let´s see, where to begin about the day of the dead (día de los muertos) which is really two days, tomorrow and wednesday. first off, i get a day and a half off of work. that is the best part for me. the kids down here know what halloween is and do stuff like carve pumpkins but no one is that into it, mainly because they have a holiday equally as interesting if not more so that follows the next day.
so tuesday, november 1, is the day for remembering dead babies and children. people take candy, mementos, all sorts of stuff to their graves. in truth i do not know much about tomorrow day, but on tuesday, preparing for wednesday, things get crazy. wednesday is the day for the adults, so the family brings alcohol, music, cigarettes, favorite foods, guns(?) sometimes and all sorts of other things that remind them of the dead person or that the dead person was fond of in life. essentially, this is the night that the dead come back to enjoy what they once enjoyed in life. thus, eat drink and be merry. some people spend all day and night in the graveyard, eating, drinking, passing out, waking up and repeting it all over again. there is music and dancing both inside and outside the graveyard. there are vendors selling food and alcohol as well.
instead of being afraid of ghosts, this is the one day where everyone welcomes the dead back. kind of a cool concept really.
once i learn more about it i will write more.
super busy trying to cram lesson plans in this week because i lose two classes with level 2 and one with level5. hope all is well stateside. i kind of miss not having halloween, but hopefully the next few days will make up for it!
i am doing well. james, what is your next favorite word of the day? feel free to post a weekly update on here as i am always interested in learning new vocabulary words as well.
did someone say go hokies? we need all the help we can get this weekend when we play miami, so i hope all you yahoos, i mean wahoos, rally around your state and cheer for us. after all, if we beat miami and you manage to beat us, wouldn´t that make you as good or better than both teams?
happy halloween up there!
31 October 2005
26 October 2005
maybe it is because i am nostalgic, or because i just went there again today, but why not mention the fun and ¨customer service is our top priority¨ people at the school library. so as i do every two weeks, i went to the library to renew the books i use to teach my courses. this time i flaked and went a day late. gasp. the horror. my books are overdue by one day. if there were alarms they would have gone off. had the guards known, i might have been shot. if i wore my invisible fence collar like the order obedient pups around here, i would have been yelping and whining as i scampered to the door and begged the owners to give me just one more chance.
as i am passive-aggressively trying to push the limits of the librarians´ fanatical adherence to policy, i strolled in today around noon, the time of day when the sun had reached charring temperature (think: self-cleaning oven temperature) and its glare was forcing me to squint as i offered my greetings to the other fellow fools who patronize this bane of book aficionados run by our resident commandante, señora satan. well, let me just tell you the pillars nearly toppled over and the walls, almost, came crumbling down as the ardent young man behind the refrigerator door realized, you knew this was coming, my books were a day late.
a whole day late. 24 hours past due. a lifetime for certain bugs, about a week for canines and an eternity for mr or ms slug.
one full day. the differnce between five and six. an amount so significant that i feel no more need to continue describing it.
well, the look i got, let me tell you. in any language it simply screamed disappointment, exasperation, and the tension was palpable as he mutterd something about today being the 26th, NOT the 25th. i atttempted to be as surprised, shocked and dismayed as he was. i checked my wrist for the watch i have not worn in seven years. i looked to the sky for a divine calender to suddenly penetrate the ceiling and burn a fiery 2-6, WEDNESDAY in the air. i even tried to empathize with the boy, expressing that indeed it was certainly a pity that someone would bring a book back late. i mean, goodness, rules are rules and those who do not obey the rules, well, clearly they were raised by philistines and deserve to be sent to bed without dessert (i would have said dinner here, but i remember the wretched food my step-witch used to make and realize that this might be more blessing than punishment). the gaul. the audacity. the arrogance.
after about 10 seconds we both realized i was not going to do anything but stand there and wait for him to say something and that he needed to speak to someone else because this type of blatant insurrection will not, by zeus, stand in any building clearly consecrated in memory of the father of a democratic méxico, benito juarez (i tell you, the picture history book has really done wonders for my understanding of méxicano culture), and protected by the great guardians with the ak-47s.
i watched as our young friend casually made his way over the ogre (times like these really make the point clear that he is used to living in the freezer all day while the rest of the peons suffer in the heat) for a discussion that was sure to bring censure, reprobation and possibly a visit to the guardhouse down upon me.
the verdict came back: if i EVER let this happen again... i will have to talk to the librarian myself. well, i actually look forward to all climate-controlled encounters at this point, so we will just see whether profe davis returns his books by november 9th.
he told me four times they were due on the 9th. to be fair the third time he said 9th i repeated 19th. the look on his face was completely worth no matter how ignorant he now thinks i am (nueve and diez y nueve really are kind of similar) regarding his native lengua. i contained my laughter only as far as the first of the two sets of doors (why two? i can only imagine to ensure that the artic temperatures inside remain inside) leaving the pair of young coeds who entered as i left quite perplexed as to what could possibly be funny about the prison camp whose gates lay just ahead.
as i am passive-aggressively trying to push the limits of the librarians´ fanatical adherence to policy, i strolled in today around noon, the time of day when the sun had reached charring temperature (think: self-cleaning oven temperature) and its glare was forcing me to squint as i offered my greetings to the other fellow fools who patronize this bane of book aficionados run by our resident commandante, señora satan. well, let me just tell you the pillars nearly toppled over and the walls, almost, came crumbling down as the ardent young man behind the refrigerator door realized, you knew this was coming, my books were a day late.
a whole day late. 24 hours past due. a lifetime for certain bugs, about a week for canines and an eternity for mr or ms slug.
one full day. the differnce between five and six. an amount so significant that i feel no more need to continue describing it.
well, the look i got, let me tell you. in any language it simply screamed disappointment, exasperation, and the tension was palpable as he mutterd something about today being the 26th, NOT the 25th. i atttempted to be as surprised, shocked and dismayed as he was. i checked my wrist for the watch i have not worn in seven years. i looked to the sky for a divine calender to suddenly penetrate the ceiling and burn a fiery 2-6, WEDNESDAY in the air. i even tried to empathize with the boy, expressing that indeed it was certainly a pity that someone would bring a book back late. i mean, goodness, rules are rules and those who do not obey the rules, well, clearly they were raised by philistines and deserve to be sent to bed without dessert (i would have said dinner here, but i remember the wretched food my step-witch used to make and realize that this might be more blessing than punishment). the gaul. the audacity. the arrogance.
after about 10 seconds we both realized i was not going to do anything but stand there and wait for him to say something and that he needed to speak to someone else because this type of blatant insurrection will not, by zeus, stand in any building clearly consecrated in memory of the father of a democratic méxico, benito juarez (i tell you, the picture history book has really done wonders for my understanding of méxicano culture), and protected by the great guardians with the ak-47s.
i watched as our young friend casually made his way over the ogre (times like these really make the point clear that he is used to living in the freezer all day while the rest of the peons suffer in the heat) for a discussion that was sure to bring censure, reprobation and possibly a visit to the guardhouse down upon me.
the verdict came back: if i EVER let this happen again... i will have to talk to the librarian myself. well, i actually look forward to all climate-controlled encounters at this point, so we will just see whether profe davis returns his books by november 9th.
he told me four times they were due on the 9th. to be fair the third time he said 9th i repeated 19th. the look on his face was completely worth no matter how ignorant he now thinks i am (nueve and diez y nueve really are kind of similar) regarding his native lengua. i contained my laughter only as far as the first of the two sets of doors (why two? i can only imagine to ensure that the artic temperatures inside remain inside) leaving the pair of young coeds who entered as i left quite perplexed as to what could possibly be funny about the prison camp whose gates lay just ahead.
24 October 2005
so i was writing this to brian, and i figured i might as well share it with whomever might be reading this as well. i am thinking about trying to publish some of these blogs as non-fiction pieces at some point in the future. now when i say thinking, i really mean fantasizing because i have not actually done anything about it. i sit in my room at night sometimes and imagine the praise, ¨no, thank YOU. i am so glad you have decided against commiting suicide because you realize that there are other anglos with lives worse than yours.¨ ¨no, please, genius is such a limiting term. i prefer to be thought of as your average incredibly handsome, intellectual, talented, wildly-entertaining person. but i will accept that large roll of cash i see in your right hand.¨
ya, that is about it so far. well, not for the fantasies, those keep going, but i will spare you more at this point. clearly i need to do a lot of revising, but i have not felt the urge to do that yet. maybe in a month or so when i have more perspective and can add some lies to the tales. i mean, when they say ¨non-fiction,¨ is someone actually going to write to my boss and ask her if she is as inept as i make her out to be? (clearly the answer is yes, she is, but this is more of a general hypothetical question). and if someone does write her, can i be there when she opens the letter?
so i started reading my history of oaxaca book this weekend. the govt gives free books to kids in schools around here, which is pretty sweet. i was rocking last night just chugging through the pages (lots of pictures) when i came upon the caption that read, essentially, ¨when beníto was around your age, 8 years old, he lived with his grandfather.¨ so the kids who gave me the book are in high school. i am thinking i am a rock star because i am reading high school books. no. i am reading a third grade book. i am at a third grade reading level. that´s right. 8 year olds, dude.
i still like the book. the pictures are awesome. the crayon coloring really should have given away the age level, but i think i just did not want to believe. kind of like the other day when i found out i was eating an iguana. sure, i heard the woman yelling, ¨güerito, hay iguana, chorizo, cabeza, pescado...¨ (yes, those of you translating at home, she said she also had head). ok, and i realized that iguana is an exact cognate, but it was one of those times i did not want to believe. like the idea that the easter bunny is just imaginary and is not going to know my address in mexico so will not bring me treats like pink and yellow peeps in a basket decorated with fake grass that is easy to choke on and should be labeled because really it looks like candy, i mean everything else in the damn basket is candy, why isn´t it candy, who is the vile-humored creator of fake grass and why couldn´t they have made it edible?!
so the picture book i am reading is great. i am not excited about getting to the part where it talks about the usa annexing over half of the entire country of mexico (ok, i cheated and read ahead; the teacher wasn´t looking and i really wanted to know what happened later) and then occupying the istmo for years while we tried to force the government to dig a canal so we could use it to transport goods even more cheaply from one coast to another.
next week: fourth grade! this will be more a general history of mexico and contains more pictures, but one of the lessons was to cut pictures out and make a poster, so really there are less pictures and thus less writing (think about that for a second and it makes sense. two sides to a page, writing on one, pic on the other, ok. so i guess you dont have to think about it). which is fine with me because that will just bring me closer to grade five. so close to junior high i can taste it. like iguana. mmm. iguana.
i feel like billy madison. two weeks per grade? slacker.
ya, that is about it so far. well, not for the fantasies, those keep going, but i will spare you more at this point. clearly i need to do a lot of revising, but i have not felt the urge to do that yet. maybe in a month or so when i have more perspective and can add some lies to the tales. i mean, when they say ¨non-fiction,¨ is someone actually going to write to my boss and ask her if she is as inept as i make her out to be? (clearly the answer is yes, she is, but this is more of a general hypothetical question). and if someone does write her, can i be there when she opens the letter?
so i started reading my history of oaxaca book this weekend. the govt gives free books to kids in schools around here, which is pretty sweet. i was rocking last night just chugging through the pages (lots of pictures) when i came upon the caption that read, essentially, ¨when beníto was around your age, 8 years old, he lived with his grandfather.¨ so the kids who gave me the book are in high school. i am thinking i am a rock star because i am reading high school books. no. i am reading a third grade book. i am at a third grade reading level. that´s right. 8 year olds, dude.
i still like the book. the pictures are awesome. the crayon coloring really should have given away the age level, but i think i just did not want to believe. kind of like the other day when i found out i was eating an iguana. sure, i heard the woman yelling, ¨güerito, hay iguana, chorizo, cabeza, pescado...¨ (yes, those of you translating at home, she said she also had head). ok, and i realized that iguana is an exact cognate, but it was one of those times i did not want to believe. like the idea that the easter bunny is just imaginary and is not going to know my address in mexico so will not bring me treats like pink and yellow peeps in a basket decorated with fake grass that is easy to choke on and should be labeled because really it looks like candy, i mean everything else in the damn basket is candy, why isn´t it candy, who is the vile-humored creator of fake grass and why couldn´t they have made it edible?!
so the picture book i am reading is great. i am not excited about getting to the part where it talks about the usa annexing over half of the entire country of mexico (ok, i cheated and read ahead; the teacher wasn´t looking and i really wanted to know what happened later) and then occupying the istmo for years while we tried to force the government to dig a canal so we could use it to transport goods even more cheaply from one coast to another.
next week: fourth grade! this will be more a general history of mexico and contains more pictures, but one of the lessons was to cut pictures out and make a poster, so really there are less pictures and thus less writing (think about that for a second and it makes sense. two sides to a page, writing on one, pic on the other, ok. so i guess you dont have to think about it). which is fine with me because that will just bring me closer to grade five. so close to junior high i can taste it. like iguana. mmm. iguana.
i feel like billy madison. two weeks per grade? slacker.
in a new twist, apparently i should have learned french before coming down here. there is a program that allows students to do practice exercises and take some tests online. our fearless (those without wits often fear little i have found) leader somehow conjured this program from one of her frenchie friends in canada. unfortunately, the program is completely in french and thus fairly unusable by me. oh yeah, and the students, for whom is was meant, have somehow failed to pick up french as well. one would think this would be disconcerting for the head of the languages dept (but really there is only one language taught leaving me to wonder why this name has not been changed), but she contiues unperturbed and seemingly uninterested in any complaints i may make. today she showed up unanounced and as usual created more work for us while simultaneously offering no help. do people always complain that their bosses are inept? it makes me hope i am never the boss, because then who would i have to complain about?
custom lessons. in mexico, as in most places i once thought, it is bad form to blow your nose at the table before, after or during a meal. not so in england. our friend sally proved this point on sunday as paco and i loudly complained. she then compared it to me wiping my brow with a hanky. granted, sweat has never really been classy, but i refuse to accept sweat as the equivalent of snot. she claims i am ridiculous and that everyone blows his or her nose at a dinner table (really breakfast or lunch is the same). i just cannot accept that. well, she cannot either and vows to blow her nose every time we eat with her. looks like i just lost a person with whom i will dine in the future.
next lesson, same meal, no one in mexico takes food home from a restaurant. paco and sally both ridiculed me and said that it was bad form to walk around with leftover food. i can hear you all snickering about how cheap i am, don´t worry, they were laughing too. however, i still nothing wrong with taking food home if you cannot eat it. why am buying food that is just going to be given to the hundreds of dogs that roam the streets of virtually every town in this country? why? because i have no choice.
last lesson. i was walking to the bus stop this morning when a few high school students nearly fell into the street as i walked past them (to be fair, i did yell, ¨boo!¨ really loudly as i passed them). i asked paco for the word for ¨to stare¨ as in to rudely look at someone for more than a few seconds and continue to look at him-her even after they have passed you and in some cases to turn around and follow him-her a few paces. paco had no idea what i was talking about, so i looked it up in my dicitionary. essentially there is no one word, it is more of a phrase and combines to look and insolencia, which i doubt i need to translate. i was then informed that there is no such thing in mexico. really? no, it is more than ok to stare as long as you want, and apparently to exclaim whatever fool thing comes into your head. this is normal. this is accepted. this from the place where it is not ok to take food home from the restaurant.
that is why i say boo! when i walk by someone who stares. if they think i am ghost or some strange foreign object, the least i can do is oblige them and try to scare them. i suggest you all try it. it makes you feel better at least.
custom lessons. in mexico, as in most places i once thought, it is bad form to blow your nose at the table before, after or during a meal. not so in england. our friend sally proved this point on sunday as paco and i loudly complained. she then compared it to me wiping my brow with a hanky. granted, sweat has never really been classy, but i refuse to accept sweat as the equivalent of snot. she claims i am ridiculous and that everyone blows his or her nose at a dinner table (really breakfast or lunch is the same). i just cannot accept that. well, she cannot either and vows to blow her nose every time we eat with her. looks like i just lost a person with whom i will dine in the future.
next lesson, same meal, no one in mexico takes food home from a restaurant. paco and sally both ridiculed me and said that it was bad form to walk around with leftover food. i can hear you all snickering about how cheap i am, don´t worry, they were laughing too. however, i still nothing wrong with taking food home if you cannot eat it. why am buying food that is just going to be given to the hundreds of dogs that roam the streets of virtually every town in this country? why? because i have no choice.
last lesson. i was walking to the bus stop this morning when a few high school students nearly fell into the street as i walked past them (to be fair, i did yell, ¨boo!¨ really loudly as i passed them). i asked paco for the word for ¨to stare¨ as in to rudely look at someone for more than a few seconds and continue to look at him-her even after they have passed you and in some cases to turn around and follow him-her a few paces. paco had no idea what i was talking about, so i looked it up in my dicitionary. essentially there is no one word, it is more of a phrase and combines to look and insolencia, which i doubt i need to translate. i was then informed that there is no such thing in mexico. really? no, it is more than ok to stare as long as you want, and apparently to exclaim whatever fool thing comes into your head. this is normal. this is accepted. this from the place where it is not ok to take food home from the restaurant.
that is why i say boo! when i walk by someone who stares. if they think i am ghost or some strange foreign object, the least i can do is oblige them and try to scare them. i suggest you all try it. it makes you feel better at least.
21 October 2005
i cannot really put into words how happy my level 5 class makes me. they try really hard, have nearly perfect attendance and make me look like i know what i am doing. yesterday they had to read one particular article on the internet about hurricane katrina and write a brief summary of it for homework. one of the students missed class. i asked the other students to read their summaries at the start of class. the student who missed listened to all the summaries and when the last person had read, he raised his hand. while the others were talking he absorbed their information and wrote a summary of his own. rockstar. i was impressed because i never asked him to do it and his summary was quite good. i used him as the example ofwhat i want the other students to do: take initiative.
happy happy joy joy
then the class had a discussion about movies, actors etc. i had to explain why i do not like romance films to which all the boys heartily took up my cause. then i asked about telanovellas (soaps) and all the girls gushed about their favorites. then they turned in the boys who at first denied watching them. pretty funny.
finally, i made them work in pairs to come up with an idea for a movie or tv show. they needed to pick actors, themes, etc. when i was walking around, one group shut their notebooks as soon as i came near them. being the caring, kind and extremely nosey person that i am, i immediately rushed over to see what they were doing.
the place: ixtepec, oaxaca, mexico. the scene: universidad del istmo. the plot: by day he is a teacher of English, by night he roams the town looking for victims to suck their blood. he is william david jordan III, american vampire. their title is death of the vampire, but i am hoping they make some pre-quels so that my character can star in a few more if the first is popular in theatres. also, they were thinking about keanu reeves or brad pitt to play me. except for the fact that i drink blood and i die at the end, i was pretty flattered.
life is good again. i told the boys we could not be friends last night because my spanish was not improving and i needed to go home and read. they claimed i had misunderstood earlier conversations and immediately took me to buy me dinner. i was happy and i practiced my spanish a good bit. also, i spoke to a couple high school students who work at the restaurant and they are going to bring me some books they use in class: history and dracula (bram stoker). ¡maravilloso!
i also started reading dickens`s great expectations in spanish this morning while i had my coffee with the boys. i am able to understand a good bit of it and in ten minutes read four pages. not stellar, but it made me feel good. of course dickens is a bear to read in english at times, so a lot of his adjectives and painfully long sentences seem even more glaringly difficult in spanish. oh well, so it goes.
happy happy. hokies hokies. good ole con-vick sparked another hokie victory. watch out wahoos, we are coming to town in a few weeks!
happy birthday carolina! the big 30. greg, she is catching up to you!
have a great weekend all. i am going to ojo de agua on saturday and juchitan to look for a clock battery and get a haircut on sunday. i am a little nervous about the haircut. no of you gave me any advice. i really do not like short hair in general because every few months you have to cut it. long hair, believe it or not, is much simpler. it requires no thought. cut a circle around the bottome. easy-peasy.
here is a thought for you all. mexico is big. i think the usa forgets just how large this country is. i noticed because i am starting to think about my guatemala trip in december. the buses only go to the border, then you have to cross the border and get another bus. i guess that makes sense, but i do not see why the bus isn´t like a plane that travels from one country to the next. oh well. there is a lot i do not know so this should not be too surprising.
gooooo, hokies, go.
happy happy joy joy
then the class had a discussion about movies, actors etc. i had to explain why i do not like romance films to which all the boys heartily took up my cause. then i asked about telanovellas (soaps) and all the girls gushed about their favorites. then they turned in the boys who at first denied watching them. pretty funny.
finally, i made them work in pairs to come up with an idea for a movie or tv show. they needed to pick actors, themes, etc. when i was walking around, one group shut their notebooks as soon as i came near them. being the caring, kind and extremely nosey person that i am, i immediately rushed over to see what they were doing.
the place: ixtepec, oaxaca, mexico. the scene: universidad del istmo. the plot: by day he is a teacher of English, by night he roams the town looking for victims to suck their blood. he is william david jordan III, american vampire. their title is death of the vampire, but i am hoping they make some pre-quels so that my character can star in a few more if the first is popular in theatres. also, they were thinking about keanu reeves or brad pitt to play me. except for the fact that i drink blood and i die at the end, i was pretty flattered.
life is good again. i told the boys we could not be friends last night because my spanish was not improving and i needed to go home and read. they claimed i had misunderstood earlier conversations and immediately took me to buy me dinner. i was happy and i practiced my spanish a good bit. also, i spoke to a couple high school students who work at the restaurant and they are going to bring me some books they use in class: history and dracula (bram stoker). ¡maravilloso!
i also started reading dickens`s great expectations in spanish this morning while i had my coffee with the boys. i am able to understand a good bit of it and in ten minutes read four pages. not stellar, but it made me feel good. of course dickens is a bear to read in english at times, so a lot of his adjectives and painfully long sentences seem even more glaringly difficult in spanish. oh well, so it goes.
happy happy. hokies hokies. good ole con-vick sparked another hokie victory. watch out wahoos, we are coming to town in a few weeks!
happy birthday carolina! the big 30. greg, she is catching up to you!
have a great weekend all. i am going to ojo de agua on saturday and juchitan to look for a clock battery and get a haircut on sunday. i am a little nervous about the haircut. no of you gave me any advice. i really do not like short hair in general because every few months you have to cut it. long hair, believe it or not, is much simpler. it requires no thought. cut a circle around the bottome. easy-peasy.
here is a thought for you all. mexico is big. i think the usa forgets just how large this country is. i noticed because i am starting to think about my guatemala trip in december. the buses only go to the border, then you have to cross the border and get another bus. i guess that makes sense, but i do not see why the bus isn´t like a plane that travels from one country to the next. oh well. there is a lot i do not know so this should not be too surprising.
gooooo, hokies, go.
20 October 2005
cuba, you have done it again. yes, i am laughing still from the quote. i remember that scene now and realize how silly i sound bitching when really life is swell. sad to hear about the sorta-girlfriend, from what i have heard you shall find no trouble lining up another.
snow. i am so jealous i cannot quite explain but consider that my back is stuck to my shirt is stuck to my chair and a fan is directly in my face. snow. wow. i wonder when i will see that stuff again? i have truly realized that my life should be in the mountains, or in a place quite close to the mountains. there is nothing like waking up to snow in october. of course, it could snow every month of the year and i would be happy.
i found something else to be happy about. i have been bitching for years that adults need nap time not kindergardeners. well, i am here to tell you that there is a naptime and it is mexico friends. i sleep on average 1 hour every afternoon between 2:30 and 3:30pm. and, as you might be imagining right now, it is marvelous. transcendent even. every time i feel sad i am going to remember how lucky i am that i get a built-in naptime to my work schedule. also, a 3hr break in the middle of an 8hr day is quite nice. although it will be strange to be teaching in complete darkness next month (i teach from 6pm-7pm), i will get over it. i gave my students this intro english test that is designed to test their vocubulary level and one of the questions (all true false pretty much) asked if young children went to school at night. well down here they do, so that question screwed all my students up because they go to school until 8pm some nights. trip.
thank you cuban b for brightening my day. abbazabba, you´re my only friend.
snow. i am so jealous i cannot quite explain but consider that my back is stuck to my shirt is stuck to my chair and a fan is directly in my face. snow. wow. i wonder when i will see that stuff again? i have truly realized that my life should be in the mountains, or in a place quite close to the mountains. there is nothing like waking up to snow in october. of course, it could snow every month of the year and i would be happy.
i found something else to be happy about. i have been bitching for years that adults need nap time not kindergardeners. well, i am here to tell you that there is a naptime and it is mexico friends. i sleep on average 1 hour every afternoon between 2:30 and 3:30pm. and, as you might be imagining right now, it is marvelous. transcendent even. every time i feel sad i am going to remember how lucky i am that i get a built-in naptime to my work schedule. also, a 3hr break in the middle of an 8hr day is quite nice. although it will be strange to be teaching in complete darkness next month (i teach from 6pm-7pm), i will get over it. i gave my students this intro english test that is designed to test their vocubulary level and one of the questions (all true false pretty much) asked if young children went to school at night. well down here they do, so that question screwed all my students up because they go to school until 8pm some nights. trip.
thank you cuban b for brightening my day. abbazabba, you´re my only friend.
so i do not feel like practicing spanish or looking up any more information for teaching classes this afternoon. i wrote a really long post at home the other day and then forgot to bring it to work to upload.
i got really pissy this morning because my friends told me my spanish sucks. i reminded them that their english sucks and that when they improve they can bitch at me. they did not understand it but i felt better. every now and then they piss me off and i cuss them in english. really fast. they look a lot like i do when i cannot understand what the hell they are saying in spanish. it always makes me feel better. i realize i am just a profane person in general and i cannot believe i have still refrained from using all the explicatives that come into my head while writing these posts. we are all adults but somehow i think i am trying to avoid profanity for some reason. not sure why, but it is interesting to test my descriptive abilities. using the word fuck to describe everything gets old after a spell. although i still purport that it can be used in more ways than any other word or word combination in the english language, i shan´t use it here.
ah, shall. who uses this word? brits. damn the brits. i must teachmy students shall. i shall go to the store, blah blah blah. i do not like the word too much although its negative form, the aforementioned shan´t, is one word i do enjoy.
why was i hired to teach esl? i know nothing about esl. each day is trial and error. i have 5 students out of 17 in level 2 who get everything i say and explain and write. ihave 12 who stare blankly at me until they realize they are sitting next to someone cute and play footsie or flirt with the other person. some are bored others are lost and more just don´t really care. high school? exactly. many of my students really do try and they really do fail. what do you do in this situation? i feel almost bad when i see they are working hard and getting nothing correct. it pains me to look at their work and just say, way to go!, then spend five minutes correcting their mistakes.
i think i am still pissy.
the clouds are starting to move in and the wind is picking up. hurricane season. i hear miss wilma is heading your way usa. wilma. where did that come from anyway? it is almost as bad as willamina, which my creative sisters chose to call me as a child when will the pill lost its efficacy. i feel for anyone actually named wilma outside of a cartoon. i do not have much pity for cartoon characters. i have no explanation for that one.
this is what happens when i have nothing else to say but refuse to admit to myself that i have nothing else to say. blah blah blah. shall shall shall. say it five times and the word starts to sound really weird. unless you are not british and then it might have sounded weird the first time you said it.
i think a blog is like talking to yourself. clearly, i find myself very interesting and so i like to pose myself questions and then answer them for fun. my students wonder why i always end class saying, ¨the fun is over for today¨ i am not sure if they get my meaning and disagree or just have no idea what i mean. probably a bit of both. i love that phrase. a bit of both. and with that i leave you to ponder: how much wood could a woodchuck chuck?
i got really pissy this morning because my friends told me my spanish sucks. i reminded them that their english sucks and that when they improve they can bitch at me. they did not understand it but i felt better. every now and then they piss me off and i cuss them in english. really fast. they look a lot like i do when i cannot understand what the hell they are saying in spanish. it always makes me feel better. i realize i am just a profane person in general and i cannot believe i have still refrained from using all the explicatives that come into my head while writing these posts. we are all adults but somehow i think i am trying to avoid profanity for some reason. not sure why, but it is interesting to test my descriptive abilities. using the word fuck to describe everything gets old after a spell. although i still purport that it can be used in more ways than any other word or word combination in the english language, i shan´t use it here.
ah, shall. who uses this word? brits. damn the brits. i must teachmy students shall. i shall go to the store, blah blah blah. i do not like the word too much although its negative form, the aforementioned shan´t, is one word i do enjoy.
why was i hired to teach esl? i know nothing about esl. each day is trial and error. i have 5 students out of 17 in level 2 who get everything i say and explain and write. ihave 12 who stare blankly at me until they realize they are sitting next to someone cute and play footsie or flirt with the other person. some are bored others are lost and more just don´t really care. high school? exactly. many of my students really do try and they really do fail. what do you do in this situation? i feel almost bad when i see they are working hard and getting nothing correct. it pains me to look at their work and just say, way to go!, then spend five minutes correcting their mistakes.
i think i am still pissy.
the clouds are starting to move in and the wind is picking up. hurricane season. i hear miss wilma is heading your way usa. wilma. where did that come from anyway? it is almost as bad as willamina, which my creative sisters chose to call me as a child when will the pill lost its efficacy. i feel for anyone actually named wilma outside of a cartoon. i do not have much pity for cartoon characters. i have no explanation for that one.
this is what happens when i have nothing else to say but refuse to admit to myself that i have nothing else to say. blah blah blah. shall shall shall. say it five times and the word starts to sound really weird. unless you are not british and then it might have sounded weird the first time you said it.
i think a blog is like talking to yourself. clearly, i find myself very interesting and so i like to pose myself questions and then answer them for fun. my students wonder why i always end class saying, ¨the fun is over for today¨ i am not sure if they get my meaning and disagree or just have no idea what i mean. probably a bit of both. i love that phrase. a bit of both. and with that i leave you to ponder: how much wood could a woodchuck chuck?
it feels a little strange to be back here. it has been almost a week i guess. time flies when you have no idea what you are doing and your boss is of no help and everyone else speaks another language so you really have no way to communicate what you want because the extent of your wishes are far to complex for the small vocabulary you possess and by the time you have actually written down the words you want to say the people have long since left and you are sitting or standing there feeling kind of ridiculous and ridiculously hot because the sun does not stop shining and the heat does not cease permeating your clothes/skin/eyes so that sweat pools and so do your anxieties until you finally reach the point where you simply wish to give up but realize you cannot because then you remember that this is only one day among many while others have been quite good, thus it is possible tomorrow will be better unless it is worse in which case then you can start at the beginning when you realized that time flies.
exactly.
my friends told me my spanish has peaked. they say my friend francisco speaks too much english to me and so i do not really practice my spanish because i am listening to him in english and speaking to him in spanish while he is not really practicing his english because of the same situation. i told them to kiss my ass. they did not understand the expression.
they tell me that i have begun to speak less spanish and so i am not practicing enough. they think i am at a plateau and need to somehow break through and figure out how to improve my spanish. they believe i am actually regressing. they feel that my communication skills are poor because i do not practice enough writing and reading. the also do not like it when i do not go to dinner in the plaza with them so that i can practice reading and writing at home. one believes i should start reading more political philosophy. another believes i should read the history of mexico from a high school book. a third thinks i need to buy trashy romance novels in spanish so that i can become accustomed to daily spanish use. still another thinks i am probably ok as long as i renounce my united states of america citizenship, start giving free english lessons every night and buy a car to drive him around. also he thinks i should drink more because it makes practicing easier.
i have decided to listen to all of them and do nothing that they tell me because all of their advice is conflicting and often ridiculous. i have spent too much time trying to deal with the hundred different colloquialisms that they spout off every tne seconds. i am tired of listening to phrases that i cannot use because the langauge is crass and they refuse to slow down their speach enough so i can hear them. i have decided to start taking a little more time to myself. i have learned what i can from constant coversation at this point. it is time to get my grammar book back out and keep practicing by writing and reading.
i am frustrated and a little saddened that i have topped out for the moment. yes i can get by withmy language skills but i want to do more than get by, i want to truly understand. time. i hate waiting. i have always been impatient. i will probably always be impatient because i refuse to wait for myself to change. i am annoyed that people expect to know certain verbs and phrases that are obscure and arcane and sometimes other native speakers do not even understand. i am sick of listening to the word gringo used like it were my name. the ratio of my name, gringo and laughing is far too high for any normal and acceptable group of individuals.
i am over being a novelty.
i have decided to let the boys hang out with sally who understands almost nothing and can speak only slightly better than that. in a few days they can decide which they like more and i will have had time to relax and realize all of this is just silly and that at some point i knew i would get really frustrated and lash out. the good news is that i am bigger than all of these little people so if i ever get really pissed... but i am not trying to be violent. i am trying to be civil in the face of what appears to me, though they vehemently deny it, incivility. they pretend that the u.s.a is so horrible and that we stole their land from them. i remind them that they are equal thieves because none of them are indigenous themselves as most are decendents of the spanish and the only reason they see the usa as so bad is because we did not intermarry with all of the people in the areas we took and force them into a single religion that now dominates the country but which really only is there to pay lip service to and nothing more. these fools are catholic and have not been to a church in months or longer. theycall me a protestant heathen until i remind them i am not protestant. they do not realize that they are mostly catholic because their ancestors had no choice and that they have mainly taken catholocism because they did not think for themselves as children and explore other options. they feel they know so much of the world when none of them have even left mexico or really even seen half of their own country.
i could bitch and generalize for days about all of this but really it serves no purpose. i am not unhappy, but right now and i am not exactly ecstatic and brimming with joy. this will pass and i will feel better tomorrow. life is good. i am no longer sick; i am cooking my own meals almost exclusively at home and saving money to boot; i am adjusting well to a changing environment; i am learning to be an esl teacher day by day; i have realized most of the foods i like and do not like and still find myself trying all sorts of new stuff that i would not even consider at home; the weather is slightly cooler; it is almost the weekend.
exactly.
my friends told me my spanish has peaked. they say my friend francisco speaks too much english to me and so i do not really practice my spanish because i am listening to him in english and speaking to him in spanish while he is not really practicing his english because of the same situation. i told them to kiss my ass. they did not understand the expression.
they tell me that i have begun to speak less spanish and so i am not practicing enough. they think i am at a plateau and need to somehow break through and figure out how to improve my spanish. they believe i am actually regressing. they feel that my communication skills are poor because i do not practice enough writing and reading. the also do not like it when i do not go to dinner in the plaza with them so that i can practice reading and writing at home. one believes i should start reading more political philosophy. another believes i should read the history of mexico from a high school book. a third thinks i need to buy trashy romance novels in spanish so that i can become accustomed to daily spanish use. still another thinks i am probably ok as long as i renounce my united states of america citizenship, start giving free english lessons every night and buy a car to drive him around. also he thinks i should drink more because it makes practicing easier.
i have decided to listen to all of them and do nothing that they tell me because all of their advice is conflicting and often ridiculous. i have spent too much time trying to deal with the hundred different colloquialisms that they spout off every tne seconds. i am tired of listening to phrases that i cannot use because the langauge is crass and they refuse to slow down their speach enough so i can hear them. i have decided to start taking a little more time to myself. i have learned what i can from constant coversation at this point. it is time to get my grammar book back out and keep practicing by writing and reading.
i am frustrated and a little saddened that i have topped out for the moment. yes i can get by withmy language skills but i want to do more than get by, i want to truly understand. time. i hate waiting. i have always been impatient. i will probably always be impatient because i refuse to wait for myself to change. i am annoyed that people expect to know certain verbs and phrases that are obscure and arcane and sometimes other native speakers do not even understand. i am sick of listening to the word gringo used like it were my name. the ratio of my name, gringo and laughing is far too high for any normal and acceptable group of individuals.
i am over being a novelty.
i have decided to let the boys hang out with sally who understands almost nothing and can speak only slightly better than that. in a few days they can decide which they like more and i will have had time to relax and realize all of this is just silly and that at some point i knew i would get really frustrated and lash out. the good news is that i am bigger than all of these little people so if i ever get really pissed... but i am not trying to be violent. i am trying to be civil in the face of what appears to me, though they vehemently deny it, incivility. they pretend that the u.s.a is so horrible and that we stole their land from them. i remind them that they are equal thieves because none of them are indigenous themselves as most are decendents of the spanish and the only reason they see the usa as so bad is because we did not intermarry with all of the people in the areas we took and force them into a single religion that now dominates the country but which really only is there to pay lip service to and nothing more. these fools are catholic and have not been to a church in months or longer. theycall me a protestant heathen until i remind them i am not protestant. they do not realize that they are mostly catholic because their ancestors had no choice and that they have mainly taken catholocism because they did not think for themselves as children and explore other options. they feel they know so much of the world when none of them have even left mexico or really even seen half of their own country.
i could bitch and generalize for days about all of this but really it serves no purpose. i am not unhappy, but right now and i am not exactly ecstatic and brimming with joy. this will pass and i will feel better tomorrow. life is good. i am no longer sick; i am cooking my own meals almost exclusively at home and saving money to boot; i am adjusting well to a changing environment; i am learning to be an esl teacher day by day; i have realized most of the foods i like and do not like and still find myself trying all sorts of new stuff that i would not even consider at home; the weather is slightly cooler; it is almost the weekend.
14 October 2005
so i get this weekly update from higheredjobs.com (anyone considering future teaching employment, i highly recommend it, although really, i teach in mexico, not the usa, so why would my recommendation mean anything) and i realize that i could be making like 50,000 or more my first year in some community colleges around the country. the money is really good when you consider i make less than 10,000 a year down here. some of these community college jobs top out over 72,000 a year. no joke. that is pretty sweet. i guess if i fail down here i can always be a comm college teacher and wear sweater vests from 20 years ago and a patchy grey beard trimmed below the jaw line and large boxy glasses. not sure why i associate that image with comm col teachers, but if you have read any of the rest of my posts, you probably wonder why i think most of the things that i do. ¿quien sabe? who knows?
cuba, you are killing me with your comments. i am totally stealing your pipe point line and using it in the future. if anyone is ever foolish enough to publish some of my writing, i am going to figure out a way to work that in somewhere. i will reference you, of course, but damn, i literally had to stop what i was doing i was laughing so hard. i get an entire visual image of you with a pipe, pulling it out of your mouth, pointing it at someone and saying, hmph. anyone remember the pencils, pens, combs and other office items i liked to store in the old beard? well, i imagine the action with cuba pulling the pipe out of his mouth as something similar to that. well, kind of. i might just miss my beard.
i showed some beard pics to my friends down here. their first reaction was that they thought i was really fat when i lived in the states, this did nothing to credit my story that i am poor, and then they asked how many years it took to grow. years! i told them i could grow a mighty big beard in two or three months and they refused to believe me. if it were not so damn hot, i might just prove them wrong.
well, i have an amigo to travel to guatemala with me in december. he has never been out of the country either, and as his wife will be taking care of their baby (she is due in two weeks, the exact time that he and i will be going to puebla to explore and tour for the weekend. exactly how she is letting him get away with partying with me while she is over a 1000km away in acapulco giving birth, i am not quite clear on yet) with her family in acapulco, he has time to get away and explore. plus, one of his grad profs has a home in guatemala so we can stay for free and get some free guiding info in at least one place along the way. i am glad i will be traveling with someone else, and a native speaker on top of it who also has connections just makes it about perfect.
well, i am going to take it easy this weekend i think and do some shopping in juchitan. i am extremely disappointed that my handy ucsf alarm clock has finally crapped out. i doubt they sell the batteries for it anywhere but san francisco and hong kong, so i will probably have to buy another one. also, francisco and i are scoping out a new apt. this weekend that is a bit cheaper and far away from mr. moody, aka victor my other roomie. he has just grown more and more weird as the weeks progress and everyone else is noticing it as well. i think it might be time to cut that tie and drift to another port. we shall see what evolves.
have a wonderful weekend up there, wherever you are. it is interesting to think that i am further south than anyone i know. and each week my spanish gets better and better so i think that in another few months i am going to be living easy. ok, i really already am considering i can communicate just about anything i want to at this point. it will be nicer to undesrtand everything people say the first time, but right now i realize beggars can´t be choosers. yeehaw y´all and giddy-up.
cuba, you are killing me with your comments. i am totally stealing your pipe point line and using it in the future. if anyone is ever foolish enough to publish some of my writing, i am going to figure out a way to work that in somewhere. i will reference you, of course, but damn, i literally had to stop what i was doing i was laughing so hard. i get an entire visual image of you with a pipe, pulling it out of your mouth, pointing it at someone and saying, hmph. anyone remember the pencils, pens, combs and other office items i liked to store in the old beard? well, i imagine the action with cuba pulling the pipe out of his mouth as something similar to that. well, kind of. i might just miss my beard.
i showed some beard pics to my friends down here. their first reaction was that they thought i was really fat when i lived in the states, this did nothing to credit my story that i am poor, and then they asked how many years it took to grow. years! i told them i could grow a mighty big beard in two or three months and they refused to believe me. if it were not so damn hot, i might just prove them wrong.
well, i have an amigo to travel to guatemala with me in december. he has never been out of the country either, and as his wife will be taking care of their baby (she is due in two weeks, the exact time that he and i will be going to puebla to explore and tour for the weekend. exactly how she is letting him get away with partying with me while she is over a 1000km away in acapulco giving birth, i am not quite clear on yet) with her family in acapulco, he has time to get away and explore. plus, one of his grad profs has a home in guatemala so we can stay for free and get some free guiding info in at least one place along the way. i am glad i will be traveling with someone else, and a native speaker on top of it who also has connections just makes it about perfect.
well, i am going to take it easy this weekend i think and do some shopping in juchitan. i am extremely disappointed that my handy ucsf alarm clock has finally crapped out. i doubt they sell the batteries for it anywhere but san francisco and hong kong, so i will probably have to buy another one. also, francisco and i are scoping out a new apt. this weekend that is a bit cheaper and far away from mr. moody, aka victor my other roomie. he has just grown more and more weird as the weeks progress and everyone else is noticing it as well. i think it might be time to cut that tie and drift to another port. we shall see what evolves.
have a wonderful weekend up there, wherever you are. it is interesting to think that i am further south than anyone i know. and each week my spanish gets better and better so i think that in another few months i am going to be living easy. ok, i really already am considering i can communicate just about anything i want to at this point. it will be nicer to undesrtand everything people say the first time, but right now i realize beggars can´t be choosers. yeehaw y´all and giddy-up.
13 October 2005
Profesores de Inglés: M.A. Wiliam J Dawib, M.A. Arash Farzaneh, B.A. Sally Lindsey Kernick.
huh, so where is my name? oh yes, they managed to spell every other name correctly on the list printed out for all students and faculty, but somehow they screwed up william and davis. really. farzaneh? how did they get that right? i had to check twice while i was just typing it.
dawib. wiliam. william is even a name used by some people down here. dawib. what is that, pakistani? indian?
it is times like this, and when i think about how pissy i was yesterday, that i have to realize that i am here to learn spanish, have fun, and teach. yes, in that order dammit. so the administration is crazy? i won´t be here in a year, maybe not in six months, so who cares? i do like the people and the students are generally good, so really i have no big problems. i guess i am so used to bitching about something that i have forgotten why i am here. i need to stop doing that.
revelations book2: i have been reading a spanish literature reader geared for 3rd year lit students of spanish in the states. last night i picked up more everyday type of magazine, a readers digest for spanish speakers, and got into it. i am going to put on hold the high-brow reading and just get the handle of everyday language. i gave my lit book to some of my friends who are teachers and they just laughed. they had to look up words too! i like reading literature, so i will come back to it, but i think it is time to just try the casual approach. i will become more familiar with common terms and just get more comfortable with the language i think. yay for readers digest! never thought i would say that one.
life is good. the worms have either left or found a way to co-exist with me. i don´t care because my stomach has settled some and i am eating better and sleeping less than 11hrs a day now. i actually stayed up until 11pm last night. big deal considering there were days i went to bed at 8:30pm to wake up at 7am. and i was taking a 1-2 hour nap each day. i won´t go into specific detail about my bowels, but there has been some improvement there. i may visit the doc once more for that, but otherwise all is well.
i only have 4.5 months left on my contract. wow. i think i will stay,but honestly, who knows? ¿quien sabe? i may head off to another city in mexico and peddle my teaching wares there. or i may take the lazy route and stay here where the money is easy, the weather is stifling and i have a great base of amigos. time will tell for this gringo, so i am holding off decisions.
yes, my boss is crazy. so what, lots of bosses are crazy. at least mine is at a distance and in reality has absolutely no say over what i do. life is good.
i was thinking about this last night as i tucked myself, and my bug friends, in to sleep: i need no longer try to prove people wrong. i remembered a conversation i had with a grad school friend from last fall (you have no idea the random thoughts, dreams, experiences that course through my mind each night). we got quite heated and we both came away pissed off a bit and our friendship never recovered (to be honest, that friendship had taken negative turns months before that, so it was not the turning point by any means). we both refused to accept the others position. i can say that i gave much more than the other person by way of accepting concessions (i mean, i am writing this, i can say whatever i want), but i think the fundamental problem was that i was unwilling to completely admit to being wrong and the other person would not even back down a bit. there is no absolute. i still deny that if you showed a picaso painting to a school boy from somalia that he would recognize it as ¨Art¨. i do not believe in these types of absolutes. i think there are levels, of course, especially with literature of what is high, middle and low, but that determining those is no easy task and cannot be delegated to one person. my boss, and this blows me away, thinks english is crass and an ugly language. i wanted to smack her in the mouth when she implied this to me yesterday in front of some students. i was ready to scream at the no good little french-canadian fool; but then i realized how sad her life must be if she believes it. she teaches english. she hates it? i am a vegan and a butcher. good god.
all i can really do is explain my position and hope the other person(s) listen(s). if not, tough noogies for them. it is like a debate about religion. why? does talk radio really change any minds (i should footnote that but i cannot remember the author fromt the Atlantic Monthly- dutch, any help?)? no, it does not.
if i ever collect all this crap and try to publish some for of it, i want some stupid sub-title like ¨y-rant?: bitching from a different chair in the room¨ oh well. if you read this far, i guess i should apologize.
peace in the middle east.
huh, so where is my name? oh yes, they managed to spell every other name correctly on the list printed out for all students and faculty, but somehow they screwed up william and davis. really. farzaneh? how did they get that right? i had to check twice while i was just typing it.
dawib. wiliam. william is even a name used by some people down here. dawib. what is that, pakistani? indian?
it is times like this, and when i think about how pissy i was yesterday, that i have to realize that i am here to learn spanish, have fun, and teach. yes, in that order dammit. so the administration is crazy? i won´t be here in a year, maybe not in six months, so who cares? i do like the people and the students are generally good, so really i have no big problems. i guess i am so used to bitching about something that i have forgotten why i am here. i need to stop doing that.
revelations book2: i have been reading a spanish literature reader geared for 3rd year lit students of spanish in the states. last night i picked up more everyday type of magazine, a readers digest for spanish speakers, and got into it. i am going to put on hold the high-brow reading and just get the handle of everyday language. i gave my lit book to some of my friends who are teachers and they just laughed. they had to look up words too! i like reading literature, so i will come back to it, but i think it is time to just try the casual approach. i will become more familiar with common terms and just get more comfortable with the language i think. yay for readers digest! never thought i would say that one.
life is good. the worms have either left or found a way to co-exist with me. i don´t care because my stomach has settled some and i am eating better and sleeping less than 11hrs a day now. i actually stayed up until 11pm last night. big deal considering there were days i went to bed at 8:30pm to wake up at 7am. and i was taking a 1-2 hour nap each day. i won´t go into specific detail about my bowels, but there has been some improvement there. i may visit the doc once more for that, but otherwise all is well.
i only have 4.5 months left on my contract. wow. i think i will stay,but honestly, who knows? ¿quien sabe? i may head off to another city in mexico and peddle my teaching wares there. or i may take the lazy route and stay here where the money is easy, the weather is stifling and i have a great base of amigos. time will tell for this gringo, so i am holding off decisions.
yes, my boss is crazy. so what, lots of bosses are crazy. at least mine is at a distance and in reality has absolutely no say over what i do. life is good.
i was thinking about this last night as i tucked myself, and my bug friends, in to sleep: i need no longer try to prove people wrong. i remembered a conversation i had with a grad school friend from last fall (you have no idea the random thoughts, dreams, experiences that course through my mind each night). we got quite heated and we both came away pissed off a bit and our friendship never recovered (to be honest, that friendship had taken negative turns months before that, so it was not the turning point by any means). we both refused to accept the others position. i can say that i gave much more than the other person by way of accepting concessions (i mean, i am writing this, i can say whatever i want), but i think the fundamental problem was that i was unwilling to completely admit to being wrong and the other person would not even back down a bit. there is no absolute. i still deny that if you showed a picaso painting to a school boy from somalia that he would recognize it as ¨Art¨. i do not believe in these types of absolutes. i think there are levels, of course, especially with literature of what is high, middle and low, but that determining those is no easy task and cannot be delegated to one person. my boss, and this blows me away, thinks english is crass and an ugly language. i wanted to smack her in the mouth when she implied this to me yesterday in front of some students. i was ready to scream at the no good little french-canadian fool; but then i realized how sad her life must be if she believes it. she teaches english. she hates it? i am a vegan and a butcher. good god.
all i can really do is explain my position and hope the other person(s) listen(s). if not, tough noogies for them. it is like a debate about religion. why? does talk radio really change any minds (i should footnote that but i cannot remember the author fromt the Atlantic Monthly- dutch, any help?)? no, it does not.
if i ever collect all this crap and try to publish some for of it, i want some stupid sub-title like ¨y-rant?: bitching from a different chair in the room¨ oh well. if you read this far, i guess i should apologize.
peace in the middle east.
12 October 2005
dough man, i do not have anything under the mattress. between the floor and mattress is the plastic that the mattress came in. i would prefer cinderblocks as well, but then i would need plywood to rest the mattress on, and that is apparently not as readily available as one might expect. oh well.
and dough man, you never answered me about the bull. did you find a new one?
ames, thank you for the arrested d updates. oh tobias. i want to say he is my favorite character, but how can one choose among so many good ones? i cannot even pick a top 3!
hope all is well topside. down here, things change, but slowly. very slowly. the heat has returned in force. the new profs (not the english ones) are bitching about the heat. ha ha. it is not just the gringos that think it can be miserable down here. they also all hate the town. how do they ever get any teachers to stay here?
and dough man, you never answered me about the bull. did you find a new one?
ames, thank you for the arrested d updates. oh tobias. i want to say he is my favorite character, but how can one choose among so many good ones? i cannot even pick a top 3!
hope all is well topside. down here, things change, but slowly. very slowly. the heat has returned in force. the new profs (not the english ones) are bitching about the heat. ha ha. it is not just the gringos that think it can be miserable down here. they also all hate the town. how do they ever get any teachers to stay here?
i like all of my students and they all seem to want to learn english. that said, the administration here is absolutely nuts. when i got here i was told that by the end of level 5, the one i teach, the students should be able to read a 750 word article and get the gist of it, more or less. ok, now tell me what kind of 750 word article. well, the dept heads seem to think that means an article from an academic journal. in english. right.
so one of the dept heads, one who particularly irks me (i call her velociraptor) sends me like 10 articles each about 13 pages long. i skim the first pages and realize that it might be possible to teach them to read the abstract of these articles. acadamic journals are called academic journals because they are written by professionals for other professionals, more or less. so velociraptor asks me last month if i got her articles. yeah, i told her, did she order those dictionaries for all the students? i said it as a joke and we both laughed, but really i meant it. so then i asked her if she understood all of the articles. of course. she studied them in grad school when she first read them. ah. grad school. and these students have taken 5 semesters of general english without books, dictionaries or any real type of true progression because the teachers leave every six months . seems about the same, right?
so i learned five weeks ago that i would teach to my students and not really worry about the unreal expectations of the profs. because i wondered if the profs could really read englis on command, i picked out a spicy and difficult word from on the texts on top and asked ole velociraptor what it meant in english. five seconds. ten seconds. rigghhhht.
i just had a text conversation with my boss, who, as amazing as this sounds after seven weeks, still appears less organized and more incompetent each time i talk to her. she sends me a text asking me to write a self-assessment test for the students based on the course objectives. the class started over a week ago. i gave assessment tests the first day and second day. as she is a fool and has absolutely no record of what previous prof´s in ixtepec taught, and i mean she does not even know where they started or ended, or if they even followed the book, i realized that i must find out from the students themselves exactly what they might know. well, the answer as you might guess, is surprisingly little. ok, whatever, not a problem. what have i got but time?
so now she sends me this text message that asks for my assessment tests. well, i sent them to her three weeks ago when she asked the first time, but ok, i like to play games, sure i can do it again. then she sends me hers. right. she has taken the objectives for the course and replaced the words ¨a student can¨ which begin each objective, with ¨i can¨- there are no questions. there are statements written in spanish and english. so i sent her a question back asking where the questions were. oh, she tells me, i still need to form them into questions and then write up multiple guess answers.
stop here and think about this with me. if you send someone a test without questions or answers, what have you sent them? there are statements in two langauges. as this is possibly one of the stupidest things i have ever heard, don´t forget i taught high school where students thought dumb was cool, i am going to paste in a couple of her questions.
12.- WRITING-ESCRIBIR
I can expand learned phrases through simple recombinations of their elements. / Puedo volver a formular una idea que encuentra en una lectura.
4.- SPEAKING - HABLAR
I can ask for and provide personal information. / Puedo dar y preguntar por información personal.
no where is there a question in here. nowhere. so i shoot her back a text asking if she can tell me exactly what the other profs taught, where they got to in their classes, absolutely anything at all about last semester.
she responds, ¨i have to go, talk about this later¨ are you kidding me? apparently not. i mean, if you are the boss, should you not know something about the classes of your students? it is not like we are talking about a faculty of 20 here. 3 teachers. the only 3 teachers on the whole campus who speak english.
so that is why i must remind myself to lower my expectations. it is like teaching with the hand you write with tied behind your back. i almost look forward to my boss ever questioning something i do. because if she has a better idea, where was she six weeks ago when i asked for her advice-help and she did not give it? i realize this is a bad attitude to have, but at least it does not extend to the students. i love my classes. we have great fun and i think they are learning. wasn´t that the point?
so one of the dept heads, one who particularly irks me (i call her velociraptor) sends me like 10 articles each about 13 pages long. i skim the first pages and realize that it might be possible to teach them to read the abstract of these articles. acadamic journals are called academic journals because they are written by professionals for other professionals, more or less. so velociraptor asks me last month if i got her articles. yeah, i told her, did she order those dictionaries for all the students? i said it as a joke and we both laughed, but really i meant it. so then i asked her if she understood all of the articles. of course. she studied them in grad school when she first read them. ah. grad school. and these students have taken 5 semesters of general english without books, dictionaries or any real type of true progression because the teachers leave every six months . seems about the same, right?
so i learned five weeks ago that i would teach to my students and not really worry about the unreal expectations of the profs. because i wondered if the profs could really read englis on command, i picked out a spicy and difficult word from on the texts on top and asked ole velociraptor what it meant in english. five seconds. ten seconds. rigghhhht.
i just had a text conversation with my boss, who, as amazing as this sounds after seven weeks, still appears less organized and more incompetent each time i talk to her. she sends me a text asking me to write a self-assessment test for the students based on the course objectives. the class started over a week ago. i gave assessment tests the first day and second day. as she is a fool and has absolutely no record of what previous prof´s in ixtepec taught, and i mean she does not even know where they started or ended, or if they even followed the book, i realized that i must find out from the students themselves exactly what they might know. well, the answer as you might guess, is surprisingly little. ok, whatever, not a problem. what have i got but time?
so now she sends me this text message that asks for my assessment tests. well, i sent them to her three weeks ago when she asked the first time, but ok, i like to play games, sure i can do it again. then she sends me hers. right. she has taken the objectives for the course and replaced the words ¨a student can¨ which begin each objective, with ¨i can¨- there are no questions. there are statements written in spanish and english. so i sent her a question back asking where the questions were. oh, she tells me, i still need to form them into questions and then write up multiple guess answers.
stop here and think about this with me. if you send someone a test without questions or answers, what have you sent them? there are statements in two langauges. as this is possibly one of the stupidest things i have ever heard, don´t forget i taught high school where students thought dumb was cool, i am going to paste in a couple of her questions.
12.- WRITING-ESCRIBIR
I can expand learned phrases through simple recombinations of their elements. / Puedo volver a formular una idea que encuentra en una lectura.
4.- SPEAKING - HABLAR
I can ask for and provide personal information. / Puedo dar y preguntar por información personal.
no where is there a question in here. nowhere. so i shoot her back a text asking if she can tell me exactly what the other profs taught, where they got to in their classes, absolutely anything at all about last semester.
she responds, ¨i have to go, talk about this later¨ are you kidding me? apparently not. i mean, if you are the boss, should you not know something about the classes of your students? it is not like we are talking about a faculty of 20 here. 3 teachers. the only 3 teachers on the whole campus who speak english.
so that is why i must remind myself to lower my expectations. it is like teaching with the hand you write with tied behind your back. i almost look forward to my boss ever questioning something i do. because if she has a better idea, where was she six weeks ago when i asked for her advice-help and she did not give it? i realize this is a bad attitude to have, but at least it does not extend to the students. i love my classes. we have great fun and i think they are learning. wasn´t that the point?
11 October 2005
dough man: you fell into the trap, like a true wahoo would. only english speakers spell brasil with a ¨z,¨the spanish and portugues speaking world uses an ¨s,¨ which surprises me that you did not catch portugues without the ¨e¨ on the end. wahoos. yahoos. there are a few hokies that might check this website, so be careful with the name calling.
good to hear about the cows staying in the pasture. when does anthony come back home? are you coming along with the crops?
go hokies! when do the hoos and hokies and play? i wish i could watch that game. oh well. the hokies are having quite a year anyway with good ole con-vick running the show. nothing like prison to really turn someone´s life around!!!
good to hear about the cows staying in the pasture. when does anthony come back home? are you coming along with the crops?
go hokies! when do the hoos and hokies and play? i wish i could watch that game. oh well. the hokies are having quite a year anyway with good ole con-vick running the show. nothing like prison to really turn someone´s life around!!!
10 October 2005
being careful what i eat no longer matters, at least for the next six months, so that is another positive i can take away from this. and the fact that worms are much less frightening than amoebas. they have those in d.f. and scores of other places from what i hear. i have no desire to ever meet those crazy critters.
paco and the gang have advised me to make friends with my wormy compatriots. considering everyone down here either has them or some version of them or another at some time, i guess it is no big deal.
bed bugs, on the other hand are still not my friends. they do not actually live in my bed, but they come in my room at night when the light is on and wait on my bed until i lie down. then they like to crawl on me or just fly around my face. i do not like them. at least they do not bite me, normally, like the ants and evil flies and mosquitos. the skeeters have actually chilled out recently. not to worry, however, as i have been informed that they are merely saving their strength for november when they have some sort of million mosquito march and decend upon the countryside like so many of my countryfolk to walmart each weekend. exciting. i shall be breaking out my mosquito net yet again for this new attach.
i bought a frig this weekend. the joy of ice-cold water. really a great thing. and as i was informed by arash, eng prof here, and his girlfriend (a nurse), my gusanito friends cannot live in such cold temperatures. yippee. now i am going to buy a bed frame to raise me up off the floor. i initally balked at such an expenditure, why buy a frame that costs more than my bed itself, but i am slowly giving in to these things. it will make mopping each week with clorox that much easier. i am probably going to be sticking around here for another six months. i bitch a lot about everything here, but the money is quite good for the actual work that i do, and do i really want to deal with picking up and finding another place to live, deal with all the visa stuff somewhere else, etc., just to leave there in another six months? no. plus, i have a strong base of friends and the eng profs here have pretty much made a pact that we are all going to stay here through next term as well. that has never happened in ixtepec before (all the english profs staying for two contracts), which is a testament to, well, our laziness or reluctance to find other work. you choose for yourself.
i have not really updated my spanish ability in a while, which makes me realize i am coming along quite well. sure, i am not fluent by any means, but i have all forms of basic communication down and apart from regional expressions and the like, i understand most of what people say. of course there are many exceptions, but each day i learn a little more and each week i improve. in six months i should be pretty fluent and my reading ability should be great as well. we will see. i speak a lot more english now that the other profs have arrived and since i teach english every day, but i am learning to mix the two fairly well.
i cannot believe i have been here for almost 7 weeks. time is starting to fly a bit. also i am glad to stay here because this place is a good jumping off point for visits to other parts of the country and for my next big adventure, guatemala, which i hope to visit over xmas break. who knows. there is so much to see and do down here that one year really will only provide me with a basic knowledge. oh well. i am excited to think of the next jump, possibly brasil to learn portugues, but that is quite far off and i must learn spanish first.
hope all is well. hokies hokies hokies. go hokies!
paco and the gang have advised me to make friends with my wormy compatriots. considering everyone down here either has them or some version of them or another at some time, i guess it is no big deal.
bed bugs, on the other hand are still not my friends. they do not actually live in my bed, but they come in my room at night when the light is on and wait on my bed until i lie down. then they like to crawl on me or just fly around my face. i do not like them. at least they do not bite me, normally, like the ants and evil flies and mosquitos. the skeeters have actually chilled out recently. not to worry, however, as i have been informed that they are merely saving their strength for november when they have some sort of million mosquito march and decend upon the countryside like so many of my countryfolk to walmart each weekend. exciting. i shall be breaking out my mosquito net yet again for this new attach.
i bought a frig this weekend. the joy of ice-cold water. really a great thing. and as i was informed by arash, eng prof here, and his girlfriend (a nurse), my gusanito friends cannot live in such cold temperatures. yippee. now i am going to buy a bed frame to raise me up off the floor. i initally balked at such an expenditure, why buy a frame that costs more than my bed itself, but i am slowly giving in to these things. it will make mopping each week with clorox that much easier. i am probably going to be sticking around here for another six months. i bitch a lot about everything here, but the money is quite good for the actual work that i do, and do i really want to deal with picking up and finding another place to live, deal with all the visa stuff somewhere else, etc., just to leave there in another six months? no. plus, i have a strong base of friends and the eng profs here have pretty much made a pact that we are all going to stay here through next term as well. that has never happened in ixtepec before (all the english profs staying for two contracts), which is a testament to, well, our laziness or reluctance to find other work. you choose for yourself.
i have not really updated my spanish ability in a while, which makes me realize i am coming along quite well. sure, i am not fluent by any means, but i have all forms of basic communication down and apart from regional expressions and the like, i understand most of what people say. of course there are many exceptions, but each day i learn a little more and each week i improve. in six months i should be pretty fluent and my reading ability should be great as well. we will see. i speak a lot more english now that the other profs have arrived and since i teach english every day, but i am learning to mix the two fairly well.
i cannot believe i have been here for almost 7 weeks. time is starting to fly a bit. also i am glad to stay here because this place is a good jumping off point for visits to other parts of the country and for my next big adventure, guatemala, which i hope to visit over xmas break. who knows. there is so much to see and do down here that one year really will only provide me with a basic knowledge. oh well. i am excited to think of the next jump, possibly brasil to learn portugues, but that is quite far off and i must learn spanish first.
hope all is well. hokies hokies hokies. go hokies!
Nadie me quiere, todos me odian, me mejor me como un gusanito -(Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, it would be better if I just ate the worm). An infectiously catchy song popular in mexico right now.
Back when I had long hair and far less debt, I lived in the land of majestic mountains, virtual valleys and sumptuous seashores (ok, debris-strewn and trash-infested are much more apt, but I am painting a happy picture here). For lack of a better term, let’s call it California. In that city of cities san Francisco I met, among hundreds of other people a nice lady who had lived in central and south America during her formative years. Among other tails of adventure and disease, she once described to me an infestation of her own. Squeamish readers, stop here. Her clan was doing some kind of swiss family robinson gig (ok, clearly I wasn’t paying attention as she told me the first part of her story), or so I gathered, when she and her sister one day found themselves the hosts to most unpleasant foreign guests. I often like foreigners, foreign objects (even though I still remember the warning labels from when I was little that advised me to keep foreign objects out of my mouth), foreign films, foreign languages and often, though let’s be honest: not always, I like foreign food. So the girl had guests, no big deal. I was still only half paying attention to the story, kind of like you right now, probably, when she mentioned the word that filled me with trepidation and that other form of uneasiness, nausea.
Yes, friends, she and her sister had foreigners among them all right. They even had foreigners inside them, well, in their stomachs to be more precise. Parasites. Gusanitos (a particularly frightening word in Spanish). Those which cannot live by themselves but require the sustenance of a host to survive. Children? Yes. well, yes, but in this case, no. Worms. Remember the films you watched as a child of those unfortunate people who somehow contracted these nasty little critters? I do. Actually, I can visualize them like they are right in front of me at this moment. They strike palpable fear into my soul because, in the end, I am soft (scary movies really scare me. for days, ok, weeks, at a time).
(At this point, oh dearest of readers, you have every right to ask where this is all heading. Well, as the police once unwaveringly assured me, I have the right to remain tight-lipped. So it goes.)
As you might expect I was ready to walk away from this person and label her and her bug-harboring sibling as dirty, vile, unclean (the disinfected baby and the prophylactic pup / were playing in the garden when the bunny gambled up. / they looked upon the creature with a loathing undisguised / he wasn’t disinfected and he wasn’t sterilized – ok, some of the words are off, but I vaguely remember the poem as starting this way. Big a, do you remember who wrote it?). something akin to morbid curiosity kept my interest in her strange story and so I pressed her for more information.
Turns out she was able to rid herself of these evil little hangers-on with some sort of medicine that evicts them from their residence in the tum. I was thoroughly grossed out by her description of how she actually KNEW they had left the body, so I will leave this part to your imagination.
Worms. Gross. Even the book How to Eat Fried Worms bothered me a bit as a child.
So why would I relate this little episode from my days in cali? Well, I just learned another new thing today. Every person, more or less, in mexico takes pills every six months to keep their body free of the bad version of these worm creatures. Of course, you are thinking to yourself, all of us have little parasites inside of us that help with digestion, etc. I do not like thinking about this fact, so leave me to my ignorance. Anyway, these worms get inside the body down here from the water, food, even the air that one breathes. Exactly. Gross.
And where would I pick up this kind of information you might ask? That’s right, from a doctor. All week I have been feeling pretty bad: extremely weak and headaches at times. My first thought, lest we not forget I am a hypochondriac at heart, is that I had mononucleosis and that I would have to leave the country and sleep for 3 months. Probably not what happens with mono, but again, I am hypochondriac so I also exaggerate everything related to bad health.
So anywho, I spent the whole week taking vitamins and loading up on ibuprophin. I also went to bed almost every night around 9pm. No joke. I was sleeping 10-11 hours a night. And, I was waking up tired and ready to sleep more. My kidneys’ started to hurt yesterday (again, I might be exaggerating this part) so I firmed myself up for a trip to the doctor. There is a health plan through the university. Just imagine health care programs in mexico for a second. Lines, hours, etc. Ok. So I went to the doctor’s office which is actually in the same building in which I live. My friend Francisco went there the other day and vouched for it. 2 dollars for a visit. Not bad.
Another interesting side note here. The pharmacy is attached to the doctor’s office (there is a room that the doctor sits in. no nurse, no receptionist, no cashier. Just him doing it all) and they actually will try to sell you things you don’t need. But my prescription says I need a three day supply, why did you just give me a ten day supply?
Ok, so I hate doctors. Doctor’s that do not speak the same language I do? Ya, I really do not like them either. Thus, I made Francisco come with me as my translator.
I live in a small town so as we are waiting for the doctor to see me, the jorges’ see us waiting and come in to harass me about how I need to drink more mescal and eat more habenero pico. They are quite disappointed that I am abandoning my cheap ways and actually paying for something I could obtain for free (health care) and are generally unhelpful in regards to making me feel more confident.
The actual visit was quick and painless (all that build up, for what? You ask.). I actually understood most of what he said to me so paco was only rarely used for translating. He asked me some questions about how I felt. Asked me about my diet in general, then weighed me. I explained the sore body, weak feeling and he began writing a prescription. Wow. That was fast I thought.
Then he asked me about the u.s.a. where am I from, have I ever felt this way at home, etc. then he asked me a question which I needed help translating. He asked me when was the last time I had taken my pills for worms, bugs, etc. paco translated by making weird movements with this his hands around his stomach followed by the word I fear. Gusanito. Check back to the song I translated at the beginning to understand why I would know this word. I choked back my immediate desire to laugh, why would I need to take pills defending against worms? Oh my god.
At this point these more pertinent questions caused the interlocutor to tear up the first prescription and begin another.
Worms are in the air, the food and the water. Do I ever eat at any of the street vendors (flashbacks to the night I ate head)? he asked. Paco was quick to answer in the affirmative. Do they not have street vendors in the u.s.a who sell all kinds of food? (if you have not read Confederacy of Dunces, stop reading this and go rent it from the library). Well, yes, but I do not frequent them, I replied. The knowing smile that crept across his face will be one I shall not soon forget.
If you are like me and not wanting to believe this, let it sink in really well. The chances are extremely high that I have worms. If I don’t, then I am really in trouble, because maybe I do have mono.
Ok. I have worms.
On the plus side, the visit to the doctor and the pharmacy took about 15 minutes total and cost me 13 dollars with two prescriptions and some multi-vitamins (which I already have pretty much, but whatever, I am sucker).
On the negative side I have worms. The negatives are really outweighing the positives here. I am going to take a nap.
Back when I had long hair and far less debt, I lived in the land of majestic mountains, virtual valleys and sumptuous seashores (ok, debris-strewn and trash-infested are much more apt, but I am painting a happy picture here). For lack of a better term, let’s call it California. In that city of cities san Francisco I met, among hundreds of other people a nice lady who had lived in central and south America during her formative years. Among other tails of adventure and disease, she once described to me an infestation of her own. Squeamish readers, stop here. Her clan was doing some kind of swiss family robinson gig (ok, clearly I wasn’t paying attention as she told me the first part of her story), or so I gathered, when she and her sister one day found themselves the hosts to most unpleasant foreign guests. I often like foreigners, foreign objects (even though I still remember the warning labels from when I was little that advised me to keep foreign objects out of my mouth), foreign films, foreign languages and often, though let’s be honest: not always, I like foreign food. So the girl had guests, no big deal. I was still only half paying attention to the story, kind of like you right now, probably, when she mentioned the word that filled me with trepidation and that other form of uneasiness, nausea.
Yes, friends, she and her sister had foreigners among them all right. They even had foreigners inside them, well, in their stomachs to be more precise. Parasites. Gusanitos (a particularly frightening word in Spanish). Those which cannot live by themselves but require the sustenance of a host to survive. Children? Yes. well, yes, but in this case, no. Worms. Remember the films you watched as a child of those unfortunate people who somehow contracted these nasty little critters? I do. Actually, I can visualize them like they are right in front of me at this moment. They strike palpable fear into my soul because, in the end, I am soft (scary movies really scare me. for days, ok, weeks, at a time).
(At this point, oh dearest of readers, you have every right to ask where this is all heading. Well, as the police once unwaveringly assured me, I have the right to remain tight-lipped. So it goes.)
As you might expect I was ready to walk away from this person and label her and her bug-harboring sibling as dirty, vile, unclean (the disinfected baby and the prophylactic pup / were playing in the garden when the bunny gambled up. / they looked upon the creature with a loathing undisguised / he wasn’t disinfected and he wasn’t sterilized – ok, some of the words are off, but I vaguely remember the poem as starting this way. Big a, do you remember who wrote it?). something akin to morbid curiosity kept my interest in her strange story and so I pressed her for more information.
Turns out she was able to rid herself of these evil little hangers-on with some sort of medicine that evicts them from their residence in the tum. I was thoroughly grossed out by her description of how she actually KNEW they had left the body, so I will leave this part to your imagination.
Worms. Gross. Even the book How to Eat Fried Worms bothered me a bit as a child.
So why would I relate this little episode from my days in cali? Well, I just learned another new thing today. Every person, more or less, in mexico takes pills every six months to keep their body free of the bad version of these worm creatures. Of course, you are thinking to yourself, all of us have little parasites inside of us that help with digestion, etc. I do not like thinking about this fact, so leave me to my ignorance. Anyway, these worms get inside the body down here from the water, food, even the air that one breathes. Exactly. Gross.
And where would I pick up this kind of information you might ask? That’s right, from a doctor. All week I have been feeling pretty bad: extremely weak and headaches at times. My first thought, lest we not forget I am a hypochondriac at heart, is that I had mononucleosis and that I would have to leave the country and sleep for 3 months. Probably not what happens with mono, but again, I am hypochondriac so I also exaggerate everything related to bad health.
So anywho, I spent the whole week taking vitamins and loading up on ibuprophin. I also went to bed almost every night around 9pm. No joke. I was sleeping 10-11 hours a night. And, I was waking up tired and ready to sleep more. My kidneys’ started to hurt yesterday (again, I might be exaggerating this part) so I firmed myself up for a trip to the doctor. There is a health plan through the university. Just imagine health care programs in mexico for a second. Lines, hours, etc. Ok. So I went to the doctor’s office which is actually in the same building in which I live. My friend Francisco went there the other day and vouched for it. 2 dollars for a visit. Not bad.
Another interesting side note here. The pharmacy is attached to the doctor’s office (there is a room that the doctor sits in. no nurse, no receptionist, no cashier. Just him doing it all) and they actually will try to sell you things you don’t need. But my prescription says I need a three day supply, why did you just give me a ten day supply?
Ok, so I hate doctors. Doctor’s that do not speak the same language I do? Ya, I really do not like them either. Thus, I made Francisco come with me as my translator.
I live in a small town so as we are waiting for the doctor to see me, the jorges’ see us waiting and come in to harass me about how I need to drink more mescal and eat more habenero pico. They are quite disappointed that I am abandoning my cheap ways and actually paying for something I could obtain for free (health care) and are generally unhelpful in regards to making me feel more confident.
The actual visit was quick and painless (all that build up, for what? You ask.). I actually understood most of what he said to me so paco was only rarely used for translating. He asked me some questions about how I felt. Asked me about my diet in general, then weighed me. I explained the sore body, weak feeling and he began writing a prescription. Wow. That was fast I thought.
Then he asked me about the u.s.a. where am I from, have I ever felt this way at home, etc. then he asked me a question which I needed help translating. He asked me when was the last time I had taken my pills for worms, bugs, etc. paco translated by making weird movements with this his hands around his stomach followed by the word I fear. Gusanito. Check back to the song I translated at the beginning to understand why I would know this word. I choked back my immediate desire to laugh, why would I need to take pills defending against worms? Oh my god.
At this point these more pertinent questions caused the interlocutor to tear up the first prescription and begin another.
Worms are in the air, the food and the water. Do I ever eat at any of the street vendors (flashbacks to the night I ate head)? he asked. Paco was quick to answer in the affirmative. Do they not have street vendors in the u.s.a who sell all kinds of food? (if you have not read Confederacy of Dunces, stop reading this and go rent it from the library). Well, yes, but I do not frequent them, I replied. The knowing smile that crept across his face will be one I shall not soon forget.
If you are like me and not wanting to believe this, let it sink in really well. The chances are extremely high that I have worms. If I don’t, then I am really in trouble, because maybe I do have mono.
Ok. I have worms.
On the plus side, the visit to the doctor and the pharmacy took about 15 minutes total and cost me 13 dollars with two prescriptions and some multi-vitamins (which I already have pretty much, but whatever, I am sucker).
On the negative side I have worms. The negatives are really outweighing the positives here. I am going to take a nap.
06 October 2005
yippee, another email address. just what i have always wanted. willdavis@bianni.unistmo.edu.mx now, don´t go out and rush to send me an email (i know all of you were poised to add this to some address book somewhere) just because i have a new email. really. don´t rush. but hurry. or just post a comment. it is not hard. rather easy actually. tron, i am thinking of you here. (what is that line from the simpsons when homer joins lollapalooza, ¨cypress hill, i am looking at you...¨ who knows).
the good news is i feel better today. the bad news is our boss added a new class yesterday. sweet. just one, so now sally has three classes, 15 hrs a week of teaching, and arash and i have extra tutoring hours. really it works out bad for all of us because now arash and i feel bad that sally has so much work and we kind of skipped out on it. well, i mean, i kind of feel bad. sort of. at least when she is in the room i say i feel bad. does that count?
my boss is nuts. she shows up yesterday, forces the three english profs to sit through a 1.5 hour meeting that is entirely in spanish during which she decides that there will be an extra class of level 1 because there are over 31 students in each class. good that she did not choose to even discuss this possibility with us. we had to make it out of the rapid spanish that the people around us were speaking. it is like being a little kid and having the adults talk about you. you know that they are talking about you and that the results probably won´t be too good, but you cannot quite make out the entire meaning. then we had 15 minutes to prepare for the final class of the day. i think my boss is the most unorganized person in a position of power ever. she asked me yesterday if i had any friends i could invite down here to teach. good that she was thinking of this, oh, i don´t know, two months ago. i am not sure if she is actually trying to be incompetent or if it is just a natural biproduct of her personality.
some days i think i would like to stay here another six months rather than dealing with finding a new city, job, etc. some days... when i got here we were allowed 45 photocopies a week for our classes, and this did not include photocopies for tests. now, we have 60 photocopies a month and this number does include any tests we want copied. right. i was hoping for a test every six teaching days. now i have to write everything on the board. teachers, you will know this, but for everyone else, imagine what all the students might be doing while you are writing the questions on the board. not to say that all students are cheaters, but for simple fill-in-the-blank sentence completion tests, multiple-guess tests, etc. the temptation to just ask another student what the answer might be seems quite high. maybe i think the worst of people.
i am going to buy a frig this weekend! my roomate francisco has decided to go halves with me. yeehaw. cold water, butter, eggs, cheese, here i come!
my other roomate is nuts. he is aloof and odd and moody and no longer a person i invest any time in at all. oh well.
the good news is i feel better today. the bad news is our boss added a new class yesterday. sweet. just one, so now sally has three classes, 15 hrs a week of teaching, and arash and i have extra tutoring hours. really it works out bad for all of us because now arash and i feel bad that sally has so much work and we kind of skipped out on it. well, i mean, i kind of feel bad. sort of. at least when she is in the room i say i feel bad. does that count?
my boss is nuts. she shows up yesterday, forces the three english profs to sit through a 1.5 hour meeting that is entirely in spanish during which she decides that there will be an extra class of level 1 because there are over 31 students in each class. good that she did not choose to even discuss this possibility with us. we had to make it out of the rapid spanish that the people around us were speaking. it is like being a little kid and having the adults talk about you. you know that they are talking about you and that the results probably won´t be too good, but you cannot quite make out the entire meaning. then we had 15 minutes to prepare for the final class of the day. i think my boss is the most unorganized person in a position of power ever. she asked me yesterday if i had any friends i could invite down here to teach. good that she was thinking of this, oh, i don´t know, two months ago. i am not sure if she is actually trying to be incompetent or if it is just a natural biproduct of her personality.
some days i think i would like to stay here another six months rather than dealing with finding a new city, job, etc. some days... when i got here we were allowed 45 photocopies a week for our classes, and this did not include photocopies for tests. now, we have 60 photocopies a month and this number does include any tests we want copied. right. i was hoping for a test every six teaching days. now i have to write everything on the board. teachers, you will know this, but for everyone else, imagine what all the students might be doing while you are writing the questions on the board. not to say that all students are cheaters, but for simple fill-in-the-blank sentence completion tests, multiple-guess tests, etc. the temptation to just ask another student what the answer might be seems quite high. maybe i think the worst of people.
i am going to buy a frig this weekend! my roomate francisco has decided to go halves with me. yeehaw. cold water, butter, eggs, cheese, here i come!
my other roomate is nuts. he is aloof and odd and moody and no longer a person i invest any time in at all. oh well.
05 October 2005
Earthquake!!!!!
so we had two big earthquakes this morning that woke me up and freaked me out a little bit. they were at 6:25 and 6:30 respectively, my students are very up on these kinds of things and like knowing that i was a little afraid. to them these quakes are nothing new, but the biggest one lasted about 7 seconds or more, so it definitely scared me a bit. one of those things where you think you are dreaming then realize no, everything, including me, is shaking! lucky i own no furniture or lamps to fall on me or break on the floor. it seems my thrifty ways have started paying dividends comrads.
ok, not much else exciting going on right now. other than that it has been raining for over 48hrs. flash floods! what it really means is that it is going to be absolutely unbearable when the heat returns because all this moisture will make this place a tropical nighmare. living below the tropic of cancer, by will davis.
so we had two big earthquakes this morning that woke me up and freaked me out a little bit. they were at 6:25 and 6:30 respectively, my students are very up on these kinds of things and like knowing that i was a little afraid. to them these quakes are nothing new, but the biggest one lasted about 7 seconds or more, so it definitely scared me a bit. one of those things where you think you are dreaming then realize no, everything, including me, is shaking! lucky i own no furniture or lamps to fall on me or break on the floor. it seems my thrifty ways have started paying dividends comrads.
ok, not much else exciting going on right now. other than that it has been raining for over 48hrs. flash floods! what it really means is that it is going to be absolutely unbearable when the heat returns because all this moisture will make this place a tropical nighmare. living below the tropic of cancer, by will davis.
04 October 2005
nafta, malinches and the undoing of culture.
hey cline, you hit it exactly. my life is a soap opera. honestly, i wouldn´t have it any other way because at least it is exciting and you never know what the next day will bring. nothing extremely negative has arisen from all of this i highly doubt it will.
thanks to nafta and the prevailing malinche attitude (if it comes from u.s.a, and most foreign soil, it is automatically better than that from mexico: this applies to clothing, electronics, machinery, and of course, people. of course i am generalizing so this does not apply across the board, but simply take a walk through the local grocery store or an electronics store or a car dealership and you will see what i mean. the people part is a bit more difficult to explain. think on that one for a bit) there is an overabundance of all food estadounidense. i have all the good grub i could want and plenty of super hot sauce to top it with. plus, shipping cans would be unbelievably expensive.
did i mention the horror that is fast approaching juchitan? wal-mart. i thought i had escaped its clutches down here in the middle of nowhere (funny, iused to think the farm in madison was located smack dab in the middle of nowhere, how wrong i was). i was wrong. they will be opening their evil, malinchiste-dealing doors in the coming year. oh joy. roll back the prices. roll back the culture. everything must go.
hey cline, you hit it exactly. my life is a soap opera. honestly, i wouldn´t have it any other way because at least it is exciting and you never know what the next day will bring. nothing extremely negative has arisen from all of this i highly doubt it will.
thanks to nafta and the prevailing malinche attitude (if it comes from u.s.a, and most foreign soil, it is automatically better than that from mexico: this applies to clothing, electronics, machinery, and of course, people. of course i am generalizing so this does not apply across the board, but simply take a walk through the local grocery store or an electronics store or a car dealership and you will see what i mean. the people part is a bit more difficult to explain. think on that one for a bit) there is an overabundance of all food estadounidense. i have all the good grub i could want and plenty of super hot sauce to top it with. plus, shipping cans would be unbelievably expensive.
did i mention the horror that is fast approaching juchitan? wal-mart. i thought i had escaped its clutches down here in the middle of nowhere (funny, iused to think the farm in madison was located smack dab in the middle of nowhere, how wrong i was). i was wrong. they will be opening their evil, malinchiste-dealing doors in the coming year. oh joy. roll back the prices. roll back the culture. everything must go.
¨codo¨ means elbow. elbow apparently means cheap. the next time you think someone is being cheap, you merely have to point at them (james, i am thinking of you here because this requires absolutely no verbal effort) and then touch your elbow with you one hand, almost like cupping it. this seems amazingly simple as i describe it, but i realize that it might not be so obvious. anywho.
so now this has become a forum for me to describe the extent of cheapness, or as i like to say my thriftiness. i tried to explain thrifty to the guys today. they finally decided that it was my way of feeling good about how cheap i am. which it is. i tried the example (all of this is in spanish mind you) of i could buy a big refrigerator, which had them all excited because then they could all store beer and other such goods in it, which i do not really need, or i could get the smaller version because it suits my needs. thrifty. i do not need to spend lots of money, so i only buy what i need. i did not buy three shirts this weekend at regular price; i waited until the very last shop which had reduced priced shirts, 50% off because they had small blemishes which really could be removed with a little soap, water and scrubbing, and then i bought one. the boys were laughing because jorge chico had already bought four and then got another one with me.
so today everyone laughed at me because there are two main options for getting back to the university from lunch. one, cram into the 1970´s style school bus with every other student and person (this means standing and sweating for about 7 minutes) or taking a 5 person taxi. these taxi are nissan sentra size cars: four door, made for a max of five child-like occupants, not six (we put two in the front bucket seat which is not recommended by the nissan corporation, department of highway safety or either person stuck in the front). the bus is 2.50 pesos. the taxi is 4 pesos (20 pesos total, but five people is only 4 each. i know, math people, obvious to most, but there are english teachers reading this after all). i always opt for the bus. practical, slow, reliable even if it is hot, smelly and far too overcrowded (think volkswagen beetle at the circus).
they won and i took the cab. a small victory for them because secretly they really just love to harass me. the legend of the cheap gringo will undoubtedly continue. until next time....
so now this has become a forum for me to describe the extent of cheapness, or as i like to say my thriftiness. i tried to explain thrifty to the guys today. they finally decided that it was my way of feeling good about how cheap i am. which it is. i tried the example (all of this is in spanish mind you) of i could buy a big refrigerator, which had them all excited because then they could all store beer and other such goods in it, which i do not really need, or i could get the smaller version because it suits my needs. thrifty. i do not need to spend lots of money, so i only buy what i need. i did not buy three shirts this weekend at regular price; i waited until the very last shop which had reduced priced shirts, 50% off because they had small blemishes which really could be removed with a little soap, water and scrubbing, and then i bought one. the boys were laughing because jorge chico had already bought four and then got another one with me.
so today everyone laughed at me because there are two main options for getting back to the university from lunch. one, cram into the 1970´s style school bus with every other student and person (this means standing and sweating for about 7 minutes) or taking a 5 person taxi. these taxi are nissan sentra size cars: four door, made for a max of five child-like occupants, not six (we put two in the front bucket seat which is not recommended by the nissan corporation, department of highway safety or either person stuck in the front). the bus is 2.50 pesos. the taxi is 4 pesos (20 pesos total, but five people is only 4 each. i know, math people, obvious to most, but there are english teachers reading this after all). i always opt for the bus. practical, slow, reliable even if it is hot, smelly and far too overcrowded (think volkswagen beetle at the circus).
they won and i took the cab. a small victory for them because secretly they really just love to harass me. the legend of the cheap gringo will undoubtedly continue. until next time....
falling skies. so if anyone reads or sees the news, please tell me what in the world is going on down here. it has been raining for well over 24 hours! not usual and now the roofs are leaking. too funny.
the other two profs are freaking out because they have over 30 students in their level 1 classes. i am set right now with my two classes- 13 level 5, 16 in level 2. level 5 is awesome. level 2, clearly, needs much more help, but i have high hopes.
i love the rain because it has finally cooled down some. i am actually wearing one of the two long sleeve shirts that i brought with me. yay. i tell you, little things really make me happy.
my spanish has stalled a bit. i can communicate so-so, but have not been devoting enough time to really reading and practicing my writing. my speaking ability has improved, but i am still using the same 25 or 30 verbs to explain everything. it just feels weird to say the same thing over and over. oh well, it could be worse. the newest prof is really struggling. she is kicking herself for not arriving weeks earlier, which she could have i just found out! oh well, sucks for her, but arash and i help out where we can. i think she is just really overwhelmed right now. kind of where i was a month ago, so i can empathize.
wow, how am i not coming up with a funny story? i am sure i have ten or so to tell, but nothing is coming to me right now. boo.
i think i am going to buy a frig. my new friends the jorges, oscar omar chavez rodríguez (every time he sees me, ten times or more a day, he insists on saying my complete full name, and his accent kills me, so now i say his complete name every time i see him) and paco cannot believe it. i constantly tell them i am poor, have no money because i have student loan debt, blah blah blah and thus do not want to spend money on ... whatever. you all know how cheap i am, so this is no surprise. they love it. they all call me the rich american (they use american on purpose to mess with me because they know damn well that they are americans too) and that i should buy dinner and so on. anyway, long story short is that my new friends are awesome. they treat me as an equal and help me when i have problems with the language. even with my limited vocabulary i am able to joke with them. they have already adopted some of my phrases. por ejemplo: ¿por qué no? which translates to why not? apparently no one uses it down here. well, i use it every time they ask me something that i want to do. do you want this kind of food? por qué no?! it is a trip because they all use it now. they laugh and laugh. when one of them makes an obvious question and the other starts to give a normal answer, one of them will interupt and remind them, ¿por qué no? i will have to remember my other great catch phrases.
gotta run because i have a new lunch schedule. three hours! woo hoo
the other two profs are freaking out because they have over 30 students in their level 1 classes. i am set right now with my two classes- 13 level 5, 16 in level 2. level 5 is awesome. level 2, clearly, needs much more help, but i have high hopes.
i love the rain because it has finally cooled down some. i am actually wearing one of the two long sleeve shirts that i brought with me. yay. i tell you, little things really make me happy.
my spanish has stalled a bit. i can communicate so-so, but have not been devoting enough time to really reading and practicing my writing. my speaking ability has improved, but i am still using the same 25 or 30 verbs to explain everything. it just feels weird to say the same thing over and over. oh well, it could be worse. the newest prof is really struggling. she is kicking herself for not arriving weeks earlier, which she could have i just found out! oh well, sucks for her, but arash and i help out where we can. i think she is just really overwhelmed right now. kind of where i was a month ago, so i can empathize.
wow, how am i not coming up with a funny story? i am sure i have ten or so to tell, but nothing is coming to me right now. boo.
i think i am going to buy a frig. my new friends the jorges, oscar omar chavez rodríguez (every time he sees me, ten times or more a day, he insists on saying my complete full name, and his accent kills me, so now i say his complete name every time i see him) and paco cannot believe it. i constantly tell them i am poor, have no money because i have student loan debt, blah blah blah and thus do not want to spend money on ... whatever. you all know how cheap i am, so this is no surprise. they love it. they all call me the rich american (they use american on purpose to mess with me because they know damn well that they are americans too) and that i should buy dinner and so on. anyway, long story short is that my new friends are awesome. they treat me as an equal and help me when i have problems with the language. even with my limited vocabulary i am able to joke with them. they have already adopted some of my phrases. por ejemplo: ¿por qué no? which translates to why not? apparently no one uses it down here. well, i use it every time they ask me something that i want to do. do you want this kind of food? por qué no?! it is a trip because they all use it now. they laugh and laugh. when one of them makes an obvious question and the other starts to give a normal answer, one of them will interupt and remind them, ¿por qué no? i will have to remember my other great catch phrases.
gotta run because i have a new lunch schedule. three hours! woo hoo
03 October 2005
ok, so i am going to try to answer questions that i never answered.
yes, ames, the apt is huge. three separate bedrooms, kitchen, common area, indoor-outdoor patio, balcony. i am hoping francisco will go in on a frig with me this weekend, otherwise, i am going to suck it up and buy one.
kristin, the person over my boss is the vice-rector who i do not really know and speaks no english anyway. basically, she is the head honcho. i hope to be able to keep up with these blogs, but it will less than now probably. i teach two hours out of 8, so lots of spare time!
the new profs are doing well. arash speaks 5 langauges, so he rocks. sally is super nervous because, nicole is nicole and gave her no support, help, etc. arash and i have calmed her a bit. she taught for two years in japan, so is used to esl. all of our first classes went well! i am helping them realize that this job is what they make it. the boss won´t ever be here, so we get what we put in like so many other things in life. we all wish there was a structure, organization, help-line, etc, but as their is not, we are our own support group.
sally is the new prof. she is 25 and from britland. she is pretty nice and her spanish is quite poor so she is having a rough go of it right now, but she is getting on better. all the other spanish profs love her (after all she is a guera) and so she has made fast friends! she seems pretty chill overall. the guys down here love a woman with some meat on her bones, so most like her and she gets some funny comments when we all walk down the street. she will be fine i think.
arash has a live-in mexican girlfriend, so he is already fine.
caroline, yes, all the profs have different accents. some are super hard to understand, but whatever. all the english teachers have very different accents as well, so what are you gonna do? the profs from the north, chihuahua, sonora, etc. speaks really really fast. this group includes my roomie victor, who honestly, i don´t really even talk to anymore. francisco is pretty much ignored by him as well, and francisco (nicknames for this name are paco, pancho, chico and another that i forget, kind of like bill, billy, will, willie) tells me that he has also noticed that victor seems to speak unusually fast ariound me. forget him. i have other friends who all think he is weird, so it seems we are in agreement. strangely, it seems as though he is some jealous boyfriend or girlfriend. he won´t talk to me and acts all weird. good god. glad other profs finally arrived and rescued me. this situation could have turned ugly!
ok, so that should answer most questions. don´t forget to comment! none of you fools email me anymore (not true c-line, big a, tina, cuba, ebc), so if you are reading this, write something!!!
later skaters.
heads
yes, ames, the apt is huge. three separate bedrooms, kitchen, common area, indoor-outdoor patio, balcony. i am hoping francisco will go in on a frig with me this weekend, otherwise, i am going to suck it up and buy one.
kristin, the person over my boss is the vice-rector who i do not really know and speaks no english anyway. basically, she is the head honcho. i hope to be able to keep up with these blogs, but it will less than now probably. i teach two hours out of 8, so lots of spare time!
the new profs are doing well. arash speaks 5 langauges, so he rocks. sally is super nervous because, nicole is nicole and gave her no support, help, etc. arash and i have calmed her a bit. she taught for two years in japan, so is used to esl. all of our first classes went well! i am helping them realize that this job is what they make it. the boss won´t ever be here, so we get what we put in like so many other things in life. we all wish there was a structure, organization, help-line, etc, but as their is not, we are our own support group.
sally is the new prof. she is 25 and from britland. she is pretty nice and her spanish is quite poor so she is having a rough go of it right now, but she is getting on better. all the other spanish profs love her (after all she is a guera) and so she has made fast friends! she seems pretty chill overall. the guys down here love a woman with some meat on her bones, so most like her and she gets some funny comments when we all walk down the street. she will be fine i think.
arash has a live-in mexican girlfriend, so he is already fine.
caroline, yes, all the profs have different accents. some are super hard to understand, but whatever. all the english teachers have very different accents as well, so what are you gonna do? the profs from the north, chihuahua, sonora, etc. speaks really really fast. this group includes my roomie victor, who honestly, i don´t really even talk to anymore. francisco is pretty much ignored by him as well, and francisco (nicknames for this name are paco, pancho, chico and another that i forget, kind of like bill, billy, will, willie) tells me that he has also noticed that victor seems to speak unusually fast ariound me. forget him. i have other friends who all think he is weird, so it seems we are in agreement. strangely, it seems as though he is some jealous boyfriend or girlfriend. he won´t talk to me and acts all weird. good god. glad other profs finally arrived and rescued me. this situation could have turned ugly!
ok, so that should answer most questions. don´t forget to comment! none of you fools email me anymore (not true c-line, big a, tina, cuba, ebc), so if you are reading this, write something!!!
later skaters.
heads
heads or tails? quick funny story about this weekend past and i have to run. just had my first class (level 5) and they rock. they all speak english really well, so that should be awesome. there are only three teachers, the fourth bailed on friday. cuba, you lose the bet. so do i. damn. the boss seems to think she will find someone in two weeks. right. heard that before.
ok, so one of the things that has creeped me out a bit is that sometimes i will walk down the street and see a cow skull completely picked clean. given that there are about 50 wild dogs in each town, the fact that they are picked completely clean is not extremely surprising, but i have no experience with cow head in general, so it is still disturbing.
this past saturday i went to juchitan with jorge chico (little george) and jorge de jungla (george of the jungle, clearly these are my names for them, and they are taking to them slowly considering chico is 35 and the jungle is 42 years old) and francisco. so we are shopping for house stuff for them and a guayabera for me and chico. hours into the day they all want some food. deciding on places to eat with these guys is like gettting a nascar fan away from the t.v. on sunday: impossible. we are all cheap as hell and know very little about the area so we walk back and forth, back and forth. finally, they decide on a little vendor on the street selling tacos (soft tortillas with meat, salsa, lettuce, onions) for about 5 pesos each ; overall a sweet deal.
i am more hot than hungry (by the way the average temp down here is still about 100 or so during the day), so i sit in the plastic chairs as an observer. they chat/harass the women vendors (think little white stand selling hot dogs and the like in the states) over price, size, etc and then settle in to wait four minutes for the food.
i look up and notice a cow head in the display of the food stand. then i notice that half of the skull is showing with about half of the meat in jagged brown pieces loosely clinging to the non-exposed portion of the skull. i am immediately very happy i ordered nothing because i have the urge to wrech, heave, whatever. the guys notice my change in color of bright red to pale and ask what´s up. i explain that there is a head in the display. they non-chalantly explain that head is good, so is tounge, stomach, etc.
i vehemently disagree and declare that eating the head (cabeza) is super gross and i would never try it.
a smile crosses their faces.
i don´t like that smile because it is accompanied by a queer silence.
what? what the hell is going on, why does my statement that head is gross seem so funny to them?
will, you just ate head last night at the taco stand at 2am after the bar. NOOOOOOOOOO. no way, impossible, utterly inconceivable (¨i don´t think you know what that word means¨ princess bride).
but oh, yes, it is more than conceivable, it happened. i ate cow head. more importantly, i ate 3 cow head tacos, and, of my accord, ordered three more.
needless to say, the jorges and francisco cannot conceal, and are making no effort to dissemble and hide, their mirth over the fact that i have unwittingly made myself sick.
two days later, i still cannot get the sight of that half eaten skull out of mind. most of the head has left my body by this point, but i am still grossed out. i also ate iguana the other day. didn´t know it, but i did it. jésus. i also now eat avacados, onions to some extent, tomatoes to some extent (though i still do not like the last two) and plenty of other food which i never would have touched in states.
heads or tails. clearly, heads. (anyone remember Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (sp?) Are Dead? ya, now i do.)
so think on that for a spell gringos. in the words of george of the jungle, ¨what do you think they do with the heads in the u.s.a?¨ ¨throw them away¨ i quickly retorted. ¨not mcdonald´s, burger king, etc.¨he responded. it raises a good question. where do the heads go? ground beef. why have i never thought of this before?
heads.
ok, so one of the things that has creeped me out a bit is that sometimes i will walk down the street and see a cow skull completely picked clean. given that there are about 50 wild dogs in each town, the fact that they are picked completely clean is not extremely surprising, but i have no experience with cow head in general, so it is still disturbing.
this past saturday i went to juchitan with jorge chico (little george) and jorge de jungla (george of the jungle, clearly these are my names for them, and they are taking to them slowly considering chico is 35 and the jungle is 42 years old) and francisco. so we are shopping for house stuff for them and a guayabera for me and chico. hours into the day they all want some food. deciding on places to eat with these guys is like gettting a nascar fan away from the t.v. on sunday: impossible. we are all cheap as hell and know very little about the area so we walk back and forth, back and forth. finally, they decide on a little vendor on the street selling tacos (soft tortillas with meat, salsa, lettuce, onions) for about 5 pesos each ; overall a sweet deal.
i am more hot than hungry (by the way the average temp down here is still about 100 or so during the day), so i sit in the plastic chairs as an observer. they chat/harass the women vendors (think little white stand selling hot dogs and the like in the states) over price, size, etc and then settle in to wait four minutes for the food.
i look up and notice a cow head in the display of the food stand. then i notice that half of the skull is showing with about half of the meat in jagged brown pieces loosely clinging to the non-exposed portion of the skull. i am immediately very happy i ordered nothing because i have the urge to wrech, heave, whatever. the guys notice my change in color of bright red to pale and ask what´s up. i explain that there is a head in the display. they non-chalantly explain that head is good, so is tounge, stomach, etc.
i vehemently disagree and declare that eating the head (cabeza) is super gross and i would never try it.
a smile crosses their faces.
i don´t like that smile because it is accompanied by a queer silence.
what? what the hell is going on, why does my statement that head is gross seem so funny to them?
will, you just ate head last night at the taco stand at 2am after the bar. NOOOOOOOOOO. no way, impossible, utterly inconceivable (¨i don´t think you know what that word means¨ princess bride).
but oh, yes, it is more than conceivable, it happened. i ate cow head. more importantly, i ate 3 cow head tacos, and, of my accord, ordered three more.
needless to say, the jorges and francisco cannot conceal, and are making no effort to dissemble and hide, their mirth over the fact that i have unwittingly made myself sick.
two days later, i still cannot get the sight of that half eaten skull out of mind. most of the head has left my body by this point, but i am still grossed out. i also ate iguana the other day. didn´t know it, but i did it. jésus. i also now eat avacados, onions to some extent, tomatoes to some extent (though i still do not like the last two) and plenty of other food which i never would have touched in states.
heads or tails. clearly, heads. (anyone remember Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (sp?) Are Dead? ya, now i do.)
so think on that for a spell gringos. in the words of george of the jungle, ¨what do you think they do with the heads in the u.s.a?¨ ¨throw them away¨ i quickly retorted. ¨not mcdonald´s, burger king, etc.¨he responded. it raises a good question. where do the heads go? ground beef. why have i never thought of this before?
heads.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)