1.) I feel very well acquainted with this place already - my job, friends, the place where I go for happy hour football games. It seems I missed the getting-used-to-it phase and went straight to the negotiating-for-the-locals-prices-whilst-petting-the-bartender's-dog-who-sits-unwillingly-in-my-lap phase. Maybe this is because I'm used to being abroad. Maybe this is because I'm living on a small island. Maybe because I spend all my time either at work, with coworkers or with a briefly extended group of friends of coworkers. I suppose there's not an excessive amount of new action going on any given day.
2.) I haven't had internet (nor, until yesterday, a cellphone), so I've been more intent on, say, "living my life" versus turning it over in my head and spilling it out into its constituent and disorganized parts via the web.
3.) Some of the things I perhaps would like to comment on here should be avoided in the interest of professionalism.
Quick interruption, the little boy from downstairs just walked into the open door of my apartment... and we just completed our half hour of taking photos on my computer. His name is Ever and he is this darling little piece of cuteness you see to your right. I really love the little boys downstairs because they are a) adorable, and b) think I'm cool. Last week Ever's 9-year-old brother Tucho accompanied me to the grocery store and let me in on the secrets of the Mexican produce section, so I bought him an ice cream cone in appreciation. I think perhaps he suspected that if he acted real sweet-like for a bit he might get a treat out of the deal because as soon as I bought it for him, he was off on his scooter in the other direction.
I also have two dog friends at this apartment complex. We don't know each other's names but when I come home at night and leave the door open to let in the "cool" air, they'll stand sweetly at the door as if waiting for an invitation. In the morning when I leave for work they're still there sleeping outside the front step. I like to think of them as animate lawn gnomes since I haven't yet decided whether they're allowed in my house.
My apartment has enough living creatures, anyway. A total of four cockroaches have been sighted, though only one since I bought my can of Raid and placed it threateningly on the kitchen counter. They are joined by tiny lizard things about the size of my finger, which can be seen daily climbing up or down any given wall, while the larger iguanas thankfully prefer the backyard. In the mornings I can also hear a peacock cawing in a nearby overgrown lot. Last but not least is the heavy breathing noise, which sounds like.. like an animal engaged in an activity that would bring on heavy breathing. Thus it remains an unidentified but daily reminder of the naturaleza in which we all live.
My classes are coming along much better now that I've come to terms with the fact that most have a level that is suuuper bajo and I should therefore not expect them to do things like understand anything I say in English. Today I taught the past tense of can and cannot as well as the structure "____ years/days/etc. ago," and 15-year-old Estefany laughed for a good two minutes straight when I used as my example "Three years ago I couldn't speak Spanish." Is that funny? Is my accent that bad? What?
Hopefully not because last week I also had my first classes teaching Spanish, and let me tell you, it was awesome!!! Fourteen-year-old Jace and his uncle David came in for a week from Arkansas and I got to do what I do with my English students everyday only with Spanish so I actually knew all the tricks. English I just know, but Spanish I had to learn how to know, so it was kind of fun to pass that along and hear their thoughts on Cozumel. On the last day we studied the past imperfect and past preterite with a story about how the guy I'm dating woke up in a hospital in California a week after getting lost in the desert while attempting to border cross, and Uncle David told me I was doing a good job with my life and with my teaching. It was all very sweet.
And then what happened. The boys all left for Mexico City at various times throughout the past week so now it's just us girls here until they come back after completing their duties in the Mexican Independence Day celebraciones. I'm pretending to play catch-up on my lesson planning so I don't always have to do it in the hour or two prior to class, but then, you know, there's Facebook and whanot. I've actually been reading like a mofo and have only recently commenced with Chuck Palahniuk's "Haunted," which my boss insisted I read. It features a very graphic and disturbing and not at all appropriate-for-employee-lending opening chapter involving an adolescent male and a pool filter. And I guess that's pretty much all.
Bye.
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