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
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
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
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