play fair.

i am at work on a saturday. i am almost in shock myself, so i don't blame your mouth just dropped open.

i haven't actually gotten that much done, but it has been nice to get some e-mails written and catch up on my 'keeping in touch', which has been slightly low over the past few weeks. it is really really hard, when you get so involved in life, to maintain all the connections that i want to.

yesterday was the annual 'PTA Welcome Back Party' at the huesteca campus after school. here i am thinking that it would be a few games and some cotton candy.... well, not EXACTLY. it was more like a large-scale circus was dropped off outside the school, with food booths, live music, a ticket system, and absolutely everything organized by parents. it was UNREAL. you know in movies when they have high school fairs? it was like that. except there were a lot of maids hanging out with kids while the parents socialized. roller coasters, parent-teacher basketball games, prizes, lights, haunted houses, everything you could imagine. i can't believe that i work at a school that can afford to put this type of activity on... without asking the teacher's to do it.

for me, the fair highlights were...
-the girls from my class all chasing after me to hang out. and the boys running away.
-choosing between churros, papas on a stick (literally chips made by twirling a potato on a stick), pizza, green lime ice cream, enchilados, tacitos, bebidas....
-seeing family maids stick out, because they ALL wear nurses outfits. very strange and odd. why don't they just get to wear normal clothes?
-the teacher's beating the students in a VERY close basketball game. and watching the students try to get rough with the teachers. i couldn't believe a few of the low blows.
-realizing that a LARGE portion of the teaching staff at huesteca looks younger then the students. we have a lot of teachers between the ages of 26 and 36.
-watching kids of all ages PAY to get fake married in a wedding chapel. btw, they didn't allow same sex marriages.
-the cake walk. there were hundreds of cakes to win.
-the professional gym that was there teaching 8 year olds to box and weigh lift. oh geez.
-a dunk tank that was lacking just a little water. kinda/slighly dangerous? not in mexico.

i wish you could have seen this fair. the only thing that was missing was a beer tent.
this is truly another world.

george loves izzy.

ginny and i do not have tv in mexico. we have, at the most, four channels that play cheezy spanish music videos or local news. i think i have turned it on a total of ONE time.

BUT. grey's anatomy premiered tonight. and, even though i was losing interest in the show last year, i wanted a little piece of good old comfort evening soaps. luckily, amy and ally have purchased the most brilliant cable plan of all time, and we have a fiesta of american tv shows.

in case you missed it, george loves izzy. meredith and derek are back together. and burke is gone for good.

in other news, my kids FINALLY finished their science units today, which culminated in making s'mores in a solar oven. the longest 30 minutes of my life. as soon as they were finished, i sent them home with the hope that i will never have to look at 20 solar ovens again! and then, the PTA was nice enough to sponsor a "bake sale" of chocolate bars, candy and full bags of popcorn. kids were jumping off the walls all afternoon. and it was only thursday!

sleepless on colorado.

can't sleep.
i could have done something productive, but i did not know i would not be able to not sleep for SO long.

instead, i have:

listened to trains (did not know there were trains in monterrey)
memorized the tone of the annoying cricket outside my window (they must be deaf)
heard dogs talking to each other
heard people walking around in the apartment above me (why aren't they sleeping?)
surfed three celebrity blogging sites
watched previews of upcoming movies on comingsoon.net (very excited for a movie called bella AND the kite runner)
caught up on all of my friends' blogs (never started my own blogging about my queretero trip, because i did not think i'd be awake this long)
booked a flight to the yucatan peninsula
found a hotel for my trip next weekend
stared at my clock
reorganized my pillows
read my lonely planet
checked the globe and mail, the citizen AND the national websites
written an e-mail to dad (it is now three hours into his 60th birthday!)
thought about how tired i am going to be tomorrow
browsed on facebook
and watched grey's anatomy season 4 previews

all very useful things. i am glad my life has been enriched so much over these last four hours.

you learn something new.

every day, time seems to move at a faster rate. or maybe it is just the weekends that fly by?

i have survived an action-packed independence weekend in queretaro, a colonial town in central mexico. but reality has hit hard in the form of progress reports, which are due at 4:15 tomorrow. needless to say, i was miles behind in my marking so i spent literally ALL afternoon and evening reading small moments, marking math and catching up from an assessment standpoint. despite having sat at a desk almost ALL day today, there are a few positives: there were no kids. PD did not come in the form of a 'play day' but in the form of a 'professional development inservice day'. bummer. PD DAY used to mean sleep in! BUT, thank goodness i had that time, or i may have been at school all night. assessment has definitely been the area that i have felt the inexperience the most. there is SO much benefit to having done all of this before, and having a comparative viewpoint. all i can do is follow the rubrics/benchmarks/standards and ultimately go with my gut. the kids leave at 1:45 tomorrow so it will be a race against time to get them done for 4:15... since it is not report cards, admin has told us it should take 5 minutes per kid. doubtful. but i'm still hopeful.

queretaro was an unforgetable weekend, but i am too tired to go into detail. pictures and stories will come tomorrow evening. instead, i will enlighten you on all the things i learned about mexico this weekend. you think you know a place - but really - you don't.

1. people in charge like to avoid problems. for example, when the airplane almost left us behind, NO ONE would help us. they kept saying they would be right back... and then leave forever.
2. their rules... are not set in stone. another example from the airport: when we first went through security our newly purchased margarita glasses were turned away. 40 minutes later after trying to fight our way back on the plane, they were suddently accepted. huh? clear as mud.
3. ALL mexican food is made up of beans, tortillas and carne (meat) and it is ALL essentially a taco under some other name. don't let the names fool you... still a taco.
4. time is not a reality in mexico. particularly after having some tequila.
5. it is impossible to pay with a 500 peso bill, yet that is all the bank machine gives out. waiters gasp with horror at the sight.
6. little flower pots are the new cups.
7. shaving cream is used liberally (like confetti) at celebrations... but pretty disgusto when it lands in your hair.
8. in parades, school kids carry shovels. still not clear why.
9. street vendors sell everything at the wrong time. when we were boiling they were trying to sell us shawls, but when we were frigidly cold, they were nowhere to be found.
10. it is impossible to ask for seperate bills at a restaurant. too complicated? apparently. the least they could do would be to stop gasping at the sight of a 500 pesos bill!

busy bee.

it is already wednesday night again, and i am trying to figure out where all my time goes! i have been meaning to write a blog entry about my AMAZING weekend, but i haven't had more than a few minutes to sit down and actually get anything done. i remember when i was young, my mom made me write down all my life activities and the total time that i had alloted to them was more then the time i actually had in a week. i clearly haven't learned any lessons, because i think i have myself in a position like that again.

i am busy - but good busy. and everything i am doing are things i have always wanted to do, and things that i moved away to do. i leave school at a fairly reasonable time most days, and like to think i have established some sort of a balance between school and personal. i don't touch schoolwork on the weekends and i rarely bring it home on weeknights. i think about the kids all day, but i stop thinking about them at night. luckily, i often get my energy from social situations so the activities i am doing are also relaxing for me.

on mondays i help out with a little drama club, stay a bit later at school and then play ultimate frisbee.
on tuesdays i have spanish classes, sometimes go to yoga with jen and am FINALLY learning how to play guitar with a group of awesome guitarists from 9-11.
on wednesdays i stay a bit late at school, go to body pump at my local gym (can you believe i found a gym with body pump?) and try to fit in a social activity. tonight we are having dinner for one of the teacher's birthdays.
on thursdays i have spanish class again, go to the gym at the huesteca campus and definitely fit in a social activity. there is also a potential mexican cooking class that may begin soon!
on fridays i generally take off for some sorty of travel adventure OR get ready for a relaxing weekend of exploring monterrey and sleeping.

don't worry, i am not stretching myself too thin. the only challenge i am having is getting myself in bed at a reasonable hour... i just like reading and chatting with friends and surfing the internet too much, i think!

life in mexico sounds pretty similar to life at home, eh? sometimes i forget where i live. until i try to have a conversation, and then i am brutally reminded. these spanish classes better start kicking in.

getting cultured.

i just want to preface this entry by saying that i have already written this entry. however, for some reason, it did not save properly before i turned off my computer and now i am writing it again. and since i wrote it a few days ago, i can't remember what i initially meant to say, so those thoughts are lost forever! and things are never as good the second time around. with that said, here it is!

this past weekend was a frenzy of cultural activities. while i took muchos time to sleep and relax, i also managed to fit in SO much. some may actually say it was not relaxing at all! but i swear, it was.

on friday evening after school, we spent happy hour at papalotes, a local taco restaurant similar in feel to lonestar. the greatest part was when the owners told us that they were doing a photoshoot of all their bar drinks, and they didn't want to throw them out. did we want them? OF COURSE! here is a picture of us enjoying our myriad of drinks on the patio.



on saturday, i went with two other teachers (ginny and barb) to see the frida exhibit at the marco (the museum of modern art in monterrey). before going, i didn't know much about frida, other then the infamous one-eybrow. i absolutely LOVED her work. she was so honest that i almost felt as if i had touched a part of her soul during my visit. apparently, this collection is the largest frida collection ever to be in monterrey, so this was a very exciting field trip! many of her writings were also displayed, but my spanish was not up for the test, unfortunately. since the exhibit, i have read up on frida, and even watched the movie about her, which i would highly recommend.

next, we attended a cultural exhibit called 'dialogue in the dark'. now this was one of the most unique experiences of my life, but i am not sure if i will be able to properly articulate its impact on me, or the sensations that i felt. the purpose of the exhibit was to recreate what it would be like to be blind. we were taken along a tunnel, and it gradually became darker, and darker, until we were in utter blackness. the weird part was, our eyes were open. at first, i felt really uncomfortable and panicky, but after about 5 minutes, i became more comfortable with my temporary 'blindness'. we were brought through 5 rooms: one that was a jungle, the grocery store, a cafe, a marina and a street corner. we relied incredibly on our guide, and could only move through the rooms with our sense of touch and sound. it was VERY disconcerting, but in a weird way, very eye-opening. for over an hour, i was blind - relying on the 7 friends i had with me, my guide and hoping that i wouldn't crash into various plants or get killed crossing the street. it is different then being blindfolded, as there was absolutely NO light. for me, the grocery store was most frustrating, and learning how to use cash. it is difficult to tell all the coins apart when you can't see them! when we were finished, we were introduced to our guide, who was really blind. the whole tour, we had never known. not that it should change anything... but it was good for me to speak with him about what it is REALLY like to be blind in a city with uneven sidewalks and little infrastructure in place. i highly recommend feeling what it is like to be fully stripped of something we take advantage of. you walk away looking at the world differently.

then, for a TRUE monterrey cultural experience, a futball game! there are two rival teams in monterrey: the tigres and the rayados. apparently, being a devoted fan to one or the other runs in the family. you cannot move to mexico without attending a soccer game. it would just be wrong. SO, i sought out a local ticketmaster (which, in fact, was a great find! avril lavigne is coming to monterrey next month), and bought tickets for four of us to go to a tigres game. allez allez tigres! ally, amy, myself and elise hopped into a cab and were off to a potentially sketchy part of town. luckily, all was well. i'll admit it: we definitely didn't belong. we stuck out like a sore thumb. first off: everyone was decked out in team jerseys; everyone was male; and absolutely NO ONE was blond. one guys even said to us in spanish, "do you speak english?" and when we answered yes, he looked starstruck. while happily ignoring the stares, we pushed our way into last row seats (next to the beer cooler) and enjoyed the game. there is no assigned seating, so this process was actually WAY more difficult then i am describing here... but i'll let you imagine it! we were definitely a big part of the half time show, and people actually wanted to take pictures with us! it was like we were celebrities. it was quite interesting to feel the difference even just from wandering around san pedro. in san pedro, we don't get stared at AS much as in other places in monterrey where foreigners are just not overly common. anyway. i made friends with the kid next to me, who told me all the important things that i needed to know about futball. the one thing that you couldn't miss was... the caged in section of fans who literally cheered and bounced the WHOLE game. good thing the tigres weren't playing the rayados, because i have heard that can get a little rough n tough. when we left the game, we left a group of cops who said to us, in english, "you lik-e-the boy cops?" and we decided it was time to go....



finally, we moved across the street from the tigres stadium to an infamous bar called 'far west'. picture this: cowboys, girls line-dancing, a dance floor the side of a football field, drink tickets, a rodeo INSIDE the bar, professional line-dancing shows and allllll country music. you might think you are in texas... but no. they are all mexican cowboys and mexican rodeo clowns. a strange, but fabulous sight. the greatest part was when the power went out for more then 45 minutes, but no one moved! we just drank beer in the dark. at midnight bells ring and the indoor rodeo commences with REAL bulls and bullriders. it was slightly grotesque and cruel, but an experience nonetheless. here's proof of our adventures:



not bad for a two-day weekend, eh? and i haven't even mentioned sunday yet! we have vowed to try to do ONE new thing each weekend we stay in town. i don't think it will be a difficult feat.

gimme a break.

i just woke up from a 14-hour nap. when i fell asleep, the plan was to sleep for an hour or two, and then rally by hitting up the barrio with a large group of asfm'ers. however, i crashed hard, and that was the end of that. even when people called to get me moving, it still wasn't enough to motivate me to move. ginny knocked on my door and said, "the girls called for you", to which i did nothing. ginny ended up calling back and updating them on my status. just like a mom would do.

it didn't help that after school we had gone to a taco restaurant with a patio to celebrate tgif. i had two excessively large margaritas before the owners came and told us they had a whole load of free drinks for us. do we make the rational decision and turn down the drinks? or do we suck it up and do them a favour so they don't have to throw them out? of course. almost a dozen drinks later (don't worry, there were more than 8 of us at the table), after we had sampled every drink under the sun, we finally went home... exhausted from the week, and slightly drunk.

i think i also needed a 14-hour sleep for the following reasons:

-teaching is exhausting. cut-to-the bone exhausting. do you want to try it sometime?
-i still hadn't kicked my nasty cold from the week. and even after the lengthy nap i still feel the rumblings of a cough.
-i could barely keep my eyes open during my read-aloud to the kids.
-i was ditching prep time at school to sneak out for a coffee at the corner store, and it is really gross. (because the timmy's my parents sent from home is decaf)
-i almost considered instituting nap time in grade 2.
-my patience runs thin with the kids when i am tired. and three kids cried last week. are my kids overly sensitive? or was miss sarah being grumpy? perhaps a bit of both.
-i didn't have enough energy to get out of bed for dinner. a travesty.
-my pillow is so damn comfortable. and worthy of being slept on for more then my regular 6 hours a night!

don't worry, be hippy.

and so sums up my weekend trip to the little town of real of catorce. about four and a half hours south (ish) of monterrey, real was a wealthy mining town in the mountains until around 1900. when the price of silver plummeted, real became a ghost town in less then 30 years. recently, efforts have been made to conserve the crumbling buildings, but rustic does not even begin to describe it. a 30 kilometre long cobblestone road leads to a one-way tunnel through the mountain, the only way to enter and exit the town. a passageway to the past, of sorts.



a combination of crazy characters, incredible conversations, bumpy cobblestone roads, messy gorditas, missions for ice, picture-perfect moments, warm sweaters, bongo drums, horses named punto and an incredible group of friends made for an unforgettable weekend getaway.

"don't panic, on the titanic"
it is impossible to describe my experience in real de catorce without giving a shout-out to our rustic little hotel, rincon magico. i don't know how this place got started, or how this random group of hippies found each other and manage to keep the place going day-to-day (through an ever-constant haze of you-know-what), but this place was truly magical. with views overlooking the valley below, we found a little piece of perfection. our little 'cabin' had a balcony (with only one wall, mind you) with a hammock and a toilet that worked about 50 percent of the time. we put 5 people in 2 double beds and got pretty cozy, particularly because it was freezing cold in the mountains. tash hit reality hard when she realized her bikini and mini shorts were not going to cut it in the frigid air. we were all smelling magnificent by the end of the weekend, as you can imagine. back to rincon magico. the little posse included chef david, who cooked the most delicious large-scale meals for only 5 dollars a person (i can still taste the tacitos, yum!), also gave lessons on ancient instruments that he picked up in india AND forced me to dance next to a fireplace in a sleeping bag to bongo drums. true story. next was the owner. not sure of his name, but he had wavy hair that was longer then mine. finally, gabriel (or peter gabriel), who actually lives in tulum, an old hippy who plays mean bongo drums and invited us to stay at his house. he is the one who reminded us of the motto of real every day: "don't worry, be hippy!"



"they must be sensing the male domination"
one of the must-do activities in real de catorce is going horse-back riding. it is impossible to avoid the cowboys who approached you immediately on the main square. a nice young man named gerardo found us on the first night outside our hotel and made an excellent pitch. we didn't forget about him! and since the town has only a few permanent residents, he found us easily the next day. for twelve dollars, we each got to ride a horse out of the city, up a mountain to an abandoned spanish hacienda and over to a ghost town called pueblo fantasmo. i hadn't been on a horse since i was about 12, so it was SO excited. my little dude was named 'pinto or punto' and he responded relatively well to my directions. he wasn't overly competitive so i was never at the front of the pack, but i think we had a nice bond. particularly when he would find soft ground near the edge of the mountain pathway and ALMOST throw me off the edge. but he never did! thanks, punto. wandering around the ghost town and ghost hacienda was really cool. there was an abandoned mine shaft that we crawled through, an old well/elevator to drop pennies down and crumbling arches for beautiful pictures.



"this is the greatest day EVER"
do you ever just stop and realize how great life is? for elise, tash and me, this weekend was all about appreciating how lucky we are. the three of us live for amazing conversation and really enjoy actively appreciating the moment. we caught ourselves several times, deep in conversation or even meeting eyes across the room, simply soaking up the moment. the ability to be able to even live a life where we can work hard all week but still take off on adventures on the weekend is pretty amazing. the moments that were the most striking for me were certainly on the day of the rainbows. friday, during our drive, the rained off and on the whole time, and we reaped the benefits with the most incredible arc-en-ciel's that i have ever seen. the colours were so vibrant, almost like technicolour. i'll have to upload some pictures to prove it.



"the fire knows everything..."
a few times during the weekend, i went off on my own to take some pictures, to write in my journal, or to simply soak up the scenery. there aren't actually that many things to DO in real de catorce, but a lot of it is the atmosphere, or people watching. one of my favourite moments was eating gorditas with a group of drunk students who loved it that we spoke in broken spanish. another favourite moment was eating soup made out of cow's stomach lining for breakfast at a local stand and making friends with the five kids who worked there. (btw, the soup was ok.... kinda slimy) i also loved meeting three traveller's who had come to real de catorce to found an organization dedicated to improving the schools in the area. wandering around real de catorce, i felt i was living a lifestyle where i actually take time to get to know people, and to get to know myself.

"whose toothbrush is on the floor?"
i got my first taste of dirt, grime and cold in real de catorce. because we were so high in the mountains, not only were we often above the clouds, but it was also freezing cold! sweaters in mexico? i could barely believe it. we left dirty, tired, sick, cold, wearing new silver purchases (all handmade!) but content with our adventure. little did we know, it would continue on the road. i was driving, and we got pulled over at a regular check point, but the police officer was not pleased that we did not have our work VISA's. according to him, we had no way to actually prove that we were legal in the country. i kept asking him calmly, "what do you want us to do, they are being processed as we speak?", but i just couldn't get anywhere. i felt i was up against a brick wall of frustration. luckily, damon the diplomat stepped in and saved the day... not to worry. apparently this happens all the time, and the cops really just want money. i'm so proud that we didn't cave!



real de catorce is certainly one of those gems that you have to experience to believe. if anyone ever makes it to monterrey (please come!) i promise to take you there to meet the hippies for yourself. i am sure they will still be there.