Time is Passing

Well, at the current moment my birthday is 5 days away. I have yet to figure out exactly what I want to do on this momentous occasion.

Part of me is still regretting my decision not to venture back to Oaxaca just yet. I do miss the sights and smells and warmth of that wonderful place, but I'm broke.

Working at this new job has been fruitful but not enough to be taking any vacations any time soon. Though in my head I'm still visiting Mexico in some way shape or form every night when I lay myself down to sleep. That vast and wonderful valley shows up in my dreams. Oaxaca I mean. Some nights I'm wandering around inside Monte Albán playing archaeologist and living among the dead and the ruins. Other nights I'm riding scooters around the center of the city weaving in and out of traffic admiring the simplicity of Oaxaca's architecture. Occasionally Jose is there with me and we are sitting high above the city looking out at all the little landmarks that are easily identifiable from the top. I've said before that I left my heart in Oaxaca when I came back to the states and now I'm starting to think maybe I left a little piece of my mind there too. It keeps bringing me back at night.

So instead of putting myself in the joy of Mexico for my birthday I figured maybe I'd bring Mexico here.

I was looking around online at www.metromix.com (which is a fantastic source of information on things to do in Chicago, they have other cities they cater to as well) and was searching May 27th to see what kind of specials or events or festivals or whatever were happening on my birthday that might be fun.

I found that the Museum of Mexican Art is hosting an exhibit called "Rastros y Crónicas: Mujeres de Juarez". It's free to the public and the exhibit is open from 10am to 5pm what seemed like every day. It's located in Little Tuscany and runs through July 4th.

When I found that I was immediately interested. This is something I've read about a lot in my research about Mexico. Over 500 women have been murdered in Ciudad De Jarez (located in the state of Chihuahua) since 1993 and many artists, filmmakers, writers, singers and other creative minded people have done everything they can to make the world aware of this situation.
So I started thinking, this museum is near where Jose used to live and there is a really good torta restaurant over there. I can't remember the name (which I have now asked Jose to remember for me) but I've wanted to go back many times since he left. How perfect, go to a museum with Mexican art, eat tortas, come back up north and maybe venture into a Mexican bar with some sort of drink specials and pour a little out for the Mujeres de Juarez, and other dead homies.
As of today that's as far as my planning has gone, maybe I'll get lucky and someone will venture down Lawrence to Dulcelandia and buy me a piñata filled with Mexican candies and I can have an awesome Mexican birthday... in Chicago.

Or maybe not. We'll see. If anyone out there has any other suggestions for a Mexican influenced Chicago style birthday extravaganza let me know.

In other news, I have thought about what I will do when I eventually move to Mexico. One thing that has always seemed like an option is teaching English. I do have an English equivalent degree, I am a native and fluent English speaker, I've always though I could be a decent teacher. Starting today and for the next 2 weeks or so I get to try my hand at teaching English to a Mexican. He's pretty convinced my Spanish is coming along nicely but his English is pretty much non existent and he'd like to know more. He volunteered me for the job of teacher. It should be interesting to say the least. I'm a little concerned though because when I've sat down to think about how to go about this it seems as though teaching an English speaker Spanish might be easier than teaching a Spanish speaker English. Our words are more complicated I think with the way that they sound. We'll see what happens.

As I finish this post I will say I have now secured the location of the tasty tortas and maybe this birthday wont suck.