Nadia Reategui

ENG 218R – 003

Random Thoughts

You hate me. No, listen, you do. You have to. It's the rule. If you don't, you will. You hate my writing, you hate my babbling, you hate not being able to pronounce my last name, and you hate my Spanish accent. It's okay, I know you do. I try every day to get rid of it, but it doesn't seem to go away completely. I'm giving you full permission to do it: feel free to dislike me. You probably do already.

Let me explain myself. I have two best friends at work, Sam Stewart and Spencer Brady. They're both 23 and married. Since I'm single, I think they find it funny that I have so many guy-related issues. They find me amusing, or maybe they just find my problems amusing. Whatever it may be, they are there for me. Whenever I want to vent, talk about how stupid guys are. They send you mixed signals every time you are with them, they confuse you, and then they say girls are complicated.

Talk about how immature my sister is because she thinks I should not worry about the path she is choosing to go and thinking I'm going to let her rot, or how annoying she gets when she chooses to be a rebel to bother me.

Talk about how I hate a lot of things of the Peruvian culture – and I can because I'm Peruvian. How I hate that Peruvian people get offended very quick and aren't able to forgive and forget easily. How I can't stand gossip and how a lot of the Peruvians I know cannot keep a secret, if you tell one of them something, all of them will know in a matter of seconds, or just how they're happy when the other fails because that means you win.

Or just talk about how in love I am with a certain guy at work, and he's just my friend and I can't get over him, because I'm stupid, or just very stubborn. Sam and Spencer enjoy my incessant gibber jabber, specially the guy talk. They ask me when I plan to get married every day I see them. It's ridiculous. They just want me to join the club.

I had a date with this guy at work the other day, Spencer and Sam call him bean, because his last name is garbanzo, I'm sorry, I meant Garza. Same diff, right? But I can't like bean because I still like pound. O, yeah, pound is the love of my life. He just doesn't know it yet. O wait. Everybody does.

Bean has a really nice silver car. I saw it when he took me out to eat Peruvian food. Yes, Peruvian food. I guess he thought I missed my country too much. Funny story, bean ended up ordering beans. He didn't even like them.

Sam and Spencer laughed so hard when I told them about my date. I don't even know if it was a date. I mean it. America is so weird in that aspect. We don't date in Peru. There's no difference between a date and a hang out, and the girl doesn't have to spend hours trying to figure out if the guy just asked her out on a date or if he's just bored and wants to be with someone for a change. There are not three P's of dating that you have to know and bang your head on the wall to understand if the guy is interested. How do people get married then? You hang out with people, in groups, alone, I don't know. You get to know the person, and then after some time, the guy asks, and I repeat, the guy asks if the girl wants to be his girlfriend. And if the guy's lucky she says yes or no if he's not. Simple. Straightforward. No confusing DTR. I like that about my culture. Dating is weird in America.

"I love his car," I told Spencer at work when he asked me about my date with bean. "I wish it were mine."

"I know of a way you can make it yours," he said smirking at me.

"I'm not marrying bean, Spencer!" I said pretending fake indignation.

"You should."

"Because I could get a green card and stay in the country?"

He gives me a You-know-what-I-mean smile. I can't believe he would imply such a thing. It makes me look desperate.

My roommate Danielle is another person that wants to get me married, but she does more than just talk to me about it. At least Spencer is subtle. The other day bean called me because I didn't go to work and my roommate picked up the phone and wanted to talk to him.

"I just want to ask him a question!" she said.

"She says she wants to ask you something."

"What is it?" Bean asked.

"Ask him if he'll marry you!" she yelled. O crap, I thought, I can't believe she just said that! I was speechless. Bean said, "If I'll marry Nadia? So she can stay in the country?" Please, kill me now, I thought. It was silent in the room.

"Tell her it's tempting," he finally said and I ended up the conversation. I wanted to die.

I skateboard. Why? Because I'm a tomboy. Yes, I like Hurley and Emerica and Lakai and I listen to Bright Eyes. Sue me! It's depressing music but it's good, you should try it. I went to skateboard on the Seven Peaks hill on Saturday and I totally killed my legs. It was raining as well. The pain I feel right now is unbearable, but the adrenaline that runs through your veins when you feel yourself going at an amazing speed and thinking you could fall any time and break a leg, is exhilarating. Yes, I'm crazy like that.

I'm a tomboy, every other day I wish I had been born a boy, but I am a girl after all. I daydream a lot. Deep inside I'm just a hopeless romantic, but I try to put on a mask because I've been hurt before. Nobody wants to get hurt. I don't want to get hurt again.

Chick flicks usually make me go Aww. Even if after that I just want to kill the happy couple. There's a say in Spanish that says, "Aunque la mona se vista de seda, mona se queda." It pretty much means, "You can get the girl out of the country but not the country out of the girl." And yeah, that's me. Not country though. Please, no. No offense to anyone who is. But yes, I'm still a fool for romance and happy endings, and babies. I'm a girl after all.

You don't believe me? I'll read you a poem I wrote then.

May has started and my eyes are wet. I've cried too much, I am

indifferent to the rest of the world, but I

take your hand in mine as we walk throughout

cold, long, dark, and pathetic

highways, afraid of the world, afraid to get through

entirely on our own, because this we call life

lacks the sun when we're alone, and then we fall.

'Lean on me', you say and we rest on a wall,

hardly breathing, hardly smiling, loving each

and every moment being the center of our own world, a

day will come when we hear that word

longed-for by both of us. And if we are torn apart and face hell,

eternal, never-ending loneliness, only while

you love me as I love you, we will survive this May.

Pathetic. I told you. I'm still a silly girl. I would never publish that poem though. I have a reputation to uphold. I wouldn't be reading this to you if it weren't part of my grade. And I'm a perfectionist, so I'll move heaven and earth to get to where I want to go. Do you hate me now? You should. The poem was a double acrostic. You didn't know that, so you don't know what his name is. Haha!

Well, that's me. Take it or leave it. If you don't hate me by now, then we can be good friends. I'm not cold or calculative, I am a good person that built up walls to protect herself from the world but I can bring them down for people who show me they will be my friends no matter what, people that care about me and that I also want to care about. Ask Sam and Spencer.