Random Descriptions of My Travel Adventures

Mexican Independence day is on Sunday, probably the biggest holiday for the country that has nothing to do with religion and therefore I feel I can participate without being struck by god's wrath in the form of a lightening strike. I took these photos in the Zocalo today, the place is crawling with police as well as workers preparing the lights, stages, and other details for the big celebration tomorrow night. I've had a few rum and cokes with G and her friends from Puerto so I will write more about this tradition later, needless to say it is a partay!

Source: http://www.hunting.net/ftb_images/Sporting%20Dog/Pointing%20Breeds/Weimaraner.jpg Sunday morning I went to check out the place I will be house sitting for about 3 months. This is not just a house it is an amazing house and the description they sent me over email did not do it justice. The downside is the location, while not far away from the city at all it is a 15 minute walk to the bus stop. There are however, some German women close by that can give me rides to town in exchange for gas money, more on this later, so that makes it a bit easier. I was sitting chatting with the owners of the house who are both Americans and retired anthropologists. Somehow we got on the topic of dogs, the stray variety and the roof variety (see earlier post from last summer about roof dogs), and he related the funniest story (well the end is funny anyway) about an experience with the Oaxacan version of the SPCA. I will do my best to pass along the story here but ultimately it was much better exp...

Today as I'm walking home from the Zocalo, I passed by a brand new SUV with a most disturbing sticker. It was a takeoff of those annoying, triangular window hangings that used to be ubiqutous in the United States reading "Baby on Board". These of course spawned a whole separate industry of ".... on Board" stickers and I'm very happy that this annoying phase is behind us. The sticker in question is below, I found it using Google Images since I didn't have my camera. Disturbing no? Source:http://69.13.97.211/t-shirt-designs/prodimages/2006081615005870_small.jpg

So all my ranting and raving about the old man who implied I was rude was apparently not unfounded. G (the woman I’m renting from) did some gossiping (I think that is a sport here among the community) and determined that he is indeed a salty old bastard much reviled by many who know him! Now that I know he is the local expat asshole the next time I see him he better watch out!

I began the morning by going to an intercambio at the library run by expats. It appears to be run mostly by retired American expats actually, or perhaps run is not the right word, frequented might be more appropriate. A lovely Mexican woman seems to do most of the running. I was paired up with a nice woman, probably about my age, and a young guy of 16 for our hour long session of talking in English and Spanish. The idea is to speak completely in English for a half an hour and then completely in Spanish for half an hour. Now, I have participated in intercambios before and the "speak in Spanish only, speak in English only" rules are NEVER followed. You end up speaking a mixture of both and I'm not sure how much anyone learns throughout the ordeal, it is a bit of a mish mash of topics, speech corrections, and misunderstandings. During this particular intercambio I was the most outspoken of the group (imagine that) and was trying to coerce my fellow linguistically challenged ...

I have, to my surprise it seems, managed to not only pass my comprehensive exams but also successfully defended my dissertation proposal. What this means to me is that I am now a Ph.D. candidate, what this means to those outside academia is absolutely nothing. Despite this I am still encouraged and now take this encouragement to Oaxaca, September 7th, to carry out the research I so boldly proposed. Intimidating? Yes. Unachievable? We shall see. I'm most excited to begin blogging again regularly, though I fear my adventures this second time around in Oaxaca will be a bit less exciting than my first experience during the tumultous summer of 2006. Despite the fact that initial blogging may be sporadic and pedestrian at best, and an exercise in total boredom at worst, I'm looking forward to this electronic method of communication. So, in a totally unrelated post, I ran across this awesome article in Rolling Stone magazine about the private contractor mess in Iraq and sent it to my ...

Turns out I got funding to return to Mexico so I will be headed back in September or early October. In the mean time I am teaching second summer session at ASU so there will be a lot of gems to come out of that experience I'm sure.