Something to blog about!

Hola amigos, estudiantes, colegas, miembros de mi familia!

Today was, as the title suggests, something to blog about!  I made my first solo trip to the UNAM (Doug and I did a "dry run" yesterday to figure out how to a.  use the Metrobus; b. find the school of social work; and c.  time the whole thing).  It's about 45 minutes including walking a few blocks at one end and about two blocks at the other.  The altitude is getting to me some, I'll admit, especially uphill and upstairs.

Yesterday I had made e-mail contact with the director of exchange programs for the school and we agreed on a time for me to show up today to be presented (i.e., introduced) to various people.  In an attempt to be culturally appropriate, I didn't worry about the exact time we had agreed on, but showed up 30 minutes or so "late".  He was very welcoming and patient with my at-times failing Spanish.  When he wanted to present me to the person with whom I'm going to be doing research, he realized he was a little confused and that person was not available on campus at the moment, but dealt with it like a consumate problem-solver--he set up an alternate meeting time and site for me later in the day and then presented me to various other staff, including the staff in the library who could control my access there.  After arranging a transportation staff person to pick me up to drive me to the later appointment at an office on the other side of the city, and making sure I knew how to get back to the Metrobus (which, of course, I did, since I had been there yesterday), we said goodbye.

I'll admit, it was a little disconcerting that he wasn't sure, off the top of his head, who I was to be working with and how long I'm staying; however, he did seem to recognize me (we met once, last summer) and knew my name, and how to pronounce it (any word presents a difficulty if it has two vowels in a row that are not both pronounced separately).  However, I'm committed to going with the flow and not expecting everything to be perfectly figured out [insert comment about meds helping with anxieties here], so I called Doug to let him know I was on the way home, and hiked back to the Metrobus.

Later, the driver picked me up as scheduled, within a window allowing for heavy traffic.  We arrived at my destination, chatting about this and that in Spanish much of the way.  He had even complimented my Spanish at one point, which is kinda the kiss-of-death--because it completely failed me when we arrived and needed to discuss whether he was supposed to wait for me or what.  This was an instance of my being more prepared to initiate small talk than respond to a question I don't expect and other factors, such as I'm not in charge here.  I stated back to him part of what I thought he was asking, and we agreed that I would take his cellphone number and have the guy I was meeting with call him for further instructions.

The long story short here is, I found the professor I have planned to work with, and he was well aware that I was coming to Mexico and what I wanted to do--he just wasn't aware that I was coming this week before school starts next week.  However, he completely rolled with the early arrival, he's excited I'm here and about what I'm going to do, and we had a great conversation (he did most of the talking and Spanish was not entirely my friend on the speaking end) and made rough plans for the next several weeks, and for the next nine months.  Whew!  He remembered having met me last summer, etc.  He was aware of a colleague we have in common--someone he knows from his home country of Chile who is a new colleague of mine at OSU.  In short, we're off to a very good start and this experience is going to be very cool and extremely productive; hence, the title of this entry:  Something to blog about!