Who are you?

It is commonly accepted that postdocs exist in a strange no-mans-land in academic life; we are neither faculty nor students, just researchers who don't fit well into the traditional boxes. While there are institutions and disciplines in which postdocs are so common that they have their own recognized identity, this is not my experience. At all. While most of my department faculty knows who I am, and some of the grad students can probably recognize me, I'm still an outsider both by virtue of language/nationality and academic position. I have been working here for over 4 months, and I still do not have a university email account and have not been added to the department email list. Important announcement? I better hope that my boss or my office mate, a PhD student, lets me know. I'm also still waiting to get a copier code.

Today, the department secretary stopped by my office to confirm the title of a seminar talk I will be giving next week. She then asked me for my school affiliation so that she could fill in her form. Perplexed, I stared at her. Did she want the name of where I got my PhD and did most of the research I would be covering in the talk? That didn't seem right. Turns out, she apparently didn't realize after 4+ months that I am actually employed here and not visiting from somewhere else. After she left, my office mate gave up on choking back his laughter.

This reminded me of a little snafu during my study abroad in northern Mexico back during my undergrad. It was during finals week, but one of my professors had decided to keep lecturing daily and planned to hold the exam sometime in the future (a little more flexible than US schools, no?). Once it became clear that he had no intention of holding his final before I needed to fly back to the US I scheduled a meeting with him to discuss alternate plans for my exam. When I asked him, he looked at me in complete bafflement and uttered those wonderful words, "Wait, you're enrolled in my class???" It wasn't that I skipped class or didn't take the midterm (he didn't bother with homework, so I can't really claim participation in that), just that he had assumed that I was sitting in on the class since my name had never appeared on his class list. Apparently, there were so few exchange students at the school (3 of us at a school of 30,000) that the university had decided it wasn't worth the effort to actually put us into the system for a semester. Fortunately, my classes all transferred back to my home university as pass/fail credits so my professors, who hadn't bothered to record my grades throughout the term, only had to decide if I had passed or failed. The professor who was still lecturing through finals week hadn't even written his final yet, so I never had to take it.

I'm thinking that I should get a little pushier about getting that new email address and being put on the listserv lest I end up another sort of ghost in the system. That, and listservs are great for scoring free food!

The problem with Saturdays

Yesterday was Saturday. Weekends and normally wonderful things, but Keating and I have noticed a serious trend here on Saturdays: the alley on the other side of our wall turns into the site of a wild street party. This wouldn't be that big of a problem, except that last night's gala went until 5 am and was louder than the front row at a metal concert, with the music and yelling. As a result, Keating and I got approximately 2 whole hours of peace last night. Why only 2? Well, that's because someone in the neighborhood invariably starts shooting off fireworks at 7 am on Sundays. The consistency is such that I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't part of the local priest's plan to get more people to early mass. Or maybe he's just that excited about Sunday mornings.

On the plus side, it is still far quieter here than it was at our last place. That, and we have yet to have been afraid that the fireworks would set fire to this apartment, something I can't say about our last place. Here, we only have to worry about our own problems with fire.

F-ing fire (part 4???)

Someone needs to get down here and take away our matches. Seriously. Keating and I, normally fairly responsible adults, apparently cannot handle fire.

We set the garden ablaze again.

Yup.

This time, Keating had set our little hibachi grill on the glass table in the garden so that he wouldn't have to sit on the grass to cook. He had done this before, and all had been fine. Anyway, all was going well until I arrived home with our dinner guest, a friend from my PhD program who know also works at the university down here. We had just finished with introductions when an amazing crashing sound came from the garden. Yup: the glass table had imploded and dumped the flaming grill onto the glass shards and yard. Keating and I managed to keep cool, and I poured wine for our guest and kept chatting with him while Keating successfully extinguished the yard but kept the grill going.

I think we deserve 10 points for style, but negative 15 points for setting our garden on fire for the second time in a month. Fortunately for us, plants grow like wild down here. In another two weeks, the burned-out patches of grass will be completely erased by new growth. Now we just need to figure out where to get a new glass tabletop.

Being Mexican

This morning, I became (at least temporarily) Mexican. While I was waiting for my pesero to work, a man actually stopped his car and asked me for directions to the Copilco metro station!!!!! (When I told them this, my work colleagues nearly spit their lunches out with laughter. I had to reassure them that I was the only one around for the man to have asked.) Joyfully and accurately, I gave the man directions to his intended destination. I was seriously proud of myself for now only knowing where it was that he wanted to go, but also for being able to concisely answer his question. Then, about 3 minutes after I boarded my bus, I realized that I had actually sent him to the M.A. Quevedo station -- same line, next stop. Without intending it, I had done something so quintessentially Mexican as to justify me declaring myself Mexicana for the day: I had helpfully given detailed, but woefully wrong, directions to someone who was lost. Fortunately, he was a Mexican himself and was likely using my boss' approach to asking directions in this country: ask 3 people, then average their response. For my part, I'm not sure when I've been prouder of such an idiot moment.

I'm back!

It's official: I can truly call myself a blogger. How do I know that I have officially joined the dubious ranks? Complaints! See the following email, copied in its entirety, from my brother:

Hey, you need to keep up with your blog better. Some of us want to hear about what is going on down there in little people land.

That said, let me quickly review what was going on during my absence. (You know, happening to me. Not like a recap of real news or anything!)

Right after my last posts, Keating and I ran away to Cancun for a belated Holy Week holiday with my parents and their friends Darrel and Jackie. Despite my fears that Keating would be "accidentally" fed to sharks by Dad and Darrel while the boys were scuba diving (boys!), he came home each time with happy tails of undersea life. That's not to say that there wasn't any good natured hazing: turns out that Keating is now affectionately known in some circles as "Chumly" since he vomited just about every time he set foot on the scuba boat. Since I really dislike fish, I enjoyed lots of time poolside with the girls. On the day that we all went to Xel-ha (an incredible natural aquarium. If you get the chance, visit it!), Keating and I worked out a brilliant strategy by which I lounged on top of an inner tube and held on to the (unfastened) between-leg strap from Keating's required lifejacket as he snorkeled -- it was like getting my very own custom lazy-river tour! Keating would occasionally point out interesting fish or rays, while I would point out the cool birds, lizards, etc, to him... and all without me having to actually get too close to the icky fishies. The six of us also enjoyed a trip to see the pyramids and Chichen Itza. In all, we had a wonderful trip. Unfortunately, Keating and I are both camera-impaired and the only photo from the entire trip the features people has us all so small that we're not really recognizable. At least the pyramid looks good! (We're the couple on the right, Mom and Dad are in the middle, and Darrel and Jackie are on the left.)

After Cancun, Keating and I had a little under a week to prepare for our next excitement: Keating's parents came to visit us for a long weekend. They were our first official house guests (Sorry Mom and Dad, but you stayed in a hotel!). My FIL's knee was acting up, so we opted to not do a repeat performance of the borderline elder abuse we committed against my parents by dragging them everywhere on crowded public transportation and taking them on the occasional mini death march dodging traffic frogger-style. Instead, we enjoyed a relaxing weekend in which we took a boat tour of the famous gardens of Xochimilco and took in a performance of Carmina Burana. Unfortunately, I had to disappear on occasion for work and even left town the day before my in-laws; I was scheduled to return to the field. (Note: if you are reading my mind properly, the words "I was scheduled to return to the field" should have been read melodramatically, with building dread, and underscored by an ominous soundtrack. If you didn't get that the first time, please try again.)

My previous field trip was not successful. At all. So I had alternately astronomical and mediocre expectation for this field work. Mostly, I just desperately wanted to get data points this time and not be crippled by a horse. Fortunately, both of these goals were met. Since actual research data is fairly boring, and outside the theme of this blog, let me just share with you some of the highlights from the trip:

1. The field vehicle we ended up with this time did not have AC or a radio. It turns out that that wasn't too bad, despite it being 95 F and 98% humidity. It meant that we could all roll down the windows and plug into our respective ipods for the long car rides, thus saving me from Barry Manilow.
2. Technologically speaking, I have fallen so very, very far. During my PhD, I was writing programs for Beowulf clusters (supercomputers). For this project, I was rowing to the center of ponds in an inflatable raft (labelled a children's toy, for use only in pools and under adult supervision) and dropping a rock tied to a rope overboard to measure water depth (the sonar depth-finder was broken).
3. I got to see a gigantic iguana chillin' in the wild under a mango tree.
4. I got a tadpole stuck between the two smallest toes on my left foot. Think about my love for fish, and then imagine the screaming and foot-shaking that ensued. Honestly, I still shudder thinking about it. Not cool.
5. My boss would argue that this one is worse that the tadpole, but I'm unconvinced. We had just walked down a steep trail to get to another of the ponds and had shouted out to the man net fishing from a "skiff" (really just a few logs tied together Robinson Crusoe-style) if it would be okay if we dragged our inflatable down the hill and took some measurements in the pond. He replied that we were welcome to it and would not disturb us at all. Almost as an afterthought, he added that we should watch out for the crocodiles. At those words, we notice a 4 foot croc slither off the bank 25 feet to our right and skulk away through the murky water. The man on the raft assured us that that one was just a baby and that many of the crocs in that particular pond were closer to 9 feet long. Shuddering, my boss paid the man on the raft to collect our measurements for us.
6. Ticks and other biting bugs. Apparently, this is the season. On the final day in the field, I removed 9-10 ticks from my clothes and 3 from where they were busy biting me. On the plus side, I have been assured that the ticks in that area are merely gross and not dangerous like our wonderful lyme disease carriers in the US. On the minus side, I came back from the field looking suspiciously like I had chicken pox. Fortunately, Keating believed me that they were bug bites and still gave me a welcome home kiss.
7. Ugh!!!! Seriously! A F-ing tadpole between my toes!!!!!!!!
8. We also managed to get the truck stuck, bottomed out on a broken concrete pipe sticking up through a dirt road. I hereby curse you, Nissan, for building a pickup truck with the power of a VW Beetle (original style) and the clearance of a Chrylser PT Cruiser. What the hell were you thinking???!?
9. Accommodations in San Martín Tuxtla were lovely, as before. Unfortunately, they didn't have any availability for some of our nights. Do not stay in Lerdo de Tejada. The hotel was... yeah. There were dead bugs already squashed into the shower walls, greasy head prints on the mirrored headboards, and the bathroom windows all opened into the "lobby."
10. Did I remember to mention that I actually got some data points???? And I wasn't even crippled by a horse! Nor did I vomit even once! Therefore, despite tadpoles, crocodiles, ticks, and car trouble, this field trip was definitely an improvement over the previous one!

Now I'm back in Mexico City and back at my office desk. Keating and I celebrated Cinco de Mayo yesterday with a splash of tequila in our iced tea (aside from school children and union employees, it isn't a celebrated holiday here. They kind of equate it with Columbus Day.).

(I'll try to add more photos later. I forgot to bring my camera in so that I could download my photos.)

Housepets

I'm totally over-posting today. I just couldn't leave for a week without mentioning our new pet. We found him (her?) while packing. Inside the house. Already comfortably moved in.

Fortunately, our new pet is not of the "large hairy spider" or "sneaky rodent" variety. Elmer is a monstrously large snail. (He's kind of sticky, so I'm naming him after the glue. I'm pretty terrible about naming things in general. You must all hope that Keating gets to name our future children so that they don't end up with idiotic descriptive names like "Female" (pronounced fee-mah-lay, of course. It's Italian.) or "Lumpy Loudmouth.") Elmer apparently climbed in through our window from our neighbor's garden and was comfortably chilling in the spare room. We have moved him to the garden, since chucking him out the window back into the neighbor's garden seems cruel. We'll have to wait and see if he's still with us when we get back from Cancun.

Losing weight

In honor of leaving on vacation tomorrow, I decided it was time to lose some weight. After getting home from work and kissing dear Keating, I marched myself down to the salon on the corner and got my first haircut in over 7 months. The end result: the best $2.80 haircut EVER! (And no, there was no sale. That was regular price.)