Friday or Tuesday the 13th?!?!?!

So I woke up this morning and realized its FRIDAY 13TH!!!!  I started to get a little worried like "oh boy, what is this day going to bring?"  "What is going to happen??" and more importantly "What is going to go wrong!?!?!?!" 

When I started talking to a good friend of mine.. Carlos! 

PSST!!  He's the one in the middle!!!

 When I reminded Carlos that today was Friday 13th, he responded with "YEY!!  Friday!!  Good Luck, right??'  To which I quickly replied, no its bad luck.  Bad things tend to happen on Friday 13th.  He laughed at me, smiled and said "Amanda, you got it all wrong.  Here Tuesday 13th is bad luck."  Then he started to sing.... 

"En Martes 13, ni te cases, ni te embarques,

Ni de tu casa te apartes"

Which means, "On Tuesday 13th, don't get married, don't start a journey, don't even leave your house."  I know, it sounds a lot cooler in Spanish. :)  But it got me thinking, and I started to do a little research on both Tuesday and Friday 13 and I basically come up with the same results.  No one knows why these days are considered bad, they just know they are.  Evidence started showing up in the 19th and 20th centuries in literature and random references in letters and correspondences writen in the 1900.  The only variable in that in the Western countries, it was alwasy Friday, but in Spain, Latinamerica and Greece the bad luck was always transfered to Tuesday.

So, what gives?!!?!?!  Which day is it, or is it even a day at all??  What do you all think?  Friday or Tuesday??
         

Strikes and Demonstrations in Guadalajara and Mexico

Teachers are a huge part of every society and every community in the world.  Teachers can inspire children to do their best and in some cases be the one stable person in a child's life.  Here in Mexico, the teachers have been affected by new reform laws that the president is trying to pass. 

Road blocks put up my teachers on the main streets of Oaxaca.

The laws are quite simple, they don't change much except for two very important areas. 

1)  Like in most places, being a teacher in Mexico is not one of the highest paid jobs you can decide to take on.  The new reform wants to cut all summer vacation pay for all teachers in public schools in the country, no matter what level of education they are teaching.  This change would obviously drastically reduce wages for teachers, and make the profession even less desirable for younger generations as well as cut benefits. 

The strikes in Guadalajara

2)  The reforms also require that all teachers no matter how old or how long they have been teaching take a comprehensive education test.  This wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, sometimes these tests are good to keep teachers current on what they are teaching and different teaching methods.  Here, however, the older teachers are afraid that these tests will be used against them in a way where those who don't score high enough will be fired and lose all retirement benefits only a few years before they are eligible for retirement.

 Its been a very interesting situation around here with traffic and marches and protests.  So far all of them have been peaceful.  On September 4th, the day these pictures were taken, we had one of the biggest marches in GDL.  Over 1,600 teachers, students, family and community members marched in protest of these reforms.  There were also over 60 city and traffic police on hand to help with the marches and keep everyone safe.  The protestors walked for 2 hours from one side of the city to the other, and then stopped in front of these bleachers to have public speeches.  It was very interesting to be a part of these manifestations.