holaaaa otra vez!

Hello everyone! Well, I know it’s been three weeks, but I’ve decided that a post a week is 1) too time consuming, and 2) not enough changes to make a post a week really necessary; if you want to know every little detail about my life here, well… sorry. So I don’t know, but I think every two or three weeks is a good time… I write every day in my journal, but I’m not going to write about my every day here on two places, and without internet at the house, and being rather more private, I do prefer my journal… As of now though I’m rather in a pickle for a new one, as I’ve already filled the first… I finished it the day after the last post, so since then I’ve been writing on pieces of paper and sticking them in the back of the journal: to give you an idea of how much I’ve written, I’ve got 26 double sided pieces of paper in the back (52 pages over three weeks)… it’s a lot, to say the least. : )> I’ll separate it into parts again, like last time, as it’s easiest to write about, and that way for anyone who really doesn’t care about the place I’m riding, they won’t have to read that part and can easily skip over it (it’s important for me but I know there’s many people who probably couldn’t care less lol).

School

So what has happened in school… first, was that I turned in my “trabajo practico” for history, the 2 pages on the movie I wrote about in the other post… turned out, wasn’t really such a big deal; I swear the entire class did it the first 15 minutes of class, and the only one the teacher collected was mine, as it was the only one ready at the start of class. She read over it, and told me she loved it, that it was perfect, and so I was really happy. Then she said she’d read it aloud to the class. And I was not happy. More like mortified. But there was nothing I could do, and she did read it… oh well. My friends all said it was really good, but I could tell there were places that my wording didn’t make much sense, and I guess I just didn’t want her to read it because it was serious stuff, such as which we thought was a more dire situation, that of the poor in the country or city, difficult questions in English, and so in Spanish I’m still not able to express myself as well, but whatever, it was fine.
The other event was that I was informed that Carly (the Canadian) had switched schools as she’d switched families (she’d been having a lot of problems with her family, and one afternoon right before I left her host dad asked me to tell her that when they got home she was to pack all her stuff as she was switching families, and then a few days later she switched schools as well.
That’s all well and good, as now I’m always with Argentineans, without the option of speaking English (as with Carly I was apt to do, as she’d get bored not understanding any of the Spanish, and so start talking in English to me, and then I couldn’t take part in the Spanish convo, so we ended up with all the people but still rather isolated in the little English world… I like it loads better without that little world now), but I really think I’ll learn/am learning faster being always speaking Spanish (except in English class, and the actually few times I interact with the other exchange students… with one, we speak Spanish, but the other girl from Maryland always speaks to me in English; however, as I don’t see her much in school, not having any classes together, it’s not much). I’m starting to understand more of the conversations my friends have, but even though I’m understanding the general nub and gist of the stream of chatter, it’s still pretty hard to join in, but there’s always two or three people who notice if I’ve been quiet for a while, and start talking with me, either explaining what everyone else is talking about, or something different. That’s one of the things I love about large groups, and as I’ve said, with Argentineans it’s always a large group : )
The one not so great part about Carly’s leaving is now I’ve got all my free time completely by myself, and when there’s a class in the computer room so I can’t use the computers, there is absolutely nothing to do, and it’s just me. However, as the wonderful people in the senior class never do any work, I generally go and hang out with them. One day this week they told me to come for a block I was free, because they said they had free time… so I went, and there’s the teacher talking in the front of the room, and absolutely no one is listening.
Last post I mentioned the group of senior (tercero) guys who’d told me they’d found a boyfriend for me: this week (one week later) they, along with the entire class as the teacher’s still talking in the front, inform me that he has a tiny dick. No joke, the class was discussing the size of this kid’s dick, the teacher’s talking in the front of the room, the guy himself is sitting in the back doing I’ve no idea what as I wasn’t looking backwards at him. So that was one of the classes I’ve spent with that class… I’ve also gone for their English class, in which they do pay somewhat more attention, but it’s still pretty funny, then with the other senior/tercero class I’ve gone for their “culture” class, in which they do nothing, so it’s worked out that I’m not completely alone, the teachers don’t mind (don’t worry it wasn’t because I was there that they weren’t paying an ounce of attention to the one teacher; I had a couple classes with him the first week with my class, and no one pays attention; we spent the whole class defining two words. Well, he did. The difference was in my class we were mostly silent, but… well there’s just some people that weren’t really meant to be teachers)(But that’s no one at Park, of course : )>)
Where I am with school right now, basically, is I have FIVE TESTS BETWEEN THIS WEEK AND NEXT. Chemistry is killing me. Even though I’ve got the stuff that’s going to be on the test, and when someone explains it to me, I understand, here they do maybe two practice problems and then have the test so I still don’t think I could do it on my own; it’s mainly because there’s a TON of stuff they all learned in the first two trimesters that I need to be able to do the stuff on the test… yesterday my friend Marina (one of my better friends here, she’s really good at explaining chemistry, as well as talking to my host mom when we want to do something… it takes five minutes instead of 20 if I try to, cuz the lecture-part is left out) anyways, she gave me the most important stuff, and I spent 2 hours today during biblioteca/free time studying it with the lady in the biblioteca but there’s still soooo much left and ah. I’ll post after these two weeks if I’m still alive. And even though I understood the movie part in geography, there’s a lot of population stuff I don’t get, and my friend gave me TODAY all the stuff that’s going to be on the test TOMORROW that they did before I got there. English will be easy, but that’s the only one. Then I’ve also got a test next week in history next week, and even though my first day they started a new unit, so I’ve got it all, it’s still hard to study. And there’s going to be writing on the test, which will be really hard for me. Then the last test is in tech, and even though I know all the stuff we’ve done on the computers, we’re not in the computer room every day, in fact we’ve only been once, the rest of the time the teacher dictates stuff about I guess how computers work, and I don’t understand any; it’s hard enough to copy down the dictation. SIGH. Then physics is going ok I suppose, but we haven’t really done much… unlike chemistry though they started a new unit with the new trimester, so I’m ok… the last class is Lengua, which is fine, but we’re starting to read Don Quixote this week. THAT is going to be hard. If regular Spanish is going to be hard, I’m really not sure how I’m going to understand the old Spanish, plus here they really don’t speak Spanish, they speak Castellano, so not only is it old Spanish, but it’s really different from what I’ve learned; it was only yesterday I figured out what “eres” meant, because “eres” is form for the subject “tu” which here we don’t use. And not having taken a Spanish class I had no idea what it meant; I knew it was some form of the verb “ser,” I got that much from the songs, but I had no clue what form. So we’ll see. Now I’ll be like Marika, spending hours reading 14 pages, and I’m quite sure if I ever have to write anything about it as well as read it’ll be the same as well. Sigh.

Weekendsss

The weekend two weekends ago basically started Wednesday, as we didn’t have class Thursday, and the one day on Friday I went to the Museo de Bellas Artes with the senior culture classes. Granted, Wednesday we didn’t either as the last three years of school, primero, secundo, and tercero (our sophomores, juniors, and seniors) had a field day, which was lots of fun, even though my team lost all three of the games, we won both the Indian line-up races… yea, we were really good at sitting down fast >: )>
So Wednesday night/Thursday morning was my first time going out dancing with my friends in Pacheco… I swear my entire grade and the entire senior grade as well were all there, first at the street we hang out at waiting for the Micro bus, then on the bus that took us to the place where the club was (there aren’t any in Pacheco; everyone goes/went to a place in the city thing called Tigre, on the Tigre river, about 20 minutes away in between Pacheco and Buenos Aires… it’s like Pacheco but more touristy, being on the river… rather like a more rich Pacheco I suppose). We got to the club around 1:45, and left at 6am, when the host father of the Belgian girl took me and about 6 other girls to various homes. The club was called Coyote, and it was huge. Granted the two clubs I went to in Buenos Aires were small… more like lounges, and the one was a senior party, so it was all people from one school, so this was basically the first “real” club I’d been to, and it was lots of fun. The music is SO different here… there were a lot of different types, but none of the types we’d dance to in the States. Cumbia seemed the most popular, or at any rate one of the Cumbia places ended up being my group’s meeting place, where any time someone wandered away, they could be sure to find people. I got kind of bored around 4am, but it got fun again… however, by 6am I was rather cold and it was definitely time to leave (in my opinion actually, it was time to leave around 5:30, but the car didn’t get there till 6, and anyway it was warmer within one of the different parts of the club than outside, if only because there were a lot of people and such).
The next day, I slept over at a friends house with another girl, and when we woke up, we had breakfast at about 1, then at 2 we went to the bus stop to meet up with a bunch of other kids, and we took a train to a big river (I forget the name, being special, but it was huge- you couldn’t see the other side. They told me it was the widest river in the world, but as I can’t remember the name, I’ve no way of knowing whether it is or not), anyways it was the first day of Spring (though freezing cold), and we had a late afternoon picnic/tea (we had matte and cookies lol… one guy was supposed to bring sandwiches and he brought three. Smart kid. XP lol). So it was nice and relaxing at any rate, and they attempted to teach me and the Belgian girl who was there an Argentinean Gaucho card game called Truco, however after about five minutes they forgot the teaching part, and just played, so I’m still rather confused as to what to do, but whatev.
That weekend was not so very fun at first, through miscommunications and whatnot, as well as the fact I was really tired still, and didn’t get home till 5:30am Saturday night as well but we weren’t at a club, I went with Paz and her friends to one of their friend’s houses, but it was a good thing other friends of mine were there (I’ve got a couple friends in Paz’s grade aside from her friends, as well as a bunch of kids in the primero class cuz I have tech with them) anyways it was a good thing cuz Paz and her friends didn’t speak to me the entire time; it’s like if they don’t have a guy they’re teasing me about or trying to get me to hook up with they’ve nothing to say to me, so I feel bad but I really don’t like hanging out with them.
Sunday made everything better though; first I slept, then had my first riding lesson with my friend’s sister! (coming in a different part). Then, in the afternoon/evening, there was a free concert in the Pacheco plaza, by an Argentinean rock band from… I forget, because it was their 5-year anniversary. I went with one of the senior girls who, I’m not sure why, isn’t really friends with anyone in her class except one of the guys (not one of the ones who tried to set me up with the tall kid lol), because she’s incredibly sweet, but as I said, being an exchange student is awesome cuz I’m friends with everyone :D So yea, that was lots of fun… in my opinion it would’ve been more fun if it’d been at night and not late afternoon, but the music was still good : ) The funniest part was probably seeing the tech teacher in the mosh pit. That was hilarious. He was there though, jumping around… acting crazy… I saw a lot of friends there, and everyone was laughing about that. Then, in between the first two songs of the main band (it was opened by 3 bands who were so-so), the lead singer was like “I think we’ve got people from pretty far” and he was naming a couple places about an hour away, then one of the guys from school dragged me up and was like Hey! She’s from the United States! So that was pretty funny. Funnier cuz first he’s like her name’s Margit! (the name of the girl from New York) “Haha my name’s not Margit…” “Oh! Juli!” (the name of the girl from Belgium) “… no. No, Jorge, my name’s not Juli. Ada. A-d-a.” “… I knew that… her name’s Ada!” (this was all in Spanish though lol).

Mar del Plata

Last weekend, I swear I honestly thought we were going to Mar del Plata just overnight; with this family I wouldn’t have found a six hour drive there Saturday and six hours back Sunday weird, because as I’ve said, many Sundays all I can really figure out is that we’ve driven. For a LONG time. And the fact we were supposed to leave at 6am strengthened that supposition, as my host parents hadn’t told me anything about missing school, but when Paz almost caused World War 3 by not wanting to go as she and her friends were making a video for another friend’s 15th birthday (kind of like our Sweet 16, only WAY bigger. It’s most like Bat Mitzvahs for all the girls, only they don’t have to do anything but turn 15, and it seems everyone has had some huge party… walking around the train station where we were meeting friends before going out to dinner one night, we saw a girl in this really nice and fancy white dress (trail and everything) having her picture taken, and my friends told me it was for her 15th birthday party… they also have a certain decoration they put on the cars and everything, it’s crazy). Anyways, a lot of other stuff came up to the surface as well, but in the end she didn’t go, however she stayed with her uncle and not her friend. And 3 hours before we left, (not at 6am, as the car had broken down Friday, as always… (I was a bit apprehensive about us actually getting to Mar del Plata, but I FINALLY figured out what my host dad does: he works in a Ford auto factory, he’s a mechanic, so that’s why he’s able to always fix the car) anyways, I asked my host mom what to pack, which was lucky cuz I FINALLY was told we were going till Wednesday… because I suppose my family supposed I’d heard them talking about it that I knew, but they never actually told me for how long we were going, and so that bloody language barrier could’ve been rather a problem. However it wasn’t, and I packed, and we did arrive in Mar del Plata FINALLY.
The trip ended up being I guess ok… like… it was really, really pretty, and I LOVED the sea lions (there were a TON- check out the pics!), and the one rock beach was beautiful, but we didn’t do much but walk around and then drive around forever looking for places to eat. The first night took forever to find a place because first they wanted somewhere with live music, and that was incredibly hard to find. Then we found a place and made reservations and all was good till we got there and were told they didn’t take credit cards. So it was back in the car to find another place. And they really wanted that live music… they got it, but missed the sign “slow food;” we got there about 11:30, food came at midnight, desert at 1:30, but it was fine because there was a group of about 30 middle age/elderly drunk Mexicans, who kept the entire restaurant as well as the singer very, very amused. Then my host grandma got drunk and that made it funnier. : )>
The other days we had dinner at home, but for lunch again, it was really hard finding places that took credit cards. We ate lunch one day at an old monastery that looked like a castle, right on the ocean, and it would’ve been great if my host dad hadn’t managed to make it very awkward for the poor waiter by informing him I was their imported daughter looking for a boyfriend, and keeping up with that throughout the meal. Every time I go somewhere my host dad (jokingly) ALWAYS says “Ojo con los novios, eh?” (Careful with the boyfriends, eh?)(yes it literally means eye with the boyfriends, but here “ojo” is an expression for be careful… I’ve no idea if that’s just Argentina but whatev)…
Yesterday I finally asked my host dad what he was going to do when the day came (if it comes) when I reply that I’ve got a boyfriend (because the other thing is that any time I’m quiet, he accuses me of thinking of my boyfriend)… that made my mom laugh pretty hard, then she gave him a hard time for a while when he replied that he’d tell me to dump him immediately lol. Anyways, we did see a whale, which was pretty awesome, but by the time I got my camera out, all you can see is a black tail on the horizon and it’s rather hard to tell it’s anything but a black thing. But I SWEAR it’s a whale lol. There’s not much to tell about Mar del Plata, but everyone should check out the photos, as I think some of them are quite good : )
the sea lions were definitely the best part though. even if they did smell HORRIBLE. they were so ugly they were adorable : )>

Riding!!!

So I FINALLY got to ride at the second place! It ended up not really being a lesson, and the other time’s I’ve gone since (I can only go Fridays during the week, and if I wake up Saturday, then too, but no more… still, it’s something), I’ve had lessons with the teacher of my friend’s sister. However, I was on what was basically a big pony, and even though he was stubborn and pokey and took a lot of leg, had that pony-personality which I love, and so it was a lot of fun, and once we started jumping he woke up.
Turned out that he had been Lucia (my friend’s sister)’s horse till she started jumping higher than 3’3”, and he was only 11, but for the last three years he’d been a lesson horse, and had been getting bored, and at one point (Lucia just told me to do whatever I felt, as it wasn’t really a lesson), Lucia smiled and said “aw, he’s happy! And I see you’re happy too” which was definitely true; he was having lots of fun jumping, and I was very happy to be riding something that didn’t have an iron mouth even if it was made of lead lol so yea; it was going great. Then, he left for a jump I swear at least a stride and a half early, completely popped me out of the saddle, and I landed smack on my ass. It was hilarious. I was fine, just covered in sand, and as soon as they realized ok, everyone started laughing, and informed me that I had to bring a cake next time. I couldn’t believe how similar the barn was to Peri’s! (For anyone who doesn’t know, Peri is my – absolutely amazing – riding teacher, and with her when we fall off, we have to bring donuts).
The main difference from the other place was the people; everyone was incredibly nice, all really good friends, and it just reminded me so much of Peri’s barn at home that I loved it. The more superficial distance was where it was; there’re three barns, two are beautiful but they’ve got all the private horses, then the other is cement, and fine, just smaller, and it’s for the horses used for anyone without their own horse, but the ring was really nice and big, there’s a full sized dressage ring as well, and because it’s in a gated community, there’s a cross country course all around the perimeter of the place, but within the walls so it’s safe. The gated community really is a community; it’s got its own school and everything, and it’s really quite like being in a rich community in the States; the houses are huge. It’s funny, you’d almost think you’d find the people I found at the first place in this type of community, and the one big happy family in the other, but hey, here they’ve got the best of everything. The only difficulty is getting in; it’s a pain in the bum, as I’ve yet to get the card that lets you in, and it’s rather frightening as there are armed guards at the gate. No joke. There’re two or three there all the time, standing and looking scary with their huge guns. I guess that’s just because outside, it’s in the opposite direction of Pacheco from my house, and in a pretty poor part… when I asked if there was a bus I could take, so I could go more days, they all said it was too dangerous to take the bus after about 5, and even in the day it was pretty dangerous, and none of them do… I guess that’s because the instructor people all drive there, and Lucia told me that the vast majority of the kids live within the community (it’s HUGE, and has everything. It probably even has a supermarket lol, and I know that every Saturday, they all spend all morning to afternoon at the barn, and all eat together at the tennis club lol so I’ll definitely try that when I can : ) But yea, I’m really glad I’ve found it, and as my house is between the community (it’s called San Jorge) and Pacheco and Lucia lives in Pacheco, she’s offered to drive me back whenever it’s harder for my mom to take me, which means I’ll have a better chance of going at least every Friday : )

So that’s about it… I’ve gotten along pretty well with all of my family… did have one rough day, because my mom had a rather large fit about me taking the bus at night with all my friends, but as I saw my counselor later because my sister had English, I talked to her about it and ended up wishing I hadn’t, because my host mom’s fuss was that I didn’t know how I was going back from dinner, because I was going with my friend, then it turned out we were going back by Remis (like a taxi, only you can’t get them off the street; you call for one, sort of like a chauffeur service but WAY less expensive, and most of the cars (and drivers) are incredibly old and such, and you’re supposed to only use Remis services your family knows and blah blah blah but they’re safer than busses at night). Still, my counselor was a little… I dunno. She was telling me I couldn’t do things that she can’t really tell me I can’t do, because they aren’t AFS rules. Still, I did go, and felt a lot better being with my friends, then when I spent the night with Marina she made it seem really funny how stupid my counselor was being (she’d told me when I went to the restaurant I couldn’t walk around because someone might kidnap me because I’m American. That was when Marina and I really cracked up because sorry, but how would they, whoever they are, know I’m American? Yes I know I have an accent, but I’m generally not screaming in the streets, and still we don’t talk all that much, and I’m with a big group of Argentineans all speaking perfect Argentinean Castellano… she also told my mom we had to watch the local news so I knew what was going on; it’s just like the local news at home, all about who killed who). The important part though was I talked about it with my host mom the next day, and even she thinks my counselor was being rather silly, so it’s all good now, I just don’t like my counselor so much).
With my sisters I still get along ok… Sofia broke down crying when I took the ice cream from her so mom could serve, as I SWEAR I thought she was joking when a 13 year old looks like she’s about to cry because she wanted to serve the ice cream. It was so crazy I even thought she was joking when she ran out of the room she was overreacting so much. The others all thought it was rather funny as well but they knew she was serious so it wasn’t till she was out of the room that they all rolled their eyes; apparently it’s normal for her. But I really don’t think so. She’s 13. She wanted to serve the ice cream. And I thought she was joking so I took the ice cream. Then I gave it back. And she still ran out sobbing. SIGH lol. With Paz I’m generally at the same place I was before; she basically doesn’t speak to me. But whatever, I still think we’ll get closer as I speak better, and with Sofia I found an ice cream shop near our house and made friends with the guy who works there (he has a cousin who went on exchange to Australia) so maybe this next weekend I’ll see if she wants to do something just us. Cuz with her friends I’m bored out of my mind :P
Anywaysssss I’ve got to go as we have to leave now so I can go to the cyber and post this!! (writing at home again; it’s the easiest because it takes less time at the cybers)