Break's Over: Time for the Schoolboy to Do Work

So over the last 48 hours I've finished two books, watched a number of movies, walked around the city looking for gifts for friends, and gotten exactly... nothing done on my research project. Correction I wrote my interview questions in Spanish. Good stuff really. Anyways I got an email from my Spanish professor, who I was counting on to do a good bit of the heavy lifting by getting me in contact with a professor who's class I could use to interview and basically take care of the research in one fell swoop. Well as fate would have it, I finally got a response from him and lo and behold the class ended last week and that he suggested I visit another University in town.
At first I was irritated and some bitter thoughts went through my head like "It would have been helpful to know that last week" and "This really screws me." I sort of remained in my vegetable like state, watching an episode of the Sopranos. Ironically the show gave me a moment of clarity. Throughout the episode Tony is constantly losing money gambling, be at the horse races or the roulette table, or betting against the Dolphins. As his losses pile up he starts lashing out at his friends and finally in a fit of rage has a huge fight with Carmella. I said to myself, "God, can't he see after all that therapy that he's just blaming his friends for his own problems."

Bingo. Exactly what I was doing with Esau, my Spanish professor. Here's a guy who's helped my Spanish improve beyond all recognition, who gave me another University to go to and the contact info for one of his students to interview for the project. I realized that the only person holding me back from this is myself, and that I've got all the tools I need to get the project done.

In short the project has me talking to university students here in Oaxaca and asking them about their educational background, their experience with the University, what they hope to do after they graduate, if they think they can do that in Oaxaca or will have to move, and a few other questions about the city to gauge their attitudes.

So first thing tomorrow I'm gonna go get some background information at the University, then do what I should have been doing for the last two days and interview the hell out of people.

As President Bartlett would say, "Break's over"