells an inebriated - or even buzzed - friend that maybe he shouldn't be driving. AND no one wants to be the "mala onda galla" who tells her friends she's only having two drinks because she has to drive home. That would be met with immediate looks resembling "WTF is wrong with you? Did you have a lobotomy, is that it?" If someone WERE to stick to their guns and not drink or continue to drink (and be responsible, at that!) I'm certain the general public would immediately disregard him/her as someone cool and fun. And God forbid promoting the idea of designated drivers here in Chile. Not once in my personal experience have I ever been to any social gathering here where someone merely stated "Nah, I'm good. I'm the DD tonight." Unless that person was a pregnant or nursing woman, everyone drinks and there is simply no limit.

Anyhoo, what's the moral of my story today? Nothing really. I can only do so much to change perceptions, which is limited to those directly around me, and even then, I can only influence so much. I'm not condoning scaring teenagers in Chile from getting behind the wheel because as it is, a good lot of them never learn to drive and when they do, it's later on in life. Nor am I saying that California had it right because God knows I've witnessed those same Californians doing some stupid, stupid things related to drinking and driving. I'm not sure that in general, those scare tactics used in my high school even worked. Yeah, they worked on me for the most part but that's because my mother's M.O. as I was growing up was the use of scare tactics. Thus it's the sure way to discipline me. The whole notion of "If you do/don't do ABC, then XYZ will happen (to you)." Gets me every time!

Plus, can I also attribute all this "awareness" to the fact that California as a state is all about making us aware? Aware of the effects, aware of the surroundings, aware of the aftermath, aware of the consequences. We're an aware bunch in CA, or at least, our government aims for that. Does that mean Chileans are, in comparison, unaware? No. I think they're a very aware bunch as well ... it's just that they're quick to forgive or turn a blind eye to something they are aware is bad.

THIS is the biggest issue I have with the culture right now.

Labels: California, Everyday life, Tangents

My competitive pool is much smaller in Chile.

Granted, this is perhaps directly correlated to the fact that Chile has a population of about 16,758,114, of which, about 85% is urban dwelling... i.e. the majority of them are crowding my space here in Santiago.

But I spent days wondering, how many of these 16+ million are in the same competition pool with me? I'm not going to say that I'm schooled in what the AVERAGE Chilean person, man and woman, aspires to because I'm sure it varies from person to person and social bracket to social bracket. All I can really base my assumptions on are family members, either close to me or not, as I observe what they accomplish in life and what they set as priorities.

Back home in CA I'm from a very, VERY competitive landscape. We're talking Silicon Valley, Sand Hill Road: the venture capitalist mecca of the world, Stanford University, Nasa Ames Research Center, UC Berkeley and the San Francisco Financial District all within a good 60 miles from one another. And I lived (and grew up) right smack-dab in the middle of that. On top of that, I was also living in the DIRECT outskirts of one of the most expensive cities in the U.S., where, according to this year's Forbes report, San Francisco comes in as the 4th most expensive city in the U.S., following NYC, LA and White Plains, NY.

It comes as no surprise (to me at least) that my high school graduating class consisted of sons and daughters of bank owners, hedge fund owners, partners of VC firms, notable investors, reputable doctors and lawyers, etc, etc, what have you. And that was the crowd that surrounded me in a PUBLIC school of the area... I can't begin to imagine the company kept at the local private schools!

The competition I felt throughout my years in California was fierce. Seriously, something I wonder if many Chileans can understand. Right now, couples I know are purchasing homes that cost upwards of $2 million DOLLARS. Yeah. Couples that are between 31-35 purchasing homes or even ASPIRING to purchase homes in that price range. And even if we never dreamed of doing such things, we still have/had a pretty skewed view of what it meant to be successful. Ok, so MAYBE not a house worth millions of dollars but a two bedroom apartment/townhouse/flat that costs ALMOST $1 million. Trust me, this is NORMAL where I'm from because unfortunately that's our reality. We either strive to make it or ... we keep striving to make it (fortunately I don't have friends who are quitters.) And I believe that we ALL went through a kind of crisis between the ages of 27-30 when we felt like we'd accomplished only a fraction of what we set out to accomplish and we held our heads in hands because we felt like we were 'lagging behind' when compared to our peers.

When I lived in CA I had decided that I didn't need to live in Hillsborough or Marin County or even in San Francisco itself. Perhaps it was because I felt overwhelmed by the ridiculous competition and I knew that if I wanted to be in that race I had to keep on studying and add another degree to the arsenal. Unfortunately (or not) where I'm from, every other person has a Masters degree of some sort and it was quickly becoming a state of Bachelors = high school diploma. The only exception to this rule that I personally saw was with innovative people who created either a new service or a new technology (and in Silicon Valley, trust me there were many!) I didn't find myself to be particularly creative - not in a core-shaking kind of way - and I certainly didn't attend a top-tier university and the combination of both of those 'setbacks' made me feel that the ONLY way I could remain in the competitive game was to keep studying... but then again, choosing to study resulted in another set of suffocating avenues I had to weave through. Primarily, which school, what to study and PRAY TELL how would I pay for it!!??

But now I'm here in Chile ... something that I hadn't planned on years ago when I was mapping out the would-be actions I wanted to take to arrive at the life I wanted to have. In fact, during high school, college and as I entered the work force, all my decisions were based on living my life in the U.S., just as I had been for as long as I could remember. My frame of reference was that which I noted above and yes, I would adapt myself accordingly (perhaps in a fashion I now see as "settling" when compared to what my peers were setting out to accomplish) but my life would reflect SOME aspect of what was the "norm" around me. Said norm being where even over achievers fade into the background in the highly competitive environment.

All of the above brings me to this: I'm starting classes at a business school here in Santiago in April and I decided to focus on Marketing. Whereas in the States I would have probably chosen an MBA program due to the competition around me, here I feel that I already have an edge given that my undergrad degree is from a U.S. university so I decided to do something I was actually interested in. And so I sit back and think that all my prepping in an UBER competitive landscape in CA is going to serve me well here in Chile. I speak fluent English and Spanish, I work in a multi-national company where I manage an entire region, I have an undergrad degree from the U.S. and now I'm going to work hard for a Masters in Chile. I'm already wired to be an agro competitor, no holds bar, the "I-will-not-allow-you-to-be-better-than-me-without-a-fight" kind of mentality that I HAD TO HAVE growing up where I did. I don't think it will be easy to charge ahead and become a leader of some sort here in Chile and I know I have a LOT of things to learn before I become one.

But I can say I do believe, 100%, that my competition pool here is much, much smaller than it was in the SF Bay Area. My mentality and focus hasn't changed, my environment has ... and it will be interesting to see what I accomplish and learn because of that.

Labels: California, Masters program, world domination

I'm looking forward to my last fun-filled weekend as a full fledged California resident: a bachelorette party for my friend C, who is getting married this coming August. Her sister organized the bulk of it - cruise stylie with events, outings and meals planned - at this amazing house in Sonoma County. Can't wait to go, even if my tan from my trip to Playa del Carmen is fading (while I perceive myself to be "white" my real "white" friends find me to be quite dark!)There is nothing I enjoy more than celebrating my friends and in this case, I am so happy to be there, given that in TWELVE DAYS, I'm leaving for Santiago. Can we say a Charlie Brown style "Ack!!!??"

Labels: California, Road Trips