This weekend of the students went to stay at a beach house a couple hours away while I stayed behind and explored the city. I had such an amazing weekend. I am officially on a no-need-to-pay basis at the Museum of Anthropology, which is always a good status to hold. I found a great coffee shop that despite being on Meridas main road, is very secret garden-esque and absolutely beautiful and peaceful.

I wrote an article on Carnaval that was published in DePaul's newspaper. It was supposed to simply be on DePaul's reaction to Carnaval, but the only thing most of them talked about how was how commercialized it was. To be honest, I'm not sure if I necessarily agree. Yes, it was, but it wasn't surprising. I didn't see many people drunk at the parades, but here is the article:
http://media.www.depauliaonline.com/media/storage/paper1414/news/2010/02/22/News/Students.Rock.Carnaval-3876226.shtml

In other news, DePaul's newspaper is yet again an award-winning newspaper! I don't know if anyone remembers, but back in November the Chief Editor, Charlotte Erikson emailed me telling me DePaul had submitted my Disney Princess article in the contest for best feature story. Here's the article:

The DePaulia takes home ICPA awards

Cheryl Waity

The 2009-2010 DePaulia staff received several awards from the Illinois Collegiate Press Association (ICPA) on Feb 20 . These awards included a third place in the category of General Excellence for the work on the 2009 issues of The DePaulia.

Other top honors included a first place in in-depth reporting and news reporting for the collective coverage of Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid and a third place ranking in news reporting for the work of Charlotte Eriksen and Jason Shough on "DePaul mourns." 

The DePaulia received a total of 10 awards from the ICPA competition including several in photography and column writing.

But yeah. I think I may pull an Elaine Benes and do something about these dogs. I can't take it anymore. And this is coming from a girl that has a cat who never stops meowing. This is like nothing I have experienced before. They don't stop howling right outside of my bedroom window at all hours. The family got rid of one of them, he was the one loudly barking, but the howling chiwawas are still here. I have never experienced a dog to howl so frequently and so loudly before. To put this in perspective of how bad their howling is... I also step in their pee on a day to day basis which is absolutely no big deal in relation to their barking. Ay dios mio.

My computer class is going really well. I can't remember if I wrote earlier about how we took the kids soccer team and a couple of my computer students to Carnaval last week. It was an absolute blast. While it was raining the whole time, and in order to get seats we had to sit in the pouring, freezing rain for nearly 3 hours before the parade started, it was nonetheless worth it. I bought a trash bag and used it to form a tent for my camera and tripod and took a bunch of pictures. I'm starting to get really close with my students. They always formerly address me as Maestra (teacher), ask to use the bathroom, and raise their hands in class. Yep, its the real deal. Their computer skills have improved exponentially since the class began. In the beginning they could not double click for the life of them and it took them about 10 minutes to type a five letter word. But now their computer skills are much less n00b and far more 1337. Last week they made the most beautiful power points!

In two days we are leaving for Chiapas and will be gone for 5 days. I'm very excited!

Today my Spanish teacher asked me if I could go to a class tomorrow and teach the Mexican students about English prepositions. Apparantly English prepositions are extremely weird and complicated and even teachers here have difficulty understanding them. Class starts at 7:15 AM. I'm pretty nervous and have no idea why my teacher asked me of all people to do this. Just because I speak English doesn't mean I can understand it! And not only that, my Spanish is NOT GREAT. I'm really not sure why I was selected to do this, but yeah. Wish me luck!

I found the dog's pee corner tonight. In Mexico they don't train their dogs to go outside. Princess! You would love this place! Cat's don't use litter boxes either! But I am constantly stepping in dog urine. They just go wherever. But tonight I saw in the kitchen there is a a spot up against the wall that is completely saturated with urine. I am assuming this is where they are supposed to go. Their pee corner.

I'm taking this anthropology/community service class at Emiliana Zapata, where we do our service work. The class definitely has the potential to be great. We discuss poverty, racism, and how to effectively help a community. The class is strictly discussion based, and the professor continuously encourages heated debates.  The first day these debates were completely reasonable, after an economics major from our group argued FOR sweat shops. But even when we all agree the professor still tries to get us to argue... and then everyone ends up repeating things over and over just so they can get their participation points (this is assuming we get participation points... I have no idea where I stand or how I am graded). Last week when we discussed where racism emerges I shared my viewpoint. All I said was that humans are biologically wired to protect their own kind in order to procreate. This is why we are biologically prove to be attracted towards our own race. I didn't add that last part to my argument, but its true. I did say this however- the biological reason I would jump in front of a bus to save my brother over a random stranger isn't because I love him or know him more (love you Zack!), it's because I would want his genes to be carried down over someone who does not possess my genes. Then I explained that although race is a social construct, and technically we are all the same race, the truth of the matter is that most people don't look at homo sapiens from an evolutionary standpoint and simply see someone of a different race as the other.  While it is not correct, its the reality of the situation. And this is a possibly theory as to why people will protect or prefer someone of their own race over  another.

While this is a whole other discussion on its own, my point is that it is difficult to truthfully express my opinion in this class. Reason being, the following day, while taking a walk with someone in my class (of minority status mind you) suddenly I had the label, "racist" being thrown at me for my views expressed in the class the previous day.
          "So you would save a white person over me?"
          Sigh. "No, because I recognize the fact that we are all equal. All I am saying it is instinctual to protect a person that is viewed as your kind rather than as an outsider. I don't view other skin colors as outsiders."
         "That's still kind of racist."

I guess the whole situation is very interesting because we are all coming from very different backgrounds and have been trained to think very different due to our majors.  This kid is a psychology major, a social science that tends to take a different path than anthropology. Even my anthro classes will criticize the psych field as over generalizing and not looking at human action as a result of a social construct. Its a much deeper discussion, and I by no means am saying that Anthropology pwns (owns) Psychology, but it makes sense that given his academic upbringing, he would automatically diagnose me rather than looking at the situation of racism on a much bigger picture. It is a very interesting mix to have so many different majors in a discussion-based class. Just look at the Econ major who says "Sweat shops give people jobs."

Because we have such different backgrounds and different opinions, they often times indirectly criticize one another. One bi-racial student who is closely tied to her Indian heritage says she finds it sad when people who do not actively practice in the customs of their ancestors and therefore have no sense of identity. "When you can't identify with your background you are invisible. It's very sad." She describes being seen as invisible by society because she has to check "OTHER" when filling out a form that requires her to put her race.

When I brought up that I believe you should identify yourself with the customs of which you partake in people got pretty upset. I have Romanian blood and yes, I think garlic is pretty tasty, but I do not speak the language nor practice the customs. Does this mean I am invisible? Does this mean I do not have an identity? According to some members of the class yes, but when I tried explaining that one, I always check the race box, "prefer not to answer," and that I identify myself as an American, because I speak English, am learning Spanish, go to American schools, and love cheeseburgers, I suddenly had a kid with a white mother who was adopted from El Salvador very offended and asking me what he is.

The first thing I noticed with the class was that if I didn't want to upset the teacher, I would have to suck up to her. Expressing our concerns or obstacles when discussing how our community service is a big no-no. For an hour and a half of the class we can only say, "how good to feels, I just love helping people, I look forward to going." Okay, obviously this is true, but is this at all productive or a valuable use of class time. I also have to write 3 pages a week on "How my community service is going." AKA, not how it is going, but how I am feeling. This week I have to write a reflection on one of the readings she assigned. A reading that talked about how people without money in America are seen as valueless and mindless people. This image, according to the reading is created by the other class of people, the people with money. And then it goes on to blame the media for a couple pages. No real evidence, facts, or deep philosophical reasonings, just "this is what I feel, this is how it is." We have been warned that if we want a good grade we need to suck up to our professor as much as possible.

Anyways, sorry for the rant, I guess I'll get back to my homework, hopefully post some more later!

Mexico has been absolutely hectic over the past couple of weeks. School is in full swing and I just finished one of my Spanish courses. Each Spanish class only goes for 5 weeks but meets more often given me a total of 8 credits for my Spanish classes. This is a great way to get a bunch of credits out of the way... however, it means I have a midterm and final every other week. Awesome.

From Wed to Friday I went to Cozumel to visit with Weston. My friend Bianca accompanied me. It was a little over a 5 hour bus ride to Playa del Carmen and then we took a ferry to Cozumel. What an adventure. After a little bit of searching in Cozumel, we finally found a hostel. Of course there were closed. Who can guess what famous scene this is closely resembles? As soon as we got to the door we saw a man on the other side. We knocked and asked to let us in, but he just shook his head and continued to ignore us. This lady suddenly appeared out of nowhere coming out of a door next to the hostel. I asked her if this were it and she let us in. She was just a visitor but helped us get situated showing us where the keys and bed were. Because the manager wasn't there, we had to sleep on a bare mattress with nothing else, but hey, we had a bed.

That night we went to a bar Weston showed me called, No Name Bar. It is a bar that was made by a couple of cruise members who were sick of going to ports and having nowhere to escape the tourists. The place is strictly for crew members or locals, but hey, we went anyways. We are Mexican locals. The place was absolutely great, fantastic to meet people you can actually have a conversation with and who aren't trying to get shit faced. However, being accustomed to not needing to look at a menu to pay attention to prices (in Merida drinks are rarely over 40 pesos) we ordered one margarita each. THEY WERE 105 PESOS! This was just the begining of our wake up call to how expensive tourist places are. Everything in Cozumel was ALWAYS at least triple the cost then what it would be in Merida.

THE NEXT DAY I SAW WESTON!! MEJOR. DIA. JUNTA.

I arrived back safetly last night. It ended up being just under five hours to get back to Merida but was made up in time with the traffic from Carnaval.

Tonight Bianca is having a potluck dinner for the study abroad students and me and her's tutors. I'm making Deviled Eggs but with a Mexican twist... jalepenos and cumin and garnished with parsley and chili powder! Hopefully they turn out well. Estoy nervosa!

Afterwards there is a parade. We are all dressing up despite the fact that we are only spectators. I have the best outfit ever. Full body spandex cat suit. Don't worry your pretty little heads off... pictures will definitely be posted.

Afterwards everyone is going to the disco but I think I'm going to wander around with my tripod and snap some photographs. I am writing an article on Carnaval for DePaul's newspaper. However, because its for the schools newspaper I'm going to have to make it, "DePaul Student's Experience Carnaval" and focus it on what we did. Umm.. hopefully I'll be able to find a way to get out of going to the clubs tonight to report. Sigh. But needless to say, I'm pretty excited to run around in my spandex cat costume shoving my voice recorder in people's faces. Meow!

por favor?