Sunday, May 31, 2009

Don't look back in anger


It has been quite a spring semester. Much teaching, a couple off-campus talks, a frazzled dash to the end of the semester and, oh yeah, tenure. The semester ended and the nuclear family rallied off to Lima for about 10 days, in between the spring and summer semesters, to meet the large extended part of the family residing down south.

If I blog lots about Peru over the next few days, it will undoubtedly be random and in fits and starts. Nonetheless, I figure I should do this. Peru is on my mind quite a bit now these days, and not just because I've been talking up Peruvian film (a presentation at the alma mater, where I also found out that the book will physically be done on Monday! whee!). The trip was the first time I have been "home" in about five years and Lima has changed in many significant ways.

A plus from the trip -- and, admittedly, a main goal -- was to get Xan interested in Peru in general. Given that he has a cousin who is only two months older than he is, this was an easy task. Now, all of a sudden, he isn't shutting out all the Spanish he is hearing, and has been mildly amused to find that folks speak the language not just in Peru. I'm not sure if we'll make like my parents and ship him off to South America when he turned 12 and surly (which is what happened to me), but who knows?