¡el día de indepencia! ¡feliz! what does this translate to in english? half day of work! woohoo. no, it is independence day. i heard the first fireworks around 6am, and the party in ixtepec is supposed to really kick off tonight around 9pm or 10pm. another teacher from here, jorge, is going to oaxaca tomorrow for the weekend. i asked him when he is leaving and he said 4. i assumed 4pm, but it is 4am. what about the party? oh, that is why i am leaving at 4, he replied. thus, i imagine, this will be one great big bash! i am not sure if i will be in town tonight or if i will go to juchitan with the roomie. i am sure he wants to see his little chica, and i like hanging out with people who actually will speak slowly to me.

i got in a slight tiff last night with roomie. i usually study at night (i have a spanish workbook from last summer that i have been reworking, and i only have 50 pages out of 300 left, so i am learning tenses and vocab through that. he comes home and says something incoherent to me. i ask to repeat like 5 times and finally he tells me that i need to get out more and talk to people instead of studying. i don´t disagree necessarily, but i feel like until i am ready for all the tenses again, and there are about 15, i will not understand anything anyway. also, without vocab, what good am i?

clearly, my view is debatable. i see the other side very well, and thus listened and agreed with ole vic. it is just that sometimes i get a little tired of his slightly condescending tone, ¨what do you mean you don´t understand, are you listening?¨ yes, my speaking is behind my reading, and my listening ability laggs even further, but i know this and do not need reminders. he wants me to watch soap operas with him at night. i explain i am not a huge fan of t.v. in general, and certainly not telenovellas, but he thinks it will help me understand the language better. and maybe it will. so i did. but really, i did not gain too much new knowledge except for words like bodyguard (the name of his fave) and reincarnation (some character on another has come back to life five times). silly if you ask me, but i do agree that in general i need to interact more because it will help me learn faster.

so this weekend i am taking a trip. not sure where yet, but i am getting on a bus tomorrow and not returning until sunday. maybe to the capital, oaxaca, or maybe to chiapas (state) and the city cristobol de las casas. both are high in the mountains, so i can escape this oppressive heat. two weeks to get used to it. sure. the heat is not a constant problem, but i just get tired of being sweaty all the time. maybe two months is more apt. we will see. so anyway, i am going to the big station in juchitan tomorrow and finding two tickets, one for friday, one for sunday. hey, if i cannot get back, then what was the point? it is possible that my roomie might go (i secretly hope he doesn´t) or that this guy alex from tehuantepec might go. maybe i am a too finicky, but alex is not someone i would choose under regular circumstances to hang out with either. not sure why, just one of those things. either way, having someone to hang out with while i check out ruins could be really cool. or i could be better off alone. either way, i will probably flip a coin at the bus station and decide which way to go. i still like traveling this way. if you knew me in college or after, then you know this is the only way for me to travel. i hope that doesn´t change anytime soon. the ability to adapt and change plans at any moment has been something that, especially as a teacher where this is necessary daily, has been a quality i prize in myself. i believe that this expedition to mexico has helped to solidify that idea. although sitting in va waiting for my documents to arrive i was definitely nervous! what a joke. my boss hiring someone else to take this job. good luck! i have been here over three weeks and i still don´t see another soul that looks like me or speaks english really well. sure, the 24th of september. so why did i need to be here five weeks prior to that date? oh well, bitching does me no good. at least i have a jump on the language and the area in general. those poor suckers who will arrive, and oh, how i pray they do arrive, in a week or two will be quite lost and out of sorts. there is a positive side to everything, although reminding myself of that is often tedious.

so i used my mosquito net last night. it rained in the evening and thus was super muggy and all sorts of bugs came out. ya, victor laughed a bit, but who gives a damn about his opinion. he has screens on his windows, so he does not have the problem i do. anyway, it worked really well and slept free of bug bites. i may start using it more, we will see. i also felt like some bride when i woke up and there is a crown of white, seemingly lace, cascading down over me and around me. definitely a strange feeling to wake up to, kind of like, where am i again? oh yeah. setting it up was a problem because th ceilings are like 11 feet high, but i figured out how to do it. true, my light bulb now needs to be replaced, but i see that as a minor inconvenience compared to a restful night.

i am stoked that i get a half day off on my b-day. i am going to salina cruz in the morning to pick up my work visa from immigration. as i will be going alone (i mean really, why would my boss think it important to accompany me to an office where the only english is written on a card in the hall?) i will worry about the logistics of that scenario on the bus ride in to town. then, i will proceed to dawdle, screw around and maybe have a nice breakfast before returning to the country.

i think i will have a few stories by the end of this weekend. here´s hoping they all are ones i can laugh at in the moment and not days later! ¡ viva méxico! ¡viva independencia!