01 December 2005
30 November 2005
the ¨true cross¨, veracruz, proved to be quite an interesting place. it is about 7hrs by bus from here, and is located on the gulf coast of mexico in the state of, you guessed it, veracruz. it is a port town, so west coasters, think of a smaller oakland, and east coasters, think of a port around the size of norfolk, or nawfuk, for those in the know. thus, it is pretty dirty because pemex, the nationalized oil industrustry, has large holds here. plus, it is the prinicipal recipient of most imports that come from overseas (is that redundant? i mean, import implies coming from somewhere foreign, and if the city is a port, it comes from the water, so thus it is overseas, right?).
anyway, the bus ride was faster than we anticipitated, so we arrived in the city around 3:45am. sweet. we had only slept a few hours on the bus, which was super comfy but really, how easily can you sleep on a bus? so we found a cheap hotel that miraculously allowed us to only pay for one night since essentially we would be checking out in just over 28 hours. super sweet. we payed less than 100 pesos each for a bed, clean towels and sheets and a location in theheart of downtown. could not be more perfect. thank you lonely planet for your sound advice on where to sleep on the cheap. and, as we have established over and over, i am cheap. the best part is, for the first time in over three months, i had hot water when i took a shower. wow. i thought i could stay in there forever. as old roomates or my sisters will remember, i like to stay in the shower for long periods of time. some claim i may have once, or twice,fallen asleep in the shower at home in virginia. my representatives and i continue to deny such allegations and steadfastly affirm that i merely was resting my eyes.
we slept until about 8:45am, at which time i thought is was 11am, so i woke up my friends, viridiana and the brit, and informed them that their lazy butts were costing us precious time. they rebuked me with venemous words which i shall not include here and concluded by telling me the actual time and that they would be ready when they pleased. women. who really can understand them except other women?
in any event after what seemed like days, they had showered and were ready to explore. we went to the zócolo, which is the main center plaza, or plaza de armas, where the tourists, and thus watch sellers, hang out. we drank coffee and then hit the tourist office. they were quite helpful and gave us maps, which i love, we were on our way. as i like tooting horns, especially my own, my direction finding was stellar the entire weekend. viri nicknamed me the brújula, or compass, because i miraculously found my way around nearly everywhere. nearly.
we went to a fortress that was an island very close to the mainlain, until they filled in the water with dirt and rocks, think financial district downtown s.f., and made a connection. it was almost 500 years and looked. it was used as a prison and stronghold to defend the port town from the french and of course, the usa, twice. it was fun reading the history as they bashed the usa for invading, twice, andpretty much running roughshod over the whole place. the funny part was that there were many mexican tourists giving me funny looks. pics of this place will follow.
after some interesting exchanges with cab drivers, one in particular who offered to take us to our next destination for the, in his opinion, incredibly low price of 400 pesos. and he would be our guide for the afternoon! woohoo. no thanks. i was quite happy though because i actually understood 85% of this negotiation process and he neither slowed down nor used textbook spanish. sweet action.
so we got a cab back to town, headed to the bus station for a second class bus to antigua (the first or second villa established in mexico by the spaniards. 14 pesos each way. 28 round trip. quite a bit less than the roughly 133pesos per person we would have paid mr cabbie who swore his deal was the best in town. did i mention that since we are professors that all ruins, museums, etc are either highly discounted or absolutely free? yahtzee. i just keep winning.
antigua was wild. there is what the people claim is the house of cortéz, the evil spaniard who conquered mexico and enslaved or killed thousands while destroying temples, icons and anythin non-christian in his path. the house is amazing because it is just walls now. there are trees covering the entrance and growing over doorways and windows. it is like the jungle wants to hide what happened. the land is slowly removing traces of the violent and horrible past and the people are accomplices in many ways. i ask people what their opinions of cortéz are, and they say he is bad but have no real emotion tied to it. i think i am more frustrated with the destruction than they are. people the spaniards pro-created and the people adopted christianity, many just accept the history and go on their way. i like that the jungle is erasing, in some ways, the mark of cortéz. something remembers. it could also be seen as a way of accepting the history as well though because as the trees take over the buildings, they are merely covering up what once was, not truly erasing it completely. but the fundamental elements of the building came from the land, so only the design of the structure is foreign. as the roots rip apart the architecture, the pieces return to the soil and the moss welcomes back the stone. the wind and water erode the markings and leave natural colors. in one hundred years the forest could easily consume the site. the place reminds me of a garcía marquez novel, 100 yrs of solitude, because in the end, the dust and wind consume the town and wipe it from the earth. it could happen in la antigua (the ancient).
but then there is banamex, a large mexi bank. they have dedicated themselves to restoring the site. the keeper of the coffers of gold plundered from the native people of mexico, clear descendants of the spanish legacy, want to reestablish the magnificence of the site. i think nature is taking care of that already.
once again, cortéz will win, and the people of mexico will be the ones who carry out the orders and do the brute work.
ok. lots more to say and lots more adventures, but i have to do some work. i will work on pics tomorrow.
anyway, the bus ride was faster than we anticipitated, so we arrived in the city around 3:45am. sweet. we had only slept a few hours on the bus, which was super comfy but really, how easily can you sleep on a bus? so we found a cheap hotel that miraculously allowed us to only pay for one night since essentially we would be checking out in just over 28 hours. super sweet. we payed less than 100 pesos each for a bed, clean towels and sheets and a location in theheart of downtown. could not be more perfect. thank you lonely planet for your sound advice on where to sleep on the cheap. and, as we have established over and over, i am cheap. the best part is, for the first time in over three months, i had hot water when i took a shower. wow. i thought i could stay in there forever. as old roomates or my sisters will remember, i like to stay in the shower for long periods of time. some claim i may have once, or twice,fallen asleep in the shower at home in virginia. my representatives and i continue to deny such allegations and steadfastly affirm that i merely was resting my eyes.
we slept until about 8:45am, at which time i thought is was 11am, so i woke up my friends, viridiana and the brit, and informed them that their lazy butts were costing us precious time. they rebuked me with venemous words which i shall not include here and concluded by telling me the actual time and that they would be ready when they pleased. women. who really can understand them except other women?
in any event after what seemed like days, they had showered and were ready to explore. we went to the zócolo, which is the main center plaza, or plaza de armas, where the tourists, and thus watch sellers, hang out. we drank coffee and then hit the tourist office. they were quite helpful and gave us maps, which i love, we were on our way. as i like tooting horns, especially my own, my direction finding was stellar the entire weekend. viri nicknamed me the brújula, or compass, because i miraculously found my way around nearly everywhere. nearly.
we went to a fortress that was an island very close to the mainlain, until they filled in the water with dirt and rocks, think financial district downtown s.f., and made a connection. it was almost 500 years and looked. it was used as a prison and stronghold to defend the port town from the french and of course, the usa, twice. it was fun reading the history as they bashed the usa for invading, twice, andpretty much running roughshod over the whole place. the funny part was that there were many mexican tourists giving me funny looks. pics of this place will follow.
after some interesting exchanges with cab drivers, one in particular who offered to take us to our next destination for the, in his opinion, incredibly low price of 400 pesos. and he would be our guide for the afternoon! woohoo. no thanks. i was quite happy though because i actually understood 85% of this negotiation process and he neither slowed down nor used textbook spanish. sweet action.
so we got a cab back to town, headed to the bus station for a second class bus to antigua (the first or second villa established in mexico by the spaniards. 14 pesos each way. 28 round trip. quite a bit less than the roughly 133pesos per person we would have paid mr cabbie who swore his deal was the best in town. did i mention that since we are professors that all ruins, museums, etc are either highly discounted or absolutely free? yahtzee. i just keep winning.
antigua was wild. there is what the people claim is the house of cortéz, the evil spaniard who conquered mexico and enslaved or killed thousands while destroying temples, icons and anythin non-christian in his path. the house is amazing because it is just walls now. there are trees covering the entrance and growing over doorways and windows. it is like the jungle wants to hide what happened. the land is slowly removing traces of the violent and horrible past and the people are accomplices in many ways. i ask people what their opinions of cortéz are, and they say he is bad but have no real emotion tied to it. i think i am more frustrated with the destruction than they are. people the spaniards pro-created and the people adopted christianity, many just accept the history and go on their way. i like that the jungle is erasing, in some ways, the mark of cortéz. something remembers. it could also be seen as a way of accepting the history as well though because as the trees take over the buildings, they are merely covering up what once was, not truly erasing it completely. but the fundamental elements of the building came from the land, so only the design of the structure is foreign. as the roots rip apart the architecture, the pieces return to the soil and the moss welcomes back the stone. the wind and water erode the markings and leave natural colors. in one hundred years the forest could easily consume the site. the place reminds me of a garcía marquez novel, 100 yrs of solitude, because in the end, the dust and wind consume the town and wipe it from the earth. it could happen in la antigua (the ancient).
but then there is banamex, a large mexi bank. they have dedicated themselves to restoring the site. the keeper of the coffers of gold plundered from the native people of mexico, clear descendants of the spanish legacy, want to reestablish the magnificence of the site. i think nature is taking care of that already.
once again, cortéz will win, and the people of mexico will be the ones who carry out the orders and do the brute work.
ok. lots more to say and lots more adventures, but i have to do some work. i will work on pics tomorrow.
28 November 2005
and since you are all wondering, yes, i did catch the score of the hokies dismantling of the lowly tarhoos. i like that combination. tarheels, wahoos, tarhoos.
i had a killer time in veracruz this weekend. i will write all about it and show pictures later this week, but i am dead tired right now (we got back to juchitan at 4:45am and back to ole ixtepec after 5:15, so i had about an hour of sleep after a fairly restless night on the bus and i am zoning out).
but i want to share a little story. this country is full of construction. everywhere you look there is a new building going up, while one right beside it is taken over by weeds and the roaming packs of dogs. the same is true on our uni campus. they are constantly building something, even though there are four buildings that as of now have absolutely no use whatsoever. the big thing is making concrete and brick sidewalks. they start a new one every two weeks or so (keep in mind the uni is less than 4 years old so everything is still in progress) and about a month or so later they finish one. that´s right, they start more before they finish one.
so as i have a little experience with concrete, i started chatting with the workers today after my class. in broken conversation i explained i had worked with concrete and we discussed drying times in the usa and here in mex. at some point in the conversation i said something which gave them the impression that i really liked working with concrete. they handed me a sledge hammer.
you see, in their haste, this is a joke really, nothing is done quickly, they forgot to leave an opening for one sidewalk to join another. so they were working with sledge hammer and sometimes a little chisel to wear away the concrete and expose the rebar (they make very neat and tight boxes, no slop in the reinforcement department, and i must say take great care in this part of their work). so as i watched them slowly tear down what they had spent weeks digging by hand, measuring over and over, painstakingly mixing concrete in a barrel and carrying 150 yards, i realized something about this university in general.
no one thinks too far in advance here. teachers get 6 months contracts and then dont know if they will get another one until one month or so before the next semester begins. there is so much pressure to produce that no one really pays attention to where previous funds have been directed. blatantly attempting to create some image of perfection, truly, the campus is immaculate (people spend afternoons picking little tiny weeds from between the tiles in walkways) and spending little time on the maintenance, other than the plants, of its investments, the school spends two months replacing a roof on the bathrooms that they built just two years ago because the tejas (these are the little curved orange colored stone tiles you seen in many houses in florida and of the ¨southwest style,¨ and as someone recently exlpained to me, this is also the origin of the state texas. on a tangent apart: nevada means snowfall; colorado, means redish earth, arizona means arid zone, all coming from spanish words. interesting? maybe not, but i thought so) were shoddy and leaked. then you have the nice bathrooms in my building that have never been used because the building has no water. more to the point, they built this prison of a university in a place with absolutely no water supply. had they done more testing, they could have found a much better spot just a few miles from here....
i could go on nipping at the foibles of the uni, but it is pointless. i imagine that wherever one works there are these kind of problems, but anywhere that makes a professor buy a book for the library because she underlined three words, is ridiculous. my friend accidently highlighted the three words, nervously returned it (where the boy meticulously scans each page) and then was summoned into the warden´s office. though there is not a bookstore for 200kilometers, she was forced to find and purchase a new book. they gave her two weeks. freaks.
anyway, read and feel good about where you work. it could be worse for me, it could be a lot worse for you. this example is why my blog title has not changed. just when you think you can begin expecting more, you glimpse the larger monster hidden behind the blinds in the climate controled cockpit of a flying disaster. yeehaw. enjoy your ride.
i had a killer time in veracruz this weekend. i will write all about it and show pictures later this week, but i am dead tired right now (we got back to juchitan at 4:45am and back to ole ixtepec after 5:15, so i had about an hour of sleep after a fairly restless night on the bus and i am zoning out).
but i want to share a little story. this country is full of construction. everywhere you look there is a new building going up, while one right beside it is taken over by weeds and the roaming packs of dogs. the same is true on our uni campus. they are constantly building something, even though there are four buildings that as of now have absolutely no use whatsoever. the big thing is making concrete and brick sidewalks. they start a new one every two weeks or so (keep in mind the uni is less than 4 years old so everything is still in progress) and about a month or so later they finish one. that´s right, they start more before they finish one.
so as i have a little experience with concrete, i started chatting with the workers today after my class. in broken conversation i explained i had worked with concrete and we discussed drying times in the usa and here in mex. at some point in the conversation i said something which gave them the impression that i really liked working with concrete. they handed me a sledge hammer.
you see, in their haste, this is a joke really, nothing is done quickly, they forgot to leave an opening for one sidewalk to join another. so they were working with sledge hammer and sometimes a little chisel to wear away the concrete and expose the rebar (they make very neat and tight boxes, no slop in the reinforcement department, and i must say take great care in this part of their work). so as i watched them slowly tear down what they had spent weeks digging by hand, measuring over and over, painstakingly mixing concrete in a barrel and carrying 150 yards, i realized something about this university in general.
no one thinks too far in advance here. teachers get 6 months contracts and then dont know if they will get another one until one month or so before the next semester begins. there is so much pressure to produce that no one really pays attention to where previous funds have been directed. blatantly attempting to create some image of perfection, truly, the campus is immaculate (people spend afternoons picking little tiny weeds from between the tiles in walkways) and spending little time on the maintenance, other than the plants, of its investments, the school spends two months replacing a roof on the bathrooms that they built just two years ago because the tejas (these are the little curved orange colored stone tiles you seen in many houses in florida and of the ¨southwest style,¨ and as someone recently exlpained to me, this is also the origin of the state texas. on a tangent apart: nevada means snowfall; colorado, means redish earth, arizona means arid zone, all coming from spanish words. interesting? maybe not, but i thought so) were shoddy and leaked. then you have the nice bathrooms in my building that have never been used because the building has no water. more to the point, they built this prison of a university in a place with absolutely no water supply. had they done more testing, they could have found a much better spot just a few miles from here....
i could go on nipping at the foibles of the uni, but it is pointless. i imagine that wherever one works there are these kind of problems, but anywhere that makes a professor buy a book for the library because she underlined three words, is ridiculous. my friend accidently highlighted the three words, nervously returned it (where the boy meticulously scans each page) and then was summoned into the warden´s office. though there is not a bookstore for 200kilometers, she was forced to find and purchase a new book. they gave her two weeks. freaks.
anyway, read and feel good about where you work. it could be worse for me, it could be a lot worse for you. this example is why my blog title has not changed. just when you think you can begin expecting more, you glimpse the larger monster hidden behind the blinds in the climate controled cockpit of a flying disaster. yeehaw. enjoy your ride.
24 November 2005
now i will acknowledge that i do not know exactly who this nacho person is, but i completely agree. go hokies go. unfortunately, we have a few games to go, so i will not get too excited yet. that and the fact that i never even get to see them play. anyway, i heard that some particularly industrious hokies broke into the stadium at uva and painteda large ¨T¨ next to the V at midfield. i will not attempt to contain my mirth. that is too funny. did anyone paint T´s next to the V´s all along university ave this year as well? probably not. hopefully the hokies showed up in force and once again had a great time in the uva hangouts all over c-ville. i remember 1999 well when vt won and at every bar i went to, it felt like being in blacksburg with a hokie or ten every where i turned.
and all the hoos in hooville turned in for an early night
so, happy turkey day. yes, i am going home in ten minutes to enjoy a grilled cheese, cantelope(how do you spell that?) and maybe something else. not too exciting.
but i will write to you what is exciting. in a negative way. i have been an avid fan of dying my hair. in fact, i have not had a natural hair color without any color, save one occasion in 2000, for over 10 years. wow. i know. this will not become a forum for those who want to recount the three inch roots i would regularly sport, those do not count.
but as most women, and clearly some men, know, dying your hair has interesting benefits. thus, not dying your hair has some equally evil side-effects. for example, i was large unaware of the amount of grey hair produced by my hair folicles (again i cannot spell). looking in the mirror now is a little disheartening. i mean, they are everywhere. top, sides, ok, i don´t know about the back but i have my speculations, all over the place there are these white flags telling me i never should have stopped dying my hair. i should have continued to live in the dream world of blonde hair, or the many other colors i once sported, again, we will not discuss, merely mention, the botched blonde and red highlight fiasco of spring 2004 when my hair ended up being pink. and i had a rather large black beard. yes, i was a teacher at this point as well. out west you can get away with a lot more than you can on the east coast or in the south. a lot more.
so my hair is grey. this does not really make me sad it just makes me wonder how long my hair has been gray. i mean how many years have i been lying to myself? how many more could i have continued doing so is the real question, but again, we will ignore that one.
happy turkey day all! go cowboys! go hokies!
and all the hoos in hooville turned in for an early night
so, happy turkey day. yes, i am going home in ten minutes to enjoy a grilled cheese, cantelope(how do you spell that?) and maybe something else. not too exciting.
but i will write to you what is exciting. in a negative way. i have been an avid fan of dying my hair. in fact, i have not had a natural hair color without any color, save one occasion in 2000, for over 10 years. wow. i know. this will not become a forum for those who want to recount the three inch roots i would regularly sport, those do not count.
but as most women, and clearly some men, know, dying your hair has interesting benefits. thus, not dying your hair has some equally evil side-effects. for example, i was large unaware of the amount of grey hair produced by my hair folicles (again i cannot spell). looking in the mirror now is a little disheartening. i mean, they are everywhere. top, sides, ok, i don´t know about the back but i have my speculations, all over the place there are these white flags telling me i never should have stopped dying my hair. i should have continued to live in the dream world of blonde hair, or the many other colors i once sported, again, we will not discuss, merely mention, the botched blonde and red highlight fiasco of spring 2004 when my hair ended up being pink. and i had a rather large black beard. yes, i was a teacher at this point as well. out west you can get away with a lot more than you can on the east coast or in the south. a lot more.
so my hair is grey. this does not really make me sad it just makes me wonder how long my hair has been gray. i mean how many years have i been lying to myself? how many more could i have continued doing so is the real question, but again, we will ignore that one.
happy turkey day all! go cowboys! go hokies!
21 November 2005
the address thing, totally forgot. i dont recommend using fed-ex, etc. because it is super expensive. i am cheap, so that is something to keep in mind. did i mention after haggling, my hamaca was only 220 pesos. yep, about 20bucks to be reminded of the days at my grandmother´s house when we had a green one with yellow rope that my sisters (i am sure there were others as well) and i would play in. i remember wrapping up in the hammock and then having someone spin me around over and over. kind of like the gravitron only a different kind of spinning. do you remember that cline and big a? how about that funky cave where the gravitron was at the old kings dominion?
ok. addy. William J Davis III (they have no idea about nicknames so just give them the whole thing)
Ciudad Universitaria S/N
Cd. Ixtepec, Oaxaca
C.P. 70110
México
do that and it should be fine. as for making me have to sign for it to receive it, i am not sure how that would work. i truly appreciate any gifts you may want to send me, but i must warn that there is the possibility that it will not arrive or will be tampered with before it does if the regular mail is used. not likely, but possible. just a heads up. i don´t really trust the mail down here. dhl is the worldwide carrier down here, but i am sure it is pricey. if you want to send something that way, i suggest dhl. or the regular mail would be ok too. cline sent me a package and i received it relatively quickly. but, try not to send anything after dec 1st or so because vacation starts the 16th and around the holidays the mail will be uber-slow. sweet.
ok. addy. William J Davis III (they have no idea about nicknames so just give them the whole thing)
Ciudad Universitaria S/N
Cd. Ixtepec, Oaxaca
C.P. 70110
México
do that and it should be fine. as for making me have to sign for it to receive it, i am not sure how that would work. i truly appreciate any gifts you may want to send me, but i must warn that there is the possibility that it will not arrive or will be tampered with before it does if the regular mail is used. not likely, but possible. just a heads up. i don´t really trust the mail down here. dhl is the worldwide carrier down here, but i am sure it is pricey. if you want to send something that way, i suggest dhl. or the regular mail would be ok too. cline sent me a package and i received it relatively quickly. but, try not to send anything after dec 1st or so because vacation starts the 16th and around the holidays the mail will be uber-slow. sweet.
the good news is that i bought a hamaca this weekend. it is perfect for sleeping, nice and cool. i now wish i had chosen different colors, i went for black and blue because the other combinations were fairly ugly, but really the color does not matter. it is so incredibly comfortable for napping. i have yet to spend an entire night in it, but that will change soon. i am going camping on the beach in afew weeks and the restaurant that is letting us sleep under their make-shift outdoor roof, has plenty of room for hamacas (hammocks if you had not guessed by now). also, it will be quite useful when the weather gets hot again. for now, things have definitely cooled off and i am very very happy about that.
not having hot water to shower with has tempered my good humor about the cooler weather, but i am adapting to the night shower because the water (it is stored on the roof tops down here in huge containers) is still slightly warm from the sun in the daytime.
i have acquired a new respect for anyone who has and who continues to wash their clothes by hand. going the cheap route, i have elected not to send my clothes out (or pimp my clothes out as i like to condescendingly say to my friends) to a washer lady. thus, i have begun the inglorious task of scrubbin the dirt out by hand. as i did not want to once again appear totally helpless (my spanish has really picked up so i can catch the gist of most things now,thus i rarely feel helpless because of my language inadequecies-i also cannot spell-), i only vaguely observed another woman who was washing her clothes in the outdoor sink-washbasin (long, with ridges in it and a drain at one end where the hose for the water is). thus the question, how do you really know your clothes are clean? i then began thinking about washing machines.
what is really going in there when you shut the top? i mean, you have the swisher thing that spins the clothes around, but what else? really, the clothes fill up with half soapy, half sweaty-dirty water and then marinate for a spell. sounds gross, no? true, there is that rinse cycle but that just sucks up whatever dirt was in the water back into the clothes even more. then that spin cycle really gets the dirt deep into the pores of the fabric. as the clothes whip around at 50kmh, i can just imagine the little dirt particles smiles stretching wide, like in the gravitron at kings dominion (or whatever the spinny ride is called at your local fair where the chamber spins around super fast and then floor drops out and you before you throw up, which is a bad description because that vomit ain´t goin nowhere but right back in your face, you think, ¨wow, cool, i am stuck to the wall¨).
so i ask you, ¨are my clothes cleaner than yours?¨ the obvious answer is of course not. why? because i do a half-ass job when i wash my own clothes. but i scrub and use soap and rinse and rinse and rinse again. then, i have a bucket with softener and water and i dip my clothes in there for that oh-so-soft feeling. still sure that my clothes are not as clean as yours?
this is my first softener experience down here. before, i did not use it because the washer at psycho´s house you had to fill with water from a hose, then there was a little plate at the bottom which aggitated the water and spun around(think the little plate in microwaves that turns) the clothes ever so slightly. then, when the cycle ended you had to dip into the visibly dirty water and rinse and rinse your clothes out before hanging them on the line. by that time, i said screw the softener. now that it is all manual, somehow i have come back to softener. donwy. love the malinchistas.
did you think i could spend this much time writing about clothes washing? sadly i could go on, but i will refrain. however, the next time you toss your clothes into the washer and-or drier, think of wilis in the third-world. then shut the top, turn the dial and forget about what goes on in the little tank when the lights go off. everything is better when you cannot see it. it is like eating in a restaurant in the states. normally the kitchen is hidden. often for good reason. the food tastes good right? then stop asking questions. nothing is behind closed doors down here. that is good but often bad. i will let you use your imagination on that one.
did you think i forgot? go hokies go!! what a crushing defeat! blanked at halftime? barely put the game to within 38 points? ok. enough gloating, we have two more games to play- assuming we beat the evil tarheels. then the title game against fsu. then, hopefully a big bowl game. gooooo, hokies go!
not having hot water to shower with has tempered my good humor about the cooler weather, but i am adapting to the night shower because the water (it is stored on the roof tops down here in huge containers) is still slightly warm from the sun in the daytime.
i have acquired a new respect for anyone who has and who continues to wash their clothes by hand. going the cheap route, i have elected not to send my clothes out (or pimp my clothes out as i like to condescendingly say to my friends) to a washer lady. thus, i have begun the inglorious task of scrubbin the dirt out by hand. as i did not want to once again appear totally helpless (my spanish has really picked up so i can catch the gist of most things now,thus i rarely feel helpless because of my language inadequecies-i also cannot spell-), i only vaguely observed another woman who was washing her clothes in the outdoor sink-washbasin (long, with ridges in it and a drain at one end where the hose for the water is). thus the question, how do you really know your clothes are clean? i then began thinking about washing machines.
what is really going in there when you shut the top? i mean, you have the swisher thing that spins the clothes around, but what else? really, the clothes fill up with half soapy, half sweaty-dirty water and then marinate for a spell. sounds gross, no? true, there is that rinse cycle but that just sucks up whatever dirt was in the water back into the clothes even more. then that spin cycle really gets the dirt deep into the pores of the fabric. as the clothes whip around at 50kmh, i can just imagine the little dirt particles smiles stretching wide, like in the gravitron at kings dominion (or whatever the spinny ride is called at your local fair where the chamber spins around super fast and then floor drops out and you before you throw up, which is a bad description because that vomit ain´t goin nowhere but right back in your face, you think, ¨wow, cool, i am stuck to the wall¨).
so i ask you, ¨are my clothes cleaner than yours?¨ the obvious answer is of course not. why? because i do a half-ass job when i wash my own clothes. but i scrub and use soap and rinse and rinse and rinse again. then, i have a bucket with softener and water and i dip my clothes in there for that oh-so-soft feeling. still sure that my clothes are not as clean as yours?
this is my first softener experience down here. before, i did not use it because the washer at psycho´s house you had to fill with water from a hose, then there was a little plate at the bottom which aggitated the water and spun around(think the little plate in microwaves that turns) the clothes ever so slightly. then, when the cycle ended you had to dip into the visibly dirty water and rinse and rinse your clothes out before hanging them on the line. by that time, i said screw the softener. now that it is all manual, somehow i have come back to softener. donwy. love the malinchistas.
did you think i could spend this much time writing about clothes washing? sadly i could go on, but i will refrain. however, the next time you toss your clothes into the washer and-or drier, think of wilis in the third-world. then shut the top, turn the dial and forget about what goes on in the little tank when the lights go off. everything is better when you cannot see it. it is like eating in a restaurant in the states. normally the kitchen is hidden. often for good reason. the food tastes good right? then stop asking questions. nothing is behind closed doors down here. that is good but often bad. i will let you use your imagination on that one.
did you think i forgot? go hokies go!! what a crushing defeat! blanked at halftime? barely put the game to within 38 points? ok. enough gloating, we have two more games to play- assuming we beat the evil tarheels. then the title game against fsu. then, hopefully a big bowl game. gooooo, hokies go!
17 November 2005
i am not sure how to take the advertisement that i read on my blogger homepage this morning. it tells me that i can begin making money on my blog. really? this seems like the crappy spam that bdutch alluded to in a previous comment. do i truly want to collect cents every time someone views my blog? the answer, sadly, is no. i guess i just dont conform to the usa (formerly known as ¨american¨) dream.
this week has been tedious. i have had to write reports for all of my classes explaining what i have done each week, including activities and such. for those of you who have taught with me before, i am not too big on writing detailed lesson plans. i actually normally come up with ideas for what to do, then test them out. most are bound to fail so i waste little time writing down numerous activities. i actually did create an entire syllabus for my level 5, and that seemed quite productive, but then it has been difficult to follow because really i had no idea what level my students would achieve (they have come slightly under my expectations but it is allgood, i mean really, what did i have to base those expectations on? that´s right, nothing )
so i am sick of typing mindless drivel aimed at helping those who replace me when i leave, or am asked to leave, you know, whichever comes first. did i mention no one has been told whether they have another appointment for february? yep, not even the spanish speaking teachers. also, so glad that my boss did not make any of predecessors do this kind of crap. hey, then i might actually have known what to expect? ok. no more bitching.
when i was in boarding school my advisor, the hilarious frank anderson (who owned one of the largest bumper sticker collections i had seen at that point, including that fantastic ¨i may be fat but you´re ugly, and i can lose weight) in one of our numerous impromptu counseling sessions where i was, what else, complaining about something, told me about a pact he made with his buddies when he was working a shitty job. they each decided not to ever complain about the work again because it was too easy and there were far too many other good things to discuss in the world. i have to remind myself of that story every now and then.
so i am ancy to do some traveling. i might try to get out of here this weekend. maybe head down to chiapas. i think i will again go it alone, like oaxaca. i am a great person to travel with, in my opinion, so why share the wealth? and i am extremely funny.
ok, i will try to write tomorrow, but if not, i hope the hokies do the hokie pokie all over c-ville saturday night. that´s what it´s all about.
this week has been tedious. i have had to write reports for all of my classes explaining what i have done each week, including activities and such. for those of you who have taught with me before, i am not too big on writing detailed lesson plans. i actually normally come up with ideas for what to do, then test them out. most are bound to fail so i waste little time writing down numerous activities. i actually did create an entire syllabus for my level 5, and that seemed quite productive, but then it has been difficult to follow because really i had no idea what level my students would achieve (they have come slightly under my expectations but it is allgood, i mean really, what did i have to base those expectations on? that´s right, nothing )
so i am sick of typing mindless drivel aimed at helping those who replace me when i leave, or am asked to leave, you know, whichever comes first. did i mention no one has been told whether they have another appointment for february? yep, not even the spanish speaking teachers. also, so glad that my boss did not make any of predecessors do this kind of crap. hey, then i might actually have known what to expect? ok. no more bitching.
when i was in boarding school my advisor, the hilarious frank anderson (who owned one of the largest bumper sticker collections i had seen at that point, including that fantastic ¨i may be fat but you´re ugly, and i can lose weight) in one of our numerous impromptu counseling sessions where i was, what else, complaining about something, told me about a pact he made with his buddies when he was working a shitty job. they each decided not to ever complain about the work again because it was too easy and there were far too many other good things to discuss in the world. i have to remind myself of that story every now and then.
so i am ancy to do some traveling. i might try to get out of here this weekend. maybe head down to chiapas. i think i will again go it alone, like oaxaca. i am a great person to travel with, in my opinion, so why share the wealth? and i am extremely funny.
ok, i will try to write tomorrow, but if not, i hope the hokies do the hokie pokie all over c-ville saturday night. that´s what it´s all about.
15 November 2005
11 November 2005
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.
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.
10 November 2005
this is the snapper. and caroline. the snapper is the fish, it is huge (the thing in the tinfoil). the grub at this place is incredible. that is caroline�s super comfy hammock in the background. i am definitely getting one, they are great to sleep in! and, you can take them to the beach and all the restaurants have places for you to hang your own.
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