Winter 08/09

Seasons Greetings from Oaxaca!

It seems as though my blogging has been reduced to regular blogs for my classes and my once-a-year personal holiday blog. Most of you know what I’ve been up to in 2008, but for those of you who don’t, here’s an update.

Two semesters down, three to go on my MA in Educational Technology. The first semester was much more difficult and time consuming than this past semester. That might’ve been because I hadn’t studied at this level since Seattle U back in 2000 and it took some getting used to. Now that we’ve got the system down, we can concentrate a lot more on the content than figuring out the medium. We do most of the work in small groups and usually the four of us from the language school that are in the program together are assigned to work together. It’s usually preferable to meet in person than online on MSN messenger. The classes are very well thought out, the content is interesting and the learning is practical. And I’ve got a 4.0 cumulative GPA so far!!

I continue to teach English and methodology of language education at the Regional SE University (URSE). For the last two semesters, I’ve been teaching about 25 hours a week, which translates into many more hours of work per week including prep time, grading, admin duties, etc. The work is challenging at times, but I’m constantly learning how to be a better teacher and improve my Spanish. This past semester I started teaching 2 classes of medicine students. No, I'm not teaching them medicine; I’m teaching them English. These classes have around 30 students each , so it can be a bit more challenging than teaching classes in the language school. The good part is that I get to learn some medicine. I'm also teaching a MA class which pays over twice as much as the other classes I teach.

Whenever I'm not teaching, preparing to teach, grading, studying, or writing, I try to go mountain biking as much as possible. We go at least once on a weekend morning and sometimes go on a night ride with powerful helmet-mounted lights. Most of my cycling buddies are Gringos, but there are a couple of locals who like to ride as long as we do. We’ve managed to map out an impressive network of trails and are constantly exploring new routes. About a couple of months ago, five of us got lost in the forest and had to overnight it. We managed to get a little sleep thanks to our campfire. Unfortunately, I managed to brake the frame of my trail bike a couple of weeks ago; but fortunately it has a lifetime warranty. The tricky part is making the whole warranty process happen from Oaxaca. To make a long story short, a friend of a friend will hopefully be bringing me my new frame in February.

Alder is finishing up the first draft of her +/- 300 page doctoral dissertation evaluating the social impacts of microfinance programs in Southern Mexico and is set to turn it in by the January 15th deadline. The recent death of her grandmother, who she was very close to, was and continues to be very difficult for her. Fortunately she’s incredibly driven and continues to crank out as much as 15 pages daily despite grieving her loss. She’s due to graduate this June and will be dedicating lots of time and energy into job hunting after finishing her dissertation. At this point, the two most probable scenarios for us after Alder graduates are that she finds work locally that would keep us here for a few more years, or we would be looking into relocating to the Bay Area. Of course, there are many other possible scenarios that we’ll consider as we discover interesting opportunities elsewhere.


Apart from all that, the weather and my health have been great. It hasn’t rained now for months, but it’s still green in the hills and the temperature is perfect; up to lower 80’s in the day and down to lower 50’s at night. Yes, I still miss the snow, but I don’t take our fantastic weather here for granted. I'm in pretty good shape these days from mountain biking between 5000 and 9000 feet elevation a couple times a week. I’ve also been hiking a bit more since breaking my bike. All that exercise is good because I’ve been eating like a champ: three huge Thanksgiving dinners with all the trimmings, two hearty Christmas dinners and leftovers from nearly all five. ‘Tis the season!

Click here to check out some more pics from 2008.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!