Spicy Enough For Ya?!?!?!?!

Most of the food sold in the cafeteria would either be illegal to sell in a Canadian school or be found disgusting by any non Mexican. As a main course you can have a torta, a sandwich where the bun is soaked in the grease from the cooked meat before it is made, some chicken nuggets made of who knows what part of a chicken, a plate of nachos covered in delicious month old cheez-wizz, quesadillas that might actually be good except that they stick a slice of slimey ham in each one or a hamburger. The hamburger is made with not a meat patty but with a lovely slice of Mexico's trademarked slimey ham. You could attribute this to them hearing the American (I know its's German but they think it's American) word HAMburger and putting the ham in but the word for ham in Spanish is "jamon." I am still trying to understand this. There is one other thing they consider a meal, the one thing I haven't been able to bring myself to try, a bag of Doritos cut open down the side, cruched to dust with cheez-wizz, corn kernals, lime juice, cream and of course a whole lot of chili of varying types. For a drink you can have Tonicol (a cola a lot like coke), iced tea, jamaica or horchata. The latter two are uniquely Mexican concoctions of ground up bits of various plants mixed with water, I guess iced tea is too. In the desert section (a lot of people treat this as main course section) you can have donuts, slices of cake, slices of pie and conchas. Conchas are just a bread bun with some weird dry icing on top. There is also a impulse candy buy section by the cash register where they try to get you for some halls or gum. I still don't understand why people don't bring their own lunch.

Coin Spinnin'

One of my favourite time wasting games is coin spinning. There are two teams one person each and it is played sitting on the floor. One team serves by holding a coin vertical on the floor with one hand and flicking it with the other to make it spin like a top. The other team has to flick it to keep it going, teams take turns doing one flick each. If the coin stops spinning and it is your fault (either you didn't flick it fast enough or your flick made it fall) the other guy doesn't score a point, he gets to hurt you. The loser has to place his fist on the floor, like he has just punched it, and let the other person slide the coin flat across the floor at his knuckles. This really hurts if the other person is good at it. I have seen people get bleeding knuckles after playing for awhile. Usually once you lose two or three times in a row, your flicking is at such a disadvantage due to your hand exploding with pain that you might as well just give up at that point. Of course, you are only allowed to give up when you have just won a round and instead of shooting it at your opponents knuckles you forfeit.

One day a couple guys had been playing this for about half an hour in science class and quite a large crowd had gathered because it was a good match. The teacher was talking the whole time and eventually noticed that not a single person was even pretending to pay attention. She came over and tried to step on the coin to stop the game but stepped on one of the player's hands reaching for it. The teacher tryed to say that she would get them in trouble with the Prefecta for playing in class but they just said that she stepped on one of their hands and they would get her in trouble, no one ended up saying anything.

If there is no toilet paper in the stall (as usual), you are supposed to yell for help from the janitor

This School Could Employ Its Own Army Barber...

Looks are very important in Mexico. With schools that means that both the buildings and people there have to look pretty. Part of looking pretty is looking uniform. Part of looking the same is having the same haircut. So essentially what I'm saying is that haircuts are very important.

Every couple weeks the Prefecta (ranked one step below principal) comes around to each class to check on peoples hair. Girls just have to keep it looking reasonably clean and they do this without the Prefecta's nagging. On the other hand, guys have to pass a test from her that usually depends on her mood. Each boy gets a rough grab at the back of their head to test the length. If she decides it is too long, you get told to cut it and she writes your name down in her little notebook of secrets.

One day we were in gym class playing soccer on the field. The Prefecta comes out on the third floor balcony on the building and watches us for while. After about 5 minutes she roars, "JOSE FERNANDEZ, COME HERE!" Jose, a boy in my class, went running into the building. It was very impressive, even though I had no idea what was going on. For the next few classes he wasn't there. Eventually he showed up, with his hair cut! After asking some questions I found out that if you don't get your hair cut within 2 days of the Prefecta telling you to, the school will phone your mom or dad and make them come and get you, doesn't matter if they are busy or at work, they MUST come. You have to leave school with your parent, get your hair cut and return. It is unacceptable to wait until after school that day.

While the Teacher's Away, the Mice Will Play

Like many Mexican students in my class, one of my favourite pastimes during school hours is throwing things at the 4 fans that are running all day on the classroom ceiling. Of course this is strictly (unlike most of the rules here) forbidden, so it must only take place very secretly while the teacher is there or in the few golden moments each day that there is no supervision in the classroom. In Canada it is illegal for the teacher to leave the class unattended and maybe it is here too. These chances usually occur right after lunch or between classes if the teacher doesn't show up on time. Today we were waiting for a teacher and some guys casually started throwing paper balls at the fans, if you do it right they get hit by the blades and fired out in random directions. In about 30 seconds this escalated into throwing plastic pens and half full water bottles. The pens explode if its done right and the bottles give a very satisfying "WHACK." Soon my friend grabbed a huge piece of rolled up paper (2x4 feet) and launched it like a spear. It got caught by a fan blade right in the middle and doubled over, spinning with the fan. At this point the guy watching the door yelled that the teacher was coming, we all threw what ever was left in our hands and dove for our desks, screaming and laughing our heads off. The paper spear got fired out of the fan and just had time to get out of sight as the door was opened. The teacher walked in scowling and snatched a piece of paper slowly floating towards the ground. Of course there was no hard evidence so nothing happened.

Maybe a Cat Had Just Passed Through

There was a hairball by my desk today. It started out as a ball of lint but grew as the day went on. It picked up hairs one by one. Hairs that were so big I couldn't believe that I hadn't noticed them on their own on the floor. Once it reached a certain size the wind from the fans was able to move it, back and forth across the class. It had traveled its journey 3 times and on the fourth crossing it started heading straight for me. As it came closer I saw that it was about 3 inches in diameter, loosely packed and trailing behind it was a almost 50cm long tail of nasty nastyness. Hairs, candy wrappers, someone's gum, all headed for me. I started to panic so I lifted my legs and it passed harmlessly under my chair. For the rest of the day it grew and and got blown about. I wonder if it will still be there tomorrow.



I believe that the threat of hairball related injuries and deaths in Mexican schools is constantly on the rise and should therefore be taken into consideration. A Mexican hairball's natural habitat is in small, smooth floored, well ventilated enclosures. Their main source of sustenance are the hair snippings from Mexican school girls grooming their split ends during a particularly boring class. I think that these unique natural wonders of Mexico should not be exterminated, but rather to be relocated by a school janitor to a nearby garbage can where they can be properly cared for.

Code Blue Security Breach

In this entire country there is a sort of paranoia about anything that could ever possible harm you in any way. My school is considered one of the "better" ones because it has a large fence around it. I don't know if it is to keep the kids off of the "dangerous" street (the only cars on it are going to the school) or to keep the multitude of kidnappers just waiting for a chance to grab a high school student out. Anyways there is a big fence, a gate with a gatekeeper and 2 or 3 guards on the outside of the fence walking around all day. There is just one small problem with all of this security; the fence only goes around the front half of the school. Maybe they are planning on building the rest later or it could truly be just for looks. The guards spend most of their time throwing tennis, volley, soccer and basket balls back into the enclosure. All in all I hope that there aren't masses of kidnappers waiting around the outside of the fence.