June 4, 2007

Well, I learned something from my mate experience yesterday: NEVER drink mate late in the day! I drank about 4 ounces of mate about 4pm yesterday and I could not fall asleep until about 4am! I was so wide awake. I have never been that wide awake before in my life. I sure could have used some of it when I was writing my lit review in April… hehe! I had told Fani that I would be ready for breakfast at 9, so I had to get up even though I didn’t want to. It wasn’t even actually that hard. Maybe it is because I have gotten about twice as much sleep each night as I usually get during the school year or maybe I still had mate flowing through my veins. Nevertheless, I got up with as much energy as usual. I had a media luna, two cups of hot chocolate, a few tostadas with dulce de leche, and some grapes for breakfast. Fani had dumped the yerba out of my mate and gave it to me. I guess it is ready to use now. I need to find a thermos so I can take my mate to the park (only early in the morning, though!). I went to my room and read for a while. I left about 11am and Fani left at the same time. She told me that it was going to be cold, but I only wore a long-sleeved shirt with a fleece jacket over it because I didn’t believe her definition of cold. Fani headed to the grocery store after kissing me goodbye on the corner. That is one thing I think I have neglected to mention in this blog. Everyone kisses each other on the cheek as a greeting and often as a farewell, too. It is still strange to have strangers come up and kiss me on the cheek before asking my name! Anyway, I decided to walk to the park near the train station. It was a really nice day about forty degrees Fahrenheit. When I got to the park, I had a pleasant (and noisy) surprise! There were over 60 dogs inside a fence there running around. When I had passed by this park before, there were just the usual number of dogs with their owners. However, this time all the dogwalkers had brought their charges to the park and were letting them run around together. It was so fun to watch. Besides the 60 dogs in the fence, there were also about 30-40 outside the fence. It is my new favorite place! I sat in the sun on a hill and watched and journaled. I saw one man who had on a special harness to which was attached 15 dogs! That is a new record for me. My previous records were ten dogs and then eleven. I stayed for about a half hour and then I left to find my way to class. I had not walked from this direction to the university before and knowing my propensity for getting lost, I allowed myself about 40 minutes when I was closer to the university than my house (which takes me about 20 minutes). I ate an apple from Fani while I walked. I saw a man doing Tai Chi which made me think of Hong Kong and our tai chi lessons there. I made it to the UB without getting lost once. I was kind of proud of myself even though it was not really that big of a deal. I was about 20 minutes early even with my peaceful meandering down the streets. I talked to some other people about their weekends (mostly in English) and went in to class. Today our profesora was Graciana. We basically talked about the same things as we did on Friday with Eugenia. I thought it was pretty boring. Over four hours of class on the same day with the same professor is hard enough without going over material from the class session before! During our half hour lunch break, I went straight up to use the computers. There was a long about four people long. In 25 minutes, I made it to the front of the line but never got to use a computer because I had to leave for class! I was annoyed because I had wasted my whole break for nothing! Oh, a girl named Jenny in my class brought facturas (sweets) to class today. I had one that was kind of like a round powdered doughnut with a hole that had dulce de leche in the middle. It was the best thing I have eaten here, I do believe! Something interesting I don’t think I have mentioned about the UB is that it is 17 stories tall, not counting the main floor or the basement (with the bookstore). There are elevators, but they only go to certain floors (7, 12, 17, and ground). My class is on the 10th floor, so I ride the elevator to the 12th floor and then walk down two flights of stairs. It is a weird feeling to ride the elevator up only to walk downstairs! The elevator moves very quickly because it does not stop on every floor. I usually walk down all the stairs at the end of the day. After class, I walked with several girls to the ISA office for a meeting about a visit to an estancia (ranch). We were early so I jumped on a computer and checked my email. We had the meeting and I don’t get to go until July because too many people who are leaving at the end of June want to go. So I will be in Córdoba, Argentina July 7-10. The exciting thing is that I won’t have to miss class because July 9 is Independence Day and we will be back in time for class on Tuesday morning. Well, I guess that depends on what time my new class is! I don’t know how it works… will I automatically be in the advanced level next month? I guess I will find out. After they decided who was going to the estancia when, they dismissed all the people for the July trip. I got back on the computer for a while and then went and talked to Federico about volunteering somewhere in the mornings. He is in charge of a special program here called ELAP (I have no idea what this stands for) that has trips for full-time volunteer work. I told him I like to work with children and people with disabilities. Because nothing is open in the mornings (except the dog park), I figure that this would give me something to do a couple days a week. We will have to see what happens. I left about 7 and walked to La Pampa. I decided to stop in a used bookstore there. I think this could be a dangerous place for me. I decided to look for children’s books that I have read before. I found Heidi (for $1.66) and a children’s version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (for $1). I am not going to let myself buy any other books until I have read those… which may take me the rest of my time here! The only other book I will let myself buy is Little Women in Spanish (obviously). I got home about 7:30 and Fani greeted me and got dinner ready right away. I had soup (of course), salad (a little lettuce, lots of shredded carrots, and cucumber slices), vegetable raviolis with cheese inside in a meat sauce, and chocolate mousse for dinner. I talked to Fani a little bit after dinner and then I went and took a shower. I hate taking showers here because the water is always cold until about the time I am ready to get out! Fani went to bed and I worked on my computer for a bit and started my homework for tomorrow. I actually have quite a bit tonight and I don’t know how to do it all, so I will have to use my Spanish book and look it up. Hopefully all the mate is out of my system and I can sleep tonight! :)