Assignment #8-- Daniel Mendoza Vasquez

Fears: Losing family members, dying slowly, bizarre accidents
Annoyances: ignorance, selfishness, delusions of superiority, the GOP
Accomplishments: doing well academically, good test scores (not much yet)
Confusions: how one can hate someone for their inherent characteristics, the stock market and bonds
Sorrows: Colombia always getting knocked out of tournaments on tiny mistakes or referee error, corruption in the world, not being good enough at soccer
Dreams: [continuing] to travel, having materialistic wealth, stability
Idiosyncrasies: dual-citizen, no hometown, usually unaffected
Risks: Trying to spend next year in a German school, would like to learn to fly a plane, eating strange foods
Beloved Possessions, Now and Then: My cat Churro (now), scores of action figures (then)
Problems: managing a consistent workout routine, inconsistency in general

It was the midpoint of summer in 2014, but skies were gray and winds were heavy. Of course they were; I was in Bogota, where rain is the only weather that exists. We awoke to horns honking and anticipation in the cold air. Colombia was riding high, the national team had just made the World Cup quarter-finals for the first time in its history with a 2-0 win over continental rivals Uruguay. So, we were confident, even though five-time champion Brazil was next. My family and I headed north out of the city to a popular amusement park, Multi-Parque, to watch the game on a big screen that had been set up next to the go-kart track. We, along with numerous other families, eagerly anticipated the game while enjoying a fattening ‘parrillada’ from a restaurant in the park.

The game began, and seven minutes in, Brazil had put one past our goalkeeper. The excitement deflated, but one goal was hardly insurmountable. Fifty minutes later, the park erupted into cheers as defender Mario Yepes scored following a tussle in the six-yard box. We seemed to be back in it, but the cheers were suddenly hushed when a man on the sideline waved a checkered red and yellow flag. Yepes was, allegedly, offsides, and so our goal was disallowed. But when the moment was replayed on the screen, it became more and more evident that he was not, in fact, offsides-- the Brazilian defender had touched it first! Our players argued this but the referee did not budge (there were several calls in that World Cup that seemed to favor the hosts unfairly, I don’t doubt there was corruption there). David Luiz banged in a free-kick soon after, and even with a late penalty, Colombia lost 2-1. We left the park that day feeling cheated, and conscious that an injustice had occurred. And as I looked out the window through teary, red eyes on the ride home, the gray sky became depressing and suffocating, rather than a simple characteristic of the region. To say I take soccer and my national team seriously is an understatement.