Manzana Soda

(Sorry it´s been so long since I´ve written. I´ve been waiting for pictures to
accompany my words, but they still havent come. Soo...
Tonight it is January 16, 2007 and I would like to dedicate this entry to Jay,
Gopal, Jordie, and the Smiths for one reason: manzana soda. I am in the land
flowing with manzana soda!)

This has been an eventful past week. Last Monday night, we kicked off the
semester with our Bienvenidas program for Res. 3. Every hall is required to
have one within the first 2 weeks to welcome back, or simply welcome, the
residents. Since 3 out of the 4 girls in Res. 3 are new, we decided to hold
all of ours together. The celebration was at 7:30pm and at 7:15 we were
still at Cosco buying the cake and pizza for the party. Fortunately, time is
not a big issue here. :)

The Bienvendias consited of food and refreshments (including the ever loved
manzana/apple soda), welcoming by Reynold (the head of Res Life here), personal
introductions of us (the prefectos), and a word of encouragement from the hall
tutor (each hall has an assigned professor to motivate and assit the residents
where needed academically). It was a great opportunity for us to meet our
residents and for our residents to meet eachother. Unlike VT, these opening
meetings are not mandatory (I suppose because they have the mandatory day at
Racho Tec instead).

On Tuesday, we (all 12 of us female prefectos) had our first weekly staff
meeting with Magaly (Director of Fem. Res.). I caught about 80% of what was
going on since it was all in Spanish and the things I didn´t understand I asked
Magaly and/or one of the other girls afterwards. (They´ve been so welcoming to
me here I can´t even express it well enough!) Also at this meeting, each of us
had to turn in a list of all 5 of our planed proyectos (programs) for the
semster. Between the 5 we had to cover the values of Tec: educational,
social, spiritual, physical, and something else I can´t remember but I will
have to ask. :) These reminded me of the PYLONS model of programing at VT
and I shared with some of the prefectas the Imaginarium website database :)
They loved it!

Wednesday, we began our bookselling duty. Here at Tec they don´t have the
option to sell back their books to anyone. So Res Life has started a tradtion
of setting up a stand in La Choza (one of the main resident hang out centers)
where residents can bring their books for a certain price, we sell them for
them to the other residents, and we (Res Life) gets a cut of the profit. It´s
kind of a wise way of recylying, sort of :)

By Thursday, I had completed my first night of guardía titular (primary duty).
Every night there are 4 prefectos on duty: 2 guardía titualar and 2 guardía
auxilar (backup). If you have guardía titualar you can´t leave Res area
after 5:30pm-8am, unless it´s for class (and then you have to mark with the
valitas/security guards where you are). Auxilar can leave campus, but needs to
be within reach if needed. They don´t have many rounds because at 10pm every
night, every prefecto (except those in res. 3) has to complete pasa listas
(curfew checks to see if the girls are in their rooms). Nevertheless, at 10pm
the titular and auxilar go on rounds to check the recyling bins in some of the
buildings and do rounds in res. 3. Also, on weekends, they must pasa listas to
account for all the female residents. I haven´t done a weekend yet, but i
admire those who have :)

In between all of this, I have enjoyed my first week of classes. There is much
to be said about my Intercultural Comm class (we´ll leave that for another
entry) and my Spanish class too (of which is all international students from
US, China, Japan, Germany, Poland, and Kenya). Surpassing them all is my Sem.
of International Relations in español where I am the only extrañerjo. I´m not
going to lie....i felt very akward the first class and a half, because I was
the only one not from Mexico and above all places, from the US. This is a
senior seminar, so naturally they all knew eachother from classes before and I
very much felt like the new kid. By the grace of God, the second class was a
great opportunity to make friends as we all braced ourselves for the assignment
of the semester: a 40 page analysis (in Spanish) about an IR case of our
choice. They were scared because it was 40 pages. Thankfully b/c of great
professors (shout out to Dr. S, Edd, Brandi, Dr. Clement and others!) I was not
afraid of the length. My fear, however, was the Spanish (we get marks off for
every misortographic). This is going to be a great lesson in planning and
proof-reading, no doubt. Luckily, one of the many books we have to read I´ve
already read in my last IR class :).

Along with being a prefecto and a student, I am also an immigrant for this
semster, so I have to go through the Visa process :( WHooo hooo! So far,
though it hasn´t been too bad. I took my picture Thursday and because of this
I made 2 new local friends that work at the photo office off campus :).
(They´re really nice guys and have offered their office as a home off campus
should i ever need it :)) I have 17 (?) days left on my tourist visa and so
the next step is to hire the law firm on campus to take me through the long
process.

The weekend came quickly and was a lot of fun! Friday, a bunch of the prefectos
were invited to an old prefecto´s house for a dance party. He was a prefecto
last semester and helped host the RA Rendevoux. But he decided to take the
semester off since he was taking tough classes this semester and will come back
next semester. Once a prefecto, always a prefecto....he´s still really good
friends with all of them.

Then, Saturday morning was a chillax and beatuifully warm day. The valistas
(security guards of the resident halls) made a challenge to an informal game
of fútbol with us, the prefectos, at a field near campus :) I´ve never seen
grown men play so hard! And they won!!! O well... there´s always next week
;)

After the game I headed out to Soriana, the Mexican competition of Walmart, for
a few things with Ale and Francisco, my local brother for the semester (a old
intercambio of VT, native to Monterrey, and novio to my loved friend from back
home, Amanda :)). He took us to a good local taco tienda, where we ate gringas
and drank horchata (rice milk?). Y despues we went and saw Hamlet (in Spanish)
at the packed theater on campus. It was a great work of art, but nevertheless
still a sad tradgedy story.

Sunday, a good friend, Erin, and I attended one of the local churches that ended
up lasting 5 hours...3 for the service and 2 for parking. :) She dosen´t speak
much Spanish, so I sat next to her and translated during the service. I was
surprised at how much they praised God! And I was surprised at how much i
could understand! WHat a gift!

Afterwards we visited her host family house off campus and I got to see the real
Monterrey---some really ¨rich¨, others really ¨poor¨. A great wealth disparity
exists here.

But manzana soda is available to all. And, fortunately, the students here who are the future leaders of Mexico realize that.