Eh-heh-hem *clears throat* Welcome back. You’d think after being gone for three days (three days was it? Something like that?) I would have good stories to tell you or something like that. Well…two of the days that are conveniently missing detail not particularly happy days so I’ll spare you from those. In part that might have been due to some unnecessary thinking on my part (surprise, surprise) but all the same. I should really give yesterday it’s own post, and for my own sake I might try and write that up as I do have write ups on my two other days (one of them is actually in Spanish though ‘cause I was doing it during class so that one wouldn’t even do you any good).
So today then. Today I woke up throughout the morning and promptly went back to sleep as one should do on a Saturday morning, though I could only sleep until 9:45 which is early in my book. When I realized, however, that I had gone to bed an hour before midnight I was able to forgive myself a little as it’s not like I’m entirely losing my ability to sleep in on the weekends, so much as the hours that I am choosing to sleep are changing. Hopefully when I get back to the States this whole getting up in the morning won’t be such a problem (the problem being that I am in fact getting up while it’s still AM hours, just in case that part wasn’t clear).
So I got up, and got dressed, and generally just loafed around in my room on my computer. Learned the word rastrear which was rather helpful in my internet searching but otherwise nothing really note-able. Then there was a knock on my door, the lady who cleans up in my room wanted to know if I was awake and if she could clean, so I went outside and let her do her thing (give me new sheets and such). Biko tried to eat me, effectively. She wasn’t going to have anything to do with my being on the computer.
Chelsea and I went for a walk, just walking around her neighborhood up and down the streets. We talked about studying abroad. She has much more noble reasons for being here than I do. She didn’t really come to improve Spanish; she came because she felt like God was telling her to be here. Which is pretty excellent of her, I think. On the other hand the reason why I’m here which involves the higher than me power known as Susquehanna University saying they won’t give me my degree if I don’t dulls just a little bit in comparison. And we talked about how we might be different than most people who study abroad (since, you know, we’re not out partying every night). Somehow I think I’m still failing a little at this whole study abroad thing. Like you’re supposed to go have the time of your life while you’re abroad, and it’s supposed to be so excellent and I’m managing to wish my Friday night involved bothering my college buddies into doing something so I’m not bored. Huh, well at least I’m not missing your freezing cold weather. Oh and did I mention I’m also speaking mostly English (like 90% English, 10% Spanish) so it’s not like my Spanish is making leaps and bounds or anything either. So much for that goal.
Ehm, so about the day though. So we walked around which was good and then I went back to my casa and had lunch with my family. Then I popped into the shower and realized that my RISK withdrawal could actually be relatively easily solved with the cooperation of my dear friends from school and Facebook. Which was a wonderful revelation. Not much here in the way of board games which tends to occupy a decent amount of time while I’m up at school.
Then I spent some time chatting on the phone with my family. Actually created a budget for being here (definitely a good idea and I would highly recommend this to anyone planning on studying abroad haha). No but for real that was pretty sweet.
Theeeeeen I went with Chelsea, her mom and her host sister to this other mall. We thought we might see a movie but decided it’d be better if we went on Monday to a matinee instead. 50 pesos instead of 80. Definitely more agreeable. But that meant that we had to take a bus back to the casas…which was confusing ‘cause we actually needed to take two and we weren’t super clear on the directions. So we went to el centro on the first bus and then took the reliable old 52 Norte back to the casas.
On the first bus, however, I stood up and thought “Oh maybe I dropped something?” But upon looking down and seeing nothing, I decided my mind was just messing with me. I had been reading about this book earlier this morning that I’ve already read but it messes with your head a little bit. That being said, and thinking I was seeing shadows, we exited the bus. Then we went to board the 52 Norte and I went to show my ID and … my wallet…? That would be the shadow I managed to drop on the first bus.
So I ran back to the first bus and the bus driver went back and looked to see if my wallet was there. Which it was. Thankfully. And this story ends with a happy ending as I got my wallet back no problem and was able to board the 52 Norte with my student discount and no mishaps. Phew.
Then Chelsea and I went to Little Caesars which is conveniently close to her house and watched The Prince and Me which was really cute. I actually really liked the speech he gave near the end of the movie when he assumes the crown…I don’t know, that was kinda cool.
Aaaaand now I’m home. And tired. Even though it’s only 11:30 and I was yawning at 10:30. Seriously concerned about that whole time frame thing. I’m not going to be able to stay up late ever again. I even had soda with my pizza. Hopefully that won’t be a problem with the actual falling asleep of tonight.
So that’s all I have for today. Cheers! <3 Kate
PS: As of tomorrow I’m 1/5 done, haha…that’s…a decent chunk, right?
PPS: Diary of Anne Frank…I was thinking about that…I’m not so sure this should rank as that kind of quality…and … doesn’t she die in the end…?
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
not...actually a post
hey all. I realize i owe two posts now. Last night i was actually just really busy and forgot until I was already in bed at which point i had no interest of getting out of bed to write, and then tonight I just don't have the energy to spend on writing, but I just figured I should be like "no, i'm not dead in a ditch, i'm alive in mexico" ...i'll work on getting the other posts later. we have a three day weekend (monday off) so maybe i can get back on target then. --Kate
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
January 27, 2008
Phew, today has been rather exhausting. I’m ready to just curl up and read a fun book. You’d think actually at this point that I would be sick of reading, as I finally just finished homework. Apparently I’ve become quite the reader.
In any case, today, lets see, well I got up, that’s a start. I was actually ready on time and met Chelsea at the bus stop at 10 til. We got to sit together on the first bus but not on the second. But we were pretty early: we got to school with half an hour to spare. That being the case, I picked up Maximum Ride which is another Clare-suggested novel. It seems pretty interesting so far. We’ll see how it goes.
So I had class at 10. Out of 31 students nobody read. That kinda makes us all look bad but oh well. Getting the readings for this class in particular have been rather difficult, but for Thursday I have my copies currently sitting in the library photocopy section. I’ll be picking those up tomorrow.
After we got out of class (and I went and signed my liability for Diana and got the photocopies for Rural Anthropology and picked up other photo copies for Cavernas) I booked it to the bus station as it was coming around the corner. This was at 12:30. The goal was to be home for lunch at 2:30. So with that in mind, I boarded the bus, fished out my 3 pesos and student ID and went to El Centro.
The bus from school drops you off at Pinata Street. Streets don’t actually have names here, they have numbers. Which, if you’re in the correct neighborhood, there exceptionally helpful. If you have no idea what neighborhood you’re trying to get to, they are exceptionally not helpful. But in any case, I looked around a little on Pinata Street and went to the other bus station. From there, I managed to get off at the Post Office.
This was a little funny, in that we were stopped at a red light a little bit away from it and I was afraid I was going to miss it so I was like “Hey, I’ll just get off here” and the Bus driver was like “Woah I don’t think so, you can’t get off here” so I explained I wanted to go to the post office and he was like “Alright, well I’ll drop you off a little further up the street” and he closed to the door as if to make a point that I wasn’t getting off there. Which was perfectly fine, no biggie, I just didn’t want to miss it, you know?
So anyway, inside the pink post office I learned you are not, in fact, allowed to ship any liquids. Which is just dandy. But anyway. After the post office, it’s getting kinda late now as you can probably imagine, I try to hail the 52 norte on the other side of the street. Bus driver just keeps going. So I’m like, oh man, what am I supposed to do? So I walk up the street a little bit and wait, and wait, and wait for the bus. It’s a little after 2 and I’m fretting about getting back home for lunch on time. Not to mention my nerves were already high strung from trying to make sure I didn’t miss the post office. Only I could get that tensed up about something like that. It’s like playing the last level of the SNES Lion King Game. You get so far, and you get so tense and then – game over, hakuna matata. Actually no not really, well I got tense like I was playing a video game only I didn’t get a game over, It was just on pause for a really long time while I waited for my next bus.
As it turned out, I managed to get home at 2:31 which was just in time for lunch and then after lunch I had a bunch of homework to do. I hadn’t really gotten nearly as much as I had wanted to get done yesterday, well, done, so that meant I had even more to do today. That involved writing another 2 pages on an essay, answering 6 questions about a movie we watched in Spanish class, and reading and summarizing two articles for Cavernas class. …It was a lot. It basically took me the rest of the afternoon.
And here we are now. I’ve actually been doing homework in the house all day even though I really haven’t seen anyone… That’s kinda too bad, but I think it gave me the “work mode” idea. Doing work in my room is always harder than going somewhere else to specifically to it.
And it was nice chatting with Clare this afternoon for a little while. And I’ve been facebook messaging with Scott and I really super owe him a phone call. My bad. Tomorrow I’ll be on top of that. Sooooo with all that said and done I’m gonna just relax for awhile and hope you all have a good night. =)
Cheers! <3 Kate
In any case, today, lets see, well I got up, that’s a start. I was actually ready on time and met Chelsea at the bus stop at 10 til. We got to sit together on the first bus but not on the second. But we were pretty early: we got to school with half an hour to spare. That being the case, I picked up Maximum Ride which is another Clare-suggested novel. It seems pretty interesting so far. We’ll see how it goes.
So I had class at 10. Out of 31 students nobody read. That kinda makes us all look bad but oh well. Getting the readings for this class in particular have been rather difficult, but for Thursday I have my copies currently sitting in the library photocopy section. I’ll be picking those up tomorrow.
After we got out of class (and I went and signed my liability for Diana and got the photocopies for Rural Anthropology and picked up other photo copies for Cavernas) I booked it to the bus station as it was coming around the corner. This was at 12:30. The goal was to be home for lunch at 2:30. So with that in mind, I boarded the bus, fished out my 3 pesos and student ID and went to El Centro.
The bus from school drops you off at Pinata Street. Streets don’t actually have names here, they have numbers. Which, if you’re in the correct neighborhood, there exceptionally helpful. If you have no idea what neighborhood you’re trying to get to, they are exceptionally not helpful. But in any case, I looked around a little on Pinata Street and went to the other bus station. From there, I managed to get off at the Post Office.
This was a little funny, in that we were stopped at a red light a little bit away from it and I was afraid I was going to miss it so I was like “Hey, I’ll just get off here” and the Bus driver was like “Woah I don’t think so, you can’t get off here” so I explained I wanted to go to the post office and he was like “Alright, well I’ll drop you off a little further up the street” and he closed to the door as if to make a point that I wasn’t getting off there. Which was perfectly fine, no biggie, I just didn’t want to miss it, you know?
So anyway, inside the pink post office I learned you are not, in fact, allowed to ship any liquids. Which is just dandy. But anyway. After the post office, it’s getting kinda late now as you can probably imagine, I try to hail the 52 norte on the other side of the street. Bus driver just keeps going. So I’m like, oh man, what am I supposed to do? So I walk up the street a little bit and wait, and wait, and wait for the bus. It’s a little after 2 and I’m fretting about getting back home for lunch on time. Not to mention my nerves were already high strung from trying to make sure I didn’t miss the post office. Only I could get that tensed up about something like that. It’s like playing the last level of the SNES Lion King Game. You get so far, and you get so tense and then – game over, hakuna matata. Actually no not really, well I got tense like I was playing a video game only I didn’t get a game over, It was just on pause for a really long time while I waited for my next bus.
As it turned out, I managed to get home at 2:31 which was just in time for lunch and then after lunch I had a bunch of homework to do. I hadn’t really gotten nearly as much as I had wanted to get done yesterday, well, done, so that meant I had even more to do today. That involved writing another 2 pages on an essay, answering 6 questions about a movie we watched in Spanish class, and reading and summarizing two articles for Cavernas class. …It was a lot. It basically took me the rest of the afternoon.
And here we are now. I’ve actually been doing homework in the house all day even though I really haven’t seen anyone… That’s kinda too bad, but I think it gave me the “work mode” idea. Doing work in my room is always harder than going somewhere else to specifically to it.
And it was nice chatting with Clare this afternoon for a little while. And I’ve been facebook messaging with Scott and I really super owe him a phone call. My bad. Tomorrow I’ll be on top of that. Sooooo with all that said and done I’m gonna just relax for awhile and hope you all have a good night. =)
Cheers! <3 Kate
Monday, January 26, 2009
January 26, 2009
I don’t really have anything to report of note today. After our crazy climbing expedition my calves let me know that they hadn’t done anything like that in quite some time and that surprises such as climbing up a bunch of stairs should come with a forewarning.
I thought I was actually going to have a bunch of time this morning that somewhere between sleeping and getting ready at a rather lazy pace disappeared. According to Chelsea I looked like Valentines Day today haha, so I guess I know what I should wear/how I should dress on February 14th.
Today in Mayan Hist/Culture I actually had a little mini presentation to give. It went well, the Spanish was rolling pretty decently which surprised me a little but hey I definitely wasn’t complaining. Somehow it didn’t seem to be coming to mind as fast as it used to, but I don’t know what the deal with that part is.
After classes today I was waiting when I got home for my youngest host sister to arrive to have dinner. Usually she gets back at 7 o’clock or so, but at 7:40 when she still wasn’t back I decided I need to go ahead and eat. She didn’t get back too much past 8 I think. They had stopped by to check out her cake and possibly look again at her dress for her birthday party. That’s pretty exciting I think.
For dinner I had relleno blanco, which was alright. I’d say it’s pretty similar to the relleno negro I had yesterday only not spicy. And definitely improved when had bean sauce/refried beans, as they make everything not so hard to swallow. Definitely the better way to eat those two.
And really that’s about it. I seem to be having trouble getting youtube to take my videos *sad*. I might try uploading videos on facebook as I think you can do that. I did, however, manage to get up the pictures so here the link for those: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026979&l=c8cf8&id=47802150
Thoughts though on talking with friends. As I’ve heard other people say since being here, or at least one other person today, having friends contact you = particularly good for the emotional health. I’m not sure if this is something that a lot of people when they go abroad don’t really care about, like, hey they’re abroad and woo-hoo for the time being the USA doesn’t much exist? I’m not sure. In my case though, and in a few other peoples cases, somehow getting an e-mail, or a conversation that’s somehow not initiated by yourself, is a blessing. It’s just nice you know? Now I’m not trying to be like “please, talk to me” it was more of just a thought process that I’m writing down more for my own note than for all of yours.
The other thought process that I had to day was as I was finishing up this little love story. It was an okay story, but I’m pretty sure that realistically, when the guy who we’d all somehow fallen for left her to back and be a pirate, as pirates are not honorable, that should have really been the end of the story. In real life, people don’t just turn over new leaves for the lady they meet on the high seas, and somehow that uncouth almost dangerous still manages to be attractive. I think that’s one of the most annoying things ever. And it was funny, because as I was reading I was annoyed at how easily it was to be charmed, too. Bah. Oh well. That’s beyond the point, and not at all related to Mexico. Somehow I feel like that’s more female theory related than male theory related as I feel like our pirate was unrealistic in that he came back to save the day.
Haha so cheers to you all, I hope everyone is having a good week. <3 Kate
Sunday, January 25, 2009
January 25, 2009
This morning started out probably not as early as it should have. I set my alarm for 6:45 (which wasn’t as early as it should have been set for) and then didn’t get out of the bed until 5 til 7. Oooh well. I also ended up with a cold shower, not due to a running late problem, but due to a, when the lady cleans my room on Saturday, she leaves the cold water on, and I didn’t realize this til I tried to turn off the water and it was still running when I had turned the hot all the way off. So I’ll need to try to remember that from now on. I may have said that last week. But hopefully from now on I’ll actually remember.
Moving on though, all that talk about making sure I had breakfast and I ended up eating on my way out the door. My host mom was really sweet though, she picked up a packet of Guanabana flavoring for my water bottle since I had mentioned liking guanabana at some point really early on in being here. So that was really cool.
I actually ate a ridiculous ton of breakfast (Will would be proud). But I had these two pieces of bread (toasted kinda) with beans and cheese. Moilletes? I can’t actually remember what they’re called. And then while we were waiting for the bus I decided to walk into the OXXO and get a banana muffin. Yeah, well at least I wasn’t starving like everyone else come lunch time hehe. OXXO (pronounced ox-oh), by the way, if I haven’t mentioned it yet already, is like the Mexico version of Wawa only on an even greater infestation level. Like one every two blocks. Which is, as I recall, kind of how we felt about Wawa when we first came to Maryland but there are definitely more OXXOs here than Wawas.
The bus ride was about an hour and a half to Uxmal. This was actually pretty nice because I just read my book the entire time. I finished it on the way to Mani. It was pretty good, I certainly enjoyed reading it. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. It’s kind of a kids book, and I don’t remember when the last time I read a book with illustrations every so many pages was, but that’s okay. Sometimes you just have to do that. I liked it. In the end it actually really had me going it scared me so bad at one point hahaha it was like making you jump in a movie theater. Haha I scared Chelsea I jumped so bad. The book really wasn’t scary, I think I was just really caught off guard somehow by that part. (Looking back on it I’m not really sure why that was I totally should have seen that coming before that one line but seriously…).
Uxmal was pretty neat. The weather was absolutely perfect for this sort of thing. I took a bunch of pictures which hopefully I will soon be putting on facebook for your viewing pleasure. We went with my Mayan History/Civilization professor (who happens to be an architect…or maybe I should say that the other way around, he happens to be my professor). We spent about 2 ½ hours there. I actually went up to the top of this temple there twice. The first time to have my picture taken at the top, and then the second time because I wanted to have my camera at the top. Looking back on that there was probably a more effective means of doing that, as my muscles in my legs were quivering after I got to the top the second time, but that’s okay. Probably just means I reaaaaallly need to work out haha.
After Uxmal, we hopped back on the bus to go to Mani. We went to a pretty nice restaurant and I had Relleno Nego (which was in fact, quite black). We had a scare there for a moment, Nadini fainted on us. She hadn’t been feeling too well earlier in the day, and the doctor said she ended up really dehydrated. It was pretty scary though.
After we ate, we walked over to the Convent, and just took a couple pictures. Everyone was pretty tired by this time so we were back on the bus pretty quickly and headed home.
Today is actually my abuelita’s birthday, and I expected to see a fiesta going on when I got home. Chelsea came with me as we had been invited to have cake when we got back. But everyone was gone, and I think my abuelita was asleep. We did have a little bit of tres leches cake though and it was quite good.
I feel like I should probably have a lot more to say than just this, but pictures are worth a thousand words and I have a bunch of them including video so I’ll let them speak for themselves. Hopefully I’ll be able to upload these videos to youtube, and give the links. I’ll link you to them.
Cheers! <3 Kate
Saturday, January 24, 2009
January 24, 2009
On time today, woo. So I actually woke up at 9 when my alarm went off. My host dad told me he’d show me where the post office was and that was pretty cool. We went up there it’s this pink building on the corner. He was mailing a package to some friends in Chiapas. International mailing looks kinda expensive, though.
I did a little homework for a while after that (probably not nearly as much as I should have) and at 2:30 we had a sort of left-overs lunch. So I had chili con carne which is pretty tasty. =) I had it earlier in the week for lunch too.
At about 4:30 I went down to El Centro to meet up with Gustavo and some of the other IFSA people. We went to one of the Contemporary Art Exhibitions. Some of the displays were pretty interesting, others were not quite as eye catching but over all I liked it.
While we were there, we were invited to a birthday party. And originally I was going to go, but after we went and had dinner my stomach was hurting so I kinda had to back out. Actually though, all things considered, I’ve done pretty well not to have any stomach problems until now. Yay me. Hehe
So I came back here to the casa and went and sat at the table and had tea with my host mom. We chatted a little bit, but not about anything too important so that’s probably a good thing. Tomorrow the IFSA crowd is going to Uxmal (sp?) so we need to leave here around quarter to 7. And my host mom reiterated several times that I needed to have breakfast in the morning. I’m not entirely sure why that is, as I said ok the first time, and since I’ve been here have had a habit of eating breakfast, but hey, it’s all good.
So…even though this is a short day it didn’t really seem like it. I’m pretty tired now though so I’m going to keep it short as it is. I’ve done enough blog posting today with the other entry anyway. You guys should have plenty of reading material, hehe.
Cheers! Kate <3
I did a little homework for a while after that (probably not nearly as much as I should have) and at 2:30 we had a sort of left-overs lunch. So I had chili con carne which is pretty tasty. =) I had it earlier in the week for lunch too.
At about 4:30 I went down to El Centro to meet up with Gustavo and some of the other IFSA people. We went to one of the Contemporary Art Exhibitions. Some of the displays were pretty interesting, others were not quite as eye catching but over all I liked it.
While we were there, we were invited to a birthday party. And originally I was going to go, but after we went and had dinner my stomach was hurting so I kinda had to back out. Actually though, all things considered, I’ve done pretty well not to have any stomach problems until now. Yay me. Hehe
So I came back here to the casa and went and sat at the table and had tea with my host mom. We chatted a little bit, but not about anything too important so that’s probably a good thing. Tomorrow the IFSA crowd is going to Uxmal (sp?) so we need to leave here around quarter to 7. And my host mom reiterated several times that I needed to have breakfast in the morning. I’m not entirely sure why that is, as I said ok the first time, and since I’ve been here have had a habit of eating breakfast, but hey, it’s all good.
So…even though this is a short day it didn’t really seem like it. I’m pretty tired now though so I’m going to keep it short as it is. I’ve done enough blog posting today with the other entry anyway. You guys should have plenty of reading material, hehe.
Cheers! Kate <3
January 23, 2009
Indeed, well now so as not to fall behind, I’m going to go ahead and get writing on yesterday. Lets see.
6AM: Wake up. Actually this wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. On the other hand, I didn’t have quite as much time as I expected to have because the shower that I had taken last night no longer counted as my hair and everything else now smelt quite convincingly like I had bathed in smoke. So, clearly, I needed another actual clean shower.
I got out the door pretty much on time, eating a sandwich on my way out. The bus was taking quite a while to get there, and when I got to Plaza Fiesta I went ahead and just took a Motul since I didn’t feel like waiting for the bus (my patience, I noticed, was a little on the lower side. Not that I was being particularly impatient so much as I just didn’t feel like waiting…so impatience without the attitude).
I got to school and was chilling out. Spilt some water that I was attempting to drink but that’s okay. There are those little snow cone cups for the water at the anthropology school which is great…except that the edges are rather rough and I was tired which doesn’t make for the best coordination of water to mouth situation. Oh well.
We actually watched this super weird movie in Migrations class. At first I wasn’t sure if it was just me and I was tired, or if it was the movie. I think when they were swimming in milk I could say that it wasn’t just me. Either way it was some Canadian movie about Italian migration (lol maybe that right there should have been a hint in and of itself).
So we watched that movie and kind of ran 20 minutes over class time. Chances are the movie is only 2 hours long but we didn’t exactly get started on time. After that I hung out at the school til about 11 while Ashley made photocopies. Then we met up with Eric and made plans for getting to the beach. We were supposed to meet Mandy in El Centro soon.
While we were waiting for Eric to get there in El Centro, Ashley was petitioned by a guy on stilts to play and sing on her ukulele which she had in her book bag. She told him she’d do it for mil pesos and he wrote her out a “check” for mil pesos. Then she started to play and he went around collecting monedas with someone’s baseball cap. She actually made 9 pesos. Mandy and I decided that she basically wins at life.
When we did finally make it to Progresso, it was about 2 o’clock and I was pretty hungry. We stopped by the same restaurant some people ate at last time and chatted with the guy. He actually offered us a really, really good discount because we had been there before and the prices had been better, etc. But instead of 10 dollars my fajitas cost me 80 pesos, and so on around the table. So that was pretty sweet.
Of course, by the time we actually finished there it was 3 o’clock so the sun wasn’t so high in the sky anymore and we’d missed most of the good sun. It was actually a little chilly for laying out on the beach and certainly for going out in the water so I walked around and looked at some stuff. Apparently they don’t sell churros in Progresso, so just a note for future Progresso-goers.
At one point in time while I was there my Spanish had actually returned to its normal goodness and one of the guys I was talking to complimented me on it which was neat. I had good “timbre.” Unfortunately, it didn’t stay that way, as fairly soon after I had finished that conversation and such I wasn’t speaking with the flow I had had.
We left the beach around 6 I think and went back to El Centro. At that point in time, I had Mandy and Ashley wanting churros as well, and we bought this huge piece of fabric to take to the beach for everyone to lie on. That’ll come in handy. And we did manage to find a churro stand, though Ashley wasn’t feeling so great so Eric went to take her home, but by that time it was 8 or 8:30 and Mandy and I were also ready to turn in.
And voila, that was pretty much my day. I talked a little with some friends from home before going to sleep and then slept like a rock. Ta-da!
Cheers,
Kate
6AM: Wake up. Actually this wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. On the other hand, I didn’t have quite as much time as I expected to have because the shower that I had taken last night no longer counted as my hair and everything else now smelt quite convincingly like I had bathed in smoke. So, clearly, I needed another actual clean shower.
I got out the door pretty much on time, eating a sandwich on my way out. The bus was taking quite a while to get there, and when I got to Plaza Fiesta I went ahead and just took a Motul since I didn’t feel like waiting for the bus (my patience, I noticed, was a little on the lower side. Not that I was being particularly impatient so much as I just didn’t feel like waiting…so impatience without the attitude).
I got to school and was chilling out. Spilt some water that I was attempting to drink but that’s okay. There are those little snow cone cups for the water at the anthropology school which is great…except that the edges are rather rough and I was tired which doesn’t make for the best coordination of water to mouth situation. Oh well.
We actually watched this super weird movie in Migrations class. At first I wasn’t sure if it was just me and I was tired, or if it was the movie. I think when they were swimming in milk I could say that it wasn’t just me. Either way it was some Canadian movie about Italian migration (lol maybe that right there should have been a hint in and of itself).
So we watched that movie and kind of ran 20 minutes over class time. Chances are the movie is only 2 hours long but we didn’t exactly get started on time. After that I hung out at the school til about 11 while Ashley made photocopies. Then we met up with Eric and made plans for getting to the beach. We were supposed to meet Mandy in El Centro soon.
While we were waiting for Eric to get there in El Centro, Ashley was petitioned by a guy on stilts to play and sing on her ukulele which she had in her book bag. She told him she’d do it for mil pesos and he wrote her out a “check” for mil pesos. Then she started to play and he went around collecting monedas with someone’s baseball cap. She actually made 9 pesos. Mandy and I decided that she basically wins at life.
When we did finally make it to Progresso, it was about 2 o’clock and I was pretty hungry. We stopped by the same restaurant some people ate at last time and chatted with the guy. He actually offered us a really, really good discount because we had been there before and the prices had been better, etc. But instead of 10 dollars my fajitas cost me 80 pesos, and so on around the table. So that was pretty sweet.
Of course, by the time we actually finished there it was 3 o’clock so the sun wasn’t so high in the sky anymore and we’d missed most of the good sun. It was actually a little chilly for laying out on the beach and certainly for going out in the water so I walked around and looked at some stuff. Apparently they don’t sell churros in Progresso, so just a note for future Progresso-goers.
At one point in time while I was there my Spanish had actually returned to its normal goodness and one of the guys I was talking to complimented me on it which was neat. I had good “timbre.” Unfortunately, it didn’t stay that way, as fairly soon after I had finished that conversation and such I wasn’t speaking with the flow I had had.
We left the beach around 6 I think and went back to El Centro. At that point in time, I had Mandy and Ashley wanting churros as well, and we bought this huge piece of fabric to take to the beach for everyone to lie on. That’ll come in handy. And we did manage to find a churro stand, though Ashley wasn’t feeling so great so Eric went to take her home, but by that time it was 8 or 8:30 and Mandy and I were also ready to turn in.
And voila, that was pretty much my day. I talked a little with some friends from home before going to sleep and then slept like a rock. Ta-da!
Cheers,
Kate
Friday, January 23, 2009
January 22, 2009
So, I didn’t actually write about today on today, but one day late still counts as close enough, and you’ll see in the end why there was in fact no writing on the day of.
It started out simple enough, went to school, 10 am class, only not really. Apparently we gringas didn’t get the message, but there was no class again today. I’m not entirely sure why but I’m not complaining. Instead we spent about an hour talking to another gringa from Mississippi about the peace corp and traveling around Mexico. So that was fun.
After that, I didn’t have class until 3, so I just spent the time working on homework in the library which allowed me to accomplish a pretty good deal of stuff. The homework for the next day and all that jazz.
In Spanish class at 3 we watched La Misma Luna (aka Under the Same Moon by the English title). It’s an excellent movie that I like quite a lot and would highly recommend to whoever. It was neat watching it with people who hadn’t seen it before to hear little guesses in the plot or gasps, and then, in the end, to turn around and see all these wet eyes. Hehe, it was cool. We also watched it in this movie-theater type auditorium on campus so that was pretty sweet. Get the whole big-screen effect going on.
In the evening I stopped by Plaza Fiesta to see if I could possibly find a migration novel but ended up turning up empty handed….until I went to the panaderia and bought some sort of really good chocolate cookie-cake thing which I’m going to plug under the “cultural enrichment” part of my trip.
That evening, as decided earlier, Chelsea and I went out (now, attempting again to make it via taxi). Her host family actually has some sort of preregistration thing signed up so that it wasn’t nearly as difficult. We just had to give them the number of the house phone.
We went to Mambo Café which is a really nice looking place. There are lights up on the ceiling and that sort of thing. Very tasteful. No cover charge either. (So at this point you’re thinking, wow, that’s really nice). Yeah, it is, until you get a bill. Apparently it’s super expensive if you actually want to order anything there, so we didn’t spend a whole lot of time there. That being the case, we kind of split up and some of us went to Envy.
Chris and Joe actually have a taxi-friend. They have his personal cellphone and they called him up to get us from Mambo to Envy. So that was pretty cool and made for a pretty quick transition all things considered.
At Envy there’s a cover charge of 60 pesos for girls. I don’t remember what it was for guys (seeing as how that wasn’t particularly applicable). In there it was super-smokey though, and when we first arrived I thought I was surely going to have to leave en seguida. It’s like a million Castrignanos all lighting up at once (since I was “cloning” him earlier this week I figure I might as well put that one in there too… which is very similar to the lines along which I was thinking when we first got there but that’s beside the point). And if the smoke didn’t kill me, then the strobe lights were certainly going to which in and of themselves are a little disorienting.
In the end, I ended up hanging around, dancing and such there til 2 at which point I went home and fell asleep sometime around 2:30 in time to get up 3 and a half hours later for my 8am class. Woo. I think I get to mark off the dancing in a night club from my list of a 100 things to do before I die though, which is a pretty sweet deal. And thus ends January 22, 2009.
It started out simple enough, went to school, 10 am class, only not really. Apparently we gringas didn’t get the message, but there was no class again today. I’m not entirely sure why but I’m not complaining. Instead we spent about an hour talking to another gringa from Mississippi about the peace corp and traveling around Mexico. So that was fun.
After that, I didn’t have class until 3, so I just spent the time working on homework in the library which allowed me to accomplish a pretty good deal of stuff. The homework for the next day and all that jazz.
In Spanish class at 3 we watched La Misma Luna (aka Under the Same Moon by the English title). It’s an excellent movie that I like quite a lot and would highly recommend to whoever. It was neat watching it with people who hadn’t seen it before to hear little guesses in the plot or gasps, and then, in the end, to turn around and see all these wet eyes. Hehe, it was cool. We also watched it in this movie-theater type auditorium on campus so that was pretty sweet. Get the whole big-screen effect going on.
In the evening I stopped by Plaza Fiesta to see if I could possibly find a migration novel but ended up turning up empty handed….until I went to the panaderia and bought some sort of really good chocolate cookie-cake thing which I’m going to plug under the “cultural enrichment” part of my trip.
That evening, as decided earlier, Chelsea and I went out (now, attempting again to make it via taxi). Her host family actually has some sort of preregistration thing signed up so that it wasn’t nearly as difficult. We just had to give them the number of the house phone.
We went to Mambo Café which is a really nice looking place. There are lights up on the ceiling and that sort of thing. Very tasteful. No cover charge either. (So at this point you’re thinking, wow, that’s really nice). Yeah, it is, until you get a bill. Apparently it’s super expensive if you actually want to order anything there, so we didn’t spend a whole lot of time there. That being the case, we kind of split up and some of us went to Envy.
Chris and Joe actually have a taxi-friend. They have his personal cellphone and they called him up to get us from Mambo to Envy. So that was pretty cool and made for a pretty quick transition all things considered.
At Envy there’s a cover charge of 60 pesos for girls. I don’t remember what it was for guys (seeing as how that wasn’t particularly applicable). In there it was super-smokey though, and when we first arrived I thought I was surely going to have to leave en seguida. It’s like a million Castrignanos all lighting up at once (since I was “cloning” him earlier this week I figure I might as well put that one in there too… which is very similar to the lines along which I was thinking when we first got there but that’s beside the point). And if the smoke didn’t kill me, then the strobe lights were certainly going to which in and of themselves are a little disorienting.
In the end, I ended up hanging around, dancing and such there til 2 at which point I went home and fell asleep sometime around 2:30 in time to get up 3 and a half hours later for my 8am class. Woo. I think I get to mark off the dancing in a night club from my list of a 100 things to do before I die though, which is a pretty sweet deal. And thus ends January 22, 2009.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
January 21, 2009
This morning started at what I’m going to consider way too early. But I did manage to get myself out the door. I actually ran to catch the bus so it was pretty good timing all things considered. When I got to the Plaza Fiesta, I waited for quite awhile for the bus. Emily showed up though, and after waiting 10 minutes decided it was time to catch one of the Motuls. These are white vans that say Motul on them. Admittedly, it felt a little sketchy climbing into a white bus that pulls up on the side of the road but hey…that’s okay…right? No it’s actually totally legit don’t worry about it.
We got to school without a hitch. Instead of the 3 pesos it costs 5 to take the Motul but it’s significantly faster and I’d say more comfortable as well. On days when the bus from Plaza Fiesta to school doesn’t come readily (it’s somewhat unreliable I feel like) then I’ll totally just catch one of these Motuls.
My first class, which is supposed to be my best class, was actually rather terrible this morning. First off, she launches into how she’s going to have us read a novel about migration. Now, immediately, this isn’t such a bad thing because it seems like it’d be pretty interesting, it’s our choice. If I can find a relatively short one or one in English I should be pretty much set. But also keep in mind I’m reading *a lot* for this class. Not to mention having other classes. And then she looks at us like “what’s the matter? What do you mean you haven’t heard of ______ and _____” and why haven’t we watched a gazillion movies about migration and read a thousand books about it? Clearly that’s the only thing we would be interested and her class is obviously the only one that should matter. We should supposedly be reading 3 to 4 books a month. *ALSO* she supposedly made a compendium we were supposed to get photocopied at the library. It’s not there? Well she left it with some teacher 2 years ago, I have absolutely no idea why it’s not there, but that’s not *her* problem. *We* had better figure out where all those readings went. Seriously woman. ARGsa;jr3’[q 32jeoifdkc; makes me soooo mad. RArh. Seriously. Ugh. She also kept us for 10 minutes after class was over. And was all like “so you should be here on time” and as an after thought, since she was 20-30 minutes late herself (I was 10 minutes early) she added that she would work on that, too. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Moving on though. After that class, which was a horror, I still had homework to do for my class in 2 hours because I was tired last night and didn’t feel like finishing the reading and writing up the summary. So I did that for like an hour and half. It was pretty interesting reading. The class is pretty easy all things considered so I’m not too worried about that class. It was probably a good way to debrief after that…atrocity.
Then I had an hour for lunch which was cheery, and Spanish class which was pretty fun. Our teacher was pretty chill and all. I think he gives us a little bit of slack since we don’t exactly know what we’re all doing. We’re actually going to change meeting times, too, from 3-5 to 2-4. That way we can all leave earlier (woo!)
In class today we actually read a story that I had already read in one of my other Spanish classes. So that was kind of odd because I sort of more or less vaguely remembered it, and some points more than others, but I didn’t feel like there were any comprehension or vocabulary problems on my part since I had already discussed it in another class. That’s okay though. Maybe I didn’t look too lost for once =D
For dinner tonight, somehow, which…I’m not quite sure how, but I ended up with a mango. Now, at first I’m thinking, okay, that’s cool. I like mango-flavored things. I probably wanted a little more for dinner than just a fruit but hey, no problem, I’m actually not all that hungry. So then I take a bite of this mango. Honestly, I’m going to put the taste of that fruit somewhere in between pumpkin and that little bit of throw up in the back of your throat that never quite rises to your mouth but leaves you wanting to gargle with Listerine. Mmmm yum. And I’m looking at this thing sliced up on my plate going, oh dear…I don’t know if I can eat this. So I’m a little ensnared. Do I like, swallow the little gooey pieces like pills? Maybe it’s going to make me sick? If I eat this one does this mean I have to eat another one later? Because I really don’t think I can handle this. So a few more slimy orange pieces spooned into my mouth and someone asks if I like it, which, at this point, I go with the truth “no…not so much.”
In the end, my abuelita ate the rest of the mango and preceeded to inform me that it was very delicious. There’s obviously something mildly wrong with my dislike of said mango, because I’m the first person they’ve ever had who hasn’t liked it. I’m not really sure what the deal was myself. But yeah. That’s the 411 on that.
So I’m going to take the rest of the night which is quickly waning to do a little pleasure reading as I am simply not reading for rural anthropology tomorrow because the photocopy figuring-out thing is too confusing and I had no idea what was going on. Oh-Well.
Cheers! <3 Kate
We got to school without a hitch. Instead of the 3 pesos it costs 5 to take the Motul but it’s significantly faster and I’d say more comfortable as well. On days when the bus from Plaza Fiesta to school doesn’t come readily (it’s somewhat unreliable I feel like) then I’ll totally just catch one of these Motuls.
My first class, which is supposed to be my best class, was actually rather terrible this morning. First off, she launches into how she’s going to have us read a novel about migration. Now, immediately, this isn’t such a bad thing because it seems like it’d be pretty interesting, it’s our choice. If I can find a relatively short one or one in English I should be pretty much set. But also keep in mind I’m reading *a lot* for this class. Not to mention having other classes. And then she looks at us like “what’s the matter? What do you mean you haven’t heard of ______ and _____” and why haven’t we watched a gazillion movies about migration and read a thousand books about it? Clearly that’s the only thing we would be interested and her class is obviously the only one that should matter. We should supposedly be reading 3 to 4 books a month. *ALSO* she supposedly made a compendium we were supposed to get photocopied at the library. It’s not there? Well she left it with some teacher 2 years ago, I have absolutely no idea why it’s not there, but that’s not *her* problem. *We* had better figure out where all those readings went. Seriously woman. ARGsa;jr3’[q 32jeoifdkc; makes me soooo mad. RArh. Seriously. Ugh. She also kept us for 10 minutes after class was over. And was all like “so you should be here on time” and as an after thought, since she was 20-30 minutes late herself (I was 10 minutes early) she added that she would work on that, too. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Moving on though. After that class, which was a horror, I still had homework to do for my class in 2 hours because I was tired last night and didn’t feel like finishing the reading and writing up the summary. So I did that for like an hour and half. It was pretty interesting reading. The class is pretty easy all things considered so I’m not too worried about that class. It was probably a good way to debrief after that…atrocity.
Then I had an hour for lunch which was cheery, and Spanish class which was pretty fun. Our teacher was pretty chill and all. I think he gives us a little bit of slack since we don’t exactly know what we’re all doing. We’re actually going to change meeting times, too, from 3-5 to 2-4. That way we can all leave earlier (woo!)
In class today we actually read a story that I had already read in one of my other Spanish classes. So that was kind of odd because I sort of more or less vaguely remembered it, and some points more than others, but I didn’t feel like there were any comprehension or vocabulary problems on my part since I had already discussed it in another class. That’s okay though. Maybe I didn’t look too lost for once =D
For dinner tonight, somehow, which…I’m not quite sure how, but I ended up with a mango. Now, at first I’m thinking, okay, that’s cool. I like mango-flavored things. I probably wanted a little more for dinner than just a fruit but hey, no problem, I’m actually not all that hungry. So then I take a bite of this mango. Honestly, I’m going to put the taste of that fruit somewhere in between pumpkin and that little bit of throw up in the back of your throat that never quite rises to your mouth but leaves you wanting to gargle with Listerine. Mmmm yum. And I’m looking at this thing sliced up on my plate going, oh dear…I don’t know if I can eat this. So I’m a little ensnared. Do I like, swallow the little gooey pieces like pills? Maybe it’s going to make me sick? If I eat this one does this mean I have to eat another one later? Because I really don’t think I can handle this. So a few more slimy orange pieces spooned into my mouth and someone asks if I like it, which, at this point, I go with the truth “no…not so much.”
In the end, my abuelita ate the rest of the mango and preceeded to inform me that it was very delicious. There’s obviously something mildly wrong with my dislike of said mango, because I’m the first person they’ve ever had who hasn’t liked it. I’m not really sure what the deal was myself. But yeah. That’s the 411 on that.
So I’m going to take the rest of the night which is quickly waning to do a little pleasure reading as I am simply not reading for rural anthropology tomorrow because the photocopy figuring-out thing is too confusing and I had no idea what was going on. Oh-Well.
Cheers! <3 Kate
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
January 20, 2009
I’m beginning to think that maybe I should be keeping a separate journal for crazy dreams I have while I’m here. I thought maybe I was past that stage of the trip, but alas. Last night I was being pursued by megafauna Dinosaurs and had a crazy run in with an old friend that was entirely out of character due to something someone said happened to them at one of the discos here.
So this morning I went to my one class which went on for quite some time. She wasn’t such a big fan of allowing time to copy down the information so that was a little bit frustrating. Not to mention the photocopies for that class are ridiculously confusing. Much more confusing than they should be.
After that though (I was done at 12) I stopped by Plaza Fiesta and bought a six pack of cocacola light and some cookies as I finished off the last of my cookies last night. The cans are, I figure, cheaper than buying a soda while I’m there each day eating lunch.
I also took a trip to the Laundromat (cue “laundry day” from Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog) actually not really at all. Well, I did go to the Laundromat but this one other people actually do your laundry for you, so it’s not like it was a socializing affair. I have to go back tomorrow and pick it all up in the afternoon…so that might actually be a Thursday morning trip since I have class til 6 which means not getting home until like…7.
As a family, we all had lunch at 2:30. It was amazing. Effectively it was like pot roast meat or something, in a black bean soup type thing with rice. Soooo tasty. And I had Jamaica to drink. Which is also quite tasty. But black bean soup = a favorite.
After that I did a little bit of reading (there really is a ton of reading here) and then Chelsea and I went down to El Centro. We walked around and went to the Picasso Art exhibition being held right now. It was free, which was pretty nice, and then we tried to find the Mercado we went to on Saturday but that was either a lost cause or we found the place and some of the stuff was missing? We’re not really sure.
The evening was a success, however, in that we found Chelsea a nice going-out shirt. So that should be pretty exciting. Also, and equally exciting, I had churros. Oh. Man. So. Good. And I also got a lot of them for only 15 pesos. I even had enough to share (now you know that was a good many).
We took the 52 Norte back no problem. With that bus we actually get a student discount (which we didn’t realize on the way) so we took advantage of that. Only 3 pesos instead of 5.
That pretty much brings us up to the present. I still have a bunch more reading to do, but hopefully I won’t die in the process. I have to get going kinda early because class is early tomorrow (8 am…which = getting up before the sun). I do in fact think that people should not ever get up before the sun. But that’s another story. And speaking of other stories.
I want to take a moment to inform everyone that American boys do not change even if you go to Mexico. I mean that from the stand point of, if you take an American boy out of the States and bring him with you, he’s still going to be every much as bit American as he was before you went through customs. Similarly, if you go to Mexico and leave American boys in the States, they are going to be every bit as bull headed as you left them. Now, I provide this small commentary on Male Theory not only from my own experience, but it also just seems like one of those little piece of information where everyone can either say “oh that’s good to know” or more than likely, nod and say “indeed.” (note: this side note does not actually stem from my experiences today so much as it is a accumulation of the past two weeks iced by someone else’s frustrations hahaha)
And with those thoughts I will leave you for the night! Cheers! <3 Kate
So this morning I went to my one class which went on for quite some time. She wasn’t such a big fan of allowing time to copy down the information so that was a little bit frustrating. Not to mention the photocopies for that class are ridiculously confusing. Much more confusing than they should be.
After that though (I was done at 12) I stopped by Plaza Fiesta and bought a six pack of cocacola light and some cookies as I finished off the last of my cookies last night. The cans are, I figure, cheaper than buying a soda while I’m there each day eating lunch.
I also took a trip to the Laundromat (cue “laundry day” from Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog) actually not really at all. Well, I did go to the Laundromat but this one other people actually do your laundry for you, so it’s not like it was a socializing affair. I have to go back tomorrow and pick it all up in the afternoon…so that might actually be a Thursday morning trip since I have class til 6 which means not getting home until like…7.
As a family, we all had lunch at 2:30. It was amazing. Effectively it was like pot roast meat or something, in a black bean soup type thing with rice. Soooo tasty. And I had Jamaica to drink. Which is also quite tasty. But black bean soup = a favorite.
After that I did a little bit of reading (there really is a ton of reading here) and then Chelsea and I went down to El Centro. We walked around and went to the Picasso Art exhibition being held right now. It was free, which was pretty nice, and then we tried to find the Mercado we went to on Saturday but that was either a lost cause or we found the place and some of the stuff was missing? We’re not really sure.
The evening was a success, however, in that we found Chelsea a nice going-out shirt. So that should be pretty exciting. Also, and equally exciting, I had churros. Oh. Man. So. Good. And I also got a lot of them for only 15 pesos. I even had enough to share (now you know that was a good many).
We took the 52 Norte back no problem. With that bus we actually get a student discount (which we didn’t realize on the way) so we took advantage of that. Only 3 pesos instead of 5.
That pretty much brings us up to the present. I still have a bunch more reading to do, but hopefully I won’t die in the process. I have to get going kinda early because class is early tomorrow (8 am…which = getting up before the sun). I do in fact think that people should not ever get up before the sun. But that’s another story. And speaking of other stories.
I want to take a moment to inform everyone that American boys do not change even if you go to Mexico. I mean that from the stand point of, if you take an American boy out of the States and bring him with you, he’s still going to be every much as bit American as he was before you went through customs. Similarly, if you go to Mexico and leave American boys in the States, they are going to be every bit as bull headed as you left them. Now, I provide this small commentary on Male Theory not only from my own experience, but it also just seems like one of those little piece of information where everyone can either say “oh that’s good to know” or more than likely, nod and say “indeed.” (note: this side note does not actually stem from my experiences today so much as it is a accumulation of the past two weeks iced by someone else’s frustrations hahaha)
And with those thoughts I will leave you for the night! Cheers! <3 Kate
Monday, January 19, 2009
January 19, 2009
Well, I’m pleased to report that nothing too extravagant happened today. I woke up an hour before my alarm (at 9) and was able to get ready and that sort of thing before leaving for school at 11. I would like to inform you all, however, that when my alarm did in fact go off, it was playing No Hay Nadie Como Tu. Apparently, as well, this song should not exactly be youtubed in the states. If you’d like to listen to it, I suggest this link, as it’s pretty clean where other versions of it I have been informed are not: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu85ExG_44g
Moving right along, I found out that I don’t actually have to print out my summaries for the Anthro-Caves class. I can apparently just e-mail them to my professor…though he didn’t e-mail me back. Maybe I should check into that.
I got out of classes today at 6 o’clock, but the bus didn’t come until around 6:45. It was a long time of waiting. On the other hand, it did give me a little bit of an opportunity to chat with Syrie, who works in the library making photocopies. She’s seen me around there quite a bit struggling to figure out what on earth I’m supposed to be doing.
She’s really nice, she takes two buses to get to the school too, but it sounds like she lives farther away than I do. She also said she’d never been to any of the discos, so we three (including Chelsea) may need to go out and do that some night…some night when we can actually get a taxi.
Mmmm I really don’t have very much to talk about today. This is a picture of Biko and then above were the beautiful flowers that my family sent me. =) In reality, having very little to write about is probably a good thing.
Cheers! <3 Kate
Sunday, January 18, 2009
January 18, 2009
Mmmm well, today was my first opportunity since being here to not set an alarm clock. This is something that I miss very much, but was quite willing to take advantage of this morning. Actually I only slept until 11…maybe even more like 10:45 (for as tired as I feel like I was that seems about an hour early). Either way though, that was a very pleasant way to wake up.
Speaking of waking up. Almost every time I turn on the radio in my room and listen to it for awhile, this song “No hay nadie como tu” by calle 13 I think it is comes on. Now, this is a very funny song. I might even suggest youtubeing it just because it’s somewhat amusing. I don’t know if it’ll be nearly as amusing for you all though. You never know.
So this morning started out slowly. I didn’t actually leave my room and tell my host family that I was in fact awake until 2 o’clock. At that point, I had the opportunity to recount last night’s events for them and how the taxi never came to get us but alas we had microwave pizza. They’re probably going to think that Chelsea and I don’t like it here or something. Every time we go out we go get American food and we haven’t been out disco-ing it up with everyone else. We at least tried this time.
Lunch today was reaaaaallly good. And I was thinking as I ate it, hm, this really doesn’t taste yucatecan at all but it’s really good. We were having cooked vegestables, scalloped potatoes and some sort of porkchop type thing. To drink, I had piña colada which I didn’t expect to like since I don’t like coconut but hey it was actually really, really good (and nonalcoholic at that). But as I was saying before, it was really tasty, and my host family informed me that it was “a touch of North American food to console me after the flop with the taxi.” Hahaha, well, no wonder I liked it. Not that I’m saying yucatecan food is bad or anything like that, I’m just sayin’ that I’m fairly partial to Americanesque foods =).
After lunch I decided not to hole up in my room. I did a little reading at a table while my little host sister (see picture) put together parts of a puzzle. Doing the whole homework thing has been a real struggle all day, but I’m done now with all that I’m going to do (which means that everything didn’t really get done so to speak but it doesn’t really matter any more. It’s 11:30 at night, give me a break).
Chelsea also invited me over to her house this evening so that’s what I did. We ate panuchos and something else that I don’t know what it was called nor had I had it before. I’m fairly partial to panuchos, though.
In reality, that was basically my day. I tried to leave out my horrible attempts at reading all of these pages of photocopies for your sake. Generally they involved me getting distracted at any possible moment and then rereading the same paragraph several times before I even realized I’d already read it. That’s okay though. I’m suddenly very thankful for pictures in articles, even if I can’t really see the picture, having them there is a very nice treat.
I’ve yet to hear total confirmation on who won the football games this afternoon…hopefully all turned out well…haha. Tomorrow I have class at 12 (woo! Much better than having it at 8) and I’m there until 6. Two classes: cave anthropology and Maya history/culture. I’m hoping I might be able to add a Comparative Cultures minor. It would (hopefully) only entail me taking Intro to Anthropology when I get back to SU. I think that would at least look kinda nice if I could do that. I might be too sick of anthropology, though so we’ll see. Plus I don’t know how things are exactly going to transfer back except as Spanish Elective credit. Hopefully Monica (the girl with the registrar) will get back to me on that one.
Cheers to all! <3 Kate
January 17, 2009
“We should just not tell anyone. We can pretend we had dates that just stood us up…wait, that’s sad. …But at least we had dates in that one.” When your Saturday night companion says this to you, I’m pretty sure you know you’ve hit pretty low on the rock bottom scale. So here’s the story:
It’s about 9 o’clock. People have finally decided they want to go to Envy tonight, a dance club that no one really knows where it is but we want to go there at 10:15. As it turns out it’s on Avenida Colon, not too far from the casa. Cool. So after getting everything squared away, plans etc, I start getting ready. This generally involves washing the hair because it’s been in a pony tail for the day since we were cooking and getting dressed in something a little nicer, not really a problem. In fact, this would have been easily accomplished except that I was also trying to talk to my best friend online which didn’t allow for actually getting ready as it sucked me in rather quickly.
Not really that big of a deal. I get a call from Chelsea at 9:45, she’s headed over. Sweet, though I’m not ready. No make up, need to put shoes on, finish up the hair since it’s mostly dry now. And I’m supposed to meet her half way between our houses. I finish up the online conversations, and fly out of the house.
We call for a taxi at about 10:05. I’m pretty much ready to go, though we discover that Chelsea left her ID at home. No problem we’ll just have the taxi stop by there so she can run in and get it. We go and wait outside.
And wait.
And wait.
And wait, finally it’s 10:45. The taxi that was supposed to only take 20 minutes is a no show. We decide on calling the place back. They had our address wrong which is because I can’t actually speak Spanish and have really been faking all this time (no, not really, it had to do with the neighborhood and my inability to pronounce the last word Cucul).
So we tell them, yo, no problemo, meet us at this new address; we’ll walk over and get Chelsea’s ID since it’ll be another 20 minutes and that’ll save us a little dinero. So we go over there, get her ID. 11:30. Well. I’ve had about enough of this. Tonight is not going to happen.
That would’ve been where the night ended, only we were hungry. The only thing we know of that exists is a blockbuster between our houses. As it turns out, there’s also a 24 hour convenience store where Chelsea and I had caffeine free soda and microwave pepperoni pizza.
So yeah…that’s what my Saturday night looked like. It’s kind of ridiculously funny in this utterly pathetic way. That’s okay though. But lets back up ‘cause other stuff did actually happen today, I just thought that was how the entry for today needed to start.
Zzzrrrrrrrrrrrpp! (that’s the rewinding noise). Last night I slept terribly. This time it wasn’t due to nightmares, though, it was a combination of heat/cold/troubles in paradise haha. I also some how managed to forget (in my very scattered state last night as I wrote the blog) that I receive *beautiful* flowers last night when I got home. My parents sent them to me, they’re really pretty, I’ll try and take a picture and upload it. Right now I’m just deadbeat tired.
So anyway, got up this morning at 6, which was an hour before my alarm was supposed to go off and there was just going to be no more sleep happenin’. Today, as a part of the IFSA program we had an appointment at Los Dos which is a cooking school here in Merida. The outside of the building is really plain and then you walk inside and it’s gorgeous. I wish I had pictures to show you. In the dining room there was a beautiful, directionally accurate mural of el Centro, and there was a Terrace with this pool-pond. It was really magnificent in terms of beauty.
So we went there and learned how to cook. We were also taken on a tour of the Mercado which was ridiculously overwhelming. We walk in and it truly is like a labyrinth. There are tons of people you have to weave your way around. In the first section there was a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables along with something I would put into the category of riff-raff. As we moved a long, we saw adorable puppies, and SNES games which I would have loved to have browsed. There weren’t a whole lot of them but still, the idea of finding SNES games in person is almost a novelty in itself.
Then came the big part. The butchery part of the Mercado. There’s hanging meat in all these stands. And I’m pretty okay with that so long as it’s only on my right side and I’m walking on the way left side of the aisle. But no, couldn’t stay like that. We’re taken right down the middle of it. There’s a skinned cow’s head with the eyes still in it jutting out into the aisle, a piece of hanging meat falls onto a counter with a sickening flmmp. There are puddles of blood on the floor. I think I’m probably going to have tiny bruises on my sides from where I was gripping them so tightly as we walked through there (hey it’ll be just like home! I was starting to miss my random accumulation of bruises).
So yeah. That was pretty intense. I don’t think I’ll ever get the image of that cow head out of my head.
When we went back, we learned to make tamales, and a couple of other things the names to which have escaped me for the time being, but yeah. It was pretty neat. We tried this habanero pepper which used to be the hottest pepper in the world. I’d reckon it was mighty, mighty picante. I don’t have much desire to try that again.
After that Chelsea and I were picked up and I participated in some sobremesa with my family at lunch time. I had already eaten the stuff we had cooked but I sat at the table with them. I came back to my room around 3.
I’m not entirely sure what happened between 3-9. It’s kind of like I lost time somehow. For awhile I was talking with my parents. After that I went and got something to eat, so between 6 and 8 I’m not entirely sure what I was doing that took so long. It doesn’t seem like I got very much accomplished, but hey.
That pretty much brings us back to the beginning of the post and brings me to a very tired night. I hope you all have a lovely day, and I hope for me lots of sleep hehe =D
Cheers, <3 Kate
It’s about 9 o’clock. People have finally decided they want to go to Envy tonight, a dance club that no one really knows where it is but we want to go there at 10:15. As it turns out it’s on Avenida Colon, not too far from the casa. Cool. So after getting everything squared away, plans etc, I start getting ready. This generally involves washing the hair because it’s been in a pony tail for the day since we were cooking and getting dressed in something a little nicer, not really a problem. In fact, this would have been easily accomplished except that I was also trying to talk to my best friend online which didn’t allow for actually getting ready as it sucked me in rather quickly.
Not really that big of a deal. I get a call from Chelsea at 9:45, she’s headed over. Sweet, though I’m not ready. No make up, need to put shoes on, finish up the hair since it’s mostly dry now. And I’m supposed to meet her half way between our houses. I finish up the online conversations, and fly out of the house.
We call for a taxi at about 10:05. I’m pretty much ready to go, though we discover that Chelsea left her ID at home. No problem we’ll just have the taxi stop by there so she can run in and get it. We go and wait outside.
And wait.
And wait.
And wait, finally it’s 10:45. The taxi that was supposed to only take 20 minutes is a no show. We decide on calling the place back. They had our address wrong which is because I can’t actually speak Spanish and have really been faking all this time (no, not really, it had to do with the neighborhood and my inability to pronounce the last word Cucul).
So we tell them, yo, no problemo, meet us at this new address; we’ll walk over and get Chelsea’s ID since it’ll be another 20 minutes and that’ll save us a little dinero. So we go over there, get her ID. 11:30. Well. I’ve had about enough of this. Tonight is not going to happen.
That would’ve been where the night ended, only we were hungry. The only thing we know of that exists is a blockbuster between our houses. As it turns out, there’s also a 24 hour convenience store where Chelsea and I had caffeine free soda and microwave pepperoni pizza.
So yeah…that’s what my Saturday night looked like. It’s kind of ridiculously funny in this utterly pathetic way. That’s okay though. But lets back up ‘cause other stuff did actually happen today, I just thought that was how the entry for today needed to start.
Zzzrrrrrrrrrrrpp! (that’s the rewinding noise). Last night I slept terribly. This time it wasn’t due to nightmares, though, it was a combination of heat/cold/troubles in paradise haha. I also some how managed to forget (in my very scattered state last night as I wrote the blog) that I receive *beautiful* flowers last night when I got home. My parents sent them to me, they’re really pretty, I’ll try and take a picture and upload it. Right now I’m just deadbeat tired.
So anyway, got up this morning at 6, which was an hour before my alarm was supposed to go off and there was just going to be no more sleep happenin’. Today, as a part of the IFSA program we had an appointment at Los Dos which is a cooking school here in Merida. The outside of the building is really plain and then you walk inside and it’s gorgeous. I wish I had pictures to show you. In the dining room there was a beautiful, directionally accurate mural of el Centro, and there was a Terrace with this pool-pond. It was really magnificent in terms of beauty.
So we went there and learned how to cook. We were also taken on a tour of the Mercado which was ridiculously overwhelming. We walk in and it truly is like a labyrinth. There are tons of people you have to weave your way around. In the first section there was a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables along with something I would put into the category of riff-raff. As we moved a long, we saw adorable puppies, and SNES games which I would have loved to have browsed. There weren’t a whole lot of them but still, the idea of finding SNES games in person is almost a novelty in itself.
Then came the big part. The butchery part of the Mercado. There’s hanging meat in all these stands. And I’m pretty okay with that so long as it’s only on my right side and I’m walking on the way left side of the aisle. But no, couldn’t stay like that. We’re taken right down the middle of it. There’s a skinned cow’s head with the eyes still in it jutting out into the aisle, a piece of hanging meat falls onto a counter with a sickening flmmp. There are puddles of blood on the floor. I think I’m probably going to have tiny bruises on my sides from where I was gripping them so tightly as we walked through there (hey it’ll be just like home! I was starting to miss my random accumulation of bruises).
So yeah. That was pretty intense. I don’t think I’ll ever get the image of that cow head out of my head.
When we went back, we learned to make tamales, and a couple of other things the names to which have escaped me for the time being, but yeah. It was pretty neat. We tried this habanero pepper which used to be the hottest pepper in the world. I’d reckon it was mighty, mighty picante. I don’t have much desire to try that again.
After that Chelsea and I were picked up and I participated in some sobremesa with my family at lunch time. I had already eaten the stuff we had cooked but I sat at the table with them. I came back to my room around 3.
I’m not entirely sure what happened between 3-9. It’s kind of like I lost time somehow. For awhile I was talking with my parents. After that I went and got something to eat, so between 6 and 8 I’m not entirely sure what I was doing that took so long. It doesn’t seem like I got very much accomplished, but hey.
That pretty much brings us back to the beginning of the post and brings me to a very tired night. I hope you all have a lovely day, and I hope for me lots of sleep hehe =D
Cheers, <3 Kate
Friday, January 16, 2009
January 16, 2009
My dear readers, I think I probably owe you all an extensive apology for the terrible reading of yesterday, so I’m sorry about that. Today I hope you will find my writings a little more pleasurable. For those of you who sent me e-mails, thanks very much I enjoyed reading them. I'll try to get responses back to you fairly soon, I just don't think it's going to happen tonight. So here we go...
Got up again this morning, well, at 6 today instead of 5:45 and was off to school on time with no bus troubles or anything like that. My first (and only) class is probably going to be the best class I have this semester: Contemporary Migration Debates. The professor talks decently slowly and it’s a pretty small class. If I haven’t already mentioned I think it’s going to be a lot of work, but at the same time I think it’ll be worth it. Even worth getting up at 6 AM on Fridays.
After that I went through a very stressful attempt at figuring out photocopies. Apparently for a good chunk of the afternoon I was a little infamous since a lot of photocopies had my name on them. It’s a little bit unorganized…papers everywhere, no one really keeping track of who had what and someone had taken all the copies for the one class. What a mess. But in any case that’s okay.
A little afterwards I went to the library to try to get a little bit of reading done. As it turns out because we copied the Spanish version of the book the page numbers are all off but oh well. It should be fairly okay.
At about 2, Chelsea and I went back from the library to the school building and I had some cookies and a Pepsi. I think who ever’s idea it was to try to wean myself off of caffeine and aspartame…well…that was a terrible idea. I’m not sure how to really grammatically word that but you catch my drift. I think Pepsi Light’s are basically my version of self medication. =D
So much peppier after fulfilling my daily quota, we went to get our oh-so-important information and talk on cooking. I’m not really sure whose idea it was for giving us a lecture after a week full of lectures, but that was a bad idea too. It was pretty interesting in spite of that, but it still kind of dragged its feet a little.
I did learn about the word “sobremesa” which refers to the dinner conversation or conversation/socializing that takes place at meal time and how that’s rather important. So for all those times that I went to dinner and Will constantly reminded me after I said I wasn’t really all that hungry “you didn’t have to come” and I replied “I know…it’s not like you forced me” it was for the sobremesa. More for the socializing and stuff than the comida. I just thought it was kinda neat that they have a word for that.
After that got out, Chelsea and I stopped by the grocery store for baking soda. She’s going to make banana bread. We had a fun time trying to figure out how to say baking soda in Spanish and where that was. As it turns out, it was located in the pharmaceutical aisle…imagine that.
We also made plans to go to Chilis for dinner which is exactly what we did. It was fun, I had a fajita pita and she had a cheeseburger. Everyone was really nice there, we had superb service. Admitedly, Chilis wasn’t very busy at all, but the ketchup bottle was empty, and as soon as I turned around to snag one from another table, there was a waiter holding out a new ketchup bottle for me. That was pretty neat.
After that we walked around the mall, I was really full but Chelsea got an ice cream. We then caught a bus and headed back home.
Tomorrow we have to be up early—we’re going to a cooking school to learn how to cook some authentic yucatecan food. Should be pretty sweet in spite of the 7 am wake up call. I guess that’s a little better than the rest of this week. =)
Cheers! <3 Kate
Got up again this morning, well, at 6 today instead of 5:45 and was off to school on time with no bus troubles or anything like that. My first (and only) class is probably going to be the best class I have this semester: Contemporary Migration Debates. The professor talks decently slowly and it’s a pretty small class. If I haven’t already mentioned I think it’s going to be a lot of work, but at the same time I think it’ll be worth it. Even worth getting up at 6 AM on Fridays.
After that I went through a very stressful attempt at figuring out photocopies. Apparently for a good chunk of the afternoon I was a little infamous since a lot of photocopies had my name on them. It’s a little bit unorganized…papers everywhere, no one really keeping track of who had what and someone had taken all the copies for the one class. What a mess. But in any case that’s okay.
A little afterwards I went to the library to try to get a little bit of reading done. As it turns out because we copied the Spanish version of the book the page numbers are all off but oh well. It should be fairly okay.
At about 2, Chelsea and I went back from the library to the school building and I had some cookies and a Pepsi. I think who ever’s idea it was to try to wean myself off of caffeine and aspartame…well…that was a terrible idea. I’m not sure how to really grammatically word that but you catch my drift. I think Pepsi Light’s are basically my version of self medication. =D
So much peppier after fulfilling my daily quota, we went to get our oh-so-important information and talk on cooking. I’m not really sure whose idea it was for giving us a lecture after a week full of lectures, but that was a bad idea too. It was pretty interesting in spite of that, but it still kind of dragged its feet a little.
I did learn about the word “sobremesa” which refers to the dinner conversation or conversation/socializing that takes place at meal time and how that’s rather important. So for all those times that I went to dinner and Will constantly reminded me after I said I wasn’t really all that hungry “you didn’t have to come” and I replied “I know…it’s not like you forced me” it was for the sobremesa. More for the socializing and stuff than the comida. I just thought it was kinda neat that they have a word for that.
After that got out, Chelsea and I stopped by the grocery store for baking soda. She’s going to make banana bread. We had a fun time trying to figure out how to say baking soda in Spanish and where that was. As it turns out, it was located in the pharmaceutical aisle…imagine that.
We also made plans to go to Chilis for dinner which is exactly what we did. It was fun, I had a fajita pita and she had a cheeseburger. Everyone was really nice there, we had superb service. Admitedly, Chilis wasn’t very busy at all, but the ketchup bottle was empty, and as soon as I turned around to snag one from another table, there was a waiter holding out a new ketchup bottle for me. That was pretty neat.
After that we walked around the mall, I was really full but Chelsea got an ice cream. We then caught a bus and headed back home.
Tomorrow we have to be up early—we’re going to a cooking school to learn how to cook some authentic yucatecan food. Should be pretty sweet in spite of the 7 am wake up call. I guess that’s a little better than the rest of this week. =)
Cheers! <3 Kate
Thursday, January 15, 2009
January 15, 2009
Today = the end of the short string of good days. This is not really due to any particular outside cause, but holding myself together for 4 hours during classes was impossibly difficult. Yeah. This morning I went to the oh-so-highly-favored Education Anthropology class and it started 30 minutes late which was just fine because I was tired after getting up so early. Then I got particularly lost in the discussion in the sense that I had absolutely no idea what was going on (not that I was absolutely absorbed in it).
In doing that, I found that I have a scarily good visual imagination in that I think there were seriously points in time during that class where I was not seeing the classroom, but was seeing the photos that I currently have pegged to a piece of corkboard here in my room. Yeah… Today was a day of being terribly homesick and everything boiling down to “I just want to go home,” and “Will, I really want a hug.”
Bleh. So that went on. In short, I decided to drop the Education Anthro class for a hopefully more easy Rural Anthro class (who knows maybe I’ll end up with an Anthro minor after all of this is said and done). But yeah, that class seems to be a little easier to follow. The professor used a power point (always a good sign).
Our Spanish class was actually cancelled today. I got a text message from Diana the Resident Director saying that our professor couldn’t make it due to an emergency. I’m sorry to hear that there was an emergency…but on the other hand I was really glad class was cancelled. After wrestling with photo copies which is a humongous mess here, I got on the bus with Chelsea and came home where I slept for 2 ½ hours. Still had some strange dreams but none of them were nightmares.
Things have been pretty uneventful since then…I had some left over macaroni and cheese for dinner and watched part of a Spanish telenovela (these soap operas are quite possibly more ridiculous/melodramatic than the ones in the USA). It wasn’t one of those ridiculous ones though where you have no idea what’s going on. It was probably more similar to a Days of our Lives type scenario.
I had some homework for class tomorrow. Another 8 AM but it’s Migration Debates and the reading has been interesting so far. I’m going to go ahead and keep this short due in part to the time and my general apathy towards the day.
Cheers to all, sorry for the rather boring post this time. Heh, can’t win ‘em all. <3 Kate
In doing that, I found that I have a scarily good visual imagination in that I think there were seriously points in time during that class where I was not seeing the classroom, but was seeing the photos that I currently have pegged to a piece of corkboard here in my room. Yeah… Today was a day of being terribly homesick and everything boiling down to “I just want to go home,” and “Will, I really want a hug.”
Bleh. So that went on. In short, I decided to drop the Education Anthro class for a hopefully more easy Rural Anthro class (who knows maybe I’ll end up with an Anthro minor after all of this is said and done). But yeah, that class seems to be a little easier to follow. The professor used a power point (always a good sign).
Our Spanish class was actually cancelled today. I got a text message from Diana the Resident Director saying that our professor couldn’t make it due to an emergency. I’m sorry to hear that there was an emergency…but on the other hand I was really glad class was cancelled. After wrestling with photo copies which is a humongous mess here, I got on the bus with Chelsea and came home where I slept for 2 ½ hours. Still had some strange dreams but none of them were nightmares.
Things have been pretty uneventful since then…I had some left over macaroni and cheese for dinner and watched part of a Spanish telenovela (these soap operas are quite possibly more ridiculous/melodramatic than the ones in the USA). It wasn’t one of those ridiculous ones though where you have no idea what’s going on. It was probably more similar to a Days of our Lives type scenario.
I had some homework for class tomorrow. Another 8 AM but it’s Migration Debates and the reading has been interesting so far. I’m going to go ahead and keep this short due in part to the time and my general apathy towards the day.
Cheers to all, sorry for the rather boring post this time. Heh, can’t win ‘em all. <3 Kate
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
January 14, 2009
Wednesdays are looking mighty busy. And I’m looking at my schedule and thinking Thursdays are lookin’ might busy too. Although actually, (because I can count (haha)) I have 6 classes listed on my schedule, and I only need to take 5. [I feel like I should put some sort of disclaimer here so that people don’t think I actually thought I only had 5 classes when I really had 6. Having the 6 classes selected was sort of a buffer so I could switch up and that sort of thing if something wasn’t good.] So maybe I’m actually not going to bother with this Rural Anthropology class at all that I’ve never been to.
This morning I woke up on time (yay) at 5:45 (boo). I didn’t have any crazy dreams to relate to you all last night. Or at least none that I remember. Vaguely when I woke up I remember having dreamt, but more of simple things and normal people from home so it wasn’t anything to get all up in arms about. As I also found out later, apparently having weird dreams is happening to everyone on this trip. This seems like one of those things you would know about traveling (like you’ve heard of culture shock and those sorts of tidbits). So apparently it’s normal to have really odd dreams/nightmares.
I went to my Migration Debates class this morning at 8. I was kind of hoping that I wouldn’t like it because it’s early and a Wednesday-Friday class so it’s really at terrible time in all respects. As it turns out, it actually I think is going to be my most interesting class and also probably most difficult. But I’m going to keep it anyway because I think it’s going to be my cup of tea.
While we were sitting in there today (and you know, you can’t really pay attention to someone talking for 2 hours straight without daydreaming a little) I was thinking about what kind of careers there are in migration. Not like, in actually migrating, but in helping out with the migration process. I think there are probably welcome-to-the-country-we’ll-help-get-you-settled programs. I might like to work at some place like this instead of working as a teacher. I’m going to have to look into that. Anyone who has any ideas/knowledge/thoughts on that, be sure to comment and let me know, eh?
So after that, I had 2 hours free which involved me printing off syllabi in the computer lab because professors don’t hand them out here. You have to get things like that yourself and make photo copies yourself. I also spent a bunch of pesos in photocopies for the Mayan History/Culture class on Monday. One set was 95 pesos, another was like 20 some. And I have almost all the photocopies I’m going to need for that class now. There’s still a good chunk more, but we’re getting there in any case.
After that I went to Anthropology of Caves. Now I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds rather boring. I mean, caves are caves. This is probably in part because Anthropology isn’t a super big interest of mine….like at all. But! I’m going to keep this class I believe because there are no tests and there’s lots of opportunities to get the points you need. You can get a maximum of 100 points for the class, and there are something like 160 available points. Sounds pretty good, right? It’s a lot of reading, like 2 readings each class, but I think that it’ll be good as far as being able to easily obtain said points and get a good grade.
I also made a WONDERFUL discovery today. This is the point where I really want to say “guess what!” and wait for you to say “what?” and then hold for a second to build a little suspense. “They sell Pepsi light at the facultad de anthropologia!!!!!” Yeah. That’s pretty much fannnnnnnntastic.
At the end of the day I had Spanish class, but that ended early due to a photocopy mistake. Chelsea and I took the opportunity to go to Plaza Fiesta and I picked up am embry board (my nails were driving me crazy…getting too long or just ridiculous chipped). And I also grabbed some peanut butter (peanut butter toast or something = better than cereal in the mornings) aaaand some moisturizer for my face which has apparently not enjoyed the medicine-sun combination I’ve dealt it down here.
After that, Chelsea and I decided we wanted milkshakes from Burger King. So that’s what we got. And alas, a milkshake is not called a batido de leche. I’m sure that doesn’t disappoint anyone as much as it does me, because that means that part of our song in Spanish 3 was wrong (and I don’t think Jacinto is reading this but it made me think of him. Mi batido de leche trae todos los chicos al césped me dicen… hahahaha). And I wish I could explain what they’re called here; it was something pretty similar to batido, but not exactly. Oh well.
But so check that out. I had a pepsi light and a strawberry milkshake all in one day. That’s pretty sweet, I gotta say. And that’s about the extent of my day. I really need to do some reading before ED class tomorrow, but that’s about it.
Ciao~ <3 Kate
This morning I woke up on time (yay) at 5:45 (boo). I didn’t have any crazy dreams to relate to you all last night. Or at least none that I remember. Vaguely when I woke up I remember having dreamt, but more of simple things and normal people from home so it wasn’t anything to get all up in arms about. As I also found out later, apparently having weird dreams is happening to everyone on this trip. This seems like one of those things you would know about traveling (like you’ve heard of culture shock and those sorts of tidbits). So apparently it’s normal to have really odd dreams/nightmares.
I went to my Migration Debates class this morning at 8. I was kind of hoping that I wouldn’t like it because it’s early and a Wednesday-Friday class so it’s really at terrible time in all respects. As it turns out, it actually I think is going to be my most interesting class and also probably most difficult. But I’m going to keep it anyway because I think it’s going to be my cup of tea.
While we were sitting in there today (and you know, you can’t really pay attention to someone talking for 2 hours straight without daydreaming a little) I was thinking about what kind of careers there are in migration. Not like, in actually migrating, but in helping out with the migration process. I think there are probably welcome-to-the-country-we’ll-help-get-you-settled programs. I might like to work at some place like this instead of working as a teacher. I’m going to have to look into that. Anyone who has any ideas/knowledge/thoughts on that, be sure to comment and let me know, eh?
So after that, I had 2 hours free which involved me printing off syllabi in the computer lab because professors don’t hand them out here. You have to get things like that yourself and make photo copies yourself. I also spent a bunch of pesos in photocopies for the Mayan History/Culture class on Monday. One set was 95 pesos, another was like 20 some. And I have almost all the photocopies I’m going to need for that class now. There’s still a good chunk more, but we’re getting there in any case.
After that I went to Anthropology of Caves. Now I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds rather boring. I mean, caves are caves. This is probably in part because Anthropology isn’t a super big interest of mine….like at all. But! I’m going to keep this class I believe because there are no tests and there’s lots of opportunities to get the points you need. You can get a maximum of 100 points for the class, and there are something like 160 available points. Sounds pretty good, right? It’s a lot of reading, like 2 readings each class, but I think that it’ll be good as far as being able to easily obtain said points and get a good grade.
I also made a WONDERFUL discovery today. This is the point where I really want to say “guess what!” and wait for you to say “what?” and then hold for a second to build a little suspense. “They sell Pepsi light at the facultad de anthropologia!!!!!” Yeah. That’s pretty much fannnnnnnntastic.
At the end of the day I had Spanish class, but that ended early due to a photocopy mistake. Chelsea and I took the opportunity to go to Plaza Fiesta and I picked up am embry board (my nails were driving me crazy…getting too long or just ridiculous chipped). And I also grabbed some peanut butter (peanut butter toast or something = better than cereal in the mornings) aaaand some moisturizer for my face which has apparently not enjoyed the medicine-sun combination I’ve dealt it down here.
After that, Chelsea and I decided we wanted milkshakes from Burger King. So that’s what we got. And alas, a milkshake is not called a batido de leche. I’m sure that doesn’t disappoint anyone as much as it does me, because that means that part of our song in Spanish 3 was wrong (and I don’t think Jacinto is reading this but it made me think of him. Mi batido de leche trae todos los chicos al césped me dicen… hahahaha). And I wish I could explain what they’re called here; it was something pretty similar to batido, but not exactly. Oh well.
But so check that out. I had a pepsi light and a strawberry milkshake all in one day. That’s pretty sweet, I gotta say. And that’s about the extent of my day. I really need to do some reading before ED class tomorrow, but that’s about it.
Ciao~ <3 Kate
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
January 13, 2009
Hallo to everyone. This morning started off a little…well…oddly. Well I guess I should start maybe before I got up. I woke up around 5:40 after dreaming that (long story short) I had killed a helpless jaguar by effectively pealing the skin away from it’s throat like Velcro, which, apparently, you aren’t supposed to do because they don’t live very long after that. So with some very muddled thinking after I woke up, I remembered that I had set my alarm for 6:45, and went back to sleep.
At 6:45 the alarm went off, I got up, did the normal routine thing, tried to put a little extra conditioner in my hair which I’m running out of very quickly, etc. When I made it into the kitchen, breakfast was on the table. It was toast with beans and cheese on it. So I ate that, and looked at my watch. 7:45. 7:45?! That can’t be right. I have to be at the anthropology school at 8! Surely my watch has just clicked over to the section where it’s still on EST. Clicking through my watch settings, I find the EST one, and it is indeed 9:45 by that time. NO WAY~!
Now, something you should know about buses. They don’t really care one way or another if you’re running late. You just have to sit tight and wait. They’re not going to get to the bus stop any faster, and they’re not going to drive any faster just because you can’t do math when you’re tired at night and some how the hour to get up and get ready and the hour to get to the school become one hour and you’re left wondering how you managed to pass both statistics and a Math topics class with As.
I actually met up with someone from the IFSA group waiting for my second bus, and I told him how I was running late, etc. And we got on the second bus, and upon arriving we began to discuss the logistics of going to a class late. Well, it was 8:30 when we got there. That means half an hour late, but classes go for 2 hours. And supposedly people come to class a little late fairly frequently around here. And I remember someone telling me last semester that they went to a class with only like 10 minutes of that class left so I’m really torn about what to do: wait for my second class at 10? Or try to go to this class because it was one I really wanted to go to. Eventually it’s suggested that I just go.
The door was actually open to the classroom when I arrived, too, which was like a “well, here goes nothing.” So I walk in, and apologize. Then I’m asked where I live. Well, I’m not exactly sure what neighborhood I’m living in, so I describe where I live, which is near the round-about called el Posito. So I say this, and then the professor makes a comment, and a lot of people laugh. Something about el Posito---I’m not really sure but apparently that was the wrong thing to say. So I’m sitting there, kind of vulnerable like, not entirely sure what’s going on, and if I’ve totally screwed up or what. So they stop laughing, nad he asked me again where I live. So I’m thinking, oh, maybe it’s totally obvious that I’m some obnoxious American who thinks she can come to school late, so I say that I’m from Maryland. This starts up a whole new uproar, and then he clarifies “no, what state are you from.” Now…seriously. Obviously when it comes to Mexico I’m from the state of Yucatan, and I’ve already said I’m from Maryland. What more do you want. So I kind of repeat “Maryland” with different inflection because that’s about all I have now. One of the boys in the class recognizes it and says it’s up North. Then the professor bids me welcome, which I didn’t understand the first two times he said it (give me a break, at this point I’m just a tad-bit overwhelmed…I mean…seriously).
But the rest of the class went pretty well. I think I’ll keep it. I mean, over all the prof seemed pretty relaxed, that sort of thing. It’s going to be a discussion and lecture class. We’ll see how it goes. The class is called Anthropology of Education. I don’t really know what that means but Education sounds promising.
After that, we actually ended at 9 o’clock. So effectively I missed half the class. Several other IFSA students and another girl from another program were in that class and we sat outside waiting til 10. By 10 o’clock we had all pretty much decided we were going to try out this Rural Anthropology class which is supposedly really easy. At this point I suppose since most of the classes aren’t going to be anything to do with my major that easy is the next best thing.
We waited there for half an hour and a few other students came in, but after half an hour they explained that there was some sort of conference/meeting that all the anthropology students had to go to, so the class probably wasn’t going to happen. So we left too.
Erin and I ran to catch the bus as we were walking out, and it was just starting to rain. While we’re riding the bus to the Plaza de Fiesta I realize that I’ve got a lot of extra time since that second class was cancelled. Brilliantly, now, you can take that either sarcastically or not sarcastically, I decide I’m going to do a little exploring when I get to the Plaza de Fiesta. The spur for this was originally the length that my fingernails are acquiring and their disposition to chipping and this sort of nonsense. So I walk kind of along the path that the bus usually takes us home.
I know that there’s a super market, that kind of thing, and that’s what I head towards. It probably would’ve been better to do this on a day when I wasn’t wearing heels (even if they are my type of heels and generally pretty comfortable) and on a day when it wasn’t supposed to rain. You see, when I got off the bus it had stopped raining and I forgot about the fact that it had been raining.
So knowing the super market isn’t far, I head in that direction. You can consider this either blatantly stupid, or taking the initiative. At the time I was counting on it coming under the category “taking the initiative.” I walk into the grocery store and, as it turns out, there is a lot more than just a grocery store! There’s an almost entire mall there. Note: For those of you who were disappointed in the Plaza de Fiesta, you need not be anymore. This is right there at the Plaza de Fiesta, and it seemed like a pretty big place.
Somewhere between the bus stop and this shopping center I forgot what had really sent me on this journey and was hoping that I would be able to find a hair salon. Well, a big place like this didn’t disappoint and I was able to get some Redkin leave in conditioner specifically for curly hair. For those of you that that means nothing to, that basically just means I’m going to be a lot happier with the condition of my hair while I’m here and just generally happier as a byproduct of said conditioner.
And being down to my last 50 pesos in my wallet after buying the conditioner, I figure I should probably visit and ATM while I’m out. Well, when I had seen the hair salon I had cut through this really long line. As it turns out, that was the line for the ATM. So I kind of ended up walking around this circle three times. Once to leave, Once to find a bank, Once to leave out a different door next to the hair salon than the one I came in through, and then Finally left the area to go out the same door I entered through since that is probably a better idea due to my lack of sense of direction.
I walked across the parking lot (at this point in time it was raining pretty decently, but I didn’t mind too much because I had my conditioner and it was the kind of rain I like). Overall it actually seemed like a pretty good day for rain, not it the depressing way that I would usually tend to say that, but more in the sort of refreshing-renewal type of way that is exceptionally rare.
So I’m standing at a new bus stop which I’m really hoping is going to allow me to get on the bus. Then I’m thinking about those 50 pesos and when my next opportunity to go to a bank is going to be. And I turn around and there’s actually a bank about 50 feet away. So I go in there, withdraw some cash, woo-hoo.
Then I wait. And wait some more. And look at my watch it’s only been 3 minutes. Wait some more. About 10-15 minutes passes and finally the bus I need arrives. No problemo. Get on the bus; get off at the right stop. Check that out it all went pretty well. It’s a little drizzle-y but for whatever reason I just don’t mind today.
Come to the casa, nobody is really around. Drop my stuff off, check my e-mail real fast. Then I decide, you know, I’m going to be slightly more social. So I grab a book I’m reading and go sit in the tv room. Well it sounds like in the mean time, my host mom has come back and there’s some really good smelling stuff coming from the kitchen.
I go in, and she and Sol (the woman who helps around the house) are inside preparing for lunch. I get to help out, I do the salad. This is actually the first time I’ve probably ever made a salad that doesn’t involve opening a plastic bag of romaine lettuce and emptying a packet of Caesar dressing. But I think I did okay. Cut up some lettuce, pealed a cucumber and some carrots. Made it look pretty.
Then my host mom and I went and ran some errands. It basically just involved going to the dry cleaners and going to someone’s house who apparently repairs blenders and irons (though the iron was not unrepairable because it burnt itself out or something like that). And then we picked up my host-little sister Maria Regina from school.
We had lunch which was really good. Some tomato soup (I know check that out. You never thought you’d see those two sentences juxtaposed, did ya?). And some chicken in tortillas with black beans and my salad. With Jamaica to drink which is like a juice made from Hibiscus flower petals I believe.
After lunch I ended up getting pretty tired so I laid down at about 4 o’clock…and woke up at 6. And that’s about the extent of today. It’s actually made for a rather long post though so I hope you all enjoyed it. Overall I’d say it was a pretty good day though it started out pretty rough.
This evening I showed Maria Regina the pictures from New Years and then the pictures I have of my family. So that was cool. This internet’s been cutting out a lot this evening, but that’s okay.
Cheers! <3 Kate
At 6:45 the alarm went off, I got up, did the normal routine thing, tried to put a little extra conditioner in my hair which I’m running out of very quickly, etc. When I made it into the kitchen, breakfast was on the table. It was toast with beans and cheese on it. So I ate that, and looked at my watch. 7:45. 7:45?! That can’t be right. I have to be at the anthropology school at 8! Surely my watch has just clicked over to the section where it’s still on EST. Clicking through my watch settings, I find the EST one, and it is indeed 9:45 by that time. NO WAY~!
Now, something you should know about buses. They don’t really care one way or another if you’re running late. You just have to sit tight and wait. They’re not going to get to the bus stop any faster, and they’re not going to drive any faster just because you can’t do math when you’re tired at night and some how the hour to get up and get ready and the hour to get to the school become one hour and you’re left wondering how you managed to pass both statistics and a Math topics class with As.
I actually met up with someone from the IFSA group waiting for my second bus, and I told him how I was running late, etc. And we got on the second bus, and upon arriving we began to discuss the logistics of going to a class late. Well, it was 8:30 when we got there. That means half an hour late, but classes go for 2 hours. And supposedly people come to class a little late fairly frequently around here. And I remember someone telling me last semester that they went to a class with only like 10 minutes of that class left so I’m really torn about what to do: wait for my second class at 10? Or try to go to this class because it was one I really wanted to go to. Eventually it’s suggested that I just go.
The door was actually open to the classroom when I arrived, too, which was like a “well, here goes nothing.” So I walk in, and apologize. Then I’m asked where I live. Well, I’m not exactly sure what neighborhood I’m living in, so I describe where I live, which is near the round-about called el Posito. So I say this, and then the professor makes a comment, and a lot of people laugh. Something about el Posito---I’m not really sure but apparently that was the wrong thing to say. So I’m sitting there, kind of vulnerable like, not entirely sure what’s going on, and if I’ve totally screwed up or what. So they stop laughing, nad he asked me again where I live. So I’m thinking, oh, maybe it’s totally obvious that I’m some obnoxious American who thinks she can come to school late, so I say that I’m from Maryland. This starts up a whole new uproar, and then he clarifies “no, what state are you from.” Now…seriously. Obviously when it comes to Mexico I’m from the state of Yucatan, and I’ve already said I’m from Maryland. What more do you want. So I kind of repeat “Maryland” with different inflection because that’s about all I have now. One of the boys in the class recognizes it and says it’s up North. Then the professor bids me welcome, which I didn’t understand the first two times he said it (give me a break, at this point I’m just a tad-bit overwhelmed…I mean…seriously).
But the rest of the class went pretty well. I think I’ll keep it. I mean, over all the prof seemed pretty relaxed, that sort of thing. It’s going to be a discussion and lecture class. We’ll see how it goes. The class is called Anthropology of Education. I don’t really know what that means but Education sounds promising.
After that, we actually ended at 9 o’clock. So effectively I missed half the class. Several other IFSA students and another girl from another program were in that class and we sat outside waiting til 10. By 10 o’clock we had all pretty much decided we were going to try out this Rural Anthropology class which is supposedly really easy. At this point I suppose since most of the classes aren’t going to be anything to do with my major that easy is the next best thing.
We waited there for half an hour and a few other students came in, but after half an hour they explained that there was some sort of conference/meeting that all the anthropology students had to go to, so the class probably wasn’t going to happen. So we left too.
Erin and I ran to catch the bus as we were walking out, and it was just starting to rain. While we’re riding the bus to the Plaza de Fiesta I realize that I’ve got a lot of extra time since that second class was cancelled. Brilliantly, now, you can take that either sarcastically or not sarcastically, I decide I’m going to do a little exploring when I get to the Plaza de Fiesta. The spur for this was originally the length that my fingernails are acquiring and their disposition to chipping and this sort of nonsense. So I walk kind of along the path that the bus usually takes us home.
I know that there’s a super market, that kind of thing, and that’s what I head towards. It probably would’ve been better to do this on a day when I wasn’t wearing heels (even if they are my type of heels and generally pretty comfortable) and on a day when it wasn’t supposed to rain. You see, when I got off the bus it had stopped raining and I forgot about the fact that it had been raining.
So knowing the super market isn’t far, I head in that direction. You can consider this either blatantly stupid, or taking the initiative. At the time I was counting on it coming under the category “taking the initiative.” I walk into the grocery store and, as it turns out, there is a lot more than just a grocery store! There’s an almost entire mall there. Note: For those of you who were disappointed in the Plaza de Fiesta, you need not be anymore. This is right there at the Plaza de Fiesta, and it seemed like a pretty big place.
Somewhere between the bus stop and this shopping center I forgot what had really sent me on this journey and was hoping that I would be able to find a hair salon. Well, a big place like this didn’t disappoint and I was able to get some Redkin leave in conditioner specifically for curly hair. For those of you that that means nothing to, that basically just means I’m going to be a lot happier with the condition of my hair while I’m here and just generally happier as a byproduct of said conditioner.
And being down to my last 50 pesos in my wallet after buying the conditioner, I figure I should probably visit and ATM while I’m out. Well, when I had seen the hair salon I had cut through this really long line. As it turns out, that was the line for the ATM. So I kind of ended up walking around this circle three times. Once to leave, Once to find a bank, Once to leave out a different door next to the hair salon than the one I came in through, and then Finally left the area to go out the same door I entered through since that is probably a better idea due to my lack of sense of direction.
I walked across the parking lot (at this point in time it was raining pretty decently, but I didn’t mind too much because I had my conditioner and it was the kind of rain I like). Overall it actually seemed like a pretty good day for rain, not it the depressing way that I would usually tend to say that, but more in the sort of refreshing-renewal type of way that is exceptionally rare.
So I’m standing at a new bus stop which I’m really hoping is going to allow me to get on the bus. Then I’m thinking about those 50 pesos and when my next opportunity to go to a bank is going to be. And I turn around and there’s actually a bank about 50 feet away. So I go in there, withdraw some cash, woo-hoo.
Then I wait. And wait some more. And look at my watch it’s only been 3 minutes. Wait some more. About 10-15 minutes passes and finally the bus I need arrives. No problemo. Get on the bus; get off at the right stop. Check that out it all went pretty well. It’s a little drizzle-y but for whatever reason I just don’t mind today.
Come to the casa, nobody is really around. Drop my stuff off, check my e-mail real fast. Then I decide, you know, I’m going to be slightly more social. So I grab a book I’m reading and go sit in the tv room. Well it sounds like in the mean time, my host mom has come back and there’s some really good smelling stuff coming from the kitchen.
I go in, and she and Sol (the woman who helps around the house) are inside preparing for lunch. I get to help out, I do the salad. This is actually the first time I’ve probably ever made a salad that doesn’t involve opening a plastic bag of romaine lettuce and emptying a packet of Caesar dressing. But I think I did okay. Cut up some lettuce, pealed a cucumber and some carrots. Made it look pretty.
Then my host mom and I went and ran some errands. It basically just involved going to the dry cleaners and going to someone’s house who apparently repairs blenders and irons (though the iron was not unrepairable because it burnt itself out or something like that). And then we picked up my host-little sister Maria Regina from school.
We had lunch which was really good. Some tomato soup (I know check that out. You never thought you’d see those two sentences juxtaposed, did ya?). And some chicken in tortillas with black beans and my salad. With Jamaica to drink which is like a juice made from Hibiscus flower petals I believe.
After lunch I ended up getting pretty tired so I laid down at about 4 o’clock…and woke up at 6. And that’s about the extent of today. It’s actually made for a rather long post though so I hope you all enjoyed it. Overall I’d say it was a pretty good day though it started out pretty rough.
This evening I showed Maria Regina the pictures from New Years and then the pictures I have of my family. So that was cool. This internet’s been cutting out a lot this evening, but that’s okay.
Cheers! <3 Kate
Monday, January 12, 2009
January 12, 2009
In the mean time...
Well, today’s a little different because it’s the first day we begin classes…or that’s at least how it’s supposed to work. Right now it’s 10:22 and I’m waiting on a phone call so I can go to the anthropology school and meet up with Diana so we can go to the Education campus so I can see if I can take classes there (phew, that somehow seems like a mouthful).
This morning was nice though, I woke up before my alarm (this is kind of becoming a habit that I’m not entirely sure how I feel about) and got a shower and the like, got dressed, and then…well… had some free time. I didn’t connect the internet, but whoever around here who keeps their internet on all the time did send a little signal my way so I was able to check my e-mail. I had an ever-so-pleasant gaming club e-mail explaining that I was absent due to a series or run ins with the police and I believe a crystal meth addiction was involved somewhere in that tale (note: anyone who somehow doesn’t know me well enough to realize that Lee has a flair for making ridiculous e-mails should note that I am in fact studying abroad, have not been involved with the police, nor have I ever tried crystal meth). So that made me laugh.
I got some breakfast, some nutella on toast…I’m not sure if that’s actually a good breakfast or not but hey, it’s all good, right? And then since I had some time I played a little on the Allied campaign in RA3. This one wasn’t particularly difficult, in the beginning you have to get the spies into the four different buildings and then take out the rest of some stuff. Maybe I should up the difficulty a little that way I can skirmish a little better.
And basically that brings us to the here and now: 10:27, no phone call. Hopefully Diana will call sooner rather than later.
*****I think I've made it so that anyone can post comments now, just in case anyone is still having trouble with that and does want to post a comment which i *love* getting (hint hint) *****
12:30~
The lack of organization with all of this is basically ridiculous. Just to let you know. I mean, I was told that the education school was running on the same schedule as the anthropology school, and now I find out that, surprise, it’s actually not starting until the 23rd of January. And, obviously, I don’t really want to stay here that much longer after the end date, but Diana says that there are 45 hour classes that don’t go for the entire time so I could possibly take one/some of them. We’ll see. Currently I have compiled a schedule of a couple of classes that seem *meh* okay. Oh to be at SU when I would have already picked everything out…and they’re even offering two good Spanish classes this semester that I wanted to take *jealous* grr. Oh well.
9:00~
Well, I’m feeling a little bit better about things over all now. I went to the program course that’s being offered this semester which is on the archeology and culture of the Maya. It seems like it will be pretty interesting so I’m going to keep that one. That’s 2 classes down (the other being the Spanish class) 3 more to pick out. Tomorrow morning bright and early at 8 am I have the Anthropology of Education class which I have no idea what that means and then right after it at 10 I have Theories of Social Systems so hopefully both of those will be good, too =)
That’s pretty much all I have for today. Its weird not having to type up a lot of things at the end of the night, but at the same time it’s a good thing.
Well, today’s a little different because it’s the first day we begin classes…or that’s at least how it’s supposed to work. Right now it’s 10:22 and I’m waiting on a phone call so I can go to the anthropology school and meet up with Diana so we can go to the Education campus so I can see if I can take classes there (phew, that somehow seems like a mouthful).
This morning was nice though, I woke up before my alarm (this is kind of becoming a habit that I’m not entirely sure how I feel about) and got a shower and the like, got dressed, and then…well… had some free time. I didn’t connect the internet, but whoever around here who keeps their internet on all the time did send a little signal my way so I was able to check my e-mail. I had an ever-so-pleasant gaming club e-mail explaining that I was absent due to a series or run ins with the police and I believe a crystal meth addiction was involved somewhere in that tale (note: anyone who somehow doesn’t know me well enough to realize that Lee has a flair for making ridiculous e-mails should note that I am in fact studying abroad, have not been involved with the police, nor have I ever tried crystal meth). So that made me laugh.
I got some breakfast, some nutella on toast…I’m not sure if that’s actually a good breakfast or not but hey, it’s all good, right? And then since I had some time I played a little on the Allied campaign in RA3. This one wasn’t particularly difficult, in the beginning you have to get the spies into the four different buildings and then take out the rest of some stuff. Maybe I should up the difficulty a little that way I can skirmish a little better.
And basically that brings us to the here and now: 10:27, no phone call. Hopefully Diana will call sooner rather than later.
*****I think I've made it so that anyone can post comments now, just in case anyone is still having trouble with that and does want to post a comment which i *love* getting (hint hint) *****
12:30~
The lack of organization with all of this is basically ridiculous. Just to let you know. I mean, I was told that the education school was running on the same schedule as the anthropology school, and now I find out that, surprise, it’s actually not starting until the 23rd of January. And, obviously, I don’t really want to stay here that much longer after the end date, but Diana says that there are 45 hour classes that don’t go for the entire time so I could possibly take one/some of them. We’ll see. Currently I have compiled a schedule of a couple of classes that seem *meh* okay. Oh to be at SU when I would have already picked everything out…and they’re even offering two good Spanish classes this semester that I wanted to take *jealous* grr. Oh well.
9:00~
Well, I’m feeling a little bit better about things over all now. I went to the program course that’s being offered this semester which is on the archeology and culture of the Maya. It seems like it will be pretty interesting so I’m going to keep that one. That’s 2 classes down (the other being the Spanish class) 3 more to pick out. Tomorrow morning bright and early at 8 am I have the Anthropology of Education class which I have no idea what that means and then right after it at 10 I have Theories of Social Systems so hopefully both of those will be good, too =)
That’s pretty much all I have for today. Its weird not having to type up a lot of things at the end of the night, but at the same time it’s a good thing.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
January 11, 2009
Well, today is one week of being here (woo-hoo). Chelsea has informed me that that means we have 19 weeks left. Looking at it that way makes it seem a little shorter, but this week was sooooo long. That’s okay, I imagine by the time we’re down to 2 weeks I’ll be wishing it were longer. …no probably not. Realistically I’ll probably be a little sad to leave people I’ve met here but eager to go home and see people. =) At least my family gets to come visit me in April =) =)
Today was kind of odd, I woke up a lot before it was actually time to get up, but just kept going back to sleep for something along the lines of 20 minute intervals. Oh well. I was actually rather sore when I got up, but my host-family and I were planning on going to the beach. About an hour after being there, though, I started to feel rather sick. I did get to start that book though (or, well, I got to read more of it, I had started a little bit of it earlier. It’s interesting, I feel like there are some points that I’m hoping they explain as it continues, because right now I feel like things are a little, not exactly contradictory, but generally unclear).
So I laid down and slept for most of our time at the beach, which was kind of disappointing. I feel bad because they basically went to the beach for me, actually brought chicken special for me because I don’t eat seafood, and then I just didn’t feel well enough to do much of anything. My host-mom gave me something that was kind of like Alka-Seltzer (how appropriate that I would have that on Will’s birthday), and I was off to sleep.
After I woke up I felt a little bit better. I was told I would be better off not eating the chicken, but that apparently chocolate cake was okay so I had a slice of that with some Coca Cola Light. When we got back, things started looking up really quickly.
I took a shower and then called Will, Kryssy, and Andy who were celebrating his birthday. We only got to talk for a little while but it was still really good to hear from them and to hear that Will enjoyed his birthday. They apparently had funfetti cake with dark icing, red sprinkles, and blue writing frosting: their mouths were black after that.
Fairly soon after I finished talking to them I gave Lee a call; apparently I inadvertently banished him outside to the freezing while we talked (sorry about that) though I didn’t really realize it at the time. It’s really odd to think that it’s snowing and that sort of thing out there when it’s so balmy here. But that was really, really good to talk to him, too. =)
Tonight I went over to Chelsea’s casa and we watched Hitch which was really good, quite funny. I don’t think I’ve seen all of it before, I’d only seen parts but that was definitely good. Will Smith is the man. Speaking of which I never did get around to seeing 7 pounds, though I saw that it was playing in a local movie theater. I think I’d probably rather see it in English though, so I’ll wait on that.
That pretty much brings me up til now. I got to talk a little with Kryssy and J. Apparently my bed is going to remain…well…my bed. …Sorta. Basically just that my bed back in our (her) dorm room isn’t going to become Kryssy’s bed. She also doesn’t have a roommate this semester so that’ll be pretty good for her.
Well, I’m getting pretty tired, and tomorrow is going to be as confusing as all get out. Hopefully I’ll figure out something of what I’m doing. I’m waiting on a phone call about when to leave so I can go to the Education school.
So good night to everyone, an pleasant dreams (hopefully now that I’ve touched base with a lot of people mine will be too, as dreaming here has been rather harsh…)
Cheers, Kate <3
Today was kind of odd, I woke up a lot before it was actually time to get up, but just kept going back to sleep for something along the lines of 20 minute intervals. Oh well. I was actually rather sore when I got up, but my host-family and I were planning on going to the beach. About an hour after being there, though, I started to feel rather sick. I did get to start that book though (or, well, I got to read more of it, I had started a little bit of it earlier. It’s interesting, I feel like there are some points that I’m hoping they explain as it continues, because right now I feel like things are a little, not exactly contradictory, but generally unclear).
So I laid down and slept for most of our time at the beach, which was kind of disappointing. I feel bad because they basically went to the beach for me, actually brought chicken special for me because I don’t eat seafood, and then I just didn’t feel well enough to do much of anything. My host-mom gave me something that was kind of like Alka-Seltzer (how appropriate that I would have that on Will’s birthday), and I was off to sleep.
After I woke up I felt a little bit better. I was told I would be better off not eating the chicken, but that apparently chocolate cake was okay so I had a slice of that with some Coca Cola Light. When we got back, things started looking up really quickly.
I took a shower and then called Will, Kryssy, and Andy who were celebrating his birthday. We only got to talk for a little while but it was still really good to hear from them and to hear that Will enjoyed his birthday. They apparently had funfetti cake with dark icing, red sprinkles, and blue writing frosting: their mouths were black after that.
Fairly soon after I finished talking to them I gave Lee a call; apparently I inadvertently banished him outside to the freezing while we talked (sorry about that) though I didn’t really realize it at the time. It’s really odd to think that it’s snowing and that sort of thing out there when it’s so balmy here. But that was really, really good to talk to him, too. =)
Tonight I went over to Chelsea’s casa and we watched Hitch which was really good, quite funny. I don’t think I’ve seen all of it before, I’d only seen parts but that was definitely good. Will Smith is the man. Speaking of which I never did get around to seeing 7 pounds, though I saw that it was playing in a local movie theater. I think I’d probably rather see it in English though, so I’ll wait on that.
That pretty much brings me up til now. I got to talk a little with Kryssy and J. Apparently my bed is going to remain…well…my bed. …Sorta. Basically just that my bed back in our (her) dorm room isn’t going to become Kryssy’s bed. She also doesn’t have a roommate this semester so that’ll be pretty good for her.
Well, I’m getting pretty tired, and tomorrow is going to be as confusing as all get out. Hopefully I’ll figure out something of what I’m doing. I’m waiting on a phone call about when to leave so I can go to the Education school.
So good night to everyone, an pleasant dreams (hopefully now that I’ve touched base with a lot of people mine will be too, as dreaming here has been rather harsh…)
Cheers, Kate <3
Saturday, January 10, 2009
January 10, 2009
Well, it is a pleasure to report that today went pretty well. I got to sleep in a little and then we walked around Merida (which was rather boring). I say it was boring because it was relatively impossible to hear what was being said and I was turned around so it wasn’t really helping me get to know where things were or anything. After that though, we went to Progresso, the playa (beach).
For a round-trip ticket it was 24 pesos which is less than $2.40. The bus was really nice too, with the carpet seats and that sort of thing; like a coach bus. At the beach, Chelsea and I had Dominoes pepperoni pizza, Coca Cola Lights, and Cinnamon bread. To eat without having to think about it was amazing. And the pizza was pretty good, too. I think the Dominoes up at SU is still objectively better, but this was quite good pizza in out little out-of-the-States situation. This pizza and cinnamon bread did have a small draw back: first there was one bee, and then it was like a children’s book because it finally went away (much to my relief) but came back with a friend, then they went away and brought back two more friends until we had 8 bees flying around with a generally panic-y me. Chelsea saved the day though, she put the boxes under a towel until the bees went away and we were able to eat a slice at a time in relative peace. 
The weather was pretty nice at the beach and the water was decently warm (kind of cool but definitely not cold). Because it was getting to be late afternoon though and it was somewhat cloudy it didn’t seem like it stayed warm here for too long. We ended up going back around 4 or so.
The weather was pretty nice at the beach and the water was decently warm (kind of cool but definitely not cold). Because it was getting to be late afternoon though and it was somewhat cloudy it didn’t seem like it stayed warm here for too long. We ended up going back around 4 or so.
So we got on the bus with our tickets and got off a little later than was perhaps necessary, but this was only going to save us a little bit of walking so neither or us really minded. We get on the 52 Norte bus and made sure it passed by the round about near our houses and chill out for the ride. That’s where the confusion was. You see, Chelsea’s mom seemed to say that the bus would turn around and we could get off on the same side of the street as our houses. Well, after we had passed by the round about and such, the bus driver looks at us and says effectively “…weren’t you supposed to get off at that round about?” At which point I basically just shrug and say yeah but oh well.
Hahaha, so we road around on the bus for a while longer. Tonight my 5 peso bus ride went pretty far. If we do that every time, then we’ll get the most ride for our money. In reality this was our plan, not like we actually forgot to get off the bus or any nonsense like that.
After that I came back to the house, Chelsea and I decided not to go out again tonight. It was a pleasant day and getting smashed just wasn’t quite on the menu for today. That gave me a little time to make a phone call or two (one of which worked and the other one a certain someone needs to learn to pick of their phone because this is the 2nd/4th time this week I’ve attempted to call with no success…at least it sounded like the phone was on this time…?) Oh well, it’s all good. Mayhaps tomorrow.
I put pictures on facebook from the day (and a couple from earlier in the week). You can look at them here if you like; a lot of them are kind of boring—just buildings and the like, but if you want a glimpse of Merida that’s why they’re there. =)
Well, for the rest of the night I think I’m going to do some reading and that sort of thing. A nice close to a pretty good day.
Cheers! <3>
Friday, January 9, 2009
January 9, 2009
About this picture I would simply like to say one thing: you can send me one of these to the address at the library. I’m sure there will be no trouble getting it through customs, and then I can just ride it back into the States; no one has to pay for airfare. That being said, we’ll continue with the actual part of the day.
Well, today is going to be much less a “this is what I did today and this is the order in which they transpired.” I’m going to start by pointing out something that makes me quite sad. The water here in the shower is much harder than the water in the States. It has a lot of minerals, that kind of thing (that’s why you can’t drink it). Unfortunately, that also means that my hair is in terrible condition after less than a week of being here. >.<>
There was an up side to today though. Remember that diet coke I had in the airport? Well, that is far from the best coke I have ever had. Today I had a miracle Coke Light (sorry Papo, this is more like Coke Zero which I still think is better than diet coke as a general rule) but after a week of no soda, that was absolutely amazing. Actually it kind of took me from tired and generally ready to go home-home, to relatively content and optimistic. I highly recommend pepsi products (haha you thought I’d say coke, didn’t you?) to any one in need of therapy. This may also become a Friday affair. Fridays should be celebrated with soda. I can deal with 8 pesos worth of coke each week. Actually maybe I can have pepsi or something if I go out in the evenings who knows. We learned that there are open-bar type places here. You pay something like a cover charge but then you can have as much inside as you want. At least that’s what it sounded like. So maybe that means “free” pepsi. Maybe.
Today, while we were dragging ourselves through our final day of orientation, someone came in only briefly (he’s an academic tutor) who vaguely reminded me of the guy who stared in Red Eye (I know, I know, I should probably have though “hey, that looks like the guy who plays the Scarecrow in Batman,” but alas, I saw Red Eye first). …That really doesn’t have very much to do with anything but that’s what I thought when I saw him.
We were given a tutorial of this volunteer program that we have to participate in at least one Saturday while we’re here. I think that there are a lot of opportunities to do a lot of different things but I’m not entirely sure.
The US Consolate dropped by, too. I like him, if I had to have someone come visit me in jail I guess at least it’s someone who seems pretty nice and generally good spirited. I suppose good spirits might not be enough though if I’m in jail. So no offense to him but I hope I don’t have to run into him again; or at least I hope that I don’t ever need his services.
On the way home from orientation we dropped by the mall. It’s pretty big, and wouldn’t look out of place at all in the states. It’s much nicer than the Harford mall or the mall(s) in Frederick. It was two levels.
Uhm, what else? I don’t know, tomorrow the plan is to take a walking tour around Merida and then a bunch of us are going to the beach so that should be a lot of fun. =) This evening Chelsea and I were going to get together and watch a movie but her host mom wasn’t home, so we’ll wait for a little while and then do it another night, maybe once we get back from the beach or something like that. And that’s okay with me because I don’t mind having a free evening at all.
I do have my cell phone here up and working (not that that effects any of you all but it’s good for here in Mexico so I can call around if I need to).
At the same time, I’m not the only one struggling with our Spanish class. It sounds like basically all of us are a little lost except for the two people who are basically fluent and they can opt out of the class. Maybe it’ll get a little better as we go along and he sees where our level is. =)
Pues, I think that’s about it. I really appreciate all the e-mails and comments. I know the plaza de fiesta seems to have been a point of disappointment for many, but it’s nice to hear from everyone! I had a rather rough morning--I stumbled across new years pictures in my backpack which were nice to look at but made me a little more homesick, and then I was so tired that thinking about home was all I could do to keep myself awake during the lecture this morning in orientation. It's been nice talking with my parents each night though. I love you all, <3
Thursday, January 8, 2009
January 8, 2009
Triumph! Hot water this morning in the shower…well…warm water in any case which was quite sufficient. It would seem that I have finally managed to figure out the shower system which involves two knobs and a little bit of waiting time. In either case, I have sacked the cold shower routine from my mornings here in Mexico.
Moving right along, Chelsea and I took the bus by ourselves this morning (we’re getting to be big girls now; we can go all by ourselves). The buses are rather funny things, while I’m talking about them. A lot of them have a little plate, or emblem of La Virgen, that sort of thing. I one of the ones this morning said something to the effect of “Only God is enough.” Now, the thing is, just the other day, I saw a ceramic picture-type thing of La Virgen hanging in between two playboy bunny stickers. Contemplate that view for just a moment. …Yeah I thought it was a little odd, too.
But we got off the bus, it dropped us off at the Plaza Fiesta, and we got on the next bus. For orientation this morning, things actually went by pretty quickly. We learned not to do anything stupid, and that “No” doesn’t actually mean no necessarily in Mexico. Here the dating game is he asks, she says no, he pursues, and finally she says “ok” and everything is perfect. The confidence is admirable, the instigation is fantastic, and however the whole “no” doesn’t mean no thing could get really old really fast.
We also got to see some pictures of Chiapas and el Inframundo (the two options we have for later this month for a 4 day excursion). Both of the trips seem to be really neat, and the professor who spoke about Inframundo seemed really nice, and was clear. I could possibly take a class with him this semester on Underwater Archaeology. We’ll see. I’m asking about classes in the Education Campus so hopefully I’ll find out about that tomorrow.
And this is when things went from moving around quite nicely to moving slower than molasses in the weather you guys are having up north. We got an entire overview of Mexican history. Now, I don’t really know what he talked about for two hours, I know it had to do with Mexican history, and I know Gustavo had the answers to most of the questions he asked. I looked at my schedule for classes which we have to take 5 of. I’m hoping that I will be able to take some classes at the education school because there aren’t very many that I particularly want to take at the Anthropology school.
Finally we got to eat lunch. After lunch though we went to Spanish class which I was kind of looking forward to but it wasn’t as fun as I’d hoped. It’s still going to be an extraordinarily helpful class, but it’s not going be easy like all my other Spanish classes have been. We read articles for class though, and mine was about flights to the Merida airport, which apparently they’re adding a couple of international flights in spite of La Crisis (bad economy) so that there’s not a decline in people doing airfare and airtravel. Seems like a bit of a risk to me, the possibility to waste more funds than you end up gaining but hopefully it works out for them.
We left the school just after 6 (class got out a little tardy) and Chelsea’s host mom picked us up. I have no crazy stories to share today about a lack of camion and waiting in the dark. …That’s probably a good thing though.
Moving right along, Chelsea and I took the bus by ourselves this morning (we’re getting to be big girls now; we can go all by ourselves). The buses are rather funny things, while I’m talking about them. A lot of them have a little plate, or emblem of La Virgen, that sort of thing. I one of the ones this morning said something to the effect of “Only God is enough.” Now, the thing is, just the other day, I saw a ceramic picture-type thing of La Virgen hanging in between two playboy bunny stickers. Contemplate that view for just a moment. …Yeah I thought it was a little odd, too.
But we got off the bus, it dropped us off at the Plaza Fiesta, and we got on the next bus. For orientation this morning, things actually went by pretty quickly. We learned not to do anything stupid, and that “No” doesn’t actually mean no necessarily in Mexico. Here the dating game is he asks, she says no, he pursues, and finally she says “ok” and everything is perfect. The confidence is admirable, the instigation is fantastic, and however the whole “no” doesn’t mean no thing could get really old really fast.
We also got to see some pictures of Chiapas and el Inframundo (the two options we have for later this month for a 4 day excursion). Both of the trips seem to be really neat, and the professor who spoke about Inframundo seemed really nice, and was clear. I could possibly take a class with him this semester on Underwater Archaeology. We’ll see. I’m asking about classes in the Education Campus so hopefully I’ll find out about that tomorrow.
And this is when things went from moving around quite nicely to moving slower than molasses in the weather you guys are having up north. We got an entire overview of Mexican history. Now, I don’t really know what he talked about for two hours, I know it had to do with Mexican history, and I know Gustavo had the answers to most of the questions he asked. I looked at my schedule for classes which we have to take 5 of. I’m hoping that I will be able to take some classes at the education school because there aren’t very many that I particularly want to take at the Anthropology school.
Finally we got to eat lunch. After lunch though we went to Spanish class which I was kind of looking forward to but it wasn’t as fun as I’d hoped. It’s still going to be an extraordinarily helpful class, but it’s not going be easy like all my other Spanish classes have been. We read articles for class though, and mine was about flights to the Merida airport, which apparently they’re adding a couple of international flights in spite of La Crisis (bad economy) so that there’s not a decline in people doing airfare and airtravel. Seems like a bit of a risk to me, the possibility to waste more funds than you end up gaining but hopefully it works out for them.
We left the school just after 6 (class got out a little tardy) and Chelsea’s host mom picked us up. I have no crazy stories to share today about a lack of camion and waiting in the dark. …That’s probably a good thing though.
This is Chelsea =) ----->
And the first picture up at the top is La Plaza de Fiesta for your viewing pleasure :)
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
January 7, 2009
Phew, I’m starting this a little late this evening, but it seems like everything was pushed back an hour today. We were gifted an extra hour of sleep last night (we got to start at 9 which means getting up at 6:45), but somehow that hour seems to have evaporated a little. I didn’t end up falling asleep til 11 and I woke up 15 minutes before the alarm. People here in
In any case, we took the bus to school this morning, Chelsea, me, and my host mom. At the plaza de fiesta, which is where we catch the second bus, we waited over half an hour for the bus which finally came to take us the rest of the way to UADY anthropologia campus. UADY is referred to here so that it sounds like ‘wadi’ or “oo-ahd-ee.”
I believe this morning that we talked about academic classes. We did get a chance to tour the library and get log ons for the computers. It costs 50 centavos to print a regular page in black and white which is fairly inexpensive. SU spoiled me a little though with the free printing.
For lunch today I had three little burritos, a salad which was composed of lettuce and carrots, and some pineapple and papaya. The salad I actually ate a little with this guacamole. It wasn’t thick guacamole like guacamole seems to look at chipotle, it was a little more liquidy, but I was actually surprised to find I liked it. (Of course, we had waited an awful long time to eat so at that point I was pretty sure I wouldn’t’ve bothered to pick out tomatoes from too many things either had they been present).
After lunch we had the best part of orientation: Spanish Class. Now, at first I wasn’t particularly excited for this part as I’m not exactly exuberant to start with the whole “getting back to working” phase that school tends to involve for one reason or another. But this was actually really good. Our professor is easy on the eyes and seems to be really nice and fairly enthusiastic. He’s also willing to give corrections and that sort of thing so the class is actually going to be useful instead of worthless.
After class was over, it was 6 o’clock. Chelsea and I went to the bus stop right outside of the school to wait for the camion. It was actually getting dark by this time. But the two of us were fairly content to chat (in English). I feel like I should have a lot more to add to my Male Theory after that conversation, but I’m not sure how you put “how ‘bout you take the initiative’ and ‘how about you just tell me what on earth is going on’ out of the female perspective and into the male perspective. Maybe you can’t, and that’s why such rifts exist. In any case, I’ll try and work on that for you all.
Moving right along, we kept talking. And then we were wondering if the bus was ever going to get here, and wondering if maybe we should call someone, though it would have either cost my host family money (if my cell phone even worked which I wasn’t sure of) or cost Chelsea a ridiculous amount since her phone is her one from home. But we kept talking. And eventually my cell phone rang. The conversation went something like this:
“Hello?”
“Hello, Kate? This is Laticia.”
“Hey.”
“Where are you?”
“We’re waiting for the bus, but it hasn’t come yet.”
“Are the other students there?”
“No…it’s just us two girls…well, wait, there looks like there are two other people over there, but it’s kind of dark so I’m not sure if they’re students or not.”
“Okay, I don’t have the car, but I’m going to get it. You two stay right there. Do not move. I’m going to come get you.”
And she did a little while later, after say an hour or so of chilling at the bus stop. Maybe a little more or less, I’m not entirely sure. But we did go to wal*mart and got there around 8:20. Apparently, if you try to shop lift from wal*mart here and you get caught then you have to pay three times the amount of money the item is worth and wal*mart can still sue you. Now, before you start wondering “how do you know that?” I’m going to say this had absolutely nothing to do with me. There was a muchacha trying to take money out of the ATM when we finished surrounded by four or five police-women carrying guns. Security seems pretty beefed up around here like they all drink powerthirst or something who knows (insert witty powerthirst flavor here).
When we got home, I had chicken in a sort of cream sauce with noodles and after eating it for awhile, I realized what it tasted like: beef stroganoff. I don’t know how you get beef stroganoff out of chicken in cream sauce, but that’s exactly what it tasted like. And I got to round off the meal with a piece of twix that I bought at wal*mart.
Bueno, I think that’s about the entirety of my day. A side note from yesterday is that here they sell Tacos and Tortas in the same locations. If you’re like me, in Spanish class you were taught that tacos are tacos and tortas are cakes/pies. Well, in
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