The past days have been full of things to do. On Wednesday 13th and Tuesday 14th September the International Office had its
first social event with all (or at least lots of) new international students for an evening of Ceilidh dancing.
As members of the International Society, we were invited both days to advertise our society and get new members. This occasion reminded me that last year I was there (on the second day) as a new student myself in this university. Relieving those days was really nice. It made me think, and Miriam remind me of that as well, that last year, on September 11th, 2005, I was leaving Mexico City and arriving to Glasgow the following day. One full year is already gone!
Returning to this social event, we signed around 150 new members (but I think they were more) in both days. After many months, I did a little bit of Ceilidh dancing, and as usual, it had me sweating like crazy. Fortunately, I had my hand towel with me, but it ended completely soaked. Lots of new students... lots of girls... so many, that is actually difficult to focus in one at a time.
On Friday 15th,
Annu-Maaria, Maggie, me and all my Mexican friends went to Edinburgh to celebrate our
Independence along with the Mexican society at that university. Besides paying for the train, we had to pay £5.00 for the entrance that entitled us to some Pozole. Annu-Maaria and Maggie loved it. Maggie said it remind her of some Chinese food. She was surprised to find pork in it. I don't know what Sascha, Christiane's boyfriend, thought about all this. Sadly, we didn't get tostadas because they ran out of them... and they were charging £1.00 ($20.o00 pesos) for each one!!! All in all, it was a really nice evening. I suggested we should add Viva Conacyt!!! to the traditional "Grito de Independencia" (Independence Shout). Maggie and I were doing a little bit of Salsa, which, I must clarify again, I don't do, but, as they say in Mexico, "En la tierra de los ciegos, el tuerto es rey," (In the land of the blind, the one-eyed is king). I have to say that Samantha and her Czech boyfriend were really good... but how did he learn it? Maggie and Annu-Maaria really enjoyed the pinata and the traditional dances. It was funny to try to explain the concept of "China poblana" (town Chinese) to Maggie. She said, however, that those colors reminded her of similar clothes in her home town... :-)
On Sunday 17th, the International Society had its
Welcome Party. We were signing lots of members too. We had a brief Salsa lesson and I was doing some dancing and sweating (again) afterwards. Calum had the great idea of getting a map for Europe and another from the whole world and have students put stickers on their own countries. This idea seem to have been very popular and most of the people seem to have enjoyed putting those stickers... I had a similar idea before, but I was thinking of pins that students could use to pin their names on their countries... but I was never able to solve the issue of what would happen once the map is removed from the wall. Obviously, Calum's idea was better.
Maggie moved to my flat on Tuesday night (Sep 19th). I had to help her pack and move all her stuff to my small student flat... well, to be true, on my suggestion, she left books, food, TV and kitchen stuff in her old flat. She would need to get those things later. On Wednesday night she left for London and she's supposed to be coming back next Wednesday morning... thus, I need to finish my last review of my First Year report by next Tuesday night.
On Tuesday and Wednesday (Sep 19th and 20th) I was again helping the International Society at the freshers fair, where all other societies have a stand. By now, I think we have around 450 members.
Today, I tidy-up my bedroom, rearranged Maggie's stuff, did some laundry and I even did some hoovering. Annu-Maaria was coming in the evening to watch some of
my films. We watched
Audition and
Oldboy. (Irealized I can't play some of my movies in my laptops, despite the fact that I was able to play them in my office desktop computer. By now, I don't know where/what is the problem, is it in my blank DVDs, the DVD burner or what?) It's always nice to be with Annu-Maaria and talk about our love stories, HCI, movies and many other things. I'm already thinking that I will miss her like crazy when she leaves next March... yes, still several months to go, but I can't avoid feeling already anxious about that.
Annu-Maaria is going to Finland next Friday for four days. I told her she should go to the open house of the
new Finnish temple. She told me her boyfriend over there is planning to visit it himself along with his friends... but not before watching the
South Park episode about mormons... Annu-Maaria wanted to see it too, so we did... and of course, I had to show her
this one too...
Well, I had made but a brief summary of the past few days, and I'm sure I'm leaving lots of stuff out... Hope to write more frequently in this blog (since now I have three), whose purpose is to keep an account of the everday, common things of my life...