hasta luego, GIRE

i am about to leave the office and head to lunch with jennifer. i am sorry to say that my last day was increasingly painful, as it was spent at an all day seminar on sexuality and citizenship. a very interesting topic with incredible potential, indeed. in actuality, though, the seminar was transformed before our eyes into a room full of people who like to talk a lot, about the exact same ideas over and over again, without stopping. so it was an excrutiating four hours or so, and jennifer and i opted to not stick around for the after-lunch session. wise move, ladies.

i am happy to say that my second to last day is a brighter picture. they had a little party with tamales and homemade atole, which is a hot drink that i had only had once before and had reminded me a bit of snot, but this time around - with elba's chocolate version - i was pleasantly surprised. so we feasted and jennifer and menny, the executive director, said some kind words about my efforts and efficiency and i got to say my final good-byes to everyone. menny attempted to get me to say a few words, but in a room of 15+ spanish-speaking people i froze, and put my thoughts in a pressure-free email to the whole office instead. i had finished all of my work before brendan came to visit, so the afternoon was spent working away on a job application and piddling around on the internet. it has been nice to wrap things up at such a relaxed pace. it seems that in the past i have always left jobs in a whirl of panicked chaos.

so i am off now with jennifer to eat my last round of quesadillas at the coyoacán market, and then start thinking about how to spend my last few hours. i have to get up at 4am tomorrow, so it is not even worth it to try and get a decent night's sleep... i'll probably stay up late packing since 3 of my 5 roommates will be working away on research papers anyway, and they are not exactly the quietest people i have ever met. the weather is decent, so i'll probably just stroll around coyoacán, take some last photos, and try and fix it in my memory. it has been an incredible ride over the past three months, but i am ready to go back to my comfortable little life in seattle.

it will be interesting to see how my impressions of things at home have changed, if at all. not much time has passed, but it seems like there is so much that will be different in seattle from how it was when i left in june.

and after three months of wetting my pants while riding in mexico city taxis, i mostly can't stop thinking about what a calm car passenger i am set to become.