Vacations are Necessary and Good

Now I get why working people need vacation time...to take care of all the shit you meant to do but didn't have time to cos everything work related was too pressing. In the past 3 days (allowing one day off for crashing after Christmas week of ridic)

• Rooms have been cleaned, including floors mopped
• Laundry has been done
• Fake college IDs have been made and laminated
  

(for serious...bus fares are half price if you travel during vacations with a valid student ID, and once we get out of the state of Guanajuato (where it's obvious we have fake university ID cards) we'll be saving like $100 each on the trip to Oaxaca.)

• Puppy has been given a place to stay until January 3.
• Same for fishie.
• Wrote thank you notes to the kids who got me holiday presents
  

annnnnnnnd...

• I translated a synopsis (yes, 5000 words can still be considered a synopsis) of the boys's explanation of why it's important to study a theory of a mind without a body.

He is setting up a web site (and got a real graphic designer to make it not suck) about this thing, and I just wanted to get the translation out of the way so the site would be DONE. So, I did. My brain almost imploded though. But I'm pretty proud, even though it probably sucks, cos it's my first real translation. And my name will be up on the web site saying that I am the translator!

Anyway, tomorrow it's off to León for Christmas with the boy's mom's family, and then from there to Oaxaca City for real vacation. A trip to Taxco aka silver Mecca has been promised at some point on the way back, so I am more than stoked.

Hodgepodge

I guess when life actually becomes interesting, professionally and personally, there's not that much time to document it as it happens. It's only when everything is over, and there has been time to forget a lot of the details

First and foremost, the puppy is pure, unadulterated awesome. Except for when she pees on the floor. Her favorite games include chewing up empty plastic bottles, chasing her tail, and trying to eat everything in sight. Her name is Malinche, which was the name of Hernan Cortes' Indian translatress/guide/mistress as he set about conquering Mexico in the name of God and the Spanish king. Nowadays, the word malinchista, in Mexican Spanish, is a derrogatory-ish way of saying that someone prefers foreign things to their own native heritage. It's like the opposite of a xenophobe, but not in a good way at all.

The pictures are already kind of old, taken when she was 3 months old. Now she is 4 months old and already substantially bigger. She's an American Pit Bull Terrier, and I was kind of apprehensive about getting a pit bull initally - probably for the same reason everyone is a little freaked out when they hear that someone has a pit bull. But she's only agressive with other dogs, not with people at all, and only when she wants to play. And I can't take her out for a walk without getting stopped literally a dozen times. Awwwwwww what a cute dog! What's her name? What breed is she? Is she for sale?

No, most definitely, not for sale.

At school, in the last 4 weeks, there has been field day, exams (writing of (4 x 2 versions per group), administering of (4 x 2 days each), and grading of (92)), 92 second bimester grading sheets to fill out, the Christmas pagent/concert (setup and attendance), and normal daily class routine. So, needless to say, I have not had much free time. I still really like the job though. The kids are fun, my coworkers are great, and hopefully all my visa paperwork will be taken care of in January.

And now it's vaycayyyyshuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnn...going to Oaxaca right after Christmas, back on January the Fifth. Huzzah.

PUPPYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Pictures to come.

She's a 3-month-old tan pitbull terrier and is so ugly cute. She has light brown eyes that look at you like you're an idiot as she poops on the floor.

Damn Hippies

Today I showed my 3rd graders the episode of Pinky and the Brain where Brain decides to take over the world by becoming a succesful country singer. At one point in the episode, for about 10 seconds, there is a cartoon Kenny Rogers singing a song about playing go fish.

Cartoon Kenny Rogers has, as does Real Life Kenny Rogers, long grey hair. It is not quite a mullet, but certainly could be called one. Cascading waves, perhaps?

At any rate, one of the 8 year olds yelled HIPPIE at the TV.

Good thing some words don't actually get translated.

Attack of the Killer Goats

I took my mom for a 4 hour hike in the hills surrounding Guanajuato. You take the bus about 15 minutes to a town called Santa Rosa, and then there is a dirt road you can walk back on. It passes through a small town, and next to a large reservoir.



We had just passed the reservoir, when I had to pee. I had already peed once on the walk, and it was no big deal to pop another squat. My mom was the lookout to make sure nobody (automotive or humanoid) was coming on the road.

All of a sudden, my mom yelled "Stop peeing, get up right now! There are goats!" I had a lot of pee, and it was at the point where you can't really stop the flow, I was peeing THAT hard. Plus, I figured that there were a couple of goats, and what's the big deal about a couple of goats? They're not very big, they're not very scary, they're just freaking goats.

Except, there weren't just a couple of goats. Nope nope.

There were a couple of hundred goats.


My mom grew up in New York City, and likes to watch animals from afar. After I pulled up my pants are we were a suitable distance away, she asked me to go back, but be careful, because she really was sorry that she didn't have a camera to take a picture of the goats. At this point, they were crossing the creek and it was obvious that the dogs with them were not, as she originally thought, attack dogs, but rather knew their job helping the shepherd.


So, we continued walking, and saw a mule. My mom again thought something bad would happen as I went back and approached it.

Clearly, nothing did.

!!!!!!!!!

Mumsy is here.

Yesterday we went to 1 big statue, 3 museums, 2 candy shops, 1 grocery store, 2 cafes, 2 restaurants, and 2 bars. My feet hurt, and I collapsed into bed at about 10pm. Expect pictures and more extensive commentary when there are more pictures, and time to make said extensive commentary.

However (and I have told mumsy this) the most important thing is that she tries as much different food as humanly possible in the 4 days she is visiting.

Yesterday the foods tried were:

• Enchiladas mineras (cheese enchiladas with onion, carrot, and potato)
• Pollo rostado (nothing unusual, just rotisserie chicken)
• Flautas (unbreaded chicken tenders wrapped inside a fried tortilla)
• Totopes con frijoles y queso (nacho chips with beans and cheese...the cheese is crumbly, like feta)
• Cocoada (a stick of sticky coconut)
• Media galletita (half a cookie...this one was a sandwich with butter cookie, raspberry jam, and lots of powdered sugar on top)
  
• Rolla de guayaba (dried guava drenched in sugar)
• Beso Negro (super concentrated hot dark chocolate, served in an espresso cup)
  

The day before yesterday, the foods tried were:

• Tacos from a taquería
• Coke in a glass bottle
  

The Faithfully Departed

Now the internet at home is working great! Which is fortunate, since I accidentally got locked in this morning. At least I had some way to entertain myself.

Yesterday I saw a posting for my old job on one of the notice boards in the town center. It was with another posting, at the same school, for a nursery aide. So I guess someone else quit too. I felt a little guilty but not guilty enough to regret switching jobs...

...Especially since the new job is actually fun. There are a buttload of kids, but I like it. Some of the parents came around on Friday with pan de muertos (dead bread) for us, to celebrate Día de los Muertos, which is on Sunday. They had a really nice altar set up, and the computer lab teacher was dressed up as a skullhead and explained the altar to the kiddos. Some of the kids dressed up for Halloween but not a lot. I think it's a much better way to join the two holidays than what the old school had planned.

The old school had planned basically an American Halloween, without any kind of Día de los Muertos celebration. It's pretty unfortuante, since Día de los Muertos is one of those regional traditions that people from all over can look at and go - Hey! That's pretty cool!

The idea is that there is one day a year where spirits come back up to earth from the underworld. Families set up altars with pictures of their dead relatives, and their favorite foods and alcohols, so that the spirits will know they are back in the right place. They also put skulls (or skully substitutes...masks, or styrofoam skulls) and candies to attract kids to the altar. Basically, it's celebrating the cyclical nature of life and death - remembering and honoring dead loved ones, and reminding the living that they too will die. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. The altars are in the houses, and then on the actual day families go to have parties in the cemetaries.

The end result is a much more relaxed attitude towards death. I think a big part of it is knowing that you won't be forgotten, that there is a special day set aside for people to remember and have fun with the memories. In Judaism, there are special religious ceremonies to remember close dead relatives a few times a year, but that's not exactly something fun or something to look forward to.