yes, papa-dough, get your hurricane digs in now. the horrible storm that wrecked blacksburg just may be around later this month when some other boys from virginia head to south florida. be forewarned. thank you letting me know about the trial. i am glad that you can finally relax. i am disappointed that you have to wait until jan 6, but that is the way things go. life seems like a lot waiting sometimes. i guess the key is not to spend any time waiting, to fill all your days with little adventures so that when what you were waiting for finally arrives, you can be happy no matter what the news because you have enjoyed every day up until that one. ok, that is all the dr. phil i have in me this morning.

because today is friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

woohoooooooo. the weekend. i move on sunday, exciting, exciting. my friend arash´s birthday is today (he is another eng prof) and his fiancé planned a surprise party for him. then she told him about it. so all the profs were trying to be super stealth about it and then yesterday he asked me if i was coming to dinner tonight at his house. doh.

i have been here for just over 11 weeks. wow. life is good still and i cannot really complain. i get into arguments every now and then (finally, i can better express my thoughts) with the boys because they use the word gringo, which i hate, to describe me sometimes. my name is will. i have about 20 horribly racist names i could use instead of their names, but i do not. why? respect. i freaked out on one of my friends last friday night (in english, i cussed him because he called me gringo on the bus in front of all my students and other faculty) at dinner. i did not cuss him on the bus. i waited until it was just adults.

bascially, here is my problem. gringo is derived from around the 1840`s when the usa troops were marching into mexico (this is where my picture book learning really evinces itself) toward d.f. to occupy and later force the mexican govt into signing the treaty of guadalupe hidalgo around 1848 which essentially sold to the usa new mex, cali and other other areas (does this all sound right timmay?).

anyhoo, the people of mexico would yell at the usa troops, in english, green go home. green go home was shortened into gringo. i realize that most people in this country and the states do not understand the significance or history of this phrase, but i do. i do not like it. it is offensive and i have told my friends this about, oh, fifteen times. thus, when they use this phrase i ignore them or respond by callin them impudent, sometimes ignorant, little boys. the effect is nowhere near the same in my opinion, although it does succeed to some extent in making them feel foolish.

so i freaked out on the guy. he deserves it because he knows damn well it makes me mad and he is smart enough to know not to say it. he is just an arrogant little jerk. but hey, there are those in every country, right? either way, i have once again begun to slice and select; i am working on trimming some of the fat and finding the friends i really like and the ones that no longer serve or were never really my friends to begin with (i.e. victor). it is an ongoing process, and i hope to fill the vacant roster spots with new recruits as my language improves and i can meet more people outside of the profs. i know it sounds weird, but this is my process. thus once again, here we are.

take it easy my northern bretherin and sisterin (that is neither spelled correctly nor am i sure that the second one is even a real word) and keep posting comments! cuba, i love that you used that quote in class. i am going to try it today as well (my students still love to ask questions solely in spanish and they no longer believe me when i respond to them, in spanish, that i do not speak or understand spanish). and remember: you want your belt to buckle, not your chair.