The Camino, at last (Prologue)

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Up until I was ten, we used to vacation in Galicia in the North West coast of Spain, the little corner above Portugal. During those holidays we would go on some excursions, and I remember when we went to Santiago de Compostela being really impressed with the Peregrinos, the pilgrims that had walked for miles to get there. It has taken me many years, but at last I am going on the Camino this summer.

Saint James (the Greater, the Great) was charged by Jesus to preach to the end of the earth. That would be the westernmost coast of Europe at that time. There is a Finisterre (Finis Terrae in Latin), where hippies from all over gather to see the sunset (just like there is a Land’s End in Cornwall). At any rate, James did his job and returned to Jerusalem, only to be beheaded by King Herod Agrippa. This is where it gets interesting: within a week James’ body and head appeared on the shore of Galicia (must have had some awesome sailing winds…) where he last preached. So the locals built a shrine and buried him. With time that shrine became too small, so he was moved further inland to current day Santiago de Compostela (was the city known in latin for compost or for stellae (stars) is another debating point – I prefer the “field of stars” campos-stellae option). At any rate the church became this massive cathedral finished in a massive, dizzying baroque explosion, but you can still kiss the remains of St. James. Word got out and people started trekking to see the Saint. Then about 800 years later in 834 (or 844, on this there are different opinions), during the Reconquista, the Christians where kicking the Moors out of Spain, and in the Battle of Clavijo (this battle really occurring, is also a bit dubious) Saint James showed up on his white horse and started slaying Moors left and right, leading the undermanned Christians to victory. After this, Santiago started showing up at battles all over Spain doing his thing and putting the Moors to his sword. So Saint James became the patron saint of Spain and thus even more people went to visit his remains at Santiago. People never stopped going to visit the Saint. Since the Middle-Ages, people from all over Europe walked to Santiago. Making the pilgrimage the third most important in Christianity after Jerusalem and Rome, but with the distinction that one must walk this pilgrimage – at least the last 100km in order to gain pardon for your sins.

With such a rich history, there are many ways to Santiago. Traditionally the pilgrimage started at your doorstep, but with time different main ways appeared: there is the Portuguese way from Lisbon, the Ruta de la Plata from Sevilla, the North Coastal way, and others, but the most famous one has become the French way, el Camino francés, which I should have started by the time you read this. From the little village in the Pyrenees of Saint Jean de Pied-de-Port, and going through towns like Pamplona (fortunately not during the running of the bulls), Burgos (home of El Cid), Leon, and many small villages.

Enough excuses, enough see sawing, one must commit, push oneself. While my family will be in my beloved Mallorca swimming in crystal clear blue waters I will be carrying a backpack through the hot, dusty plains of Castile.

My approach, as it is to most things in life, is a bit of a hybrid: part old school, I have tried not to see too many YouTube clips nor Interweb blogs, part High Tech, I did buy new shoes and a new backpack (mostly because my old one had a decomposed lining). But the intention is to just walk, trying not be dependent on the phone and its connection to the outside world. Medieval pilgrims did not have Gore Tex nor moisture wicking textiles, nor iPhones to make hostal reservations and write blogs…

A train will take me to Pamplona, and a bus will carry me over the Pyrenees to begin my next adventure, I will try to keep you posted…

On the beauty and importance of coaching

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School athletics are, or should be, an extension of the classroom. Any other approach: the hyper competitive, the path to college or pro sports, or the “keep them busy”, is misguided and possibly more harmful than beneficial to an adolescent. Having said that, it is of course healthy and necessary to be competitive, to have a keen eye for exceptional talent and, of course, to have sports be fun and entertaining.

In my case, I was lucky to start coaching and teaching at the same time allowing me to learn the important and symbiotic relationship between the classroom and the sports field. What is more, I often find the classroom a sterile place where students turn on the “auto-pilot” when they walk in and just focus on the day’s lesson. Sports require a different mind-set. First, you cannot sit there and wait to have the lesson delivered, if you do, then sitting –on the bench– is what you will get, come game day. Second, research has proven how activity wakes up your brain cells, making you more receptive to learning, and finally, of course, sports are fun, more so than say, the imperfect subjunctive in Spanish.

My first coaching gig was Assistant Boys Varsity Soccer at Milton Academy, followed by Head Boys JV Tennis. Since then I have coached girls varsity soccer, boys tennis, even co-ed fencing at Buckingham Brown and Nichols! (I had a brief introduction to foil in my college days). I was even the Ski Club advisor at Walnut Hill. Each season has been a great learning journey and a lot of fun. What I enjoy the most are the life lessons that can be taught on the field and on the endless bus and van rides to and from games. Seacrest does not have vans, let alone a bus, so students have to provide their own transport to local games, something that other than dangerous, takes away a big part of being in a team, which is the camaraderie. Few things are as bonding as that ride.

In Florida, football (the one where they carry something that is not a ball with their hands) is a religion, so schools do not book many sports that might interfere with football. Fall sports other than football are limited to swimming and cross-country. So  soccer is played in the winter, which is fine when you consider that Florida does not have a winter per se.

At Seacrest I coached the Girls Varsity Soccer team. Our season had a massive learning curve with 11 losses and 2 wins, but we had a great time! By the end of the season we had figured out how the back four are supposed to work. Next season we shall figure out how the front end should work. The girls put in a great effort and it was very rewarding to see them improve and learn how to move on the field.

In the Spring I coached the Girls Varsity Tennis. Although an individual sport, tennis in the US is played as a team sport in High School and University. Each game consists of five singles games and two doubles games, with a point won per game. Our team has some very high level players that train with a coach every day and some less so, including a total beginner, which made for a very diverse and “human” team. We even had 8th grade girls move up for games when we had injuries or absences. This was a great experience for the little ones that offered them a chance to play with the “big girls” and gain valuable experience for next year. On Wednesdays, when some players where practicing with their coaches and we did not have access to the courts because the boys or the middle school where playing a game, we would hit the gym, or practice yoga on one of the lawns. Yes, our record was much better than at soccer, our Third Singles player was nominated Prep of the week by the local paper and she even won the District title for her category!

The main problem with coaching is how time-consuming it is. There is practice every day after school from 4:30 to 6, and then there are games, some are an hour away in Fort Myers which means getting back to school as late as 11 which is bad enough for the coach, but the poor players! The local paper must be informed of game scores so they can publish the results, practice drills must be prepared, etc. Basically I had no life from mid-October to mid-April.

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First year in Naples, Florida. Thank goodness for the Naples Philharmonic (and Opera Naples)

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After two days of faculty meetings and an apparently endless number of  year-end parties I can finally say my academic year is over, and what a year it has been. Granted, the first year at any job is always going to be hard. Add to that coaching two varsity level sports, editing my dissertation for publishing, a new town, a new state, and more importantly a new climate zone – Sub Tropical, and it was quite an experience.

Naples is the southernmost town on the West Coast, the Gulf Coast of Florida. The city did not really develop until the second half of the XX C with the advent of air conditioning. To this day it is still very much a resort town which booms in size from December to May with rich northerners, mostly from the Mid-West spending the “season” here. They have beautiful homes and cars, go to overrated and overpriced restaurants, and play golf, lots of golf. There are 80 golf courses in Naples, apparently the highest concentration of golf courses per capita in the US. The beach, did I mention there is a beach? The beach is miles of silky while sand, and since it is protected by the Gulf, it has quiet waters with small waves. It is a beautiful town with palm lined streets and gorgeous homes. The municipal tennis courts around the corner from my apartment have decadent clay surfaces. There are cute coffee shops, bars, cigar bars, and even some interesting restaurants. Half an hour driving and you are in the Everglades, the world’s largest Sub-Tropical jungle, infested with alligators, Florida panthers, etc.

In my June 2016 post The Job Search Part II, looking for jobs in secondary schools, I write how what attracted me to Naples was Seacrest’s educational philosophy. With time I will reflect on my teaching experience, on coaching girl’s varsity soccer and tennis, on living in Naples and so many other thoughts that I need to marinate.

The way the weather breaks down is that June to September is hot, humid, rainy and stormy. But the rest of the year it is “Endless Summer” always the perfect weather to enjoy the outdoors. I enjoyed riding my bicycle, running, walking on the beach, as well as riding Rocinante to work every day.

One of the highlights of my first year here has been discovering Artis Naples. Artis Naples is the home of the Baker Museum, a cute, little museum with some interesting pieces, and of the Naples Philharmonic and their fantastic concert hall. One of my fears coming to this remote corner of the world was that I was not going to find the cultural stimulation I had in Boston, Madrid or Chapel Hill. I was mostly wrong. Someone had told me that if I wanted to enjoy any culture I had to drive two hours across Alligator Alley to Miami, when in fact, groups like Miami City Ballet, or the Vienna Philharmonic come to Naples!

The season started with some nice amuse-bouche chamber music concerts in the museum. But the real season started with Elgar’s moving  Cello Concerto. After that it was Grimaud playing Brahms, Joshua Bell playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, Opera Naples performing Turandot in the Fall and The Magic Flute in the Spring, Handel’s Messiah, Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony, Abbado conducting Beethoven and Wagner, the Vienna Philharmonic, and the ballet Giselle –which is one of my favorites. Some concerts, like Anne-Sophie Mutter I had to miss due to coaching. Fortunately the folks at Artis are very nice and you can call in and change your tickets if you need.

On top of that the museum has a free late night on the last Wednesday of the month, so you can just go walk around, something I did most months!

A lesser known cultural gem in Naples is Opera Naples. They operate out of a refurbished warehouse in a bit sketchy industrial area of town. The artistic director is Ramon Tebar one of those wunderkinds who was conducting orchestras at 12 years old. He is a hot-shot from Valencia, another reason to love him! On top of the two operas performed at Artis, they did a few events at their home. Master classes and recitals with mezzo-soprano Renata Scotto, recitals by Gregory Kunde…

Sadly, there does not appear to be much more to choose from beyond this. The locals seem more interested in the size of their homes and their cars to be really culturally restless. Also, since the town lacks a university there are not many young people. There seems to be mostly families with young children or older folks, but little age diversity.

With my busy schedule, I had little time to explore the area, so that is one of the many things I am looking forward to.

Retiro Park

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Most of my childhood and youth was spent far from my hometown of Madrid (in New York, London, Boston, France, Switzerland), so I did not really get to know my city until I moved back from Boston in 1990. Since then, el Retiro Park in downtown Madrid has become an oasis of green, calm and peace for me. Originally it was a place to go on walks, dates, picnics, to take photographs, or for the occasional jog or bicycle ride. Once, hanging out with a girlfriend,  we bumped into MC Hammer and the Herculean towers that were his bodyguards. We had tickers to see him that evening, and I told him so,  for which I got the coolest nod I have probably ever received.

Then around 1994 or 1995 I moved to a bachelor pad across the street from the park, at Alcalá 99. At that point I returned to my long abandoned custom of running. It was a slow jog around the park at first, but I soon progressed to two full circles, plus exploring out-of-the-way corners. It became my daily cleansing routine, the highlight of most days. On many weekend mornings I would bump into my dad who was a keen walker of the park. I would stop and chat with him. Little did I know those walks with him are now some of my most cherished moments.

The park has a great variety of trees and plants, the boxwood bushes smell wonderful, there is a rose garden, a bunch of beautiful statues and fountains, even one dedicated to the “Fallen angel” ie: the Devil, there are a couple of ponds, one of them large enough to row on. There is a new fanastic little public library in what used to be the old urban zoo. There are exhibition palaces, one made out all of glass! Some parts are very structured and well kept, some parts are a bit wilder. The weekends tend to get very crowded as most urban parks do, but if you go early enough or late enough it is quiet and beautiful.

Eventually I bought a house with my then wife, and of course it had to be as close as possible to the park. We nailed it, finding a great little apartment owned by two elderly sisters across the street from the North side of the park. Needless to say we loved living there with the two kittens (Thunder and Lightning) Tracy pulled out of a storm drain on a rainy Spring evening run in the park. We would also use it as a short cut when walking around town. I was very sad to sell that great place and move back to the States.

Since moving back to the US, every time I come back to Madrid I find a moment to escape to the park that holds so many memories for me. Occasionally I will go for a run, or a workout in the outdoor gym. When I took groups of students on trips to Spain, the park became a great place for them to explore, even renting the row boats.

Nowadays I love taking my nephew and two nieces any chance I get. If Jimmy brings a soccer ball we might kick around, otherwise we just walk and enjoy playing around such a wonderful place full of memories.

Miles of quiet paths
More miles of paths
Another fountain
The rose garden is one of my favorite spots on the planet!
Carrying an injured (scratched knee) niece
“Free libraries” to drop off and pick up books!
Monkeying around at the outdoor gym
Very lifelike statues that look like my niece and nephew
Walnut Hill students enjoying the park (2008)
One of many children’s playgrounds
A rose in Winter, not to be confused with a Winter rose
The “Fallen Angel”

 

Simmons College

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One of my students going to Simmons, Go Sharks!!
Hanging out with great classmates Laura and Paul

Over the years and the blog posts I have often mentioned Simmons College in passing, but I have never devoted a whole post to a place that changed my life. About time…:

What finally prompted me to write this post is that one of my students from Seacrest, has been accepted to Simmons to play volleyball. This made me remember my great experience there, which, of course, I have shared with my student. I must confess, I am a little jealous.

After my first couple of years of teaching I got the bug (and the recommendation from administrators) to go back to school. I enjoyed teaching Spanish and I had always loved literature, so I looked for part-time, evening Master’s programs in Spanish Literature in the Boston area. The pickings where slim: Boston College, Boston University, and a small all women’s college with a co-ed graduate program: Simmons College. An Excel spreadsheet that compared the practical, academic and economic aspects of embarking on such a project soon followed, and Simmons won. I visited, I applied and was accepted!

My first class on Siglo de Oro literature blew me away. Despite the fact that I had no clue what I was doing, I was warmly welcomed into the fold by Professor Louise Cohen, who would become a phenomenal mentor and would eventually inspire me to continue my studies in the field. Being a student again, taught me a lot about being a teacher. Although juggling teaching and learning was a lot of work, I really enjoyed the experience and loved every course I took. Plus, I made a handful of awesome friends.

On the rare days that I arrived early, Simmons has an agreement with the museum next door: the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where students got in for free, so I would spend a while walking around or reading in the beautiful patio. Or I would grab a nice coffee from Simmon’s little coffee shop. Or I would hang out in their state of the art library (their Library Science program is one of the best around). A few times I went to their swimming pool, although once they unknowingly guided me to the women’s locker room where, after my swim, I walked into a woman changing, ooops.

My last course was on Don Quixote, again with the fantastic Prof. Cohen, sort of a full circle kind of thing. I loved it, wrote one of my favorite papers ever (see previous blog post) and by May of 2009 graduated.

A couple of years later, when I went to talk to my professors about life and PhD programs, Louise Cohen and program Director Raquel Halty were alarmed at my extreme weight loss. Prof. Halty even took me to her beautiful Wellesley home to feed me and counsel me. I will never forget their caring.

Don Quixote’s influence on Existentialist philosophy

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About to embark on another adventure. This time to Miami, where we encountered alligators on the journey and bureaucracy at the Spanish Consulate.
Rocinante gets washed about once a year, even if she does not need it!
Rocinante enjoying some Fall pumpkins in tropical Florida

This has taken me a couple of years to bring to the Interweb. The idea of publishing my thoughts in an academic journal kept me from using my own blog as a platform. Now that I have some distance from the ivory tower that is academia, I feel liberated enough to use this humble vehicle to say my thoughts.

The idea is quite simple: The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard (1813-1855), who comes up with the idea of existentialism, even if not in those words – he is known as the grandfather of existentialism –, was a fan of Cervantes’ Don Quixote, writing extensively about him. Kierkegaard influenced many of the philosophers who came after him: Friedrich Nietzsche, Miguel de Unamuno, Martin Heidegger, José Ortega y Gasset, and eventually Jean Paul Sartre (although it would be fairer to say Simone de Beauvoir) who finally came up with a formal theory of existentialism. Unamuno relied heavily on Kierkegaard and on Don Quixote to form his theories.

In 1605 Cervantes creates a man who decides to live life by his own rules. Bored with his bourgeois life, he becomes a knight in somewhat shining armor. Don Quixote is a celebration of free will with all the beauty and issues that that carries. Therefore Don Quixote is the great-grandfather of existentialism. As you will be able to see from the bibliography, remarkably little, if anything has been written about this topic.

This is my Master’s thesis which I wrote in 2008 at Simmons College in Boston, for the great professor Louise Cohen. It has not been peer-reviewed, which is not to say that this paper is any good, it is not. If you have read any of my work on this blog before, you know I write like a horse’s ass. So read at your own discretion. Oh, haha, FYI it’s in Spanish.

el-existencialismo-en-el-quijote

(Belated) Summer Summary

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You guessed it, things have gotten pretty busy again, enough to postpone my Summer Summary into November. Not that anything earth shattering happened over summer, but still, I enjoy writing and reminiscing about it.

Summer started with a bit of a rush. I only had one week between the doctoral hooding ceremony and the movers coming in to take my few possessions to Florida. They arrived on Tuesday and I drove through torrential rain into Naples in one long day. Wednesday we emptied the truck. Thursday I opened some boxes and did some paperwork at my new school, Seacrest Country Day. Friday I drove to Miami for a flight to Madrid. Saturday morning I arrived in Madrid in time to go to my nephew’s First Communion.

The month of June was spent in Madrid, visiting friends, walking around the city, going to my favorite gym, exploring great art exhibits, taking my niece and nephew to Bernabeu stadium – for their first time – to see the old glories of Real Madrid beat the old glories of Ajax Amsterdam. As much as I love all cities, Madrid is home, it is the city I know best, and she knows me.

It felt odd to go to Mallorca without my father, but we still managed to enjoy it. The beach, the pool with the children, siesta on the balcony, evening walks, the food, beautiful village church on Sundays, running in the pine forest with the Mediterranean in the background, great people at the hotel, watching the Euro cup with my nephew Jimmy, relaxing gin and tonics at night in the bar. The whole experience is very special.

July was in the country – more and more like suburbia each day – at La Navata, great friends, wood fired paellas, cigars and drinks with my sister at night, great little village church on Sundays, a lot of work on the garden, rural outdoor gym, long bicycle rides on my vintage mountain bike, classic bar for coffee in the morning, and as always, a couple of visits to El Escorial with my dear friend Patxi.

August 1 I was back in Florida and ready to start a new school year.

Hanging out with friends
Hanging out with old friends
Always good exhibits to be found
La Navata sunset
Jimmy’s First Comunion
Taking the kids to Bernabeu stadium for their first time
Jimmy and mom picking “haba” beans in La Navata, they were delicious!
Garden work (fixing sprinkler plumbing)
Camp de Mar
Coffee with dear old friends
Making the authentic wood fired paella
Hala Madrid!
One of my fave streets in Madrid
Yearly pilgrimage to El Escorial with dear Patxi

The people of academia (The good the bad and the ugly)

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The beautiful, wise, awesome, funny Prof. Valis presenting her novella at UNC

My dear Kierkegaard explains how a person’s life goes through three stages. Simply stated: the young aesthetic where everything revolves around the ego, the more mature ethical stage where we concern ourselves with what is right and wrong and hopefully and eventually the religious stage where with some wisdom gained from pain and loss, we realize that it all boils down to love and giving and forgiving. These three stages of maturity are evident in academia. You find the young guns that know all the big words and trendy phrasing to write brilliant articles and books that say very little, but show off their brilliance. The ethical writers where everything is correct but boring, and a handful of scholars that “get it” and go beyond the big words or the correct arguments to delve into the spiritual.

Of course if you are in the aesthetic phase yourself, then you cannot see beyond the ego and the writing that caters to that. You think that the young, hip professor is the bee’s knees. It takes time, but more importantly spiritual growth that will only come from hardship to get to the religious phase.

During my time in the upper echelons of academia, I was able to experience this division in the quality of scholarship. Seeing these ego driven scholars, it is easy to understand the anti-intellectualism in vogue in certain social circles.

Flip the coin, however, and you find some of the nicest, most brilliant, most humble people around. I was blessed to have had some of those enlightened folks in my department and in my doctoral committee. I also got to meet some fantastic professors that came to present their work at Carolina.

David William Foster is one such fellow. Never mind that he is the Regents Professor of Spanish and Women and Gender Studies at Arizona State and President of the Latin American Jewish Studies Association, blah, blah, blah. He is a deep, brilliant, understanding person. I was honored to show David around UNC’s beautiful campus and then we went to lunch with two other colleagues. I did not want that lunch to end! It was funny, insightful, thought-provoking, just a pleasure.

Another such person is Noël Valis. Yes she works at Yale and has published a shelf full of books and articles, but more importantly, she “gets it” she understands humanity in all its difficult intricacies, our weakness, our idiocy. I was working on my dissertation most of the time Prof. Valis was at UNC, but I eventually managed to go to her presentation of her own book of fiction: The Labor of Longing. After that intimate and enlightening (sorry to use the same word twice) chat I had the privilege of showing her around campus. For a glorious North Carolina autumn Friday afternoon we walked and talked and I did not want that walk to end, I kept adding bits to our tour, until I had to let go of her.

I could go on and on about marvelous professors that enrich academia and the world. I have already talked about the ones on my Doctoral Committee on other posts. On the other hand I could also talk about ego driven, academic climbers, more interested in publishing their work than on what is really in that work. Unfortunately not all the latter will eventually become the former.

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Enjoying one of Noël’s books with a cafe con leche.

 

On the importance of mentoring

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Irene was not only my thesis director, but an awesome mentor.
Dean Minetti was such a great mentor I didn’t even realize he was mentoring me!!
With the great Renaud in the middle of the Black Forest
Simdi, mi great mentee at UNC

The moment we learn a skill or acquire any knowledge or wisdom it is our responsibility to share it with those younger than us. Not doing so would be a selfish waste of that skill, knowledge or wisdom. I came about mentoring by the same circuitous and unknown to me way as most things happen in my life.

My college years were incredibly constructive: I wrote a column for the school newspaper, I had the classical music program at the radio station, I was president of the International Club, I was International Student representative to the Student Government, and my senior year I was appointed Student Government representative to the Board of Trustees. I sat next to a sweet old man, who by means of his mystical powers, realized I badly needed some guidance in my life. Thus, unbeknown to me I had my first mentor. Jere Dykema was a quiet, sweet and brilliant lawyer and investment manager in Boston. The fact that he was a trustee at Bentley means he was also well connected and probably rich. After graduation I did an internship at the Societe de Banques Suisses in Geneva, and in September of 1987 I moved to New York hoping to get a job in Wall Street at the same time as the financial markets took one of their biggest hits in history, Black Monday. Somehow Jere Dykema stayed in touch with me throughout – this was before personal computers and the interweb. After eight fruitless, should I say, jobless months in NY, Jere put me in touch with an acquaintance from his squash club in Boston. That acquaintance was Eyk Van Otterloo, and the rest, as they say, is history: he made the mistake of offering me a job, and I moved back to my beloved Boston, where I would regularly meet Jere Dykema for lunch. That is when I realized the importance of mentoring.

After a few years I moved back to Madrid to work for a stockbroker. We soon received a young college graduate from Atlanta on a one year internship. Sure we became good friends to this day, but more importantly I could help him get his professional “sea legs”. From that point on there was always someone I could help out. When I started my company in 1994, one of my biggest responsibilities, but also pleasures was training, coaching and mentoring my team, I loved it. Becoming a teacher in the US also meant automatically becoming a mentor. Advising students is a great way of putting my 20 plus years of business experience and my 50 (soon plus) years of life experience to good use.

In the photofinishing industry I was again lucky to find wonderful advisors. Although Renaud lived in Paris, he still helped and advised me, and made sure I was ok. I loved working with him and knowing that he always had my best interest in mind.

Back in the States, strangely enough, an old university professor became my mentor. Twenty years after teaching me, and having stayed in contact all these years, Prof. Nurick and his wife Diane became friends, advisors, mentors. I still remember conversations and advice they gave me. Being a Tar Heel himself, Aaron Nurick wrote a letter of recommendation for me to UNC, I don’t know what sort of lies he wrote, but it worked, they accepted me!

At UNC, other than with my students, I had a couple of great mentoring opportunities. We had the chance of guiding the graduate students that came into the department after us. My first year I had the best possible mentor. Grant Gearhart took me out on nice long bicycle rides where he patiently explained the ropes of graduate school to me. As expected we became close friends. Starting my second year it was my turn to help an incoming student. The Newman Church also had a mentoring program, so I also got involved with that. I was paired with Mauricio and Simdi, they were both great. We would meet for a meal, mostly sushi at Akai Hana, my favorite place in Chapel Hill (actually Carrboro). Mauri graduated and Simdi and I continued our tradition of meeting for great meals and chats.

Part of the beauty of mentoring is that there are as many different styles of mentoring, as there are mentors. Some mentors are so subtle you do not realize you have been mentored until after the fact. This was the case with Dean Minetti who was such a presence during my college years, but I did not understand how he had helped me out until much later. Other cases might be more obvious, which was the case with my father.

As I am about to post this, I am happy to report that my new school, Seacrest Country Day School has a faculty mentoring program, and I am thrilled to have the awesome Patrick Duffy as my mentor.

I hope my help and guidance advice have been of some use to those I have shared them with over the years. I can’t wait to continue helping those younger than I.

Rocinante’s 10th birthday

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Despite being Rocinante’s 10th birthday, it has not been her best year. We can blame my PhD for that. For the last four years I basically only had time to ride to Trader Joe’s for some groceries, or for a quick ride (about half an hour each way) to lunch in beautiful Hillsborough or Saxapahaw, although mostly we would just ride to Five Guys just outside Chapel Hill. The only trip we made was to explore the North Carolina seashore, at the end of my first year at UNC in the spring of 2013. After that, between my dad getting sick and the pressure of my studies, there were no more long rides.

Although we would have loved to ride down to our new home in Naples, Florida, there was no money for the logistics, nor the time, if I was to make it to my nephew’s first communion in Madrid. Rocinante just rode inside a truck with the rest of my few belongings.

But we have great plans for our new life in Florida. Starting with a leisurely exploration of the Keys, a trip I have wanted to take for years, ending in Hemingway’s home in Key West. Then there is the West Coast and the East Coast, even “the panhandle” to explore. All very exciting.

The winter of 2006 was a tough one for me: I was still dealing with having closed my company in Madrid, with moving to the US, with not making friends. I was struggling with my first year teaching at a public school, and I was looking forward to Tracy getting well after her long sickness. I have been riding since I was 14, so getting a motorbike seemed like a worthwhile hobby to get me out of that slump

. I did a lot of research, made a few visits to Boston Harley Davidson, and had a massive tiff with Tracy. Ten years later I can safely say Rocinante saved my life.

So hopefully Rocinante will forgive me for my neglect over the last four years.

Rocinante finally hanging out with some UNC buddies
Rocinante travelling to Florida
A rare lunch break at Saxapahaw