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.