poppa doughman, do you ever invite antney up to the big house to eat? how interesting that everything is coming full cirlce. i lived in the cottage for half a year and now your semi-son has taken residence there. did you ever live there doughman or just grandma? very interesting indeed.

truckin on here in d.f. i had a birthday cookout last saturday at my house and it was wonderful. a lot of english profs came, but there were many more mexis there as well. as one of my friends from the istmus, you really can never escape it, mentioned, it was one of the more multicultural parties he has ever been to. of course coming from the istmus, there is not a lot of diversity, but still it amused me.

the istmus. land of 115degree days and 100 degree nights. dont miss a thing about it. except for a place to hang my hammock, i love where i live. the landlord is very nice and i teach her daughter english 3 times a week so i am staying on her good side for now.

i now have a stove, given by my landlady, a shelf, from same, a bed and frame, again the landlady´s, and a frig- i bought a used one on the cheap, so life is kind of normal. a friend gave me a t.v., which is kind of good. i watch the news in spanish and the simpson´s dubbed in spanish as well. i must admit i miss the simpson´s in english, i cannot tell you how much better our version is, but it is kind of neat to hear how they say certain catch phrases- bart in particular is hilarious.

i take spanish twice week with a prof here from argentina. there were once four of us english teachers in the class and now it is down to me and one more. so it goes. not sure if the dept will continue to pay my instructor to teach me, basically private lessons, but he spoke to me about it and will trade me one hour for one hour if they cancel the class. he lived in the usa for about 8 years so his eng is excellent but he just has no one to practice with. sounds like a good trade to me if it comes down to it. he invited me to his house for dinner a few weeks ago. his wifeand kids are really nice and she is an excellent cook. it was fun to speak spanish with people who have totally different accents- the argentine spanish is very very different from mexi spanish. plus there was a colombian there as well, an exprof from where i work now, and talking politics with them was amusing and informative. it is always good to get a perspective that is foreign to your own, andthe south american view of politics is definitely different.

life is good in general here. the smog is occassionally nasty, but the other day i got a view of the two huge volcanoes that lurk on the edge of the enormous valley i live in. they are about 18-19000 ft each, much larger than anything we have in the lower 48, and covered in snow. one is slightly active, a few years ago it belched out enough ash to coat the city, but in general it is fairly tame. i like living in the shadow of those two- they are a husband and wife pair accordig to legend. the male, el popo, stands guard over the sleeping female, la itza. lots of legend and myth here in the city and in this country in general. makes you wonder what would have happened in the states if we had bred with the natives instead of killing all we could and marching the rest into the desert to die. this to me is a key difference. mexico, the name alone says a lot, embraced part of its indigenous heritage. we eradicated most of it. one way to go about things i guess.

enough bs for today. hope all is well in gringo-landia (such a stupid word it is just funny). root for the hokies this weekend. hopefully i will get to watch the game, my first in over a year, this saturday. maybe no one else will get arrested betweennow and then. wishfull thinking, i know.