The good news is...

I´ll be moving to a new place of residence tomorrow. After living in a furnished studio apartment for the past several months, I have decided to move into a house with a colleague from UNO. Funny enough, her name is also Sylvia! Another coincidence is that she is from Monterrey (Mexico, that is). She is a librarian but she is also studying to get her degree from UNO. She rents a two bedroom house a little bit outside of town, so there will be lots of room and there is a really pleasant patio in the back of the house. She and I get along well and I am happy with the change. There will be some trade-offs, of course: I´ll have to find a new lavandería to take my laundry to, I won´t have internet (at least initially), and I will have to get used to sharing a living space again, but the rent will be a lot cheaper - only $750 pesos, or approximately $60 USD. Yes, you read that right, sixty dollars a month. Además, it will be interesting to live in a different neighborhood. I´m sure I will discover some new restaurants and there is a juice bar on the corner that I am excited to try out. Living with a native Spanish speaker (who also speaks English well) will undoubtedly be a benefit to my language skills and I am sure I´ll learn un montón about Mexican culture, too. I´ll even be sleeping in a Yucatecan hammock, which is supposed to be amazingly comfortable and great for your back, but I have yet to try it. A new experience for a new year!
I will be packing up my things tonight and tomorrow, simultaneously preparing for my trip back to the States. At the moment, they are predicting snow for Saturday night, though the forecast looks much less dire for Newark, NJ than it does for Bethlehem, PA. Let´s hope the snow can hold off until my plane lands!
It sounds like next cuatri I will again be doing some teaching at the Mesón del Marques Hotel, this time teaching a course with the upper-level management, and it is likely that I´ll also be teaching an online Moodle course in Public Administration and Marketing. We are presently working out the schedule to figure out who´s teaching which classes - a process that is always fairly painstaking, particularly for my boss, Miguel. It doesn´t look like I will be teaching the same groups as last cuatri, which is sort of disappointing to me because I really enjoyed my 1st cuatri students, but that´s part of teaching and part of life, I suppose.

Tonight is the big UNO fiesta, which is going to be lots of great food, lots of music and dancing, and some giant piñatas filled with dulces. Everyone is ready to have a good time after working hard all semester-long.

Al final, this is probably my last blog entry of 2009! I have enjoyed writing about my experiences and sharing them with you in this forum, and it has been really nice to know that people are interested in what I´ve been up to and to feel like we´re connected, albeit virtually. Keeping in touch has been comforting to me as I adjust to life in Mexico. So, thank you for being part of my experience and please continue to do so in 2010!
¡Que el año nuevo les traiga mucha felicidad y prosperidad!