Last night I tried to make a cake for Lisa's birthday.

Let's just say that it's probably for the best that I've never had aspirations of becoming a professional chef/baker/anything that involves the preparation of food for human consumption.

A Harsh Reality

Yesterday in class, I ended up talking with two of my classmates during our break (because the class is 3 hours and who can sit through that straight?). One of the girls is from Monterrey and she was telling us about how crazy it's gotten there. People are afraid to leave their houses, the narcos recently took control of some universities in the city, etc. I was really interested and kept asking questions, especially since I'm going to be doing research on narcocorridos and northern boundary issues.

The other girl, from Leon, said that although it wasn't quite as evident here in the center of Mexico, there was still quite a bit of drug trafficking in Leon and Irapuato, especially since they're both on the way to Michoacan. I mentioned that I wasn't really aware of any of this and always felt really safe.

She told me, "Well it exists. They killed my cousin, and lots of my other relatives are in jail right now for being involved with drugs."

Ouch.

3 Day Weekend

We don't have class today! Why?

Because yesterday (a Sunday) was Benito Juarez's birthday, the Mexican government has decided that today (Monday) is a holiday. I'm still trying to figure out the logic behind that (not that I'm really complaining).

You can read more about Juarez here: http://www.mexonline.com/benitojuarez.htm

So, I'm enjoying my day off for a holiday that happened yesterday...pretty sweet!

This past week I gave two English tutoring sessions to students in my facultad. One girl is pretty far advanced and we're going to work on her reading (I have Alice in Wonderland and we're starting with that)! The other guy is an extreme beginner and I have to speak more with him in Spanish than in English. This week we're going to look at vocabulary within the classroom and try to describe school experiences, both past and present.

I didn't realize until this how much I missed teaching and really enjoy coming up with things to do to help people learn. I'm excited about continuing to tutor Gaby and Julio Cesar (no, I did not laugh when he told me his name, but I'm kind of laughing now) this semester!!

In other news, I went mountain biking again for 6 hours today, and am not pathetically collapsed on the couch afterwards like last week. I think I'm getting better!

I Can No Longer Walk

Today I mountain-biked 35km. I am so sore.

I thought that I would be somewhat okay since I've been running quite a bit the past month. WRONG. I was definitely the slowest one out there (somewhat embarrassing), but I kept going the whole way, even carrying my own bike over my shoulder when the trails got too overgrown to ride.

I love the excitement of trying something new. Mountain biking is completely out of my scope of daily life, but I saw more of Guanajuato today than I knew existed. I'm constantly being reminded of how humbling it is to go out of my comfort zone. If I always did what I knew/was good at, I would have never learned how to drive stick shift (actually, I still don't know if what I do can be classified as "driving"), moved to another country to force myself to learn Spanish, or gotten on a mountain bike. What would I miss out on in life if I refused to go out and learn (read: make a fool out of myself)? Well, for one, I wouldn't be training for this half marathon in 2 months! Sometimes I feel so hardcore...haha.

And mountain biking next Sunday? I think so!

It can NOT be March already. Where did the time go?

:(