3 Things People Who Served In The Military Do That Make Them Look Like Tools

Posted on by Standard 1

Regardless of how much the media likes to depict everyone who serves in the military as the essence of integrity, professionalism, and selfless service, there are lot of people who are total fucking tools. Just like any large organization, the military has its share of window-licking, mouth-breathers whose only talent in life is not choking on their own tongue when they sleep. What happens when people like this get to wear the service uniform for the holy cock of freedom that is the United States? They use it to compensate for their many other shortcomings, of course.

1. Wearing Dog Tags As A Fashion Accessory

Just like many of the other ills in America, Hollywood is to blame for this trend. In the movies, you’ll see a battle-hardened Special Ops guy in an olive-drab tank top sitting alone at the bar drinking straight whiskey. He clutches his dog tags that hang around his neck and begins to reminisce about combat. Cue CCR’s “Fortunate Son” and flash back to Vietnam 1969.

The reality is that the scrawny guy wearing his dog tags over his Abercrombie & Fitch shirt is more than likely a cherry fucking private who just finished Basic Combat Training and thinks he’s a real soldier now. He has to show the whole world how much of a Billy Badass he is because having a high and tight and weighing a buck thirty-five isn’t enough of an indication that he’s a soldier. Wearing dog tags will surely be a conversation starter with the fairer sex and moisten her panties.

He doesn’t know that there are other soldiers and veterans at the bar with multiple deployments who aren’t as blatantly obvious about it and think he looks like a total tool. They’ll chuckle among themselves and shake their heads in disgust. Looks like they’ll let any kind of retard in the military these days.

2. Posting Moronic Memes On Facebook

If you’ve had anyone in the military as a friend on Facebook, you’ve probably seen a meme saying something similar to this: “Share if you think a person in camouflage should make more money than one in a jersey.” This will be accompanied with a picture of a soldier covered in mud hating his miserable existence in contrast to one of a famous football player in a packed stadium. This ensures the poster gets guilt-driven Likes and Shares because if you don’t think that, you obviously hate the troops.

When a person posts that, what they’re really telling you is that not only aren’t they the sharpest tool in the shed—they aren’t even in the shed. They’re so dull that they fail to grasp how the free market and the premise of supply and demand work—you know, the very things our men and women in uniform are fighting to preserve.

People in the military are all about telling the harsh truth. Well, here is one: It takes considerably more talent, skill, and hard work to be a professional athlete than it does to be a common Joe in the military. Have you been training since the age of five to be a soldier? Did you stand out as an All-Star in high school, get a scholarship to a Division One school, and then, despite the 1-in-100 odds, get drafted to a professional team? There is a reason why guys who sacrifice million-dollar contracts who decide to join the military make the news, while Joe Snuffy—who dropped out of community college while working at Subway and didn’t know what else to do with his life so he joined the Army National Guard—doesn’t.

3. Mentioning Something About Their Military Service In Every Conversation

You’re in your college US History class discussing the Great War and how gruesome it was. Then a longhaired, unshaven, and overweight former Marine wearing a “Mess With The Best, Die Like The Rest” Devil Dog T-shirt raises his hand.

“Oh yeah, my former unit that I served in Iraq with, the 5th Marine Regiment, was in the Great War.” Then he smugly lowers his hand and coyly looks around to see who is highly impressed with the fact the he is a veteran. You sit there thinking, “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”

Very few things indicate that a service member has no depth to their personality than their inability not to talk about the military regardless of how irrelevant to the conversation it may be. You could be talking about how much you love puppies; they’ll talk about the scraggly dogs in Mosul. It’s a bit a chilly out today. “This is fucking nothing. When I was in the mountains of Afghanistan, we froze our balls off.” You’re trying to decide where to get lunch. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. Anything is better than eating MREs like we had to do in the FOB.”

While the military is a vicious, soul-sucking beast that leaves a lasting impact on those who serve, it’s not so consuming that it leaves an individual with no personality and unable to have other hobbies and interests. While it’s great to be proud of one’s service, it’s also the mark of a huge tool bag if he is unable to talk about anything but his time in the belly of the beast.

~Raul Felix

Check out more of my work at Thought Catalog.

Why Should I Write About Her?

Posted on by Standard 5

“Will you write about me?” The question is always on the tip of her tongue. She may not ask it immediately because she doesn’t want to seem like another one of your admirers. She’ll take her time, earn your trust, and maybe win your heart—but she’ll eventually ask it.

You don’t know what to say. You’re barely able to focus on the articles you’re writing, let alone whether this tryst will be something you’ll remember and feel is worth writing about a week, month, or year from now.

Girls all seem special in their own way when they’re in front of you. But the moment of lust eventually passes and only memories remain. That’s the tricky part. What will you remember about her? How her piercing blue eyes and her charming accent made you melt. Or maybe the way her body conformed to yours effortlessly, as if every one of her limbs was custom-made to fit your body. Or how she would visit you at work and wanted you to stick your fingers in her pussy when no one was looking. Maybe it will be how she snorted coke and took shots of whiskey before you fucked. Or the way she made you feel emotionally secure, even on the first night you ever spent with her. Or the way her youthfulness and naivety made you feel grizzled and ancient.

These are the random little things you remember about several of the recent women that passed through your life. Some used you for their own purposes and moved on, others rejected you when you wanted something more, and others seemed to fizzle away with no drama.

“Maybe,” you respond.

You’ve noticed that the women you’ve encountered all wish to be your muse. It feeds their vanity to know that they may be immortalized in one of your essays.

“What will you write?”

“I don’t know.”

That answer always seems to disappoint them, as if you’re supposed to be able to instantly pick sugary prose out from mid-air and assemble a lean, insightful account of this affair. You never know if she will be a footnote in your heart or have her own book.

You barely know her and her true character. She’s a woman and thus skilled in the art of deception. Not all women are liars, but enough of them are that you’ve learned to not fully trust one until she earns it.

She snuggles with you and tells you sweet nothings. She tells you of her life, philosophy, and aspirations. She tells you of her family and friends. She tells you about her job, coworkers, and career goals. She tells you about her ex-boyfriends and how she wants to focus on herself and isn’t ready for a serious relationship right now.

Maybe you’ll write about her. About how you met her. About how you charmed her. About the way she made your heart skip a beat with her beauty. About the conversations you had. About the times you fucked.

More than likely, she’ll be out of your life as quickly as she became part of it, whether it was after a one-night stand or having a several-month fling. Only when she’s out can you truly know if you want to write about her.

You don’t want to write about her. Writing about her will bring back the emotions you started to develop. Writing about her will put you in the state of vulnerability that you recklessly allowed her to see. Writing about her will be a confession of your need for a romantic connection. Writing about her would mean she meant more to you than you did to her. Writing about her will mean she won, and you’re too proud to let that cunt win.

~Raul Felix

Read more of my work at Thought Catalog.

Eager To Pop My Cherry On The Battlefield

Posted on by Standard 1

You’re a cherry fucking bitch. That’s the label you get when you arrive at your first unit. You haven’t yet been deployed to the mountains of Afghanistan or the streets of Iraq to prove yourself. Your superiors have several deployments under their belts. Some of the more senior noncommissioned officers (NCO) are men who were in before 9/11 and were among the first into Afghanistan and then Iraq. Your role as a cherry private is to be a sponge for all the knowledge they’re going to bequeath upon you. They’re there to mentor and mold you into a capable soldier who will aggressively and effectively put two bullets into the chest and one into the head of Haji.

As a cherry private, you live in constant fear—not of the enemy, but of your Team Leader and Squad Leader. You fear making a mistake, however small, that will bring their wrath upon your poor soul. And you will make many fucking mistakes.

You have a brain fart and forget the fourth stanza of the Ranger Creed because you’re so nervous. “Do fucking pushups, motherfucker!”

You miss a spot when you shaved that morning. “Hit the fucking ropes!”

You’re two minutes late to being five minutes early to formation. “I’m going to fucking crush your balls after formation.”

You didn’t properly tie down your night-vision goggles. “Start fucking low-crawling, you fucking retard.” Other times you will get smoked merely for being a cherry private.

Little by little, you start to learn how to do things the right way. You’re always on high alert, making sure your uniform is on properly, your equipment is accounted for and is serviceable, and that you’re not fucking up somehow. Yet you always feel like you are. The mere sight of an NCO in the distance causes your heart to race. You’ll spot-check yourself and your buddies again. If he calls you over, you run quickly to him, hoping you didn’t do something that will ensure a soul-fucking.

You shoot thousands of rounds at the range, getting your shot groups tighter and more consistent. You conduct close-quarter combat exercises, live-fire exercises, jump out of airplanes, drive Humvees and Strykers, and fast-rope out of helicopters. You’ll do first-responder training and land navigation. You will work out every morning. You also do countless shitty details and spend lots of time hurrying up and waiting.

You’re eager to deploy. You’re tired of being a cherry bitch and want to get that deployment patch on your right shoulder. You want to stop hearing about what it’s like over there; you want to see it firsthand. You want to join the legions of men who came and fought before you. You want to do your part in fighting for your country and destroying those Haji fucks. This is your war.

It seems that every generation of young men must relearn how grim war is. We watch documentaries and war movies. We read books about the inexplicable horror and terrible waste of it all, yet with each generation, there are a handful who are eager to go on this grand journey. With each generation, there are old men who have lived their lives willing to send young men to fight and die when their young life has only begun. Sometimes it’s for a noble purpose; other times, it’s for profit.

Your deployment date approaches after months and months of training. You go home on leave one last time. Your mother is terrified and tells you to call her often. Your friends are proud of you and tell you to make it back alive, or they’ll kill you. Your fellow cherry privates are as excited as you are to get drunk as often as possible. You report back and find out some of them are idiots and got DUIs, beat their wives, or pissed hot for drugs. Looks like they ain’t going.

Your leadership makes sure you and your equipment are squared away. You’re given a packing list and are visually inspected to make sure you have all that’s required of you. You palletize your duffel bags, rucksacks, and other special equipment. You fill out your last will and square away your finances. You get medically evaluated and vaccinated. There are only a few days left and you serve half-days until you deploy.

The day is here. You sign out your M4, night-vision goggles, and carry your assault pack on your back. In there you have your laptop, a book, sleeping bag, and sleeping pad. Final manifest is called and you load onto the bus. The bus takes you to the Air Force base. There, you wait until the bird is ready. Once you’re told to load on the bird you follow the line of men in front of you. You step on the bird, take your seat, and wait for takeoff. You know that when you come back, you won’t be a cherry fucking bitch anymore.

~Raul Felix

Read more of my work on Thought Catalog.

Carrie Nation: The Temperance Leader With A Bad Temper

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CarrieNation

Imagine yourself as a turn-of-the-20th-century working-class American male. After spending all week in appalling working conditions marked by long hours, low pay, and shitty treatment, the only light you have in your otherwise bleak existence is your Friday night at the saloon. You’re boozing and gambling away your meager paycheck with your equally browbeaten buddies trying to forget the utterly unsatisfying and endless turmoil that is your existence, but you’re thankful you made it through another week without having your arm ripped off at the ol’ mill. Suddenly, the door of the saloon bursts opens and in enters a hatchet-wielding, spectacle-wearing, middle-aged woman yelling, “Men, I have come to save you from a drunkard’s fate.” That was the 1900s equivalent of “You motherfuckers need Jesus!”

That menacing woman was Carrie Nation, a named both feared and mocked by drunken lowlifes of yore. Carrie Nation was a part of the temperance movement before being a part of the temperance movement was the fashionable thing for devout Christian women to do.

You sit there not sure what to do. You’ve read of this rampaging woman in the papers, but you never imagined she’d come to the place where you drink your misery away. She raises her hatchet and skillfully smashes several bottles of whiskey with one devastating swoop. Then she takes another swing and another. A few minutes later, every bottle of alcohol in the saloon lays shattered on the floor. Grown men stare stunned. She leaves the saloon and heads to another. She’s only begun.

Carrie Nation really fucking hated alcohol.

Born in 1846, she had a life filled with tragedy. Her mother died in an insane asylum. Her first husband was a drunk and became increasingly unreliable. He drank himself to death shortly after Carrie left him. She married again, only to have it end in divorce.

Realizing that marriage, love, and happiness probably wasn’t her thing, she devoted herself to God and the temperance movement. Carrie’s early strategies involved doing peaceful protests with hymns and japes at the bartender by greeting them with “Good morning, destroyer of men’s souls.” This plan yielded little results in stopping men whose only saving grace in life was alcohol.

Carrie knew she needed to step it up a notch if she wanted to get results. As a God-fearing woman, in 1900 she got on her knees and prayed to the Lord Almighty. She prayed with all her will and devotion. Back then, God wasn’t the flaky asshole he is now about answering people’s prayers, so he promptly gave Carrie a vision:

“Go to Kiowa [a town in Kansas]. I’ll stand by you.”

Since God always likes to keep shit vague, Carrie ran with it and took it as meaning: “Go to Kiowa and fuck some saloons up with rocks.”

And fuck saloons up with rocks she did. She walked into a bar in Kiowa with a bag full of rocks—or “smashers,” as she termed them—and valiantly threw them against the mirrors and bottles of the saloon. She was getting her revenge on the place where the serpent drink crushed the hopes of her early years. She repeated this action at two more bars. By the time she was finished with the third, a crowd had gathered cheering her on. When the sheriff arrived, Carrie displayed how much of a gangster she truly was—she dared him to arrest her. He didn’t.

Emboldened by her God-approved vandalism, she headed off to Wichita and attacked the most popular saloon in town. The Wichita police weren’t the pushovers that they were in Kiowa, and Carrie was arrested for defacing property. “I am defacing nothing. I am destroying,” she said as she was being arrested. Jail didn’t faze Carrie: “You put me in here a cub, but I will come out a roaring lion. I will make all hell howl.”

After getting out of jail, she adopted her trademark hatchet as her instrument of booze destruction. She headed off from one small town you’ve never heard of to another you’ve never heard of. She would be arrested time and again, each time scoffing at the law and paying the fines for her release. She even had the governor of Kansas plead with her to stop her attacks. “You are a woman. And a woman must know a woman’s place.” Carrie strutted out and called for a hatchetation.

Now, what the fuck is a hatchetation?

A hatchetation was when hundreds of women and a few men who really fucking hate alcohol would destroy over 100 saloons throughout Kansas. It was so effective that it forced state senators to actually do their jobs and enforce the laws already on the books regarding prohibition in Kansas.

Even back then, Americans were a fickle bunch and as quickly as Carrie Nation got things going, the movement faded away. Carrie didn’t give a fuck; she went solo on her crusades and kept many bartenders on alert until her death in 1911.

You’re with your buddies, stepping over the destruction that Carrie Nation left behind. You shake your head in bewilderment and look at the sign above the bar:

“All nations welcome, except Carrie.”

~Raul Felix

Read more of my articles at Thought Catalog.

Why Men Look Up To Tony Montana

Posted on by Standard 3

Scarface

Tony Montana is one of those rare figures in popular culture who crosses racial boundaries. He’s played by Al Pacino, who is an Italian acting as a Cuban who would later inspire a generation of black and Hispanic guys to create hip-hop tributes that will be listened to by white suburban kids.

He is the kind of world-class criminal a lot of men would aspire to be if they were ambitious enough. They envision living the fast life of cocaine, killing cockroaches that cross them, and having scantily dressed women fucking them because they have tons of cocaine. Most give up those high ambitions and settle for mind-numbing office jobs with free snacks and synergy.

Yet Tony’s inspiration lives on. Single males across the country have a Scarface poster hanging on their bedroom walls this moment. So why does this ruthless criminal inspire so many of even the most upright of young men?

 

1. He’s Self-Made

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Take one look at a guy like Tony Montana and you know he didn’t grow up in the suburbs. His default facial expression consists of a scowl, and his trademark scar is an indicator of his street-thug roots. Like many people seeking to escape Castro’s grips, he headed to America to start a new life via banana boat to engage in free black-market capitalism.

“Me, I want what’s coming to me,” says Tony as he drives his Cadillac.

“Oh, well, what’s coming to you?” asks his right-hand man Manny.

“The world, chico, and everything in it.”

Tony is a man who is going places and is nearly delusional about his potential. He doesn’t let the fact that he is without education, power, money, or influence become roadblocks. Tony uses the tools he has—balls, decisiveness, and street smarts—to help him overcome every obstacle.

He’s shrewd and cunning, quickly moving up from a small-time crime syndicate’s foot soldier to running Miami’s most powerful criminal empire. He epitomizes a version of the American dream to which many downtrodden youths can relate: coming from absolutely nothing and transforming yourself into a total boss.

 

2. He’s A True Family Man

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Tony shows up at his mother and sister’s house one quiet night. It had been years since he had seen them. He had purposefully held off on seeing them until he was a success. He wants them to be proud of him and know that he has made it.

He proudly gives his mother $1,000. “Who did you kill for this, Antonio?” she inquires. She knows well what kind of man her son is. She rejects his blood money and ends up kicking Tony out of the house. Even after that, Tony has tremendous love toward his mother and tells his sister Gina to slip her some money a little at a time so she won’t notice.

He’s highly protective of his little sister, Gina. He constantly keeps his eye on her and attempts to prevent other men from getting close to her. This speaks volumes to men who feel extremely protective toward their little sisters or cousins. He may be overbearing in his protection of her, but it shows that his love for his blood is true and strong.

3. He Sets His Own Values

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“All I have in this world is my balls and my word and I don’t break them for nobody, you understand?” It is an outlaw ethos that has been echoed for the last 30 years by many an inspired male. Tony lets you know that even though he is a criminal, he is the type of criminal who does crime the right way. He only fucks over those who deserve it. If you weren’t Tony, you know you’d want to be in his crew because you’d have one of the best bosses around.

“In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.” Tony knows business comes before bitches, that a man must focus on what is good for himself and his future. Figure out how to get yourself ahead of the game and not worry too much about random pussy. This is tougher to do for some men than others, as his his sidekick Manny is constantly giving in to la mamacitas.

Nowhere else does Tony exemplify his rock-solid values more than when he refuses to allow the killing of the wife and kids of a man he was supposed to assassinate. He feels that’s the coward’s way of conducting business and refuses to let the assassin detonate the bomb by placing a bullet through his skull. It was a fine case of hip-pocket executive decision-making.

 

4. He Got To Fuck The 1983 Version Of Michelle Pfeiffer

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While any version of Michelle Pfeiffer is sexy, feminine, and alluring, the 1983 model of her was a pristine example of female beauty.

“I say she’s a tiger. She belong to me,” Tony states to her. While Tony knew to put money before bitches, he also knew that if had the right one by his side, he could go to the top. When he saw the one he wanted, he went after her. He was not too shy or nervous. He didn’t wait for her to give him hints. He didn’t care that she wasn’t interested in him. He went for her for like the boss player he is.

No one intimidated Tony. He had a high sense of confidence in himself and displayed it again and again and thus winning over such a fine woman. He had mountains of coke and she was addicted to coke, so he kept her rolling in it. It was a coke dealer’s style of bringing your girlfriend flowers every day.

Maybe he wasn’t the good guy in the legal sense, but he was the best at what he did. He told off the true bad guys, the corporate thieves and corrupt politicians: “You need people like me so you can point your fuckin’ fingers and say, ‘That’s the bad guy.’ So what that make you? Good? You’re not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don’t have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.”

He died in a hail of bullets, taking out as many motherfuckers as possible, his body center stage for all the carnage surrounding him. Most men would dream to go out with such style.

~Raul Felix

You can read more of my work at Thought Catalog

Images – Scarface

The Jack Off Line: How To Decide Whether It’s Better To Hook Up Or Jack Off

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In a man’s ignorant youth, when he is a horny boy who will fuck a pile of rags, he tends to be indiscriminate regarding pussy. All he knows is that hooking up with a subpar chick is better than jacking off.

It’s a fair system: Mediocre girls get to fuck around with guys who won’t settle for their likes once they grow and become more accomplished, while guys get some practical, hands-on experience with real chicks. These are glorious times for subpar chicks, because they get to ride a cock carousel of overeager young men who have yet to establish a set of standards. Even if he isn’t really into her, he’ll find a few features to focus on: big ass, big boobs, cute face, or a cool personality coupled with the ability to suck a mean cock. It’s a golden era of sexual exploration that is filled with grand victories and embarrassing hookups for the budding male.

Then there are the dredges of the female gene pool, the ghastly hags who scour the Earth in search of weak males. Their mere presence is enough to cause any self-respecting man’s dick to crawl up inside his body in self-defense lest he accidentally trip and fall into the fatal abyss that is her vagina…they lack any type of redeemable feature that could possibly give a man a chub…they are somehow able to weigh 300 pounds without having tits or ass…they are ugly as fuck, have a terrible personality, and no enthusiasm for sucking cock. These females fall below the Jack Off Line.

The Jack Off Line is a litmus test where a male has to ask himself one simple question: “Would I rather jack off than hook up with this girl?” It’s the bare minimum acceptable level of attractiveness a female must possess to make her worth a one-night stand.

Most of the time, the answer is obvious. Of course we would rather fuck a girl who looks like Halle Berry and has hint of wonderful Chanel perfume than jack off. Of course we would rather jack off than fuck a girl who is morbidly obese and whose breath reeks of McDonald’s, boxed wine, and Cheetos from two days ago.

Where a man’s Jack Off Line begins is subject to variables such as age, experience, personal tastes, degree of desperation, and the quality and quantity of his sexual prospects. While there is a small percentage of guys who are studs from the get-go and can secure some pretty hot chicks at an early age, most guys are not like that. In fact, when they’re first starting in the hook-up scene, most guys’ Jack Off Line lies somewhere between girls who are a 3 to 4, as I’ve illustrated in this handy chart:

JOLChart1

The Jack Off Line’s threshold is tricky and treacherous terrain for a young man to navigate. Alcohol and desperation play a critical role in transforming a chick that is horribly unfuckable into a valid candidate for a hogging mission. Alcohol lowers his initial inhibitions and standards enough to give this female monstrosity a fairer shot than she deserves. In long dry spells, desperation for a female’s warmth and contact override his common sense and sense of sight, smell, and taste.

The Jack Off Line is never 100% static. Only through many years of trial and error is a male able to finely calibrate where on the 1-10 rating spectrum his own personal Jack Off Line lies. He learns to not only focus on the orgasmic payoff of getting laid, but to also consider the cost—time, resources, reputation, or the chance to hook up with a more attractive female if he had only been more patient.

Those of us who are able to survive the early trials and tribulations of fucking fat chicks, butterfaces, and shady bitches without knocking them up or becoming trapped in their webs of deception become hardened and salty. We slowly develop a newer, higher set of standards for ourselves. As we grow and more women begin seeking our attention, our Jack Off Line likewise rises. Where before we would have fucked a 5 without giving it a second thought, she now is no longer even worth investing the amount of time needed to get her into bed for even the few minutes it takes to fuck her.

JOLChart2

Fucking a girl who is on the cusp of The Jack Off Line is not the goal of any man who actually gives a fuck about the quality of his life. When he’s out to get laid, of course he’s going to go for the big prizes, but there will be times where he fails to catch such chicks’ attention. Then he’ll look at that homely—but for some strange reason, slightly sexy—5.5 across the bar. He’ll know that he can snag her with minimal effort. Then he’ll ask himself: “Would I rather jack off than hook up with this girl?”

~Raul Felix

Keep reading my stuff on Thought Catalog

The Harsh Realities of Teaching English as a Foreign Language

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Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) has become an option for many disillusioned recent college grads when they realize their Humanities degree is not that high in demand. You can qualify to be a TEFL teacher with nearly any type of degree. You will fantasize about how you’re going to enlighten foreign minds, but like anything else, reality will set in. Luckily for you, English Teacher X is a salty-as-fuck veteran of this mysterious world. He has written several books and been blogging about it since 2005.

Raul: English Teacher X, you’ve been TEFL for 15+ years now. What’s the biggest difference you see now between new, cherry English teachers and when you were a newbie in the 90s?

ETXEnglish Teacher X: Of course, there are a lot more people doing it now in general, but surprisingly, I don’t see that much difference. Still plenty of middle-aged whoremongers/wife-hunters, plenty of young backpacker types, and plenty of clueless youngsters in search of a Real Authentic Cultural Experience. You’d think there’d be fewer clueless people with the Internet and all, but there are still plenty of wide-eyed innocents, many of whom end up ripped off but with a few interesting stories to tell the folks when they go back to working at the Cheesecake Factory. One thing you see a lot more of these days is middle-aged women getting into it for a midlife career change after a divorce or whatever. Eat, Pray, Love syndrome. My friend in Dubai says he sees a lot of them, and a friend in Peru says the same thing. They’re often also looking for romance—men are not the only ones unhappy with the dating situation back home.

Raul: What kind of “Authentic Cultural Experience” do most of the youngsters look for, and what is the harsh reality?

ETX

English Teacher X: Oh, you know, the usual—they think they’re going to learn the language and befriend the locals and such and go to traditional ceremonies and such, but they generally find that the only people who want to speak with them either just want to practice their English or rip them off somehow. Or have sex with them, maybe.

Raul: You spent nine years in Russia from 2000-2009 in an industrial wasteland you’ve named “Vodkaberg.” Russia changed quite a bit since those days. You mentioned that the same Vodkaberg doesn’t exist anymore. What changes have occurred?

ETXEnglish Teacher X: Oh, man, well, it’s pretty much a 180-degree shift. When I got there, they loved foreigners, especially Americans and Europeans, and everybody loved to drink and smoke and party, and people were very cynical about work and the government. Everybody was extremely sexed-up, and there was a lot of prostitution going on. People had very little hope for the future. There was very much an atmosphere of “Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Now, shit, it’s like the Reagan 80s. First there were a lot of rules limiting alcohol consumption—no more drinking on the streets, can’t buy alcohol after eleven, can’t drink on trains, etc. Then depictions of homosexuality in the media. With the Ukraine thing, Putin has stirred up the patriots and the nationalists, and even one of my slutty, foreigner-loving female friends there was lecturing me last night on Skype about how everything in the American media about Russia is a lie. People want to work hard to get the Toyota Corolla and the iPhone. People do take care of their health a lot more, though, I guess, which is a good thing. I read yesterday that Putin is banning some of the Russki mat—curse words—from movies, theater, and TV. He seems to be trying to create a Puritan republic in response to the excesses of the 90s and early 00s. Oh, and in addition to that, to show the attitude of Russians recently—a friend and I were trying to talk to some Russian girls in Dubai last week and one of them told us, “I don’t talk to Americans anymore because of the international situation.”

Raul: Damn, so Russia is losing its unique Russian ghetto charm; what a shame. Where could a young, hopeful, future TEFL type go to get the same crazy social atmosphere as was prevalent in Vodkaberg during your stint there?

ETXEnglish Teacher X: Of course, your social life is what you make of it and anybody going to Eastern Europe can probably find enough alcohol and sex and general wackiness to satisfy them. But the kind of blind worship of foreigners—that’s hard to find these days. You’d need to go someplace that has endured a long period of isolationism and protectionism. North Korea, Cuba, Belarus. Just in general, the kind of places that are experiencing the sort of rapid economic growth and social change that Russia experienced during the 00s are places in the Middle East, and I hear people talking about places like Turkey, Ethiopia, and Lebanon a lot. Recently somebody sent me an email asking where the best place to go to have that experience would be and I answered, “Just go anywhere that people tell you not to go because it’s too dangerous.” I remember buying the train ticket to Russia back in 2000, and the women at the train station in Prague told me I was crazy; they would kill me. They didn’t, although not for want of trying.

Raul: Any random advice for any aspiring TEFLers?

ETXEnglish Teacher X: Well, I was thinking today that while TEFL is not much of a career choice, it probably combines well with your various possibilities for “location independent” jobs like freelance writing or running an eBay store or an affiliate site or whatever. As a teacher you’ll probably have enough free time to work on something like that, but you’ll always have something to do to meet people or to fall back on if your Internet job punks out for some reason.

~Raul Felix

Check out more of my writing at Thought Catalog

3 Ways To Use Obstacles To Your Advantage

Posted on by Standard Reply

Dreams and aspirations—we all have them, whether you want to be a world-famous writer, a doctor, a captain of industry, or an international playboy. You set off on a journey to fulfill your dreams because you’re a fucking Billy Badass and nothing is going to stand in your way.

Then reality decides to be a dick and stands in your way. Your submission to XoJane gets rejected because it wasn’t angry enough and only mentioned rape culture twice…or you fail your Intro to Biology class…or you can’t even work up the courage to talk to that cute Latina chick. You sit there deflated, wondering how the gods could be so cruel to little special snowflake you.

Luckily for you, Ryan Holiday’s new book The Obstacle Is the Way provides a time-tested formula inspired by the great Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It teaches you to not just overcome your obstacles, but to leverage them to your advantage. Drawing from historical examples of people who were way more important than you or I, he separates the book into a series of characteristics, philosophies, and values that a person must have to hopefully join their ranks or at least give it the good ol’ junior-college try. Here are three that stuck out to me.

1. Follow the Process

You’ve got to do something very difficult. Don’t focus on that. Instead break it down into pieces. Simply do what you need to do right now. And do it well. And then move on to the next thing. Follow the process and not the prize.

When we read an enriching novel or an article that makes us think and see things from a new perspective, we are experiencing the fruits of the writer’s extensive labor. We don’t see the process. We don’t see the writer as he reads book after book, learning from his mentors who may have long passed. We don’t see his first attempts of forming an original thought or sentence that is totally unreadable. We don’t see him as he learns the difference between the overreaching of vocabulary and using it in a seamless fashion. We don’t see him as he struggles, staring at the blank screen to formulate his next witty phrase.

By focusing on the little things, the fine details, the nitty-gritty aspects of what you’re trying to accomplish, you make the task much more manageable and feasible. Those little mundane parts—when done right and compounded together over the course of time and constant repetition—will create a road to the grand success of which you dream.

2. Do Your Job, Do It Right

Everything we do matters—whether it’s making smoothies while you save up money or studying for the bar—even after you already achieved that success you sought. Everything is a chance to do and be your best. Only self-absorbed assholes think they are too good for whatever their current station requires.

When I was in 2nd Ranger Battalion, there was the Ranger standard that must always be met or you would be kicked out and sent to the big Army. It governed our lives: how we conducted and trained for combat, physical fitness, appearance, and acceptable behavior. In every aspect of being a Ranger, you were expected to do your job with a high level of motivation, competence, attention to detail, and eagerness to improve. It didn’t matter if you were going on a direct-action raid, doing a live-fire exercise, jumping out of an airplane, cleaning the barracks, policing up brass, mowing the quad’s lawn, fast-roping out of a helicopter, or doing your morning physical training session. Your ass better be giving it your all, or you were going to get your balls crushed.

I was a mediocre Ranger who barely survived being in battalion; nothing exceptional compared to some of the no-shit legendary men with whom I got to serve. But it instilled a strong work ethic in me. Taking pride in doing even the simplest jobs right—however trivial, mundane, and unglamorous they are—prepares you to take on the larger and more glamorous tasks when they are set before you.

3. Build Your Inner Citadel

No one is born a gladiator. No one is born with an Inner Citadel. If we’re going to succeed in achieving our goals despite the obstacles that may come, the strength in will must be built.

The world doesn’t give a fuck if you succeed or not. In fact, the world wants you to fail. If you want to attempt anything grand and not live a life of quiet desperation like so many poor souls, it will require you to be physically and mentally tough. Neither one of these attributes is built overnight.

Physical strength and toughness will better prepare you to deal with the obstacles life places in front of you than if you are scrawny or fat. Many “intellectual” douchebags who look down on the physically fit fail to see that the discipline needed to get to that point helps strengthen the mind and will.

Mental toughness will let you handle and overcome any obstacles that seek to wage psychological warfare on you. It gives you the capacity to think through them and find solutions. It gives you the ability to face down the naysayers, the haters, and the nonbelievers. It will help you say, “Fuck you” to them and drive on.

You need to change your mindset in how you view obstacles. They aren’t always negative; they can bring opportunity if you’re bright enough. This book will help you forge a mind that not only can power through them but can also squeeze out every drop of benefit from them.

~Raul Felix

You can read more of my articles on Thought Catalog

Ode To La Doña: The Linchpin Of The Mexican Family

Posted on by Standard 4

FamiliaFelix

The Mexican man takes pride in the fact that he is the man of the house. In his mind, he possesses the huevos, so he naturally runs shit. If he wants to stay up late on a Friday night listening to musica norteña from the $1,500 after-market sound system of his ’95 GMC Yukon while drinking Bud Light, eating carne asada, and bitching about life with his carnales, he’ll do it, damn it!

Then his phone rings. “Es mi vieja,” he says as he looks down at the screen of ay-phone. He quickly picks up and answers. “Si, mi amor?” His friends hear the muffled sound of his wife yelling at him that it’s time to come home. “Mandala al la chingada,” say his carnales who are single. But they are well aware that he is in a powerless position and when his wife says it’s time to come home, he better move his fucking ass or run the risk of having his favorite Chivas soccer jersey cut up again. His wife may be young, but she is stubborn, brave, and resourceful. She has the makings a future “La Doña.”

In the Mexican family, much like the British monarchy, the man is the figurehead in name only. La Doña is the one who is the true shot-caller. La Doña is the alpha female. She could be the grandmother, oldest sister, or the most assertive, fiscally responsible, and reliable female out of the many characters that comprise the family. She has a commanding presence and rules with love, fear, and respect.

There is no love like the love of La Doña. Upon seeing you she’ll give you a hug, kiss, comment on how fat you gotten, and ask if you’re hungry. Then she’ll immediately get in the kitchen and throw together whatever she can from the contents of her fridge. Even with minimal ingredients, La Doña is able to magically assemble a delicious meal that you eat to the last bite.

La Doña will be the first person you call when life has kicked you in the balls. If you’re broke and struggling to pay your bills, La Doña is hardworking and frugal enough that she can lend you money. If life gets to the point where you lost your place to live, she’ll be the first person to let you stay in her spare bedroom until you reestablish yourself. When you’re downtrodden and everyone is looking down on you, La Doña will ferociously defend you and make it clear that your bad luck is only temporary.

She’ll be at your birthdays, graduations, and major life events. La Doña will be your biggest fan and supporter in all your dreams and endeavors, however farfetched they may be. She will speak proudly of you to others and highlight all of your accomplishments whenever the opportunity presents itself.

But La Doña will also fill you with fear. She will be the first person to confront you when you are fucking up. Get a bad grade in school? Be ready for her to yell your ear off about how if you don’t get good grades, you’ll be washing dishes at Denny’s with the other dumb Mexicans. You want to be cool and hang out with the little gangster kids across the street? La Doña isn’t going to let you become a good-for-nothing cholo that gives the rest of us Mexicans a bad name. She’ll go to their house, find you, and berate you in front of everybody with a combination of your name, swear words, your last name, and more swear words. Then she’ll grab you by the ear and drag your ass back home. Did you decide to get drunk and get your ass bounced out of the bar again? Don’t worry, La Doña will pick you up. The price: her beating the crap out of you for being tan estúpido. It doesn’t matter if you’re 27.

La Doña rules mostly with respect. Maybe she isn’t highly educated or well traveled, but her knowledge of how the real world works in invaluable. She has worked long, hard hours for low pay. She has seen life come into this world and has seen it leave. She has had her share of love and heartbreak, excitement and disappointment, happiness and sadness. She has selflessly put her family’s needs ahead of her own. She has made the right connections and has become a key figure in helping the family establish themselves in a new country.

La Doña knows how to get shit done and has connections who speak Spanish. Your ’92 Camry is having transmission trouble, but you don’t trust any of the gringo mechanics because they’re always looking to rip off Mexicans? Don’t worry; La Doña knows a guy who speaks Spanish and is trustworthy. You need a job? La Doña has a friend who owns a little taco shop and will hook you up. You’re traveling back to Mexico to visit? Just let La Doña make a couple of phone calls and you’ll have yourself a place to stay.

La Doña has more balls than most men. While many men willingly abandon their offspring, La Doña has more character in her right pinkie and will never let any child in her bloodline feel unloved. La Doña leads by example, never expecting anyone to do anything she isn’t willing to do herself. She’s the most levelheaded of the men and women in the family, often putting herself in the middle of their petty feuding to help find a solution so the family stays whole.

La Doña seems superhuman in the way she skillfully governs the chaos that is the Mexican family. Her fuel is her love for every member. Their trials are her trials. Their burdens are her burdens. Their success is her success. Their happiness is her happiness. She will have her favorite picture of you hanging up on some wall in her home. Even as you grow older and start building your own life, she will always worry about you because to her, you’re still esé niño who barely knows how to wipe his butt.

~Raul Felix
Read more of my work on Thought Catalog.

It’s So Hard To Say “No” To An Easy Lay

Posted on by Standard 1

Holy shit, you’ve managed to pull it off again. You’re not sure how or why, but this bitch is all about your nuts. You’re making out sloppily and have your hands inside her jeans playing with her thong. Your friends watch you from afar, cheering you via thumbs-ups and tilted beer bottles. From the brief but magical thirty minutes of conversation you’ve had with this fair maiden, it’s apparent that her morals dissolve with every gin and tonic she drinks.

As you press her on the corner of the bar devouring her face, you realize this really isn’t about you. You did nothing to earn this. You only happened to be at the right place at the right time. She is not into you, but in her state of mind, sleeping with you (or any guy) will make up for the fact that her stepfather didn’t love her enough, or whatever other slut-justification mental gymnastics she’s going through in her head. She’s just needs dick—any dick.

Oh, well…fuck it.

You don’t care. She has a warm, wet hole that wraps itself around your dick. She isn’t girlfriend or even fuck-buddy material; she’s one of those chicks whose sole purpose is to keep you from slapping your dick tonight.

You gave a subpar performance. She wasn’t worthy of the intense fuck sessions you give to the girls that actually matter. She wasn’t even worthy of a hate-fuck. It was she’s-a-random-slut-and-I-don’t-give-two-shits-about-her-having-an-orgasm-god-I-hope-I-don’t-catch-herpes sex, and you nutted in a minute. You don’t even ask her how it was. She’s left unsatisfied and you don’t give a shit.

A couple of hours ago, her push-up bra exaggerated her boobs’ size and perkiness. Now, an uninspiring sight of flab and droop remains. What should have been a luscious booty was nothing more than a ruse set up by her ability to dress well. While she was utterly mediocre-looking amid the bar’s darkness, your excitement to fuck made you overlook many more of her flaws. Now you’re stuck with this creature for the night.

You lie in bed next to her, and she tries to cuddle up. You don’t want her close to you, but you know the courteous thing to do is to allow her to rest her head on your chest. You’re a gentleman and a scholar, after all.

She asks you questions about yourself. You give one-word answers. She says you’re very handsome. You don’t compliment her back. She begins to tell you about her life and problems; you pretend to listen while thinking about the millions of other places you’d rather be. You toss in the occasional “uh-huh,” or “oh, really?” or “cool” merely to keep up the masquerade.

You kind of hate her.

She gives subtle hints that she would like her pussy eaten. You love eating pussy, but you’re not eating hers.

She talks about how she needs a good man in her life. You’re a good man, but you’re not wasting your goodness on her.

She talks about how she doesn’t normally fuck guys that quickly and you’re a very special exception; you pretend to believe her.

She caresses your chest, arms, and stomach; you wish she would just shut the fuck up and go to sleep.

You feel your dick getting hard again; damn motherfucker has a life of its own. You excuse yourself to the bathroom. You decide to take a piss, and your erect dick makes it a challenge to get all your piss into the toilet. You’re buying time so you can lose your erection.

“You disgust me,” you say to your naked reflection. “You never learn your lesson,” you shake your head. You can’t say no to easy pussy, even from such a trashy girl.

Weak man.

A weak man who lets his dick lead him to fuck women below his own standards.

A weak man who lets his dick’s need to find a warm and wet spot for the night override all his logical thought.

A weak man who lets his dick dictate all aspects of his life.

You walk out of the bathroom with your dick at half-mast. She looks at it, comes over, gets on her knees, and starts sucking.

Oh, well…fuck it.

~Raul Felix

Read more of my work at Thought Catalog