Voy a México?!

There are times when one is overcome with thoughts and feelings in such a way that the prospect of writing it all in words is too daunting of a task to do those ideas justice. In these moments, one way to settle the mind is to distill the churnings of the mind into a disciplined format. The finite frame of the seventeen simple syllables of haiku seems a welcome constraint in such times when one might otherwise drown in the flood of thought and emotion.

Now is not one of those times. But, as I anticipate the coming of such moments, I will now practice putting my thoughts into haiku*.

La ocsuridad
El estrés de no saber.
Voy a México?!

(which I intend to mean something like... "the darkness, the stress of not knowing. I am going to Mexico?!"...)

All of this is to say that I leave for Mexico in something like 80 hours and I'm nowhere near prepared to do so. I feel I have much to do before then, but the kicker is that I have no real sense of that I have to do before then. There are concrete things like "figure out how to use my new camera" and "get a travel size bottle of Pert Plus because I like how it cleans my hair" and "deposit that old check in the bank." But what looms darker are things like "figure out where to go and what to do in Mexico" and "plan the course I am teaching." The latter is particularly unsettling because I really have no idea what to expect in this course and as a result I'm not sure how to go about preparing for it in terms of lessons, materials, and even my own mental approach. I'm going to teach a course I've never taught (Biotechnology) to a group of students unlike ones I've ever taught (coed, "gifted" 7th-10th graders) in a very different format (7 hours of class a day) at a site I've never seen (a university) in a country I'm a stranger to (Mexico) with a summer program I've never worked with (CTY) at a site that is even new for the program itself. It's a lot of "new" and "different" and "first" experiences. It will be really good for me, but like anything that is good for me, it won't be easy. I suspect things will get easier once I have a clue about what is going on, and I suspect this won't be until I'm already teaching.

As for the planning the trip part of it, I'm less concerned. I have some experience in Latin America and I am a pretty easy-going, take-it-as-it-comes traveler. I may take a bus somewhere or I may not. I may stay a day or I may stay three. I may find a hostel right away or I may have to walk around a bit asking for a room. I may have a meal at that local comedor on the corner or I may get bread and an avocado at the market. I may meet some other travelers or some locals or nobody at all. This all having been said, I have yet to read up on Mexican history and culture (though I have the books, gracias a E.G.) and determine whereabouts in Mexico I want to go. As with the course, this all will fall into place and seem far less daunting once I'm actually IN Mexico. Perhaps at that time I'll have something more interesting to report on than ocsuridad and estrés. I certainly hope so, and I'm sure you do too. Still, it is a fascinating thing to say that I have no idea where I will be or what I'll be doing a week from today. All I can say is I'll be somewhere in Mexico and I will hopefully be remembering to take my weekly malaria pill (I'm on a "take the chloroquine on Tuesdays no matter how much I don't want to" regimen so as to avoid a repeat performance of the time I got malaria in India....).

I'm off now to continue swimming in this darkness that is the unknown before departure.


*okay okay I know true haiku need not be restricted by syllable and often includes references to season and is a much more complex poetic form than I make it out to be here... still, there is utility to this elementary take on haiku!