Lacking Inspiration

A Dearth of Inspiration &  First Impressions

I think all the glamour of the shiny big city is starting to wear away as I become more oriented and aware of what's going on around me. It's amazing the things you miss when you're always checking a map- or a Guia T; for example: no one smiles here. The only time you speak to strangers is when you run in to them and hurriedly say, "perdón," -Or- when you need to know if the people blocking your way to the exit on the Subte are getting off at the next stop..."¿Bajas?"

Hmm thats pretty much it for interaction with strangers... Occasionally people who aren't from the city will ask other people who aren't from the city for help... maybe its because they haven't been hardened by the grit in the air, maybe everyone is always frowning because their eyes are stinging? Am I being harsh? ... haha... at least I'm not in Beijing.

Tonight I was a little grumpy, I feel like a lot of our reading is excessive, and a bit repetitive. I prefer learning with lectures/ discussions supplemented with reading, not reading supplemented by lectures/ discussions... so the point is repetitive texts make me grumpy... especially when it is more than 20 pages worth...  Yeah I know I'd be doing way more work at school, but it's not all in my second language. So it weighs more on my brain here.  Anyways I met up with Julia and her new housemate whose key got stuck in the front door this morning- thus trapping them inside their apartment. Julia called me because they didn't know their house mom, Gabby's cell number and needed me to ask my house mom, Susana, if she could call Gabby on her cell, because here in Argentina you can't call cell phones on land lines nor the reverse. SO, where was thier house mom? At her boyfriends house.... I dunno maybe I'm just wierd but I feel like if you are hosting two, not one, but two people in your house... I dunno at least be there the first week, just in case they need anything. This was Julia's housemates first morning!

Whatever- I would have been mad. Julia is just a lot more calm than me I guess. She is a good person. 

I was frustrated in my spanish class today too. I felt like our profesora wasn't being flexible- or she simply doesn't know how to think about spanish creatively to decipher the broken spanish that her students are trying to piece together, which is too bad. We were working on more complex sentence structures of the imperfect and conditional verb forms today... for some it was an easy review and for others it was a struggle.... not to mention it was only our third class, and a thursday- so every one is eager for it to be friday already.  So I found the second half of class boring and tense- I have to say it is really a frustrating struggle to be articulate in a language you weren't taught from a young age- and it is even more frustrating when you professors look at you blankly and tell you they have no clue what you are trying to say.  Maybe I'm not being fair to my Profesora; my empathy is not distributed equally- so I'm a bad person. 

So for those of you who do not watch Argentine news: this week has been very exciting poiltically. I even found these sites (in English) for you, Check it out:

http://www.argentinenews.com/

http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/09/04/afx5389092.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/country_profiles/1192478.stm

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/argentina/index.html?inline=nyt-geo

Well I guess thats enough links huh?

 Did you actually click any of them??????

haha, okay...well I just ate the worlds latest dinner.... It was 11:30.

I realized that my blog is on MD time so all of the time stamps are an hour late to me here. Wierd huh? I don't know how to change those settings either. 

I just realized I never finished my story about my annoying grumpy self, I met Julia and her new house mate, Linda,  which means beautiful or pretty in spanish ( neat), on the corner of Jeronimo Salguero & Santa Fe, so that we could go to the Music Festival that started this afternoon. It lasts until Sunday so we can go back, but I'm not sure I want to. I had a good time but it too a while for me to get over myself. I was annoyed with our homework and I've not been sleeping b/c of my cold, and I have this head ache...so I had this list in my head, and we were being a bit indecisive, sort of lost; not sure where the convention center is...I just wanted to keep walking,  so we get there and I'm still being stupid. We walk to the other end of the building where there is a big stage set up and the band is still messing around. They were supposed to have started at 8, it was 8:20.... I think i stood with them for about 10 minutes and decided to walk around.  I'm not sure how to feel about "Argentina time." It drives me crazy... In Nicaragua I just kind of got over it b/c it was a small town, you'd see them later buying a taco at the fritanga... it didn't matter that you might have waited an hour and a half for them to not show up. What else could you have been doing? Taking a nap? but here... This is a CITY... everyone is busy, everyone has paid for what they have... things are a little different. So I just walked around for a bit, then I talked to a guy about children's instruments and he told me all their names in spanish... for example, woodblock= cajachina...? made in china maybe? interesting you'll never guess the word for Maracas! ha ha... please... don't get this one wrong. SO what really helped me out of my funk was the Trombone band playing a jazzy funky version of Over the Rainbow. They played for a while; made it worth the 8 pesos.

So yeah... there was a big concert at the end which was fun, but it was super loud and there were people smoking all over the place and I wasn't feeling so hot at the end- so I went and sat down. 

I got home at 10:40, thinking I'd missed dinner. HA. We ate empanadas..... I'm going to learn to make them. ( yes they were good.)

SO I have some more pictures I need to upload, but my battery is charging so they'll have to come later... I'll try to put them up on Saturday, meaning I probably will not write for Friday... even though technically it is already friday, which means the dates are consistently wrong for this page....

aye que vida

Oh and yes Mom, I bought cold medicine from the Farmacia yesterday, yes it is helping, and yes it was funny b/c the pharmacist repeated "uno cada ocho horas" about eight times so I wouldn't over dose on decongestants. :) people are so nice here.

I think I'm going to give into temptation and buy boots this weekend.