Well, this is it. I figured there were two ways this could go: either I kept trying to finish all three (now 4) of the very extensive and detailed posts about the more interesting things that have happened in..the last two weeks and let everyday events fall by the wayside, or I could assume that I would someday finish the interesting posts and actually put them and in the meantime, I might as well go ahead with normal, everyday stuff. Both seem to be slightly flawed ideas, but I am levelly certain the first one is the way to disaster, and so I went with mediocre idea number 2.

When the other posts are finally up, expect to see:
-Luchadores: the coolest thing since the taco!
-Rotary International helps stop world hunger: don't take Lay's for granted!
-Tuxtapec, Oaxaca: there are people in Mexico City who wish the exchange students would turn the music down!
-Hurricanes: blink and you'll miss it!
-Mexico turns old(er): the only time I will ever wear that much pink!
-And much, much more! (not really, but I figured I was rockin' a theme)

Anyway, life has progressed, much as life is wont to do. I learn, I grow, my hair apparently changes color overnight -seriously, it looks the same to me, but I took it out of it's ponytail at school and 6 people walked up to me and asked if I'd dyed it. I think the French teacher was the funniest. He's this really nice, multi-lingual guy who can't possibly be much older than 25 or so (please don't be annoyed if I'm wrong, I can't guess human ages worth a dime). One of the languages he speaks is English, but the way he talks has this sort of Mexican/French flair, kind of snooty with the Mexican (youths) love of random swearing. He looked at me over someone's shoulder and said "Oh my god, you dyed your hair!" I said no, and he said "Seriously, it looks so much better!". I said thank you and decided to take it as a compliment.
I finally got my books today. There was kind of a screw-up (I don't think I mentioned this) when they ordered books for the classes. Not only were they a teensy bit late (midterms start on Monday), but they ordered them last year, without the knowledge that they would have 3 extra students now. The problem is, I am relatively incapable of really learning anything without the ability to read or make notes, and since I can't understand most of what the teachers say, thereby making it impossible to write down and translate, the books had been my last hope. Unfortunately, Tuesday was a long, hot, stressful day and when I got told there were no books for me, after lunch, I am ashamed to say I basically, well, ran away and hid in the garden and cried for 1/2 an hour. It was either that or start screaming at someone, which wasn't really a good option since everyone understands enough English to tell when their being sworn at. I was just so frustrated. It was actually kind of a revelation, in a way, too. I know I like books, but I never really realized how much until I've been deprived of them for a significant length of time (same is true with the U.S., weirdly enough). I spent the rest of the day sullen and a little brutal, and most of the night too. I managed to get a break the next day when we went out to take some necessities to a flooded village (see Rotary above), and by Thursday I'd talked myself down. Turns out my reaction (i.e. turning into a normal American teenager instead of my usual, violently cheerful self), must have somehow greased the wheels though, because I was called to the office with one of my English fluent classmates as a translator (even though I can understand a lot if it's being said slowly, clearly, and directly to me, the teaching staff is still terrified to talk to us fereners' without backup, thereby ensuring we can do pretty much whatever the frick we want). A very confused administrator wanted to make sure I actually wanted the books, and did I know they were in Spanish, and why? After I clarified and assured her I actually did want them, she filled out some paperwork. I got called back to the office today and voila! Books. The other students, exchange and local, think I'm nuts. Especially when they found out my grades from this year are borderline useless and won't transfer anyway. I've sort of given up trying to explain. At least I'm getting used to the elementary school students on the other floors, who have a tendency to stare at me as I pass, like they're witnessing a sighting of the rare Albino Sasquatch.
The effect of The Books on my brain was a little frightening, in retrospect. Last week, I was wondering if I would actually be able to understand a teacher, any teacher, by the time I leave next year. Now, I find myself inadvertently making lesson plans. I'll completely skip midterms, which occur for the next two weeks (I'm not stupid, I know I can't answer essay questions in Spanish on topics I either don't know, or need re-familiarize myself with. Instead, I'll study like crazy, and have a go at turning in homework when the next quarter starts. I realized all I need to do is find out there is homework or reading, than do the answers in English, than translate them into Spanish (at least for the time being. I look forward to the day I can skip that middle step). I think the teachers are going to be so happy I am actually making an effort instead of falling asleep or looking at the wall that they won't care if it's relatively incomprehensible. Who knows, maybe some of them will help me correct my grammar! It's not like I don't have the time. I never thought I would get in trouble for NOT going to parties and staying out late. Oh well, I know what I like, and I'm not changing now to fit a social standard. Never have, hope to god I never will.

Note: If you're only reading this for present-day info about me or Mexico, you might as well stop here. The rest of this is relatively unstructured, stream-of-thought, and purely speculative, with no real impact on the present day. Read only if a)you know and care about me a LOT or b)you're terminally bored.

I also had kind of a punch in the chest about an hour ago. As some of you may know, although my plan is ever-evolving, I have had a pretty basic one for well over a year now. I wanted to finish this, what is technically my Senior year of high school, and than take a gap year before I go back into Parkland to finish enough credits to transfer to a 4-year university as a Junior. Well, I had my eye on a program for a while now, the NSLI-Y

. It's run by the government and basically works to send high schoolers to countries which America frequently comes into contact with but doesn't have enough people who speak it's language. I've wanted to learn Hindi for a long time, and India was one of the yearlong options. I would have just barely fit the age limit, but I was more than qualified. I've been waiting for months for the website to update so I could apply. Well, now it did, and they've changed the age limits. I'm now a whole year too old for the academic year program, and a mere month to old for the summer program. I was a little surprised by how upset I was. I never planned to get attached to this (never get attached to something which other people decide if you can get into. I learned this with Uni. And mom's cookie stash). I also have other options. For example, it's not unheard of for someone to do two Rotary scholarships in different countries back-to-back, and Rotary has a lot more variety (I also know they're a good program). They have both India (which is pretty difficult to get into) and Brazil, my other big choice (which is very, very easy). Although there are different age restrictions on all the countries and I can't remember which ones I'm actually eligible for. I think my only big problem with this is that I would most likely be repeating Senior year. Again. Not that I mind repeating, after all, in a way I'm repeating it right now, but there's a very certain atmosphere about high schools the world over that I really don't like. It's kind of like, there's no purpose. I think it's because they're mandatory in most places. You don't really want to be there, the other students don't really want to be there, even the teachers don't want to be there. Don't get me wrong, Errasquin (my school), is very nice, full of smart, hardworking people, not one of whom has said a mean word to me yet. But I have more than once found myself staring out the window and dreaming of Parkland. And if Parkland (and especially the classes I was taking) seem more hardworking and goal-oriented, than to me at least that's pretty bad. It hasn't been so bad here this week, since midterms and grades have got everybody in a productive hustle, but I kind of dread that big sigh-of-relief moment when the quarter restarts and everybody can take a breather. It makes me feel purposeless, stagnant. It makes my head hurt. I'm fairly certain I'm the only one. Anyway, the gap year thing with NSLI-Y was only language and cultural classes, and the rest of the time spent doing some sort of volunteer work. Mind you, who knows, that could have sucked too. But the thing is what if. What if I don't get a second Rotary scholarship? What than? My parents, god bless 'em, are all for finding another option, or trying to design a year long 'something' myself, but I'm not sure. There was a small part of me who breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that age limit thing, because now it's even odds. Before, it was virtually impossible that I wasn't going somewhere next year, and the part of me that has been sitting quietly next to the part that's been enjoying itself like crazy since it got here experienced a moment of horrible dread at the thought of 2 years in 2 different countries. This part of me is apparently really looking forward to getting back to my old life and continuing on as the new and different person I will be when I get home. I know, I know, I'm young, I should do it now, but there's another factor for me here: burn out and drive. I think if I try to take on too much at once I will burn out, while on the other hand, I have gained something I haven't had in years: drive. When I get back, the for lack of a better term mental ooze that has been pulling me under into plodding monotony is all gone. I'm looking forward to trying new things, learning new things, doing new things. The U.S. doesn't seem anywhere near as boring now that I've seen it from the outside. But I also don't want to give up this opportunity, this option to have 2 whole extraordinary years instead of one. So, here's what I think: I think I will apply for another year, with (if possible) either Brazil or India as my first destination choices (I haven't decided which). Ideal followups (not that I think I won't get one of those two, but if anything I've learned to expect the unexpected here. Last time around, my first choices were Denmark, Belgium and Germany. Mexico was added at number five as an afterthought! And look how happy I am here! I'm increasingly convinced I would not have done anywhere near as well in one of those three.), not in order, would be: Thailand, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Egypt (that one's not an option, but I still want to go), Australia (ditto), Spain, Denmark (I still like Denmark), Italy, or Argentina. If I get it, splendid! I get to go somewhere else and actually get another try at this amazing experience (I now believe every kid should have a mandatory year in another country before they can enter college, as a part of growing up, sort of like that thing the Amish do which I can't remember what it's called). When I'm done, I'll go home and get to work. If I don't get it, that's okay too. I'll go home and do the same things, but a year earlier. I don't think I'm going to set up for another contingency. I am really starting to like this only 2 plans thing. It's simple, like flipping a coin. Either way, I will have clear goals, without ooze.
As for those of you doubting the good-ness of the just-coming-home idea, never fear. I've found a couple things during the 3 hour free-period computer classes every Friday. A couple options I have been looking at that I either didn't bother to try in the past, never heard of, or dis-guarded as impossible but really aren't are:
-Field schools (somehow, I almost missed just how cool this could be. Wikipedia it!)
-Volunteering at the Spurlock on campus (I always ignored this one as either boring, or to much effort, but I am looking forward to trying when I get back!)
-Summer internships at the Field museum (I always thought only Grad students could do this, but it turns out people as young as 16 are not only allowed to volunteer behind the scene -which is where I want to work- but also to apply for special internships to work in specific areas for the summer)
-Volunteering or Interning at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. (now, this one is really out there, even for a professional-class dreamer like myself, but after I read the description for a volunteer summer position in the Collections Management Department as an assistant to help re-catalog the taxidermy-d bird archives -no prerequisites require to apply- I had to admit I would really like to give it a shot!)
Anyway, that's the sort of stuff I come up with when I have nothing to read!
I'll be going to Veracruz city for the weekend, so don't expect to hear from me at least until Monday. Expect hurricane-y disaster pictures when I get back!

I'm sorry, but this is going to be another appallingly late post. We are having severe internet difficulties, and as it took 20 minutes of plugging in and unplugging the modem to get enough connection speed or whatever to make it to the blogger post page, I would like to hurry and post this before I lose it. There has been much excitement, and I will write a much bigger post about that tomorrow (internet permitting), but in the meantime I would like to assure all (or any) worried relatives that me, my town, my friends and my host family are all okay, and not really effected by all this. In fact, I was in mountainous Oaxaca for the last week, and didn't even find out the heavy rain we ha to drive through to get back home was anything more than normal rainy season weather until I got back home and heard the news. My family is a little worried about their house in Veracruz city since it's on the edge of town, but as it's currently unoccupied and has very little in the way of valuables on the bottom floor, they're okay to let it sit until the weather clears (or at least until the coastal flooding goes down). All but the mildest rains hit Coatza, and little to nothing made it as far as Mina. As far as we know, Lerdo, the town my brother lives in, was effected (but since it's mostly underwater anyway, no big whoop). In other news, Shakira, our only female dog, had her puppies! (And I just realized I forgot to mention she was pregnant). I guess they were born 2 days ago. There were 6, but 2 were stillborn. The other 4 are doing well. Expect pictures and more news sometime tomorrow, weather permitting. Thank you, and please send prayers to you're personal god for the people more heavily effected by Karl.

Sorry about this folks, but I kinda screwed the proverbial four legged mammal on this one. I did some very bad time management this week, and now I am leaving tomorrow for Tuxtapec (Rotary, students, it´s a whole big thing). Anyway, I can´t do a proper update now, and I won´t have time or internet until I get back, around, say, Friday. Expect much updatage then, and sorry for letting you guys down on this one. Have a great week, and happy bicentennial, everyone! (if you don´t get it, that´s why god made Wikipedia!)

Continued from last post. For best viewing experience, read previous post first.
I can't exactly remember where I left off, and I'm not going to go check because that would involve plugging in to the internet box, and that would involve going into the TV room. Let me quickly explain something: the TV room is long, white, and composed almost entirely of windows on one side. While it is very pretty, it does absolutely nothing for the cooling of the house. And currently, the air conditioner in that room is performing woefully beneath it's usual standards. And I just took a shower. So! I'll have to try and remember where I left off.
I'm a little pre-occupied with the future at the moment, as you can probably tell, but it's more than that. It has to do with this weird sense of time. Here I am looking back and I think 'Yeah! A whole month! Only 11 more to go!'. Obviously, somtimes this is a sad thing, but when you're really missing home, it helps to think of how soon you will be back. But at the same time, only 11 more to go. It's like my brain cannot decide if I am closer to done, or just as far from the start as makes no difference.
My whole point kind of leads back to the little worry about the End of the Honeymoon (Returns! Part 3!). I was so worried about that big fall, the roller coaster dropping at the first big hill, that I didn't really take the time to step back and evaluate my life then (when I arrived) and now (a month later). I guess I kind of accidentally remedied this when I woke up this morning with the most bizarre realization. I am getting better. Everything is getting better. I'm starting to not just survive but to really live again. Mind you, I'm not stupid. I know today was a good day. I know there will be good days and bad days. And worse days. But I also think that I hit my first rough patch, and got past it. Language is still a problem, but I no longer behave like a silent sentinel, a chair at the table that might as well be empty. I may be behaving like a barely-coherent 3 year old, yes, but at the moment I'll take anything that involves words. Food is still a problem, but now I can eat eggs and chorizo for breakfast without feeling like I'm gonna puke (some of you may know, but I have an odd problem stomaching any food at all before about 10 in the morning, which is a bit of a problem when you have to be at school at 6am and they don't feed you until 12pm).
So yeah. One month done, 11 to go.

And to answer the question tacked to the last post:
Ah. The visa. As the Bard would say "Therin lies the rub". Or whatever. I still do not have my year long student visa, and as far as I know my 30 day tourist visa had expired. BUT: after turning in a truly spectacular amount of paperwork from a bewildering set of sources, I was gifted with a single sheet of paper with a web address and several sets of numbers. When I follow the web address and type in all the numbers, I am taken to a page with all my information that behaves a bit like a Fedex package tracking site. At the moment, it says my 'problem' is 'without resolution' (in Spanish, obviously). I am to check it every morning before I go to school, to look for updates or changes. I think the problem it's talking about is the whole Ministro de Culto thing with my original visa. I guess once it's done, I will go back to the consulate and see where I am in the process, and work from there. In the meantime, my mother is not worried, I'm still allowed to come to school, and I haven't been arrested or shipped back home, so I guess we wait. Once I do finally get my visa, my avid viewers will be some of the first to know, have no fear. And Stay Tuned.

Edit:
This was all typed the night of 09 September 2010, but since our power went out (again) about 3 minutes after I finished, taking with it the lights, A/C, internet connection, and, for some reason, the flush mechanism on the toilet and the pressure on the shower (never ask me to explain Mexican plumbing to you), I decided to let it rest and post in the morning. Thank you for your patience.

This post might be more on the short side, since I´m typing it in mundo contemporaneo. Don´t look at me like that. Only half the class is paying attention anyway, and I'm at the back so I can't hear anything. Been a long, wierd day (and it's only 8:39am). I couldn't tell you why. I hit the one month mark today (expect more commentary on that in the second post I will type when I get home, thereby forcing me to write another post when I get home). I don't really know what to type about, now that I've started.
I get this feeling when I start trips (I don't know if this happens to anyone else). When I go somewhere new, I'll start the trip all excited, and then realize that in some sort of wierd, Delorean-esk way that in however much time I'll be looking back on the beginning of the trip from the end, thinking how much I had to look forward to back than, and wishing it wouldn't end. This was particularly strong when I went to Costa Rica over winter break at the beginning of the year, and it was spot on. One of my most burning desires is to return there, and I know the memories I fought so hard to create there will stay with me forever (or at least until I forget them). The reason I bring this up is a little complicated, so bear with me. I started this year exactly one month ago, and as I sat in the airplane that would take me to my new home (or at least to sit in the domestics terminal at Mexico City International Airport for about 8 hours), I thought to the future and wondered what sort of person I would be when I inevitably looked back on this day from so far in the future. How much would I remember of this day? Would I want to go back to it and start over, or would I be too excited about my future to wish for my past?
Oops, class is over.
To be continued...

For those of you following Chris's year in India (commented on in the last post), updates occurred! It was very interesting to find out that his experiences with the first week of college were glaringly similar to my time at my school. I try not to pay as much attention to the teachers as I did when I started out, simply because I don't understand what they're saying, but unlike the first week, I now know enough not to be completely flummoxed all the time. I can generally understand the general direction their teaching is going, but not enough to actually learn. For a knowledge-aholic like me, it's kind of like waking up at 6am every day to go spend 8 hours standing outside a really good chocolate store and never going in. It's a bit of a relief to know that if all the classes were in English, I would probably find a majority very boring. I look forward with baited breath to the unknowable time in the future when I can, once again, be bored with high school level Sociology.
In other news, I've come up with more evidence to confuse my previously mentioned worries about the whole 'End of the Honeymoon' thing (dear god but that sounds like a horrible movie, doesn't it?). The unhelpful papers mention that one of the things that defines the Honeymoon period is that everything seems new and exotic and different. While I am still in awe of my new second home, and I can still be easily surprised (mostly by things I see fleetingly in passing from the car, and by food, but there you are), normal things are no longer a novelty. Trying to take showers in carefully-measured bursts so as to save up enough water-pressure to get the shampoo out of my hair is no longer an adventure, it's just a mildly annoying necessity. Saying 'no' to offers of more food at the dinner table is no longer a worrying, possible rude thing, it's the only way to finish dinner in under 2 hours (and make sure whoever is doing the offering will finally sit down and eat themselves. I usually take whatever I am given to eat and wait until everyone is sitting and eating themselves before grabbing my glass and sprinting to the kitchen to get water, so no-one has a chance to follow me and help). Washing your clothes in the back yard in the specially made stone basins (built into the house for this very purpose), is...okay, it's still kind of fun, but I do tend to bring my Ipod down so I can break up the quiet monotony. When I sneeze and my nose runs, I now know it's not that I'm sick, it's just an unfortunate side effect of needing bad air conditioners to cool down the house to manageable heat levels at night. It's kind of annoying, but hey? Watcha gonna do? This is all part of life here. Some things are just different, that's how it is. But this hasn't lead me to negative comparisons like the paperwork says I should. I still want to be here. Does that make me abnormal? Or just better at adapting? Or weird? Who can say.
In the vein of differences, I would like to talk about shoes. Namely, the fact that no one, no one every takes them off. I was warned about this ahead of time by a lovely gentleman at the student conference in Grand Rapids a couple months back, whose job it was to 'culturally prepare' all us outbounds, god help him. Mostly, it was warnings about greetings (everyone hugs and kisses to say hello, whether they know you or not. One well connected, polite person entering a meeting can take a whole 10 minutes to finish helloing and sit down. I've seen this first hand); warnings about alcohol (just cause it's there and you'll probably drink it doesn't mean you should get plastered and pass out into your hosts swimming pool. Apparently that's happened before, too. This is kind of a non-issue for me, because I am both mentally, morally, and physically opposed to alcohol. Even mildly fermented things like Kombucha make me feel sick). And, warnings about shoes. He said the whole shoe thing was because of an odd Mexican belief that if you walk on the stone floors (no one has carpet here) in bare feet, the cold will come up through your feet and into your bones, and make you sick (or something like that). I haven't heard anything like that here, but I think it may be some sort of culturally reasoning to deal with a much more basic problem (that's not such a foreign idea, American's have lots of them too. Mostly pertaining to food, for some reason). The reason being, the floors aren't really as safe as they look. Leaving alone the whole 'dirt is everywhere if your house is relatively open all the time' and the 'nothing's really clean in a sterile sense if the only water you have to clean it is full of bad bacteria' issues, I have found a couple of other reasons to hold on to. 1) When you don't have shoes on, it is much MUCH easier for someone with slippery feet to, well, slip on the slippery tile (snigger) and break their heads open on the edge of the couch (or at least get some really painful bruising. Ahem.). 2) Since no-one really has vacuum cleaners, it is much easier to end up needing a tetanus shot without shoes if, say, someone were to drop a glass of the splintery sort on the way out of the kitchen (ahem, herm hm). And 3) without shoes it is much easier to accidentally step on something, like, for example, something that may or may not have been really freaking big cockroach on the way to the bathroom at 12am, and not be able to go to sleep until 2am because even though bugs don't really scare you, you're wide awake wondering where on Earth that cockroach could possibly have been living, and if there is a lizard big enough to eat it and if there isn't, where you could buy one, and if you did, what would you name him (ahem herm *cough cough cough* hm hrm). I could say more, but do I really need to?

I just finished reading Chris's lovely blog post about the start of college in India. When I first heard he was attending college, I will freely admit I was a little jealous. After all, one of the things I miss most here is attending classes at Parkland. Undoubtedly, if you time-traveled back to the end of last semester and told Past Me I would be here in the future in Mexico missing school, I would probably have either smacked you full in the mouth or broken down crying -two things I'm known to do during test taking time. After reading his post, however, I felt much better. His situation really isn't that different from mine! I've missed more than a couple days of class due to miss-communication, "no one showed up" syndrome, or most recently, minor flooding. And I too always seem to find out what happened through Facebook, or my classmates next-door neighbors nieces best friend who lives across the road from the substitute Mundo Contemporaneo maestro or whatever. I am still a little jealous that it seems like some of the locals in Chris's area speak English, but it's more of a 'good for you! I wish I had that' kind of jealousy. I'm more than pleased he's doing so well. India can undoubtably take some getting used too! I desperately want to go there some day (as some of you may know), and Chris has given me a unique perspective into life from an American point of view, for which I thank him.
Actually, we also share a similar concern as well. He wonders about everything he's reading which says that right about now is supposed to be this deadly, downward spiral that sucks you into some dark pit of homesickness which some people don't really emerge from for months (obviously, I'm being a little more dramatic, but we'll just say that's for originality's sake). I was planning to post about this soon as well. Ever little bit of paper I have says the year should go something like this:
July/August = Honeymoon Phase (the part were everything is new and exotic and shiny and you love it all like you're on vacation)
September = End of Honeymoon/Start of Adaptation (this is where it gets confusing. Everything says this is where you start to compare everything and you think your 'real home' is better and you don't like it here and yadda yadda).
And so on down the line.
Except, for me it wouldn't be late July/August since I got here in August. By my approximation, I should be hitting the end of the Honeymoon any day now, and it's freaking me out! Doesn't it sound ominous? End of the Honeymoon? Doesn't it sound like the title of one of those horrible, underfunded slasher flicks I used to have such a hard time alphabetizing at That's Rentertainment? But I don't feel like it says I should. I felt like that about 2 weeks ago, when just thinking about a Steak'n'Shake hamburger could make me collapse into quite tears. Sure, I still get frustrated when I can't understand something as simple as "How was the jamica there?" (really, really frustrated), but that's a language problem, and it will eventually fade. I still compare things to America constantly, because America is all I know, but it's not a bad sort of comparison. Honestly, I think all that equal thinking stuff from my Intro to Anthropology course saved me on that one (thank god for Mrs. Reilly!). My teacher could not STAND people comparing customs negatively, and her reasoning was very persuasive. I still miss my family and friends terribly. I miss random streets I used to drive down every day, and shops I've only ever been into once, but it's not a bad missing, it's just the sort that I hope I can conjure up again in a year when I have to go home. That's one thing I really fear. Right now, I miss all these random things from home. Would that I could save up all that missing and pull it back out when I go back, and take the Mexico-missing I will definitely have then and use it now. Would that I could live my year backwards-forward. But again, I don't feel like I'm falling down a big, dark hole (except maybe in terms of lingual knowledge. I'll tell ya, you do not appreciate the English language until you're in a place where it's useless). I didn't really realize how much I've come to like Mexico, and especially my home in Mina until I realized that I have 3 days left on my 30 day visa, and the office still hasn't agreed to extend it. The thought of being sent back home now is...horrible. I'll get to see everything and everyone I love and miss, but the idea that I could lose all this...not that I really love it, not yet, but I can feel the potential for so much more. I think I finally begin to understand all those odd people in the movies who choose to give up their lives or ambitions or whatever to follow someone they don't really love yet. It's difficult, and I can't really think more than a week in advance because 12 (now 11) whole months is just to much time for me to accurately fathom, but there's just so much to look forward too. How could I be depressed now?
On the whole, exasperating visa front, don't panic. The only reason I'm not is because A) no one else is, and I like to assume they know more about this than me, and, B)I now know for a fact that there are several dozen students from all over the world (although mostly Germany and Brasil for some reason) all up and down the length of Veracruz (and what a lot of length that is), who are also sitting despondently in their bedrooms every night, wondering why their new adopted country is so reluctant to let them stay. And as far as I know, not one of them has been issued a year-long visa yet. This was made all the more funny (and not funny ha-ha) by a frustrated Petrona telling me that they had issued her daughter Karina a Japanese student visa that technically could allow her it stay in horrendously over-crowded Japan for 3 years. The exchange-student population of Mexico breaths a sigh of longing.

Hello, New York!
Impromptu poll: is it raining where you are? Because if you're anywhere in Veracruz right now, the answer's probably 'yes'. I don't really have access to local news here; my parents get the national newspaper, and I haven't figured out where the news channel is on the TV (although I can watch Access Hollywood in 3 languages, thank you cable). But if I'm not to far off base to follow the little bit of adult conversation I understand, most of the cost is at least partially underwater right now.
Ah, there go the lights. It's been raining all morning and I've learned to expect the unexpected when water falls from the sky and the sun is more or less out. The shower in the other room is still working, bless it's little cotton socks, but I came upstairs after breakfast to find that the lights weren't coming on. It's not that the power is out, it's just that it's not getting along quite well with the florescent's in my room. So, I left the switch on and went about my business in the dark. As I expected, after about 20 minutes they worked out their issues and came on without exploding and showering me with broken glass. Live and learn. Speaking of broken glass, I think I've finally stopped breaking things. For roughly 7 days, which ended about Thursday of last week, I started dropping things. I don't know why. I stopped drinking out of glasses out of sheer self-defense. I broke 3 glasses, a teapot and a ceramic picture frame all in a 78 hour period (don't tell anyone about the picture frame, it was a gift). The last glass I dropped shattered away from me but somehow managed to get one solitary splinter embedded in the bottom of my big toe (I know, I don't get it either). Anyway, ow. I had to keep rubbing alcohol on it, since I'm terrified it would get infected. I haven't broken anything for 4 days, so I think I am, for the moment, cured. Speaking of cured, my cold is almost gone now, although it keeps turning up in the form of randomly coughing uncontrollably for several minutes at a time. Now, all the other kids are getting sick. I was sick last week, Arnaud (Belgium) was sick over the weekend and into Monday, and Sam (new arrival from the US) is sick right now. The only ones who haven't been sick yet are Anouk (Germany) and our other new arrival, Joao from Brasil (I type Brazil like that because that's the way everyone writes it here and I don't need to confuse myself language-wise anymore than I already am). I can't type Joao's name properly because I don't know the location of all the correct accents on the keyboard, but on the other hand I don't know how to pronounce his name either. He's in my class at school, which brings the grand total of exchange students in that class up to 3 (Joao, Arnaud, and me). So far, we haven't all 3 been in school at the same time for various reasons. Sam and Anouk go to a different, much smaller school, I don't know why. Joao is semi-fluent already, which is okay with me. He doesn't speak any English, only Portuguese and Spanish. It'll be months before we can talk to each other in something even verging on semi-coherent. Arnaud's English isn't that bad, and his Spanish is about where mine was a week or 2 ago, so we can talk okay. Anouk's Spanish is better than both of ours, and Sam's is better than Anouk's (I think). I can't tell how much Joao knows, because I can't really talk to him. We haven't had any Spanish courses this week, because the school is partially flooded. Unfortunately, my school is just fine (a fact my family didn't know, which is why I missed school on Tuesday). I went to immigration again on Wednesday (causing me to miss school for the third day running), but still no visa. This makes 9 times. Today, we're going for a tenth (and missing the third consecutive Friday of courses). I really need my visa soon. The 30 day one I came into the country on is almost out of time.
I feel like I've hit a kind of dead-end, learning-wise. I don't have a textbook or something to study, all I can do is sort of muddle along with my dictionary and an 'it-is-impossible-for-me-to-be-embarrassed' attitude, which I gather is pretty much what everyone else is doing. I don't really have a way to learn more grammar without a native speaker explaining it to me, and I don't exactly have and English-fluent native speaker to pull out of my pocket. I'm not used to learning this way. I'm not good at it. It doesn't feel like learning, it feels like being stuck in thick muck up to my waist. Oh well, at least I can move my arms.