11:21pm on a Thursday night. My absorption in Carlos Fuentes' brilliant, convoluted, and surreal epic Terra Nuestra was faded by the third shot of tequila. I'm not shooting it, mind you, I'm sipping, slowly, but the fact is that shot or sipped, ounces are ounces.
X-Men: First class was a much more accessible option. I liked it, actually, going in I was really ready to give it the Transformers treatment. I guess I'm a sucker for good actors. I ended up just feeling sad the movie was such a wasted opportunity. You get a few really interesting actors together with compelling motivations and you find the whole Cuban Missile Crisis Armageddon Aversion plotline to be just a really tedious bunch of noise.
Last night, K invited me out to one of her coworkers birthday parties at a pizzaria near Juarez station. It ended up being around 20 teachers, mostly of elementary school kids, and a few friends. The age range was almost 30 to almost 40's although I couldn't say for sure I was the youngest one there.
The teachers here have classes starting up in a few weeks, so this was a chance to welcome each other back to town (most of them flee over the summer) to drink and gossip and socialize, but also to prepare mentally. People swapped recommendations for TA's, talked about exceptionally gifted or troublesome kids to watch out for, about bureaucratic bullshit to navigate. Over the numerous glasses of wine and sangria and beer, the semester preparation begins.
Architecture is kind of a gray profession- there are times of high and low stress, but in general, there's time to browse the net, take leisurely lunches, etc. We all work 10 hours a day, sure, but its a low intensity workout. Teachers live in a black and white world of on and off. When you're on, you're on.
It ended up being a very long dinner, although everything was really good. All the bread and pizza dough is made fresh on site and Wednesdays are 2 for 1 pizzas (100 pesos) which is an excellent deal.
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