February 14, 2009

Happy Valentines day. Okay so this is kind of exceptionally late in terms of posting, but I’ve been ridiculously busy. Valentines day for me consisted of a lot of homework which is unusual for a Saturday. But I read for Mayan Civ and I read in part for Rural Anthro. Generally just a lot of homeworking. I was later reminded that it was in fact Valentines day.

It was kind of interesting, it didn’t really seem like my host family did anything special to commemorate it. Instead of being a kind of family-love holiday it seemed like it was more restricted to couples and that sort of thing. I think my host parents went out, and Jimena’s boyfriend was over at the house all day while Maria del Mar was at her boyfriend’s house. So that’s all good and well.

In the evening, I went to Amarantus to celebrate Erica’s birthday. I think her actual birthday was Friday we were celebrating on Saturday. Earlier in the evening they went and had sushi for dinner.

Anyway Amarantus is a disco. And apparently an exceptionally popular one. Wasn’t really a huge fan of the hordes of people that were packed in there. For the first time I think I saw where Will and Craig and the boys were coming from at H2O (senior week). Anyway, just wasn’t a fan of this one. That’s okay. In part I think I was also just a little nervous of leaving my purse…or of having it with me. Even as I walked out the door I just had this feeling I was going to loose it, or leave it, or have something stolen from it. It all turned out fine; I still have everything. Oh well, next time. =) Next time in a place where I can both breath and stand up without a constant wave of people brushing up and bumping into me.

I came back to the house at 2 AM and the people more or less next door were having a party. With music. I’m pretty sure that would never fly in the USA, but they were crankin’ it up. Even with the doors closed and the windows shut I could still hear it like I’d left my laptop on. I mean, it wasn’t blaring or anything, but I could still make out lyrics and all that.

So that was the day. Pretty uneventful, but I kind of had my Valentines Day earlier in the week when I got my cards from my grandparents and family =).

However, as it *is* [/was] Valentines Day, we might be due for some more theory. Admittedly, this theory is brought to you courtesy of Chelsea, as she noted this and put it into words before I did. She just didn’t realize she was contributing to the Male Theory Anthology.

Male Theory:
Mexican Males are attracted to Damsels in Distress while American Males are attracted to Mulans. Eh-hem. That is to say, Mexican males like to help, to fawn over, to ‘be the man’ of the relationship. American Males, on the other hand, want you to be just as tough as they are. They’re going to applaud you if you layout for the Frisbee (read: if you sacrifice your body to the unforgiving ground in order to catch said flying disc).

It’s been interesting, because since we’ve been here most of the girls have actually found novios…or at least hooked up enough to say they found a boy (or several) for awhile. I could be wrong, but most of those who haven’t, have boyfriends back in the States. At the same time, I think a lot of people were hoping to do that, too… On the other hand, it’s actually a some what beneficial thing in that you figure your Spanish would dramatically improve. If you’re hanging out with someone who only speaks Spanish all the time then that’s your only option, too. Learn a lot that way.

…J, I don’t think you’re reading this, but I had quite a bit of female theory for you, but I seem to have managed to forget it. If I remember, I’ll try to let you know. In any case, I hope everyone had a lovely Valentines day. Ciao ~ <3 Kate

February 13, 2009

OoooO Guess who’s a slacker (*singing* she’s a slacker, she’s a cracker…) yep it’s me. And I’m not really going to post on Thursday because I’m pretty sure nothing memorable happened.

Friday. I suppose I’ll go in order. And I’m not sure if I’ve already written similar sentiments to what you’re about to read, if that’s the case then I apologize for the redundancy, but it’s just as true now as it was earlier.

8 AM: I go to class. Our prof from the infierno is back. This is so very unfortunate: for several reasons. At 8 o’clock in the morning, it’s way to early to be mad. I’m really not an angry person. I think of myself as generally a pretty happy kid, but from here on out, between 8 and 10 every Wednesday and Friday (excluding days off of school) I’m going to be fuming in my seat for two hours. TWO HOURS! Two hours of sitting in one of those little black chairs, simply angry. Barely able to pay attention. Not really able to put my finger on specifically what it is that’s causing this warranted anger, only that this woman in the front of the classroom is causing it.

When Miriam (was that how her name was spelt?) was teachin’ the class, I was happy as a clam. Hey it was still the same work, but at least she wasn’t an inconsiderate biscuit eater who doesn’t have any mercy for people who aren’t from this facultad/Mexico/a Spanish speaking country. Arrrrrggggggggg.

When this class finally finished, Ashley (oh, she (meaning the professor) decided we were just randomly going to have a test on Friday (mind you there’s absolutely nothing in the syllabus about tests…or the novel…what’s next?)) laughed as I ranted. I really do though, that class just makes me incredibly angry. And it’s really just too early in the morning to be that enojada.

Moving on. After that I hopped on the school bus and went to el Centro where I watched this guy feeding the pigeons while I waited for Mandy. This guy was feeding them I don’t know what, but there was a lake of them at his feet and two or three had hopped up in his hands. These are wild pigeons. Just chillin’ there in his hands. Crazy.

Then Mandy and I went to Progreso, and even though we made it there relatively early, we still weren’t able to take advantage of the sun. We were hungry and waiting for Ashley and her boy to show up and didn’t want to get all nasty before said food.
I wore my new flip flops, but that was a terrible idea. Walking around…yeah no. I have blisters on my feet and even now (since it’s actually the next evening) my feet are still hurting. Yeah…that’s rather unfortunate.

Anyway, we ate at this super-sweet place. It’s called a cocina económica. For 25 pesos I had a whole meal. 25 pesos, my lunch was like $1.75 (I happened to have my own drink, but even if I’d bought a drink it would have been less than $2.50). And it was really good. I had chicken with potatoes in some sort of red sauce with rice and beans. Very, very tasty. Definitely the way to do lunch I think. Next time we go we’ll probably go back there.

The Cocinas Económicas are a México/Yucatán thing. Usually they’re run by women in the community, and what they serve changes on a daily basis. It’s made to be cheap, but a good sized meal. We actually had half portions which were perfect. But that was kind of a neat piece of culture right there.

After that we went and rolled out on the beach. Ashley brought her ukulele and did some beautiful singing, and then we just kind of laid on the beach until the most obvious question arose: did we want some postre (dessert)? Yes. Yes we did. And what did we want? Something like chocolate cake. Oh. Yes.

Mandy and I walked around to all the restaurants on the beach and asked/looked at menus to see if they had chocolate cake but we were out of luck until we came to the end of the row where several very excitable waiters told us that we should go to the Super [market]. And that’s exactly what we did. We got what was like an éclair cake (by which I mean it was actually white cake with what was like boston crème as a layer in the middle with chocolate on top with a cherry) for 39 pesos. We also bought plastic forks so the final total was like 50 pesos. Majorly cheap (once again) and I would also like to inform you that between the four of us, we ate this entire cake. Mandy (hopefully) has pictures which when she gets them developed hopefully I can snag a digital copy. It was beautiful.

We then came back to Merida, and hopped busses home. My feet were killing me by this point in time, and while there was a party for the UADY going on, I was informed it wasn’t super-fantastic and I didn’t really feel like going out anymore anyway.
So in conclusion, the day was good minus the two hours in the morning where I had to sit through that painful migrations class. Not too bad for a Friday the 13th. But seriously, who’d have thought a class with such interesting subject matter could be such a terror? Yeah…me neither.

Cheers! <3 Kate

February 11, 2009

Well folks, today I did two things that I’ve never done before. Well, I think it’s two; it could possibly be only one, although the probability that I have done the second thing is relatively low. First of all, I ate pepperoni-mushroom pizza. And I didn’t pick off the mushrooms or anything. Aren’t you proud of me? I couldn’t really taste much difference, really…but I did try a mushroom the other day in my salad and it wasn’t so bad either. Once again I couldn’t really taste anything but it had an interesting texture. The second thing that I believe I most likely have never done before is I had pizza with water. That’s right, pizza and water.

Mkay so moving on to the actual day. I got up, and classes weren’t actually so bad because Cavernas was cancelled. Chelsea was saying on the way home “Tomorrow’s Thursday!” and I looked at here and said “Today was Wednesday?” And then … obviously it was. It just didn’t quite seem like it because it wasn’t as exhausting as it normally is.

I did get quite a bit done. Got some readings for class, did some reading for class, wrote a couple of necessary e-mails. Stuff like that. I got a valentine from my family which was fun, and it had a chocolate bar in it which I savored (read: gobbled up).

During the evening, see there’s actually more to the story regarding the pizza. Today Mexico and the USA played each other in futbol (soccer). It was apparently quite a big deal down here, a lot of people were going out to watch the game, etc. My host sister Jimena (25) had the game on in the living room (?) and I asked if I could watch it with her. So we sat there and watched the game/did homework and then she ordered pizza for the two of us, her boyfriend who came over, and then the youngest host sister Maria Regina. Exciting, ne? It was kinda cool. (For those of you who are unaware, the final score was 2-0 EUA [USA]). Rich wasn’t very happy.

I feel like there should be more writing for today, it seems like a lot happened, but I suppose those were probably the highlights and what’s really important. =) Hope everyone has a good night/day.
Cheers~ Kate <3

February 10, 2009

So, setting the time you want to wake up and turning the alarm on are two entirely different concepts. I highly recommend making sure that you have correctly performed both tasks before shutting the eyelids for the night. Unfortunately, I missed that final step. The whole turning the alarm on helps for the whole getting up on time process. Needless to say, I woke up later than planned.

9 o’clock rolled around and my thoughts went something like this: Wow, I feel rather rested; I didn’t think that I would—oh no! I was supposed to get up at 7:45 and be on the bus at 9. I ran out of the house, waffle in my mouth, and caught the Circuito and got to school actually no problems. About 5 minutes to spare (woo!).

I talked a little in class in the beginning. Maybe that’ll count toward some participation points. I also realized that I have a presentation to give in all of my classes next week lol. Two on Monday, One on Tuesday, and One on Friday. Talk about a busy week.

Annnnd after class they were giving away tacos but I didn’t really feel like waiting in line. I went home (stopped by the grocery store on the way to pick up sodas for lunches) and took a rather delayed shower since I hadn’t had the time to do it that morning.

We ate lunch, and afterwards I called my grandparents to thank them for the Valentines Day card I got in the mail. Personally I’m a fan of Valentines Day even if I’m never dating anyone and it’s just a “hallmark holiday.” I still think it’s fun.

At around 4 Chelsea and I went and got milkshakes which were amazing. And we pretty much just chatted for about an hour about whatever came up, boy stuff, there’s never a finite supply of that. It’s nice to do that every once and awhile, too.

It’s really not been a very productive day. When I got back from that I ended up talking on the phone to Kryssy for almost an hour and catching up with stuff there at SU on her end. That was cool. Aaaaaand yeah. Really not done anything. Need to read for Migrations class tomorrow. I did actually manage to finish my novel for that class though. It was okay, not probably something I’d normally be inclined to read, but it was alright. Much better than some of the academic readings we’ve been doing. And on another positive note Cavernas is canceled which is pretty nifty.

I imagine that there won’t be much else interesting going on for the rest of the night, either, so I’m gonna go ahead and post this so I don’t end up forgetting and you all are left without your nightly reading hehe.
Cheers! Kate <3

February 9, 2009

Mondays are pretty nice here because I wake up pretty much whenever because my first class is at 12. By whenever I mean sometime before 9:45 which apparently is not a feat here. Either way, I actually started a little bit of homework for Wednesday when I woke up, which was definitely helpful later this evening when I had to finish up said homework.

For “lunch” at 10:30 I made myself a sandwich and toasted it. It was quite enjoyable with a side of cantaloupe. Yum, and a little brownie to finish it all off. And then it was off to class where I talked with Mandy on the bus. She went to Isla Mujeres over the weekend and had a ball so that’s really sweet. Apparently that’s a really touristy are though, and they were told by their Spanish prof they should go to this other island that’s all sand and not touristy but you can rent golf carts to get around. Sounds like a pretty nice spot.

Cavernas actually went by pretty quickly. We had three presentations and didn’t have to waste time “discussing” them. And after that it was about 2. By 2:30 I was getting rather hungry. But I mean, you figure 4 hours later, that’s not exactly too unusual. I had a hamburger…which was in fact a hamburger. I mean, there was literally ham on my burger. It was pretty yummy too.

Then we were off for our 3 hour long Mayan Civ class. This class I usually don’t have much trouble with either. It’s only once a week, and with that in mind, I can just treat it like any other night class. And it’s interesting to boot so that helps.

It took a while to get home. We had to wait for the bus for quite a bit, and then we had to wait for the second bus for quite a while. Chelsea and I ended up striking up a conversation with a guy who was waiting for the Circuito Metropolitano too. It was a really short conversation, but hey, that was okay. It was kind of unfortunate though because for the entire bus rides home my stomach was really hurting . Yesterday, right after I finished writing you all I had a stomach ache, too. Hopefully this isn’t a new trend.

Um, but then I got home, was able to do some e-mail checking, that sort of thing, and at dinner I had the best waffles I’ve ever eaten. We’re going to look past the part of the meal that involves me eating breakfast food at dinner time, and just go with the fact that they were delicious. I ate them with apricot marmalade. You see, I don’t like syrup, so I like my waffles with jam when I eat them =)

Then this evening generally involved me trying to get my final year at college organized. Which shouldn’t actually be a difficult task except that teaching in the spring messes everything up. I need more credits that I can actually take (grr) and so that’s just a whole ‘nother world of trying to figure stuff out. I e-mailed my advisor though, hopefully we can sort it out.

And I chatted with my dear Will over AIM. And my mom too of course. Aaaaaand yep. That’s all Folks *cue Looney Tunes* Cheers <3 Kate

February 8, 2009

Trulelulelu… let’s see, what happened today? I woke up. When I woke up I felt like I had dreamt a lot though I don’t remember these dreams now. Slowly but surely it seems that people from here in Mexico are beginning to make their way into the dreamscape. I know I woke up and thought I was home at one point in the morning, but that’s not the first time this has happened, but I think that Chelsea was also involved in one of the dreams I had last night.

In either case, Sunday is a work day. At least that was one thing that seemed to maintain itself…or at least it did for this weekend. I had a ton of reading for Mayan Civ, and I read a little for Cavernas. And somehow that doesn’t look like a lot when I type it, but it was a *ton* of reading for Mayan Civ, it took somewhere between 3 and 4 hours to do.

At lunch time I went and had lunch. I don’t remember what we had, but I was told that it was food from the northern part of the country (not that it was actually transported from there, but it’s typical of there). I finished Mayan Civ, and then took a break for a bit and ended up talking to Will for a bit online. Chit chat stuff. For a moment the conversation seemed so normal that I felt like I was sitting at my desk and Will was only upstairs instead of…outside and in a different country. That’s okay, it was good. Nice not to have to talk about Mexico.

Mmmmm Cavernas, and then I decided to watch a movie after I chatted with my mom for a bit. It was a movie with Dane Cook, most of the people reading this wouldn’t like it, so My Best Friend’s Girl is not going to be your movie of choice. Lot of language.

Aaaand after that I had dinner, which consisted of cereal and half a sandwich. And when I got back to my room I decided I wasn’t exactly full, and had some more cardboard disks. And now I’m quite content.

I did go back and beat that level in RA3 (I know you were all wondering). ***Mild spoiler warning here for those of you who may play and/or haven’t finished the Allied campaign***And then in the next one, oh man, Tanya and Natasha working together. I’m pretty sure that’s the most brilliant thing these game creators have come up with. But I got so distracted with that and amused with the concept of those two having to work together that ***end spoiler*** I didn’t realize I apparently had a construction yard, and so when it was suddenly gone, and Kenji (I actually don’t know what that kid’s name is and I’m not going to look it up so I’ll just go with a stock name) came on and was like “That was so easy I can’t even brag about it” I just had to laugh because, clearly, that was too easy. I left the thing wide open. Didn’t even know I had it. Anyway that was funny. For those of you who just read this paragraph and have absolutely no idea what I’m prattling on about, sorry, hehe. Just go with, I made such a huge oversight when the game made fun of me I was laughing too.

So yep. That’s about it, not a very exciting day, but I did go sit outside for about 30 minutes in the sun just to enjoy the weather (that’s when I was talking with Will, so I could kind of only barely see my computer screen but that’s okay. Just remind me when I’ve got squinting-wrinkles around my eyes that I didn’t care when I was busy making them).

And tomorrow is Monday. Which isn’t exactly exciting. But it’s only two classes (even if one is 3 hours) and it’s a go in later day. On the other hand, today marks 5 weeks of being here, which is ¼ of the 20. (I can hear the ‘enjoy your time here while you still have it’ comments now, but give me a break, just because I’m counting doesn’t mean that I think I’m having a terrible time or anything, just means that I know I have 15 more weeks of mexico left). And 11 more days til Mom comes. Which is mighty excitin’ as well. Hehe =D

So that’s basically all I got. Have a lovely day~
Cheers~ <3 Kate

PS: i did mention the whole abuelita thing to my host-mom, and she didn't know what the abuela was talking about so...yeah. Who knows, but at least that's rather out of the way.

February 7, 2009

Well, today started…particularly early. At like… 7:30. That’s what I get for going to bed so early with a nap earlier in the day. But with that being said, I got online and spent the morning with my parents via webcam. We all looked lovely having just woken up.

I got some breakfast a little later (a peanut butter sandwich) and went out to El Centro to just walk around while I waited for Chelsea to call me back about the zoo. Actually, she called me about 2 minutes I got on the bus, but she said maybe we should go to the theater instead of the zoo and do the zoo some other day which was fine by me.

I wandered around for a while, looking at different shops, attempting to find some sunglasses but I think I need someone to go with me if I’m going to get any. Actually I have some at home somewhere…maybe in my car? Hey mom would you mind checking to see if I left sunglasses in my car and bringing them when you come? That’d be pretty sweet.

I also decided to go ahead and get my nails done while I was out. It was even cheaper down there, it was 105 pesos for a manicure and a pedicure (less than 10 dollars). The experience isn’t quite the same; it was just a little hole in the wall, but the girl spent 2 hours working on my nails I think (or there abouts). I think they look pretty good. Baby-beach pink fingernails and deep raspberry toes.

Basically after this it was time to hop the bus back home for lunch. I got back at 2:30 which is when we normally eat, but everyone had already eaten so I ate in the kitchen with the abuelita (grandmother) and one of the ladies who works in the house. Now, normally this wouldn’t be worth mentioning, except that I can barely understand my abuelita, and the only two things I understood her to say as we ate were “I’m cold” (as *I* sat there in shorts) and “I’ve learned about you” as she kind of shook her finger at me. Now…I have no idea what she could possibly have learned about me. It’s not like we talk, and it’s not like I’ve really done anything to be blackmailed about. Unless of course going to bed at 11 is entirely unacceptable. How dare I not go out and get smashed and come back in the wee hours of the morning make a mess and then go to sleep. I don’t know. So in conclusion lunch was not nearly as fun/uneventful as it should have been.

I then popped into the shower and got my clothes from the Laundromat. And basically decided I was just going to go back to el centro since I didn’t feel like staying in the house. And as soon as I got on the bus again Chelsea called and said something about the theater but her friend was going to call her back again in like an hour so we didn’t really have set plans, etc.

So I walked around El Centro some more, apparently a size 6 (which is an 8/8 1/2 US) is quite large for feet in Mexico. There were these really cute shoes that a lot of different places had (exactly what I would have wanted) but they only go up to size 5. I did get a pair of flip flops. Hopefully I’ll be able to break them in a bit. Nothing too fancy, just black, but the piece or whatever that goes across the foot is braided.

And then I decided, hey, why not, so I bought a movie, one of these 3 in 1 deals but it was a flop. Chelsea and I tried watching one of them and then just decided it wasn’t worth it and turned it off. We watched Bend it like Beckham instead.

Aaaaand voila. Here we are, and I’m rather tired. But with good cause seeing as how I got up early. As it turns out, no one took the initiative on figuring out a different church for tomorrow so that’s going to have to wait til next week. I’ll try to remember to call that evangelical church. We’ll see. Ciao~ Kate <3