Saturday, July 08, 2006
Packing and stressing out
For the closing ceremony at the school, the principal thanked me and notified everyone that I am leaving. A few students gave me gifts. Some hugged me a lot and asked me not to go. One said she had a lot of fun in my English classes. It made me feel good, but it also made me feel a little bit sad.
Not sad enough to consider staying at this utter mess of a school, however.
I’m defrosting my fridge so I’m eating a dinner of things that will have gone bad by tomorrow. Scrambled eggs and bacon aren’t exactly the best things for a delicate stomach, but I already had seafood for lunch so I might as well avoid letting good bacon go to waste.
The lunch was at the school. Someone had made seafood soup, and there was chocoflan (my favorite dessert here: flan baked on top of chocolate cake). It was supposed to be tomorrow, to celebrate the end of the cursos diplomados and as a sort of farewell party for me, but tomorrow is the final game of the World Cup (Forza, Italia!!!), and nobody would’ve gone. I didn’t even end up going to the cursos today, because I just had (still have) too many things to do to waste time being completely bored in some useless course. I did go yesterday, out of embarrassment, but I only ended up being there for about 45 minutes because I went to the doctor to check on my gastrointestinal problems. It turns out there is no infection of any sort, so I am probably just experiencing a slow recovery complicated by nerves.
I am really in a state trying to get all my stuff together. I woke up early to do my laundry up on the roof; then I tried packing. I already had one suitcase half-packed. I was going to use the big suitcase I borrowed from Luis on my return from Columbus in April, but it is missing one leg and one wheel and it was a pain to lug around. Now the bottom is all scraped up because of all the dragging around, and I doubt it will withstand two flight changes now. So I hurried downtown before the stores closed for the afternoon, and I bought a replacement. It’s ugly, but it’s big, and it works! It is the first time I have bought a modern piece of luggage, the kind that stands up tall and has a retractable handle. My other suitcases are all old school, with four wheels and a leash and falling over all the time.
Yesterday Sandra, the second-grade teacher, came over after the curso, because she bought my desk and was waiting for her brother to come pick it up. I foisted many useless baubles on her, gifts I’ve received from students’ parents, clothes and a pair of shoes that I don’t want anymore. Then her brother arrived and decided to buy my sofa set, too. I was so happy to finally have gotten rid of it; the teacher who had said she’d wanted it had decided that morning that she didn’t want it anymore, leaving me not a little anxious. Now the only thing left to worry about is the refrigerator, which many potential buyers have rejected. It’s a cute little thing—I don’t understand why nobody wants it. I think the principal will buy it, however, for the new building where the primary grades will be.
I’m sorry this is not exactly the most exciting news, but it is what is running through my mind all day and night when I’m trying to sleep and can’t. I have lots of stuff to sell and give away, and tomorrow is the last day to get it all out of here! I am flying out of Guadalajara on Tuesday morning, but the flight is so early that I will have to stay in Guadalajara Monday night in order to be at the airport in time. I plan to leave for Guadalajara Monday morning, so that I can do some errands there, like buying a case for my guitar. That means getting everything done tomorrow….
I’m a little annoyed with Rocío right now. She is always hanging out with her boyfriend, and I can’t reach her because her home phone is out of service and she’s not answering any text messages, probably because she lent her phone to her father again or it’s out of battery or she has no credit. I accept that she spends all her time with her boyfriend, but she said she would buy my fan and take some of my stuff, and I have no idea when she’s going to come to get any of it, if she comes at all. She also told me that her friend Jico has invited us all out tomorrow. I have no idea what that means because she has flaked out a couple times already, since her boyfriend arrived. At least she did come to the café Thursday with Cristina and me. That was nice.
I just remembered something funny about being at the café with Cristina and Rocío. There was this good-looking guy who walked through, and Cristina was talking, but mid-sentence she and Rocío were totally checking him out, and Cristina stopped talking, and their heads were following him the whole time he was in view. It was so obvious that I could not stop laughing, both times that he passed our table.
Later Cristina’s husband and two daughters came, to pick her up, and the kids had ice cream. Since we had been drinking beers, I was a little tipsy and talking a lot. We laughed a good deal. I kept making mistakes in my Spanish and they kept making fun of me. They told me to speak some Chinese, and then they were asking me all kinds of funny questions, like have I ever worn a kimono. I said, those are Japanese. And Cristina said, “And what are you again?” I was explaining about being Chinese American, and her husband was making fun of Cristina and Rocío, saying, “You are just like the people who think that Mexicans go around wearing mariachi suits all the time, with a bottle of tequila and dancing folk dances.” So then they were pretending to be stereotypical Mexicans. It was funny.
I don’t blame them for being so confused about East Asian cultures. There’s no education whatsoever about different cultures, and there definitely aren’t a whole lot of Asians in Arandas to clear up the confusion.
Not sad enough to consider staying at this utter mess of a school, however.
I’m defrosting my fridge so I’m eating a dinner of things that will have gone bad by tomorrow. Scrambled eggs and bacon aren’t exactly the best things for a delicate stomach, but I already had seafood for lunch so I might as well avoid letting good bacon go to waste.
The lunch was at the school. Someone had made seafood soup, and there was chocoflan (my favorite dessert here: flan baked on top of chocolate cake). It was supposed to be tomorrow, to celebrate the end of the cursos diplomados and as a sort of farewell party for me, but tomorrow is the final game of the World Cup (Forza, Italia!!!), and nobody would’ve gone. I didn’t even end up going to the cursos today, because I just had (still have) too many things to do to waste time being completely bored in some useless course. I did go yesterday, out of embarrassment, but I only ended up being there for about 45 minutes because I went to the doctor to check on my gastrointestinal problems. It turns out there is no infection of any sort, so I am probably just experiencing a slow recovery complicated by nerves.
I am really in a state trying to get all my stuff together. I woke up early to do my laundry up on the roof; then I tried packing. I already had one suitcase half-packed. I was going to use the big suitcase I borrowed from Luis on my return from Columbus in April, but it is missing one leg and one wheel and it was a pain to lug around. Now the bottom is all scraped up because of all the dragging around, and I doubt it will withstand two flight changes now. So I hurried downtown before the stores closed for the afternoon, and I bought a replacement. It’s ugly, but it’s big, and it works! It is the first time I have bought a modern piece of luggage, the kind that stands up tall and has a retractable handle. My other suitcases are all old school, with four wheels and a leash and falling over all the time.
Yesterday Sandra, the second-grade teacher, came over after the curso, because she bought my desk and was waiting for her brother to come pick it up. I foisted many useless baubles on her, gifts I’ve received from students’ parents, clothes and a pair of shoes that I don’t want anymore. Then her brother arrived and decided to buy my sofa set, too. I was so happy to finally have gotten rid of it; the teacher who had said she’d wanted it had decided that morning that she didn’t want it anymore, leaving me not a little anxious. Now the only thing left to worry about is the refrigerator, which many potential buyers have rejected. It’s a cute little thing—I don’t understand why nobody wants it. I think the principal will buy it, however, for the new building where the primary grades will be.
I’m sorry this is not exactly the most exciting news, but it is what is running through my mind all day and night when I’m trying to sleep and can’t. I have lots of stuff to sell and give away, and tomorrow is the last day to get it all out of here! I am flying out of Guadalajara on Tuesday morning, but the flight is so early that I will have to stay in Guadalajara Monday night in order to be at the airport in time. I plan to leave for Guadalajara Monday morning, so that I can do some errands there, like buying a case for my guitar. That means getting everything done tomorrow….
I’m a little annoyed with Rocío right now. She is always hanging out with her boyfriend, and I can’t reach her because her home phone is out of service and she’s not answering any text messages, probably because she lent her phone to her father again or it’s out of battery or she has no credit. I accept that she spends all her time with her boyfriend, but she said she would buy my fan and take some of my stuff, and I have no idea when she’s going to come to get any of it, if she comes at all. She also told me that her friend Jico has invited us all out tomorrow. I have no idea what that means because she has flaked out a couple times already, since her boyfriend arrived. At least she did come to the café Thursday with Cristina and me. That was nice.
I just remembered something funny about being at the café with Cristina and Rocío. There was this good-looking guy who walked through, and Cristina was talking, but mid-sentence she and Rocío were totally checking him out, and Cristina stopped talking, and their heads were following him the whole time he was in view. It was so obvious that I could not stop laughing, both times that he passed our table.
Later Cristina’s husband and two daughters came, to pick her up, and the kids had ice cream. Since we had been drinking beers, I was a little tipsy and talking a lot. We laughed a good deal. I kept making mistakes in my Spanish and they kept making fun of me. They told me to speak some Chinese, and then they were asking me all kinds of funny questions, like have I ever worn a kimono. I said, those are Japanese. And Cristina said, “And what are you again?” I was explaining about being Chinese American, and her husband was making fun of Cristina and Rocío, saying, “You are just like the people who think that Mexicans go around wearing mariachi suits all the time, with a bottle of tequila and dancing folk dances.” So then they were pretending to be stereotypical Mexicans. It was funny.
I don’t blame them for being so confused about East Asian cultures. There’s no education whatsoever about different cultures, and there definitely aren’t a whole lot of Asians in Arandas to clear up the confusion.
