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.