Hey to all,

Sorry for the lack of entries, but as school has started there hasn't been much going on, other than getting into the swing of things for the semester. But, even though I don't have too much to say tonight, I would like to give everyone an update on how things are going.

In terms of classes, I couldn't ask for a better situation to be in. As most of the material is information which I have covered to some degree at UNC, I am able to focus on the spoken Spanish instead of trying to scribble notes as fast as I can in preparation for the tests. However, one class has captured almost all of my interest, because of both the professor and the material; Greek Philosophy. The professor is a quirky man in his upper 60's who loves to change the tone of his voice in the middle of his sentences, tells the most random stories which end up being very relevant to the topic at hand, as well as laughs hysterically at both his own jokes and simple things which, to the normal person, only bring about a slight grin. He also likes to express his opinions on finance and business majors while praising the arts and humanities, as well as their value in education. Basically what I am trying say is that he is 100% my type of guy (no offense to the business or finance majors, respectable careers). Also, the fact that we are reading the likes of Aristotle, Plato, Socrates and Heraclitus doesn't do any damage to my opinion of him or the class (oh, and one other thing, we can also turn in our tareas in English).

As far as the social life goes, I must say, once again, that I believe I am in a pretty fortunate situation. Here, the international students really are international, instead of the title being synonymous with American students. As about 30 students are from France and 40 are from the USA, the rest of the students are composed of a sampling of countries such as England, Germany, Holland, Austria, Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, Argentina, Colombia, and Canada. There is even a student a small French island off the northern coast of Madagascar.

Apart from all of these extranjeros, we had the good fortune of coming across a group of 3 Mexican students one of the first nights here, a completely random occurrence. As it turns out, we ended up making 3 pretty good Mexican friends, and a bunch of other Mexican acquaintances. Over the past couple of weekends, we have been hanging out with Ricardo, Rafael, and Daniel a lot, more so than with other gringos, and have some pretty good stories to tell from our adventures (pictures to come soon).

Speaking of adventures, we are planning to take a road trip down to Oaxaca this weekend, which I plan to share on the blog in both words and photos. It should be a great time, as we have all heard great things about the city, as well as Monte Albán, the ancient Zapotec city which is now a pretty impressive archaeological site. If you don't know much about Oaxaca wah-HAH-cah) or Monte Albán, check out the links to the Wikipedia pages which I have provided for you (if you have made it this far in reading my blog, I know you have time to do so).

I hope everyone has a great weekend, stay warm, cheer for the heels (I hear that they need it), and if you have a burning desire to do so, send me a package! I finally figured out my address today, so I have it listed at the bottom of the blog. If your not interested in sending me anything, you can get onto GoogleEarth and check out where I live (packages preferred).

Take care.

Ciao,

Address:

TO BE UPDATED

Here at la UDLA, life is a little bit different, at least for me. Of course this is pretty obvious at first glace, considering I am in Mexico, but when you compare life at UNC and life at la UDLA, you see some striking similarities. First of all, both UNC and la UDLA are fairly respected liberal arts universities, which means at least 75% of the student body is addicted to some form of coffee, there is a great diversity in hairstyles and places to put piercings, and of course, central areas of congregation which make for pretty interesting people watching places. Even though 82.5% of the student body of UNC is made up of North Carolinians and a comparable percentage of la UDLA is made of up of Mexican students, there are enough similarities to make me have to remind myself sometimes that I am here and not at UNC. However, with all these similarities, there is one huge difference for me: I am an international student.

While walking through campus during one of our first days here at la UDLA, two friends from UNC and I were having a conversation (in English) about what returning and regular students thought when they saw us. Two of us being güeros (in other parts of Latin America this word usually means whitey, but here in Puebla it is almost exclusive to blonds) and the other obviously a gringo as well, we noticed that we caught the attention of many as we tried to find our way to one of the exists. Walking past the library, we noticed another stare, this one without a sign of intended concealment from the onlooker. After we passed, the other güera in the group turned to us and made a remark which couldn’t have described the situation any better, “You know when we’re walking at UNC, and you hear some other kids speaking in some other language like Chinese or Spanish and you wonder who they are and where they are from. Well now we’re those kids.”

After the initial laughter died down, I started to think about what she said, and what I thought of when I saw the students at UNC which she was talking about. What did I think when I saw them? Where were they from? Why did they choose to come to UNC? Did they go to high school in North Carolina? What do their parents do? Maybe they are from the USA. How well do they speak English? What do they think of UNC and people like me when they see me walk by? Of course, the list could go on, but I came to the conclusion that I liked my situation of being an international student, and of being the curiosity of someone else. Not to sound conceited, as there are so many international students here at la UDLA that many regular students may not even notice the most noticeable extranjero, but judging by my and other’s experiences from UNC, I know that seeing a group of two blonds and a pale gringo speaking English evokes curiosity in a Mexican who has grown up in Puebla only seeing US Americans on TV and in the movies, and on rare occasions walking down the street.

Being an international student, I have found out how it feels to not completely understand how things function on a certain campus (although sometimes I'm not entirely sure of how things work at UNC either). I have also come to be familiar with something that has boggled my mind for a while at UNC, which is the notion of every student of a given ethnic background knowing each other. Maybe I am generalizing by making this point, but going by my experiences with students from Latino backgrounds at UNC, I am certain of this phenomenon occurring in at least one group at UNC. While all of us international students are certainly not from similar backgrounds, we all share a common experience, which is enough to allow us to make this place feel a little bit smaller, and give us the comfort to meet others outside of this group. All in all, it’s a pretty different experience for me, with a sort of different setting.

P.S. – Sorry about the length, I decided to make up for lost time. Hope everyone is well and that its not too cold back in the states.

John

Hello to everyone,

As today is a big news day around the world and there is a lot to read about (New Hampshire, Bush and Iran, etc.), I don't want anyone to forget about the big news out of Mexico. Standing in line at the la unicaja this morning for about 45 minutes, I realized that its not too hard for a chiquito to become famous down here.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7176333.stm

Hope all is well back home,

hasta pronto.

Just to let everyone know, the pictures on the left are changed out whenever I update my web album so that the newest set is shown. If you want to see the others, just click on any picture in the slide show and it will take you to my Picasa web album page, where you will be able to find previous pictures.

Hope everyone is doing well -

Hasta luego,

John

After a night out in Puebla, I realized that I have a long task ahead of me for the next four months. This task is not exclusive to me, nor to Puebla, but I am sure that I will get my fair share of being questioned and/or attacked on US foreign policy, US Politics, racism in the U.S.A., school shootings, the constitution, why we shouldn’t use the word Americans in reference to ourselves only, and everything in between. Of course, U.S. and international media doesn’t make this task any easier, as misinformation is as abundant as stray dogs here in Mexico. When discussing the Virginia Tech shooting with a friend of my host-brother, a medical school student who has a better English vocabulary than I do, I was asked if I owned a gun. With a confused tone I replied “no, why would I”?

“Wow, an American who doesn’t own a gun!” he replied in a deep voice and atypical English pronunciation for a Mexican.

After this comment, I felt the need to explain the 2^nd amendment, the ongoing gun control debate, the NRA, state’s rights and the constitution, and the fact that occurrences such as what happened at Virginia Tech aren’t as common as they are perceived to be. Of course, this isn’t an isolated incident, as earlier in the night a group consisting of myself, two Mexicans and two English girls discussed foreign policy over a couple of chequileros, a drink consisting of tequila, beer, tomato juice and chili powder (which I do not recommend to anyone). Fortunately, the Brits were there to take some of the heat which allowed me to sneak off and poor it out without any grief.

The point is that studying/being abroad automatically makes you a quasi-diplomat. No matter if you want to talk about these topics or not, they are going to be there, and you better be sharp and thick skinned or else you’re going to be frustrated. Of course, I don’t mind talking about any of these things since I study them anyway. However, it is a daunting task to inform all of those who are misinformed, and I don’t believe it’s a task that I nor anyone else studying abroad is obligated to do, but it doesn’t hurt to tell the other side of the story to those who are already listening.

P.S - You can click on the pictures in the slide show to make them bigger

All in all, the trip to Mexico and Puebla went well, besides the fact that sleep wasn't really a luxury I had. We left Fayetteville at 445 AM, and with a couple of short stops we arrived in Charlotte around 8AM. After saying goodbye to the family, I boarded the flight to Mexico City, where I arrived after 3 hours and 57 minutes of watching (luckily you didn't have to listen) Samantha Brown's Travel Trivia on the 1980's tv monitors aboard the plane.

After the plane landed, I passed through customs, an interesting task to perform as there are absolutely no directions on how to do so, and, such as my case, the informers give you the wrong sheet to fill out. Then, after stumbling my way through asking directions to the bus terminal inside of the airport, I began my wait for Phil, my friend who was supposed to meet me in the airport at 3, after his flight landed at 220. After a couple of conversations in which I continued my stumbling, I realized that it was 330 and time to find Phil. I decided to wait in front of the customs terminal which he would be exiting, and after reading arribado on the screen, I figured it wouldn't be long until I saw him walk out, easily recognized by the bicycle he was supposed to be carrying.

As I stood there waiting, beginning to think that the weight of my bags would give me lifelong backproblems, I looked at my phone and saw it was 445. I debated whether or not to leave Phil and head on to Puebla before it got too late and dark, as I knew that he had the hotel information and could find his way without me. I reached my decision around 5 and went to the bus terminal to buy a ticket for the next bust to Puebla. After realizing from the woman at the ticket counter that poco inglés really means poco, I hopped on the bus at 510, talked with a girl from Australia (who had just as long as a day as me due to the tranquilidade at the Brazilian embassy), and fell asleep until we reached the 4 Ponientes bus station.

After much smoother conversation with the front desk workers in the beautiful Holiday Inn in the Centro Historico (it used to be a colonial mansion) and dinner in a department store/restaurant called VIPS (pronounced veeps, not V.I.P's), I recieved an e-mail from Phil saying that he had the flight never took off from Nashville due to engine probelms, and didn't make it to Mexico. It was a good decision to leave D.F. after all, and after a long day of traveling, I watched a little bit of the Fiesta Bowl in spanish (a little ironic?) feeling like I had accomplished something, and fell asleep.