Sunday, February 3, 2008

Here we go again

Another three-week-long class starts tomorrow (Colonial Latin America), and it looks like I didn't manage to get any real fiction writing done in the brief amount of time during which I had no homework. Oh well.

Clay and I went to see the movie at El Pochote tonight. El Pochote is a place/organization that shows free movies every night of the week (except Mondays) for free. The movies are from all over the world, though there is an understandly significant presence of Mexican and Spanish-language film, and there is usually a theme or a few (December was cult films; this month is surrealism), and the events seem to draw a lot of Americans and Europeans, but also locals. The movie tonight was The Skeleton of Mrs. Morales and was about a good-natured taxidermist and his hypochondriac, falsely pious shrew of a wife. It was highly entertaining, and I recommend it.

What I'm getting to, however, is that while walking to the aqueducts where the cinema is located, I felt very much like I was at home. I had this feeling when I returned from Mexico City as well, that I was returning to a familiar place where I feel pretty comfortable and know pretty well, and it's a nice feeling. I'm looking forward to enjoying this portion of my time here with perhaps a slightly different attitude than I had the past four week--still have new things to try and places to explore, but everything isn't new anymore, and hopefully that will add a bit of familiarity to everything else.

That said, I do wish there was a way I could meet some new people or make some new friends. As I've mentioned before, I do like everyone in my program, but hanging out with the exact same people every day gets a little old, and it would be nice to widen the pool. But I don't know how to go about meeting new people, and I think I would have a really hard time befriending a Oaxacan...the only local I really know at all is Viky. Maybe if I went more places by myself (but which places?)...perhaps I should hang out at the English lending library. This is probably a case of me wanting something that I am not brave enough to attempt.

The fact that we have to go directly home after classes for lunch everyday is rather frustrating. The meal is delicious, but having to go home means that after lunch is over I'm suddenly at least a 20-minute walk from anywhere I'd want to go in the center of town, and this disinclines me sometimes to go places because I either have to do all my work first and then go out later when things might be closed, or go directly after lunch when I'm not hungry and hope that I'm not too tired to do my work when I get back. Eating lunch at home every day also means that we never really have the opportunity to try the numerous eateries that are only open during lunchtime hours...but it's seldom worth skipping lunch because it's already paid for and always tasty. Ah well.

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