Approaching the Finish

On Sunday morning I woke up at 5:45 am in order to meet some of the students. The day before one of them had invited me to go running with them, and I agreed. Although I enjoy running, I thought that a 6 am run on Sunday would definately be difficult. Especially since there was a party at our house the night before, though I was asleep the majority of the time (by the way, I am thankful for earplugs). I know that I was asleep most of the time because when I got up to go running, people were still at the house. Anyway, I walked to the school and Roman picked me up and drove to the Cerro (hill) de Bachoco. It was still dark when we got there, though the sun was beginning to rise. There were four of us running: Lupita, Roman, Cristina, and me.
We took off running after a little bit of warm up, and the trail was a dirt trail through some desert-type land. It was pretty cool. And the sun was rising, so that was cool. And I was running with people and being pushed, so that was cool. And sometimes we had an amazing view of the whole city, so that was cool. And it wasn't 100 degrees, so that was cool.
It was an 8 kilometer run which is apparently 4.9712 miles. All of my runs so far have been about 25 minutes. This one, however, took 42:29.35. Much longer than my other runs, and my pace was a little slow, but this one was over difficult terrain and was hilly the entire time. But it was an amazing run. When I finished, my thought was, "wow, that might be in my top five runs ever." I think a lot of that was especially in comparison to my other runs in Hermosillo which have been on half-way decent sidewalks along busy streets.
That made me think about some of my good runs that I have had and what makes a good run. If I had to list my top five runs ever, I think I would choose (and still in no particular order) my three marathons, the second 22 miler that Bland and I did, and the Vatican Run.
I really enjoyed my first marathon because I ran it with Cross Country friends, and though I was slow at three miles, I beat several of them in the marathon. Also, it was the farthest I had ever run, and basically I just thought it was awesome. A couple of side notes, afterwards we jumped into a hot tub at the hotel, and it felt asolutely amazing. Additionally, at Cracker Barrel, I had country ham, and it was awesome.
The second marathon was really good as well, though a lot different. It was much colder, and not with a lot of other Cross Country guys, but I still loved it. Especially since I reduced my time by a lot.
The twenty-two mile training run with Bland was the highest runner's high that I ever had. My legs were sore when I started the run, but we gradually increased our speed throughout the run, and by the time we got to about mile 19, I was feeling incredible. I told Bland so and then really picked up the pace. I think he wanted to cut my legs off at that point, but he stayed with me. I can't explain how it was that I started feeling absolutely incredible. It was just a runner's high. And it was awesome.
The third marathon was with Bland. We had trained a lot, so I was sad that my overall time did not improve much, but my pacing was a lot better. All of my miles were faster than nine minutes. Also, and I am sorry Bland, but after he beat me in all of the other races, I was glad when at about mile 21 or 22 I went by him (RTFOOE). I felt like I finished strong, though not nearly as good a finish as the 22 mile run. It was also fun(ny) to see the K3A guys all wearing pink shirts.
The final of those five runs was the Vatican run, which was basically just very memorable.
I also thought some about what makes a good run, and thought of some aspects, though these are far from absolute. For instance, good weather helps make a run better, but my freshman year at Harding one of my favorites was in a downpour. Anyway, some other aspects would be running with friends, a good course, being pushed, a good time (for instance, sunrise), feeling good during the run (it is hard to enjoy a run if you are sick, sore, or over-hydrated starting at mile eight and have to wait about ten miles). Anyway, I am still debating about what other things make a run better. If anyone has any ideas, let me know.
Finally, similar to approaching a finish line of a race, I am approaching the finish line in Hermosillo. I will be in Monterrey after New Year's, and my final day in Hermosillo is Saturday, December 22nd.

Just to add a little bit about the baseball game:

-I thought about wearing jeans, but I just couldn't bring myself to take them off the hanger for the first time, so I went in shorts. It was a bit cool, but I am very glad that my, I don't know, maybe, protest against cold weather continues.

-One time I was glancing up at the big screen and this was my thought process: oh, some guy with a must-, wait a second, that's my mustache! Three-Fingered Wave!!!!
Yes, I did appear on the large screen. Several times. Doing V_. Apparently Gringos with mustaches are popular down here.

-The game was tied at four all in about the seventh inning when Vinicio Castillo came up to bat. The bases were loaded and he needed a triple to complete the cycle. Unfortunately instead of a triple and then stealing home, he went ahead and hit the grand slam. The Naranjeros ended up winning 9-4.

So it has been about two weeks since I posted last. My bad. There was a lot of stuff going on with certain things, for instance how I was going to get home for Christmas and then how I was going to get back to Mexico. Monterrey to be specific. The company is opening a branch there, and since I am such a great teacher (that or it is cheaper for me to fly there), that is where I will be teaching. I am looking forward to the change of scenery and hoping that Monterrey will be good.

Last night I got to have dinner (tacos, of course) with a few of the students. It was outside of class, so we got to speak Spanish, which I enjoyed. One time in that class I was asking for some other types of fruits, and someone asked what a tamarindo was in English. I said that I had no idea, so they brought some yesterday for me and the other teachers to try. The ones that they brought were coated in sugar, which goes against my first rule of candy: If it isn't chocolate, it doesn't count. Though similar to English, there are exceptions to every rule. Just none that I have found in Hermosillo. Anyway, I guess I still don't know how to say tamarindo in English.

Tonight I will probably go to a baseball game. Several of the other teachers are going, and the Naranjeros are playing their big rival from a city just a little to the south: the Obregon Yaquis. Last year the Naranjeros were pretty good, but they have not been doing so well this year. Oh well. It will still be fun to go.

Last week as I was walking around downtown, I swung by the Cathedral and the Plaza Zaragoza. I was sitting on a bench in the middle of the plaza watching some kids play when one of the little kids came up to me and started talking with me. It was good to get to talk to him, but the reason he and all the other kids were there was not so good. Apparently there will be a cruise ship that will be stopping by Guaymas, a coastal city south of Hermosillo. In preparation for the cruise, the city is trying to clean up some and have hotels or businesses in advantageous areas. Anyway, one of the apparently advantageous areas was where these people have been living for 5, 10, 20 years. So the families that were being deplaced were out protesting in front of the state capital building. That is why all those kids were running around and playing out in the plaza.

Anyway, it is right now Saturday, December 8th. In two weeks I will be on a bus headed up to Phoenix.

Thanksgiving

In case you did not know, yesterday happened to be Thanksgiving. I could have completely missed it, being in Mexico and Thanksgiving not being celebrated here. They do actually know about it, but to them it is mainly the day before all of those big sales that occur in America.

Anyway, I knew it was Thanksgiving for a couple of reasons. One of them was that I got to speak with a whole lot of my family members yesterday. They were all over at my Grandmother's house, and I was able to catch up with them a little bit. Even though I was not with them, it was good to speak with them.

Also, last night the director of the school took us out bowling. I am not a great bowler, but I do enjoy it. One of the teachers even got three strikes in a row, so turkey? It was the only turkey we had that day. I managed to break 100, which is basically what my goal always is. I forgot to do the handstand bowl on the seventh frame, but someone let me bowl their extra one after the spare on the tenth frame. But I got a gutter ball. Oops.

So those are a couple things that I am thankful for. Especially my family. It has been such a blessing to have a Christian family. Also, I am very thankful for all of my friends from high school, Harding, and the HHSF group who were such good people to hang out with. The Christian fellowship throughout my life has helped me so much.

I am thankful for Apocalypse. I am thankful for TNT and ZP. I am thankful for all the long drives (even ones that were 12 hours long and through the wrong cities) and the train rides (really all of HUF). I am grateful for being able to run and do other sports. I am grateful for America and the things it stands for (like life, liberty, and Water fountains). Not particularly grateful for ties, but my clothing yes. I am thankful for good attitudes and would like to try to always have a one. I am thankful for Nicole, that beautiful girl in the picture that should appear on this page. Especially her patience.

I am thankful for the I AM. It is all about him. I am thankful that He loves us and decided that we were worth trying to save. I am thankful that God is good. I hadn't really thought about that much before this summer, but it is a good thing that the creator of the universe commands us to help and love each other instead of robbing, injuring, hating, etc. (It doesn't sound as impressive writing it down as it does in my mind, but I am not the wordsmith that great authors are.) I am thankful for Jesus: his example, life, death, resurrection. I am thankful for the Holy Spirit, despite not really understanding it. And by not really, I should probably say not at all.

¡¡¡Desfile!!!

Here in Mexico, today is el día de la Revolución, which for those of you who don't Habla Español, that means day of the . . . Revolución. Basically it means that we did not have work and there was a parade downtown along a street called Rosales. There was also the first anniversary of the Largest Carne Asada in the World right near the Cathedral. Hermosillo is known for its high quality meat, and they were definitely displaying it today. It was strange to see piles of meat in cardboard boxes. Piles. Of steaks. But it was like that down at the Mercado Municipal as well.

The parade was pretty cool. Being an ethnocentric American, I think I enjoy American ones more, but this was pretty cool. Basically any school and other public things had a group walking down the road. There were marching bands, cheerleaders, baton twirlers, and lots of other things. For instance people playing soccer while walking down the street. Or playing volleyball, Karate, basketball, boxing, wrestling, cycling, trick bicycling, and other stuff. Also, near the end came all of the public services like police, hospital, and firemen. Unfortunately, I think they were having a contest to see whose siren could be the loudest. There were also people in traditional Mexican garb. It was pretty cool.

On another note, we now have a very third world type ping pong table. I don't know if you have seen the last Office episode, but they make a ping pong table out of an oval shaped conference table, six pack rings, and tape. Our table is a small rectangular table (about the length of two card tables together, but narrower) and we use a 2 by 4 plank as a net. It is very small, which changes strategy, but it is a lot of fun. In fact, people are playing now and once I finish, I may go join them and get the winner. As a slight side note, we have also decide to keep score in Spanish, which is sometimes difficult even though you would think it is only counting. Hopefully it will be good exercise both physically and mentally.

Excellence

So today was very enjoyable. I went running this morning, which I enjoy, though I know some are prejudiced against running, especially if it isn't night time. I did have to teach a class even though it is Saturday, but for me this is one of the best groups that I teach.

After returning to Los Pinos de los Gringos (the name that we gave our house) and getting some lunch, several of the guys watched the new office episode which one of the teachers had doadloaded off itunes. After that was over, we did something that was far overdue. We went to a park and threw a disc around. It felt incredible. The ground wasn't even near flat and we had to dodge trees and knee high walls, but it was awesome. I feel like I have needed to do that for a while and was finally able to. The yearning for ultimate was slightly appeased (though it was only a quick fix).

After throwing around a disc, I had to oblige others and we played basketball for a short while. Although I am terrible, it was pretty good. I actually scored, so that was good. And I got to run around. Then we returned to the house and prepared for a decently long trek.

We wanted to see the sunset from Cerro de la Campana, which takes awhile to get to, and then you have to hike up it. Anyway, we made it in about an hour walking at a pretty quick pace. I'm not exactly sure how far it is, but I wouldn't be too surprised if it was about 2.5 to 3 miles to get there. Anyway, as we were walking and as the sun was setting, I took a total of 82 pictures. And that was all within about 82 minutes. I thought it was really cool. The one unfortunate part was that although there were clouds to the North, South, and East, there were none in the West. Oh well. Maybe next time.

That is all for now. Until next time.

V_

Update

So I don't really have anything big to report. Some things that have been interesting over the last few days are that after 26 days without a cloud, I have had several days in a row that have been cloudy. Not really clouds that would block out the sun, but if the sun isn't behind them, they are white.

Classes have been going fairly well. With some classes that have young students (around 7 years old), I do not know very well what to do to try to control the class better. Which is especially unfortunate when one of the people in charge are in the class observing. Oh well. I think in the conversation class that I have tonight I am going to talk about Carlos Hathcock II, aka White Feather. I thought about Davy Crockett at the Alamo or Sam Houston, but decided that might be a bad idea. In order to make it a Conversation class I will ask them about Mexican war heroes. Maybe in the future I will use Phillipides.

I did get to experience Day of the Dead here. It is a pretty big celebration, and I went up to a cemetary to see what all happens. Maybe eventually I will get that video up on Youtube. It was on a Friday, which we had off, but then we still had to come in Saturday. Which wasn't terrible for me since that class is a pretty good one.

Anyway, I guess that is all for now.
V_

Food

As a resident of Mexico, I hope to become an expert of making and consuming Mexican food. The second one in particular. On Sundays, I usually spend the time between services at the house of the preacher, and that time period includes lunch. That means that at least once a week I get an actual homemade meal made by a mother (read: a well balanced meal). I have learned there to tear up tortillas and not use any silverware. Just use pieces of tortilla to grab some meat, beans, rice, whatever you're eating, and then eat it. I think I've decided that this way is superior to the traditional way of eating tacos or of using a fork.

Also, I feel as if my cooking has gradually started to get better. My first week was sandwiches and cereal. Now my diet is more varied (though still not very much). I have some type of sausage usually, and eat it with rice or beans. Also, there are different types of rice and beans. I have made spaghetti. I even made soup one time. Though in all this cooking, most of it is done using a George Foreman Grill and a microwave. Which I don't really know if that counts as cooking.

Also, taco stands here are excellent. And everywhere.

In our classes, we are supposed to only use English. We are not really allowed to speak in Spanish at all. I try to respect this rule, and even enjoy the challenge that it presents. Trying to explain things to people using other words, and trying to make it as simple as possible can sometimes be fun. It isn't catchphrase by any stretch of the imagination, but in some ways it is reminiscent of that awesome game. Anyway, at times the students get frustrated if I don't use Spanish or if I have not let on to them yet that I know it (at least decently).

One class this week was like that. This was an interesting class for several reasons. Before I get into it, I should explain the system. There is a starter level, 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b, 4a, 4b, 5a, 5b, and then conversation. Each level usually takes four weeks for one hour every weekday. Sometimes classes are two hours and then it only takes two weeks. We have exams every fourth Friday, but at least after these past exams, I felt much more like a business than a school, but that is a different topic.

Back to the class. It was one of the two hour types, from 7 pm til 9 pm, and the level was 2a. At least it was supposed to be 2a. I was trying to do an exercise in the workbook, however, and they could not pick out a subject or a verb. This made the exercise impossible. The next day I had several example sentences ready, and for basically two hours I drilled them on picking out the subject and the verb. At one point during the lesson they said that they needed to teach me Spanish to make class easier. So I suggested that we go get some tacos, which we did after class the next night. Once we were out of class and going to get the tacos, I started speaking in Spanish, and they said something to the effect of, "Ay, you were tricking us!"

Hopefully that won't mess up my not speaking Spanish in class. Also, hopefully I will be able to hang out more with the locals and get to hear and use more Spanish, which is why I came to Mexico in the first place.

I would have posted sonner...

...but we lost our power. On Wednesday at six o'clock I was getting ready to head over to the school when I heard a knock on the door and on my window. I opened the front door to see what was up and saw two men in some sort of uniform. It turned out that their uniform was for the electric company, and apparently the electricity had not been paid for three months. I had been in Mexico about two and a half weeks, and all of the guys had been living in this house for only about three weeks. We should not have had to pay the bill of someone else, but apparently we had to. I immediately went to the school and told Paco, who is the guy in charge, but as it was already past six and the electric company office closes at three, we could do nothing but get candles. And have fires on the roof of our house which is made of concrete.

The next day, Thursday, Paco spoke to the landlord. The landlord called back a while later and said that he paid it. So we should get power, right? Nope, apparently he only paid for half of the bill. It was again too late whenwe found this out.

Friday rolled around and we still had no power. If we are not able to somehow get it today, then we half to wait all weekend. Paco went to the offices and paid the bill himself. A couple workers showed up at about 1:45 pm, and they were going to turn the power back on. Unfortunately, we had somehow paid for the upstairs apartment of the house in which we live instead of the completely seperate downstairs, which is the part we live in. I was talking with the people trying to get things worked out, and someone else called Paco. He showed up after a few minutes and was talking, complaining, arguing, persuading, and in general trying to do anything to get them to turn our power back on. He was somehow finally able to manage it, and our power was turned on right at about 2:00 pm after 44 hours of no power.

Unfortunately I have no excuse for not posting since then. I apologize.

On Friday, I gave exams for the first time here. The classes are based on a four week cycle, and that was the end of the four weeks. Which also means that I now have a whole new schedule and all new classes. Which I guess is good. I am definately going to be teaching more than I was.

For primarily Luke and Bland:
Sunday, October 21, 2007 became an extremely historical day. The three fingered wave was conciously done by a Mexican. The hero of this day is a wonderful ten year old girl named Dulce who I go to church with. She responded twice with three fingered waves that day. Also, the next day, a student used the three fingered wave at school. So far Mexico is an Anti Whit Wave free country. Let us hope that the horrendousness that is the Anti-Whit does not make an appearance on Mexican soil.

Right now I am in Hermosillo, Mexico, which is way over on the west side. However, there is a possibility that I might go to Monterrey after Christmas. I am going to be looking into things there and trying to decide, but if anyone has any thoughts about Monterrey that would be cool. Right now I am leaning towards going.

Although many other things happened over the past week, I will not write about those now. Things are going pretty well, except the whole power thing which I thought was humorous and a part of living in Mexico (kind of like moustaches), and I think that they will continue to do so and even improve.

Two Weeks

Today marks the end of my second week in Mexico. I feel as if I am finally starting to get settled, in some ways. I actually cooked a meal for the first time since coming here. And yes, it did include refried beans. I also cooked the meal in the microwave and on a george foreman grill. I was getting pretty tired of just sandwiches and cereal.

Also, I used the public transportation system for the first time yesterday. There are a lot of buses in Hermosillo, and I took a couple of them to get to church. It costs five pesos (about fifty cents) to ride a bus, but I will probably still walk around a lot. For instance, it is probably about 1.25 miles to get to a grocery store, and I could have taken a bus today, but I walked there and back instead.

One important way in which I feel as if I am getting better at living here is the water situation. I have been buying and consuming about a gallon of water every day (yeah, it is pretty hot still). Today, instead of buying a gallon of water, I bought a five gallon jug and a pump. That way I can still drink out of a manageable sized thing, but water will also be probably about three times cheaper. My only question is why did I not start sooner?

Anyway, that is all I have right now. I am going to try to fit the pump onto the waterjug better now.

V_

New in Mexico

After not doing much of anything new and different since going to first grade, the past thirteen days have seen a lot of change. I was at the same school all through grade school, and then I went to Harding. I was on my own, but it was still a christian school and I knew several people going in. I have done a fair amount of traveling, but always with either friends from school or family. Then, on October first, I boarded a plane to Hermosillo, Mexico, where I did not know anyone or anything.

Hermosillo is in climate and layout similar to Phoenix, Arizona. It is very hot for the majority of the year, thought in the dead of winter I have heard that it does actually get into the thirties. Also, Hermosillo is very flat, though it is surrounded by mountains. That was the extent of my knowedge of where I was moving.

I was hired to teach at a school called Go Engkish! in Hermosillo (they actually did not mispell English, but to keep it out of Google searches, I did), and the guy in charge, Paco, was going to meet me at the airport. I am glad that we were able to find each other fairly quickly because it had been a long day of flying and as about ten o'clock in Hermosillo, but midnight in Nashville where I began the day.

After a day of observing classes and a morning of training, they threw me right in the mix of teaching. I took over classes of a couple of the other teachers, but they have not really gotten the schedule all worked out yet. The level of the classes varies a lot. The lowest level, Starter, is for peoplewho know no English at all. Then there are ten levels that get progressively more capable. Finally there is the Conversation class. This class you just go into and speak with the students about whatever you want. In my last class I was going to show the Greg Oden cribs video that is in you-tube and talk about stuff around the house, but we never got to that. We were sidetracked into literature and politics.

I have not taught nearly all of the levels, but what I have taught so far hasn't been that bad. Some classes are more enjoyable than others, of course, and teaching complex grammar is, well, you can imagine. I am actually supposed to be teaching right now, but the students in my class have not shown up. This happens occasionally, and it is good, but somewhat frustrating as well.

There are eight other teachers. All but one of them arrived before me. The other guy teachers are JP (my roommate), Jeff, Steve, and Cheston. The girls are Polly, Heidee, Nicole, and Cindy. This is probably the part of my life that has changed the most. Having gone to a private Christian school and associated with Christians my entire life, it is very different to now live with the other teachers. Actually, the girls have their own house, but it is across the street.

I was just interrupted for a couple hours because someone who was not my student showed up and I had to teach him. Oh well. In Latin America you need to be flexible. That is why we have our ruberbands. Pop, pop, pop.

I did go to church last Sunday. I found the local church of Christ online, but could not find its physical location until an hour and a half after the service started. I caught the very end of the sermon and went to class. The preacher's family let me stay at their house all afternoon and then I went to the evening service. They actually asked me to pray during the Lord's supper in front of the whole congregation. On my first day. Anyway, I think I will enjoy these people a lot, especially since it will be so refreshing.

That is all I have right now, but I wil try to keep posting fairly often.