feliz cumpleanos to me!!!

well if this doesnt make you smile (or get teary eyed) i dont know what will, the parentals and sister olivia video taped singing happy birthday to me with a cake and the 25 on top. you can see it on youtube, the link is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFvgJNvb7cA

its only 49 seconds, i want you to see it - i laughed and cried i was really touched. and olivia made me crack up at the end, not surprising bc she is a funny gal.

so this weekend was a fabulous fun time of celebrating my 25th birthday! friday i was invited to a student's birthday party at a pizza place, which was yummy and fun. after that a group of us went to the 'cerveceria' where they make corona and tons of other beer. it was semi interesting, but it was a free tour and a bunch of free corona (my favorite!!!) so i was happy. saturday we started out the day with going out to breakfast and then we had our volunteering at the orphanage. a few students moved from our group (5/6 year olds) so now the group we teach is smaller. it is nice because we can get to know each child better and they all get more individualized attention this way.

saturday afternoon was kind of a lazy day - i did some work and chilled, but in the evening we went ice skating! the mall that is near our house has an ice skating rink downstairs and so a group of us went because i have been wanting to go ice skating there since august. it was sooooo fun!!!! after that we had planned a theme party where you either dress "fresa" mexican for snooty and snobby or "naco" which is trailer trashy. clearly i dressed fresa, because i wanted to put on my party dress for my birthday. it was really fun and funny to see how everyone dressed. we partied into the wee hours of the night at one of the american houses. this picture is me, fresa and gen, naca (as you can tell by her big hair and loads of makeup...) it was a fun night for dress up and we had a great time :)

finally we had a nice cook out today. we went food shopping together and then all of us prepared tons of skewers and different salsas and dishes for a super tasty bbq. we made an assembly line for the skewers and just ate and ate and ate. jenna made homemade brownies for my birthday cake and we just ate outside in the beautiful weather and hung out.

it was a delightful birthday, definitely one of the best!!!

6 days til veinticinco

life just keeps going, i feel like i always talk about how hectic "it has been" ~ but in reality, it is kind of always that way....

a few of us have started walking in the evenings which is a really nice stress reliever. but gosh the past two weeks i have been in kind of a funk. just living and working with the same group of people is really difficult. its hard on all of us and its like the physical closeness of being a family, without the intimacy and unconditional love of a family... tough, but a learning experience in some way im sure...

wednesday there was a soccer game between mexico and the usa. my friend gen and i went to a bar with some friends from work, and her and i were the only girls in the one section of the bar - which was fine. no one paid us any mind (unusual bc people normally stare at the rare gringas) until AFTER the game when the usa won. we decided if we were asked we would say we were canadian that day. of course it was fine, just humorous.

so one of the other teachers here organized a volunteer mission for all of us, there is an orphanage with about 45 kids between 2 years old and 14 years old and bc there are so many of us different groups go every other weekend. my group started last weekend and we are working with the 5 and 6 year olds. obviously it's a totally different dynamic than working with my students at shcool, they have tons of different issues and circumstances and just are so emotionally deprived. there are 3 houses that hold all 45 of them so there is one "house mother" for 15 kids, which clearly is extemely understaffed. its so sad to know how some children are neglected, it reminded me a lot of my time in el salvador. even though it is sad, it is such a good feeling to be able to give them a little bit of kindness and love and time, they really responded well to us. we go back this coming weekend and im looking forward to it.

on friday we went to a really fun club called "stop" which was super fun. there was no cover charge for girls and the drinks were really cheap, at the end of the night we each paid $10 for like 5 rounds of bruskies and a bottle of tequila.... PLUS they had live music for about an hour or two and then dance music. here is the coolest part, it was an open air club so there were four walls but no roof and we were dancing under the stars it was really fun.

next week is my 25th bday!!!! the plan is to go to "stop" on friday and then one of our friends' cousins owns another really exclusive club, so he reserved us a table. im excited and i think its gonna be super fun :)

valentines day was fun - we had a little party during recess with all my 38 students, of course it was chaotic but it was really cute. they were sooooo excited we got to have a party, and i got so much candy treats from my students. it was really a nice day at school. on the actual day a bunch of us got together and just hung out playing games and having fun. i went to the doctor too yesterday morning because i have had this sinus thing for almost a month now, the air quality is just so icky, full of pollution and desert dirt so its hard to not have sinus issues. hopefully the meds start kicking in.

touring torreon

well friends this has been a pretty hectic past few weeks. after the hospital i had a lot of make up work to do and i had to meet all my student's parents for conferences. so this past week i worked all day and had to go back to school every afternoon except for friday to do my tutoring and conferences. i started getting a little head cold because the air quality here is terrible, so by friday i had nearly lost my voice from all the talking. i am much better now though, i loaded up on tea with honey and fruits and veggies to keep me healthy.

last weekend was fun, a few of us went out to chili's (yes thats right - i'll have you know i was against it but the americans here like feeling at home, i prefer eating real mexican food haha, but i went along and had a nice time). after dinner we went to karaoke, it was a nice atmosphere but SUPER smoky. honestly i dont know how anyone can sing in that much smoke. that was when i started getting sick because of all the smoke and whatnot. we heard about this really great and cheap market to get produce so we went on saturday and got tons and i mean TONS of fruits and veggies for literally $5 dollars. i was really happy about that.

i know what youre thinking... is the fruit there safe??? the answer is yes, as long as you clean the outside very well, so we got a produce spray that is %100 natural and cleans all bacteria off foods. i learned that water does not wash off salmonella (duh...) so i feel confident with this spray. so saturday i went to this bar where they played live music and aside from it being really loud it was nice. the music was totally what you would expect of mexico, accordian and tons of guitarists - all wearing jeans and cowboy hats. and my friend genevieve introduced me to a new friend who is super fun.

jenna and i went food shopping and realized when we were going to pay for our groceries that she left her wallet in the taxi. clearly we had no way of contacting the taxi driver thusly no way of retreiving her wallet. i tried my best to keep her calm and advise on what she needed to do (cancel her cards, call the bank, etc...) just as she is freezing her bank accounts in the states our doorbell rings. who could it be you ask, none other than the taxi driver with her wallet. we were dumbfounded and SOOO grateful. she gave him 100 pesos and a million thanks and went back to the phone to UNfreeze her recently frozen accounts. it was an interesting day!

this weekend we had a 3 day weekend, so were are off today (monday). instead of traveling somewhere jenna and i decided to stay back and take in some of torreon. friday directly after school i went to a student's house and ate lunch with them at 3pm and met her grandparents who came in for the weekend. i stayed talking with the family and had dinner with them around 8ish and stayed until 9:30pm. i was TIRED!!!! from a long week of working all day and all night and then from having no free time to unwind on friday after school. it was really fun though, the mom is SOOO nice and so is the rest of the family.

so saturday we went to a student's birthday party at the movie theater. it was fun some of my students were there and jenna's students were there. the theatre closed off on entire 3D theatre for the party and we watched Bolt in 3D. we had hot dogs, popcorn, and cake. it was delicious!!! after the party we chilled a bit then went for a nice dinner and split a meal bc we were still so full from the movies. we met up with some friends at this fabulous club called LOVE and had soooo much fun. we left at 1am (which is REALLY early in mexico) because we had such a long day.

sunday was fun. torreon has the second largest cristo in the world so we went to the mountain top to see it and we went to mass at the church on the mountain, which was very interesting. i really liked the father's sermon. they had a cat that must live there who was wandering around the church during the mass, lounging on the kneel posts, walking across the altar. it made me smile. after the cristo we went to a few towers in torreon (bc torreon means tower the town is full of them). we got a taxi and had him stop and park and asked if he could take pictures of us. it made me laugh the pictures he took, because if we were standing in front of the tower he got us and literally 1/4 of the tower, which is the whole reason for the picture.

anyway he took us around and then we ended up shopping. i got a super cute dress and 3 pair of underwear for less than $25... i was happy about that :) we met up for dinner with lily a new mexican friend and had a nice authentic meal. we had a very full day. we were pooped...

today was much more calm, i tutored in the morning for a bit. i booked a trip with my best friend for the first week of july, we decided on going to mexico city for 4 days then to acapulco for 3. and i also booked my flight to come back to philly. dont get too excited though, im only staying for a few weeks to visit. we shopped at the market and i spent like $2 on all my fresh produce for the week and then we had delicious shrimp tacos for dinner. i have a bit of school work to catch up on and im chilling out the rest of the night to wind down from such a whirlwind of a weekend. but it was certainly worth being tired over.

finally, i made a decision for the second half of this year. i am going to volunteer in chile from july to november and then in peru for the month of december. so i will return for a bit in july 2009 and then i wont be back until 2010. who knows where i will end up after that, but im thinking somewhere in the southwest of the US. that is still up in the air. once i get more information about chile and peru i will let you all know.

back by popular demand....

hey ya'll - well break was nice, but i am glad to be back here too. the way back to torreon was a long one, but i didn't mind.

i took a plane from philly to atlanta and literally had to RUN to my next flight which was across the friggin airport. that went to san antonio. from san antonio airport i took a taxi to the greyhound station and then hopped a bus to laredo, texas. by this time it was like 3am.... i was sleepy, but i was ok with it. when i flew home from mexico to philly i was really weirded out by the fact that i could be in two such drastically different places in such a short amount of time. i enjoyde the scenic route back. from laredo it was about 12 hours more on a bus. i can't imagine anyone that would ever be a good travel companion for that long of a ride, needless to say i was glad to be by myself. it didn't hurt that i was sitting next to a super cute lawyer that talked to me the entire time.

so i left philly around 5pm on monday and arrived to torreon by 2pm the next day. since then we have been doing nothing but catching up and getting ready for parent teacher conferences.

well that was last week, but this monday i woke up for school extremely itchy... by tuesday my whole body had broken out in a red rash. i clearly decided i could not go to school and was seen by a doctor. he gave me some allegry meds and was done with it. unfortunately, it was not an allergy to anything, it was my body telling me i had food poisoinung (salmonella) and a parasite.... yuck, i know... needless to sya the rash came back as it was not allergies and i insisted that i go to the hospital on wednesday morning.

so there i have been, in the hospital around the corner from my house, spending my days until saturday around 2pm. i cam home yesterday, but im still obivously not 100%.... the hospital care was phenomenal and the doctors and nurses were super nice and attentive which was comforting.

so i contacted my parents and the only thing that was really getting me through my first time hospital stay was thinking of my sis livi, cause she has been in and out so much of the hospital. she was keeping me strong. of course when i tell her on the phone she is my inspiration and i know i will be ok bc she always is, she responds "yea, but my first hospital stay wasn't alone and half way around the world..." haha, so much for the compliment.... it made me laugh :) anywho, thats what ive been up to down here.

great seeing everyone on break, i'll let you know what my plans are for after june as soon as i figure it out myself!!!! big plans for the next half of this year to come soon :)

what happens in torreon...

well its been a while... i won't bore you with ALL the details, but here's a few... we had a halloween party at one of the american houses and it was super fun. i dressed up as a gypsy and a bunch of the other teachers chose mexican beers and made that their costume. for instance one girl was "modelo" so she dressed up as a model and another was "corona" so she dressed up as a queen bc corona means crown... it was funny, we had a good time. mexicans celebrate the day of the dead on nov 1 and 2, so in school on halloween we had a presentation about the day of the dead which was soooooo incredible!!! the kids were amazing, im so sad i didn't bring my camera, i didnt even think of it - i got to see the altars and the presentation, i just wish i had photos to share with you all because it is really a beautiful celebration of life. it was a very enjoyable day at school.

that was a big weekend, because the next day a huge group of us were invited to a family party at one of my student's houses.

we had such a good time. the food was amazing, of course... and when in a mexican household you eat and eat and eat until you can't eat anymore, and then you put on a smile and eat some more... we had sooo much food. but luckily, they are also super active, so in the span of like four hours we played volleyball, kick ball, musical chairs, had potatoe sack races, jumped on the trampoline, and even had low impact swinging as an activity. we were WIPED OUT by the end of the night. but it sure was fun.

sunday we needed to veg out, so me and the roomies watched the entire first season of 'entourage' haha... don't get too freaked out, it was only 8 30minute episodes, so we weren't tooooo too lazy... that night we had tickets to see juanes, who is quite possibly the sexiest latin singer to walk the face of this earth... this is the second time i saw him and i got a shirt and a jacket, because i love his music and him too... the concert rocked the friggin house, and funnily enough one of my student's moms sat behind us. you never can go anywhere without seeing colgeio ingles family. its kinda nice that it seems like a small town in that way sometimes... it makes you feel a part of the community :)

the week after halloween i was kinda lazy because somehow i really hurt my shoulder. so i had a kind of chill week, both the people i tutor were on vacation of sorts, so i had those nights to myself and i skipped out on the gym so as not to further injure my arm. monday i tutored for an hour and then had the rest of the week off from that. tuesday i was invited to one of my student's houses to eat after school. the mom picked me up from school with her daughter at 2:30 and we ate and talked and hung out forEVER.... her husband is a doctor (and she is too, but she just had a baby so she is home right now). so we chilled at the house talking and talking. i held the baby, which was so nice. i love babies and it was really cool to have a conversation with her because first of all it was all in spanish, and second of all it was so far removed from the same ole stuff. i like the americans here of course, but we live together and work together and sometimes its nice to get away from that for a bit.

i was actually at the house on the night of our elections, and i must say i was soooo glad to be there because it distracted my mind for the hours before the election was called. the mom was so nice, she told me about a million times that their house was mine also and if i ever wanted to stay over they had an extra room, and if i ever needed family time to please call. and she was just so sincere and generous, i was overwhelmed. it was awesome... after she dropped me off at 9pm (haha) i went straight to the election gathering we were having...

we don't get american news here, obviously - and neither can we watch much online becuase our IP address is in mexico and a lot of things from the states are only for national use. long story short, we were listening to cnn radio, all huddled around as if it were 1940. it was 9ish and the count was like 207 to 125 or something and all of a sudden, the radio says "this is unbelievable - radio goes out... - 'just won oregon, washington.... - radio goes out - 'is the new president of the united states...." so there was like a minute we're all sitting around like "what?!? who?!?" until it finally came on the radio again clear as day "obama has 297 electoral votes and is the next president of the united states" and i was soooo shocked. i was stunned, because i couldn't believe we knew the race so early AND because i couldn't believe the guy i wanted was elected.... i was waiting for them to be like "oops we made a mistake" but thankfully that was not the case... luckily we were able to get his victory speech live online and so we all watched it with bated breath.... clearly i cried. i was so happy, i couldn't hold it in... YAY!

anywho... after that was a normal rest of the week, i kind of lazied around nursing my shoulder back to health and recouping myself from a long and fun weekend.

friday the directors of our school organized a tour of torreon and so we left around 3 and went to eat, stopped at a bunch of cool places in the city and got acclamated to our surroundings and finally got home around 6:30. jenna had been invite to a birthday party of her one student, so we went to that which was nice. we got there around 7 (which was when the party was supposed to end - but in mexico nothing ever starts or ends on time) so we ended up playing a ton of games with the girls. another active party full of kick ball, trampoline, red rover (which we taught them), and plenty of fun mexican hand games. jenna and i came home and decided to go to karaoke. we got dolled up and made our merry way to a place jenna had been to once and didn't remember how to get there. haha, 4 U-turns and 70 pesos later we arrived at our destination. we tried to get some songs for ourselves to sing, but alas we were last in line. we watched others sing and pretty much everyone joins in so we did as well, but after a while we got so sleepy from such a LONG day we headed home for beddy bye.

saturday we were invited to a student's ranch house - which is the equivalent to a mountain house or beach house by us. so we drove about an hour away from the city and got to this HUGE ranch in the middle of the desert. they had tons of goats, some that were literally born a few hours before we got there and were tenny weeny. we saw them getting milked, playing, and some of the kids and teachers got in and even held the babies and fed them with bottles (which i found a bit weird, since their mothers were right there...) they had tons of property and 3 4-wheelers, so we went on a ride through the desert, jenna driving and scaring the hell out of me awhile i held on for dear life. we came back and were fed an insane meal of ribs, quesdillas, and veggies, and stuffed with tons of halloween candy for dessert. of course our drinks were always kept filled to the brim. tequila is like water - its pretty much runs from the tap in mexico, so they didn't have any problem keeping our thirst quenched... we climbed the huge mounds of hay and sat at the top for a while looking out at the sunset and the dessert and the goats and their ranch house. it was pretty sweet.

after a while the family decided to take us to their cotton ranch because the goat ranch was really the grandmom's house. so jenna and krista volunteered to drive over 2 4-wheelers while we drove in the truck on the rode. clearly they had no idea where they were going and needless to say, in the dark dessert, without cell phones they got lost. before we realized they were lost we took a tour of the cooton ranch. we saw the humongous cotton gin and all the bails of cotton, we saw all their millions of animals, horses, birds, turkeys, random things. we saw the 'playhouse' which was - no exaggeration - a mini brick house (probably nicer than the 3rd little piggy himself could have made), equipped with a kitchen, bedroom, and living furniture, as well as a cement porch and lawn furniture. it was a sweet little set up, i loved it and i'm an adult, i can't imagine how much fun the kids have with it...

anyway, finally we realized jenna and krista should have arrived by now and i starting getting super nervous knowing they were out without jackets, cell phones, passports, lights even... the dad decided to go look for them and after he hadn't been back for a while the two mothers took their truck and were headed to the police station. en route to the police station, the moms came upon a firetruck, who lo and behold, were giving jenna and krista a lift to the ranch. poor jenna, she was so freaked out i gave her the biggest hug and tried to calm her down. immediately after they got in the mom ran to the kitchen and promptly returned with a shot of tequila. we all decided to have one - and that was how the night ended. on the ride home i got to talking with the one friend of the family who was driving us home, and it turns out he is the uncle of one of my students. and one of my students who i have an extra soft spot for in my heart, so we laughed all the way home talking about how adorable he is and singing along to my favorite, juanes....

sunday we chilled, went out to eat, walked around the mall for a while and saw a richard gere movie. man, he will never go out of style, god he is good looking. the movie was good, a tear jerker - but good.

this week was also pretty low key, i focused a lot on school and had a really good week with my students. we had the book fair at school and so i bought a few fairy tale classics for the classroom that are in english and spanish. i love reading to the class, because sometimes they learn a new phrase or are able to link something else they know to the story and it makes me so happy!!! they are coming along so quickly, they are really a great bunch of kids. it is really cool to see how much they like books though, because once i explained to them they were allowed to look at books during class, so many of them wanted to finish their work so they could choose a book. ohit made me happy - i love to see kids liking to read, especially loving it so much they don't care if it it is their native language or not.

wednesday night is 'ladies night' at this one bar in town, so a group of us went - and i cannot believe this, but i went out completely for free on wednesday. i met a bunch of friends of this one teacher who works with us and we had such fun dancing and singing and talking. me and 2 of the other girls were pulled on the conga line and ran through the entire bar, what a workout!!! especially in boots, don't wanna do that again, but at the time it was fun haha... as i was leaving, a parent flagged me down - happy to see i was enjoying myself outside of school and gave me a hug and kiss, she left me with "i'll see you tomorrow morning" i smiled and we left...

well that brings us to today, at school i was greeted by another teacher informing me one of my students locked another student in a 18inch cube locker... needless to say i had a serious talk with them about the dangers of such acitivities and the principal also spoke with all of first grade before calss started. after that, we had a really nice day :) a few of us got pedicures today as a little treat to ourselves and tomorrow morning we are off to zacatecas, a little historical town a few hours away. we have off on monday for 'revolution day' so we are taking advantage of the long weekend to see another part of mexico. well, next blog shan't be so long - i will try and stay more on top of it from now on!!!

hugs and kisses to all :)

the divine secrets of torreon (and gomez)...

so last thursday, which happens to be "lucha libre" night - a few of us went to a lucha show. it's basically wrestling/theatrics with people wearing masks. the point of it is to be entertaining and boy was it ever.... we laughed so hard at the ridiculousness of the first few acts, they don't throw punches, they slap each other... breanna and i were shocked to silence that the entire crowd cheered when one guy SLAPPED another... and then we laughed! it was pretty interesting and fun. one of the american teachers here has a car he drove from arizona where he lives and so he drove us all to the lucha. i thought hecklers in philly were bad, but man they got nothing on the people in gomez. a lot of the time i couldn't understand the slang spanish that was being shouted form drunken audience members, but that which i did get was HILARIOUS!!! almost funnier than the pathetic show they pawned off as wrestling. needless to say it was interesting.

friday i was invited to dine with a student and hiw parents. i wa snervous at first, because the dad is much older and works at the school and rarely talks to me so i wasn't sure what to think. but they picked me up and took me to this tasty restaurant and we had tacos and drinks. obviously there are cultural differences in mexico versus the states that make this situation not at all awkward (having dinner and drinks with the family of your student)... we stayed out pretty late, i actually didn't get home until past midnight. and they invited me to their house for tequila anytime i wanted haha... what a stark difference from the US...

saturday was a chill day - i got a really tasty "lonche" which is simply a huge sandwich with tons and tons of toppings on it.... and that was so yummy i had to mention it here. saturday was blah, we ate at a restaurant by the house late in the evening and then chilled at the house.

sunday was cool though, first we went to "el bosque" which is a park in torreon. they have tons of food and vendors there and a little stageesque area. we went to watch one of the students from our school perform in an orchetrsa. it was soooo good, i was really impressed by the talent and obvious dedication of these middle-schoolers. they played really good music too, it reminded me of this bar by jason where they play big band stuff, because they playe dsome sweet tunes and the different sections would stand up during their "solo" it was cool, i enjoyed myself. this park also has carnival rides, so we took a spin on the tilt a whirl for 70 cents. we were literally riding it for like 3 minutes if not longer. we could NOT stop laughing. we definitely got our money's worth.

later in the day some teachers were invited to a "reliquia" which is an aztec/catholic fusion ritual unique to my town torreon. about 20 people dress in aztec clothing and do all these different dances as an offering or sacrafice to the saints. the music is only 3 drums made out of trashcans and the small dried out squash with seeds inside that the dancers wear on their feet. they danced for like an hour in the middle of the street in the swetlering sun, it was crazy. one dance in particular calls for them to stomp out fire on the street with their bare feet. boy was that a sight to see. so after the dance the family (whoever puts it together) has a huge meal for everyone that comes. the tradition is they are not to turn anyone away and are supposed to invite people even walking by on the street. i went along with 2 teachers that were invited as they extended the invitation to any american teachers and i'm so glad i went. the family could not have been more hospitable or generous. they talked to us and explained the whole tradition to us and everyone came over to introduce themselves and say how happy they were that we could come join in their celebration. they told us to eat as much food as we wanted and to stay as long as we wanted. we sat with the student from our school and talked to him for a while. it was just so beautiful. the family had rented out an entire restaurant to hold their entire extended family and they hired musicians to play and had waiters to serve the food. it was very impressive. while we were eating the family kept coming over and asking us if they could get us anything and even the student, harrison is his name, served us 3 types of cake. we finally had to tell him we were too full to try another piece. but it sure was tasty!!!! as we went to leave, the family insisted they drive us home instead of us taking a taxi, so we even got to drive in style. it was really really cool. i was so happy to go and take part in such a unique tradition that i otherwise would never have known about.

this week at school has been pretty good. i feel like everyday i am able to be more and more of myself with my students because now they know what i expect and i don't constantly have to model the little things, i can actually trust them to do it on their own - so i can tell them jokes and talk to them about things that are non school related too. i like it, i feel like i am making connections with my students now. i have been to a few soccer games and practices and so i have talked with some parents and done things like that, which also makes me feel more connected to them.

this weekend is a big weekend!!! there is a halloween party at one of the american houses on friday, so everyone is dressing up - which should be fun. then saturday a group of us were invited to a picnic that a few families plan together a few times a year - so i am going to that. saturday night i may or may not go to a halloween party at the first grade spanish teacher's house. it depends if someone else can come with me - i know her, but i don't know any of her friends, so i might prefer some back up haha... we'll see. anyway then sunday we are going to a JUANES concert, who is my ultimate favorite latin singer. i saw him in costa rica and it was one of the best concerts ever so i am super excited. after that election day... which makes me a tad nervous, but i suppose what will be will be.... anyway love to all - GO PHILLIES (so sad im missing it - but you know how it goes....) and happy halloween!!!

busy busy bee

so it has been a very busy past week. i started going to the gym on more of a regular basis, which will hopefully be tuesday, thursday, and fridays. the aerobics instructor is HARDCORE!!!! we do so many repetitions of everything... we are all sore all the time, but i think it will ease up in a bit. anyway i like destressing by going to the gym, i have been a lot more at peace i think with school and life in general lately.

wednesday i tutored and practiced spanish with one of the ladies from school. it makes me so happy when i speak spanish because i feel like i get a teeny bit better every time and i am just so shocked when i can have lenghty conversations about things and be understood. it is really cool speaking in a different language. i think i appreciate it more and more as i get older.... anyway thursday rained A LOT!!! so we kind of stayed in and i had some schoolwork to do.

friday was a gym day, so we did aerobics then i cooked dinner for the house and we all kinda chilled and i did some more schoolwork. next week we have exams for the end of the 2nd marking period, so we each had to make 4 exams and study guides for our classes. it has been a lot of work...

saturday was alllllll about exploring and getting things done. i got up early and had gottten info about a hair salon from a student's mother. i took a walk there and got a much needed haircut and color which made me feel like a million bucks. as is the custom in mexico, men always honk and whistle and yell out the car window when americans walk down the street. well this particular morning i was walking by the unviersity just as a sports bus pulled in with the team on it. not only did i get whistles and yells, but it was multiplied by a whole soccer team.... at first i trid to ignore it, but alas i succumbed and smiled and waved, because truthfully they were complimenting me, why not show some appreciation??? it made me laugh.

when i got home we all had made plans to go to a mall that apparently has really good shopping. so we headed in taxi to Galerias, the mall. we spent a while there, we snacked and got some specialty candy - which was fun. sidenote about candy in mexico, well torreon - it is mostly dried fruit and it is ALL covered in chile powder, yes folks, that means lollipops and candy apples dipped in chile powder.... so i was happy to find a candy store that sold americanesque candies.

i found a really cute maxi dress and got that and was on a mission to find comfortable work shoes. when i had no luck at the mall erin and i decided to hit up the center of town where there are tons of stores and street vendors. we found some pretty adorable things and clothes and after much trouble i finally found the right shoe. interesting how the shoe stores work. shoes are on display in a locked window case with numbers and the price of the shoe on a label. you tell the employee which number shoe you want and what size (i wear a size 25 in case you were wondering) and they get you the right shoe only to try on.

well i tried on many shoes and finally settled on 2 pair of nicer sandals for work. but the one shoe was a tad large in size 25 so i settled for a 24 (size 7). they bring out the left shoe and put it in the box and you pay for it. no trying on of the left shoe necessary... when i got home, i realized the right shoe fit perfectly fine, while the left shoe was a bit snug - because no one has EVER tried on the left shoe and the right shoe is pretty well stretched out... alas, what could i do? the left shoe fit, just not 100% comfortably - so i wore them one day and i will wear them another in hopes that the left shoe somehow manages to catch up to the wide width of the right shoe... all for a pair of shoes!!! oh mexico.

well our day did not end there, we wandered around the centro for a while, walked through parks where people were slow dancing to live music and vendors were selling water ice and drinks and elote. we indulged in some horchata, a delicious drink made of rice and water and had some elote, which is corn OFF the cob with cheese, butter, mayo, chile powder, and lime all mixed in. sounds interesting, but it is tasty - anything with that many calories has to be good is what i say. good thing im heading to the gym 3 days a week!!!

we continued walking and happened upon a catholic church. we went inside to take a look and noticed a wedding going on, we stayed for a bit and observed the ceremony in spanish and the wedding dress, which was ornate and large.... we even stood in witness to the marriage along with the rest of the guests. it was pretty cool. we found an underground canal, called la perla that was used way back when for something or other haha.... either way it is now open to the public during the day and is sort of like a museum. it was a nice and cool down there - a little relief from the sun.

we headed back to the house a little after that and i had to get to school to watch my students play a soccer game. the Copa Libertad, (Freedom Cup) went on until sunday so i went to watch a game of theirs. all the families were there and i ended up talking for a while to the director of the school and to the mothers of some of my students. all in spanish of course which made me happy and i think them too :) my students won the game and again i was pulled onto the field to sing their congratulatory song and make a london bridge with our hands. it was nice to feel included. i enjoyed myself.

when i got home a few of us went out to a chinese restaurant for dinner. it was tasty and rather empty so we got impeccable service. there were a few things missing from the menu that we wanted to ask about, but how do you translate chinese to spanish??? lucky for us we had charlie, who speaks cantonese. he explained the dished we were wondering about and we got some special dishes made. here we were in mexico, listening to 3 guys speak cantonese. it was pretty cool and i think it made charlie feel good, because he doesn't speak much spanish so he was able to communicate with someone other than us for once. it was nice. the food was tasty and the leftovers lasted a couple days which was also good.

after dinner we walked around the park a bit then headed home. i tell you saturday was quite a busy day, i was up at 8am and went to bed around 1am, but you know i had a full and satisfying day. i liked it.

sunday was a day of rest. i relaxed a while, did some grading that i had been puttting off and rested my aching legs from aerobics. monday was long as usual with a nice school day and fulfilling tutoring session and tuesday was also busy.

i had a good past 2 days at school, i feel like i am able to be more pleasant now that the kids know my rules and routines and i can be more of my happy go lucky self. they responded well the past few days to me too so i was pleased. i needed a nap after school today because boy have i been busy and monday was LOONNGG!!! so i napped and then had a date with a spanish teacher at school to practice my spanish and her english. did that for a while and had a really good conversation and then i went to aerobics.

i must say, it is nice to have a full schedule again. i can't stand sitting around with nothing to do and so even though i am more tired these days, i can say i'm not restless. it's a good feeling.

as for living with people, it is hard haha.... the grass is always greener i suppose. i used to always say how i wish i had a roommate at home, but now i see the pros and cons of both situations. i love my roomies, don't get me wrong - it's just living alone definitely has its perks.

well i will leave it at that, if anyone even read this far haha. love you and miss you hasta luego