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.