my DNA

following my Palestinian fulana friend (former roomie)... I took my DNA test and the results are here:

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dressed to lecture

Since my expertise is on women who commit terrorist actions, I have been given talks on female suicide bombers almost since I came back to my country. But every talk has its own "spirit" or "energy" I might say.

The first talk I gave on this was given at my university. There, I had mostly men (which I found it very interesting), all of them students and professors. The place was packed and the questions were very interesting. It was controversial and the audience was very pleased with my approach.

The second talk was not only on female suicide bombers but also about women from the Shining Path (a Maoist organization that committed terrorist actions in Peru during the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s). My idea was to discuss if violence can empower women. This talk was given at the British Cultural Institute and the Q&A part was extremely interesting. Students from the three universities where I teach came to it. So, I had almost the same number of men and women. A lawyer of the SP female members was there and started screaming at me. The Q&A part was almost as long as my talk! People talked a lot and got very emotional. The woman (lawyer) left after screaming and confronting me and the audience. Was I scared? No. I knew someone would come with the speech that they were not terrorists (when I was talking about the terrorist actions, not them as terrorists... long explanation that deserves a post of its own).

This last talk had no lawyers and was only on female suicide bombers, I tried to make it different and I used PowerPoint (which I normally hate using). My idea was to also use the power of media in creating an idea of what a female suicide bomber is. I found this picture from an article in an Australian magazine called New Idea. This article asked if female terrorists were feminists by portraying them as executives of terror. Without agreeing with them, I thought it was very interesting and it gave me an excuse for using visual aids in my talk. This lecture was given at a foundation and, again, I had mostly men in the audience. As in every talk I have attended or given, there was a silly man asking a question that had nothing to do with what the lecture is about and, of course, who came very late. This particular guy confronted me by saying that there are no news on female suicide bombers therefore why would I talk about them if they do not exist. And, as I always do in cases like this, I told him that he did not have any right to ask questions about something that I already talked about when he was not there. Oh, and gave them the titles of the bibliography I used. He finally had to shut up because of the rest of the audience asking him to do it.

In any case, I really enjoy giving lectures in different places. You encounter different audiences and you can test your topic from a wide range of points of view. Which, at the end, enriches it.

when the ocean scares you

I respect the ocean... I have always respected it. Maybe because I have lived next to it my entire life and when I was little, my family used to go camping every time they had a free long weekend. One of the things that I like in life is going to sleep with the sound of the Pacific ocean. At that time of the day I do not fear it, but love it.


But last weekend, I remembered why do I respect it so much. Because of global warming, the waves in the southern part of Lima grew and took with them the tents of entire families who were camping. This happened around 4am of Holy Saturday. Families woke up thanks to the warning of the owners of the small restaurants on the beaches; only to see how the ocean was taking away their tents and belongings.

I stayed at my cousin's beach house (no more camping); so the only think I could do (with my cousins) was to go to the beach and see the waves. And respect and fear them. They were 5 and 6 meters high.

This crazy (brave?) girl, who is a surfer, decided that she did not fear the ocean but wanted to enjoy the adrenaline of the big waves. I couldn't do anything but take pictures of her. There was no way I could dare the ocean. I respect it too much.




The ocean makes me feel little, makes me realize how small we are. I never liked the idea of men seeing themselves as kings of the world. The ocean always makes me realize that I am just one of the elements of nature, and not necessarily the strongest one. Yes, Descartes, I do not like you at all. Reason is not all. We do not rule the world because of our reason. Nature keeps telling us that we are just one more species of animals, just like the rest of our worldmates.

Maids in their uniforms (not another "smart maid operation", this is the real deal) looking at the waves while a couple passes by on their motorcycle (that the owners of the houses use to go from one beach to the other).

Looking for a boyfriend

There are a couple of new blogs that I am reading on a daily basis. One is written by a female journalist and the second one by a male one. They are looking for a boyfriend and a girlfriend respectively. It is very interesting that both blogs had communication problems as their issue yesterday. For her it was telling "I like you" to her lover and then seeing him leaving for good. For him it was talking about the "future" with a girl on the third date (and seeing her leaving for good).

I am not sure I could write about my love life and all of my past-sad-love-stories in my blog. Too sad and, let's be honest, who cares?

I am not looking for a boyfriend, but I do want one. People say one should not "look" for love; love comes by itself when you least expect it. Yeah, bla bla bla. So, I have stopped looking for love, stopped expecting to have a date with a nice guy (what is a date anyway? what defines one? a kiss? sex? butterflies?) or just seeing myself with a guy. I am focused on my classes, my friends, my family, my projects.

Well, I guess I ended up talking about my sad-love-life anyway.