Mariangela Parra

Your friendly neighborhood economist.

Dogs and writing

Posted on December 29, 2023 by MParra

Motivation to write is to me a big enigma. I have been meaning to resume my blog with discipline as the necessary water I know I need to give my thirsty brain. Yet, only corny images like these come to mind. What to do?

Maybe focusing on something completely different from what I know I need to write about is the answer. So here it comes.

I love dogs. My grandfather used to have german Sheppards. They were outside the house and always a bit muddy and distant. But I always loved them. For some strange reason they were all called “Yuta”.

My parents also had german Sheppards and kept the name tradition. At some point they had the terrible idea of getting me a bunny. Long story short, the dog killed the bunny and I got to see that up close. To think about it, I didn’t have good luck with pets growing up. I got a tiny chick at a bazaar, and he died when he moved to my bed in the middle of the night. I got a dog, and someone opened the door to the street and that was it. Another one was a gift from a friend and her mother changed her mind and took it back.

None of that did diminish my love for dogs. For birds, yes, but not for dogs.

When I moved to Chile many years ago, I was walking to work with a friend when 2 hairless dogs came around. They must have been thrown out to die by the river but somehow found us. I promised I would adopt them if they came back to our path that night. And they did.

I only remember Juana as I had to find a home for the other one before they both ate the furniture and walls of my rental. Juana stayed with me until she died in 2013. She lived in 2 other houses in Chile and 2 apartments in New York. She was destined to have a good life. I loved her so much. She still has a facebook page: Juana the Dog. Check it out. She was a gorgeous latin american stray dog.

She walked with me through the Gates exhibit in Central Park. She ran with me by the East River. She enjoyed the snow and the heat.

She was one hell of a dog. I miss her. A toast to her and you all for a wonderful 2024!

Until the end of the world

Posted on April 3, 2021 by MParra

Movies and music used to be an important part of my life. I used to hang out with cool friends that could speak for hours about Win Wenders and obscure soundtracks. I never knew too much about those myself but I guess I brought other things to the conversation. Fascination for example, and endless curiosity.

Courtesy of the pandemic we now have access to all streaming channels available. This includes Criterion. And yes, I finally got to watch the movie with such a great title and amazing soundtrack. It turns out that the soundtrack was more successful than the movie. I can see how excruciating it would have been to watch it at the movie theater. At home, with pauses for life and sleep, it is a 5-hour masterpiece of imagination and travel.

It got me thinking about art and artsy people that spend their lives following their passion and making a name for themselves. I admire their courage and dedication. So much to say about their time and understanding of the world. I am not sure much will be left to reminisce about in 50 years. Maybe I am already too old to appreciate new trends, but somehow I doubt tiktok will pass the test of time.

That takes me to reading. For years I have felt guilty and sad about only reading for work. I reminisce of the summers at my grandparents farm, laying in a hammock and devouring book after book. It is difficult to replicate that sense of eternity and lack of urgency that allows you to just embody the story the characters are going through. It also takes good writing. And that is as precious as gold.

I am very partial to certain authors and styles. I guess coming from the country of Macondo I was destined to enjoy the so-called Literatura Fantastica. Cien años de soledad and La casa de los espiritus are my all time favorites. I think it is also about timeless families and stories. I couldn’t get enough from Guadalcanal and now from Largo Petalo de mar.

I am not sure any of those will be the same in English. Each language has its own music and very rarely have I enjoyed a literary translation. Yet, I guess if you don’t know the original language it doesn’t matter. So if you have a chance I encourage you to try some Isabel Allende, Garcia Marquez, Benedetti, William Ospina, and let yourself go.

Homebound

Posted on March 20, 2021 by MParra

Ms. Pac-Man mini arcade has arrived today; the latest addition to our private sanctuary. Home has become everything for most of us and adding little things that would be otherwise inexcusable extravagances is now possible. After 50 years, it continues to be a delightful experience for all ages. Our tween has spent uncountable hours in her room playing with her phone and today she is with us in the living room and cannot get enough of it.

I may be the last one on earth, but recently I rediscovered lounging. I remember timeless hours with friends just doing nothing but being together and it was awesome. Adult life is regimented. You have stress, a daily agenda, so much so that you start including time with your family as part of your obligations.

Lounging is different. It is just relaxing but not alone. Decompressing by watching something together, having a beer or coffee without a set agenda or time limits. No tension. It is awesome. I get into the best conversation with my daughter and days seem kinder for all of us.

I guess one reason I am only rediscovering it now is that burnout forced me to reconsider my relationship with work. I still work hard and many hours but I mostly don’t stress over it. I know that I am doing my best at all times so when something goes wrong, as it always will because that is life, I can honestly just acknowledge, learn and move on.

Learning has been unavoidable this past year. Just a different kind of learning than the one that gives you diplomas. Learning how to build good routines for yourself, to be more self reliable and organized, to accept your idiosyncrasies and those of your life companions. Learn to accept bad days and weeks in which you do none of the above and know that the next day you can try again.

I haven’t learnt to play piano or ice sculpting or how to be less obnoxious, like Phil Connors did while awaiting Punxsutawney Phil’s predictions, but I think I have profited from the few upsides of this 2020 nightmarish Groundhog Day that we have had to collectively endure around the world.

I celebrate the little things. Like connecting with you again. Writing was impossible at the levels of stress I was enduring until recently. How are you doing? What have you learned? Lounging anyone?

Office space

Posted on February 27, 2020 by MParra

I am packing my office, like I have done many times before. Only this time by the end of the process the objective is not to organize and move my belongings, but to have no belongings at all at work. No more family pictures and other mementos to reveal details about the human being that spends countless hours around. I guess for those of us that get more than a bit disorganized when busy, an undeniable advantage is that nobody would get to see the mess anymore. Still, I wonder how much of the creative process we will lose by tidying up after ourselves night after night, instead of as a glorious ritual after finishing big tasks.

Since I started working more than twenty years ago my office has been an extension of myself. I used to take pride of the art decorating the walls or cubicle partitions, the collections of books and wooden animals decorating the shelves, the self sufficiency of a space in which I had everything I needed in case I needed to stay late. At some point I had a little fridge. At another, a gloriously red ice maker. When I was pregnant, I even had a military style cot to stretch when desperate for comfort. Going forward I will have to survive with whatever can fit in a locker. I know I will get used to it, but for now, I am mourning the loss of my woman cave, my refuge away from home. It is the end of an era.

To look at a positive angle, I guess in the end this exposure to the elements will make it a bit easier to leave the office at a set time every evening to go home and enjoy the wonderful babyness of my little girl while she is still little. I celebrate that. I also celebrate the clean slate, the unique opportunity to start anew every day. I really enjoyed that feeling every time I started working at a café or library, during the precious weeks I spent finishing my dissertation around this time last year. I didn’t need an office and countless books. Just an internet hotspot. That is work in the 21st Century.

What has been your experience with flexible working space? Or do you still have a place to call your own at work? How do we keep our humanity in these high tech and financially tight times? … Do you have a red swingline stapler? I do.

Royale with cheese

Posted on February 12, 2020 by MParra

Dear friends, the muses have left me. I desperately want to continue the conversation with you all, but I am not finding it easy to convey anything today. I have started at least three different topics and I can’t crystalize anything genuine about them. I want to tell you about the meaning of dancing in my life, as suggested by my dear friend Lina. I want to write about Latin America too. My friend Jose Plata is an inspiration. He writes the most amazing chronicles about his travels.

I want to write about Hong Kong, a place in which I strangely felt at home and that may have changed after the turmoil. I want to pay tribute to Santiago, another place that may be unrecognizable, and which I remember with unbound appreciation and love. I want to share my excitement and anxiety about work. I want to talk about women at work. And here I am, unable to devote my 400 words at a time to any of these cherished ideas.

Writers’ block was one of the most distressing and recurrent afflictions I experienced while I was writing my dissertation. I remember the horror of writing the first sentence. I remember writing and rewriting the same paragraph over and over. Before going through that experience, I didn’t understand the genius idea of an outline. I felt uncomfortable writing sections and preferred torturing myself trying to develop full drafts from the start, revising over and over each line until it was perfect. Of course, it was never perfect. It was a waste of time, but I couldn’t help it.

I am glad the dissertation process taught me to accept that if you are stuck on something you can move to something else and get back to it in due course. So instead of punishing myself for my lack of inspiration, I acknowledge the impasse and ask for your indulgence.

Before we all forget about them, what did you think about the Oscars? For the first time in years I saw most of the nominated films. I loved “Once upon a time in Hollywood”. I was deeply moved by “Joker”. I was mostly revolted by “Parasite”. “Marriage story” made me reflect about parenting. Which one did you like best? Did you feel like me that Tarantino should have won Best Director? Was Pulp Fiction a defining movie for you and your friends like it was for mine? Did you look for Ezekiel 25 17? I did.

With a little help from my friends

Posted on January 18, 2020 by MParra

While I was writing my dissertation, I procrastinated in many ways. One of the most productive in hindsight was reading about the dissertation process. I got many books and read many articles. Not all of them were useful, at least not for my way of doing things (or avoiding doing them …). I read about the staggering number of students that never finish their thesis. I was shocked to realize that the thesis is the only academic endeavor in which you are suddenly thrown out of the support system students receive to succeed. Children have tutors. While you are working through your classes you have other students that support you in studying sessions and labs. You have deadlines for your term papers and exams. And then nothing. You are left with your advisor and a key to the library.

The issue is that the role of the advisor is to ensure that what you write is good. You must impress them. They can be very supportive, of course, and many of us are lucky enough to have very patient and sympathetic advisors, but even then, the psychology of the process is tricky. The proof is that the incidence of depression in dissertation scholars is very high. I will look for the statistics but believe me, it is high. And no wonder. If you are lucky enough to not have to work at the same time, you still have very little contact with other students and your social life is supposed to go to hell because you are, after all, writing a dissertation. You have no intermediate steps or strong deadlines, no team, no positive incentives. You must finish because after that you will have a life, you are promised, but all you can count on to support you in doing it is your level of commitment, your perseverance and the patience and more than a little help from your family and friends.

I think this is also why I never considered an academic life. I heard about the intense pressure to publish to get tenure, the lack of camaraderie among professors, the loneliness of it all. I wonder if it was always like that or if it must be like that. I also wonder what else could be done to help more students finish, even if they may never put a foot in a university for the rest of their lives. Coaches? Dissertation anonymous? Mandatory dissertation workshops? A dissertation whisperer? Guidelines that dispel the myths and sincerely address the potential hurdles? Or will the proverbial St Peter always have to admit PhDs in heaven because it counts as time served in hell?

Identity

Posted on January 17, 2019 by MParra

So…about my partial draft…it got good reviews!! The 100th years enchantment in the forest of the impostor syndrome has been officially broken. Hurrah!

I felt light and happy for a few days and then something hit me. Who am I without a PhD to finish? Painfully, I realized that being a struggling working student had become a very important part of my identity. I felt disoriented and tremendously sad.

After all, if my hurdles were over, writing about them was also over. And this blog has given me immense gratification. Yet, the sadness was so overwhelming that it couldn’t just be about my latest, even if wonderful, hobby.

To be honest, I was prepared for a depression after picking up the leftovers of my graduation party. I had even talked about my fantasies after D day here. That the sadness came so suddenly, and especially when I am still 3 long months away from having a complete first draft of the 5 chapters, was a big surprise.

I am still recovering, but after a big session of tears with a dear friend, I feel at peace. For the first time in my life I don’t feel the urge to go after the next big thing. I still fantasize about an MBA and other big projects, but I can finally see that none of them will ever bring me the complete satisfaction that I was perhaps expecting some day (D day of all days!).

High expectations may be the mother of all abstract suffering. I hope I will soon be ready to adjust mine to fully enjoy the many little and big things still to come.