september and sponsors

Alright well training is going well and school is actually fun for a change!!!  I like the stuff we are reading in my classes a lot and I'm having a good time studying.  Also, to top it off I'm actually hopeful that I will finish my thesis on time and have a good defense and then, amazingly, graduate!  crazy, i know =)  

So, I've also started rock climbing with Andy.  it is SO MUCH FUN!!!  We wend to Horseshoe Canyon Ranch down near Jasper over Labor Day weekend and i am absolutely hooked.  It is challenging and outdoors which is great for me!

One last thing for this short post, I don't know how many people read this but we are still in need of some sponsorship for my Adventure Race Team.  We have several sponsors already but we're still about $1000 short.  The perks are pretty good, you'll get put on this blog, our team blog (teamtorti.blogspot.com), our facebook page and my facebook profile, and recognition on our team jerseys.  So...if anyone would like to sponsor us or knows anyone who would like to sponsor us, that'd be great!!  Get in touch with me.  

I'm watching some football, so glad the Packers are doing well!!!  I got to watch the whole game last week but today they do the regional thing on FOX and they don't care much about us little old Packer fans down here in the South, so the game isn't on but i'm keeping track and they are up 21-0 already, yay!

9 hours can't be that bad right?

Ha! right, 9 hours wouldn't be that bad if that was all i was doing...but as usual, Megan's schedule has rapidly filled up. I'm also writing my thesis this semester, which would be 6 hours but i don't have to be enrolled in them. I'm studying for the Foreign Service Officer Test (what you take to try and get into the foreign service--working in embassies overseas) . I'm working at Logan's (come see me!) a few nights a week cause there's no scholarship stipend this semester...yea, it is a whole new ballgame for me now, i'm not used to this! good thing i have wonderful parents who are willing to support me even though i'd rather be able to do it myself, gotta suck up the pride sometime though ;)

And so all of that is good, and wouldn't be that hard but last week i got a message from a guy I had talked to a little bit last year about Adventure Racing. He asked me if I was interested in racing in the National Championship adventure race in Blue Ridge, Georgia in the beginning of November. Well, if you know me you know i can't pass up an opportunity like that...so i said yes, and now i'm in training for that, which takes at least an hour, up to 2 or more hours a day because it will involve about 60 miles of biking, 20 miles of running/trekking, and 20 miles of canoeing, all while trying to find points on a map with a compass (orienteering). it is supposed to last about 24 hrs, from 7 am on Nov 7th, til whenever you finish--which is great motivation for me to go fast!

to top it all off, I have started dating a really wonderful guy and i want to spend time with him, thank goodness he is cool and likes to go biking and running and rock climbing and all sorts of other fun stuff cause we can kind of combine training with spending time together. If you want to know more about him, get in touch with me =)

Life is good. God is still blessing me even though i don't deserve it and i'm extremely thankful for that. So, I hope you are seeing his blessings too!

happy birthday to me!

It is my birthday and so far it has been a good day! i am finished with all school work except emailing a paper to my profesora and i am happy to be done! this last week of school (even though i only went 3 days =) was kinda rough. my group did a presentation for one class and she failed 4 of the 5 groups! i know...silly, for me it doesn't matter much but for the people actually getting a grade it is no fun.
I can't wait for green valley! i am so excited to get home and go to camp. I love the people there and just everything about it really, even the heat because i like heat...haven't gotten much of that here actually but i'm sure i'll make up for it when i get home =) see you all soon!

valle de bravo!

Ok, so it has been over a week since i last posted and i'm sorry but i either haven't had much to say or had too much to say now =) but here goes...
so, last week not much to talk about, wrote a 5 page paper in spanish and no idea how i did that but sweet, its done. School School, blah blah, friday night we all went to eat again at marco polo's and that was yummy so that's pretty much all that happened last week.
This weekend, though, has been so wonderful. There's a guy here, Alessandro, that I met and he is great and his family lives in Valle de Bravo, about 4 hrs from Cuerna but it is on a lake. It is a BEAUTIFUL area, reminds me a lot of home with the pine trees and hills. He and I and Tayna, Memo, Carlo, and 2 of carlo's friends Grace and Vives came up Saturday. Getting here was nice just because we weren't in a bus and even though there were 5 of us squeezed into a fairly small car, i enjoyed it.
Valle is an old town and the streets are all cobbled, which means the traffic moves slow no matter what time it is and it has been just a really nice change from Cuerna. Alessandro's house is pretty much right on the lake...his mom designs, builds, rents and sells houses and she is good. The house is beautiful. So Saturday we just kind of took it easy, ate a delicious dinner that his mom fixed of pasta, soup and salad. and played cards all night and tried to walk to the lake in the dark which was hilarious because it is really muddy right now because they drained a lot of it in preparation for the rainy season (now).
Sunday...here's where the funny parts start...i got up and made pancakes for everyone and they were good, not to brag or anything =) and then we got around to going to rent a boat to ski and wakeboard with. Well...the boat was really small, i wish i had pictures of it. in total there were 8 people on it, which was probably 4 too many and so basically you couldn't really ski because the boat couldn't go fast enough. so we wakeboarded and i was the only one on the boat who had every done it before, which i thought was funny. Anyway, so we have this driver right, and he is, to tell the truth, HORRIBLE. he would shoot off way to fast sometimes, and sometimes drive too slow, and sometimes turn right when he would begin so you'd have to turn the board as you were getting up and then he wouldn't avoid wakes, and to his credit, the lake was really choppy so it wasn't all his fault. but, seriously, tayna and i were laughing SO much just because we knew that it could be so much easier. and, go figure, when we went down to the dock to get the boat it was bright and sunny but about 45 min into our outing it started raining...so yea, great boating experience in Mexico...Andy i'm ready for Beaver Lake!!! =)
Oh, and we got to ride in the back of their truck which brought memories of home, for sure...and after we 'skiied' we went to watch the finals of the Eurocup at this little place that had really good seafood. Tayna said that it was the best meal she's had here, and coming from her that's a big compliment =) then we came back and had a nap cause it was raining and in Mexico that is the best thing to do while it rains. The two girls had to go back to Mexico city so they left that evening. Yesterday Tayna and I breakfasted on Turkey and dressing that Alessandro's mom made and againd, delicious. Carlo forgot he had to do something for school and had to rush around and go catch a bus back to Cuernavaca. Alessandro and Memo had to hurry and run some errands but before they did they helped Tayna and I get their kayaks into the small river that runs into the lake. We had so much fun! we paddled down the river, which was a little rough in a couple places and Tayna hasn't done much kayaking so she did good getting it down there. and then we just piddled around the lack and watched the storm come in from over the mtns (yes, again, it was sunny and just as we get on the lake it clouds up) still, it was beautiful and we had a great time out in the lake exploring. Since we couldn't get the kayaks back up the river we decided to try going straight from the shore to the house...through the mud. lol oh, you have never seen two girls trying to drag kayaks through mud up to their knees have you? it was a blast. we looked so pitiful that they guys working on a little gazebo area before his house felt sorry and came and helped us carry them the rest of the way. then it started pouring and we went inside and took showers and then decided to play RISK...ha, as some of you may know, i love RISK, but it does get competitive and i have been guilty at times of letting it get too personal and that kind of happened, but nothing too dramatic. Alessandro and I had to go in the middle of the game to get his stuff and pick up some pizza cause they were starving boys (of course) and we got to walk around the zocalo while we waited for the pizza to be done. We were all tired and so we went to bed early last night. we are leaving today and its probably a good thing cause we are missing classes because of this, but i would much rather be doing this than be in class so i'm fine with it. So soon i'll be home and see y'all, i have many more stories to tell!

weekend fun

So the disco on the boat was a LOT of fun, mostly because i love being on the water and more than that, i love storms and there was one off in the distance but we could watch the lightening and so i got two great things and some fun music all in one night, what a deal! =) we didn't get home til really late but i didn't have anything to do the next day so it was good. i went over to some friends' house with one of the girls from the states. we got there and the guys (there were 3 of them) of course said they were starving...so i offered to fix dinner. i know, it was a bit scary cause everything was different but...i was successful! i fixed the simplest thing i could think of...poppyseed chicken, be proud mom! everyone said it was good. then we played Rockband all night which was hilarious and dominos for a bit.
Sunday I went to church and it was great to see everyone again. There are a lot of outgoing people there and it is fun. Sunday afternoon I just lazed around mostly and talked with my host family a lot which was fun. natalia, the 3 year old, is really hilarious. she likes princesses and dresses up like them a lot. every time i see here she asks me ¿eres Megan? (are you Megan?)and i mean EVERY time which is cute.
Today we of course went to school and have homework =( boo. but only 2 weeks left so i guess i can take it.

just another day

Well, so I haven't posted this week because nothing all that exciting or newsworthy has happened. I had class, had 2 tests yesterday that I think went pretty well. Monday night I went to eat sushi with the AIMers and Alinne, and that was, of course, very yummy! Wednesday night I went and watched a movie with them, and I went early to get Ben and Jerry's ice cream which is like manna from heaven, if you've ever had it you know what i mean =) and i saw some people from school there bowling and so i sat and chatted with them for a while, but then i was late for the movie so i had to go see a different one but that was ok, cause i didn't really want to go see hulk, but i watched M. Night Shymalan's The Happening and i enjoyed it a lot! I like all of his movies really. Last night was a lot of fun cause I went to small group at ben's and then we went to a house where a lot of people from the church were celebrating a little girl's birthday but also just getting together to talk and there were some people from tennessee there who were really nice and so we had a great time. my shoe broke but a very nice man managed to fix it for me enough so that i could get home. Today we didn't have school cause everyone else went to Puebla early this morning. i didn't feel like being part of a massive tour group anymore so i didn't go and neither did another 2 girls, Katey and Amber and we decided to go to the water park that is pretty close to here. it said it was open from 9am to 6pm so we thought we'd just go in and spend a few hours.. well...like everything here, its not exactly like that. the complex was open for that long but the slides and wave pool and the real attractions were only open for like an hour at a time! i know...but we enjoyed what we could and had a few turns down the slides which was a lot of fun. sometimes you just need to be a kid again, you know?! Actually, there are a few people who have birthdays on or right around mine on the 5th and i think we are going to go to a better water park that day to celebrate.
tonight we are going to a disco that is on a boat...yea, be jealous =) should be fun, if we can find it, but we have some mexican friends that are taking us. And tomorrow...who knows? some other adventure no doubt =)

d.f. y teotihuacan

So the weekend was fun! We left Cuerna early and got to the Zòcalo in Mexico city at about 10 or 1030. Funny thing, everyone in Mexico just calls mexico city 'Mexico' so if you are going to Mex City, you just say you are going to mexico...or if you lived there, same thing. even the road signs just say 'mexico' kinda funny no? you'd think that they would get confused but nope. So anyway, we got to the zocalo, which is the main plaza in every town, and mexico city's is really big. It was pretty cool to see the site of so many protests and the HUGE mexican flag flying above it. We split up into 3 groups and our group had a most excellent guide, Carlos. He wore a bandana half the time and was really informative and fun. He was with us the whole weekend. We saw the Diego Rivera murals in the national palace and took a short tour of it. It was really nice to have a guide for the murals because they have a lot of meaning put into a small place. I'm really starting to appreciate his work.
Then we went to an archaological site really near the palace and its kinda weird to see these ruins right in the middle of the city. The whole city is built on top of them though, and on top of a lake so its sinking as well...BUT that helps sometimes because they also are on top of a fault but the water absorbs a lot of the small quakes that they have so...yea, who knew?
We then had time to peruse the cathedral and have lunch. Me and Tayna, Katey and Amber got away from the rest of the group a bit to minimize the confusion and just not have to deal with so many people trying to eat and found a really nice little cantina. It had the old oval booths and looked a bit like an old bar in chicago or an irish pub. The lady there made us some good rice and pork and we were satisfied.
There were some people dressed up in indigenous clothing doing a big demonstration right in one of the streets leading up to the zocalo. It was amazing but blocked traffic so our bus was late but we got on and went to our hotel in the zona rosa. At 4 we went to the anthropological museum...which is incredible! it is huge, for one thing...we only saw like 3 rooms of it and we were there for 3 hours. I would love to go back someday and really peruse the whole thing. 90% of the artifacts in there are real and ALL of them are from mexico. Truly a rich place. Saturday night we ordered pizza and that was yummy.
Sunday we went to Teotihuacan. I really can't tell you how amazing the place is. The pyramids are just rock but you can feel that they were extremely important places for the people that lived there. I can just imagine what it would have felt like to discover something like that. We climbed both of them, and took pictures which will be put on facebook, no worries. =) The craziest thing about the pyramids is how much I felt like I was back in Angor Wat, in Cambodia. The steps are just as steep and the feel of the place is the same...just the importance and heaviness and ingeniousness of the design and construction. Who says we are the culmination of civilization? not i.
We had a really funny experience when we went to eat. our guide told us there were about 20 restaurants where we were going and we could choose. what he didn't tell us was that they were numbered...and that's all there were. There were people out with signs of their number restaurant trying to get us to eat there...it was surreal, none of them had names, just numbers. us girls ate in number 3 and our food was actually very delicious.
We then got on the bus and came home, altogether a great weekend. Today we had class and i played ball with the guys...come to think of it i don't think i've written about that. Sergio, Hernando, Hymei, and Joachim are guys that play basketball every day at Tec. I started playing with them and we have had fun. Tonight i'm going to eat sushi with the AIM guys and Ailinne and her friend. Yum!