spring break, pt. 1

I've had about a week of spring break so far. It's been nice. I went to Tulum with about half of the program kids here and saw a lot of cool things. During the day we would go to ruins and cenotes and every night ended by raging off into the ocean. As luck would have it, I ended up back safe and sound in my bed. I can't say I remember how, though. There were two main highlights, I'd say.

First, Ek' Balam. It's an archeological site in Yucatán, and probably the coolest one I've been to so far. (Which is to say a lot, because I went to Chichen Itza on the equinox when the cool snake thing happens. I didn't write about it because I because too contemplative afterwards and wrote the entry titled moody piece of junk - I think it had to do with the fact that it's an important time of year at this holy site.) Anyways, the cool think about Ek' Balam is this thing, which is the original thing - not recreated by archeologists in any way. Apparently a tree fell over it and preserved it from erosion and other forces of nature. Anyways, it's all very symbolic of Mayan religion. The entrance is a serpent's mouth which (if I remember correctly) is leading the entrance of the king's tomb or chamber of entertainment. Big difference. Either way, cool, meaningful stuff. And wow, to think that there was stuff like this before it all wasted away (and everything was painted) is really neat.

Secondly, a cenote in which I scuba dived for the first time out of a pool. It was so much fun! We just cruised around under water for about an hour and a half with a few breaks to swim to the top. It had a cave, too, so we got to go into the cave underwater. Suddenly, it seemed like there was this sort of water-portal thing like you'd see in a sci-fi movie. No joke, it was like everything was blurry and wavy in one direction and clear up above, and not due to extra oxygen making it to my brain. Afterwards I asked Guillermo why it's like that, and it's a mixing point of salt and fresh waters.

Now I'm back in Merida and pretending to work hard on school things. I have a few papers I'll have to do before jetting out of here and should be getting started. But more vacation awaits.

inframundo

In the next two weeks I will be more or less falling off the face of the planet as I go to far away and remote destinations. Where I'm going today is called the "underworld." Sorry about any delays in communications.

moody piece of junk

I wrote this last night, frustrated about not having written on this lately due to no internet at home. It's more personal than Mexico or travel related. I'm not sure if I should really post it, but why not? Also, today I played the violin for a while and it made me happy. Here it is:


We've had cool weather recently. So cool in fact, I'd venture to say the high of the past two days was not above 90 degrees Fahrenheit. After this afternoon's scuba lesson, Mallory, Megan and I were all shivering. Fortunately our teacher's enthusiasm for air conditioning had subsided for our trip back to Merida. It was a nice medium – still warm and with wind in our hair. Not too cold, artificial, and icy, like life is with A/C on full blast. It's just about balance.

As the sun dove ever deeper it just kept getting cooler. It was so nice when I got home that I changed into shorts and took a stroll around the neighborhood with my ipod and music to set my mood, which was nothing short of unprecedented.

I've considered myself pretty lucky to avoid a lot of stressing about what I'm going to do after I graduate. In fact, I really almost never thought about it; since my year off it's been a pretty straight path. That mildly fatalistic combination of persistence and self-negation, I think, has had a lot to do with how I make decisions in my life, and especially big ones. It's a comforting, easy, and, dare I say, insincerely-buddhist manner of navigating life's milestones. But I don't think I want to do it like this anymore.

That's why I chose my college. I just sort of did. I had a good visit. To me it wasn't particularly profound although to some of my hosts I became some sort of religious symbol thanks my cramped spread-eagle sleeping posture. And I was relatively happy with the decision. And I'm not complaining about what my future is looking like, either. I've got a guaranteed job (assuming I don't quit or perform abysmally) that's salaried, with benefits, and summers off. I might also get a masters degree. Even though I wouldn't dare to complain, what good would the best liberal-arts education money can buy be if I couldn't critique this situation?

Do I know what I'm getting myself into? Not really. I listened to an episode of This American Life a few weeks ago which featured that hipster economist from NPR. He had a story about the economy in which he tried to convince his cousin to go back to college over a three-way phone call between them and an economics professor. The cousin had a pretty good job as a carpenter, and he said that he loved it because he leaves all his work at work – he never talks about work at home. Professionals, on the other hand, do this all the time. Yes, being a badass teacher and viewing that role as central to combatting unquantifiable social juste issues is something that I want to do, but the fact that I will continually be making choices about living my own life simply by choosing how much I will work is a incredibly intimidating. My job's training materials make it very clear that my job will take a lot of work and that I will pretty much eat, sleep, and breathe teaching. It sounds a lot like college, but with a little more freedom and less being continually subjected to others' judgement.

Right now, I'm going into this future optimistically, believing that I'll get a lot out of this experience. I think the training curriculum has just gotten me down – I've been reading it all weekend, and it has successfully bludgeoned one key idea into my head: think about everything you do all the time and in many ways. There's a lot of good specific info in it to be certain, but the general message is: think about what you're doing. Ok, I will. I know I'll learn a lot by teaching, and I'm pretty interested in that as a possible “career” in the future. Luckily, it's a pretty versatile “career.” Summers off, and every corner of the world with human populations needs some sort of teacher. Lots of opportunity. The world is wide open to me.
I think I can get out of debt, too. This is a big one. But what if I can't? It might mean getting trapped into this lifestyle where work never ends. Perhaps this is where Marx went wrong in the manifesto: professionals are workers whose work never ends. They have to keep producing the same results all the time, meaning taking their work home with them. What if I end up with a life like this?

I know that I can be successful at whatever I really set my mind too. That's not the problem. The problem is that success isn't really aligned with happiness. I mean, who really wants to not have time to explore themselves, diversify themselves, do something, anything artistic. Play music, write, paint, wear funny clothes, tell a joke, play a sport or game, dance (of course), belligerently mumble with urgency of existential matters and paradoxes, recognize the essential unity of everything in the universe. What if I don't get to do these things anymore?

When I think about my life, I think the times I've been most “successful” in ventures such as these were times when I was least traditionally “successful” in others. During both of those times, I left my work at work and didn't really do homework. I'm thinking of course of the last two years of high school and the year I took off of college. My senior year of high school is kind of a blur. I'll leave it to you to extrapolate that implication. I partied a lot, I played guitar a lot every day, I had the wackiest job I will ever have. I'm convinced this year deeply affected my in many ways. I think, during this time, I learned how to creatively converse with people. Mainly thanks to Liz, I'd say I have excellent conversational skills.

There was one time we came up with the idea to make a comic based on a combination of Star Wars and Seinfeld. The Star Wars characters would be living in New York and have funny incidents happen to them. We had a whole issue planned out but never really got around to it. There was one night during which we listened to Zaireeka a few times and, gradually becoming more and more disoriented (infer away, dear reader), became more and more confused about just what the fuck was going on anyways!? It's a tricky album. Or the roman candle wars, swimming in the lake at midnight, drinking our sorrows away when Phish “broke up,” the cable access tv ping-pong tourney, or living with a hobo. (Yes, I really did live with a homeless guy for a while in high-school.) I was pretty much free. Sure, I was in high school and depended on my parents for stuff, but I made the most of it in a pretty positive way.

Since then, the only other time when I've really been able to do stuff like that was when I took a year off of college. I left my work at work, and did a million other things when I wasn't at work. Innumerable potlucks, bike rides, concerts, beers, game nights, weird situationist zines, drum circles, comics, conversations about the importance of the avant-garde and how to apply it to video game design, community spanish lessons, skill-shares, activism stuff when the EPA (no joke) tried to dump a bunch of toxic waste in the city, and daily celebrations of life. I can honestly say that I would be a very different person if not for that year. I'm a lot better for it, and the kids in Kalamazoo are family to me.

I'd say that I've felt like I'm accomplishing the most when I'm accomplishing the least according to a “professional” viewpoint. That's why I'm worried: what if I don't make it out of debt? I'll be trapped into continuing this cycle of “professional” employment. I might never follow some crazy dream of becoming a mad farmer, acoustic wonder-boy, or member of the traveling nation. That would make me sad.

I don't think I'm the only person concerned with this type of conflict. I'm bred for success – educated at an elite liberal arts college and storming onto the scene with a truly challenging task (slash job) which will provide opportunities for personal growth in certain ways. But probably not in others. At Grinnell I learned to read, critique, and write like a pro, but almost never played my guitar. And I lament this. What will I end up sacrificing next time around?

I see this conflict springing up in some other places, too. Today a friend and I were talking about globalization in a corporate coffee-shop. During the conversation, two other friends came in. We looked at each other, and, rather than saying hello, justified our presence in the belly of the beast. “It's just that all the independent cafes are closed today (Sunday). You'd think this was like... a small town or something.” “Yeah...” We got back to unpacking some weird theoretical mumbo-jumbo about production in a neo-liberal globalized economy as antithetical to education. Very weird and hard to decipher, probably French (translated into Spanish). If people need to acquire increasingly specialized skills to work, does that mean that teaching the skills of critical thinking goes down the tubes? The liberal-arts as irrelevant? Outdated? Ha! I think not.
I was reminded of a brief history of this radical simplicity commune place in France called The Ark (L'arche?). I heard this story in another radical simplicity commune place in Missouri called the Wren Song Sanctuary when I went there for a bit in March 2008 (and how I long to go back!). Some of the founders had previously lived at the Ark when it broke down. It was supposedly one of the biggest, oldest, most successful communities of this kind in the world. But as time progressed and the new anti-capitalist movement was began to take shape, the residents slowly but surely sorted themselves into two groups: one dedicated to the simplest, most peaceful living possible as a way to offer change, and one which wanted to travel and use a lot of technology to stay connected and on-top of every issue. Over time, the chasm between these groups became so vast as to end in a dissolution of the Ark. Sad, but true. I think this story is a parallel to what I'm facing personally and what the privileged sector of the new counter-culture faces. To be badass professionals and work to change things with some degree of integration or just opt-out and seek love, creation, and spiritual truth.

This is why, for me, the stakes are so high. And why I'm, for once, concerned about what I'm doing with my life. I'm hoping that I can find a balance. It's all about balance. I've been envisioning my life on that premise for a while. It will be tough. One side will want all of myself and I there won't be much of me left if I oblige. After this is over, I'm going to take a big step in the other direction – working on a biodynamic (and all that good stuff) farm for a while. I'm praying that after these two or three years of teaching I will be free of debt. I'm hoping that my cell phone will be obsolete, and my car (eek! buying a car!!!!) will be stolen, but my biking muscles will be stronger than ever. I'm looking forward to the day that my computer will break and my mind will be sharper than ever. I'm counting on the day my ipod dies but my guitar is still cool.

After a month in Minneapolis, I know about two dozen people, some of whom I see regularly. At work. Canvassing.

I have no apologies, by the way, about my meager contributions to this blog. There are plenty of other places, online and off, that I write regularly and with a great degree more thought and interest. Just think of this as an exercise in contrast.

long post to make up for mis faltas

Sorry for the long time, no update thing. Anyways, I've done a lot of cool stuff since the "party weekend." Don't worry, I haven't been recovering this whole time. I have been busy, however.

During carnival, which is like when the city goes crazy and is a big party for a week and school is canceled, I actually took the opportunity to go to San Cristobal de las Casas, which is in Chiapas. The city is considered a Pueblo Mágico, and I could not agree more. I went to visit my friend from Michigan, Andrea, who had just moved there and I met her roommates, who are also really nice. She had just gotten a job at a Lebanese restaurant, so I mostly explored the city myself on foot during the day. It was a lot of fun - there are lots of churches which are arquitecturally unique to Chiapas due to the mixing of indigenous and christian religions.

There is a great artisan market there - and it's dirt cheap! A lot of Chiapaneca women come to Mérida to sell stuff and probably do with moderate success. However, the journey about doubles the price. In San Cristobal I was able to pick up a pretty nice leather messanger bag and knitted wool hoodie for about $400 MX. Both seem like they're super high quality to me. In Mérida, the same bag is often hawked for $550 MX, and not from actual street vendors but from tourist-oriented souvenir shops. The fact that I haven't seen many Chiapaneca women selling them in Mérida tells me one thing - that people go down to Chiapas, buy the goods, and then bring them back up here to sell at 2-3 times the price down there.

When I was in San Cristobal, I felt guilty haggling with people. The fact is that the differene in price I got on the items wasn't that much to me, and even the asking price was a pretty good deal for what I was buying. I never pushed very hard, and mostly negotiated just to go through the motions. Buying stuff in bulk, I imagine that the souvenir middlemen of Mérida make a killing. Needless to say, not to the benefit of the actual producers of the products.

I'm having one of those "ohmigod the structure of the world economy really needs to change in order for people to have equal opportunities in life" moments. Since this trip, I've been on the lookout for manifestations of structural inequality, both the causes and the consequences. There are a quite a few when one is looking.

For example - the women who come to Mérida from Chiapas to sell stuff. Why do they do it? I guess I should ask them to really know - maybe it's some sort of employment circuit that every member of some sort of artisnal co-op does every so often. I'm guessing not, though. That means shouldering the cost of travel, lodging, moving a lot of products with you, and normally bringing children. I'm sure they've perfected their system of doing this, but how much can it benefit them? Even if it does result in economic benefits, it undoubtedly perpetuates structural inequality. For example, the children aren't in school. By the time they grow up, they'll be ready to work in the artisnal market, but won't have many other opportunities. However, the number of kids which come of age into this situation can only be increasing - as I said, the women in Mérida often have 5 kids with them, and the same was true in San Cristobal.

Of course, the Mexican educational system is no gaurantee of greater opportunities either. Again, I haven't done actual research into this, but it seems like every so often you have to take a test which determines if you keep going to school. If you fail, you're out of the system. I've been told that the Mexican educational system is incredibly corrupt, and while this testing process may be a great way to trim budgets, it does little to give opportunity to those who don't show "potential." Talk about high pressure and psychological assault. A friend of mine who works making copies in the facultad is pretty much done with school and working a dead end job. I'm really curious how much she makes but I'm afraid of asking. Again, what else is there to do when the system throws you out on the street? I really think someone needs to write a book like "Nickeled and Dimed" but about other countries and structural inequality. Maybe I will try to do this later.

But back to what I did in San Cristobal. One day I went to San Jan Chomula, where I did not hear a single person speaking Spanish unless I first spoke it to them. Everyone was speaking an indigenous language, the name of which I can't remember. I couldn't take my camera there, because photo taking has a bad rap - of stealing the subject's soul. Apparently tourists have been badly beaten because of this. Anyways, the carnival was pretty interesting. Men wore specific costumes and took smallish bulls around the plaza and controlled them with ropes held by about 20 men in total. Other men tried to jump on the bull and ride it. They were not costumed, and most appeared to be teenagers or early 20 somethings, or moderately intoxicated. Women pretty much just watched. So did I, for about three hours. It was very entertaining, and I didn't even see anyone get seriously hurt!

Later that night, Andrea and her roommates and I met a really nice, although probably quite psychologically insecure middle aged American tourist named Edward. He took us out to drinks at the Lebanese restaurant where Andrea was working. I drank about 6 Araks, which is a Turkish anise liquor. Yum! Ed's treat - double yum! Afterwards we went to some other places and kept partying and Ed went home. I got tired of him pretty early in the evening when his inner lecher emerged. He said he wanted to come to this canyon with us, but thankfully didn't answer his phone in the morning.

The following day, I dragged Andrea out of bed kicking and screaming (not literally, but it took a little work on my part) to go to the Cañon del Sumidero, a really cool canyon close to San Cristobal with rock faces up to 1 km. It was truly breathtaking; one view from within the canyon is the official seal of the state of Chiapas. There were animals, too. A few times we passed by an entrapment - my unofficial word for where currents take floating trash never to escape. Of the maybe twelve people in our boat, Andrea and I were the only ones who seemed to acknowledge the trash.

Back in Mérida, I rested for quite a while - I couldn't sleep during the overnight 14 hour bus ride back. Bummer. However, later in the weekend I went to Celestún, where there is a cool ecological reserve with about 15,000 flamingoes you can observe from a moderate distance. Even though I was super tired still, I figured it was worth it to go when friends were going rather than trying to go later and maybe having to pay a lot more for the boat. Interesting fact - the flamingoes go there to eat mosquito larvae. Imagine how many larvae there must be to feed that many flamingoes. Now imagine what that might smell like. Yuck. But it was still worth it. On both boat trips, the wind rushing through my hair and around my body was sufficient to wake me up.

Since then there has been little of note, especially because I've been so busy with homework and school actually. Test tomorrow, presentation Tuesday, and I need to think about papers now, too. The one thing I would mention is that today I went to see this Picasso exhibit in the centro cultural here. It was SO great and confirmed Picasso as one of my favorite artists ever. I saw a lot of other ideas coming from him through these drawings that don't really make it into big museums. The works were pretty much all drawings or black and white paintings spanning a lot of his career, from 1905 to 1955ish. The cool thing was seeing him approach the same subject in different ways and in varying degrees of what you'd think of abstractness and bodily distortion. If you ever get the chance to see work by Picasso that's not his most famous stuff, I'd highly recommend it.

The crazy thing, though: every room in this exhibit was guarded by multiple police wearing bulletproof vests and carying either shotguns or automatic weapons. I wonder what they think their guns are protecting...? Like, if someone is going to destroy the art, will a barrage of bullets in their direction actually do less damage? I doubt it. I thought the metal detector and bag inspection were sufficient.

Now, back to work.

Note: something weird is afoot with blogger and I can't post any photos or links right now. Maybe I will do that later in either this or another post.

party weekend

I had a party oriented weekend last weekend. The facultad threw some sort of valentines day party, the Mexican name of (día de amor y amistad) also inclues friendship, which is nice. It was nice, because I met a lot of Mexicans. Only at Grinnell parties have I seen as much free booze everywhere, and if there's one thing I cannot resist it is someone very friendly shoving a bottle or cup in my face. In a world like that, it's surprisingly easy to make friends.

As I said, I met a lot of kids, most of which are in my Functionalism and Structuralism class. After the official facultad party ended we all hopped on a bus to the centro and tried to go to the facultad de arqitectura party only to learn that they're tight-asses and wouldn't let anyone in (???). This was a stark contrast to the communal atmosphere which I had just left. No matter, the festivities continued in a few different local watering-holes.

The following evening, I visited a club again. It was a friend's birthday. This time, I unfortunately had less fun. A few things I learned about these pay to get in and then drink as much as you can for free clubs contributed to my ambiguous mood. First, the alcohol they serve is lower quality, possibly akin to rubbing alcohol. The sad thing is that non-ethanol alcohol (vs. ethanol, which we use both for drinking and biofuel)is more toxic to the human body and less intoxicating. We got a table, and a free bottle of vodka, which claimed to be Smirnoff but smelled more like rubbing alcohol. Seconly, some clubs put ether in the ice they give to Americans, or just simply drug them so that local scam artists will be able to get them to go home with them and rob them. Fortunately, this didn't happen to me, but the suspicious liquor was enough to make me keep my distance, and not drink to elevation, as many of my peers did.

terrifying food products of Mexico #1

During my time in Mexico, I've been exposed to many new foods. This is pretty exciting for a foodie such as myself, and one of the things I was most excited about before coming here. The Yucatán itself offers a palatte distinct from most of México, and certainly distinct from Mexican food that's common in the US.

While the culinary aspect of my journey continues to be a source of great pleasure, there are times when certain food products terrify me. So far, I would say these things are always seperate from "traditional" Yucatecan foods, which are pretty much some sort of assembly of whole foods. What's terrifying are things with less-than-noble origins. In honor of these food products, I've decided to start a series on "terrifying food products of Mexico." This is the first entry in that series.

It's Guten! Guten is some sort of processed meat product which makes me think of potted-meat-food-product (aka Spam) in a plastic baggie. Not only does Guten come with two kinds of meat (beef and chicken) it also has a boatload of gluten thrown in to make it stick together and a vertiable cocktail of preservatives, salt, and probably MSG. Guten also comes cooked, so you don't have to bother with that pesky little requirement for eating meat. "Just add your special touch," it says. What it doesn't say - "we'll be sure to neutralize it with this flavorless cardboard, unless you add so much salt that you can't taste anything else anyways."

paradiso

Well, that's not actually how you say "paradise" in Spanish, but I wanted to make sure non-Spanish speakers got the point. Well, I had a pretty good weekend. As I mentioned before, I went to Isla Mujeres, a tiny little island in the Caribbean, and the easternmost point of Mexico. Yes, I actually took this picture there.

A few friends took off from Mérida at midnight Thursday and got to the Isla around 5 AM Friday. We found a hotel room, took a nap, and then hit the beach. Unfortunately, it was kind of chilly, so I went and rented a moped. Megan and I promptly cruised to the southernmost point of the island and back. Riding around on one of those mopeds is a lot of fun. It makes me think about my transportation in the future. I'm concerned that I actually will have to procure some sort of motorized transport to deal with life in the bay area. Should it be one of those, or maybe a motorcycle? Time will tell.

Then at night we went out to a cool bar in a hostel with lots of other young travelers. I forgot that I'm actually a student - a luxury I rarely experienced at Grinnell. There was a great band playing in that Spanish style reminiscent of the Gipsy Kings. I really need to learn to play guitar like this.

The following day there was more moped crusing to go to the TortuGranja (turtle farm). For a few pesos we went to see some sea turtles that this government conservation project helps grow up so they're not eaten or poached as babies. I love those animals. Then, more lounging on the beach, drank a few beers, doing nothing but earning a minor sunburn.

Upon return, all I could think about is how long it seemed like I was gone from Mérida - at least a week. In reality, about 3 days. It is so nice to not have class on Friday. My life is pretty full of these experiences in which I totally forget about other parts of my life that aren't requiring my current attention. When I get back to "real life" it seems foreign and surreal. On the way back, Mallory and I were waiting for the bus to get back to our neighborhood. All I could think about is my disorientation in Mérida, things to do, busses to catch, stuff to carry, hunger to deal with. Suddenly, stuff that is a part of my life becomes a chore to deal with rather than just what I'm doing. I think I can do better than this mindset if I focus on it.

Anyways, the island was fairly touristy - it is right next to Cancun. But it was nice because it was not gawdy either. Everything appeared to be a small business rather than a chain, although the t-shirts were certainly mass-produced. Sometimes I feel uncomfortable being a tourist, but other times I just bask the hedonistic glory. Contradictions such as this will probably never resolve themselves. I just think how tourism is really a development trap which leads to over-abundance of crappy jobs for locals. But, the Mexicans we met in a bar all said they really like the tourists that visit their island.

Now I'm back in Mérida, and have to get back to "real life," if such a thing exists. For now, I'll just be looking off of my island.

viaje - Isla Mujeres

Tonight I'm going to Isla Mujeres and staying until Sunday. I'm excited about that.

Also, today, out of the blue, I got a big green salad for part of my lunch. Yum! My friend Michael coined the term "kale withdrawals" to describe the lack of vegetable consumption in Mexico relative to his life in the US. I could not agree more. Sure, we had lettuce, but it was pretty hearty and green, even though not kale or other heartier leaf. Horray!

hoofin'

I'm moving to Uptown Minneapolis this Saturday morning. I have not yet purchased my bus pass.

clubbing, oh my god!

I finally went out to a club here. I danced furiously until about 3 AM. This place is crazy, and wasn't nearly as expensive and "not-actually-mind-kind-of-place,-sorry" as I thought it would be. Here's what happened: Some friends met me on a corner after my dinner and we went in a taxi to the club. The cab had a video screen and when we told the driver where to take us, he got excited and put in a DVD which played Yeah! and cranked up the system. Then we got there, and went straight to the front of the line. Within 5 minutes we were in, and I had to pay about 150 pesos. Women, on the other hand, about 60. This seemed like a whole hell of a lot, but then when we get upstairs I learn that it includes open bar service. And I mean, OPEN bar. Like, they will give you a fucking bottle of vodka and a bottle of cola, and/or mineral water if you ask. It was really busy, but one could acquire speedy service by just putting 5 pesos in a cup while the bartenders were looking. Not too bad.

Anyways, it was like a big and crowded party. Like, in an actual club setting. Weird, for me. They must have about a zillion dollar air conditioning system, because even though the place was packed it stayed pretty cool. I danced with friends, and then headed home when we started breaking a sweat, and watched about half an episode of Law and Order.

I would probably even go back. I didn't think I would enjoy myself as much as I did.

Uxmal and ever after

Today I felt for the first time how awesome this semester will be. A few things compounded gave me this feeling. I went to the beach today, for one. While I was there, I realized how I've gone to the beach every weekend since I've been here. Then I realized that it is currently January, and that it's really weird (for me) to be at the beach this time of year. Progreso, the beach we go to, isn't great. It has stuff floating in the water, waves kick up a lot sand making the water not brochure-worthy, and there are lots of shells in the sand. But hey, it's a beach. I can't complain about that.

Also, I realized that I've wanted to write on this blog for a while but haven't been able to do to my business. I went to Uxmal, one of these great sites of Mayan ruins you've heard about. Probably. Anyways, it has a lot of stuff going on: a formidable iguana population, two huge pyramids (note pic of me on top of one with the other far off in the background), a turtle-themed temple, lots of residences, and a ball court. After exploring this stuff all morning, we headed off into the night. I'm really excited to learn more about things Mayan, maybe even learn some of the language? I might buy a book called "Mayan Grammar" for about $5 US and a Mayan-Spanish dictionary for the same price.

Speaking of books, I've been reading a novel called "La ciudad y los perros" ("The City and the Dogs") about a military boarding school in Lima. It's an important piece of literature for a few reasons I don't want to explain here. After reading the first chapter and realizing I didn't understand what actually happened, I read it again and really got it the second time around!

Transport in the city is easier every day. It's an adventure to flag down something - a camión, combi, autobus, or sometimes some other students who are driving to school. It can still be an adventure to go new places, however. Just yesterday I inadvertently zigzagged all over the north side of town all the way out to suburbanish mall-land and back down to the centro. I arrived at my destination about 2.5 hours late. Ouch. Dinner was over, but a few friends were happy to accompany me to another cafe. I was zonked out, and tried to order a stiff drink that turned out sweet.

Jobless and moving to Minneapolis.

Hard to reconcile with the fact that I'm kind of a rock star.

the melon joke

Well, almost a week has passed since my last post. I haven't come through with photos yet. To all of our devoted readers, I offer a sincere apology. I'll have them soon.

Lots has been going on. Classes continuing; I have an insurmountable amount of reading considering that its in Spanish. Although I can read and understand it, it takes much longer than reading in English and I don't really retain it as well. Alas.

Tomorrow I'm going to Uxmal with everyone in my program. That should be exciting.
I've started exercising!! This is really exciting because I almost never did this in Grinnell, but I actually do enjoy it and it's important for good health. Especially since my diet here contains few vegetables.

Today I explored the centro on my own for the first time. I really have to do this to get to know a place. I love getting lost and finding my way back to somewhere. To those of you who have not been in a huge open air market in a non-western country, you really have to experience it to understand. One moment you're looking at mangoes, then suddenly you take a wrong turn and go into the fish district. Just as the smell is really getting to you, suddenly you're surrounded by... sandals, everywhere! Above, left, right, ahead, and maybe even underneath you. These kind of things make me wonder just what this city's carrying capacity for sandal vendors is anyways. But woah, suddenly you're in the butcher area and... oh my god is that an entire cow head? Yes, yes it is. After a hop, skip, and a jump through jungles of jewelry, piles of potential pets, more produce than you can shake a stick it, you find yourself outside again, being serenaded by a little boy who is a great violinist while eating a few tacos that are really cheap and delicious. The sights, sounds, and smells of a Mexican market cannot be matched, nor really understood without actually experiencing them.

Ummm.... I know the inauguration was exciting and we're happy about Obama, but I really hope people don't start to have too much faith in the government just because of him. Thankfully, Obama himself says that the government can't do everything. Nonetheless, I'm really dissapointed by his refusal to consider legalizing drugs in any way. It's very very clear to me and lots of other people that ending the drug war is really important. The militarization of police forces across the country and accompanying abuses, as well as the military acting as police (which I'm pretty sure is unconstitutional), crazy foreign policy, loss of civil liberties, makes the country less safe, and denies medicine to the sick, are all related to this.

Also, I'm sadded to see that Obama has already taken military action in Pakistan. I don't know how else the government could deal with Al Qaeda or whatever, but this is a sobering dose of what the US government does now. Obama doesn't seem very different on this front, only more pragmatic. I don't think we can realistically expect out government to be a force for meaningful de-militarization. It seems nice to talk about dealing with the nukes and all, but something like 90% of deaths in war are from small arms. I'm making this up, but I saw Lord of War in which a similar statistic is cited. (I would also highly reccomend this movie if you want to become really really concerned about the arms trade.) I really really hope Obama can do something meaningful to bring peace to Israel and Palestine and no-nonsense rights and dignity to the people of Palestine. We'll see.

In other news, though, scientists teleported "a quantum state" over a meter, which is apparently a big deal. This is exciting news.

classes, cooking

I want to put up some pics for all of you, but I can't seem to upload any successfully.
Over the last week, I've been adjusting more and more. I've learned a bit about making photocopies. I went to the library and it took about an hour to get the reading for one class. My comrades in the program have had it worse than I, even. Nonetheless, I think if I organize myself effectively I can make this crazy system work a little easier.

Other than that, the food at my house can be a little trying. I'm a world away from the almost only whole food diet with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. In fact, there's hardly any of that. I get up and eat corn flakes for breakfast - unless they're out, in which case I might not eat anything at all! Other highlights include: bread, peanut butter with hydrogenated oil, pig products, a ketchup like tomato sauce that isn't actually ketchup, and a kind of fish that tastes really really fishy in a bad way. The almost total lack of fiber has really been hard on my digestive system.

Contrast that with what I did yesterday. I went to Los Dos cooking school, which teaches Yucatecan cuisine and has been featured on the Martha Stewart show (click on Mérida Market). All students in the program went, and we learned about "traiditional" ingredients, history of food, and the Mayan diet. I found it a bit weird to hear a definite gringo using "us" or "we" to refer to both Yucatecans and Mayans, but the experiece was a big hit with me nonetheless. We went to the market, and saw lots of produce (yum!), meat (gross looking!), little restaurants (yum!), and other stuff such as shoes, hammocks, candy, and whatever else you can imagine really. (Finally! Now I can go back

Habanero salsa

roasted habaneros, salt, sour orange juice -> blender

there to buy stuff!) Then we came back to the school and did some cooking. I learned how to make excellent tortillas (Emily will be jealous of this, but I'll tell her what I learned if she asks), tamales, and habanero salsa. I was excited to learn a few things about spicy foods:
1. Capsacin, which is the chemical that gives hot foods their "heat," can only be sensed by mammals! Birds or fish do not react to it in any way at all.
2. Pure capsacin is valued at 15 milliion scoville units. The hottest pepper in the world is the Naga Jolokia, at 1.04 million scoville units. Habaneros are at about 350,000, and jalapeños at 8,000.
3. Humans can endure pure capsacin and live. This was part of the way Scoville created the scale - by extracting and distilling pure capsacin and giving it to people! (This has always been one of those 'what ifs' in the back of my mind.)

4. Capsacin causes the release of endorphins in the brain. Eating hot foods makes you happy! Likewise, it doesn't cause any actual pain in the traditional sense of how the human brain creates pain.
I could talk about hot foods forever, but onward and upward.



I've been having fun with kids in the program, as well. I went to a movie and to a karaoke bar this week. I even sang a song there! It was kind


of embarrassing because the words on the TV were tiny, and I could rarely read them. This lead to a lot of mumbling and nervousness on my part, but I survived. Finally, I'm getting a handle on the city, how to get from A to B and (more importantly) back again.

This week I'll have actual homework and all of my classes will start, including some of the ones I'm most excited about (Functionalism and Structuralism, and Hispano-American Literature Boom! 1962-75). My spanish is getting better, but is still a stumbling block pretty often. But, that's why I'm here.

It was a mistake.

Accepting the travel guide has led to a brain full of unattainable dreams.

In other news, the importance I am placing on my friendships with females is quickly eclipsing my attachment to male friendships.

Resolve.

I am not drinking and I am not getting into any sort of committed relationship.

A dear friend of mine is culling her herd of books in an attempt to move into her/our new apartment. She gave to me South America on a Shoestring and The Oxford Companion to the Mind. Almost makes me want to go to Brazil and meet Ivan Izquierdo or something.

That's right, look it up.

cuatro días más

Classes started today. So far, they're good as far as classes go, but some things about them are totally absurd. First off, the professor can change the time of the class. Normally, this means by being late and getting done early, but today a class I wanted to go to started early. And then it only lasted five minutes, thus ending by the time it was supposed to begin! So I went to another class which interested me, but it seems like the whole class is about discussing the possibility for history to be objective as a discipline. I've talked about that about a hundred times in Grinnell, so I feel like I know where the class is going and would rather take something new to me. But I missed that one, by arriving on time.
Also, the thing I still have to learn to do here is "hacer las fotocopias" (copy). I don't think I will have to buy one single book for any class this semester, and probably nobody in the whole facultad will either. Rather, we have to photocopy every reading for every class. Paradoxically, the cost of doing so will probably approach the cost of buying books. Not only that, but the professors don't help us do this at all. We have to go to the library, check out the book, and copy it. Thankfully there's a copy center perenially staffed with five or so workers whose job it is to copy hundreds of pages of a book all day long. I would jump in front of a bus if that was my job, so they must be more mentally stable than I. Further, we can only check books out of the library for three days. I suppose Grinnellians are spoiled by our semester-long check out policy.
Regarding my life, what I do other than orient myself at this university: I've been having fun. I'm getting to know other kids in the program more; our introductory shells are melting away. We went to the beach this weekend, and out for dinner and drinks in the centro. Other kids went to the club, but I went downtown on Saturday night to see some flamenco dancing, and then an avant-garde piece of sonar art with some Grinnellians passing through. We sat in a circle facing away from the center of a completely dark room and wore blindfolds. I think there were eight sets of speakers. The sound lasted for maybe forty minutes. For a while I was really enjoying it; it was taking me places. Later on my mind was invaded by thoughts and the sound didn't do much for me.
Today my host brothers got back. They're friendly, particularly the 16 year old. There has been eighties metal playing accompanied by live bass since I got back from class. The bass is pretty good... Iron Maiden.

bucear

Tomorrow we do the class selection thing. I'm kind of excited... there are more I want to take than I can. One of them, Intro to Underwater Archaeology, will lead to scuba diving certification, which could be useful. The other ones I'm thinking of taking are: Philosophy of History, Boom in Spanish American Literature 1962-75, and Fuctionalism and Structuralism (which is an Anthropology class). We also have to take a Spanish class and some class about Mayan culture and history, so one of the ones I'm most excited about will have to be quitado (cut).
Anyways, I'm learning my way around here a little. On Saturday I might go to the beach and hang out with traveling Grinnellians in Mérida taking in some music. The group of students in the program is congealing. We're heading to the beach Saturday probably. Some want to "go to wal-mart, buy a big ass cooler, like four, five cases of beer and ICE" which isn't really my style, but to each his own.

things forgotten

I had forgotten how driving in Mexico can be like an unending game of chicken. This "system," if you could call it that, only works, I think, because everyone knows that there is some sort of rule. Of course, I haven't the foggiest idea what it is. Lines in the road? Red lights? Pedestrians? No problem. Such a clusterfuck is the traffic here sometimes.
Last night, after a long boring day of mostly pointless and boring "orientation" stuff, my host mom, Eli (short for Elizabeth) picked me up with her friend Sylvia. After a few close calls on the way back to her house, we went to the local wal-mart and got some snacks, and then had a little cocktail party. I never knew Grand Marnier tasted like it does. Some of Eli's friends came over, and we talked about a lot of things, but some highlights include the finer ways of eating octopus (whole, little ones, or in its own ink, grilled, perhaps?), lots of stuff about all their daughters, and trying to get a karaoke thing going on.
Soon we're done with the orientation stuff. I'm sure looking forward to real classes and knowing the city better. As a group, all the students in this program are getting to be tighter, and that's good. It's nice to have another Grinnellian here, too. Today we talked about all the insanity that happens in Grinnell while students from other schools listened, jaws dropping, imagining the madness.

getting ready to go to mexico

OMG!!!! I'm leaving Kalamazoo tomorrow, heading to Mexico on the fourth. Even though I just received an I :heart: D.F. t-shirt , I'm not ready for this all. It happens so fast... just getting into the rhythm of stuff at home and then... yanked away again. At least I have a travel buddy until I leave Chicago.
New years was really exciting. I got a friend from Grinnell to come to Kalamazoo and go to a show. Afterward there was a big fun party, with lots of wrestling and music.
Today, I pack, prepare, and say my some see-you-laters, not necessarily in that order. (I'm not really a fan of "goodbye.")
On that note, I'm super busy. See you later.