Today’s blog post is basically these two pictures. One is Alfred E. Newman, the MAD Magazine mascot. The other is Maikol, a student at the school I’ve been volunteering at. Is it just me? No, it’s not. He’s dead on. Here, all this time, I thought Alfred E. was just a figment of some crazed [...]

This is the inside of a tree, if you can believe it. Bird meets fig. Bird eats fig. About an hour later, while flying, bird, ahem, releases fig remains. Fig remains land on top of a tree, where the division of branches has created a kind of bowl where leaves and twigs accumulate and turn [...]

Keep this way the heck out of reach of children. The 19-hour San Jose-San Salvador bus trip was getting kind of old. The movies they play on buses always seem to fall short of the mark, and the seats are only comfortable for an hour or two, if you’re lucky. But then one of my [...]

Of all the things Spanish learners must get used to, the rules surrounding when to use the formal “usted” and when to use the informal “tu” are among the most vexing. In some ways, we’re actually dealing with two languages, and they’re mostly the same, but you must size up a person and then decide [...]