i can't really type much now (LITERALLY--you'll see, eventually), but a psycho story will be on its way as soon as i can. it may freak some of you out, but i'll keep you on the edge of yer seat for the time being. just wanted to give a little explanation as to why i haven't communicated w/ anybody lately. sorry--i seriously just can't write long msgs at the moment.
perhaps next week?

so life in the pv ain't all fun and sunshine (and psycho-thunderstorm rainy). living here requires a herculean amount of patience. why, you ask? well, no matter what one may think, this is still a developing country.
a top-five list of things that have required my patience (since i suspect a lack of patience wouldn't get things accomplished any quicker anyway), if you will:

1. the first day i arrived here, i stood at the luggage carousel until there were no bags left to pick up and all the other passengers had left. my luggage was lost. i camped out in my apartment that first night in the clothes i'd travelled in. bienvenidos a mexico, me!

2. during my first week of living here, i had no hot water. the gas-run hot-water heater thing was broken. repair ppl came to fix it, but after they fixed it, flames would catch onto the wiring and the whole thing would set on fire. it must've been a sight to see me pointing to the water heater, enthusiastically shouting fuego! while the repairman looked on. luckily, it was hot as hell here anyway, so i didn't really need hot water that badly.

3. we still don't have internet at home yet. i'm currently writing this from my brand new second home, the 24-hr internet cafe down the road that has wireless laptop capabilities. in order to get dsl installed at home, we have to install a new phone line (we currently have some fucked-up phone card calling system at our place), and to do that, we have to get permission from the complex owners. after we get that, it'll take a while to get the line installed. i'll be happy if i can surf the web from my bed by springtime. but i'm definitely not holding my breath.

4. laundry. ah, laundry. it's normal to have it done for you here, and they charge you per kg of clothing. the manager of our complex gave us the number of a place that will have it picked up and delivered, so we've been using this place. i have no idea why we haven't given up on them yet, since every week something goes wrong. either they don't pick up the laundry when they say they will or they don't deliver it the day we expect them to. i've run into a lot of i-have-no-underwear-left situations in the past few weeks. this past week, their delivery/drop-off timing was perfect, only i was missing a very cherished bra that i stupidly gave them to wash. i really, really hope the laundry man is a non-existent-bra-size victoria's secret fetishist, since he swears the bra was never there, and i would bet my very-tanned left arm that it was.
one of the lovely library ladies at my school offered to have a TGIL-day (the "L" being laundry) w/ me where i can use the machines at her house, and i'm seriously hoping she was serious.

5. i still don't have a bank card yet. my salary is supposed to be direct-deposited into my bank account. i still don't have a bank card yet.
nor do i have my teacher's ID, which would allow me to buy my school uniform at a discounted price at the dept. store where it's available. i don't need to have a uniform, but i hate having to decide what to wear everyday. i'm considering just bringing in the issue of the newspaper where the faces of all us new teachers are plastered on the cover. that's as good as a teacher's ID, no?

and now here's a terrible joke i heard on t.v. this morning:
what did the mexican fire chief name his two sons?
hose a and hose b
GROAN.

post-post disclaimer: my intention is not really to be snarky or racist or snide or ungrateful in this entry. truly. despite all this mildly frustrating stuff (which even i'll admit is nothing, compared to my friend, who's been waiting something like three weeks to spend a fortune for his car to be fixed after having hit a truck that had a pregnant woman fall out of it), i'm still very much enjoying my time here, as my previous posts have hopefully conveyed.
i went to see a relatively new movie in a swanky cineplex for 30 pesos ($3 US) last night! beat that!

viva mexico!

today it's mexican independence day, which means it's also the start of a loong weekend for all of us at school. celebrations began last night, and since it was also our school director's birthday, we went for a private boat cruise that left from marina vallarta and sailed by the malecon to catch the gorgeous fireworks and other festivities going on at los arcos (a little outdoor amphitheatre by the water with arches in the background). it was quite a beautiful night, especially since it didn't pour, as it usually does. they were telling us that it's rained for the past 10 years, so i guess we lucked out yesterday!
watching the rest of the school staff (and myself) get progressively more tipsy as the night wore on was quite amusing. i don't think i'll ever get used to seeing teachers partying and drinking and slurring their words, even if i am one myself.
two cuba libres, two tequila shots and a few coronas later, and i was pretty tanked.
i was so carefree when we docked at the port back in marina vallarta that i approved the decision to head to the malecon and dance at one of the notorious tourist-trap dance clubs where we'd agreed never to go b/c our high school students hang out there, and we don't want to see them when we go out. [going off on a tangent: my gr. 12's and 11's have already asked me where i go on the weekends and have offered to take me out and buy me drinks, and i've refused. i explain that i would like to have a private life, and they laugh at me and remind me that i'm living in vallarta and this place is too small to keep secrets. they may be right, but i will persevere on no matter how futile my attempts appear to be!]
a group of us new teachers hardcored it out and cabbed over to this previously-forbidden club while the rest of the staff went home. it was a fun night; nothing too scandalous happened, and to the surprise of us all, we didn't run into one single student! maybe they were all away for the long weekend?

i've been hanging out with a group of new teachers for the past month, and we've become quite good friends during this time. we go to a beach every weekend and check out cover bands and go dancing on saturday nights and watch sunsets on the malecon and just plain talk. we're all very different from each other, personality-wise and life experience-wise and whatnot. we're all in our twenties, but i'm the youngest, of course. perhaps we hang out together so much out of necessity since we don't really know very many other people here, but we always have a great time, so maybe the reason why we're together doesn't really matter (although i suspect we actually do really all like each other--otherwise, i don't think i'd have a problem becoming a hermit). i've also learned waaaay more about these guys and girls in four weeks than i have about some other ppl i've known for longer back home.

i hate to get all touchy-feely sentimental (especially on a stupid blog!), but i've realized that i'm genuinely glad that i came here. yes, it's very different from home, and i have a feeling that i may always be a metropolitan city girl at heart (even though i actually lived in a suburban hellhole that calls itself a city), but i think i really need to be having this experience right now. coming out here on my own and making it (although the "making it" part has yet to be determined, i guess) is something that is helping to define me more. my interests and knowledge of useless things defined me back home, and i guess they possibly always will, but i think i need more than that to become an actual, well-rounded person. i feel i'm almost living a real _life_ now. does that make any sense?!?? eh. enough of this.
if you're reading this blog and actually know me from back home, i'm not saying that i don't appreciate you! now come visit me, dammit!

my students are superconnected!

at school, there is something called a "selective" class every thursday during seventh period, and the teachers offer "fun" courses that the students sign up for, like "movie appreciation" or "trivia club" or "beginner's italian." it's a good way to see the students outside of the regular (math) class setting.
i'm doing an indie music 101 class (with a not-too-subtle emphasis on the canadian music scene). we started last week and did an intro on song analysis and discussed stuff like song structure and time signatures. i explained how probably 99% of all pop songs will have a 4/4 signature and played them a few examples (stars' "elevator love letter," the stills' "lola stars and stripes") and then showed them 3/4 (matt barber's "sleep in peace"). then, to shake things up, i showed them how original and interesting it was to have a 7/4 signature by playing broken social scene's "shoreline (7/4)."
these kids have some pretty fine taste in music. one guy told me he owns all the radiohead albums (a kindred spirit) and some of the others were recommending stuff to me. one girl had a mix cd w/ a tune by a band they all wanted me to hear on it, so i played the song, and it sounded exactly like my kind of thing. instrumental, moody...reminded me very much of the high school band i caught at hillside last summer called motion picture cinema. this band's called austin tv, and they're from mexico city.
i got very excited about an actual music scene existing here, but the students all reassured me that nobody would ever play puerto vallarta. guadalajara--yes, but pv--no. oh, well. i'd be willing to take the bus up there to catch a live act. these kids are gonna teach me a lot. we're going to have a mexican-canadian (and american, i guess) cultural music exchange. i've asked them to bring in songs they want to discuss, and i'm going to play stuff that i love for them as well. i can't believe i get to do this at school!
my lofty goal is to somehow convince a canuck indie band to actually come down here and play a show in pv. but for now, i'll settle for catching a hot mexican indie band that doesn't just play covers.

one of the girls in my class told me today that she'd made me a copy of austin tv's new album that hasn't even been released yet. i asked her how she'd managed to get her hands on the unreleased album, expecting her to say it leaked on the internet or something, but it turns out she knows the band and used to date the bassist and whatnot. she also told me she'd bring in a song by another mexican band that also plays in 7/4. really, these kids amaze me.

this school kicks some serious ass and i will leave you now w/ a photo that has a view of the secondary side of the campus and what it looks like in the morning when we arrive there.

miscellaneous mexican musings:

- the little geckos that crawl all over the walls here are incredibly cute

- all the bands in this town only play covers b/c they try to cater to the tourists, but my students tell me there are some good bands from mexico city that tour in guadalajara (a 5-hour bus ride from here) and i'm considering making the trek just to catch a real live show (i'm gonna miss the k-town and toronto music scenes...actually, i already do)

- we have iguanas wandering around the fields of our school campus and they have been known to fall out of trees because they nap in them and then lose their balance

- vendors on the beaches and on the malecon hate that a gringo's favourite spanish phrase is "no, gracias"

- the beer here is incredibly cheap. pacifico, sol, corona, tecate, dos equis--you can buy them all in grocery stores and when you go out drinking, they're all usually under $2 each

- tacos truly are a staple snack food. i've tried fish, shrimp, pork, chicken, beef and unidentified meat varieties so far...not sure if i'm up for the cow's head and other more "exotic" kinds yet

- many men here seem to feel it's their duty to catcall and wolf whistle to women walking past them, even if they're on their own and no one else is there to witness their acts of machismo

- i would never, ever, want to drive here. i already don't like to drive, but driving here is 3204185235 times more insane than anywhere else i've ever been

- the sunsets here are gorgeous, even if it is the middle of rainy season

- i've had quite pleasant conversations w/ some of the timeshare ppl crawling all over this town; you just have to tell them you live here, and they can't harrass you into taking a meeting

- when riding the public buses, sometimes you'll be lucky and a mariachi or two will hop on to play guitar and sing a song in exchange for some pocket change

- we recently found a bar called steve's that's owned by a former vancouverite, and they have POUTINE. this place kicks ass.

- limes! everything here has lime in it (or is spicy, or both). even the lemonade is lime(ade). a student told me that my idea of limes is like their lemons and vice versa, but i'm still confused.

- continuing the lime and spice theme--chips! i really love and really loathe some of the chip flavours here. the doritos are better than back home 'cause their nacho cheese ones are also a little spicy, but there are just way too many flavours w/ unexpected hints (or sometimes just big honking obvious nuclear explosions) of lime in them.
to simplify:
canada/u.s. flavour : mexican flavour equivalent

ketchup = ketchup w/ spice
nacho cheese = nacho cheese w/ spice
sour cream and onion = sour cream and "spices"
salt and vinegar = doesn't exist
something that looks like very spicy nacho = LIME LIME LIME

that's all fer now;
the virtues of having patience in mexico and some stories from school to come!

so i was planning on writing this long and crazy story about my weekend two weeks ago, but i'm just much too busy w/ school to do it justice. so i won't do it justice. i'm just going to point-form it. sorry.
i also waited 'til after this past weekend just to see if insane weekends are the norm here, and i'm relieved to say that they aren't. alright, here it is:

- friday: uneventful. my housemate and i go for a TGIF drinking get-together (i think my beer intake will be upped SIGNIFICANTLY this year--yiiiikes) w/ the staff and then watch t.v. for four hours straight after work

- saturday: not very eventful. kim and i explore downtown a bit more, have lunch (2-for-1 daiquiris on the isla cuale--this town is going to kill me w/ alcohol), get a little lost, and then it's confirmed that people are fascinated by my ethnicity (a man working in a travel agency literally gets up from his desk, walks across the shop and out the door after us to ask me if i'm japanese or chinese and to--yes, i am serious--reach out and touch my eye...i slowly back away...i swear this is true--a couple of days later, i'm taking the bus home from school and another random man gets up from the seat in front of me and turns around, smiles at me and says something like "bonita" and touches my chin!!! is this going to become a common occurrence?!)

- ahh, sunday: holy shite. a quartet of us (all new teachers) decide to go exploring and agree to take a little daytrip south to mismaloya, where night of the iguana and, get this--predator (the sign there proudly proclaims this)-- were shot and explore a few other towns as well
- one of the guys brought a car down, so he drives. we pass through a tunnel (we're driving through mountains) and then we're about to enter another tunnel when the pickup truck in front of us loses one of the people it's carrying in the back. seriously. this middle-aged-looking woman literally flies out of the truck and rolls onto the highway.
it sort of went in slow motion from there--
i could see the woman lying on the side of the road, unconscious (she looked really pregnant too, btw), and i could see the truck stopping suddenly in front of us, and immediately i could tell that we were going to smack into that truck. there was no way we could've breaked in time. we braced for impact, and i remember hearing the sound of the glass from the left headlight smashing.
fortunately, none of us got hurt. unfortunately, there seems to be no such thing as car insurance here (at least it's not mandatory), so my friend will have to pay for the car damage himself (the whole front of the frame is all banged up). he was afraid the radiator was busted and the car would die, so we actually fled the scene and made it back to the boys' house. i have no idea what happened to the woman. we did see ambulances heading towards her though.
we've since heard that if you're involved in a traffic accident here, they arrest everybody, whether it's your fault or not. at first i felt guilty for leaving the scene, but now i have mixed feelings.
so, yes.
that was quite a day.
and it didn't end there.
believe it or not, we eventually took the bus up north to sayulita (beach town good for surfing) for the rest of the day.

ha--and sunday was also the day we discovered that a picture of all the new teachers at the school was published on the cover of the town newspaper. our faces and names, plastered on the front page. greaaaat. this small town thing sure is gonna be interesting.

there's a lot more to say, but i'll save it for later. SO BUSY here. gotta head to a staff meeting now.
i caught a cold from the students, too. ugh. i'll survive.

for now, i'll leave you w/ my housemate's pic from the malecon (the one above is from sayulita).