We now (almost) return to our regularly scheduled blogging...

So my blog has been pretty lame lately (as one Colorado reader pointed out to me--thanks KA!), but basically I have been working crazy hours with little free time and even less interest in writing about what I do, which is work crazy hours with little free time. (In a week I'll be back to the sort of ambulatory and verbal ramblings that I prefer, not to worry.) In the moments that I do take away from work I am trying to spend time with some of the folks here. On Friday I organized another instructor outing (this time to nearby Cholula) for dinner, strolling, and conversation. It was quite nice talking with other adults about everything from mathematical theories to prehispanic civilizations to tv classics like Saved By The Bell (a few of us could sing the entire theme song... I was strangely proud and mortified at once). On Saturday I spent the whole day writing evals--full-page narrative evaluations for each of my 16 students. Not fun. Today, however, was worth all the working ahead. I spent a few more hours on the damn things in the morning but in the afternoon I went into Puebla with another teacher, Sarah, to visit a park called Analco and meet a friend of a friend and check out the political theatre performance there. The parque was absolutely full of life... throngs of strolling, smiling, Sunday-serene people on open green spaces, crowded in market stall walkways, eating, selling, laughing, bursting with color. Sarah enjoyed a tequila-flavored nieve (like Italian ice) in a chili-lined cup. Given my recent excursion to the agave-lined town of the same name, I took only a small taste of the tequila nieve, only to find it tasted more like the sweet, syrupy indian drink "khus" than a gag-inducing alcohol. It has been years since I have thought of khus! On a side note, a TA was weaving a lanyard so of course I had to introduce her to Billy Collins' poem "The Lanyard." It is an amazing little reflection on this timeless camp craft, but also on the idea of parity. Check out the text of the poem here or better yet, listen to Collins read his own work (the only way to do it justice) here (you'll need RealPlayer...I suggest you listen to the whole clip but if you are ansty, scroll ahead to 5:20). Anyway, I tried to explain to those that would listen that the poem included an allusion to Marcel Proust's "petites madeleines" and went on and on about the power of a galleta famosa (famous cookie) to conjure a fuller memory than any mere sense. I was received with blank looks from everyone, and began for a moment to doubt my sanity. Did I invent this literary allusion? Am I not as well-read as I claim to be? Well, the truth is that I have never read any Proust, but I am familiar with this madeleine business and anyway I'm pretty certain my brother (the renassaince man) has read it and that's good enough for me. Anyway, a little internet "research" revealed that the great writer did in fact compose something about a galleta (a cake, really). Naturally, I immediately send the excerpt from "Remembrance of Things Past" to everyone who doubted me. What to make of this digression? Well, the same effect those madeleines had on Proust overcame me as I tasted the khus undertones in Sarah's tequila nieve. Suddenly I was in Naperville, watching my mom mix the thick, green syrup with milk in gold-rimmed glasses to serve on a silver tray to guests sitting in the living room. With another sip I found myself looking out onto the porch swing, where my dad is sitting and laughing at something or other, drinking the sweet liquid through a straw. Of all the things to hit me in the middle of a park in Mexico--khus. Too much!
Anyway, back the the tale at hand... Sarah and I found the site of the play after wandering the through the joys of the park. Under a large tent, a rectangle of chairs framed a central "stage" where numerous couples danced a metered but incredible dance called "danzón." Sarah declined a request to dance from an older friendly gentlemen (we are both self-diagnosed as dance-floor incompetent), and eventually the couples cleared for the play. Entitled "Mujer no se escribe con M de macho," this three-act one-woman show raised issues of women's rights and more in an engaging, entertaining, and effective manner. Gabriela, a friend of a friend (OG), was the actress and the reason we came. Unfortunately, during the second act, it began to drizzle and the crowd inched in under the tent. Then, it began to rain and chairs were moved inward. Presently, it began to pour and the stage became smaller and smaller as people sought shelter in the tent and the circle of spectators pinched in. At last, the skies gave rain and wind that made me reference Noah, and the show had to stop. The large tent began to leak and gave way to cascading floods of water in a few places. Smaller tents billowed and tumbled in the wind. Strangers became neighbors and neighbors became friends and everything became wet. Other than the fact that the torrent caused the show to stop after the second act, the experience was amazing. Everything transpired in a sort of comic, unbelievable way. I half expected Kafka to peek around the corner and grin. The good news is that after practicing the Mexican art of waiting patiently (used for almost any situation here), Sarah and I managed to meet up with Gabriela and her girlfriend, Violeta. We four passed a most wonderful afternoon together, eating cemitas (a sandwich made from a local bread), walking through town, laughing at my liguistic faux pas in Spanish, standing slack-jawed in the gold-encrusted Capilla de Rosario, sipping coffee drinks, and fruitlessly searching for Rubik's cubes. It was an amazing moment in time, and I am thrilled to have grabbed it. It made even the downsides (missing the student talent show; losing the ring I got in Córdoba, Argentina; having to stay up working on evals) seem not so bad at all. Upon our return to UDLA, I found myself locked out of my dorm--mystical forces kept both my cardkey and the master cardkey from working. But a few rounds of musical keys with those of my roommates and a fair bit of good ol' waiting around, I managed to get in (though I am now afraid to leave since my key still doesn't work). Tomorrow morning we are joining the Medical Sciences and Pharmacology class on a field trip to a pharmaceutical plant, and all I can think about it how I cannot wait for it to be Friday. I am antsy pansty to be done with this program and get back to living life, now that I had a taste of it again today.