By Martin Arellano Martinez
My mother used to tell us how easy it was for us to ask for those exquisite and delicious chiles rellenos dipped into that smooth and reddish tomato salsa that she used to make. I remember that it used to take her hours to roast the chiles on the grill, to peel them, and to fill them up with queso fresco until they were ready to get dressed with a clear and elegant coat of egg white, and then, to wash them into an exquisite bath of salsa.
It would take her about four to five hours to make those chiles, and my siblings and I would make them disappear within minutes. However, after all that hard work, I could see the satisfaction and enjoyment on the face of my mother as she saw us eating them. Knowing that after putting her time into these chiles rellenos for hours, it was worth it for her to see our faces full of joy and happiness. It was easy for my siblings and I to ask for chiles rellenos when we didn’t have to make them.
For me, it was almost like my mom and her chiles when I just got into my new college life trying to figure out the way to be successful. Fortunately, I had many people by my side giving advice and guiding me through the right path. Everything sounded as easy as making chiles rellenos: just study hard, do your homework, go to class, know your teachers, keep it up, and get good grades. But everything went exactly as when my mom started making chiles rellenos. Feeling the burn on the tip of my fingers typing papers since the very first day of class, just like my mom felt it when flipping the chiles on top of the grill. As the semester went through, the workload was getting bigger and bigger to the point that time seemed to give in to the immense amount of work. This also had to do with the number of units that I decided to take. It was only 17 units but that was enough for me to give me a little lesson but an incredible experience as well. I had to admit that even though I keep complaining about how much work I had to do last semester, it was fun and really interesting having to spend most of my time at school meeting new people and spend the rest of my free time at a café doing my homework or sleeping on the sofas in school. Getting prepared for midterms and finals was the most exhausting thing that I’ve ever experienced in my life. Work was everywhere I looked, and the good spots to study were all the time full of zombies that looked more like students. Finally at the end of finals, nothing was the same anymore, all that hard work and short nights were as worth it as the flavor of my mother’s chiles.
