Continually Impressed by the Teaching Methods

It's like I'm practically in the best TE class of my life while intending to learn something else.  It's actually been really nice.  Yesterday we played this game where one person had a sticky note with the name of a famous dead person on their backs.  Everyone else could see the name but the person who was wearing it.  Then all the other students had to describe the famous person (using the imperfect tense) to the student with the sticky note and then they had to guess who they "were".  I think that is also some kind of game, but I don't know the name of it.  But anyway, it was super fun, and a great way to practice the tense.  I'm super excited to steal this idea too.  But it doesn't end there!  Today we played a game of tic tac toe (or "gato" in Spanish) where we were divided into teams and a representative from each team went up to the board to fill in the verbs with the correct conjugation.  The representative with the most correct conjugations in the correct formation got the points for their team.  It was really fun, and again, I'm totally stealing this idea! 

Today I Proved to my Abuela That I am Offically Crazy

Yep.  She thinks I'm nuts.  Well not really, maybe just weird.  And I was doing something so natural to me, I didn't even give it a second thought.  Can you guess?  We were eating something hot.  Yep, I blew on my food (to cool it off, obviously).  Or apparently not so obviously.  She outright laughed at me when I did it.  It went like this:
me: "What?" 
Abuela: "Nothing, it's okay." 
me: "Because I'm blowing on my food?'
Abuela: "Yes!" 
me: "It's hot." 
Abuela: "So why don't you wait?"
me: "I don't know.  Because this is what I've been taught. (then me trying to defend my seemingly ridiculous actions) It's really common in the U.S."
         Lol, this was really my first encounter with customary differences.  At least it was relatively small and not that embarrassing when compared to some stories I've heard. 

A Very Fun Weekend In Mazamitla

This weekend I traveled about two and a half hours outside of Guadalajara to the beautiful community of Mazamitla with a group of about ten CEPE students, and about eight other Mexican students from around the city.  Is was so wonderful.  We left in the morning and arrived around noon and took our stuff to the cabaña.  It was actually really nice with lots of space and character.  Then we all got back in the vans and went to eat at a restaurant.  The food was okay, but the really cool thing was that I got to try this coffee called "cafe oya" and it was delicious.  I don't know exactly what was in it, but for sure some cinnamon and it was amazing!  Ah I loved it and I want more!!  Anyway, then we had the rest of the day just to tour the town and check stuff out.  It was such a cute town with a bunch of Japanese influence, which is evident in the architecture of the main church and the town square.  All the shops were really cute.  The community is known for it's woodwork, so there were a lot of wood-based handicrafts for sale.  Then we basically had the night to drink and socialize with the other students on the trip, and that was fun as well.  On Sunday we got to see a beautiful waterfall that the town is also famous for.  It was stunning!  It was a rough forty-five minute horse ride to get there, but it was so worth it.  I actually crossed the river and climbed over a bunch of rocks so I could right next to the fall.  It was such a powerful experience and definitely a first for me.  The whole trip was so much fun . . . I can't wait to take another and discover a new place.

P.S. If your curious, the pictures from this trip, as well as others from the semester so far, are all now available for viewing via Facebook!  Hooray!!

Photos--Finally!!

My bed.

My closet of drawers for my very small amount of clothes.  I seriously with I had this much space at home!

My giant closet, again for my very small amount of clothes.

My bathroom.

The door that leads to the small courtyard with roses outside my room.

So when they said it was the rainy season . . . they definately meant it.

So it is 9:51 pm and the skies have opened.  It's raining, and pouring, and thundering and lightninging (ps I love that word) like you would not believe.  I know that a storm may just seem like a storm, but the whole time I've been here everything has been such a new experience; this feels like one too.

Salsa and Convo

So today I had my first salsa lesson which was super fun.  I actually really like learning new dances when there isn't all the pressure of: "Do I look just like everybody else?"  "I'm I in line?"  "What is my facial expression right now?" "I'm I going to get placed in the front or the back?"  lol thank you show choir for the paranoid rigmarole of questions.  Lol, but this time I actually got to have fun, so I'm looking forward to next week.  I also met with my Mexican conversation partner today.  I was very nice and also very accomplished.  He is a 27 year old financial lawyer who seems to have the same love for grammar that I do, so I think it will really be a good time.  (lol, I know . . .  I'm such a loser) But anyway, that was today.  Oh also, I couldn't take any money out of my bank account via the ATM.  Wtf US bank?  Oh well, hopefully I'll be able to get it worked out before I leave for my trip Saturday morning--I'm off to beautiful (or so I've been told) Mizamitla.  It should be great!

Culinary Adventures = Cactus

But, I haven't blogged in a few days . . . so you 'll have to read through all my other updates to get to the part about the cactus.  Anyway, Sunday we went to the Centro where the famous (not to mention gorgeous) Cathedral is.  It was really stunning.  Also in that area is a bunch of shopping.  Like blocks, and blocks, and blocks, and blocks of stores.  Which were disproportionately comprised of shoe stores and dress stores.  It was nuts.  Seriously, people should come prom dress shopping down here.  Anyway, that was Sunday. 
Then Monday came.  I don't really remember doing anything so it must not have been that cool (lol).  That's okay though.  Sometimes we all need a break from insane adventures :) 
So on Tuesday, a.k.a. yesterday, a group of students from CEPE went to volunteer at an all boys orphanage.  It was very interesting to see.  It was a good experience, but I'm not going to lie, it was a bit of a disappointment from that which I was expecting.  I think all my previous experiences in Mexico kind of gave me a predetermined idea, as well as extremely high expectations, of what it would be like.  I  was expecting all my little friends from Cristo Rey in Reynosa, but that is not what I got.  And not necessarily in a bad way, just not what I was expecting.  The boys here were very fun to play with, and obviously very rough and energetic, and I did have a lot of fun.  I think my heart just still aches a little bit for all my fond memories in a place that is now (hopefully temporarily) inaccessible to me. . .  
Anyway, yesterday also happened to be another one of the student's, Tara's, birthday.  So we met at CEPE last night to go out and celebrate.  The only problem was that it is the rainy season here and it happened to be down pouring on our walk over there (which was actually kind of fun because it was the first time I actually got to see it rain), so despite the fact that we (and be we I mean the other girl that lives near me and myself) had umbrellas, our shoes, and feet, and jeans, still got soaked.  Sad day--but not for too much longer!  We waited at the school for like twenty minutes for Tara and her roommate to show up, but they never did.  So Whitney (my neighbor) and I decided to give up and go home.  But as we were walking home this car started honking at us--which has actually become kind of normal--but it kept doing it and it followed us and pulled up next to us, and then we realized that it was our friends.  So we went with them and their Mexican conversation partner, Fernando, to a small bar called !Que Pues!  It was a fun time and we ended up getting drinks on the house, which obviously doesn't happen very much (to me at least) in the states.  So that was fun.
Today.  Today after classes a group of us went out to lunch.  We had intended to visit a museum afterwords, but we found out that the museum is free on Sundays, and movies are half price on Wednesdays, so we went to a movie instead of course!  But we picked an awful movie.  We saw Chloe and it was disgusting.  None of us had seen it, and none of us really knew what it is was about, so we just went.  Oh my God it was like porn practically.  We were all turning away and looking down and anywhere but at the screen it was so awful.  Yuck!  It was so disturbing I can't even think about it anymore.  So that was that.  I came home and did my homework, and then I Skyped with my parents for a little bit.  And then tonight I had tostadas with different toppings for dinner.  One was a tuna/tomato/onion/radish mix that was very good.  The other was an even more delectable mix of cactus/tomato/onion/cilantro.  I loved it!  And I didn't even know it was cactus until I asked.  I thought it was green beans lol!  Oh the things you'll eat when you have no idea what they are :D