And She Spoke….

I’m not traditionally political, but something about this [2008] election has really pulled me in and made me realize that regardless of who you plan on voting for, voting is indeed very important. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve exercised my right to vote since the tender age of 18, but never had I paid so much attention to the “issues” as I have recently. I guess I didn’t believe it really mattered. To me you were either Republican or Democratic, but it’s so much more than just having an affiliation with a party. It’s about what change you want for the country.

 

 Below is Michelle Obama’s DNC speech held last night.

 

Now, I almost went to sleep last night and completely wrote off the entire hubbub of a convention. I assumed it would bore me to tears, and I’d make better use of my time watching the backs of my eye lids. Also, already being an Obama supporter, I didn’t see the point in watching it to become (further) persuaded. But this speech was well worth my lack of sleep (and anyone who knows me knows I don’t compromise sleep for anyone).  Even after a long hard day of work and school, it was worth it to sit on the edge of my bed with ruffled hair and backs under my eyes, amazingly inspired by someone who just may be our next first lady. She spoke with such ease and passion. She seemed so calm, just like she was speaking to you and me. At times I forgot she was legitimately making a speech at the Democratic National Convention. I was just in awe by her and her entire family.

 

Even if you aren’t an Obama supporter, after listening to Michelle Obama, you have to admit that she has a way with words that just touches your heart. Maybe I’ll tune in to the rest of the convention now. Who knows, maybe there will be more moving speeches like the one above.

 

I sense real change is coming…

Clean Freak!

 

It dawned on me tonight that I have a bit of an obsession, well one of many I suppose.

Here I am around 1am [slightly inebriated] after a mildly successful party that my roommates put together and I’m up to my elbows in suds and pine sol, even though my roommates (who were too drunk to stand up straight) claimed they’d clean up their cluster of beer cans, dried puke, trash and other assortment of items left behind by our guests.

 

And I don’t mind cleaning up—I SHOULD mind, since of course, it was not my party [even though I knew all of those people], my beer [even though I drank half of one] or my puke [yep, I’m totally innocent there], but you know, I didn’t want to wait until 5pm TOMORROW for them to finally roll out of bed in their hung-over funks and decide to “do something about their mess”. By then, I’ll have lost my mind and well, we’d have more guests of the furry kind running around here.

 

So what is my obsession? It’s pretty clear to even Stevie Wonder that I am a clean freak!

 

I uphold a certain level of cleanlessness that borderlines OCD, but on the lighter side, my immune system is strong and I hardly get ever sick. I get legitimately sick (outside of allergies) about every two years for about three days (and I attribute that to cold weather and extreme exhaustion). Everything from my hair, my face, limbs, room, car, desk, office, you name it, I’ll probably clean it frequently just to feel some sense of sanity in my hectic life.

 

I also hate to feel dirty. I have to shower daily [sometimes twice depending upon what the day entails, Mexico almost saw a three shower day!]. I know people who may get around to showering once or twice a week…three times if it’s a special week. I’m sorry… it is too hot in the south to neglect too many showers, particularly in the summer months. I even have this girly obsession with smelling nice (I get that from my father, who always has to smell like he just put on cologne). I don’t often admit to all of these feminine qualities (because I’d much rather be watching football than The Hills, but these are things I cannot hide).

 

I suppose this all also stems from my upbringing. Why, I come from a clean freak. My own mother is just about as germ phobic as they come. She’s that woman you’ll see in public places touching things with a tissue over her hand or spraying down hotel beds with Lysol, or even obsessively washing her hands so much that they become chapped.

Not to say that my mother is crazy, why in fact she is highly intelligent, because she too never gets sick. Perhaps there is a correlation to this being clean situation. Anyway, as I grew up I guess I started to mimic her habits and here I am today, yet another hand-washing fanatic. It’s gotten so bad that my mother and I will make special Saturday trips to the mall just to visit our 2^nd favorite store (Bath ‘n Body Works), to load up on hand sanitizer. You see, this is a great wonder. This magic in a bottle can be used for times when water and soap are just not available [like when we were in the jungles of Mexico—miles away from plumbing and electricity. Yep, that was that almost three shower day].

 

It wasn’t until we were in Mexico two weeks ago did we find out some disturbing news about our favorite friendly clean product. Apparently obsessive use of antibacterial hand soap traps germs in your hands and removes vital “Good” bacteria from your skin [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/21/health/21cons.html]…this all coming from a guy speaking in broken English. Not that I don’t find his point valid, it’s just hard to break a “bad” habit. Besides if I believed everything that I saw on the internet or television, I’d probably be a paranoid freak who did nothing more than hide under my bed. The world’s a scary place, but not everyone has creditability these days. I’m still not sure I fully believe that entire story, perhaps obsessive use can up your chances of damaging your skin, but I doubt minor use will do you any harm, at least not as much as not washing your hands at all.

 

 

In fact I think it would do you some good. I’ll be damned if I’m going to go around places now without washing my hands or using antibacterial hand soap. Do you realize how dirty public places are? Do you realize how many people do not wash their hands after they take a crap, sneeze or even vomit and then touch door handles, car door handles, windows, walls, sinks, refrigerators, stair rails etc.? It completely grosses me out that someone could pass up something so vital, and yet these are probably the same people that are getting themselves sick with their own germs (and in some extreme cases those of us who do wash our hands) I won’t get into the techs of just how they get themselves sick—but let’s just say it’s a continuous full circle. It makes me cringe! It’s enough to drive any sane person crazy just to think about all of the germs you spread simply by not washing your hands.

 

So to my two roommates [who are guys] that were so confused by my random burst of energy to clean up our apartment, please just let me be. Just let me get it out of my system so I can sleep soundly. And while you’re out at, please wash your hands.

 

Thanks.

 

There’s A Time & A Place

There’s a time & a place…

 

I couldn’t have made this up if I had dreamt this. The one person in this world that caused me agonizing headaches day in and day out is finally out of my hair (hopefully for good).

 

For the first time in a while, I can say that I can get up in the morning and ensure my stress level will be contained.

 

So you ask who has been giving me all of these headaches? An overbearing boyfriend? My roommate(s)? Drunken uncle? Uppity professor? Why no, in fact the one person who caused me the majority of my stress was my co-worker…or well, my ex co-worker.

 

As of 5pm yesterday evening, she submitted her letter of resignation (after cussing out another employee in a meeting). And today, it was decided that her resignation will come into effect immediately (as to ensure that she does not deface company property), because under the circumstances, her departure arose from a not so positive situation. She was (for lack of a better phrase) a total arrogant bitch…and do understand it takes a lot for me to label anyone with those words (especially someone older than me).

 

Bottom line, I’ve learned some valuable lessons since having my first “professional job” and I’m going to share them with you, so that you don’t end up like my unfortunate blunder of an ex-coworker. Let’s call her aggressive Amy just for shits and giggles.

 

1.        Keep your personal opinions regarding your job, your fellow employees/people and companies that work closely with your job to yourself.

2.        If you don’t have anything nice to say, well…you know the rest. J

3.        No one likes a hypocrite.

4.        No one likes a know-it-all, particularly someone with no accreditation

5.        Choose your words very carefully

6.        If you’re going to be two-faced, at least make both of them beautiful.

7.        Respect those in authority positions—particularly those people that either influence your existing employment and those that have the authority to fire you.

 

I knew yesterday afternoon when she kept popping off at the mouth that she was done for. I knew from there, she was about to go down in flames, but it was her own damn fault. She was ultimately the unfortunate demise of her demeanor. At times she made me so angry and upset that she made me physically want to spit!! She caused me numerous headaches, and various bad moods that sometimes lasted upwards of an entire week. She was nasty, mean, malicious, selfish, disrespectful, rude and down right contradictory.

 

I will say this, through-out her evil rein, she has taught me one thing, and that’s how to better control my emotions (and just how NOT to treat people) when placed around a, “socially unemployable” (as my co-workers called her) person. I feel horrible for her, because I wouldn’t wish the loss of a job on anyone (because there were going to fire her if she didn’t resign), but what’s done is done and it’s time to move on and pick up the shattered pieces.

 

Hopefully she’ll learn something from all of this as well. Like, how to treat people with more respect and when and when not to voice her opinion.

 

It’s funny…my very first day here she told me some story of how she was fired from her first job for disrespecting her boss over and over. I thought that maybe her being a 16-year-old had something to do with it, but I see now it’s just her nature and in 40-something years, she hasn’t learned a thing.

 

Stupidity is a disease, I swear.

 

 

Random Facts

 

I pulled this from a fellow blog post I read a few days ago and figured I’d snatch it. It held my interest enough during my lunch breakthe other day. At least I learned a few things.

 

 

A polar bear’s skin is black. Its fur is not white, but actually clear.         

Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand.

Shakespeare invented the words “assassination” and “bump.”     

If you keep a goldfish in the dark room, it will eventually turn white.

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.                                         

The names of the continents all end with the same letter with which they start.

Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks or it will digest itself.

The dot over the letter “i” is called a tittle.

A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.

A duck’s quack doesn’t echo. No one knows why.

On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily!

Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn’t wear pants.

There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, purple and silver.

The name Wendy was made up for the book “Peter Pan”. There was never a recorded Wendy before

The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin in World War 2 killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death.

Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to s-l-o-w the film down so you could see his moves. That’s the opposite of the norm.

The phrase “rule of thumb” is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn’t beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

By raising your legs slowly and laying on your back, you cannot sink into quicksand.

Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.

Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.

Sherlock Holmes NEVER said “Elementary, my dear Watson“.

The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.

Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a spacesuit damages them.

Bats always turn left when exiting a cave!!

The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.

Coca-Cola was originally green.

Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.

Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.

The state with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska ßthank you mythbusters =]

 

 

 

The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%

The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%

The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400

 

 

The average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000

Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

The world’s youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910. ßnot true! There was a 5 year old who had a baby

The youngest pope was 11 years old.

The first novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.

Those San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in  the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn’t added until 5 years later. 

“I am.” is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

Hershey’s Kisses are called that because the machine that make them looks like it’s kissing the conveyor belt.

No NFL team which plays its home games in a domed stadium has ever won a Super bowl.

The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League all-stars Game.

In Shakespeare’s time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed Firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase “goodnight, sleep tight”.

It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride’s father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month or what we know today as the honeymoon.

 

In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It’s where we get the phrase “mind your P’s and Q’s”

Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. “Wet your whistle” is the phrase inspired
by this practice.

In ancient England a person could not have sex unless you had consent of the King (unless you were in the Royal Family). When anyone wanted to have a baby, they got consent of the King, the King gave them a placard that
they hung on their door while they were having sex. The placard had F.U.C.K. (Fornication Under Consent of the King) on it.

In Scotland, a new game was invented. It was entitled Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden…. and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.

Q. What occurs more often in December than any other month?
A. Conception. 

Q. What separates “60 Minutes,” on CBS from every other TV show?
A. No theme song

Q. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what?
A. Their birthplace.

Q. Most boat owners name their boats. What is the most popular boat name requested?
A. Obsession

Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter “A”?
A. One thousand

Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laserprinters all have in common?
A. All invented by women.

Q. What is the only food that doesn’t spoil?
A. Honey

Q. There are more collect calls on this day than any other day of the year?
A. Father’s Day

Q. What trivia fact about Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny) is the Most ironic?
A. He was allergic to carrots.

Q. What is an activity performed by 40% of all people at a party?
A. Snoop in your medicine cabinet.

Dragon boat racing is the 8th most popular sport in the world!

998 million people play Volleyball

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough energy to heat a cup of coffee.

Banging your head off a wall uses 150 calories an hour!

There are more plastic lawn flamingos in the US than real ones.

Chickens can’t swallow while they are upside down.

There are more chickens in the world than people.

A typist fingers travel over 12 and a half miles in an average day.

2,500 left handers die each year using products designed for right handers.

The Roman Catholic Church did not acknowledge that the earth revolves around the sun until the mid 1990’s.

The average life span of an umbrella is under two years.

The world’s most common non-contagious disease is tooth-decay

The only words in the English language to contain two “U’s” back to back are: vacuum, residuum, and continuum.

The only word in the English language to contain three back to back double letter combinations is; Bookkeeper.

The first non-human to win an Oscar was Mickey Mouse.

Pi has been calculated to over 2,260,321,363 digits.

A can of SPAM™ is opened every 4 seconds.

The McDonald’s™ at Toronto’s ‘SkyDome’ is the only McDonald’s™ location that sells hot dogs.

An ostrich egg would take four hours to hard boil.

The left leg of a chicken is more tender than the right one.

A novel with 50,000 words, none of which contained the letter ‘E’ was written by Ernest Wright.

You consume one tenth calories when you lick a stamp.

A donkey will sink in quick sand, while a mule will not.

Every year more people are killed by donkeys, than in aircraft crashes.

The average speed of Heinz™ ketchup leaving the bottle is 25 miles per year.

In an average day, a four year old child will ask 437 questions. 

4,000 people are injured by tea pots every year.

Little more than half of the people living in the U.S. would rather fold, than wad their toilet paper.

The short phrases of organ music played at a baseball game is called a tucket.

Dungarees is another word for Denim

If a word has two consecutive vowels, and both are pronounced, a diaeresis [dy-AIR-ih-sis] is used. Diaeresis are two dots over a vowel. Example: ä or ö. For instance; the word noel. Noel is actually spelled Noël. This is used in English, though it is not commonly written.

Gibraltar is the only place in Europe were you can find wild monkeys.

Every year, the moon moves 1/2 an inch further from the earth.

In 1977, George Willig was fined $1.10 for climbing the World Trade Center building.

There are only 18 countries richer than Bill Gates

There have been fewer people below 2km in sea than have been on the moon

In 50 million years, it is likely that Mars will have a ring around it.

A deltiologist is someone who collects postcards

One million $1 bills weighs 1 ton

People descended from the Scottish clan of Kerr are more likely to be left handed than any other ancestral group.

The shortest war ever recorded lasted only 38 minutes. (Britain vs. Zanzibar in 1896)

Despite a population of over a billion, China has only about 200 family names. 

If you told someone that they were one in a million, you’d be saying there were 1,800 of them in China

In 1892, Italy raised the minimum age for marriage for girls to 12

In downtown Lima, Peru, there is a large brass statue dedicated to Winnie-the-Pooh.

In space you cannot cry because there is no gravity to make the tears flow

In the Scottish Hebrides, an island is defined as being an island only if it is big enough to sustain 1 sheep

New York City has 570 miles of shoreline

Olympus Mons is the largest volcano in our solar system

Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of the United States.

The Boston University Bridge is the only place in the world where a boat can sail under a train driving under a car driving under an airplane.

The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies

The most remote island in the world is Tristan da Cunha, which is above the subantartic zone

The number of births in India each year is greater than the entire population of Australia.

The smallest ‘country’ in the world to have its own top-level domain name is Norfolk Island, off the coast of Australia.

The surface speed record on the moon is 10.56 miles per hour. It was set in a lunar rover.

There is a city called Rome in every continent.

Two objects have struck the earth with enough force to destroy a whole city. Each object, one in 1908 and again in 1947, struck regions of Siberia. Not one human being was hurt either time.

Up to three thousand species of trees have been cataloged in square mile of the Amazon jungle.

We are in the middle of an ice age. Ice ages include both cold and warm periods; at the moment we are experiencing a relatively warm span of time known as an interglacial period. Geologists believe that the warmest part of this period occurred from 1890 through 1945 and that since 1945 things have slowly begun freezing up again.

A jogger’s heel strikes the ground 1,500 times per mile.

A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years.

A red-haired man is more likely to go bald than anyone else

 

 

 

 

The Conventions of Blogging Part Duex.

I’ll admit my feathers were a little ruffled when I received a string of reasons of why I should follow ‘the conventions of blogging’….I guess I felt personally attacked or sought out for no reason. After speaking with a friend of mine [broken over several email, text and phone conversations] I am getting on a grasp on what he was trying to communicate to me…well, I suppose. If I missed the point again, oh well, I tried.

 

Anyway, after careful consideration & intense boredom over a 15 hour day of flying, I decided to take a friend’s advice and read up of the principals of blogging. I typically do not dive into academic reading [unless it is directly related to school since it directly concerns my major], but I needed a mental challenge. Plus being on planes for the better part of the day required some serious entertainment outside of watching the clouds roll by.

 

I believe the first article my friend gave me was entitled:

Blogging as a Social Action; A Genre Analysis of the Weblog [http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/blogging_as_social_action.html]. Although this academic article was very informative in discussing the origins of the blog, its characteristics, and a detailed analysis of the genre, it didn’t particularly tell me anything that I wasn’t already personally aware of. It was very informative though, I give it that. Yes, I agree with the article in saying that even as unconventional as blogs are, they still have conventions—only as far as things like blogs typically discuss certain topics or tell a story [through words or pictures], typically have one more authors, can be found on the internet and may have a date…all of those academic bulleted points…I’m sure if time permitted, I was in school and generally cared to write a thesis on this, I’d go on, but I’ll save anyone the boredom.

 

On the flip side though, everyone’s blogs are different. They are a personal form of expression and that is all I’ve been trying to drill into anyone’s heads since day one. You cannot tell someone that their blog has to be in chronological order [although it would be more user friendly in some environments], or has to have a certain amount of posts per page, or even follow a specific theme or color scheme. It needs to be up to the writer and what they feel comfortable with. They are personal forms of expression that open the reader’s eyes to just who the writer is as a person. Blogs are a place for the writer to openly express themselves freely.

 

I know from personal experience that I communicate better through my writing than I can through words. It’s just a simple fact. I feel more comfortable discussing the ins and outs of my life on a blog as opposed to stumbling through an awkward conversation with friends over the specific details of my life. I’m more likely to fully explain in that way than in person. I don’t particularly care to have a world-wide fan base either, in fact I  prefer to have a few close few who generally care about my well-being outside of an internet site to read my posts here and there.

 

My friend also gave me a book concerning how to write a successful blog. I read this one on my flight back from Mexico. I’ll admit I didn’t read it cover to cover, but I did read specific chapters that I found personally appealing [how to make a blog user-friendly, how to market your blog, how to make money, write with the assumption that even your grandmother may read your blog, etc.] I found the book to be useful in brushing up this hobby of mine. It helped with opening my eyes to little house-keeping things without being extremely demanding or compromising of my freedom of expression.

 

So there, I took time out of my life to sit down and humble myself. While yes, doing this did open my eyes to some new ideas, I think I’ll continue to just write as I’ve been writing….with no particular purpose or goal other than clearing my mind.

 

With that being said, onward to blogging!

 

And to my friend: The offer still stands to try out a little blogging, I’m sure you’ll fall in love with it

PS: I realize certain parts of the html transferred horribly from ms word—but I don’t care to dive in a change it.

The Foreigner

 

I was a foreigner.

For 9 whole days I was a foreigner. I didn’t speak the language, understand the routine or even get the culture, but I managed, adjusted and came out stronger in the end.

Last week this time I found myself in the beautiful Puerta Vallarta, Mexico, a tiny little metropolitan beach city on the west coast that sits right off the Pacific Ocean in southwestern Mexico.

Going down there, I had no real expectations (aside from maybe having a little tequila). Truth be told I was over worked, over stressed and generally killing myself with life’s petty little blunders [and I’ve barely dived into my 20’s]. I just needed an escape from reality, and some sort of peaceful hiding where no one could ever find me and I could reprogram my brain to better handle life. And Puerto Vallarta was the perfect place.

 

Villa del Palmar

Little is openly known about the city, unfortunately most Americans/Canadians know little about Mexico (outside of Cancun and maybe Mexico City). When my mother told me that’s where she and my father were taking me [as a graduation gift] my first reaction was, “What’s in Mexico?” I couldn’t for the life of me figure out just what was so damn special about Mexico and assumed the entire vacation would be a bust, but I was wrong.

Mexico [in general] is a beautiful country rich with flourishing greenery, deep green and blue water, warm tropical climate, white rocky-sandy shores, breath-taking mountains and thriving exotic wild life [oh and it’s humid as hell]. Unfortunately, even in all of its beauty and tourist attractions, Mexico is still a country full of poverty. Most of the people only get paid $5 a day [or so we were told]. Which is something to the tune of $165…which is practically nothing in American economy, but they survive. As a tourist you forget that as you sit at your all inclusive resort, sipping on your free pina coladas [and they were oh so tasty], and having your own personal mariachi band play la musical de amor, all while you bask in all of your uppity foreign glory…so ok the last part about the band and music were totally made up, but you get the picture.

 

on our tour of the jungle

Let’s get to the bottom line here. Inside the resort my parents and I stayed at was top notch [Villa del Palmar http://www.villadelpalmarvallarta.com/]. Everyone generally spoke English and everything we could ever need was available at the push of a button or a stroll down the stairs. Step 5 to 10 minutes outside the resort and the world as we knew it completely changed. It was actually somewhat disturbing…we saw people digging out of trash-cans, dogs and cats looking like they were on their death beds as they attempted to capture some bit of shade, and little village kids handing us exotic flowers in return for money.

We decided to walk everywhere we needed to go in order to save money [we walked an average of 8-10 miles a day depending upon where we needed to go]. Traffic is horrible in Vallarta, yet not many of the citizens even own cars. In fact, most of them use public transportation [partially because gas is the American eq. of $4-$9 a gallon depending upon where you go]. A good bulk of the traffic congestion was from tourists, buses and taxies.

.

traffic

Obviously outside of the resort everyone speaks Spanish. The locals know a little bit of English, but it is typically broken English only relating to money [cost of an item, tips, etc.]. Outside of that, don’t expect too much of a conversation unless you are speaking to a tour guide or someone trying to sell you a timeshare [more on this later]. Even with my 6 years of Spanish [2 years in high school, 4 in college], there were still certain things that I couldn’t figure out how to say which left me feeling stupid. There were times when we had major communication flaws simply because we couldn’t connect, but then again how selfish of us to feel that they need to speak our language for our own selfish benefits. For the majority of our stay, I had no problem getting around. It was like all of my Spanish lessons fluently came back at once! It was actually kind of cool to be the interrupter of my parents. I even had a few vague conversations with a few people we met.

Now down to the not so kosher part of Mexico. The one thing that actually irked my nerves, [I’m going to warn you so that it doesn’t happen to you if you ever decide to visit a commercialized area of Mexico]. If anyone approaches you about tourism, or a free taxi ride, or things to do in town [particularly at the airport or on a street corner or tequila shop] TELL THEM YOU ARE LEAVING THAT DAY AND THAT YOU ARE NOT INTERESTED, otherwise you may find yourself in timeshare hell. Timeshares are a nice way of saying you own a part [just like the other thousands of people that go there] of a really nice resort and can stay there for 5 weeks out of the year for a small fee. My parents own two [that is how we were able to go to Mexico]. Anyway, you may say, oh, “but they are offering me money, free rides, free tickets to tours, and they seem so nice, why would I pass this up for a 90 minute presentation?” I don’t care how poor you are, nothing is worth those presentations. And they don’t give two shits about you; they only see dollar signs when they look at you. First off they are not 90 minutes…more like 6 hours [which kills half a day of your vacation]. They generally serve you free breakfast [which is not free because YOU have to tip the wait staff ALL of the wait staff], then they high pressure sell you for about 2 hours where you are told what you can and cannot afford based on your income [like they are inside of your head], they take you on a tour of the property [which will be ten times nicer than anything you could ever afford] and lastly after several failed attempts they hand you your free “gifts” in frustration [their not really free—you still have to tip and pay for extras like your lunch] and send you on your merry way. My family went on three of these while in Mexico, I declined the last one because I refused to subject myself to such a wasteful day.

Apparently tourism is Mexico’s number two cash cow, and I can see why. They make a decent profit off of tourists.

A few more things to point out before wrapping up this entry…after being in Mexico for a week, I truly believe that a lot of Mexicans see American/Canadians as being wealthy [which is a stereotype because I am quiet the opposite]. I kid you not, everywhere we went/everything that we did required a tip to someone or another, or someone randomly husslin’ jewelry, fruit, chickens [?]…

example of true husslin'

 

But back to tipping.

It’s not that I look down upon tipping [when one does his or her job well], but tips for cab rides? C’mon, gas is high enough. We went on this one night cruise [tickets were free] but there was a $10 raffle for the kids, $50 for a dvd of the entire night, tips for the staff—and would you believe that we gave our waiter $5 [after he only served the three of us a complimentary free drink] and he got the nerve to be like, “could you give me more than $5, how about $15?”

My mom’s a good one…because I just gave him a death stare. Needless to say he got her money. I don’t know I found that to be extremely rude, especially when we only saw him once during the night.

Other than those few flukes, oh and the fact that I got food poisoning the first two days, My Mexican vacation was something that I’ll never forget. I hope to get back there some day [maybe not in August—it’s too damn hot].

nice view

 

Suddenly America seems so uninspiring now. I miss the excitement of Vallarta. Back to the grind I go…