huh

Debo escribir algo aquí, verdad?

He estado ocupado con las tareas de la uni, pero escribiré algo pronto, te prometo.

<3

supermarket shuffle

My trip to the grocery store this morning was mostly depressing. The Mexican food aisle there is pathetic, absolutely pathetic. I was crushed to find that most of the juices and sodas that I had enjoyed so much in Mexico have been remade for the US market, and, here, contain corn syrup. One of the things I really liked about being in Mexico was that almost nothing had corn syrup; practically everything was made with real sugar, even American things like Coca-Cola.

I had meant to bring some Mexi-Coke back with me, but completely forgot to on my way out. I was overjoyed when I got one last chance to have Mexican Coke on the plane to Houston, while I was filling out my American customs form in Spanish, because the lady on the plane didn't think I could speak English! Mmmmm, Mexi-Coke.

But, here, corn syrup is the norm. I did stumble across a silver lining at Safeway, though: Jarritos soda, made in México... WITH SUGAR. It's not Boing, but it's the closest I'm liable to come for a while, so I'll take it.

The soup I really loved in Mexico, pozole, costs five dollars a can, and is completely gross looking. Plus, it's canned. How good could it possibly be? No, gracias... I'll find it somewhere else. I did buy up a few packages of noodly soup, and some tortillas, and some terrible-looking frozen burritos, just so I could have something to eat that reminds me of where I wish I were.

I really need to get over to one of the markets deep in the heart of South Tacoma so I can find some real Mexican food and maybe some stuff that I can actually *cook* (in lieu of the dinner-in-a-box crap I usually eat here), but it only stopped raining for a little while this morning so my time was limited (thanks to having a car with no window).

by the skin of my teeth or the seat of my pants

Wow, it's fall. When did that happen?

I have a car now. Well, sort of. I had bought a cheap, used car a while back, but didn't really want to drive it at the time for a variety of reasons, so I let my girlfriend at the time use it because she didn't have a working car, plus she had kids, so she needed it more than I did. Her car is fixed now, so she returned mine the other day... but someone backed up into the driver's side door over the summer, and the window completely shattered, and it can't be easily replaced because the door is messed up.

So, since I live in a place where it rains nine months out of the year, the car's basically useless most of the time unless I want to get drenched... so I'm still dealing with the same transportation hassles I was dealing with before. It's harder now, though, because I got used to being able to get stuff quickly and easily in Cuernavaca, and now I'm back to living in a place where the buses come every half hour and don't really go where I need them to. Getting dinner is, thus, still an hour-long project, and laundry has to be done on a day when it's not raining, which basically means I'm in the same boat as I was in before.

I want my Ruta 5 back. :(

weclome back

This entry was written for one of my classes, and is thus censored a bit. There's more to come, so stay tuned.

Also, the title is intentional.

It's so completely unsettling to be back.

My first big shock was spending a night in Houston on my way back from Mexico. The shock didn't come from the hurricane damage, although there was certainly plenty of that, but rather from the fact that, to visit my friend's house, we had to drive about 45 minutes on a twelve-lane freeway. Greater Houston is larger in size, by far, than Mexico City, but only has 5.6 million people, compared to Mexico City's 20 million. How bizarre.

We stopped at a gas station, the first gas station I'd been to in four months. It was so strange to watch people pay more to put a few day's worth of gas in their cars than I would pay for an entire month's worth of cab and bus fare combined -- and even stranger to realize that that amount didn't include insurance or car payments. I stood far from the gas pumps and watched with dismay at the sheer numbers of people who came and went, buying their liquid energy without even bothering to say hello to the people inside the store.

I was obviously uncomfortable, so my friend took me to a Mexican restaurant near his house. There, I felt at ease, even if the tables were riciculously far apart and we were sitting next to the freeway. The language was familiar, the people there were friendly, and there wasn't a single white person to be seen -- which is perfectly normal as far as I'm concerned. Nevermind that they all looked at me a bit funny as I ordered in Spanish and ate my food with tortillas instead of spoons and asked for beverages that don't exist in the United States. Strange looks aside, I felt at home.

The next day, I got on another plane and came back to Tacoma, and nearly lost it. This place, which is supposed to be home, doesn't feel the least bit comfortable anymore.

The buildings are so big, so far apart, so modern and clean but so sterile. The big empty yards, quiet and tidy and green, with their carefully planted trees and lawn ornaments, seem alien to me. The streets are too empty, too wide for the little traffic they bear, too devoid of people. The few people whom I pass in the streets don't smile, don't look up from the ground to share a quick "good afternoon" with a passing stranger. Even the people I do know seem different, distant, cold, aloof. I suppose they're just being normal, laid-back, casual, but I'm not used to it anymore, and it's an unsettling change. And I'm sure I'm alienating them all even more, because it's obvious that I'm not at all happy to be back.

There are no little stores on every corner. Nothing's close; without a car, it's almost impossible to get around. And the buses only come once every half hour. I missed one by a minute, the day after I got back, and shuddered when I realized that another one wouldn't be coming for a half an hour -- by which time I could easily walk to wherever I was going. I walked, hardly believing that in a whole kilometer (my bad, half a mile) of walking, I only passed about ten houses and two or three businesses, none of which seemed in the least bit inviting.

The food tastes different, bland, boring. I ate my first frozen pizza since arriving in the USA last night, and had to douse it in hot sauce and cayenne pepper to make it even remotely tolerable. Even then, it was altogether dull, and I ate it just to eat, not to enjoy it. Every other meal I've eaten out, when I could find someone to take me to go eat, and I've heaped my food with piles of cilantro and salsa and chiles and lime and *flavour*. Even still, it's different, and the atmosphere that helped make meals interesting is no longer present.

The language shock is probably the most suprising: I have to actually work to communicate in English. This is odd because Spanish is still my second language, and I have a greater vocabulary and better comprehension in English, but Spanish still comes more naturally to me at this point. I had to switch my laptop (and its keyboard layout) over to Spanish just so I could use the silly thing without having to concentrate so hard on what the heck everything meant.

Everything is different.

Honestly, it's probably just me. I always kind of smirked when people would talk about their life-changing study abroad experiences. They'd talk about how they'd gone away for a month or two or three or four, and they'd come back completely changed, unable to accept the American way of life, unable to understand the way we live here. I knew, without a doubt, that that wouldn't be me, because I already lived so differently from most other Americans. I never felt like I was 100% part of the culture here, so surely, leaving and then coming back wouldn't be so difficult.

Yeah. Definitely got that one wrong.

People tell me I'll get over it soon. It would probably be easier if I did, if I tried to forget how amazingly different life is in Mexico, if I tried to push aside the amazing people and places and things I know are down there waiting for me. It would make being here easier to deal with, because I wouldn't feel the absence of those people and places and things so strongly, and it wouldn't hurt quite so much to be away from them.

But I don't want to get over it. I don't want to blindly hurl myself back into the hectic, materialistic, apathetic lifestyle that seems so common here. I don't want to accept what I accepted before, because it's not right for me anymore.

I don't want to forget.

I already know I'm going back. I would never forgive myself if I didn't. I've got unfinished business down there, in several senses of the phrase, and I'm not about to abandon those things. But what I do in the meantime, how I spend my time here, and what I ultimately bring back with me from México... that still remains to be seen.

What did I learn on my summer vacation?

Ask me again in a month.

.

He regresado.

Una entrada nueva viene pronto.

juegos pirotécnicos

Yo iba a escribir esta entrada en inglés, pero realmente, es más facil escribir en español en este momento. Que raro, verdad? Y que raro es, también, el hecho que ahora es más facil usar un teclado en español que es usar un teclado en inglés. En serio, creo que estoy loco.

Estoy muy triste porque tengo solo dos días más aquí en México. Todavía no quiero irme. Estoy emocionado que voy a tener buenas clases el trimestre que viene, pero realmente, no quiero regresar a los EEUU, y no quiero perder lo que tengo aquí. Casi lloré en la Ruta el otro día porque no hay la Ruta en mi ciudad... ni los taxis baratos... ni un zócalo ni las tiendas en las esquinas ni la lavandería ni la gente que conozco. Especialmente voy a extrañar la gente. Sí, es cierto que puedo estar en contacto por internet, pero como Paola me dijo, no es lo mismo que ver a una persona cada día como puedo ahora. Y voy a extrañar a ella muchísimo... y, también, a Arturo y Pili y Ariel y Carmen y Haifa y Janet y Leti y Geña y Norma y Pilar y todos los maestros (aún los que están en el zócalo, bloqueando el trafico) y Fernando y Laura y Lucero y Lucy y los de la lavandería y... No voy a decir cada nombre, pero hay mucha gente que voy a extrañar. Y por eso, estoy bien triste.

Pero esta semana ha estado fenomenal en casi todas maneras. Lunes fue el dia de la independencia de México, y fui a comer pozole, al zócalo y a un bar y, luego, a una fiesta, con Paola y unos amigos mexicanos de ella. Miercoles (MIERCOLES!), fui a la peli con ella otra vez. Ya he contado esa historia. Y ayer, fui a una clase de frances que estaba enseñado en español (que extraño, pero realmente fue más fácil aprender frances en español que en ingles), y luego, vi la vista mejor en el mundo cerca la universidad.

Ja, y la ciudad fue bonita, también. :)

Luego, despedí a mi amiga y fui a una fiesta, mi despedida, con casi todos los estudiantes de la escuela, y unos de mis compañeros del trabajo también, y mi amigo Ariel y su amigo. Fuimos buscando para más bebidas, pero todas las tiendas estaban cerradas, y tuvimos que buscar y buscar por como una hora y media antes de que, finalmente, encontramos tequila fea en una tiendita. No es necesario decir que yo estaba muy borracho... pero otra vez, no tengo una cruda esta mañana. No entiendo como no... he mejorado mi tolerancia por el alcohol mucho, o que? Pero en todas formas, la fiesta fue diverido, y fue muy amable que los padres de mis compañeras la hicieron para mí.

Terminé el trabajo (y la escuela) ayer también. Todavía voy a ir a la escuela una vez más, muy temprano el lunes, para dejar unas cosas allá y despedir a mis compañeros, pero estoy más o menos terminado allá. Voy a extrañar ese lugar... es como mi hogar, y he tenido muchas experiencias felices allá.

Dos días más, y ya... por ahora. Pero como muchos mexicanos han dicho, aquí está mi casa... y, sí, aquí está. Y regresaré pronto.

Bueno. Voy a disfrutar el sol mientras que puedo. Hasta luego.

más noches divertidas

Ayer fui al cine y miré la primera película en español que he visto aquí en México. Es verdad que he ido al cine como cuatro veces, pero usualmente fui con los americanos, y quisieron ver las pelis en inglés para comprenderlas mejor. Pero ayer, fui con mi amiga mexicana (o sea, la mejor compañia en el mundo), y ella quiso ver una película que se llamaba "Arrancame la vida," y yo también quise ver una película en español. Todavía casi no fuimos porque solo había cuatro sillas, en la primera fila del teatro, y pensabamos que no podríamos ver muy bien... pero decidimos tratar en todas formas. Dos mujeres antes de nosotros compraron dos de las sillas, y teníamos miedo que no ibamos a poder entrar, pero sí, finalmente, compramos las ultimas dos sillas.

La películar fue muy divertido. Pensaba que ella nos había llevado a una película pornografía al principio, porque había muchas personas desnudas! Jaja, no, no fue, pero todavía había más sexo que en las pelis de los EEUU. Pero, además del sexo, las películas que he visto en español han estados más interesantes, en general, que las de que he visto en inglés. No puedo explicar muy bien porque, pero creo que tengo que prestar más atención a las películas en español, y por eso, las disfruto más. No sé.

Pero también disfruté mucho ver la película con ella, porque es una de las mejores personas que he conocido aquí en México. Es cómica, es paciente, tenemos muchos de los mismos intereses... es una de las chicas mas divertidas que he conocido. Voy a extrañarla mucho cuando yo salga... pero tengo planes de regresar pronto.

hasta el fin del mundo

Hoy fue el mejor día que he tenido aquí en México. En serio... fue perfecto, en todas formas que podría imaginar. No podría haber estado mejor.

I'm still picking confetti from the huevitos out of my soapy hair. There's a little pile of it on my pillow. It makes me smile, just like practically everything today made me smile. I'm ridiculously happy, obnoxiously so, happier than I have any business being. Like, pink pyjama happy. I just want to get on the phone and gush about how perfect today was, but you'd all hate me if I did.

But yeah. Perfect, from start to finish. Nuff said.

Tomorrow is Mexican Independence Day. I can't wait. I haven't been this excited about a holiday in I don't even know how long. It's something completely new, something I've never experienced before at all, something I didn't even know existed until this year, and I'm overjoyed that I get to be a part of it. I'm going to the Grito, the big commemoration of the start of Mexico's independence, and then I'm going to one of the greatest fiestas that could ever exist. Ha, I didn't even do anything for American Independence Day this year, but Noche Mexicana... now that's gonna be amazing.

Hablando de eso... es la hora de dormir. Quiero dormir hasta que me vomite la cama, pero no puedo, porque tengo que estar en el trabajo como a las 8. Que pena... pero por lo menos, voy a irme al zócalo coma a las 4 o 5, y no tengo que trabajar el martes. Ja.

Okey. A dormir. Hasta mañana.

gourmet

Let me just say this. If I were to take a girl, a teacher, no less, with whom I'd hung out exactly twice, to a slightly shady bar on a busy main street, and if I were to order us beer with chile and sugar and salt and lime in it, and if I were to also order us a bowl of cold hot dogs with worchestershire sauce, more lime, more chiles and about a thousand toothpicks to eat them with... if I were to do this in the United States, the girl would be completely offended (or, more likely, laugh me out of the water), the bartender would think I was on crack, and, quite likely, none of my friends would ever speak to me again.

Heh.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love Mexico?

y no sé si volverás

(Read the whole entry before you use Google Translate. You won't need it, I promise.)

I caught one of the last Rutas out of town tonight. I knew the driver, or, rather, I had ridden his bus many times, and he was a familiar face. Tonight, he had a new companion with him, probably his daughter, who, at all of five years of age, was sitting in the front of the bus, organising the little coins into stacks and wiping down the front of the bus with a rag and straightening the yarn curtain above the windshield, in a futile effort to make the place look a little more like home and a little less like a dirty Ruta in which her father spends sixteen plus hours a day.

I settled into my seat and looked around. There was something new there, a poster, carelessly taped to the back window. A picture of two kids, two incredibly sad-looking children of perhaps ten years, sitting in front of a wall with their backpacks, staring off into space, bored, miserable. And a picture of a piece of notebook paper next to them, on which was scrawled the following:

"Te prometemos no platicar más en clase. Es por eso que te fuiste?"

Below that, a caption: "Ellos tienen una cita contigo. Y tú, con su futuro. Maestro, los vas a dejar esperando?"

I fought back tears as I read the poster two, three, four times. I couldn't help it. You see, the public school teachers here have been on strike for close to a month, camped out (literally) in the zócalo, the town square, blocking traffic and holding rallies and not teaching classes. They're upset because the government wants to require new testing for teachers here, to try to improve the quality of Mexico's education. They're scared for their jobs, so they're protesting en masse. But the kids, the ones whom they should be teaching, have been left to suffer, to play in the street or to sit around bored -- or to ride the Ruta with their parents and wipe down the front of the bus and count coins because at least they're doing *something* with their time.

It comes across a whole lot sadder in Spanish for some reason, but in English, the notebook paper: "We promise you we won't chat in class anymore. Is that why you left?" And the caption: "They have an appointment with you. And you, with their future. Teacher, are you going to leave them waiting?"

I turned around, wiping away tears, and that little girl in the front of the bus was sitting, staring at me... and she, too, looked like she was about to cry.

Five, going on thirty.

I sat staring straight ahead, unsuccessfully blinking back more tears. Outside, it started to pour. The little girl at the front of the bus sighed, got up and started climbing over the seats, sliding the windows shut so her daddy's bus wouldn't get soaked. She couldn't reach one of them, and the guy in front of it completely ignored her and wouldn't move, so she asked another woman for help. The woman closed the window for her on her way out, and the little girl went back to her station at the front of the bus, back to staring at her dad and me and the road and the rain.

I love this place, I swear I do, but tonight, on that Ruta 5 in the pouring rain, I really just wanted to make it all go away. Just for a minute, I wished that I, and the Ruta driver, and especially his little girl, could all be in America, that almost mythical land of opportunity, where little girls don't have to ride the bus around all day because they have a school to go to, where they don't have to sell chiclets in the zócalo or sleep under a tree while their parents hawk newspapers and cigarettes in the middle of the street. Where the driver could go home to his family after eight hours of work -- or get paid overtime for his efforts. And where I wouldn't have to see such painful things every day.

I do love México, with all of my heart... but there are some things about this place that just absolutely rip me to pieces. Which, I suppose, gives me all the more incentive to be here... but still.

* * * * *

* * * * *

In other news, 9/11.

Nothing else really needs to be said. I believe I just won the election.

spynet

Social networking just got a whole lot funnier:

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/ptech/09/05/facebook.spies/index.html

Interesting idea, although I have to wonder how long it will take such a site to be hacked, and what will happen when and if that happens. After all, everyone in the spy social network will have access to everyone else's friends lists, pictures, phone numbers, whatever. Ha, and I thought it was a little creepy that I had *my* information on Facebook... this takes the cake.

Also, on an unrelated note, there are grapes and pineapples in my stuffed chile.

Damn, I'm gonna miss this place.

another day in the life of

So this weekend, I'm finally going to Acapulco, the place that I've avoided visiting all this time. I'm going with almost the entire school, although it's not an official school excursion (I've yet to actually go on one of those, actually). We're leaving on Saturday morning, and coming back late late late Sunday night -- Monday morning, really. Should be a fun time... the group that I'm going with is a lot of fun, and as an added bonus, there's a chance that we may get to see Moderatto while we're there. Those of you who know anything

Really, I'm trying hard not to fixate on the fact that I'm supposed to be leaving in two and a half weeks, but I just can't get the idea out of my head that I'm doing the wrong thing by going back.

I dunno. I mean, I liked certain things about Tacoma, I guess. Certain people. Certain places. But, in comparison, Tacoma sucks, flat out, and this place that I'm in now makes me so much happier.

cineópolis

Anoche, fui con unos amigos al cine, por la tercera vez este verano. Es cómico… no había ido al cine en unos dos o tres años (nunca he ido al cine en Tacoma), pero aquí, los cines son tan diferentes y tan cómodos que quiero ver cualquier película en el cine. Y no me importa cuál película veo; permito a mis amigos decidir. La única cosa mala es que nunca he visto ninguna película en español; siempre son en inglés con subtítulos.

Pero los subtítulos son muy cómicos, porque, a veces, no son las traducciones reales. Anoche, fuimos a ver “El Robo del Siglo” (o sea, en inglés, “The Bank Job”). Yo estaba sentado con una nueva amiga de Cuernavaca, quien habla muy bien español e inglés también. Ella y yo nos reíamos mucho porque las traducciones eran increíblemente diferentes de las palabras que los actores decían. Tengo que dar este escrito a mi profesora de mi clase, y por eso, no puedo dar un buen ejemplo aquí (porque son groserías), pero estoy seguro que una grosería muy larga en inglés no seria “maldito sea!”

the countdown really begins

So the day approaches where I'll have to return to the United States and go back to school. Three weeks and I'm done here, with work, with school, with this amazing summer, with this incredible experience that I've been fortunate enough to have for the past three months.

I've got mixed feelings about it. Part of me knows that I need to go back, to get that degree, that piece of paper that says "I know stuff." I've got unfinished business in Tacoma, too: some conversations to have, some new avenues to explore, some new stuff to learn. And I guess a part of me knows that that's the right thing to do, to finally be responsible and go back and finish what I started.

But there's a much larger part of me that just wants to stay, and I can't help but wonder if the voice that's telling me not to leave isn't the more reasonable of the two. I was supposed to leave in July, and I couldn't bring myself to get on that plane and leave all of this behind... and I don't know how I'm gonna manage in three weeks. I have more friends here than I do in Tacoma. I have so many good memories here, so many places in which I feel comfortable than I have there. And I've grown so much while I've been here -- both in terms of the Spanish I speak, and in terms of my life, of who I am -- and I'm really not sure how I'm going to deal with Tacoma. Lots has changed for me, but Tacoma's still the same place, and I'm more than a little worried that I'm going to get back and just completely lose it when I realize that I'm back where I was three months ago.

Even if I don't compare Cuerna to Tacoma, Cuernavaca is so much of a happier place for me. It's so much more relaxed. The culture is amazing. The people are phenomenal. The city, the streets, the Ruta, the taxis, the rainstorms that are actually RAIN storms... it's great. And every day is an adventure here... and I'm just not ready to give that up and go back to the land of lethargy and drizzle and distance.

I know, I know, I can always come back here, and I plan to... but my biggest fear is of becoming stagnant, and I'm terrified that that's exactly what I will become when I return. And I'm scared senseless that I won't ever leave Tacoma, that inertia will keep me there even if I'm not happy there.

It doesn't help that I'm gonna miss the people who are staying behind, soooo much. Appi, Robert, Anna, Danielle, Kelly, and Crystal, who is rapidly turning out to be frigging awesome. They don't live here, but they'll still be here when I leave, and thus, I'm leaving that part of the experience, too. Shoot, why can't they be in Tacoma, too?

Nah. I wouldn't wish that on 'em. They've still got their own versions of awesome to experience here. But, dammit, I want to stay and be part of that.

Mkay. Enough whining. Bedtime, I guess.

live from cuernavaca, it's Saturday night

(If you haven't read the entry before this one, which you haven't, you should read it before you read this one, or this one won't make sense.)

So it's 5:something in the morning, and I just got in. This is the second time in two nights this has happened. It would seem that I'm turning into quite the little party animal. Those who knew me in Tacoma will likely find this quite hilarious. Actually, those who have known me ever would probably find this hilarious.

But even more hilarious is the fact that the reason I got in at 5:something in the morning is because I was out with my remarkably insane neighbour, Fernando, who actually turned out to be pretty fun to hang out with. We went to two bars, both of which were exactly the sort of place where I'd want to hang out every day if I could. We drank rum and cokes and listened to 80s music in English and Spanish. Fernando danced, and he's surprisingly not bad (I, on the other hand, am that bad, which is why I did not join in the dance party). And the most humourous part of it all is that he actually does know a boatload of girls. Who'd a thunk?

I spent a good hour or so talking with one of his friends, who was phenomenally drunk and insisted on speaking to me in very bad English, because couldn't grasp the idea that I speak more English than he speaks Spanish, and thus it would be preferable for him to speak SPANISH to me instead of trying to mangle the English language any further. He also insisted on translating everything anyone else tried to say to me, and he kept translating things wrong, so I had to correct his English every time he spoke. Most frustrating. I may need to rethink my idea of teaching English as a foreign language -- although admittedly most of my students will probably not be drunk while they're taking lessons from me.

I also spent a fair amount of time talking to the girl he brought along for me to meet. I can only describe her as a disaster. She was nice enough in the beginning, if I ignore the fact that she tried to sell me an insurance policy twenty minutes after we met (never mind that I don't live here and have no use for Mexican insurance), and the fact that she asked me if she could borrow twenty dollars an hour after we met, and the fact that she kept asking me if I'd buy her food at the bar. I understand that guys are supposed to be manly and be providers and blah blah blah, but shit, she could have at least let me offer first.

But, hey, all golddigging aside, she was great, by which I mean, not at all. Things plummetted further downhill when we went to the second bar and she started freaking out because I was texting a friend while she and Fernando hung all over each other. She demanded to see my phone to see who I was texting, said she didn't believe that I didn't have a girlfriend (not that it would matter; single or not, I'm NOT going out with this girl), demanded that I translate messages I'd written to said friend so she could know I wasn't talking about her (which I actually was, in fact).

This came from the girl who went outside to talk to some random boy at the bar for a half hour when she claimed to be going to the bathroom. She even had the nerve to ask me if I was going to hook up with some other girl while she was in the bathroom. She then spent a bunch more time talking to her other friend on my phone because hers was out of minutes, and, oh, yes, she freaked over that, too; she thought I was going to call her friend later (whom I don't know and have never met), so she deleted her number out of my sent calls, and flipped out when she realized there was no way to completely kill off the fast redial feature on my phone and thus I would have this girl's number for life, or at least until I called a few other people. Ha.

No wonder this girl is 27 and not married.

I was so glad when they dropped me off first, because I really just wanted to come home, nurse my wounds, drink some water, and go to sleep... but that wasn't to be, either, because I got a really upsetting message from someone else on Facebook when I got in. It's one of those things that is best kept out of the blogosphere, but I'm pretty wounded and upset and frustrated and confused about certain people in general at the moment. Sorry to be cryptic here, but some things are best left unsaid.

But, on a slightly positive note, at least I've finally realized that I need to guard my feelings a whole lot more closely than I have been lately. I love it here, and I love the openness of the culture here, but I've gotten WAAAY too comfortable sharing my feelings with people, and I probably need to back the hell up and rethink that. I've been hurt several times because I got too close to new friends too fast, and then they've either shafted me, or disappeared into the abyss of the United States, or haven't been what I thought they were. Maybe Tacoma's not such a bad place for me after all; at least when distance is the rule and not the exception, there's less room for getting hurt when people don't turn out the way I expect (or hope) they will.

Ah well. At least I got out and got to hang with some Mexicans for a while. And I did have a good time, mostly -- although I probably would have had an equally good time hanging out on Facebook all night and actually getting sleep.

Okay. It's starting to get light, so I think that's my cue to go to bed. Night. Or morning. Or whatever.

neighbourly

So my neighbour is completely and utterly insane.

The other night, I went out with friends until somewhere around 2:30 in the morning. Came home exhausted and passed out almost immediately. I was fast asleep, out cold, when suddenly my neighbour erupted from his room and started beating on my door. Still almost asleep, barely dressed, I answered the door, to find Fernando standing in the hallway in his underwear, bleating something about an impending flood. Confused, I nodded, and started to close the door so I could go back to sleep, but he blocked the door and literally pulled me out of my room to show me the backyard, which had water in it.

"Yes, Fernando, there's water there, just like there always is, every frigging time it rains," I explained in Spanish. Practically hyperventilating, he responded that we were about to be flooded out of our rooms, that if the rain continued for fifteen minutes longer, the water would subir the banqueta (rise up over the walkway) and we would all be living in a giant swimming pool, with all of our stuff floating around us.

I walked over and took a look, to find that the water was easily a good ten centimeters below the edge, where it usually is when it rains.

While I was looking, he woke up the other neighbour and told him the same thing. The other neighbour just stared for a moment, and then shook his head and, in perfect English (which, until then, I had no idea he could speak), told me that Fernando was overreating and obviously just wanted attention.

No, really?

He still kept us up for a good half hour, stressing over the continuing rain and urging us to move our things off of our floors. Finally, Fernando went to the bathroom and the other neighbour and I took the opportunity to go back to bed for a few hours before work.

Of course, the rain stopped shortly after that, and the water in the yard never got even close to subiring the banqueta.

Crazy.

But today, I was sitting outside getting some sun for a change, and Fernando came over and invited me to go with him and a couple of his lady friends to a bar tonight. I sort of noncommittally accepted, assuming I didn't have other plans, not really expecting I would end up going with him. But then he went back to his room and proceeded to call everyone he knows (on speakerphone, no less) and tell them all of our plans and invite them along. He told them ALL about his estadounidense neighbour who would be coming with him, and how I'm so nice and gruapo and how they'll love me. He was so excited about our excursion tonight that I couldn't bring myself to back out, so now I'm going -- in an hour or so -- to a bar with Fernando, the infinitely crazed neighour who drinks water from the pool and shouts on his speakerphone in the middle of the night and has a million girlfriends -- who, until now, I didn't entirely believe actually existed.

Ha. Well, I did say I wanted to experience the real Mexico.

My other neighbour, Emily, the American from Michigan whom I got along with really well, left on Monday. She was one of my closest friends, and I got really accustomed to coming home to find her here, waiting to share stories of our days, go on adventures, eat dinner together, whatever. It's very empty without her here, but I'm managing... I've actually gone out to eat on my own three times since she left, and have actually been comfortable eating alone in a restaurant where they serve me -- which is something I never would have done before. It's kind of liberating -- as is the fact that I'm also comfortable speaking Spanish with strangers, alone, when I don't have a fluent speaker with me to bail me out. Hell, two months ago I wouldn't even go through the checkout line at the store for fear that they would try to talk to me in Spanish and I wouldn't understand (I once walked around the store for well over an hour with all of my stuff in hand, working up the courage to check out), and now I can order dinner on my own and be fine with it. I've come a long way, in a lot of ways, and I'm pretty proud of myself for that.

But I still do miss my friend. I miss others, too, like Ángela and Luis, who both also left this week. It's a sad pattern of being here: I meet amazing people, grow close to a few of them, and then it comes time for them to go back to where they came from. It hurts a lot to keep losing people whom I care about. Fortunately, at least in the case of those three, I know I'll see them again before too long. And I've got other friends who are still here, which is comforting and helps ease the emptiness a bit.

And, soon, I'll be the next to leave, and my friends who will be staying (or those who live here) will watch me go and will have to deal with that same feeling of absence, of someone missing. I still will, too, of course, but at least the scene, the background, will change, and I'll be back in the real world, dealing with old (o sea, new) situations and school and everything that is Tacoma once again, while they're still here, walking Cuernavaca's streets and eating tacos de pastor and living the life that I once shared with them. Maybe they won't be so bothered by it, but I know, from experience, that it can be a little hard to be the one staying behind.

Still, I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

Time to get ready for my night out with the crazy neighbour. Tomorrow's an off day, and I'm hoping I'll have time to catch up on some internet stuff, and maybe write a little more about what I've been up to lately.

Hasta luego.

this subject has nothing to do with the entry, which has nothing to do with anything.

Since I haven't had time to write anything useful in the past few weeks, here are a couple of entries I had to write for my school diario. They're pretty empty, but whatever... at least it's something.

12 de agosto de 2008 – escribe sobre un viaje

El viaje más interesante que he hecho en mi vida no era un viaje, pero un serie de viajes que duró dos años. Tenía un trabajo en que hacía promociones para una compañia de los discos, que se llamaba Island Records. Viajaba con varias bandas, haciendo promociones y hablando con muchas personas en casi cada ciudad en los EEUU y Canadá. Tuve la oportunidad de conocer a muchas personas famosas, pero lo más importante era la oportunidad de conocer las culturas de las ciudades y los estados en mi país -- y conocí a muchos amigos en esos estados también. Fui, en total, a 49 de los 50 estados... Sólo no tuve la oportunidad de visitar Hawaii. Fue la experiencia más interesante de mi vida, en realidad.

La segunda viaje más interesante en mi vida ha sido este viaje a México. He estado aquí por dos meses, exactamente, hoy. Solamente iba a estar aquí por cinco semanas, pero no tomé el vuelto, y ahora, en total, voy a estar aquí por 3 meses y una semana. Estoy muy feliz de que me quedé, porque he aprendido mucho sobre la cultura y el idioma de este país. No me arrepiento para nada, porque ahora estoy cómodo en un país afuera de mi propio país. Tengo más confianza en mis habilidades ahora, por este viaje.

13 de agosto de 2008

Fui anoche al centro porque estaba muy aburrido y no quise quedarme en casa. Hubo un concierto en el zócalo, una parte de un festival que se llamaba Festival de Juventud, y escuchaba la música mala por cinco minutos, hasta mis orejas empezaron a sangrar. Después, fui caminando hacia la avenida Morelos, y encontré una librería de la que había escuchado por mi amiga. Entré para buscar libros, pero no pude; en esta librería, tienes que preguntar a los empleados para conseguir los libros que quieres leer, y te los traen al mostrador. No sabía exactamente cuales libros quería yo, y también había muchas personas esperando en la línea. Usualmente no tengo miedo de hablar en español – o sea, tratar de hablar en español – pero en esta situación, no tuve el coraje! Por eso, me fui y regresé al centro y a la música terrible.

Luego, encontré mi amiga, y fuimos a comer pozole, helado y cervezas. Digo que helado y cerveza es una combinación muy fea. MUY. Pero el helado sepa muy rica, y el pozole también... aunque he escuchado que ese restaurante no sirve pozole de la mejor calidad, y hay otro restaurante muy cerca que tiene lo mejor pozole. A ver.

Después, fuimos a Los Arcos y nos sentamos con unos amigos de mi amiga, y escuchamos más música fea. Eventualmente, nos fuimos, y regresé a la casa. Woot.