still alive. mexico city is wild. unbelievable actually. will try to write something later this week or next.

caroline has raised some wonderful questions. the most interesting, and i imagine least pressing, is who, indeed, owns the identity ¨peaches¨?

some ideas:
1. the first person who comes to mind, and who my family knows but few others who might be reading this, is ashley burnett. back in the day, way back over 10 years ago, riding around in gents`s old car, the honda h-ho, ashley, sara/jeanette/other people whose names i forget now, would listen to the presidents of the united states. the most popular of their songs at the time was, clearly, ¨peaches.¨ although i believe ash´s favorite might have been ¨little blue dune buggy.¨ nevertheless, i dont think she has ever read this blog and it has been almost one year since we spoke, so i am doubting the validity of this deduction.
2. a spammer. somebody who just wants to write weird stuff in hopes of some material gain. ya, that is a b.s. answer, but what else do spammers want?
3. one of the two jim´s that i am good friends with: richvegas jimmy ¨i just got married and have been too cool for school to write will back in over two months¨ dougherty, or seattlean tron ¨not from the movie but from the real world sketch on chapelle´s show a few years back¨ saunders. both are candidates, and though i have proof that richvegas jimza at one point read this bloggy, i have no evidence that ¨the colonel¨ (saunders) has ever even seen this thing.
4. someone i met in flagstaff or san fran that somehow got hold of this bloggy site and likes to harass me. given my own penchant for obnoxiousness, this might be considered payback for something i did. however, given that i have no clue which person it might be, and keeping in mind the shere volume of peeps that i met in both places, and that i have done more than enough things to deserve payback, i am at a loss.
5. a person from georgia. i am not sure how many people i know living in georgia at the moment besides sissy, james and this slightly strange young man i met at a conference a few years ago at uga (ames might remember) who seemed to really want to be my friend. i have ruled out the first two for no good reason other than they have no good reason that i can imagine. the latter i just think is weird, so maybe it is him. also brian hooker robinson, but he just moved to vegas, which might be why i have not heard anything from this peaches cat in months.
6. aliens. i have always believed that there are some other forms of life out there. have they decided to communicate with me through the internet instead of taking me into their ship and touring the galaxy? i would be very disappointed if so. note to aliens: i´ll pass on the probing, but will chip in for gas if we get to tool around in the ship for a while. do you accept mexican pesos by the way?
7. this one is pretty obvious, and is not really specific, but someone who knows what shiprock is. who is familiar with the dine´e (navajo) rez in western new mexico? or, who has been reading tony hillerman novels. once again fingers are pointed at sissy(ames) bc now there are two solid links- georgia and knowledge of shiprock. again i strike that though bc it seems a bit random for my sister. ok, it seems a bit random for just about anybody.
8. i dont really know who reads the blog, or who has access to it. i know some of my friends have passed the addy along to others, but how far has it gone? the infrequency of the posts by this elusive peaches character, and the lack thereof in the last four months or so, leads me to believe it was a former friend, one who became quite bored with the posts and just gave up reading. if this is the case, well, dammit, there is nothing i can do bc he or she is not even reading this. and that would be a shame.
9. this is when i just have no idea but need a placeholder because all i really want is to actually get to the number 10.
10. if you have not considered 1-8 a stretch(are we even counting #9?), then this one will be as solid as if i read it in the tarot cards that i stole from seattle jim´s troy mc´clure lunchbox: me. i go through and type my own comments. but i dont do it when i am aware of what is going on, only when the aliens have recently returned me to earth and drugged me so that i dont sell their secrets to fox and rekindle the now defunct x-files. mulder and scully, where are you when your countrymen, albeit x-patriotated, need you?
E. and then there is number ¨e,¨ which as all you mathematicians know, is not a number at all, but still finds its way onto many a standardized test: none of the above.

so the short answer to c-line´s querry is no. but how much fun would that have been.
as for the rest of her questions, i shall save them for another day.

i leave you, and by you i mean peaches, which as we know now could well be me, with an offering, something scattered to the four winds under the watchful eye of a harvest moon: the few lines i can remember from another popular prez of the u.s. song:
¨lump lingered last in line for brains,
and the one she got was sort of rotten and insane. . . .
she´s lump, she´s lump, she´s lump,
she´s in my head.
she´s lump, she´s lump, she´s lump,
she might be dead¨

happy hunting

what up y´all? i am in the city (mexico city, d.f., mexico, whatever you want to call it) and have a place to live, a good job and am making new friends. lots of opportunities to do so many things i have wanted to do before: bull fights, soccer matches, cinema, piano lessons. i know. piano.

well, i will write more later this week, but i wanted to let anyone who might still read this that i am doing well and loving the big city. did i mention i chose the job in d.f. over the one in puebla? well, i guess that is obvious now.

later jones.

i had definitely not planned on writing today. i figured tomorrow, maybe sunday i would send an update. but then, you know, crazy stuff just happens to me and as i am all alone right now, i have no one else to share it with. lucky you.

so i woke up at 330am this morning to catch the 430 bus out of ixtepec. last goodbyes, peace out, all that. so of course i chose the earliest bus possible, mainly to avoid absolutely anyone and to catch the coolest time of day to walk the 1.5kilometers to the bus station with, oh, idont know, 80 pounds or more strapped to my back and in my arms. didnt work. i was soaking wet with sweat after 10meters. lovely.

i arrive at the bus station, if you can remember this far back, this is the exact location where i ate cow head. as you might expect, it is a place that sticks out in my mind. anyone, i arrive 15min early, which is what i wanted, and notice something slightly out of place. there are two regular ADO (just think Greyhound) buses out front, and then a smaller white bus painted with the OCC insignia(another company). if i have not mentioned, ADO buses are awesome. air conditioning to the point where you need a blanket, movies, big seats that recline, bathroom. there are better classes of buses, but there are far fewer in the istmo, so i went with regular first class (again, does not mean the same thing here, but anyway).

right. white bus. old. upon stepping up inside the volvo(most large buses are volvos or mercedes benz), i noticed smaller seats, tiny tv`s, a general crappier feel. anyway, it is 425 in the a.m. so all that just really roles off my back. i wake up 30 minutes later for the first stop in juchitan. goodbye juchitan, which the locals call muxetan(mooshetan) bc muxe means homosexual and the town is like the s.f. of mexico. so i wake up, look around, notice i still have a free seat next to me, and, yup, right back to sleep.

the next disturbance another 40 min later meant i had to move so the girl could take her window seat. whatever, i am in full sleep mode so i crash back out. i wake up a good bit over the next hour bc of the curves and the velocity with which our driver (i mean, buses do not really meet formula 1 racing standards, but try telling mr driver that) takes these turns. then around 745 we stop. strange. no town, no station, so i am thinking the driver was doin his business outside. i look at the girl next to me who has woken up also and ask whats up. she replies that she thinks the driver went for coffee. makes sense.

almost 15 min later we are going again. ok. nappy-nap time. yeah, not so fast.within ten minutes we are stopped again. except this time, the rats are totally fleeing the ship. i notice, too late, a new bus has pulled behind us as we have stopped and mexis are scrambling to get their shit out of one bus and into another.

first, we hear it is engine trouble. i strike up a conversation with a young couple who are criticising the bus comp for buying a crappy bus. one hour later, and after many heated altercations between what i thought was a rather gentle looking woman of about 60 and the driver and another bus arrives. except, we dont get on the bus. instead, a bucket and long rubber hose are produced. after working for antney over the years, i know what is coming next.

we ran out of gas. idiots. happy trails istmo.

45 min later we stop again. this time? la tour de oaxaca. a bike race? indeed. so we went super slow as we were paced by the two leaders as they climbed the huge mountain roads. ridiculous.

a 4hour and 30min trip becomes, what? 9hours. oh. my. god. i was pissed, but then the woman who began bitching before called everyone she knew and in the loudest voice possible (she was 10 feet behind the drivers seat) cussed him. and not just ¨damn him.¨ no, she is mexi, and istmena (a woman from the istmo) on top of it. ¨this stupid mother fucker forgot to gas up. i know, what a dumbass son of a whore. motherfucking ADO is going to hear from me about this. damn right i am complaining, fuck this ignorant bastard¨

of course, imagine a few pauses for her to let the other person on the line concur, and this went on for about, oh, 45 minutes. and when she finally got of the phone, she just cussed him from where she was sitting. dude. this vieja was so mad, i actually felt bad for this jerk driver who forgot to get gas. and i was real mad before this began.

all this before 130pm. i hope the rest of the weekend is less exciting. if not, you will be hearing from me again sooner than i plan.

Like so many library books I finally returned (damaged), a reinvention of myself is long overdue. Billy, version 2.006: new and improved exterior and packaging, updated with a second language for ease of use outside the states, although the adaptation time varies according to climate, altitude and location of Jupiter and its moons Io, Europa and Gannymede.

As I have mentioned to a few people, I have a job interview in mexico city with Tecnologia de Monterrey. Or tec de monterrey. Or tec. Depending on which circles you run in and, obviously, their familiarity with Mexican schools. Tec, and its 33 campuses in the country, is a self-styled bastion of higher learning; they also carry the self-proclaimed title of “the MIT of Mexico.” Ok. Basically, they are the most well-known and most expensive school system in Mexico. Their reputation extends well beyond mexi-land, but you would have to run in the technology circle probably. As I run in the “let’s read a book, talk about it, then write a critical analysis of it and make it relate to current events/culture/(insert noun here)” I had never heard of the place before I came to this land of mariachis, mole, and fried grasshoppers (legend has it that once you eat a chapuline-grasshopper- you will never leave oaxaca (my state). Of course I ate them. along with varying types of iguana, sea critters, and of course, the infamous cow head. Well, barring some unforeseen catastrophe, this cracker is buying a one-way out of this hole in less than 4 days, so I doubt the veracity of this particular mexican legend). Either way, this school, tec, is highly respected, and criticized, in Mexico.

The criticism comes mostly from haters. People who feel that their rep is undeserved. These people call the students fresa (literally-strawberry, but, this word means snob, arrogant, a la mode, condescending). Fresas are everywhere in this world, and some are obnoxious, while others are rather normal and good people. Some prof friends and my students claim that tec is horrible bc the kids think they are better than everyone else. They show up to school (it has a high school and university (-ncluding master and phd programs) in extremely expensive cars and wave bye to mami and papi when the driver opens the door for them. from an early age, these kiddies are told they are the best. The most intelligent, heirs to all that is good and will be good. Cream of the crop, you dig? Thus, the trikes run around like they own the place, and, ok, they probably do. This rubs many people the wrong way. Many believe that the school produces brats rather than elite engineers and business persons. Nonetheless these kids go on to the best schools in the states and Europe. Tec students have been learning English since they were 2 or 3 yrs old. Thus, English teachers teach ESL, which is taught in usa schools, rather than EFL which is what I teach now. In other words, these kids need help with their academic English skills- writing, argument, pronunciation, etc. take a tour through most public institutions in the usa and you will find the same skills being taught-albeit with varying degrees of success. The students also learn german and French as the former is an important language to know for engineers and tec peeps in general (I have heard at least), and anyone with a serious affinity for “ the hoff” (this of course is how david hasselhoff referred to himself last week as he was escorted out of wimbeldon for being a little too sauced for the conservative all-england club) and the latter is important for understanding fashion, snootiness and joie de vive in general (I cant spell joie de vive, but I think you get my point). Of course I made the last part up, but I am sure there is a good reason for French. 20^th and 19^th century theorists? Brie? Bordeaux? I imagine sis ames or possibly, jameson sanderthols IV, currently of seattle, previously of the greater phoenix metro area, could help us (yes, that is the royal “we” I am using) out with that.

Anyway, after all that rambling, let me come back to the point- I have an interview with what many people deem either the best education mexi pesos can buy, or the biggest cash drain in the country. If you were able to follow the above ramblings at all, you might have noticed something very important in my description of the type of students and families that patronize the tec. They are wealthy, exceedingly so, and all that the school offers its student as far as facilities, supplies, etc. are, without discussion, the finest quality. Depending on where you went to high school and to some extent uni, this may sound familiar (especially if your high school was not called a high school, but, oh, I don’t know, perhaps a boarding school, and your uni was, for example, in the northeast and has a vanish collective nickname). Lucky for me, I went to boarding school with a lot of, um, confident people. We also were told we were the best. Arrogant? At times. Condescending? Once or twice maybe. This does not make us bad people, but it does make slightly difficult to get along with at times. I have run into many people in life who have issue with my boarding school background. They bitch that the school are overrated and the privileged kids do not deserve the given privileges. Bollocks (and this british term is important for many reasons here.) Am I defending the snooty? Not really. Do I have a little more patience with this type of person than the average? Possibly.

So let’s get down to brass tacks. My job in puebla pays about 12500 per month. I work 23 contact hours with students and am at school from roughly 8am to 2pm daily. Plus there are the occasional open house, weekend shindig with parents, yada yada yada. Good money for the hours? Fo sho. I am not questioning the position or denigrating it in any way. I can take graduate classes in puebla and the school will pay for it. A sweet deal? Of course.

But then there is tec. I doubt there is an employer in mexico who values a university higher than tec. Their reputation in the professional ranks is unparalleled. Perhaps their students get a little carried away at times and try to buy their way into or out of things, as the case may be. I am not condoning it, but I do recognize it for what it is and do not grudge them their advantages. The mexi system is real fucked up. Lets not kids ourselves about that, however, let us also realize that a few spoiled brats do not mean all of the students are that way.

The pay at tec is, surprisingly at first, low. 10000 pesos a month. Then you look at the hours per week, 15, and realize that is killer salary for someone part time(full time is over 20000, and I could get full time in the next six months or one year). I could easily give 8 hours of private lessons a week (I hope) and charge 150 pesos an hour. That rate would put me well over the 12500ish I would make in puebla. Plus, tec gives you access to their classes, they offer m.a. degrees and a phd as well (but not in literature which is a problem), they give you a laptop, have wireless in all classrooms as well as the most advanced tech teaching aids available (don’t forget, my students in oaxaca cannot afford books or dictionaries and 90% receive a scholarship that pays up to 100% of their tuition) and they allow you access to their facilities, including a gym, which would be quite nice. On the other hand, tec does not pay you when you are not working, the month of December for example, but they do give health benefits and a xmas bonus. The money is less, but I would be able to live in d.f., which is 200 times more exciting (and dangerous, dirty, etc) than puebla. Museums, concerts, cinema, used book stores, parks, ruins, the city is truly incredible. I would be able to take serious advantage of my free time. Also, in case you have not guessed, I am no longer going to central America. I will wait until December and see how much money I have.

Rent, however is a pain. Probably 3000 pesos a month is a minimum, depending on where I live, and I am not going to put myself in some shady neighborhood (1000 people move to d.f. every day of the year, so crime, lack of safety in certain areas is ridiculous) to save some cash. But, food is cheaper, public transport is readily available and the number of things that I could do for free is quite high (any museum is free for professors for example).

Reinvention. I mentioned bc 1 year I cut all of my hair off. Amazingly, startlingly, I have not started growing it back. The beauty of this is that is if I take the job at tec, I will have to change the way I dress. Shirt and tie daily, possibly even suits (I am hoping not to have to wear those though as they are expensive and I just don’t like them. did I mention I have never owned a suit either? Right, I should have said that, too). it is arguable that I should be dressing better anyway (I blame temperatures that stay in the 100’s for 5-6 months a year). The country boy moves to the city and finds all his clothes, (insert noun/stereotype here) inadequate. In so many ways this is an apt metaphor.

Billy, version 2.006. anybody buying this?

i am not one to pile on, but, um, things are not going so swell right now in mexico. on the one hand, i see the benefits of the leftist candidate, andres manuel lopez obrador, but, and this scares me a lot, i also see the advantages of the more right-leaning candidate, felipe calderon. why? because i am greedy(investors in the states trust calderon, he is of the same party as current pres vicente fox and is free trade, pro-foreign investment. amlo heard that bush was building a wall on the border. his response? ok, we will build another one. we dont want our people over there (the usa) anyway. ya. wow.) when it was clear, for about an hour, on monday morning that calderon had won the most votes, the value of the peso shot up. now that amlo(this is how lopez obrador is known down here) is challenging the vote, and going to take the results to the special election commitee, this is shaping up to be like bush-gore 2000. except, gore conceded, amlo did not. quite the opposite, both declared themselves winners.


so ya, i am leaning republican now. greedy is what it comes down to. if i did not have student loans to pay then the exchange rate would mean nothing. but i do. so it does.

i worry about the violence that will most likely errupt if amlo does not win. his supporters, are, well, emotional. volatile. easily excited maybe. imagine, oh, i dont know, 5 million fans at a rage against the machine (rest in peace) concert. then imagine zach de la roccha saying, ¨hey, you see the security guards here? take ´em out. then, move to the closest city and shut it down. i will meet you all there tomorrow.¨ the sheep would fall in line and violence would ensue. sadly, this is quite possible here as well. the people have little trust in public officials, with good reason after 70 years of single-party rule, and now they are taking out their frustrations on the current system. right or wrong this is the deal.

i will try to write more later. as of now, i am safe and should stay that way (there is an army special forces unit in town with tanks, etc. so the people, no matter how restless, hopefully are not stupid.

uh oh. presidential elections were this weekend and things went smoothly for the most part. until the results came back, and then, well, the problems began.

felipe calderon, the somewhat conservative received 36.5% and lopez obrador received 35.6% (roughly). so about 1% serparates them. unlike gore in 2000, neither guy caved. in fact, they both announced that they had won. kind of funny actually. until the protestors began freaking out. then it was not so much funny as scary.

thus we will not know the final results until wednesday. i am a little worried, for numerous reasons, but the main one is devaluation of currency. i am hoping that the peso does not suffer too much bc of this (the exchange rate has recently gotten worse as the elections neared) for i have student loans to pay and thus i have to transfer money from pesos to dollars each month.

that is the news for now. i will let you know when i hear more.

two rather strange entries for you today.

a few weeks ago i was heading to the beach and, as you may remember, what takes 45 minutes by car requires 2hrs and three buses for those of vehicularly challenged. and that is like 90% of the population of oaxaca, so ya, anyway. on my way out of ixtepec, the bus stopped to pick up a few people on the side of the road and as most people come into town once a week to buy food, they had huge crates to load onto the bus. as i had no choice but to sit and sweat (a moving bus is a bus with a breeze, the stationary buses stink), i looked out the window to view all the trash that has been deposited recently.

a quick side story, which i mentioned months ago, is that the open window of (moving or not) vehicle is the trash can. there are litterally piles and piles of trash everywhere(i am talking 5ft deep in places). this bothers no one and i watch mothers teach their young kids to finish their flavored water(this is sold on the streets in plastic bags that are spun around and tied in a knot so that the top around fits snugly around a straw) and then toss it out the window. eat your elote (corn on the cob with chile powder seasoning- again sold on every street corner) and chuck it. your walkman´s batteries are spent? you know what to do. it gets depressing to watch after a while. even more so bc i walk home at night and have to walk in the road bc the ditches are filled to the tipping point with garbage. ah, the istmus of tehuantepec. a lovely place.

anyway, i was sitting on the bus staring blankly at the trash piles when i noticed an elderly woman in traditional dress (80% of all women wear traditional zapotec clothing that has been around for hundreds of years) tossing a rock at the wall. my initial thought was, well, clearly she is not as old as i thought if she is tossing a rock around as if playing a game. due to the sun exposure and nature of life without running water or electricity, a 25yr old woman often looks 50. no joke. as i looked closer i noticed something move next to the wall. a pidgeon. maybe she is crazy, i thought. why would she throw rocks, over and over as she missed, at a pidgeon. crazy is also not new to the istmus, but then i finally got it. she was hunting. urban hunting (as much as ixtepec is urban, but that is a debate for another day). this dirty bird was dinner. startling to say the least.

the last little tale is from yesterday. arash, another english prof, and i were walking home, when we saw a military humvee, replete with large machine gun and gunner, zoom by. as ixtepec is home to a unit of the special forces of the mexi military, i took no notice. after the 15th hummer went by, arash and i looked at each. looking back we saw a huge line of military vehicles full of either soldiers or large guns, rolling into ixtepec. we looked at each other blankly for a second. then we thought of the teacher strike- in its 5th week- and realized that they were coming to break up a riot.

we were wrong. they are here to protect the presidential voting event on sunday. question: if the military guards the ballot boxes, are these same people allowed to vote? the military backs a certain party publicly, soooo... at what point does there need to be another group guarding the military from tampering with the ballots?

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!

hello all. i trust the weekend was splendid, passing the time with fathers or males in general. my weekend was good. i went to the beach and relaxed and enjoyed a lazy few days. there must be a storm off the coast because on sunday there were 12foot waves. no one was getting in the water, but i was able to watch from restaurant.

the teacher´s strike is still going on. my sis informs me that the link i provided is now dead. here is another one from the bbc: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5082778.stm as you might guess, the foreign press have a different take on the strike than the local mexi press does. in my opinion, the story is not as good when the bbc tells it. however, unless you read spanish, you will not get the other versions. such is life, right? one more reason we should all learn at least one foreign language, so we can read the news in other parts of the world without a filter.

as of this morning, the teachers are now blocking the major roads in and out of the state capital. this is not new, they have been blocking roads for over a week, but now they have simply removed the barriers so that cars can pass through the toll booths without having to pay. not sure how depriving the govt of funds is going to help them gain an increase in pay, but perhaps this move will garner more attention.

the teachers are also blocking local businesses in the town center. from people i know up there, they say the downtown is a ghost town. stores are barred and gated, no one is walking around, nothing. keep in mind that oaxaca is a huge tourist attraction. thousands of foreigners pass through every week. thus, for nearly one month, the city has lost all its business. i would say the loss in revenue is easily into the millions of dollars at this point. the residents of the capital city are furious at the teachers.

the snte, the teachers union, is the largest and most powerful union in mexico. according to many mexicans, especially oaxaqueños, they are incredibly corrupt and in no way are a positive example. this is unfortunate. as part of the highest paid group of teachers in the state, i am effectively ¨the man¨ in this case. we are also not part of their union. so it goes.

just wanted to update you a bit on the goings on down here. can you imagine richmond, va being blocked for one month? over 1 million children have been out of school for over a month now. parents are freaking out. also, no one will be able to pass into the next grade level because they have missed over a month of school. if they make up this time, then there will be no summer vacation. this is a dangerous game the teachers´ union is playing. the worst part is that the kids are getting screwed. of course, they do not see it that way, but many others do.

if you have any q´s about all this, let me know. i have read varying reports from both sides, but i am personally leaning away from the teacher´s side right now. there is a lot of corruption within the union and it seems like a superficial overview of this issue does not in any way show the truth behind what is actually going on.

on the bright side, i have a job in another state at a private school that starts august 2nd. thus, nothing about this will negatively impact me or my job. if anything, private schools will receive more students come fall as parents become more and more wary of public education. so it goes.

happy father´s day pappa dough man! and all the other fathers out there: mike kinelski, euro-paul, others i guess i am forgetting. enjoy your day!

as i do not normally write about the news of area, in a formal sense, i want you all to know that the following link i am about to give you is based on news reports from local, mexican, media. just as with any media, you must realize that this is one side, although it genearlly purports itself to be unbiased. a lack of bias is nearly impossible in any situation.

the teachers in oaxaca strike every year at this time. every single year. normally, they strike for two weeks and then go back to work. the salaries of public school teachers is ridiculously low in this state, the state where i live, so each year the teachers gain a little but not much. this year is an election year in mexico, and unlike the usa, the govt contributes nearly 100% to all campaigns. private funding is unnecessary bc anyone who starts a party automatically receives funding. debating the vailidity of this practice is not what i want to do; however, because this is only the second time in 80 years that mexico has had election with more than one party giving candidates (1999 was the first time ever) and as there are 5 candidates, you might imagine that money is spread thin. thus, this year, the govt cannot afford to increase teachers salaries and give them any money because it has all been spent on other things, not the least of which are the campaigns of the five candidates.

we are now 25 days into the teachers strike. this strike effects all schools in my state. kids have been out of school for over 3 weeks and as the end of the year is fast approaching, none of them will be able to move on to the next level. also, parents are freaking out bc they do not know what to do with the trikes while they have to work. needless to say, not a single complaint has been heard from arcade and beer stand owners.

so, here it is. http://www.mexiconews.com.mx/18754.html. if the link does not work, let me know. i doubt this news has made cnn or any other channel in the usa, although the bbc is covering the story. keep in mind that deaths, disappearances and the like, all with obvious and sometimes covert links to the military and police, are common in mexico. what is not common is people being free to talk about them in the press. also, i do not tell you guys about the bad stuff normally.

a final note. i teach at a university and although we received an invitation yesterday to join our ¨brothers and sisters¨ - hermanos for those who like arrested development- we shall not be travelling to the capital of the state- 5hrs away- to participate. there have been minor scurmishes with the police and military in my town, but as we work until 7pm at night and are located 3 kilometers out of town, we do not feel the effects here.

i am fine. all is well, with me at least, but this is a very interesting piece and so i want you all to learn a little about mexican teachers (the allegation that ak-47´s were seized is startling, but given the access to weapons that just about anyone in the modern world now enjoys, not 100% surprising). also, the elections are just over 2 weeks away. this could get very interesting. ¡bienvenidos a mexico!

We will see if anything comes of it, but for the first time in just over a year, I have started writing critically again. Although nothing is completed, I think I have started coming up with ideas/projects. Maybe I can pull something together into a coherent essay worthy of using as a writing sample for a phd program. If not, what I did with those two years in the high desert is beyond me.

I could of course argue that I have been writing criticism since I set foot in that first internet café in Salinas just over 9 months ago. The gestation period of a child, perhaps that has some significance. That or I simply read too much into things. Bit of both.

I have been listening to a lot of the music I stored on lappy before I came down here. The memories the songs trigger are startling. Almost every song, and at least every band, suddenly immerses me in another place, in another time period. Boarding school days, fourth form and playing lacrosse or swimming. The first time I heard radiohead back in 94 was the fall of my fourth form year, the infamous play that I was in but not in. man with the briefcase. No lines yet in almost every stupid scene. Then there was the black box experience, a one-act play with one other actor who I grew to loathe over the two months of rehearsals. Ah boarding school.

No idea where any of this is going really. Not sure why I am even writing and not simply reading a book.

Well, I wrote the above two weeks ago and the answer is no, nothing has come of it. I look at what I wrote, only about 2pages, as a good start but the ideas are far too broad and not textual based as of yet. What I am thinking of doing is writing a critical comparison of Ralph waldo emerson, octavio paz(mex) and a third, yet to be figured out author- although I am leaning toward ruben dario from nicaragua, in the main of trying to draw something useful from 3 authors writing in 3 different time periods and in two different languages but with similar goals: create or in some way describe the nascent literature of writers looking to identify their country and countrymen through themes, language and rifts with the countries of the mother-tongue. Clearly for the usa it is England, mex is spain and the third country (if Dario and Nicaragua) will be spain as well. however, to some extent, the usa had to break away from more than England, it was Europe as a whole that influenced the writers of the 17^th 18^th and 19^th centuries, and the work of authors as late as Fennimore cooper (last of the mohicans, leatherstocking tales, etc.) directly reflects the narratives coming out of Europe. Instead of “ mak[ing] it new” as ezra pound was famous for declaiming at the onset of the usa’s modernist period-not to be confused, as I definitely was up until a week ago, with latin America’s modernist movement of the 19^th century lead in part by authors like ruben Dario, cooper and others fell in line and tried to make the genre so famous in Europe “ work” in a usa context. And paz and Dario had to contend with not only European work- Dario was highly influenced by French authors, but with the writing, and in a broader context the culture, coming out of the usa. Paz to a much greater extent that Dario in this example because he wrote more than 50 years after Dario when mexico was finally recovering from their own civil war period and in the thick of a serious of presidents who all came from one party and who hand-chose their successors.

All of this is damn broad and I need to narrow down some ideas and flesh out others, clearly, but this is what I am thinking about right now. Funny that taking a two-week break and then writing about how I had not gotten anywhere actually brought me somewhere. That was the genesis, of sorts, but there are still six more days-years?- of work before I can even consider that the idea is solid and I can rest. I do in many ways feel that all my reading is paying off and I am making valid connections that deserve more research (and by this I mean grants-dollars) and could make an impact within my field. Not sure about the last part but if I want a phd I must find some manner of changing or at least adding to the status quo in the states.

I am not happy with the education system in these sense that I believe we need to have more foreign authors in the curriculum- the canon, and not Europeans but Americans-central and southern. We can learn a lot from their struggles with imperialism. The usa went through it all long before the others and we certainly have advanced at a much more rapid pace (although you would be right to question what I mean by “ advance” and if that word has as many negative connotations as positive-which I believe it does by the by), but I think that we must begin focusing on what we all share in order to better see the differences. In order to break the racism that pervades all levels of government and public systems (and I mean against people of the Americas as a whole, not just blacks or indigenous peoples of the northern territory as these groups are (under)represented all over the continent). Public education, and a good deal of private education as well, teaches the future(children) that the lit from England and europe is the aspiration, the goal, and that the north American authors are the fruits of that labor who have cultivated and sowed the fields of lit with works worthy of reading by every student in the country while simultaneously ignoring that a very large majority of the usa has closer connections to central and south american countries than it does to those in Europe. And I am not in any way qualified to mention the authors of asia or Africa or the pacific islands, so I will leave that for someone else. Will I ever be able to convince a grad school of the same and thus secure a position for study and then a tenure-track post? Who knows. I am down here to try my hand at Spanish and learning a new culture. I am succeeding but have not succeeded. Luckily, I am giving myself more time to complete a project that will likely last my entire life- coming to grips with ways to reverse the current cultural paradigms that paint the people from central and south America as migrant workers who may pick our fruit (and bc it is not cotton does not mean I suggest we have necessarily progressed beyond this stage) but in the end are nothing more than immigrants, foreigners, additions that will never be part of the whole, at the moment offers me no true direction.

Hence, I keep reading. And I keep listening to people talk (bad) about the usa because it shows me what it is like to be discriminated against, for really the first time in my life. And despite of this discrimination, sometimes I am afforded more than others simply bc of the color of my skin, but I am learning what it is like to be stared at every time I go out in public. To be watched when I go to the supermarket to see what I buy and what I do not. Every step I make is observed by at least 5 people from the minute I walk out my door until I close my bedroom door behind me at night. I am no longer bitching about this, because, let’s be honest, I asked for it. I came here and injected myself into a society that though the roads are paved, less than 5% of the population of the region has a car (the amount of taxis is one possible sign of a depressed economy). Oxen pulling carts of firewood- not to be used for heat, but for cooking- and slowing down traffic are an everyday occurrence. I have seen drawings of farmers from the region in the 17^th century, the 18^th and pictures from the late 19^th and early 20^th. There is no change in technology. The tools are the same and the ends are, more or less, equivalent. Living in the poorest part of mexico (next to the state of chiapas) has opened my eyes to a way of life I thought was eradicated with the steam engine. Sure there are a few massey-fergusson or ford tractors, but there may be one for every 500-700 farmers. 2006. 1706. 300 years and what?

I have no answers, only questions. There is a great line from Socrates, I think, that says the mark of a truly educated person is that s/he realizes that s/he knows nothing. Education never ends- or as gen Robert e lee said, “the education of a man is never completed until he dies” (I know this bc I used to have a t-shirt from boarding school that said the same). And on that note, once again bringing up boarding school, where I began this ramble in the opening paragraphs, I consider the circle complete. Onwards and upwards gentlemen-and ladies.

i am going to tell you all something which nearly every girl (besides my sisters i hope) who has ever known me would vehemently deny. vehemently i tell you. and you know i reserve such bravado and/or candid language for very serious situations. i am a professional. i am not saying a professional of something particular, mind you, yet i make the claim nonetheless.

it is possible for me to be loved. true, the kind of love i am refering to is an internet-based love, something conceived in the ether of the world wide web. yet, it is love regardless- friends dont let friends use the non-word ¨irregardless¨- and i am here to flaunt it to the world. or those chosen few (feel special here) who read this bloggy-blog.

enough preamble you say. get to the point you decry. quit yer yappin (ups to the suthern boys) you protest. i shant. not when i can milk this for so long. i mean, the best part of the blog is you cannot interupt me. god bless.

anyway, to my current love. she is older than me, i think about 40 years old. she gets around- at least 100 new people ¨get to know her¨ every year and those who know her best leave. her longest relationship with a customer has been 13 years, so there is a future, but i keep optimistic.

ok, enough excitement. i was offered, and accepted, a position in puebla at the american school of puebla- el colegio americano de puebla. yippy. billy has future employment possibilities. ok, my current uni would love to have me back- not something i am sure hulia and katerina de vit would have said upon my departure from the mill in san fran- but i am not a taker. again, others might disagree with that last part, but until you write a response and call me on it, i will continue to proclaim my own fame. willy-nilly. yes i did.

hope you have a bright and sunny weekend. lacrosse is sadly over, the suns lost, and the braves are doing poorly, so i have no sports props to give. here´s to another week of hokies not in the police blotter. onwards and upwards gentlemen (in honor of john reimers, who gave us this benediction- an english teacher (i think he still is) who contends, and will argue, that mickey mouse is indeed the anti-christ. disfuta el fin, cuates!

and there will come soft rains. sadly i dont remember the exact title of the ray bradbury short story (or how to spell his name), but i think that is mighty close to it. if you have not read it, i recommend it. brief and interesting outlook on the who the real survivors of global conflict are. cockroaches wont be alone.

speaking of cockroaches, before i get to the rain part, there are two big ones in my bathroom. i consider them like spiders and many other bugs- they eat other bugs and so i like them. they get to live. ants, not so much. wasps and bees, they get swatted. we have spiders all over the house, sorry ames, five or six in the bathroom and numerous in each corner of my room. i like them, except when they bite me in my sleep. although since i put up my mosquito net two months ago, i dont have that problem. the problem is the taunting by my friends and the fact that i am too long for my bed, so my feet inevitably kick out the tucked part of the net at the foot of the bed. but i like my princess net, and call me what you will: princess, sally, wuss, the lack of bite marks on my person is worth it.

the rains began a few days ago. normally at night, they are quite strong- roughly the equivalent of the monsoons in arizona during july august and september. the mornings are cool, but the afternoon still cooks.

i dont know if you ever get used to the heat, but at some point you just accept it. you sweat all the time- at night, during the day, or pretty much whenever a fan is not directly blowing on you. you never really like it, but you get used to it.

i went to a dance club a few weeks ago in salina cruz with a few friends. one of them was dancing with a guy smoking a cigarette. he turned to say something to me and the lit end touched my shirt. it went out. i never noticed it and it never even left a mark on my shirt. gross, but that is how wet you get at times. true i was dancing, but it was also 230 in the morning. it should be cooler than that. napkins are used a lot , more than hankerchiefs but those are common too, to wipe off faces, and everyone is sweating. i dont think anyone likes it, everyone complains, but what can you do? absolutely nothing. am i used to it? you decide. in the end, i am hot, so whether i am used to it or not is really just an explanation that evades the fact that without this fan directly blowing in my face, i would be sweating. my skin is always sticky from sweat, or the remnants of, anyway. maybe i am used to it.

i dont have a job yet, but i applied for a position in cabo san lucas, baja california. there are worse places to live, and the money is roughly the same as here. it is a high school, but a bilingual high school (read: i dont teach esl/efl, i teach regular high school english as half the day is spanish and half the day is english). i have pretty much made up my mind to be out of here by the second week in august. for better or for worse, it is time to move on. giddy-up.

congrats wahoos. a perfect season in lacrosse is rare and they beat some great teams to do it. i guess dom starsia will get an extension.

where are the hokies? we play club lax. maybe soon we will field an ncaa team. until then, most hokie athletes are just trying to stay out of jail. good luck.

any news stateside?

jimza got married last weekend. congrats to jimmy and the lovely bride, andrea.

that is it for today. no funny stories that i can think. well, i still trouble rolling or trilling an ¨r¨. that provides endless hours of amusement for everyone but me as they mock my pronunciation. sometimes i just spell words i want to say to avoid having to pronounce the trilled r. i have enlisted the help of a thesaurus to avoid saying certain words. but i am practicing and getting better. poco a poquito se va llenando al jarrito. (double r, evil)

to the anonymous posting by the fan of an officer and a gentleman- touché. and indeed that is the problem that all men face. you never really know if the child is yours, without a paternity test that may or may not be correct. i wrote a paper on bastards in four of shakespeare´s plays a few years ago and this was the general fear that stoked many a heated rivalry and caused the death of others. my comment was meant to be playful, though caustic, yet i should have first about those who enjoyed the film. indeed. touché.

oh happy day. it is like when the audience finds out that peter´s little friend has not been eaten by the wolf, in ¨peter and the wolf¨. and there was much rejoicing. or, when the camera pans through the two lines of officers and on the third sweep zooms in on the mug of zachary mayo (richy gere). he did not quit after all! he is going to be a jet pilot (maybe, assuming he can cheat his way through more math classes)! he is going to marry the hussy from the paper factory who slept with every other guy that came through the officer´s candidacy school before him yet somehow managed to seem like this was her foray into the world of tawdry weekend affairs with would-be flyboys who somehow did not get her pregnant or give her a disease (we hope).

ok. the second was a slight stretch. but i think the feeling comes through.

of course you win a prize cuba. but let us also not forget my sleuthing skills (which i learned from two of the best in the business: hercule poirot and chief inspector morse) allowed me to deduce that you were probably still in the desert. the peyote, grand canyon and desert island parts were somewhat off, but i lay that down to not being able to interview anyone about your whereabouts.

so, we both win a prize. a first place tie actually. thus, your next trip to mexico we shall celebrate how well we both did. or my next trip to iowa. whichever comes first. i am hoping the former by the way as it means sooner rather than later.

first things first. where is my young cuban friend? if you have an clues to his whereabouts, please contact: me. via e-mail. crazed and derranged responses regarding someone other than the ¨b¨ will be accepted but not necessarily replied to. ok. yes they will.

here are my thoughts on the disappearance of the¨thomas magnum of the caribbean¨: i imagine one of six things(the first three have decidedly deserty themes and the reasons are either obvious or necessary): 1. headed out into the desert on a peyote run and have been tripping for two or more weeks. when you wake up, sweaty, emaciated, dehydrated and with little prickers stuck in your feet, flag down the nearest 4x4 and hitch a ride sho-low. 2. like cain, from ¨kung fu¨ you have decided to walk the earth vanquishing evil and helping the downtrodden in each town you come across (isn´t this kind of similar to bruce banner and few others?). 3. you went hiking in the grand canyon, and a) found a cuantity of beer, whiskey and food stashed, you thought, by steve, but really was left years ago and you fell ill only to be nursed back to health by wild goats, or b) met some hot nymph who lured you into a cave where you have been living as a love slave for the past 7 years (kind of like odysseus but different because the uncrossable sea is just hot-ass desert and she swiped your shoes) 4. finally took advantage of being the son of a pilot. you have been hopping planes for two weeks with no end in sight as the peanuts are free and the in-flight movies just keep getting better. 5. you tried to go back to chicago but were abducted somewhere near phx by the phoenix suns and have been travelling with the team ever since. your only hope is that they lose in the playoffs, otherwise, you may become the new gorilla maschot and all hopes of a phd program will either dashed or indefintely delayed. 6. this new roommate of yours has barracaded you into the ¨compound¨ and the only outside contact you have is the fratelli´s pizza delivery guy who also supplies sierra pale, and the occassional demand to the flag police department for 1 william dollars or ¨else.¨

i had an interview yesterday with puebla. it went well. i will know in a few weeks if i have the job. i am in line for an interview with a catholic boys school in san luis potosi. here is snippet of an email i received regarding the position: ¨I am Norma Dávila Iglesias and I work for Grupo Integer, Coordinación de Gestión Educativa which is affiliated with the Legionaries of Christ, a congregation of Roman Catholic priests. The Legionaries of Christ operate more than 125 catholic schools and colleges of excellence in 14 countries around the world....Centered upon the sound principles of the Catholic faith, the Legionary method of education seeks to educate the whole person, addressing all aspects of the person, and therefore providing an integral formation helping the student to fulfill the mission for which he was created.¨

so i got that going for me. i am also considering a position in DF(mex city) at a private language school. options, options.

my interview yesterday was the first interview i have had since this time i went to a place called millberry on parnassus ave in san fran, level i. there i was met by two sisters named hulia and katerina de wit(pronounced vit, like the skater) who showed me around until our meeting with wayne ¨not the flute player in the lobby, dammit¨ hiroshima. i remember being asked, ¨if i were an animal, what animal would i be?¨ i chose to be a fish. thus began two years of lifeguarding, love, and locker duties (combinations, clearing, renting, harassing calls). good times.

but really, that was my last interview. of course i interviewed tons of peeps with jules, but being on the other side of the table is different. actually, i think it made me a great interviewee. we shall see if puebla thinks the same.

i watched ¨an officer and a gentleman¨ for the first time last night. not sure if i ever mentioned this, but they show free movies on campus every thursday in this huge auditorium, which has a.c., that has, to my knowledge, only ever been used to show movies on thursday nights. normally the 350-400 person capacity auditorium holds about 6 people for the movies. all of them instructors. however, word got out that richard gere would be naked and about 30 people showed up last night. almost all them female, not surprisingly.

i wont offer my criticism of the movie, but i guess i knew what i was getting into.

in general, thursday is the most exciting night of my week because i get to see a movie. sometime they are horrible, angelina jolie and antonio banderas- dubbed into spanish- in ¨original sin¨, but some are great- ¨american beauty¨ which i had never seen, and another called ¨los amantes del circulo polar¨ it is from spain but i ihighly recommend it. actually, i really think you should try to find it at the video store if they have a foreign film section. it is kind of a romance but is fantastic nonetheless.

i cannot believe i am saying this, but go hoos! i hope dom starsia´s team kicks syracuse´s butt this weekend in the lacrosse semifinals. i am not going to discuss the duke thing, but i believe we should all wait until the trial ends before judging. and, no matter what the result, one team should not mar the reputation of an entire sport. lacrosse is the best team game i have ever played, and i hope its popularity continues to grow. dont disrespect the entire sport if a few idiots screwed up in an unforgivable and unpardonable way.

hope you all had a good weekend. doughman, indeed you are correct. wings would prevent a frog from bumping his ass.

i have two schools in mexico interested in me. one is in puebla, and i described it earlier. good school, decent pay, great location. the other is a junior high/high school position at a private boys school in san luis potosi, about 6hours north of the capital, mexico city. the pay is quite good, about 1500.00 dollars a month, but there are a few down sides. jacket and tie are required and there are a lot of teaching hours, about 5.5 each day.

the town of san luis potosi sounds quite nice. in the mountains, about 6500ft, and of a decent size, roughly 1,000,000 people.

i have an interview this week, by phone, with puebla and if i am offered the position i will take it and then continue to look around and check my options.

so to sum up, all is well and i will probably be leaving the isthmus of tehuantepec in early august for greener pastures. i am starting to feel happier just thinking about it.

in response to ames´ pregunta(question), within the last ten years, mexico has switched to daylight savings time. thus, when the usa changes time in the spring and fall, so does mexico. this was done partly in response to business concerns between the usa and mexico(keeping time the same between the two countries) and, according to the government of mexico, in order to save energy. of course, how this really saves energy is anyone´s guess, and according to my friends, this was a pretext that masked the true intent of the govt to simply mimic the usa.

thus, there is god´s time, and the govt´s time. many people in my pueblo(town) have agreed to ignore the govt and keep to god´s time. of course, not everyone follows this system, which leads to a lot of strangeness as most stores open later and stay open later than others. then there are those that change time. it is weird in that there is no system or set pattern. you dont know who follows which schedule until you either ask or see that they stay open later than others. and dont bother asking what time it is, bc it leads to a confusing coversation where people ask you which time you mean, then they try to figure out time it is based on what you are saying but invariably there is confusion as to what the original hour is (whatever original means) and then adding or subtracting an hour. seems simple, but it never ends up being so. strange.

today is my good friend oscar´s (from puebla, the one in the glamour shots pictures) last day. i am sad. no tengo ganas que hacer nada. i dont really feel like doing anything. just bummed out in general. plus it is painfully hot already.

if today were the first of august, i would say forget teaching abroad and come back to virginia.

if i came back to virginia, i would look for work teaching or just take the year off from teaching and work for anthony.

if i worked for anthony, i would try to buy some cows to help earn extra money (or talk to poppa dough man and see what he thinks about potential ways to make more money).

if i went back to virginia, i would try to do a lot of hiking and camping on the Appalachian Trail (j-felony, this means you would be involved). i would also look into getting a used kayak and start paddling again.

if i returned to the states, i would probably never again leave for such an extended period of time but would devote the next 3-4 years to paying off my student loans.

if i left spanish speaking countries, i would look for a way to keep practicing my spanish and possibly look into classes in another foreign language to further my education and to meet new people in area since the number of friends my age in the orange-madison-culpepper tri-county area equasl zero.

if the first of august had just rolled around, i might actually try to do a little travelling before i came home. maybe head down to costa rica, going through guatemala, el salvador, nicaragua.

if i relocated to the farm, i would be around for harvest time and hopefully learn more about that process. in my old age (i accept that 27 is not old, but try telling that to my students) i have a new respect for farming in general and find it amazing that there is a large working farm that has helped pay for many of the things i have done in my life.

if i returned home, i would once again try to learn welding from poppa dough man. i made one attempt in the fall of 2000, but i picked up teaching not long after and never really got anywhere. i find it fairly sad that i never took advantage of living with a person who taught welding. nor did i ever learn about farm work other than very basic operational duties. (now that i am writing all this down, i realize how ungrateful i was/am for all the opportunities i had. maybe since i left home to go to school when i was 13, i somehow got into my mind that the only way to learn was to leave home. that was foolish.)

if i swung back into the o.c. this week, i would get to see the leaves change color on the blue ridge mountains. i miss how beautiful that is.

if my time were up on my contract, i would only have lived outside of the states for one year. not a very long time. i might be disappointed in myself for giving up so quickly.

if i quit my job and bailed to return to a non-teaching job in the states, i might lose some momentum as far as returning to school for a phd. i might not ever go back to school.

if the states were in my near future, i would appreaciate many more of the advantages and little things that i took for granted for the first 26 years of my life. wearing a jacket, the olor (scent) of autumn and snow would be three things i would definitely look forward to intently.

if a one-way ticket home were to be bought, i am not sure how to go about doing that. i might just go the airport and fly standby to atlanta or dc. if atlanta were my destination, i would hang out with amy and master james for a spell, then catch a train home. i like trains.

if all the ifs in my life were to be tabulated, my future would seem bright and limitless. though they will not be, i still see mi porvenir(all time after today) as something quite interesting and slightly unstable.

if you have never read a poem entitled ¨if,¨ you should. there is also one in spanish, entitled, obviously, ¨si¨ without the accent on the letter i, which means, clearly, ¨if¨

if wishes were fishes....

today is the 15th of may, 2006, not the first of august. but if it were....