Can´t beat us

If there is something Chileans are good at, that is poetry. We have some pretty good prose writers, too, but our poetry is just at a whole different level. (Recommendations on prose at the end of the post. You are welcome)

Probably because I´m going back to Chile next Saturday (!!!) Pablo Neruda came into mind during the last three weeks. One of my favorite Neruda pieces is called "Walking Around" and the first line reads "sucede que me canso de ser hombre" (more or less "It happens, I am exhausted of being a man"). No, it is not a piece about gender, it has some of that but it evolves into an universal topic. Of course it does; its a Nobel prize! but still, after learning the things I have learned because of this project, I think a whole new reading of this masterpiece can be done. This is a piece that I consider "part" of me, one of those little treasures one keeps, and it feels nice to read it from a new angle because of this project :)


Read the piece after the break

Want to sneak in?

This is one of the scenes I like the most. I was really excited that I was getting to see Aiden working. Huge detail: this photo session was scheduled for 7 AM!! Aiden has really good friends, I guess, who would wake up around 6 am so he can take pictures of them.
I loved the interviews Cris and Sophia gave me. I liked how Cris has a tremendous respect and admiration of Aiden´s work, and how honest he is when he says he knew little or nothing about trans people before meeting Aiden. I feel we can relate to him. By "we" I mean myself and all those who have never met a trans person: those who I would like to be the audience for this short doc.
Sophia´s interview is just lovely. You can tell how much a close friend of Aiden she is, you can tell how she is happy to help with this project, but it is also clear how much she wants to respect Aiden´t privacy. I loved how she balanced that. You can see how much she loves her friend by how -while being helpful, spontaneous, and honest for this project- she makes sure to choose the right words in order to be a caring, respectful, supportive friend.
BTW: People have told me they can´t find the previous videos. They are here, here, here, and here. And also in our YouTube bar at the side of the blog. Duh.

Worst Blogger Ever Award, 2010--but I´m compressing a new sneak-in video for you in compensation!

Yes, you can email me as many you-are-so-lazy letters as you wish. It is OK. More than letters, I have been receiving face-to-face complains from family and classmates for not uploading new material and, especially, for not posting the full short doc somewhere online. I´m sorry, people, but that´s not going to happen until we are accepted in a couple of festivals!
Truth to be told, the piece is finished. I turned in my revised capstone project on Dec 22nd and got a great grade. But I wasn´t happy. I wasn´t happy with it at all. So I was adviced to let the project "sleep" for a while and come back to it later. That is why you haven´t heard from me: I took exactly 5 weeks to decompress and calm down a little bit because, trust me, the scenario got pretty dark around here. Total meltdown.