We In The Short Rows Now

Yep, we in the short rows now. I have less than a month left of Tecnológico de Monterrey, and I gotta say, it weirds me out. Now that I've gotten over this last round of partials, I've got some more free time to enjoy this city and this country. But I gotta hurry up because there isn't much time left! That's enough crisis-mode ranting though... I'll fill you in on what I've been up to lately, and what the next few weeks hold.

For one, I'm mildly famous on campus now. I mean, just look at me up on that big screen:

I'm the anti-social one on the bottom right, smiling strangely into his phone.

We've also started full rehearsals for Shrek the Musical (I'm playing saxophone, and the whole musical's been translated into Spanish... have I mentioned this?), which is just way too fun. Honestly I can't speak highly enough of the musicians: they're remarkable. A couple of our main singers got second place or something like that on The Voice Mexico. Suffice it to say that by April 28th, our first performance, it's gonna be lit.

Here's a glimpse of lil Lord Farquaad during rehearsal.

This past weekend, as somewhat of a reward for the hard work put into partials, Tec's international students welcome group Triple W threw a party on a three-story boat in Lake Chapala. It was pretty much as absurd as it sounds. But only one person fell in! So in the end it was tame enough. The sunset over the lake was beautiful... but instead of a picture of that here's a pic of a couple impressive mustaches:

And the one in the middle isn't even Mexican. 

This coming weekend I'll be visiting Tequila, attending a Caloncho concert (my favorite Mexican musician), and rooting on the Chivas for the first time in El Clásico Tapatío (rivalry match between the city's two soccer teams). Then next week I'll be heading to Mexico City and Puebla for the first time! More on all that to come.

Quick closing comments: today in culture class we had super low attendance, so we just ended up talking pretty casually with the professor the entire three hours. At one point the conversation turned to World War II. We had a German, some Japanese folks, and an American (me) in class, so we ended up having a really great discussion, in Spanish (still super cool to me that I communicate with Japanese people in Spanish!), about the effects of the war on our countries. Then the conversation moved to American influences in Mexico and elsewhere around the world. This gave the Spanish and Finnish girls a chance to really chime in, and I gotta say, it was one of the most interesting class discussions I've ever had.