Yoga

I woke up today with a horrible headache, stiffness and pain all over my body, including my eyes (!). So I languished in bed for a while, then moved downstairs to languish on the sofa so that my parents could take pity on me more easily (I'm all about helping others).

After some aspirin, a nap and some mother-brewed Chamomile tea, I did some yoga with a DVD. The DVD was bizarre, featuring a woman called Wai Lana who demonstrated the poses while wearing an assortment of colorful jumpsuits and a flower wreath decorating each of her extremities, in various picturesque sceneries (mountains, beaches, rivers…) on a big, orange living room carpet.

Anyway, regardless of its weirdness, the yoga helped me loosen up my sore muscles and made the last bit of my headache dissipate. During the relaxation, when you're supposed to lie down with your eyes closed and enjoy the music, I peeked at the screen and was surprised to see footage of Wai Lana dancing in the snow, sledding with her friends and having snow fights.

I'm feeling much better now, enough to want some Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

Vacation

Last week, from Monday to Friday, I went with several of my friends from high school to Morelos. One of them has an uncle who built a weekend house there, though the place isn't used much. It has three bedrooms, two bathrooms and an outdoor kitchen all in a row at the back of the property, and then a lawn with a few trees and a pool.

We got there by bus (it's not a long ride– about 1.5 hours on a bus, then two half-hour rides on vans and then a short walk up a hill) and spent several hours cleaning the place and reclaiming it from the insects and arachnids who had staked out their territory in the absence of people. It had accumulated dust and dirt and did I mention the wasps?

There were a few wasp nests here and there. Some of them we knocked down, but we left the bigger ones alone. The biggest was inside a bathroom, so it happened several times that someone would go in, shut the door, and then come barreling back out in a panic shrieking that there was a wasp inside.

One night, most of us stayed up late talking, and then moved into a small tent that we had set up on the porch (on the porch because it was raining so hard). Seven of us somehow squeezed into the two-person tent to keep talking, and then six of us fell asleep inside (one guy was smart enough to go to bed at 3AM). We woke up in the morning feeling all stiff and crampy.

Another night we set up a bigger tent and slept in the yard. Sometime in the early morning someone woke up and noticed that their blanket was wet, and realized that it was raining and the tent was leaking. So we groggily went to our rooms, and stupidly left behind a bunch of sheets and comforters behind to get soaked in the tent.

Oh, and on one day, my friend's uncle– the owner of the house– swung by with some other men to paint the walls. They brought a little boy, about four years old, who we took turns playing with ALL DAY. That kid did not know the meaning of the word "tired". For about an hour we played a game that consisted of him standing at the edge of the pool and "hiding" a plastic ball inside one of four inflatable swimming tires. He would then instruct me to swim underwater from one end of the pool to the other and surface through the hole in the tires, looking for the ball. Of course the ball was always in the last tire where he made me look. On the plus side, it was an excellent workout; that kid should be a personal trainer.

Baby salamander

I promised I'd be in bed by 11:00 PM, and it's now 10:50 PM on the dot. But I wanted to write a quickie blog post for some reason. So, photo review it is!

A few weeks ago my Parasitology class went on our one-day field trip. I was falling asleep on my feet and eventually sunk into a little corner and suddenly my teacher was looking down at me with slight concern and asked if I wanted to go outside and breathe some fresh air. I was all, "Uuuurgh, uh, urgh. OH! Sorry, sorry, sorry, I, um, yeah, I'll go outside."

Anyway, we went to a somewhat big aquarium/fish farm to buy some fish. Back in the lab, we cut them open and looked for parasites (we didn't find a lot. A tiny copepod, but not much other than that). One of the things they were breeding was axolotls, which are well-loved by most people who know them. The axolotl tadpoles were kind of dumb and we could scoop them up and watch them wiggle around cutely, unlike the toad tadpoles who would turn tail and flee if you so much as thought about them.

So that picture up there is an axolotl baby in my hand.

Cuetzalan

My Natural Resources class went on a field trip to Cuetzalan, Puebla to visit the town and study the artisans, beekeepers, general population and coffee, bamboo, pepper, cinnamon growers, both independent and those belonging to a cooperative called Tosepan Titataiske ("together we will overcome" in Náhuatl). The cooperative has several branches so just about anyone can join and do different activities, or be a member of their bank.

Our group was split into teams and each team studied something different about the community or the cooperative. My team studied something to do with the living conditions of the people who belong to the cooperative**. And after talking to the people in Cuetzalan, the (very poor) towns nearby and the people at the Tosepan cooperative, we reached some sad conclusions about the cooperative.

I mean, we wanted the cooperative to be everything it said it was, but the only positive things I can safely say about it are:

• It employs organic techniques to grow coffee and some other things (but this isn't the same thing as being sustainable, keep in mind)
• It got some roads built, so some marginalized communities have easier access to the sweet fruits of civilization. Such as cement.
• The coffee growers who manage to get in have a set price for the coffee they grow throughout the year, if the cooperative buys it from them. Which isn't always the case, apparently.

Other than that, well, it's not so nice. Let's just say that the woman I spoke to on our first day there wasn't missing out on much by not joining. She wanted to join, but she couldn't save up enough money ("my husband," she explained, "he's a Catholic. No, I mean, alcoholic. He's an alcoholic."). You need 800 pesos to join the cooperative as a member of the "caja de ahorros", which is basically a bank. My phone cost a few times that much.

This is Cuetzalan. The town center is at the end of this road.

**Honestly, I'm not sure exactly what the objectives of my team's study were. One girl sort of commandeered the whole thing and had an idea in mind that none of the other members of the team really understood. We were trying to all work on it but then she would resist any change we tried to implement, until eventually we all each reached the unspoken conclusion that we would just meekly follow her bidding. We asked again during the field trip what the exact objectives were and she floundered for a few minutes and didn't get around to telling us. I wasn't keen on the "lie back and do what you're told to do" idea until I had a panic attack during a Natural Resources class and the teacher found me curled up and sobbing in a corridor near the classroom and told me (nicely) to chill because "what we're doing in the class, it's nothing! It's shit! Real life s so much more complicated than this, in every aspect" etc. My psychologist and I agreed. The bottom line is that now I grasp our project by about 65% and my sanity is back up to about 90%, which is a better proportion than 85% and 55%, respectively.

Decluttering

I got rid of a ton of clothes. A drawer full of pajamas (I don't even wear pajamas. I sleep nak- um, I wear a T-shirt and shorts), about thirty tops including a load of huge-black-metal-concert-tees and some things that never really fit right, around eight pairs of jeans, some sweaters, loads of socks and underwear, some five pairs of footwear, and I still have loads of clothes.

Where does it all come from??

I mean, I gained a few items, too, because my sisters decluttered their closets at the same time. So I got some hand-me-down jackets and sweaters, some tops, and a skirt (for funerals, because I do have this one other black skirt, but it's a flouncy miniskirt and I'm not sure that other funeral attendees would appreciate it).

And I realize that sounds counter-productive, but some of these things are clothes that I lusted after for years. My sister's "I love you very mush" sleeveless hoodie shirt, for instance, which has four little mushrooms on the front. Or this one green jacket she bought in Europe.

Oh, and the jeans I got rid of– I was a size 3 in high school, apparently. Holy crap!

Before giving it all away to our housekeeper (who has lots of daughters and grandchildren to give clothes to), we went through it all with our cousins so they could pick out whatever they might want. They all went home with a few things and we were happy knowing that this stuff is going to loving homes. I mean, most of it is in really good condition, plus it's good quality, brand name stuff.

My cousin took this shirt by mistake and was about to make off with it. I was all, nooooooo! Get away!!

Although there were a few times when certain items were hard to let go of. One of my cousins was looking for clothes to make crafts out of, rather than wear: "Hey! This skirt would make a great cushion!" My eldest sister's eyes shot wide open and her mouth formed a tiny, horrified "o". Later that night I saw her wearing the skirt in question and telling my aunt, "She wanted to sew it into a cushion. This skirt, a cushion!"

Good morning

I set my alarm for 9 AM. It's a good time to wake up during the holidays, as it's neither early nor terribly late. When you wake up at 9AM, it's already light out and you don't feel like you're getting up into a dark, lonely world. You don't lie in bed for a while wondering what to do. The day has already started and it's the right time for going downstairs to fix yourself coffee and breakfast.

"9AM," I thought last night as I set my alarm, "that's a good time to get up tomorrow. I'll get nine whole hours of sleep."

I woke up at 7:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. Typical.

What is up with that? One of my resolutions for this year is to sleep more, but how do I do that if my body won't let me? Adolescents are supposed to get nine hours of sleep, but short of taking meds, I don't know how I can do that. I'm on holidays! Why can't I sleep more?

Also, it's really bugging me that I have these bags under my eyes that won't go away. I put concealer under my eyes so that they won't freak people out. Whenever I forget or don't have time to wear makeup, people take one look at me, remark that I look tired, and ask me if I'm okay or if I pulled an all-nighter.

I've always looked tired, even when I was, like, eight years old. You just couldn't tell so much before because I wore glasses.

Ao anyway, I got up at 7:30, stretched a bit, put on some music, read some blogs, danced around a bit, drank some water, took a body test on the Wii Fit and fixed myself a coffee.

I'm too lazy to use the coffeemaker very often, so by "fix myself a coffee" I mean "heated up my leftover tea from last night, plus some extra water, and put it in a mug with some instant coffee. Also milk."

Speaking of which, my sister and I have recently switched from drinking low-fat milk to whole milk. For as long as I can remember, my family's always had low-fat milk. My cousin said it was like drinking insipid, white water and I thought she was exaggerating… until I tried some whole milk in my coffee. After years of drinking 2% milk, drinking whole milk feels like drinking cream.

When I get used to whole milk, I intend to start melting butter and stirring that into my coffee.*

Coffeeeeee.

*Just kidding. OR AM I?

Seven: a memoir

When I was in second grade, we were learning to multiply in school. So, for a while, our daily homework was to learn one of the times tables. A new one each day, working our way up from 2 to 10.

Now, I've always been lazy. In kindergarten I never did my homework unless I deemed it a fun assignment. And in second grade, that still happened if I felt I could get away with it. It was fine when we were multiplying in 2's and 3's, but it got harder to fake as the number grew bigger. I'd sit in class while everyone around me recited "Six times seven, forty-two! Six times eight, forty-eight!" and I'd sort of mouth along with them. I was probably a bit nervous about getting called on, but not enough to want to study.

Eventually, my parents found out that I was slacking off. They were not amused. A laminated poster was purchased with the times tables on it, my mom made flashcards, and the pièce de résistance was a horrible educational CD procured from some dark corner of horribleness. The CD claimed to teach kids math… with rock music! I remember hating it: the stupid-sounding character (called Mr. Rock or something to that effect*), the bad music, the feeling of condescension that emanated from it all. Mr. Rock would recite the times tables (too fast for me to glean any nuggets of wisdom) and ask his listeners– his buddies– to join in!

Since the CD wasn't bad enough in itself, my sisters mocked me for it as well. In fact, my cousins were visiting a few weeks later and they made fun of me, too, when they found the CD. I hated that CD.

Yuck.

Anyway, my parents made me sit on my bed and learn the times tables using all the study aids they'd showered upon me. So I did, sort of. That was the day my class had been sent home with the mission of learning the seven times table. So that's what I focused on: seven times four is twenty-eight. Seven times five is thirty-five. Seven times six...

Now, I didn't study the six times table, or the four times table (the fives time table is easy, as we all know, and not worth mentioning). What for? Those had been covered on previous days and I'd never be quizzed on them again! No, I studied the seven times table, learned it by heart, recited it to my folks, and thus convinced them that their deed was done.

The same dedication did not go into the eight or nine times tables on following days: I slacked off one those, too. But I'll be damned if I didn't master the seven times table. And here's a little secret: to this day, I have to stop and think for a second when I'm multiplying small numbers... unless there's a seven involved.

I'd thank my parents if it weren't for that stupid CD.**

* I looked it up; it's "Professor Relamido". As in, musical notes: re-la-mi-do

** Which you can buy on iTunes. Don't, though.