Monday, July 16, 2007

I got up this morning at 9:30, got ready, and ate my normal breakfast—two cups of boiling hot chocolate (I am not exaggerating—it overflowed in the microwave), two media lunas, and tostadas with dulce de leche. I finished off the farm brand and started the colonial style kind. It is probably my second favorite kind. I have become quite the connoisseur of dulce de leche here! I finished up my homework and selected 100 of my photos to get printed at the shop where I purchased my new camera because when I bought my camera, I got a coupon for 100 free prints.

I left about 11:30, dropped off my CD at the store, and headed to school. It was a pretty warm day today (in comparison to what we have been having). I was warm wearing my fleece. I got to school and went to the computer lab to look for Tammy because she had planned on being there at 11. She wasn’t there, so I got online, checked my email, and did a few other things. I went to go down to class at 12:25, but there were two Argentine girls in our classroom so I went to sit down on a bench outside the classroom. The bench right in front of our room was full, so I went and sat by myself a bit down the hall. Our teacher showed up about 12:35 and she kicked the girls out of our room. When we went in, we realized that they had been smoking in there. It is against the law to smoke in public buildings in Buenos Aires, but the university students are notorious for disobeying this rule. The girls had opened the windows and there were cigarettes on the floor.

We went over homework for the first part of class and also talked a bit more about the slang that is used in Buenos Aires. I have to say that although it is interesting, it is hard for me to care now that I am leaving in 5 days. One funny part was when Graciana was trying to describe the action of sticking your arm or hand out a window or something and she said that she was going to “asomarse” and walked briskly to the window, opened it, and peered out. She asked us if we understood and we all said no. We were not sure what part of her drama was the definition of the word. It was funny. We lunched in the cafeteria, Tammy, Will, Omar, Kat, Sam, and I. (Okay, I realize that sentence sounds funny, but I am too tired to attempt to correct my poor grammar.) Oh, something else that is funny is that when Graciana tries to explain why something is correct when there is really no logical reason for it, she says that it “sounds better” so when she questions somebody’s answer in class, it is always safe to say that it “sounds better.” It is really funny. (My English has really gone down the drain; I way overuse the word “funny.”)

We worked on pronouns (direct objects and indirect objects) which are not very interesting. We had to classify a list of about 30 verbs and I got them all correct which made me extremely happy! (There were some that can be both and I only listed each verb once, but I still count that as correct.) We also started working with a new grammar topic: the passive voice. Although the passive voice was previously learned by the majority of the students, the topic was revisited during the class session today (check out the passivity of this sentence!). However, instead of doing normal examples, we did really complicated grammar constructions and I didn’t understand it at all. We talked about the vocabulary for bread and sharing food (a little random, I know), got assigned some homework, and listened to a presentation about soccer and one about Recoleta Cementary. Oh yes, at one point during class, I definitely said, “más OR menos” instead of “más o menos.” The scary thing is that I did not even notice and Tammy had to point it out to me!

After class, Will, Tammy, and I walked to the ISA office and checked to see if we had any mail. We didn’t, so after talking to Guillermo about the farewell dinner on Thursday and plans to get to the airport on Saturday, we headed toward Freddo. The one on Cabildo was really full, so Tammy suggested that we go to the one on Juramento. We walked there and it is a lot bigger and had a lot less people. We had a problema after that because the special is 2-for-1 on Monday and we had three people. We asked the guy if they had to be the exact same thing and he said yes. We spent about ten minutes deciding what to do and eventually settled on Tammy and I getting cones and Will getting a waffle cone bowl thing and an extra one to share. I had my usual frambuesa (raspberry) and frutilla (strawberry) and we got cheesecake ice cream for our shared bowl. It was confusing because you have to pick up your ice cream at a different counter than you order so Will went to pick up the shared bowl and we ordered his ice cream for him. After the stress of ordering, it was a good thing that we got to relax and eat ice cream! All of it was very good and we ate a lot and it cost less than two dollars a person!

We then attempted to do the homework, but we were pretty pathetic. Will and I are horrible at speaking English and Tammy just sits there and makes fun of us. Some of the best quotes of the night (originally said in English, embarrassingly enough) were, “and then, después,” by Will and “We ate el ice cream” by Carolyn. Tammy was also telling us a story about the airport and she asked a lady if she had change for a 100 peso bill and I thought she said that a lady had asked her if she could change her underwear! And I thought I still could comprehend English. I was laughing so hard at one point that I couldn’t talk (a rarity for me!). We teased each other about asking someone in Freddo for help with our homework because there was one question that we were totally stuck on. We didn’t though. Will had to leave to go home, but before he left, he told us in English with perfect Spanish grammar, “That you all have a good day!” Keep in mind it was 8pm at this time! We are all going nuts. Tammy and I finished filling in answers to the exercise we were working on and left, too. We still have the hardest exercise left. It is the kind where you have to transform someone’s quote to a paraphrase (sort of) and it is really hard and makes our heads hurt. We are going to have to do it before class tomorrow.

I walked home and made it back by 8:20. Fani got my dinner ready and I ate lukewarm watery soup, bad-tasting shredded carrots, cucumbers with big seeds, chicken and rice, and dulce de leche flavored mousse. Fani had to go downstairs to pick up a remedio from a delivery man and I hid my carrots in my napkin because they were too nasty to eat. The cucumbers were interesting because the seeds were very big and hard like watermelon seeds. I tried to pick them out inconspicuously (which didn’t really work), so I gave up trying to be polite and just put them on my plate. Fani noticed, but didn’t seem to mind. Sometimes when something appears to be wrong with my food, Fani gets really embarrassed. Fani’s sister is on her way to Buenos Aires for a visit. She is a lot older than Fani and lives in Corrientes which is a province near Iguazú, more or less. Fani cleaned up the dinner and then went straight to bed because she is going to go to the hair-fixing-cutting place tomorrow (peluqueria, in Spanish) and she wants to be rested. I got my dirty clothes ready for the “dirty clothes man” because he is coming tomorrow for the last time! He came late last week because of my trip to the estancia and so I only have one pair of pants for him, as well as other clothes! I worked on sending Amber some info about the online assistive technology class and wrote this blog. I am now going to read for a bit and then go to bed. Tomorrow, I am meeting Tammy to go visit a bookstore that takes place in an old theater (I realize that “takes place” sounds weird there). My English is horrific, in case you can’t tell! And the sad thing is that my writing is about 80 times better than my speaking because I can read it over and spell check it! Get ready to laugh at me when I come home!