3.5 More Days :(

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I´m sad.

I made that presentation today in my poetry and translation class. I did better than I thought with the translation and saying what I thought it was about. My director interrupted me, and I wanted to yell at her, but the better twin took the wheel and reminded the bad twin that I only have 3 more days to put up with her and her lack of knowledge of the English language. We had to explain "seeing past" versus seeing "passed" (or in her broken spainish - seeing someone pass.... like pass by). I get annoyed that we as students have to explain this stuff to her. there is a HUGE difference in 1) seeing someone pass and 2) seeing past someone! She cannot teach this class! And sadly enough, we even had to school her on spanish today because she interpreted the poem the wrong way. Seeing past someone TO the tables is not the same as seeing past someone FOR the tables. She wanted to say that the preposition "to" (in spanish) didn´t exist, and all 5 of us sat there looking at her like "either you´re right, or.... we´ve been sounding like idiots the entire time we´ve been trying to learn this language." I tore her up in her teacher evaluation. I love her, but after living in the US for over 20 years - if your students can teach a translation class better than you can, you may need to LOOK PAST teaching spanish-english poetry translation and stick to what you teach best... IN SPANISH. Top 2 things that upset me in that class: 1)Abysmally and 2)Entrails. In a Octavio Paz poem, we couldn´t use Abysmally because it reminded my teacher of an abyss..... and we as a class said "thats exactly the idea.... to miss someone abysmally is to say that its never ending and theres no depth etc, but no, even though the poem was originally in Spanish (and he used the EXACT translation of abysmally) we couldn´t use it in english because it reminded her of an abyss :/ and ENTRAILS!!! OMG I HAD TO BEG HER NOT TO USE IT because apparently one of the spanish translations for entrails is womb (the poem was a dedication to mothers) so she went into her dictionary and saw entrañas (womb) = entrails and thought that she be used in the poem in talking about what a wonderful person her mother was because "she carried me for months in the ENTRAILS made of love" etc, and we Americans were sitting in class like "EWWWWW" ToTaLLy different meaning!!! Its terrible.

Tomorrow some people in my group are doing a trolly tour of Cuernavaca, so i´m doing that after school. I didn´t see Karate kid last weekend because every show was SOLD OUT!!! so thursday i´m going to see it VIP, which is like a dinner theater. Some of the people in my group went to see twilight in VIP last week and loved drinking margaritas while in a movie theater. thursdays are the discount days for students so i´m going for 80 pesos (7 usd)!!!

Because the movie was sold out, my friends and I just walked around the galleria friday night instead, and we decided to try out the CASINOOOOO!!! i gambled for the first time in my life and it was so much fun 😊 i just used the change in my pocket.... like 50 pesos (4 usd) and my friends and i just kept pushing buttons on slot machines. the crowed on a friday night was interesting because all the addicts were there, and there was this one guy who "knows very well the machines" yet lost over 200 pesos right in front of us. it was so funny! my friend Graciela won 225 pesos (18usd) and she had never been to the casino before, so she didn´t know you could trade in your winnings, so when i was like "225 pesos? that will buy you like 10 drinks at los arcos tonight" and she was like "WHAT?!" lol so we traded in her winnings 😊 it filled up her gas tank and she bought me a drink when we went out after.

Saturday i spent the entire day with my mamá. We went to plaza cuernavaca and looked around at all the shops. Then (and i know this sounds so cheap but its what she wanted!) we went to McDonalds. There´s only 6 numbers:Big Mac, Quarter pounder, chicken nuggets, double cheeseburger, and i can´t remember the rest. I got a big mac and it tasted the same! Fries too, and i am so sorry, but i didn´t think i would be that excited to see some McDonalds fries after 3.5 weeks HAHA i was loving life.... or loving it i should say. The coke tasted different, and about halfway through your meal someone comes to your table and offers you ice cream if you didn´t buy it already. There was a kid´s birthday going on, so McDonalds was definitely the place to be if you were a kid on a saturday lol. Afterwards, we went home and my sister Andrea was waiting for us so we could go together to the baby shower 😊 Alejandra (the baby momma) was having a boy, named *Emiliano*, we played lots of games, ate lots of food and ended up getting home around 10pm. Latin baby showers are much more comfortable than the ones i´ve been to in the US, and i didn´t even know anyone here!

Sunday i slept in, and went to Chili´s around 1230 to watch the final game. GREAT atmosphere! I loved it. everytime there was a close call, the whole restaurant shouted, and the cooks came flying out of the kitchen to look at the plazma screens HAHA! i got an apetizer and 4 coronas for 200 pesos (15usd) but i only drank 3. 2 people were celebrating their birthday there and it´s SO much different when its your birthday here at a restaurant. Besides the fact that their Mexican songs - the entire restaurant gathers around your table, WITH INSTRAMENTS! and they´re there for at least 5 minutes just singing and clapping. it was so cool. I´m glad Spain won, and clearly the rest of the restaurant was in it for Spain too. that place went crazy when they finally got a goal.

Yesterday after school, mamá and i went to see the pyramids in Cuernavaca (because i didn´t know we had pyramids here!) and it was so cool. she climbed up the pyramid with me IN HER WEDGES! i told her "you are a brave woman." because i kno i couldn´t have done it!

but anyways, thats all thats been going on with me. i´m getting nervous because i haven´t been assigned a host family in Chile yet, but i´m sure it will be soon because they know tons of ISEP students like me are flying in on the 26th. theres so much more i want to do in cuernavaca.... and so little time!

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Comments

[Aunt Debbie]

world cup -n- stuff
I was thrilled that Spain won the world cup too! It was a good game. It must have been fun to see it there. Your travels sound like so much fun. I can't wait to see the slide show when you return. Love ya.