Wednesday, January 28, 2009

28 de Enero de 2009

aight so i know i faven't posted shit for a while but hey my bumb ass just can't get himself to do so. But have no fear I'm writing stuff now!!!

hmmm... So this weekend...

Oh yeah on Saturday me, hortencia, leticica, Joe, and Chris were invited to a House party! and of course we went. the party was to celebrate the b-day of some exchange kid that's living in Joe's host mom's house, who's from Tabasco (the b-day guy).

So first we met in el centro de Merida cause i proposed (me being the artsy whatever type) to go see the Picasso exhibit that is at the Olimpo cultural center in el centro, isn't that crazy who the hell would of thought that Picasso would be in Merida!!!

but of course the other guys didn;t really like the exhibit, i sort of liked it but i was a bit dissapointed cause the stuff that they wr showing was mainly stuff he did in his early artistic life. So it was mainly crappy sketches, and stuff that seems like (to quote Joe) "anyone of us can do!" But there wr some interesting pieces that kinda hinted somethign at his later works.

anyway then we went to see another art exhibitm, this time it was at the museaum of contemporary art which is actually called: museo de arte contemporaneo ateneo de merida: MACAY. ths exhibit was more to my liking cause it had some cool, valga la redundancia, modern art. Here ar some of the artists that i liked the most:

renato dorfman
emmanuel cruz
uco cuenca
angela tlanextli
marisol d'estrabeau

But yeah hopefully u guys can see some of their stuff online.

So after the modern art exhibit me, hortencia, and leticia heade over to a bar and ate some food, i also had a pina colada, oh yeah i ate som salbutes! dang yo i'm turning into a yucatecan! shit this food is pretty good, but not "good-er" than my jefitas.
After the food we took a bus over to Joe's house and it took us like an hour to get there (bus plus walking for like 30 minutes!!!) then after we got to Joe's pad it turns out we had to go back in the same way we walked to wait for another damn bus! we waited for like another hour adn no bus! so we had to take a taxi to the house where the party was gonna be at. the house was in this new part of town where all the damn houses look alike, it reminded me of some freakin stepfords wife shit or somethign!!!
but anyways i thougt the party was gonn a be wack, but it wasn't. well we "americans" kinda started the party by asking for music, so they went and brought someone's stereo system, and teaching the meridianos how to play BEER PONG!!!!!!!!!! damn yo they really liked it, and they were pretty good even though it was the first time they were playing it!!

the kids in my program and i had to leave early cause the next day (sunday) we had to go on an excursion to UXMAL, ehich by the way i already posted pics of on facebook so you shoud go see it!!!!

so yeah that was my weekend

i've been having a shit ton of reading to do for my Literatura caribena class and my antropologia de las cavernas, and shit let me just post my classes:


Literatura Caribena (caribbean lit)
Antropologia de las cavernas (Anthro of caves)
Catedra de Autor Indigena (Indigenous writer seminar, deals with linguistics and text analysis)
Arqueologia Subacuatica (subacuatic arqueology!)
Taller de fotografia (i get to learn how to use an analog camera!!, by the way i got one today, these shits are expensive eventhough no one uses them anymore!)



well i would talk about Uxmal but i think the pics on facebook shoudl explain most of it. I do have to say that i did eat a ton of food, i ate so much that i couldn't even walk comfortably!
De Landa (some old missionary from yucatan) burnt a shit ton of maya codices and artefacts that today would have been very helpful in the endless effort of studyin gth emaya civilization of the past, shit maybe we could know what's really gonna happen in 2012 ahhahaha!! oh yeah and the walkk around Uxmal was tyring, although it was pretty tight.

well i'm tired of writing now so until next time

i forget if i mentioned this before but me and ashley (mainly me) came up with this new smiley:

c]:}D

can u guess what it is?

i might go watch a movie tonight, but that's up in the air right now i don;t know if i should do that or do my reading for caribbean lit? oh the choices i have to make!!!!!

aight now for real i gotz to go c]:}D

Monday, January 12, 2009

12 de Enero de 2009

well I know I've been a fucken bum this past week and hadn't written anything but here we go que chingados!

So let's see what did I do since the last time i wrote on here?.........

Friday

Oh yeah I went to a bar /restaurant called "La Parranda" and drank a margarita, that by the way was efen strong! To quote these two guys from Atlanta that I met: damn they ain't messing with there shit over here!!!
hahahaha so yeah I was talkng to this black guy and an asian guy that where sitting at the bar when I ordered my drink, they were trying to get laid or something so they asked me what clubs they could go to, but i just told them that i was as cluelles as they were = ) I also ate eight tacos!! cuatro de asada and cuatro de al pastor

So yeah me and a bunch of the ppl in the program went over to el centro historico of Merida where the bar was located. why did we go you may ask? well... cause we fucken can! nah just kidding, we went cause the week had been plagued with a shit load of boring ass lectures that went from 8am to 6pm!!! then we had 3 hour long spanish classes during orientation!!!!!!! Which thankfully i won;t have to take cause I did good on the paecement exam, but shit that just means i have to take another regular class!! dammit oh well...

Oh yeah i almost forgot to mention Chris got shitted on my a bird ahahaha ( or shat on i'm not really sure what the correct way of saying it is but most ppl have been using shat on) the night went pretty well there was live music on the streets, that by the way had been closed to traffic so that businesse could bring tables out and sit ppl! man that musica de los panchos was tight. After that I kicked it with Hortencia in the plaza, we where lets say up to no good hahaha you know what i mean Hortencia hahaha we lost the ppl in the group and ended up walking around the plaza till we found them. we met this guy from argentina that's been living on different beaches across latin america for the past coupe of years! we left and everything was chill

Saturday
the next day we had a tour of the historic center of Merida which was pretty tight cause we got to see all the old ass buildings (the cathedral is liek 500 years old!!! It was apperantly the first one built in LAtin America!). shit but i was getting tired cause these fools made us walk a shit ton and it was hot, and basically i wasn;t even paing attention at all, i just wanted this to end so that i could go to Progreso (the name of the beach)

So yeah after the tour was over me and the majority of the ppl in our program caught a bus to Progreso ( it only cost us 24 pesos for a round trip! Shit i'm gonna be going there often!) so yeah i got tanned! i never really go tho the beach in LA cause my bum ass doesn't know how to swim, but it seems i'll be goign over here a lot more since the waters are a lot calmer and shallow over here. I had a to take a shower at the end cause me and erick were gonna meet with Karl and Ju Hyun (shit I probably spelled your name wrong sorry!) right when we got back to el centro. so me and erick went into this sketchy ass shower place that charged us 10 pesos to shower in these dirty ass, moldy ass, creepy ass showers, anywas I got ready and we wetn on our way back to merida.

So we got back and went and met up with Karl and Ju Hyun and we walked around el centro. We saw this bomb ass spanish dance performance, they were dancing flamenco and some other typical spanish songs! there was only one guy in the dance group and he seemed all Antonio-Banderas-like when he was dancing all by himself with all the lovely (HOT) women hahaha!
but yeah after like two hours of sittign on this metal sheet cover to who knows what we got up and went to eat something, we went in circles looking for a place to eat until we got to this pizza place called "Vito Corleone" and the pizza was pretty good (although I found out today from our program director that that's the place where a program participant got really sick from and ended up in the hospital!! but oh well shit hasn't happend to me yet so i think i'm good = )) Then we wen tot the MUseo de arte contemporaneo de MErida and we saw this weird 3D Sound Exhibiton by this spanish guy, he was at the center of this big hall and there were seats all around him, he introduced himself and gave his speech and what not then he played some weird ass sounds thorugh the loud ass speakers that were all over the room, oh yeah he also made us use a blind fold so as to increase our hearing senses or some shit like that. But yeah i didn't really enjoy that show but i did see some pretty good looking ladies up in that bitch ; ) anyways we got a free umm... oh yeah a free lighter so the night wasn;t lost! I mean it was a different experience htat I got to experience with good friends. Before the sounf exhibit started me and erick were talking a lot about our hippie-ish idelogies and how we want to help the world, we Grinnellians have a lto in common even though we all come from differnt backgrounds, I'm glad I talked to Erick he's a pretty chill dude.

but yeah we left and took a taxi back home. fucken taxi driver charged erick 90 pesos!! fuckin rip-off mofoe! yeah damn taxi driver saw that we were foreign and he took advantage of erick, whom he dropped-off at the end, i gave erick 35 pesos cause the taxi driver had said that it was only going to be 70 pesos (which was still al lot, it;s ussually 40-50 pesos) But yeah i wen t to sleep a bit pissed off but it was all good.

Sunday
this day my host family took me ot the beach in CHELEM (my bum ass is just in the beach evryday now!) they have some sick ass beach house that they rent out to rich americans or rivh mexicans for hat matter. the houses were amazing! we spent all day there just chilling with her family. one of her older sons was in town installing a sattelite internet connection in the beach houses cause this rich american guy need it to do business. but anyways i got to have some deep conversation with my host mom's son and his wife who is also pretty cool. they both asked me a bunch of questions and they said that they thought I was gonna do big things in Merida and in life!! MAn that just keeps me goign when ppl see the real me and give me words of advice. i really liked them = )

Today Monday

today was pretty productive It was the FIRST DAY OF CLASSES!!!!, i decided what classes I'm gonna take, one of my classes got cancelled, and i kicked it with Ashley (another fellow program member) in the IFSA office.
at the end of the day (after a 3 hour mayan history and civilization class we all headed home. The damn bus took a long time to get there! Then when it picked all of us up it took like 40 minutes para hacer un recorrido que normalmente solo lleva 10!!! basically the damn bus driver was going at a mile per hour!!!!!
but yeah first time i take the bus back by myself!! whoot whoot!! Me and Ashley got out at our bus stop (cause she lives like a block away from my house) and then she said she needed to get the newspaper to do a project or somethign and i told her we could go to this place called Plaza Fiesta (which I thought was a little plaza, but to my surprise was small size shopping center!) we spemt liek an hour and a half just looking at stuff, i felt like i was back home!! I bought my notebooks, some ice cream, and some new shades. there was this one store called coppel that had a bunch of stuff, it was like a Sears or something like that. but yeah we were looking at shoes, clothes, video games, i jumped into a bunk bed and Ashley almost gets on top of the bunk bed but it starts wabbling so i tell her not to casue she might break it and fall on me, she bought a hat that looked pretty cool on her ( i was trying to find a hat that looked coool on me but i looked and had no luck = ( ) yeah I had a great unplanned time at the "mall" oh yeah they also have a burger king in there and a music store! On our way out I saw this little shp with some cool shades so Ashley and I start trying them on, which took us another half an hour haha after trying on what seemed to be a hundred pairs of shades we finally each bought a pair, I got some aviator police style shades and Ashley bought these black and white D&G looking ones. I found out that Ashley likes South Park which is an awesome show!

I got home but my host parents had gone to a meeting so they left my meal ready. I had bomb ass tamale!!! it was made inside of a banana tree leaf and made out of chiken and a bunck of other stuff, it was simply amazing!!!!

since i'm getting tired of writing i'm just gonna stop and say good night and hopefully i'll write more ofen so that i dont' t have to write so much next time! ora pues e me cuidan and see ya'll soon with more aventuras through merida "La ciudad blanca" If i missed stuff I'll randomly post it laterz.

Monday, January 5, 2009

5 de Enero de 2009

woke up at 9:00 am

12:00pm

Ok so today started our orientation which to be honest was fucken boring, well at least the talking part. I mean I had fun and all but the person who was giving the orientation (Diana) was talking about common sense shit! I mean I guess some ppl do need to hear crap like: you guys shouldn't use drugs over here, you shouldn't get in fghts, don;t get too fucken wasted, etc.
I did find out something interesting: that here in Mexico you can get incarcerated and in deep shit for having any amount of illegal drugs on you ! It's not like in the US wr you get into more trouble depending on how much shit you have. you'll get efd equally for having a gram of coke or a gram of weed! HAHAHA

but yeah after like 3 hours straight of talking and shit we went to a restaurant called: Los Almendros. this restaurant is apperantly one of the higher class ones here in merida and their food was pretty good. We had some agua de jamaica (Hubiscus), the food was pretty good we had some typical Yucatecan food which I would wrtite the name of but my lazy ass doesn;t want to reach for the cook book we received today and look at the names of it but it was basically a tostada (fried tortilla) with frijoles on top with chicken and a bunch of lettuce and onions, some enchiladas with eggs in them, some longaniza, and another tostada looking thing with more chicken. the longaniza looked like a burnt up piece of shit, so i was kind of hesitant to eat it. the longaniza was aight but it was too dry for my taste.
Oh yeah they had these two old guys (and when I say Old I mean OLD as in 80 yr old) playing live music! It was pretty tight I think they were playing some Cri-Cri song at one point.
Down poitn of the meal was that I was waiting for dessert but it never came! =( i neede soem sugar in my system to stay awake throught he next couple of hours of orientation!
Oh yeah I talked to this ex adminastrator guy from UADY and we talked about anthro stuff and the anthropology of tourism, and Gramsci, Bourdeau, and all them anthro mofoes It was a really engaging conversation.

After the meal we went back to the central building of the Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan (UADY) to keep on going with the orientation. same thing just talking, talking, and more talking. At one point I though I was hearing one of the adults in the snoopy cartoons!
Oh and by the way the school is spread out in all over the city! damn departments are split up like anthro is in one place, art in another, etc.

Well the orientation when on till like 6:00pm then it was off to my host parents house again. Oh yeah my host parents house have a pretty tight house! it's sort of modernish mixed with ancient spanish pre-columbian architecture. I have my own little with my own efen bathroom!!!!!! I was surprised when i saw that bathroom in my room! Oh yeah i even have a hammock in my room so i get to choose whter I sleep in the bed or on the hammockl!!! Chingon, Chingon!

back to how my day went: so when i got picked up at the Universidad my host dad (Don Jose) asked me if i could help him with correnting a renters contract that he had written so that these americans that were ggonna rent one of his house at the beach could sign. Oh yeah my host family have 3 little beach houses that they rent out to rich white ppl that come over to the beaches ove in Merida. But yeha I helped him write it and corrected some of his grammar. I twas pretty fun writting that.

Ok so then we ate dinner. i had this bomb ass Lasagna! (hope that's how you spell it) that was vegetarian! It was so good that I thought it had meat in it!!! this wasn;t no crappy ass Ginnell Lasagna this was some good shit!

But yeah now I'm in my room, i already unpacked everything, which isn't much since i only brought one suit case and a duffle baf with me.

i might do boxign over here! or kickboxing, or taekwando (another word i can't spell) or play soccer, i still have to figure out what's more convenient for me. I'll let ya'll know.

shit i've writen a lot! well at least for what i'm used to writting every day, which is basically nothing! = ) and i have been using WHICH a lot for some reason, ahh who am i kidding it's just my crappy writtign habits! hahaha

oh shit I forgot i gotta go to sleep early cause i have to leave the house at 7am tomorrow to go to the facultad the antropologia!!!

and I'm gonna steal this from Kate McNally's blog that is also in myprogram and writing about the same deal cause I'm too lazy to reach for my calendar and write this info down BUT THIS IS MY VACATION SCHEDULE:

February:

2nd (Monday)

23rd (Monday)~ Carnival

24th (Tuesday)~ Carnival

25th (Wednesday)~ UADY’s Foundation

March

3rd *(Tuesday) ~ Cepeda Peraza

16th *(Monday) ~ Benito Juarez

April

6th-16th Easter à the 13th-16th we’re doing excursions as a group though

May

1st (Friday)

5th (Tuesday)

15th (Friday) ~ Teacher’s Day



Bueno nos vemos canijos, hope all is well. and post some damn comments!!!