I'm still alive

Another week down.  Two more to go.  This week actually went by fast because I had so much to do.  I feel like I can take a breather for a few seconds, so I thought I'd write.  I'll start with last weekend.  On Saturday we went to that museum that I mentioned, and it was pretty interesting.  The mummy was a lot smaller than I expected.  That night Esther and I met up with the Midwest crew at a TGIFriday's.  We didn't eat though because we went to Chicha a few hours later.  That restaurant was sooo nice.  The food was amazing! I had a shrimp risotto thing.  Of course we had crazy appetizers plus dessert.  Since Valerie's brother owns the restaurant, the whole meal was free, so that was awesome.  We're going back one more time before we leave I think.

On Sunday, it was a work day.  But we took a break for lunch.  We went somewhere way outside of town, and it was this place famous for its chicharrones, which is fried pork rinds.  The place was huge. There were hundreds of people there.  I looked at the menu and decided I was gonna go light since I had eaten like a pig the previous night.  We waited forever, and I was wondering why it was taking so long for them to take our order.  Then, a waiter came by with our food.  I guess Ricardo had already ordered the same thing for all of us.  It was the biggest plate of food ever, and the greasiest.  Almost everything was deep-fried: fresh pork rind, crispy pork rind, potato, and sweet potato fries.  I have a nice little picture to the side.  To be polite, I ate a lot of it.  Needless to say, I felt gross after eating that.

Monday-Friday: school time.  You know how I said that I was the dumbest in my class?  Well, it was confirmed by the professor in my Latin American literature class.  He gives us a new short story/poem to read every day to present to the class the next day (we each get a different one).  Well, like I said before, I can't explain myself very well in Spanish because I stutter a lot, and I'm lacking vocabulary.  But I try my best.  Also, there was one story that I was assigned that I didn't really get, even though it was the shortest out of everybody else's.  Anyway, at the end of class one day when he was passing out the stories, he goes, "And for you Beth, the love story since you love those.  For you, Christina, an adventure story because you hate love stories.  And for you Julee, the simplest one."  Ummmm....excuse me?  Ok #1. Thank you for giving my the simplest one....really, I do appreciate it.  #2. But you probably didn't need to let me know that you realize that I'm the dumbest one in the class.  Anyway, that night, I read the poetry for about 3 hours, and I understood most of it, but I wouldn't necessarily describe it as "simple".  The next day I chose a few of the 25 poems and tried explaining them awkwardly.  Whatevs...then the story that I presented yesterday I actually understood quite well and I liked it.  I explained the whole story and ended with, "And that's basically it...."  The prof. just kind of smiled and said "basically..."  Then he was like, "What's the moral?" and I said that I didn't think there was one, and he actually said I was right because that's more for fables.  Then he asked me what I learned from it, and I said, "To be honest, I didn't learn anything. It was just a descriptive writing describing the land of the Incas. It was pretty."  He just kind of chuckled and then went on to explain the story all over again, still without mentioning something that should be learned from it.  After class, I was talking to 2 of the other students, and they told me that they understood my story perfectly fine when I explained it, and that the prof. literally just told us the same exact thing that I had told them.  It was good to hear that to know that I wasn't just imagining this.  I'm just kind of bothered by this because he seems to have me labeled as the "dumb-dumb", and he doesn't really give me a chance.

Anyway, in my other classes....In culture, I had a test on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday I had to give my scariest presentation for Spanish lit.  I think it went alright, but I was noticeably nervous I think.  Then today I had another test in that same class, and it was HARD!  I studied way too much for other things I thought would be on the test, but it was mainly only about 1 of the 4 readings we had.  Many others thought it was hard too, so we'll see how she grades.

Oh, also in the Latin American lit class, the professor decided to give us something for a mid-term after all.  He gave us a reading today, and we have to write a 2-3 page paper on it, and it's due on Monday.  There goes my weekend....really....it's wrecked.  I also have another test on Tuesday for culture, and I need to find time to memorize lots of stuff for that.  Usually they don't give us big assignments like that on the weekends because they do want us to explore the city.  That professor is from here, and I don't think he realizes that it's part of the program to get involved in cultural things around here.

We finally have our gym passes!  Esther and I went this morning, and the place is huge.  We spent the first 10 minutes trying to find the gym.  It's like a miniature city!  It has everything.  There are courts/fields/pools for volleyball, basketball, soccer, tennis, track, swimming, gymnastics, and more.  There are restaurants and playgrounds too.  The actual gym is alright.  The elliptical I was on was outdated.  But it felt good to finally work out!

This is way too long.  Sorry!  I probably shouldn't let a whole week pass until my next post.  There's just no time to write.