MonkeyMan cultural observation #4: Individualism vs Collectivism

Hello MonkeyPeople!

The USA is iconic for its individualistic thinking and China for its collectivism.

After much observation, I think Spain is somewhere in between and here's why.

In the streets of New York City, during lunch time, people are rushing from one meeting to another, grab a sandwich on the way and stuff it in their mouths without even thinking.
Here individual achievement is the measure of all gratification and sometimes I feel that wanting to be different from everyone else makes everyone seem the same.

In the streets of Madrid for example, lunch time (2 to 5 pm) pretty much means everything besides restaurants are closed for 'siesta'. People sit down to eat a full meal with appetizer, dessert and coffee.

In general, family is more important yet individuality also matters. Spaniards socialize with their co-workers or connect with their families. Enjoying your time off of work is more valuable than your afternoon meeting.

Children tend to live with their parents way into their twenties and sometimes thirties! American children start working at a very young age and are encouraged to move out of the house as soon as possible.

Spaniards love to get physically close when having a conversation even when it is with just an acquaintance, personal space is not as restricted as it is for Americans.

As in a lot of places, globalization is taking its course in Spain. Stores are now opening during siesta time and more and more people do not take the time to eat due to a growing number of fast food chains and the demand for a comparable productivity to other countries such as the UK and the USA.

Perhaps this is why Spain is so special. People value their family and leisure time more than work, yet they also maintain a very unique pride in being who they are and they have been able to create some of the most successful world brand names (Inditex/Zara, Lladro, Camper, Balay, Repsol).


Individualistic thinking can lead to stress and an unhappy lifestyle. Maybe the Spanish laziness is the way to go!

MonkeyMan (not) business

Hello part-timers!

As the year is coming to and end, so are the jobs.

The Hickey Freeman archive project is wrapping up. This week we are scanning the last pieces and wrapping and storing everything again.

The application deadline at UNIS has passed and so the workload is winding down...actually now I am just doing all the tedious jobs no one wants to do!

Thus, my monkey friends. I am losing two thirds of my work and money.


However, with bad comes good. Starting mid-January, I will be teaching all those little monkeys at Applesseeds a lot more classes. In fact I will most probably become the lead instructor for the apple CORE training classes for children 18 months to 3 years old.
http://www.appleseedsnyc.com/subjects/1784/apple-CORE-training

Time to job hunt again!

Good luck to all those in the same crazy MonkeyMan jungle out there!

MonkeyMan business #3: HartMarx & Hickey Freeman

Hello part-time monkeys!

MonkeyMan goes haute couture!

For the past 2 months I have been working at the high end men's suit company Hickey Freeman doing an archive project.

We received boxes and boxes of old photographs, advertisements, clothes, awards and paintings all belonging to Hickey Freeman and its partner brands Hart Shaffner & Marx and Bobby Jones.
I knew absolutely nothing about these brands as I started out, but now I am all an expert.

So, we started out unpacking everything and categorizing things by brand and by date.
After much sifting and labeling we set all the Hickey Freeman stuff (mostly paper ads) on one floor and all the Hart Shaffner & Marx (mostly paintings and suits) on another floor.

The whole point of this project was to digitalize as much relevant things as possible so that thing are not lost forever due to decay and so the creative department can use them for inspiration.

I mean some of these ads are amazing! They date from the 1880s to present...pretty crazy!

Here is what the archiving process consists of:

Step 1: Unpack

Step 2: Throw away junk

Step 3: Organize by brand into...

objects

(HSM swatch book 1920s)

paintings

(Tom Hall ads for HSM 1950s)

advertisements

(Hickey Freeman 1910s)

Step 4: Display nicely

Bobby Jones room

Step 5: Digitalize

photograph & scan

Step 6: Repackage and store

Big thanks to MonkeyWoman Lisa Wells who made this project possible!

MonkeyMan Thanksgiving!

It's always nice to be reunited with all of my MonkeyMan pack members, especially when we hunt down a big feast!



Thank you to my wonderful family and friends who make home feel even more like home.

MonkeyMan cultural observation #3: healthcare

This week I'm tackling a big issue that is on everybody's lips in the USA right now: Healthcare.

November has come along and my little monkey body is now insured by Oxford health insurance. Although I pay a price way too high to even mention (and its one of the cheapest!), I have to say that last week's yearly check up was quite a pleasant experience.

Being used to the socialized system in Spain made me spoiled in the sense that it now seems so absurd to me that you have to pay for something which is so basic and necessary for human existence. However, the USA is now spoiling me in the quality of the care. I mean when I walked into this doctor's office I did not think I was going for check up. There were soft suede couches, huge windows and a sleek modern design to make one feel way more at home than the hard chairs and white walls at my doctor's office in Spain.


Articles 3 and 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights state:

• Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
• Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services. (http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/)

If we take that into serious consideration, the institutions who are in charge of life and security are our doctors and civil services. Life because we put our trust in our education system to teach people how to deliver babies. Security because they are the ones we rely on when we are hurt or sick and who may be able to heal us.

Most people cannot afford health insurance in the USA, yet so many countries have developed adequate to wonderful systems which are completely free. Where have our priorities gone?

No one should have to choose between life/security and health insurance.
It should be considered a human right.

MonkeyMan business #2: UNIS (part 2)

Hello part timers! After lugging heavy boxes of books and making photocopies for the teachers at UNIS, I have been working as an assistant for the admissions office.
The race for parents to get their children into private schools in New York City is quite astounding. Some send huge portfolios of every achievement their child has ever done, a portfolio larger than you would have to do when applying for college! I mean your 4 year old can only do so much. Plus, sometimes you have to remember that someone is on the other end and has to read it all. Parents, simplicity goes a long way here.


UNIS has a very particular program and it is definitely not a school for everyone, yet most people fall in love with it because of its peace and sharing philosophy. The most importnat thing to remember is that your children have to be in an envirnoment where they feel comfortable while also challenging them.
My MonkeyMan hands have been typing up labels on a typewriters (old school style) in order place different applications in their respective color folders. Then, I also learned how to manage the school's general computer system in order to enter all of their data so they can be considered as a potential student.

MonkeyMan Halloween!

One of my favorite American traditions

Lost Cowboy Hat...Found Mexican Sombrero

My dear old friend
went down to Tennessee
in order to send
a real cowboy hat to me.

Through many states did the hat fly
over mountains and rivers
somehow it got lost in the sky
making me cry.

Oh real cowboy hat
on my head you would have sat
perfectly shaped
for a MonkeyMan ape.

So I decided to go on my own
to land I've never known
further south than any ape has dared to go
only to find my sombrero in Mexico.

MonkeyMan cultural observation #2: supermarkets cont.

The same goes for chips!

WHERE IS MONKEYMAN?
Click on image to enlarge

MonkeyMan cultural observation #2: supermarkets

Every time I walk into the cereal aisle of those mega supermarkets like Walmart, Pathmart etc. I nearly die of anxiety attack at the amount of choice that exists on the shelves.

Literally, a whole aisle is dedicated to cereals. First you may encounter the healthy organic cereal, all bran cereal, and low fat/calorie cereal which has appeared in recent years and takes up about one fifth of the cereal aisle. Next you will surely encounter overwhelmingly colorful boxes which tend to be all the child targeted cereals such as Lucky Charms, Fruit Loops, Cheerios and of course Rice Krispies. The most amazing one I saw at Pathmart were the Honey Bunches of Oats which had 8 different kinds!

This is a small yet very pertinent example of what American society is like. Everywhere people consume, yet the market here has been so segmented to target different audiences that the audience doesn't know what to choose anymore. Do we really need 8 different kinds of the same cereal and 30 different types of cereal? After all, cereal is such a basic food...simple grains...why complicate it so much?

To prove my point, I wasn't even able to fit all of the pictures I took into a panorama, the picture below is only about a third of all the cereals.
WHERE IS MONKEYMAN?
Click on image to enlarge

MonkeyMan cultural observation #1: toilets

HeeHee part-time monkeys!
Am I the only one who has notice how much water there is in the toilet bowls here? The water almost reaches your butt when you sit down!
Is it just because everything else in the US is over sized and so toilets have larger tanks? Does that mean people here take larger poo-poos?


Please, the whole "going green" ideology has really hit hard, at least here in nyc. Everyone carries around their reusable bags and is going around planting trees in gardens, but no one seems to be thinking about water.
According to the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, New Yorkers consume 1068.7 million gallons of water EVERYDAY!
(http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/droughthist.shtml)
Check out this link on how to convert your toilet into a low-flush toilet and save gallons of water:
http://www.wikihow.com/Convert-Any-Toilet-to-a-Low-Flush-Toilet

MonkeyMan business #2: UNIS (part 1)

I am what they refer to as a "UNIS survivor". For all of you who are oblivious to this expression I am an alumna of the United Nations International School who attended from Kindergarten through 12th grade (known as Tut 4 for all my fellow classmates). I managed to study enough for those looooong exams which tested you on 2 years worth of material to obtain an international diploma, while also having the time of my life.

You would think that I had enough of the school, yet I have returned this time as a temporary staff member. I first started working at the copy center/book room making photocopies for all my old teachers and sending packages and books to the corresponding classrooms.


As I was working there one day, an old teacher of mine told me that these types of jobs "build character", and boy is he right. You have to be direct and a bit nasty otherwise everyone is always asking you for favors. I never have imagined I would be working in a space the size of a walk-in closet serving the teachers who once assigned me essays. The funny thing is that you see these people in a different light...as just people... and not as someone who is purposefully trying to ruin your life by making you read Shakespeare.

The best part about the job was that I was able to speak Spanish all day and I became a small capillary in the network of veins and arteries which keep a school like UNIS going. It really all depends on those small jobs and how people are treated for a school to run smoothly. MonkeyMan stood by me through the hours of copying, sorting and stamping books reminding me that there still a world outside that little room with no window.

MonkeyMan business #1: Appleseeds

Appleseeds was my first part-time monkey business since I got back to New York.

It's a Manhattan style children's center with a big indoor playground, lots of different classes as well as a store and hair salon.

For now I'm giving a mere two classes on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9:15 to 10am to kids 18 months to 3 years of age. Yes, I have to take the subway that early in the morning for just a one hour class. The good thing about it is that it pays well, I get some exercise and above all its FUN! We play sports, run around and best of all we play with bubbles.

This type of early childhood center has existed in the US for a long time, but in Spain however, going to a place to spend quality time with your child is a completely new concept. That is not to say that Spaniards don't spend quality time with their children, it's just that they prefer to bring along to the bar while they have a couple of cañas (small beers) or let them run off in the park with other kids.

Funny enough, I feel that Americans spend much less time with their children simply because they are much busier and work most of the day. Seriously, life is so fast paced and hectic here, people don't even have time for children. Therefore, they usually have a nanny to take care of them all day and a lot of them come to Appleseeds.

At Gymboree, the center I was working at in Spain, nannies were definitely a minority. And lets just face it, most nannies are not as enthusiastic about attending a jolly happy sing a long class with a child that is not theirs.

Welcome to the part-time haven!

Hello part-timers!

I have decided that there are just too many other people like me out there running from one side of the city to the other in order to fulfill the various part-time/temporary jobs they have.

As for myself, I came back to the recessive US economy after 5 years in a country where the economy is permanently in recession...Spain. There I was lucky enough to be hired at an international franchise called Gymboree after my first ever official interview. However, in NYC, the capital of commerce, it seems like that luck is not lending me a helping hand.

I guess after graduating from university, we (all my fellow high school graduates) expected to find the full-time "awesome job of our dreams" and be able to move out of our parents house. Ironically, after having left the nest during a significant amount of time to study, the majority of us have been forced back to sharing our private lives with the family.

Now, there are certain perks and pouts to this:
your roommates don't steal your food yet your sibling may have eaten it all by the time you come around to cooking it; you don't have to pay rent yet everyone is all up in your business when you bring a girl or boy over; you don't have to argue about who's going to buy the next pack of toilet paper anymore yet they bathroom is always busy when everyone is getting ready in the morning.
Of course there are many more so please feel free to post any of your experiences...

As I was walking on the street with a friend of mine one day, I met MonkeyMan. He has been there with me through the first two months back in the US and has somehow managed to help me out way more than my B.A. in Arts.

Photos and explanations will be up shortly.