Catching up

A fellow blogger once told me the irony of keeping a blog is that you have time to write when you have nothing to do, but you have when you have great things to blog about, you never have time to record them. Amen! It´s Tuesday and I´m leaving this Thrusday morning. A LOT has happened since the last time entered!

Academically, I have finished classes and exams. Praise God! And I am graduating this Friday. :)

In the prefecta life so much more has been going on to catch up on. Last week we celebrated Dia de los Niños (Kid´s Day). Although there is only one national holliday a year for this, the prefectos celebrate it twice a year. A the end of each semester they go to DIF (a local home for over 200 children who have been abused and abandoned) and throw a party for all the kids!

It was incredible! Because of the sensitivity of some of the cases and for privacy reasons, we weren´t able to take pictures. But the night before we got a great shot of us stuffing 5 piñatas and over 200 candy bags for the kids. More than piñatas, we brought the kids toys and had a LARGE field day filled with food and music just for them. Every semester this is something both the kids at DIF and residents/prefectos look forward to. Some residents come if they can to help out with the event while others donate toys and money to buy toys for the kids.

This year was great! Probably one of the best experiences I´ve had with the prefectos yet.

Also in this past month: we celebrated the birthdays of the month (Kareokee and Cumpleaños), gave out awards and dulces for best averages per floor in the residencias, held a talent show night, and had a HUGE Hawaiian Day cookout at the pool the Sunday after 3rd parcials.

In addtion, I began to experience more of the administrative role of the prefecto here as well. Since Semana Santa we´ve been in the process of completeing reservations for next year for each of the residents. Then, we had prefecta selections (that deserves an entry of its own for later). And now, before everyone leaves, we have to do Control de Cuartos (similar to RCFs) for each floor.

I also had my last night of duty the other week. It was sad, but well spent. One girl got sick at 4am and we had to call the Doctor. While the girl was not doing too well then, she´s fine now. And I´m especially thankful this happened at the end of the semester and not at the beggining, otherwise I´m not sure how far my spanish would have brought me.

Now it´s time to continue to prepare the hall to close up.
Tommorrow the Residencias are throwing a Desperida for me at 5. So far the prefectos have already thrown a surpise going away party and my residents took me out Salsa dancing :) But will save that for a final entry tommorrow on Desperdida :)

¡Buenas noches!

Estamos contigo

Hace 10 días. It´s been 10 days.

Two weeks ago I was assigned a project in my intercultural communication class to do a compartive presentation of funeral ceremonies in the world. I emailed some friends around the world for research help.

One friend responded that when a person dies in the Pedi culture (in NE South Africa) they mourn 3-10 days depending on who it was that died. Oddly enough, a tradgedy occured just hours after he sent me the email.

It´s been 10 days. I wonder who´s still mourning.

For the first few days I didn´t do too much mourning. I couldn´t. It was parcials week last week and school here hadn´t stopped. My emotions were so mixed. They still are.

This past Friday, the prefectos gathered everyone on campus where all the international flags onced waved in front of CIAP, but now all were gone. All flags were off their poles except for 3: the Mexican flag, the Tec de Monterrey flag, and the US. The latter 2 hung at half-mast in honor, while the Mexican flag waved high for hope.

The sign below read: En Memoria de los alumnos y profesores de Virginia Tech Fallecidos en 16 Abril de 2007. In memory of the students and proffessors of Virginia Tech who died April 16, 2007.

I dedicate this entry to Ryan, a great and loved prefecto.

¿Que Que Que? ¡Querètero!

Feburary 17-19 we took a roadtrip to Querétero, one of the most lovely historical places in the center of México about 2 hours away from D.F.

About 40 of us (10ish prefectos and 30ish residents) took a 12 hour bus ride down through the desert, mountains, and (yes) cactus of Méxcio to the Tec campus in Querétero for a Campus Conference.

We got there late night Friday night and were welcomed by a bondfire and Carne Asada to icebreak and welcome all the campuses that were arriving from Puebla, León, Monterrey, Quereterro, and some others.


Then, even though it was about 1am by this time, the prefectos there (which were literally 4 for the entire campus!) showed us around their residencias and campus. They only have 1 residence hall with 3ooish people, but nevertheless a beautiful place.

It´s 4 floors tall. Two floors are boys and two floors are girls. Just like in Monterrey, the female/male rules apply. Prefectas still have to take role at 11pm. However, if someone´s not in residencias they have to look all over campus until they find them...sometimes this can take until the wee hours of the week nights!).



Also, boys and girls are not allowed on each other´s floors, but they can cook together in the kitchen. They have 1 big kitchen that everyone can use. Probably the most adorable part are the lockers that they have in the kitchen. On one side of the kitchen are the appliances and tables. On the other side are these rows of lockers.

There´s one locker for every resident. And although there is a cafeteria on campus, most residents still cook often: even the male residents.

So after the tour, we headed to bed in the host residencias to prepare for Saturday.


The next morning we were up early for the sporting competitions. That, afterall, was one of the main reasons we came together. Each campus had fútbol championships on their campuses at the beginning of the semester. Now was a time for each of the campus winners to play each other for the champion of all of Tec in México!

The guys team from Monterrey played great, but saddly still lost. However, the girls team from Monterrey (of whom invited me to be their goalie :)) were able to play great and won!


During the fútbol championships, there were also table tenis tournaments and pool table championships going on at the same time inside the lobby of the residencias.

Monterrey, again, did pretty good. We walked away with a few winners, but everyone walked away with a smile on their face. Although Mexicans can be very competitive during sports, this somehow turned out to be a great way of integrating campuses and building friendships between different areas of Mexico.



After the championships ended that night, the Querétero campus took everyone out to do what Mexicans love to do best...eating and dancing! First they took us downtown to taste the Enchilladas of México (truely the best) then they brought us out to dance. Here´s a pic with all my roomies from the weekend: Moni, Tatis, and Coni. They are three of my co-workers and local heros of the Monterrey area.

The next morning we got up early for a tour of colonial Querétero. It reminded me a lot like it could be the Williamsburg of Mexico. There were indigenous people colorfully dressed, Arabic-Spanish architechture, and the best extensive 18th century Aqueduct...truely incredible!.



Seeing the acqueducto was almost as incredible as the entire weekend of getting to know another campus and getting to know others from our own campus. With 12 hour bus ride there and back, I can´t imagine a much better community builder.

People sleep, people eat, people talk, and people get a chance to develop a community outside the residence hall (and even campus) to build a stronger community in the hall and on the campus.

This is one idea I would love to bring back to VT.

Family and Prefecta Integración

One of the largest things that has happened in this past month is that I became a mom....just kidding! Even better, I became an aunt! On Febuary 26 my niece Madelyn (the beutiful babe to the left) was born. Kudos to my sis, Laura for all your hard work! (And kudos to the Smith family too! I heard Brye James Smith was born not too many days after.)

Family is a HUGE thing here in Mexico. From the housekeepers, to my residents, to the prefectos, and all the people in the oficina... everybody immediately wanted me to show them pictures as soon as they found out I had a niece. Gladly I´ve shown them :) And they love showing off pics of their family too! I´ve found it´s one of the best ways I´ve gotten to know my residents. They light up when they talk about their family. Me too :)

So this entry is dedicated to you, Maddy...even though you can´t read this yet. :)

So where have I been for the past month? Well, here´s a quick recap. Since last month, we celebrated Día del Amor y Amistad (aka Valentine´s Day), went to Querétero (more on that in next entry), I got a stomache virus and had to get some shots, took a resident to the hospital for the first time, Mary Kay came and gave free facials for the residents, we went to a super Yoga class with 600 people, had a movie night in the theatre of Res. 3, helped out with the city-wide Day of the Ducks charity event in El Centro, I finished part of my thesis, and the best part...Prefecta Integration!

About 3 Saturdays ago we had an prefecto integration (similar to a staff devolpment day). It was a Saturday where the boy prefectos went somewhere for the day with their director to hang out and get to know each other and the girl prefectos went somewhere else for the day to do the same with our director, Magaly (the one sitting down with the hunter green shirt). The prefectas decided to go to Santiago, a small town right outside Monterrey, just because they said it was a place I should know before I leave the country :) Here we are to the right in Santiago. There was one guy with us (he took the pic) and he was our integration leader. He told us to close our eyes and think of the last time we felt loved and cared for...the smells, the tastes, the sounds of the moment. Then, after a few minutes, he told us to open our eyes. Then he had us share with everyone what that moment was. For some reason, this exercised really moved us. I even saw one of the girls, Male (the one to my right), crying softly beneath her sunglasses. Oddly enough, the point where the girls felt most loved and cared for wasn´t a memory about a guy or past boyfriend, but nearly each one was a moment when they were younger (or older) with their family. Mine was too :)

After a few more exercises, we all had to tape a piece of paper on our backs and go around and write on eachother one quality we admire about that person or one thing we learned about them today. Of course doing this in the middle of the town park where many other people were passing by we got a lot of strange looks. Nevertheless, we didn´t mind and just laughed it off.

After a few get-to-know you games that lasted about two hours in the beautiful sunshine, we went to lunch together right there in Santiago and Res Life paid for the bill. The prefectas here are so awesome! Not only did we go to Santiago just for me, but we also went to this resturaunt called ¨Palomitas¨ just so they could share the experience of REAL mexican food with me!

As you can see, it´s a pretty high class resturaunt. It´s one of the finest around. Decorated like a real traditional northern Mexican reaturaunt and with great flavors to match. They insited I have the Mexican platter (astéc beef, rice, refried beans, tortillas, and chile relleno). It was delicious, but certainly we were all extreeeeeemly full after eating there! After eating, and then as we walked out we accidently walked into someone´s wedding reception in the courtyard of the resturaunt...oops! The bride looked lovely though :)

Finally, the day ended and we carpooled together back to campus. But right before we hopped in the cars, we found this really large apple statue by the resturaunt that we just had to take a picture at. I tried biting it, but it was simply too large :)

It was such a great time to get to know the prefectas and get to know Mexico. As if we weren´t close enough already, by the end of the day we really began to feel like family.

Well, off for dinner with the fam :) ¡Sale!

My Pet Peacock

I would like to all the aseo people (maintainence and housekeeping people) who work so hard to keep our halls, classes, offices functioning and beautiful every day with out a whole lot of recognition. Thank you.

I just came back from an afternoon of pilates, lunch with Erin, and trying to locate the books in the library I still haven´t been able to locate. To the right is a picture of Erin and I last Friday afternoon in San Pedro (a 20 minute taxi ride) after we exitted another bookshop that also did not have the books my professor has requested for our class. My professor has promised us they are available, but I´ve been searching for the past 4 weeks and still haven´t been able to find them. It makes me sad to pursue something diligently and still not find it.

Nevertheless, I look around and I am so thankful to be here. My residents are great, the prefectos I love, and I am extremely thankful for how beautiful it is here! Last night I was on duty, and when you´re on duty during the week all you have to do is check the recycling bins in the residence halls (they have 2 Plastic-aluminum-paper deposits per floor!!). And even all around campus is littered with recycling bins (no pun intended :)). Which would make sense why the campus is so beautiful. (That and all the hardworking aseo people here!).

It is soooo beautiful here! Beyond a duck pond and mountains, they even have peacocks and deer here! The other week I was interviewed for the study abroad office NextStop magazine and they took a bunch of pics of me with Pedro, my pet peacock (aka pavo real). Feel free to read the article or view more photos from the interview.

Off to call a bookstore to pursue again for the books....at least I´ll be able to pass by Pedro on my way to make the call :)

¡Nos vemos!

Diferente=Different

I would like to dedicate this entry to David Chinn, encourager of encouragers, and the rest of you in chilly Blacksburg who have been reading this blog. First of all, thank you for reading...it makes me feel loved :) Second, when Blacksburg looks like a winter wonderland, know that you have a friend you can visit whenever you want in this beatuiful 73°F place called Monterrey. And third, if you´ve ever been a language partner for someone....thank you, from the other side...you mean more than you know.

Today was about as bittersweet as the mexican candy here. The bitter part was the semi-oral exam we had in my Sem. de Relaciones Internacionales today. Each group had to send a person to the front of the class to report on their thesis progress for the semester. My group picked me. I quickly reminded them I´m the extranjero of the group and Spanish is my second language. They waived me on with the mexican hand signal of ¨no big deal, you can do it.¨ Then my professor called on our group to send a person and I HAD to go up. Usually speaking in front of people does not scare me; I actually even enjoy it. But for the first time in a long time, I felt extremely nervous. One, because I don´t speak the language very well (yet) especially on a scholastic level and, two, because of the language barrier I barely have been able to understand the dialogues between our group (let alone explain to the class) what our thesis, theme, and theoretical framework is for our semester long project.

I felt sick to the stomache as I waited in front of the class for her to question me on behalf of my group. What would I say? What would she say? Would I understand when she asks me? Will she get mad if it´s not grammatically correct? Will the others in the class laugh at me for taking such a hard course in a language I can barely call my own? WIll my group be mad at me if I don´t know the answers? Will my professor be mad? How will I pass this class? Will I pass this class? Will I graduate? Will God have favor on me? All 28 pairs of eyes in the class were on me. What would happen?

¨Sher.¨

My professor knows my name well because I´m the only white person in the class. Not that that is a good or bad thing, but people tend to remember you when you appear different from the others. Now more than ever, I wished I was Mexican just like all the others in my class.

¨Sher, explicáme. ¿Cual es la tema por tu equípo?¨

But I´m not Mexican. And my group knows that, and the class knows that, and my professor knows that. *Note: I tried telling somone once here that I was actually from Tabasco, the most southern state of Mexico, but the whole white skin, blue eyes, and bad Spanish gave me away and they just laughed.* So I began to explain to my professor and the class, in the best Spanish way I knew how, what the theme and thesis and theoretical mark of our group was.

Pause in the room.

¨Y tu tema es sobre la flujo de migración? O flujo migratorios?¨

By the tone of the question I knew to answer the second one, but I had no idea why. I held my breath to think. No sooner could I have asked God for help than one of my group members in the audience began to answer the professor´s question. Thank God!

But then she turned backed to me.

This professor is known for being one of the hardest professors at the department, as some of my residents and others who have had her have informed me. In fact, she is the head of the IR department here. Yet I can see everyday in class her ritual of putting us on the spot is only to squeeze the best out of us cuz she knows it´s in there. Nevertheless, her stare of expectancy can be intimidating.

¨Y tu marco teriotico?¨

Again, I explained in the extent of what I knew (which was literally only the three words ¨neoestructualismo, integración, y geopolítica¨). I held my breath asking God for favor.

¨Bien.¨

Phew! I felt like I had just had a lancing or karate fight where the wise professor tries to get you in every way, and in the end you just barely pass through, struggling to stand up. You know that they´re just trying to make you a better knight or karate fighter, but you also know now that you have got to do some serious practicing before the next unofficial joust. That´s the bitter part.

The sweet part is that one day because of all this I´ll be fluent in the language, hopefully able to communicate before whatever crowd (even an International Organization) what needs to be communicated.

As a Prefecto in Mexico, I´m learning an aweful lot of Spanish. Even more, I´m learning what it feels like to be ¨different¨ from your classmates, hallmates, and even roommates. Thankfully, I still have prefectos and others as friends here that still love me in spite of the differences and frequent gramatical mistakes. But it makes me think of back at Tech...is that how one of my residents in Newman ever felt/feels? Did/do they have a few people around them that would still love them in spite of their differences and/or gramatical mistakes?

Food for thought.

And speaking of food, I´m gonna finish this up so I can go get some soon...not menudo soup though, it´s only Tuesday. Shucks ;)

Nos vemos!

Abuelita, Menudo, and a Fogatada :)

It´s been two more weeks and much has happened! :)

I just got back from salsa class. They have them here every Mon, Wed, and Fridays at 7 :) I´m meeting so many new people, many good dancers, and God willing I will be a beast at salsa by the end of the semester!

As for RA stuff, we´ve had plenty of programs. It´s been pretty chilly here these past two weeks. One of the days I was talking with some of the other prefectos and said we should have a bonfire with marshmallows, hot chocolate, and old mexican stories. LOL. They laughed and then they said ok, when do you want to do it?...LOL (There is no hesitation here....no joke, two days later they had formal poster ads made and put up all over the building!). So on our halls individually we had a night of baking cookies and making Abuelita chocolaté caliente....yum! And then the following Sunday night we had a the fogatada (bonfire) together outside with marshmallows and hotdogs. Both programs were a great time to get to know my girls (especially the hot chocalate and cookie night!). All of my girls are from México, most are attending Tec, and a few actually attend the Prepa (highschool) that is funded by Tec. My roommate Georgina, actually, is only 16 and go to Prepa Tec. They´re only a handful though on my hall, most are university students.

Another huge program we had was the torneo de fútbol last weekend...a really great time to get to know my girls. Almost all the halls competed. Our hall made the semifinals, but just barely missed out on the finals due to a tie game and fault of the goalie (yours truely) during the 5 free shots. Nevertheless, we had a great time and it is something we could never forget!

In addition to programs, I´ve completed my first night of back'up weekend duty (guardia auxiliar) and all went really well. The only thing I had to do was pasa listas at 10pm through all the girls res halls. It took about 2 hours, but I met a lot of the girls and it wasn´t too bad. Guys don´t have to pasa lista here...it´s a paternal thing I guess.

Outside of being a prefecto (which you really are 24-7 here...even the cafeteria people know who you are!), I attended a meeting with the director of all the 28 campuses of Tec (who I didn´t realize who it was until after the meeting), traveled throughout El Centro dowtown Monterrey to find class books (which I still haven´t been able to find yet), attended a free pilates class (in Spanish) at the gym, had a homemade meal with a real mexicana familia from my church off campus, and ate menudo sopa for the first time (which I didn´t know until after I ate it that menudo is actually cow´s intestines!!!...apparently a delicacy here in Monterrey on Sundays). I´m not gonna lie, it wasn´t too bad. However, I think once is suffient. :)

Right now, it´s 10:20pm and I´m still waiting in the library for my Relaciones Internacionales group who were supposed to meet here at 9:30...mexican time is a slightly different from the US. ;) By next Tuesday, we have to have completed 10 of our 40 pages (in Español) about our thesis for the semester. We still haven´t picked a hypothesis yet. All we know is it has something to do with internacional migración. Fortunately we have a holliday this coming weekend (because Feb5 is La Día de Constitución) so we´ll have some time to work on it then. As for now, though, I should probably go try to find my group... :)

¡Nos vemos!