¡Jesús!

I thought I would start this post with an image to get everyone interested - mannequins here are not like mannequins back in the states (in case you were wondering). This is one of the first sights I came across on my way to school. From the metro station, it is about a 10-15 minute walk to my school and this main street is filled with food stands (yum) and other posts selling assorted items like candy, chips, and school apparel. Today was actually my second real day of work. As it turns out, right now the school I'm working at is in the middle of midterms for the current quarter and that means no one wants to go to an exciting extracurricular conversation club like mine. Instead they are studying. Except for JESÚS, my savior, (blasphemy is hilarious, I know) for being the only student to come to my convo club. Below is a picture of my very appealing posters so there is no doubt that people DON'T want to come to my club:

There are no words to describe how hard it was to make these; my hate for the new Microsoft Word only grew deeper when I realized it was impossible to change the settings from Spanish to English on the computer. Ctrl S doesnt save, Ctrl A doesn't select all, etc. Life is really hard!

Jesús is a student in advanced English and I really am thankful that he attended yesterday's club otherwise I might not have been able to handle today's whopping 2 students. At first I was frustrated not to jump right in with a ton of people asking me questions about grammar that I haven't been able to answer since high school English class, if I was even capable then. However, after a lot of thought and reflection on pesero rides, I realized this was a perfect way of easing into the role of an educator or tutor for my future students. Hopefully I didn't scare these three away and I will see their faces again, and I am even more hopeful that they will bring friends next time. Tomorrow I get to deal with paperwork at the immigration offices so expect a post about that in the future.

Now for some product placement shoutouts -

These two are for Leah Moon my traveling partner in crime/fun. First and foremost, everyone should know that Arnold Palmer is not the business here in Mexico. Instead we have Arizona Half Iced Tea & Half Lemonade. Keeping it simple.

This next product was one of my shopping items at Walmart today.

Big ups to my sister Carmencita for this garlic being named after her!! And for helping me by handling all of my mail issues since I left home! The world needs to know.

This is powdered garlic, one of my staple seasonings thanks to Leah and our semester in London. You can't see the girl's face on this high quality photograph, but I think that she does resemble our hostess with the mostest from our trip to Spain, Carmen.

This is a 100% necessary flashback picture to Spain. Here I am drinking port wine with Leah and Carmen on either side of me. Carmen's wonderful friend sitting at the far right invited us on a road trip to O Porto during our stay in España.

Getting off the topic of garlic, other comfort food things I bought today include A1 steak sauce, tuna (sorry to gross you out 50% of the population), cream cheese, butter, and a tupperware container to keep my sandwiches protected. It is not as cool as the one I scored during one wonderful and very memorable Price Chopper run, but it has hot pink detailing, so it will do.

In closing, I leave you with a picture of a Sour Patch Kid that sneaked (not snuck, so there - I can speak English!) into my room two weeks ago and tried to eat Teddy.

Sometimes they're sour

Sometimes they're sweet

Just wanted to draw attention also to 1) the sweet hat in the background 2) my circa 2000 denim jacket and 3) the ill suitcase on the right side (I finally unpacked 1 of them!)

Peace, love, and té (a new daily ritual)

Your favorite Mexican jumping jujubean

PS - In non-Mexican news, THIS IS THE SONG OF THE YEAR but with lyrics written out in Spanish to keep this blog cultural HUGE SHOUTOUT TO MY FELLOW BROCCOLI LOVER, JLIPPS FOR INTRODUCING ME TO THIS GEM