A week in January

Not a lot has happened since I last wrote, but this semester I'm going to try to write with a little more regularity, so I'll just fill you in on the normal events of the week.

Even though it was a pretty average week, it started off with a bit of excitement Monday morning. Sunday we went on a day-trip to see some ruins and visit a local colonial town, so when I got home, I was exhausted and still had a ton of work to do for my monday morning class, so I ended up staying up late to finish it. And since my class is at 8am, that meant I didn't get a lot of sleep that night. (Actually, I got 7 hours, which should be more than enough- I remember back when I'd average 6 1/2 plus 5am crew practice, a weights session and hours and hours of homework and an orchestra rehearsal and just keep plugging along like it was nothing. Mexico has made me weak!). So anyways, I was in my class monday morning, which is the history of the Mayans and super interesting, but as we were going into the last 20 minutes of the two hour class I was feeling sleep deprived and starting to fade. The all of the sudden I gasp and jump out of my skin because the kid sitting in front of me has an iguana on his head!! It's a good foot long head to tail and it's just sitting there on the top of his head. It had a rope clumsily tied around its body, and the rope was connected to the kid's sweatshirt string, acting as a leash. I assume the iguana was inside his sweatshirt for the previous hour and a half of classes, but I really couldn't tell you. Needless to say, I was alert for the rest of the class!

Speaking of pets in class, this would probably be a good time to talk about the difference in classroom culture here. Although iguanas aren't an everyday experience, many other distractions are. At smith, if you cell phone goes off, you have to deal with the wrath of the professor and evil glares from your classmates. At the BUAP, professors don't bat an eye if cell phones go off, and students often answer them and have a conversation while the professor is talking. Many professors will even answer the phones mid-lecture. Students are constantly coming in late (sometimes up to an hour!) and also leaving early, or just walking out for five minutes and returning with a cup of coffee or a candy bar. Side conversations are not uncommon. Some professors are known to smoke in class. People will do their make-up and check text messages. There are so many times when I'm in class and I think, thank god I don't have attention deficit because it would be impossible to learn in this environment. But it isn't like this in every class. Some professors won't allow student to walk in late and demand the full attention of their students. And usually this type of distracting behavior dies down once the professor really gets into their lecture and the students have to pay attention, but even it's existence on a lessor scale has been a big adjustment for me.

After the iguana incident, nothing in my week seems very exciting! I spent most of my time reading for classes, going to classes and running track. Friday was a bit more exciting. One of my friends from the program, Keith, had really bad stomach problems and ended up having to go to the hospital and stay for two nights! Poor kid. I am so thankful nothing like that has happened to me yet! So Friday we took the bus to a part of puebla I haven't seen before to visit him. The hospital was really nice and he was in good spirits, but I still felt bad for the guy. Apparently he has some kind of amoeba infection that's was eradicated in the states in the 1940's!?!? The scary thing is he doesn't know how he got it...

Friday was also our welcome comida (lunch/dinner), although this semester it was considerably scaled down- no host families, mariachi bands or traditional Mexican costumes! After the meal, a bunch of people came over to my house to plan our trip for next weekend. We have monday off and no classes on friday, so we're going to the state of Michoacan (where we went for the day of the dead) to spend time in the lakeside town of patzcuaro and at the monarch butterfly sanctuary. So my next post should be full of beautiful pictures and interesting stories!