good morning all. hope you had a lovely weekend, mine was quite good.

as you might have guessed, i am taking the job in puebla. it starts officially on august 2nd, but i will probably be there a day or so early. all my hopes of getting 2wks paid vacation before setting off from this job have been dashed. economically, i understand the uni´s point of view. had i just taken the vacation and then quit my first day back, this was a serious consideration, i would have been docked pay in my final check. thus, i am bailing early. or, i am taking an extended vacation, depends on how you want to look at it. thus, the countdown has begun. i leave two weeks from today! i cannot believe it is really time to go, but i am not going to cry about it either. i will leave here next wednesday, go to puebla and drop off the majority of my belongings (although my dad was the only one to see me leave, you might have guessed i am travelling rather light) with my friend´s family and head down to guatemala. i am excited as you might imagine. lots to see and do, and i will be updating the blog as often as is possible over the time period. i foresee myself in some rural places so it wont be too often but at least once a week, hopefully more.

i have also decided to invest in a new camera. i am looking on ebay right now to find something relatively cheap(i am going for 200 dollars or less), possibly used, but there are literally thousands of cameras, so i am in a bit of a quandry. does anyone have any brands that they do or do not recommend? i am guessing i want a minimum of 5megapixels. does that sound about right? any advice you can give me would be great. i am going to search today and tomorrow for some websites that list consumer reports about digital cams, but if you can give me any ideas about where to look, that would be great. also, if you or your friend has a camera that has been shoddy, let me know the brand and i will avoid it. seriously, any help you can give me would be appreciated.

i am not planning on taking the cam with me on vacation because of time constraints getting it down to mexico, so i am in no serious rush on this. i imagine i will make the purchase in august or so.

hope you are all well. drop a comment when you have a chance, i like hearing from you and for many of you, this is the only way we communicate, so... let me know what´s up!