What's new...

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Hola hola hola!

I already mentioned before that my host mother is a single psychologist with three grown children. Overall I am very happy to be living here and I think I really lucked out with my home-stay. Others that I know are battling multiple host siblings for the use of the bathroom, wondering why they are paying so much money to eat pasta every night and go without breakfast every morning, and even one living in a room with no windows. I however, have a very spacious room (with windows), internet access, a variety of food and the luxury of being able to have friends over when my host mother isn't working. Most of the time I am grateful for how nice she is to me (she said she is doing this for the cultural exchange, and it has been a while since her kids have lived at home) sometimes she can be a little...too motherly? for example, just this afternoon she threatened to call my mother and tell her I wasn't eating, after I ate a huge lunch and a huge breakfast in an attempt to eat up all the food that she buys me. She also makes me drink this yogurty drink called actimel, it's supposed to be good for you I guess, but really it's a struggle to get it down every morning. I have started to refuse to drink it, making me feel like a child throwing a tantrum, but I thought that now that I am twenty-one I could control what I put or don't put into my body...?

School is going pretty well. I had my first test last week and I get it back tonight. I also had a pop quiz in my journalism class. Actually, the pop quiz is a perfect example of why I fear failing my classes: not because I don't understand the material, but because I don't understand the system. Monday morning after Easter break (four days) we had a pop quiz. I was so exited because I did the reading and I was confident I had all the right answers. I wrote in the best Spanish I could and handed it to the professor before time was even up. A week later we get back our quizzes. Mine had a big red "1" on the top, which means that I scored a "1" on a scale of "10" (they don't use A, B, C etc.) You need to get a "4" to pass. So I was a bit confused and I tried to ask the girl sitting next to me if she understood the note my professor scribbled at the top next to the "1" (for all her criticizing, her hand writing could use some work...) and this just led to a conversation between me and the classmate about whether or not I could read numerals (she started giving me examples: uno, dos, tres.... ) I finally figured out that the professor did not read my quiz because I wrote in pencil and therefore I failed a quiz that I should have gotten a one-hundred on. Heinous! Apparently she "told" the class we could only use pen but considering I am fastidious about writing down every single direction she gives the class concerning assignments to avoid mistakes such as this one, I don't actually believe her. This is the same professor that wrote on our first paper "it would be a good idea to take a Spanish class if you want to take this course" because apparently I write in "an incomprehensible manner."

What else have I been up to in the past month...

Over Easter break I decided not to travel like most of the international students seem to do. Holy Thursday and Saturday I tried to get homework done. Good Friday I went on a day trip to Lujan, which is the place Argentina's Our Lady of Lujan comes from. The main attraction in that city is the huge basilica and a shrine. Easter I went with my host mother to the suburbs of Buenos Aires to have an asado with some of her friends, which was really nice. It was nice to not be freezing on Easter, instead we were sunbathing in the garden.

I was preparing to go on a mission trip with UCA to the Salta region of Argentina, but that was canceled because there is a slight dengue epidemic at the moment. I should have seen it coming because one of the GW trips included in the program to the same region was canceled weeks before for the same reason. GW changed their trip to a weekend away in the marshlands of Argentina, and we just got back on Monday. But I have class soon so that post will have to wait...though hopefully only a day and not a month...

Chau!

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