Drastic Recent Weather

The weather is crazy. The week before this past week, the temperature was extreme: at the beginning of the week it reached 42 degrees Celsius (107 F), then a cold front came through and it got down to 19 degrees Celsius (66 F). So this meant that at the beginning of the week, I was sleeping under the fan with a wet bandana and t-shirt to cool me off (as the AC in my old house had not been turned on), and a few days later I was wearing long sleeves and jeans all day. This week it´s been back to normal temps, although this weekend it got up to 107 again. (Thankfully, the house I am now living in stays relatively cool during the day if I open up the house at night, so I have generally been able to avoid turning on the AC, which is an expensive commodity.)

Pants vs. Shorts Part 2

Remember my comment in the fall about how almost no one wore shorts? Well, I think I’ve figured it out a little bit more, although not completely.

Up until the 15th of May, AC was pretty much unaffordable. As a result, air was usually not turned on, AND more people than before wore shorts because it was hot. Now that the AC is turned on in most indoor places, most people wear jeans or long pants. Part of the reason is that it’s often too cold with the AC to be in shorts and a t-shirt only. (Most wear jeans. I tend to switch between Bermuda shorts (shorter shorts means sticky legs when one is hot), capris, and sometimes pants. However, I also have a long sleeve shirt or jacket (and sometimes socks) along for inside the buildings at school.

Fun facts on AC here: 1) It’s outrageously expensive even in the summer (more than the US). 2) In general, the AC is set way too cold. The charge is based on time the AC is on; however, I haven’t figured out how temperature auto set doesn’t help out with that.

Conflict with my theory: when people wear long sleeves and long pants and work outside all day. However, clothing is a pretty good sunscreen.

“Spring” in Hermosillo: brought to you by the letter D

Dry: There is absolutely no exaggeration here. I have never been in a place as dry as Hermosillo in the spring. Example number one: Skin. I never put so much lotion on my body and face in my life, with the exception of my hands. Example number two: eyes. Although I wear my glasses 95% of the time (soft contacts the rest of the remaining %), but eyes still are super dry, probably in part to all the hours I spend in front of the computer. This week I bought eye drops for my eyes, eye drops for eyes, not contacts. Example three: hair So I have naturally well hydrated hair; I almost never use conditioner, except for the non-scalp part in the dry winter months in Denver, and must wash my hair every day in the morning, to avoid getting an oily head. Well, I have found the ideal place for my father’s oily hair…Hermosillo in the spring. Conditioning my hair and scalp everyday wasn’t doing the trick, so this past week I started washing my hair every other day, and conditioning every day, without it getting oily. I have NEVER been able to do that in my life.

Dusty: Last weekend, I awoke to the sound of wind blowing against the plastic blinds in front of my window. When I looked outside my window, I was unable to see the mountainous hills of Hermosillo due to a dust storm. Although that was a one time occurrence, the dust is not; it is tremendous the amount of dust that enters the house. As a result, I have become extra cautious about closing my laptop when I am not using it (even just an hour) and covering it at night in hopes to prevent it from dying from a dust stroke.

Pic 1: dust storm, pic 2: normal day

Drastic (temperatures): We’ve had many 100 degree afternoons (without air conditioning as the price doesn't drop until May). However we’ve also had evenings where pants and a long sleeve shirt with flip flops is chilly. Not every day or evening has these extremes, but overall it’s already gotten “hot”. I can’t wait until June…just kidding!

Desert beauty: Although I don’t get out of the city much, it’s been fun to watch the various different blooms that occur on the trees here. Furthermore, the trees, especially in the University (when it was open), have staggered blooming seasons; so every couple weeks it’s something new. This is a picture of the Palo Verde’s yellow flowers.

Palo Verde with spring blooms

Ahorita

Update on lots of random:
1. It’s not as fun to write (or read for that matter) a blog when life is work, work, work, and stress, discouragement, struggle. I have had a couple better weeks, but this past week I cried four times. Enough said?

Unfortunately, my stressed and turtled-in self is negatively affecting my interactions with the family of the house; I (not them) need to do a better job of living in community.

2. I dropped a class this week. It was my sociology class about the border. A very interesting topic, but a not-so-great professor in my opinion. I switched to Spanish 5 (advanced Spanish for non-native speakers).

3. The weather’s getting warmer…. We’ve already had temps in the 90s, however today and yesterday it was a a delightful mid/upper 70s (I think). I know the weather has changed, not because of the reported temperatures that I almost never check, but because I a) am not sleeping with the heavy fleece blanket, b) have had my window open at night, c) have worn sandals three times, and d) the computer lab turned on the air. I am not looking forward to any month past March, knowing it’s only going to get hotter.

4. Fun/good things: Went to part of a baby shower, hung with Veronique and Carlos several times, one of which was to celebrate her birthday, had two shoulders to cry on this past week (thank you Vero and Carmen!), went for coffee with my friend Eugenia, finished taxes and financial aid last weekend!, rented a dvd, allowed myself more time for brief, random conversations with classmates, returned to my day of rest, aka no homework, today.

5. Anxiety: Two weeks until spring break. Instead of it being a date where I’ll finally get to relax (which I will), it’s a date that is coming too fast for the work I hope to get done by then.

6. Hopefully soon I’ll add some pictures. Well, soon being very relative, just like the word “ahorita” (technically translated “right now”, actual meaning being “after x, y, z happen, then ahorita,” or at least something like that. My friend Alberto said I should write a paper on the word. I’ll write it ahorita…hahahaaaa.

First Week of Second Semester

1) First day of class: Anyone remember my first day of class back in August? Words to describe that day would be: anxiety, shock, overwhelmed. First day of second semester: normal, easy, routine. What a difference a semester has made! So it was very fun to reflect of the growth I have made!

2) Courses:

After much planning and debating about which classes were best for me to take, I finally know my schedule and courses for this semester. Most importantly, I am quite pleased about it, especially regarding the content! They are classes a) of personal interest to me, b) related to my BGSU assignments (except the Soc . class), and cover a variety of educational fields. So, the classes I am taking are Mexican Literature 4 (1960s to current), Writing Workshop 2, Spanish Morpho-syntax (Linguistic study of the how words and sentence are formed) and Sociology of the border/migration. Furthermore my schedule is from 8:00-1:00 Monday through Thursday with an hour break at 9:00, and on Friday I only have two hours of class. This means that every afternoon I have a big open block of time, which is helpful for studying. I still need to figure out if I am going to incorporate a possible PE course, which would break that up, but would be beneficial in carving out time to exercise.

3) Classmates:

Two of my classes, Mex Lit 4 and Writing Workshop 2, are continuations of the classes I took last semester. This means I have class with two of the same groups of students (about 50 students altogether)! This is really nice as it means that I get to continue those relationships instead of having to meet two more sets of students. Furthermore, both of the groups are quite fun and I definitely enjoyed the class atmosphere. (In one class, I have the same professor, but in the rest the professors are all different). Returning to the topic of students, in my Morphosytaxis we are only three students. I guess I’ll be doing al my homework in that class!

4) Balance of study and fun

Although overall I did a decent job of balancing these areas this week, I will need to be extra intentional in this area this semester with the work I will need to accomplish. The trick will be not burning out of too much studying and therefore making my work less efficient, being able to say no to fun when I need to work, still feeling like I am taking advantage of living here, and time to deepen relationships. What else to say…same story as always for me.

5) Cold: I don't exactly know what the outside temperature has been here in the mornings, although one especially cold morning it was 2 degrees Celsius. However, even when it warms up outside (for example at 11:00), the classrooms are freezing. So I tend to wear my winter coat or heavy fall coat and scarf (and hat) in class, and still am cold. However, I can't complain too much as soon enough it will be hot again here, and midday can often be 80 degrees Farenheit now in January.

September 29, 2007 Part 2: Advice if you’re sick….

This past week, I have been sick with a sore throat and a good deep cough. Autumn has started to here, and with the change of seasons, the fall cold /flu has come. Many classmates have been ill, as well as most of my host family. So, it was no surprise that, with my lowered immune system due to stress, I got sick. However, I have learned some things about the autumn cold season here in Hermosillo. First of all, it is common knowledge as well as common medical advice from doctors, that you shouldn’t eat or drink cold foods when you are sick. At first, this seemed very strange. However, in the US we are conscious about the external temperature of our bodies. For example, in the winter, we make sure the outside of our bodies warm by dressing appropriately and how that can play into our health. So, I guess there is some truth in not eating cold foods, especially considering that with the tea in my body I am extra warm. However, the weird part here is that during the day we still have temperatures in the mid 90s and so when I am told not to have cold food/drink, my immediate response is “That’s crazy!” The second thing I’ve noticed is that everyone says, “It’s because of the weather change and your body coming in and out of the air conditioning*.” I took this to mean that the reason I got sick was the drastic change between the two. However, I thought it was much worse in August when it was 110 degrees temps outside. In an attempt not to be too critical, I thought I should maybe ask about why people said “Be careful of the air conditioning!” in the “fall” and not the summer. Based on my conversation with Luz Belia, it’s not the cause, but a trigger for the virus, which makes sense to me. However, I still have to make sure I don’t roll my eyes when I hear… “It’s because of the change”. Ahhh, the things you learn when you sick!

*Air conditioning tends to be very, very cold here (70-75 degrees Fahrenheit) based on that they are charged based on time instead of energy used.

Hurricane Henriette (1)

So, I thought I´d avoid Hurricane Season by living in Hermosillo with the Baha to protect us. Hah! Not so. Hurricane Henriette is in the Sea of Cortez right now heading northward. Thankfully we are approximately 60 miles inland from Bahia Kino, so we won´t get the hurricane as it´s a category 1. (Yesterday I freaked out thinking that the Hurricane was a category 5, so obviously today I feel better knowing it´s a 1. Hurricane Felix is a 5 so somehow I got that confused.) Anyway, we should get a good tropical storm out of the deal. That means lots and lots of rain in a city that doesn´t handle rain very well as it usually never gets rain. So we´ll see what it looks like this afternoon and tomorrow. You can tract the storm on http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ however it´s doesn´t tell you where Hermosillo is. If you find a different site that has a major island (Shark Island or something like that), Hermosillo is directly east. Updates later.

Sun-ora

So, it´s hot here! I knew it would be as I had checked the forecast earlier this summer and they had days of 105-115 F. The good news is that it rained last week and so it´s been cooler this week only staying in the upper 90s. However, I don´t know exactly the temperature as it´s Celsius here. Still... Thankfully my temporary housing has AC so that helps. The strange thing here is that everyone wears pants (especially jeans which aren´t very light)...men, women, and even kids. I´ve been watching and I´ve only noticed a few men and women wearing shorts (or skirts for that matter). It´s a little more common to see children wearing shorts, but it´s not the norm. I´ve been wearing shorts and skirts since I came. I wasn´t completely conscious of it right away, the last two days I´ve noticed that I´m very much the exception. I decided to ask Marisol, one of the exchange program staff. She said that people wear shorts to protect their legs from getting burned. When I mentioned that it´s been cool, she said that´s another reason. My mom suggested that it might be also that people work in AC, which might also be true, but there are also a lot of people who don´t work in AC. Anyway, I decided to try wearing light-weight jeans today and I think I´ll switch back to shorts tomorrow. Maybe on Monday for the first day of class, I´ll try capris (mainly because there will be AC in the classrooms.)
Yeah for sunscreen!