Kuxan Sum

*** After a rather sleepless night tossing and turning I managed to finish another blog posting before attempting to sleep once again. The next two posts are new, so please put any comments on the most current one. ***

June 11th, 2009

Last night was probably the worst night I have had in the last two weeks. My nightly quota of restful sleep has decreased from about eight hours at the beginning of this adventure, to about six at the current date, last night being the exception since it was even less. I awoke on multiple occasions with cramps in both of my feet and was forced to jump out of bed as quickly as possible to relieve the spasm. It will be a very long day with another evening lecture and shortly after I awoke I could already feel my heavy eyelids laden with sleep.

We spent almost all of class preparing for the exam, which I found quite frustrating since Ismael would dictate multiple sentences in Spanish for us to translate into Maya. On several occasions I only managed to dictate a single sentence, which left me confused and discouraged, owing largely to my increasingly irritable mood and an overwhelming feeling of defeat. Since I had given my notes to Christa to photocopy I have had no chance to study for the exam and find myself completely overwhelmed with the very few hours left to study after the evening lecture. It was with great relief on my part that Ismael agreed to let Allison translate my exam questions in English, making it much easier for me to study the remaining verbs and removing a huge burden from my shoulders.

After class, Mark, Allison, Connie and I walked to a small local restaurant called Trapiche, ordering a delicious ham and cheese sandwich along with a diet coke. We spent the remainder of our free time soaking in the chill of the UADY library while preparing for our exam. Connie was like a broken record at the small table asking a thousand and one questions as if she had never learned the language before, giving Mark, Allison, and I very little time to focus on our own studies. It was not until after the lecture that my wonderfully organized notes were returned to me two days later. Since I had gone out of my way to help replace her lost notes, I very strongly felt that she should have made a greater attempt at returning them sooner with the pending exam.

To my relief the lecture was presented in Maya by a Maya anthologist, Feliciano Sánchez Chan. It was amazing to hear a complete lecture in Maya and I found myself picking up on much of what was said. I was even more pleased to be able to relate key points from the lecture to some of my classmates, in return for their summary of Tuesday’s presentation since it was in Spanish. I was rather shocked that most of my classmates admitted to a mere ten percent of verbal comprehension. Perhaps the most exciting part of the lecture was Feliciano’s retelling of the kuxan sum, the primary source for my thesis which I have never heard in Maya. Luckily I had my Sony voice recorder and managed to create an entire sound clip of the kuxan sum as told in Yucatec Maya. It will be so much fun to listen to later and research thoroughly as part of my thesis, including a complete translation of the narrative. Afterwards, his small pile of Maya books were purchased in a flurry of grabbing and hoarding, I myself only purchasing two of the three texts I had been partial too during his presentation since Connie decided that she deserved eight books in all, while my classmates and I were left to divide the remainder in groups of two or three per person.

It was another late night as I prepared for the exam, and in addition I set my alarm earlier to review my notes one last time.