First Weeks of School

I just finished my first week of classes for the 2007-08 school year. Wow, 2008! Anyway, it's been good. The week before last was Orientation; we took the girls on a "camping" trip. There were lots of outdoor activities, and lots of bugs--but we slept on bunk beds indoors, with mattresses that prompted one girl to write that she was sad to go home since the camp beds were so comfortable. That has to be a first. I wonder what the poor thing normally sleeps on.

I have really enjoyed this last week. My two math classes have their issues, but these girls are so much better at working together than any group I've ever had. Or maybe it's just that it's Week 1 and they aren't tired of each other yet. I have other things to say, but due to a web-use survey that my 7th graders just administered, I'm getting paranoid about being found. By them. I'm not worried that they'll find out about my personal life, more that their feelings will be hurt if they see that I make fun of them to my friends.

It's dinner time!

Happy Birthday, Dad!!

objets d'arte

My first week back at work. Included the annual overnight retreat to a board member's beach house in Indiana. Nice to see everyone. Learned a new card game!

I think this is my last post for Mexico pictures. Maybe second-to-last.

To start off with, some pre-Hispanic art objects. From the anthropology museum.




1) Teehee! A cat! Actually, that's just a guess. I don't remember what civilization this was from. One thing that's striking is how much trade and exchange they had, anyway. 2) Mom and I liked this vase. Easy to envision it for sale in a modern gallery. I wonder how many periods and places around the world it could plausibly seem to belong to. 3) I love the expression on these two friends. The one on the right reminds me of an anime character, but I can't figure out who.

Left: The 200 peso note, featuring the famous intellectual and nun, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (and Patrick's money clip, .925 silver with malachite inlay, very nice). I wonder how many countries have women on their currency. I guess we have Susan B. Anthony and Sacajawea on the dollar coins that no one uses.

Right: Mexico's version of Peeps? I hate the taste of those sugary marshmallow things, but these sure are cute.

Back to planning for the return of students!

Primary(ish) Colors

Driving around San Francisco, you'll see a house every now and then that's painted some totally absurd color: lime green, raspberry sorbet, you know what I'm talking about? Well, the exteriors in Mexico aren't that wild, but the interiors are often brighter than US ones (not counting my condo). We got to the top of some stairs, and the sun was shining through these leaves, against the red of their niche ... maybe my picture isn't so great, but it's at least a personal memento of perfect light.


All of these walls at the Museo de los Murales (Beatriz de la Fuente) are painted the same shade of yellow (including those in the foreground). The museum is beautifully designed, besides preserving and displaying original murals from the pyramids at Teotihuacan. I can't really imagine what the walls must have looked like when they were new, covered in plaster and colorful frescoes; it must have had such a completely different effect from the massive faces of broken rock that remain today. Maybe one day, the Sistine Chapel will be seen this way. Stripped of its paintings and stained glass, I'm sure it would still be impressive, but more than unrecognizable to us who have lived to see it as it is now.


In the Plaza de las Tres Culturas (the Three Cultures Plaza), there's a colonial-period church made with stones pulled from Aztec temples. The inside of the church is kind of creepy; when Patrick and I went in, it was filled with eerie music and weird blue light. The source of the light is lovely, though.

Creepy Crawlies

I'm back! It's weird to brush my teeth with tap water and throw toilet paper into the toilet.

In my next few posts, I'll be putting up pictures, organized thematically. This one is about insects. So if you don't like bugs, you may as well stop now.


We found this multi-colored, multi-textured caterpillar in the park in Tlalpan. Julia picked it up on a little stick, and look what happened!


We were all scared that it might sting, but she finally returned to her insect-loving roots and petted it. Nothing bad happened to her. But I think the caterpillar might have been traumatized by the whole event.


These guys are so weird. They're like hairy sow bugs. At Teotihuacan (where most people go to see the pyramids, including the massive Temple of the Sun--third largest in the world, but I'm not sure if that's by height, volume, or what).


Just so you can see something more conventionally pretty, here's a butterfly in some bougainvillea at the Templo Mayor, in the center of the city. It was discovered and excavated in 1978. The funny thing is, a drainage canal was built in 1900 going right through it. Seven layers of thick brick walls, and the canal diggers never thought, "Hey, what is this place?"

Bob Loblaw

Have you ever seen Arrested Development? It ran on Fox for something like three seasons. I saw it on DVD from Netflix (which, by the way, just lowered my subscription price?!??). There's a character named Bob Loblaw; he's an attorney. At some point in the show, he mentions his online journal: Bob Loblaw's Law Blog. This is hard to say out loud; go on, try it! It cracks me up.

The other title for this post would be, "Blah blah blah."

I made some cosmetic changes to the blog. I don't like the name sfmeetschicago. It doesn't seem appropriate for me to personify SF now, if it ever did; plus, a lot of what I blog about is travel-related, so the old title is geographically insufficient. The website is still the same, http://sfmeetschicago.blogspot.com, but now when you visit, you'll be greeted with, "Hello Again!" I could change that later, too. You never know. You'll just have to keep visiting.

I updated the links as well to include my homepage, The Hunger Site. I don't mean to be proselytizing. I just figure I may as well go to this website whenever I remember; it's so easy. And if it's my homepage, I think it should be linked to my blog. It's a click-to-donate site; for every click, an advertiser helps fund the donation of 1.1 cups of food for starving tigers. No, wait, I'm mixing it up with The Animal Rescue Site ... crap. They also sell things, with a portion of the proceeds going to bob loblaw. I got a nice fleece vest there. I wear it all the time. One time, I even let one of my kids wear it. She was cold and I wasn't letting her go to her locker at the moment. And I'm always too hot in the classroom. All those bodies.

I also added Knitty's website and took off Chihuly. He makes cool-looking stuff, it's true, but who needs a permanent link like that. I feel like he should be paying me. Knitty, on the other hand, publishes a quarterly online magazine, for free, with patterns and features and a searchable archive. I just found this pattern for a blanket originally knit by Lou Henry Hoover! It comes with a bit of history about the First Lady, too.

Uh, that's all. I can't wait to get back to Chicago. I am tired of sightseeing. I miss my refrigerator.

Notes

I'll be back in Chicago in a few days, and I can't wait to put up my pictures! I also have a new post, showing up down below Mexico #7.