Fish of the day

Between writing papers about Mexican economics (in Spanish), going to the gym five days a week and ballet class two, finding time to go out and absorb as much 'culture' as possible, and flirting with cute (possibly underage) Mexican boys, I have sort of neglected blogging. I apologise. I know I have a hundreds, possibly thousands, of people reading this blog, constantly checking for updates only to be disappointed when they are short and sparse.* I'm sorry. I really am.

It's just that when life is really exciting, or at least closer to exciting than it usually is, I become impatient with writing about it and instead just want to live it. Which is, I know, a crazy notion, and you must be thinking, Damn, that girl is original. Carpe diem!

But even though I want to live in the moment, I would also like to remember the moment. So I am going to try and be better. Also, NaNoWriMo starts in two and half days, so hopefully I'll be writing for a good portion of every day and it'll just flow over into my blog. Or I'll be so sick of writing that I'll write even less. Either way.

And finally, the most amusing chocolate milk you will ever see:


Remember, it's only racism when white people do it!


*I don't not have hundreds, much less thousands, of followers. I have four. And they are not checking constantly for updates.

What happens in México

"Fermin just texted me, 'te portes bien'," Catherine said at the beginning of class one Friday. "What does that mean?"

"It means 'behave yourself'," I told her. "Good advice for you."

"Te portes bien? No, no, no. Eres joven; debes portarte mal," said our teacher, Ana Maria.


Well, if our teacher says so, we should listen to her.

Five-day weekend

I have gone out every night since Wednesday.



When did I become cool?

That was awkward

I was at the deportivo today, waiting for my intercambio who was running late, and this guy starts talking to me, like, whatever, it's all good, I'm used to it now. Anyway, we chat for a bit, he doesn't seem that interesting, but that's okay, because look! Sara is here now.

I try to give him the brush off and he asks for my phone number, like any decent, persistent Mexican would. But I have still yet to actually learn my Mexican cell phone number, and he lost his phone. So he asks for Sara's number, and says he will text her and she can send him my number.

I find this a bit weird and borderline offensive (to Sara, not to me), but apparently people in Mexico do this quite often? Ah, cultural differences. Those white girls' numbers are valuable, y'know!

New vocabulary

We spent the weekend in pequeñito town of Benito Juarez in the Sierra Norte Mountains. And when they say 'mountains', they are not fucking kidding around. Look at that picture! Pine trees! Heavy cloud cover! Really cold weather! Very high altitude!

We went ziplining and hiking to waterfalls and making s'mores in our cabin fireplace (and roasting the marshmellows on actual sticks instead of metal pokers; my mum would have a heart attack). For lunch I had trucha (trout), but not a filet; no, the actual whole fish, skin and bones and head and eyes and all, and it was delicious as well as insanely amusing. I nearly died laughing as we explained Twilight and taught the word 'clusterfuck' to Justine, our Belgian director.

We should go camping more often.

Estoy bromeando

"Ah, ¡me gustan tus aretes! Son muy bonitas. Yo recuerdo cuando mis hijas eran niñas y les compraba cosas como estas," mi maestra me dijo.

"Puedes comprarme estas cosas, si tú quieres," yo dije.

We're not from here

It's never surprised me much that the United States would have a holiday celebrating the beginning of the end for countless millions of Native Americans. We are a nation made up of, primarily, the very white people who did the raping and pillaging and spreading of highly contagious diseases and enslaving and murdering. And we won, in the end. We got rid of most of those pesky indigenous people who were in the way of our land, our resources, our purple mountains majesty, whatever. It's only fit that we celebrate Columbus Day.

But it really surprised me that they celebrate it here in Mexico.

But I suppose I shouldn't complain too much, because we got the day off for it today.

Melissa and I went shopping on Alcalá, a street with the nicer shops, and maybe it's just because I'm usually not out in the Centro at that time or maybe we're approaching the high traffic season here in Oaxaca, but there were a lot of middle-aged and retirement-aged white tourists.

Y'all can probably already tell that I hate other tourists.

I know I'm technically a tourist, but I like to think of myself as better than a tourist, because I'm studying here, and living with a family, and I actually speak Spanish. So, I tell myself, I'm not really a tourist.

But the reason I really hate tourists is because seeing them reminds me exactly of what I am. And when trying so hard to reason that I'm not a real tourist, that's not the kind of reminder I like to have.

We met (well, Melissa met) these two women in this shop, La Mano Mágica, one of whom was from the same town in Florida as Melissa is. And as we wound our way through a couple shops, we kept running into them, as is wont to happen when you're shopping on the same street. They did not speak Spanish at all, which I actually relish, because it means I get to feel superior. And I as I was speaking Spanish to the owner of a jewelry store, feeling very superior, I told him that we were studying in Oaxaca until December, and he said we should come and help translate for a clinic of American optometrists that is going to some nearby pueblos to give out free glasses the first week of November.

See? Trying to be superior is a good thing.