I'm In Mexico!

Get ready, 'cause this is gonna be a picture heavy post!

So, I flew from Minneapolis to Dallas to Mexico city yesterday, and it was a long time to be on planes, but not as long as Scotland. Here's a picture of Mexico from the plane!
<--------------- So I got off the plane in Mexico city, got through customs, and realized I'd missed the group bus to Cuernavaca because my plane was an hour and a half late. I called the number of one of the people from the school and she told me to withdraw some pesos and take the bus. This freaked me out a bit as I was suddenly thrown into a world where only one in ten people speaks English and I needed to communicate a lot to get money and get on the right bus. I went to an ATM and got out some money (I really had no idea how much as I didn't know the exchange rate. Yet another example of poor planning for this trip. I was so much more prepared for Scotland!), and then started walking towards the buses when I came upon a nice man named Charlie holding a U of M sign for the school! How lucky was I! So I found Charlie and then we went and found a few other latecomers and piled into a minivan type thing for our hour and a half ride to Cuernavaca. Along the way we saw fields and fields of oats which had been grown and harvested by hand and stood in old fashioned "shocks." Needless to say, besides the mountains, these were the thing I was most excited to see. Unfortunately we were driving so fast this is the best picture I could get. ---------->

So we finally got to the school, but it was dark so I couldn't see much, other than the fact that it's mostly made up of outdoor gardens. Say hello to outdoor class almost every day! We quickly got split into our host family groups and I was driven to the house of Maria Louisa Vences, who is my host mother. Or actually, she's more like a host grandmother. She's the matriarch of a HUGE clan of kids who have other kids and there are always nieces and nephews and cousin running around that I have to remember. Maria Louisa's grown up daughter, Magdalena, is basically in charge of us, and she's really nice. I arrived and met two of the three other girls who are staying here, Greta and Jackie (the third girl, Janessa, arrived this morning after a night in the airport), and had a big dinner which was really good. Maria Louisa and Magdalena even made me extra veggies as they know I don't eat meat. They're very nice about it and are always offering me fruit! So along with Maria Louisa, Magdelena, and the grandfather (who is very quiet, and who's name I forget), there is also a HUGE talking parrot and a wienerdog named Chisto (short for some word in Spanish that means "sausage"). <--------- So, that's my host family. I'll try to get a picture of them together later, but for now you'll just have to deal with some pictures of my room! First, here is my bed which has an AWESOME wool blanket. Next is our sort of living room which is sort of like a half-covered courtyard. The ceiling is open in places and last night you could see the moon while sitting inside! Way cool.
<----- Room






































So last night was gross and I was homesick, but this morning I got up and had pancakes with the other girls and the family and Magdalena took us to the school on the bus. First of all, check out the HUGE cross in this bus.












Secondly, I'm putting up a few pictures of the school, just so you can see how awesome it is. Yeah. See that table there in the trees? That's a classroom.







So after we did some orientation we came back for the big meal of the day at 2, and then Janessa, Greta, Jackie and I went out and explored the Zocalo, which is the town square, and I bought a really cool small handmade book make out of handmade paper for about a dollar. It's really pretty, and says "Cuernavaca" on it. I'll probably have a picture of it later.

But for now I'll stop uploading pics and go get some work done! I've got classes starting tomorrow, and I want to know what's going on!

Hasta luego, amigos!

All I Do Is Complain About Work

Just a quick update, as I have a lot to do, and we're getting ready to decorate the tree!

List of things I have due this week:
-Senior Project proposal
-Spanish Oral Exam
-Cultural Anth take home essay exam
-6 Page comparative transcript essay
-Two part Spanish written exam
-Geology final exam
-10-15 page Linguistics essay

So. I feel squished by stress, as usual.

BUT, the good news is that after this week of no sleep and constant stress and my face breaking out terribly, I'LL BE DONE WITH MY MOST STRESSFUL SEMESTER EVER!
If things work out right, I'll only have to take four classes next semester, so I just need to make it through this week.

Lorelai:

The crazy thing is I am ready to get married. I’m ready to start the next phase of my life. I want another kid and I don’t wanna wait anymore. I don’t want to be patient. I’ve been patient long enough. I’m not happy and I feel crappy all the time and I just think I’ve had it.

Linney:

So what’re you going to do? Only you can make you wait. Nobody else can. You need to decide what you want and what you’re willing to give up to get it, and then you’ve gotta be ok with that. Or you have to be ok with waiting.

I feel like Peter Pan. I'm never going to grow up.

LIES! IT WAS ALL LIES!

I have such exciting news that I would write this whole post IN CAPS if it wasn't so annoying to read. The long and short of it is that I'M GOING TO GRADUATE ON TIME, SPRING 2010!!!

So, here's how this blessed miracle came about.

I woke up on Sunday morning, or rather, afternoon at 12:30 which was really nice. I needed the sleep. But the downside of sleeping in is that I only had a few hours to write a five to seven page paper. So I tried and tried, and I didn't get anything done. Sarah showed up at 6pm and we headed out for dinner on our way to the Mason Jenning's concert at first avenue.

AND NOW A MINOR BREAK IN SCHEDULING TO BRING YOU ALISON'S EXCITEMENT ABOUT RECENT CONCERTS:


So I went to see Paramore a couple of weeks ago, and they were awesome. Hayley kicked ass and sang her heart out 'till my ears rang. It was and all around good time, and I bought their recent CD, Brand New Eyes, which I like quite a lot, though I don't know if I would have liked it as much had I not heard the songs in concert first. There's something about hearing songs sung to you (the audience) from the mouth of the person who wrote the lyrics that gives me shivers. Concerts are a religious experience for me.


Anyway, last night was the Mason Jennings concert, and I totally cried. I mean, I laughed and sang and yelled happily at Sarah, but I also cried, which I tend to do at really great concerts like this one and Snow Patrol's a few months ago. Mason sang a whole bunch of great songs, most of which were from his Blood of Man record which just came out, and which I just bought, and which is one of my new favorite CDs, although I don't like it as much as his Boneclouds record. I won't go on and on about his music (though he is WONDERFUL), but I will say that if you haven't heard his song Your New Man, you really should. It's not really like anything else that he does, but it's hilarious.

END OF CONCERT RANT

So after the concert I came back home and started working on my paper, not finishing until 5 this morning. I went to bed for two hours, then got up at 7, turned in my paper, met with my Spanish professor to clarify some tense structures, and then met with my general education adviser. This is where it gets good.

I walk into his office and we say hi, and then he asks what I wanted to see him about. I say I'm wondering if there's any way that he could rearrange my credits to get those pesky 11 credits of upper class work filled. Of course I'm asking this with next to no hope, but he looks down at my records and says, "yeah, of course!" So he somehow made my credits from Stirling cover it! I've got all my requirements covered as of registration! And even better, I'm petitioning that one of my transfer credits be counted toward my major requirements (which it probably will) which means I'll get to take one less class next semester! Overall, that meeting was EXTREMELY helpful.

So when I got out I went to Geo class, and then to the first half of my Spanish exam (second half is tomorrow), and then back home where I've been trying to sleep unsuccessfully. So if this post isn't quite understandable, I'm sorry.

Oh! And I got a bedframe, and the mouse is nowhere to be seen since we pepperminted the house.

And now I'm going to fall into bed. See you in the morning, when I'll be sure to make more sense.

I'm In A Good Mood 'Cause I Just Ate Lunch At Jimmy John's

So, just to clear things up from the last post, I now have my meds refilled, and things don't seem quite as horrible as they did last week.

But before things got better, they got worse. I have news which last week seemed like the end of the world: I'm not going to graduate in the spring.

And the reason WHY I'm not going to graduate is because of 11 credits of upper level classwork outside my major that the college sprung on me at the last minute. What jerks. This news really got me down, and I felt like I was a failure. Graduating on time has been a big deal to me. I saw it as a way to prove that even though I skipped around to a lot of different schools, and even though I hated college for the first two years, I could still finish with the "successful" kids and walk to the platform with my head held high. Now that I'm not going to finish at the same time as most of the kids I went to high school with, I feel let down. Like I'm the last kid to stagger over the finish line, huffing and puffing and about to faint.

I was feeling that way up until Monday when I got back to school and started thinking about it a bit more. What does this mean, that I have to go to school through summer 2010 to finish? Well, it means that I won't have a "summer" this summer, but I was expecting that anyway because I was trying to get a job in the works for the minute after I graduated. It means that I have to live up in the cities for the summer, which I was already planning to do because we have the house rented through August (look how nice that worked out!). And third, it means I have to take three or four upper level classes outside my major. Which means I can take anything I find any subjects that I find remotely interesting as long as I have the prerequisites (which I have a lot of, having taken about one of every class during my college jumping years)! And THAT means that I can spend the whole summer TAKING AGRICULTURE CLASSES and I don't need the grade to graduate, I just need the credit which means I CAN TAKE THE CLASSES PASS/FAIL SO I DON'T HAVE TO STRESS ABOUT GRADES!!

Turns out, this could be a really cool summer, provided that I can find some new friends to hang out with (and convince some old friends to come up to the cities more often). I don't want to spend the summer being lonely. BUT, I think I can turn this into a good thing.

So anyway, that's the news. I have to finish this semester, then I'm going to Mexico, then another semester, and then summer classes, and THEN I'm done.

And speaking of next semester, here are the classes that I picked during sign up, but they might change, as I was forced to pick a bunch of classes I'm not really interested in because the Anthro department has LAME classes next semester.

1) Religion and Culture, and
2) Philosophic Anthropology. Both of these are taught by a prof that I have this semester, and I have to say, I'm not impressed. He's dry and boring, but he's easy to get along with.
3) Sex, Evolution and Behavior. I'm SO excited for this class, and not just 'cause it has the word sex in it. I've genuinely heard good things, and I love learning about how evolution influences our behavior.
4) Archeologies of Colonialism. This sounds more like a class mom would like than one I would like, but my options were EXTREMELY limited. These five classes were the only ones I could make work with my schedule, weren't writing intensive (I'm going to be writing my senior thesis this semester, so I don't want too much other writing), or project based. Basically I need to save time and take classes that don't require tons of out of class work, as I'm going to be buried in my senior thesis for the rest of the year.

So there you go. Classes.

And in other new news, WE HAVE A MOUSE IN OUR HOUSE!

I went into my room last night, flicked on the light and was looking at a paper on my desk, when all of a sudden I see something move out of the corner of my eye. At first I think that I must just be seeing things because it looks like nothing is there, but then! Suddenly there's a little mouse, about 2/3rds the size of Moshi, just scurrying across my floor and out of the room under the door! I tried to follow him, and I think he might have gone into the broom closet, but I couldn't find him again. I'm hoping he's the only one of his kind in the house. Besides Moshi, of course.

And now everyone's laughing at me because I have a pet mouse in a cage, but I don't relish the idea of a house mouse running over my face while I sleep. Is that so unreasonable? Anyway, I spent an hour out trying to find a live trap, which I couldn't at 11:30pm on a week night. No surprise there. And I didn't want to buy one that kills the mouse because I honestly don't believe that it's right to kill an animal because it wants warmth, shelter and food. What would happen if you needed someplace to get out of the cold and someone poisoned YOU for it? They're just trying to live and be mice, and I'm just trying to live and be human. Neither one of us should get killed for that.

But I still don't want them running over me in my sleep.

So, since I couldn't find any live traps I went online to find out how to deter mice. First I cleaned the whole kitchen, floor to counter tops, did all the dishes, swept up any crumbs, and got rid of any garbage. If there's nothing to eat, they won't come around as much. Next, I found out that mice really don't like the smell of peppermint oil, so I soaked a few cotton balls in peppermint and placed them all over the house, so now our house is clean and smell good! Win win!

Today, though, I'm gonna go find a live trap. And a bed frame, I hope. Even though I like sleeping on my mattress of the floor, this experience has made me a bit iffy on it in the winter time.

Wish me luck on my search!

Help; I Need Somebody. Help; Pretty Much Anybody

So here's how it is, folks.

I'm in an awful state. I can't sleep at night, I sleep too long in the morning, I have constant stomach pain, knots in my shoulders, I'm developing a hump from sitting over my computer, and I'm getting fat from sitting in class and spending the rest of my day sitting on my ass doing homework. I dress in sweatshirts and hats every day so I can bolt out the door in ten minutes to catch the bus, and the minute I get out of class I have to come back home to sit alone in the living room working on homework until I make myself go to bed at 11. None of this is conducive to friend making or happiness.

I'm not going to go on and on about happiness or the meaning of life, but I've just been having a bad time of it lately and I need some sympathy, some love, and a few friends to remind me that I'm not alone.

I know this is temporary, and I know that things can't keep on being this bad forever, but I'm stressed, I'm out of medication thanks to my own forgetfulness and Target pharmacy, and things just aren't looking too good right now.

I'd like to be happy and healthy for a bit. Get up well rested in the morning, not spend the day worrying about the work I have to do, go read a book for a while, meet up with friends for coffee, play outside, have dinner with my family, spend the night listening to music with the person I love, and falling asleep warm with nothing to wake up for the next morning, but with fun things to look forward to. Ideal, I know, but where would we be without our ideals?

But for now I'll sit on this couch, work on my Spanish, eat a piece of pie, and worry myself into the grave.

Hurrah.

I'm Sorry That I'm Not Showered In These Pictures, But I Had To Show You My Doughnuts

Hey guess what?? I made doughnuts from scratch today!

Here's the set up:
I stayed up until 1am last night helping Maddie study for a test she had this morning, so I was really tired. Thankfully I woke up for my 8 o'clock class, but then came home and fell asleep and slept through my afternoon classes. Go figure.
So since I didn't have anything I needed to do right then, I thought I'd make doughnuts, 'cause I've been thinking about it since last weekend.
I've been re-reading Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder again (I read it every fall/winter) and I got to the part where Almanzo's mom makes doughnuts, and it talks about how fresh apples and homemade doughnuts were pretty much the backbone of the fall foods on the American frontier.
So I thought, DUDE, I SHOULD MAKE DOUGHNUTS 'CAUSE I HAVE FRESH APPLES THAT I PICKED FROM AN ORCHARD AND THEY'D GO PERFECTLY WITH DOUGHNUTS.

So I found the recipe from the Little House Cookbook and I got all the ingredients when Maddie and I went to the store yesterday, and this afternoon I turned out about three dozen cute little whole wheat doughnuts, and they're delicious.

Granted, this being my first attempt at doughnut creation, I messed up a few things. First, I learned that it's a LOT easier to do with two people so you can have one twisting the dough and one flipping them in the oil. Because it was just me I burned a few. And also, I learned that you have to have the oil at the EXACT right temperature, because if it's too cool it won't cook the doughnuts in the right way (they feel spongey), and if it's too fast the outside gets done before the inside and they have mushy innards.

But most of them turned out, and now we have apples and doughnuts, and it makes me super happy.

I'm gonna try again next week and see if I can do better!