... sorry... kinda forgot/never really got around to posting for a bit there.. haha :S forgive me!

… Ok… so it’s been a REALLY long time since I’ve posted… sorry!!! School is my excuse… so I’ll talk about that first… but first, i added a bunch of pix to http://picasaweb.google.com/countrygal13101 but then ran out of space so i made another site which is http://picasaweb.google.com/overtheequator check them all out!!

SCHOOL
It’s the end of the school year here, and we have had SO MANY TESTS you’ve no idea. GOD. Luckily this coming week is the last week I’ve got tests, and as the only test tomorrow is tech, which I talked to my mom and told her I was going to fail, as I am, as I’m not going to study as it’s the DUMBEST class and SO BORING and I don’t understand computers in English, much less Spanish. And I don’t know why I’m in that class. I had tech in middle school IT’S OVER.
But the other tests, I’ve all passed… well the history one was hard cuz it was writing three essays about Peron and this, Peron and that, and Peron and that, so it was like… I knew the material but it was hard to write three essays in a rather short period of time (about an hour) and without the computer to tell me when I’ve made the dumbest mistakes… she graded it as a 6+ (a 7 is a passing grade), but put down a 7… means that, as far as the report card is concerned, I passed (that test... the final is this week), but I talked with her and researched/wrote a small essay on the war over the Falcon/Malvinas Islands, to improve the grade, so she’s correcting that now :S haha.
In Lengua, still don’t know the outcome of the final that I took… all that fuss about reading Don Quixote, going over to my friends and having her explain most of the first part, then the teacher told me if I needed grades to read these three short stories and my test would be on them :P So we’ll see. One of the stories was a Brothers Grimm tale, the other some weird Arab tale, and the third a Borges story, which was my favorite : ) (as it was the only interesting one).
Anyways… other classes… I got a NINE on the physics test!!!! That was pretty cool. And it was the exact same test as the class took! :D It was pretty easy cuz it was just the theory of electromagnetism and aerodynamics and such… Then, I just found out I got a NINE as well on the second chem. test, that was the exact same as the one all my class took as well!!! I couldn’t believe that. The physics test, perhaps, as it’s not a difficult class, but chem… that was pretty cool : ) the teachers have all mostly stopped giving me my own tests, except for the finals, so that’s… well I suppose it’s good. Just means they’re harder hahaaa… however I’ve only had the Lengua final so far… still to come are the history and chem. final… :S
It’s weird, you don’t have finals in every class unless you fail a class; then you have to take the final to try in pass, otherwise it’s summer school for you. But each year they have finals in some of the classes, I don’t really understand, but I don’t mind as it means I’ve got three and not seven. Well there is an English final but I don’t have to take it haha. The other test I had was another in geography, which I got an 8 on, so that was cool : ) Yea.
So any teachers who happen to read this, I do try in the interesting classes. But the tech teacher is the biggest idiot on the planet, ask anyone (including my host mom who went to school with him haha) and they'll agree XP. But I’m doing pretty well in my other classes. There’ve just been sooo many tests we’ve all been swamped. Remember how the other post said five tests between that week and the coming one? Well it’s been like that since.
At least two if not three tests a week, and when there aren’t tests there’re “trabajo practices,” especially for history and geography, plus reading Don Quixote for Lengua… it wasn’t AS hard as I thought, but my average was 8 pages an hour… I didn’t always understand everything but I ended up not really caring, bad me… however I did get some of the humor, and the general plot : ) So oh well.
The only other thing that’s happened with school is I’ve been put in the Seniors’ end of year performance/assembly-thing, I’m going to sing a song with two other girls, called Nada Es Para Siempre, then back-up some other guy who’s singing a song that part needs to have a girl’s voice and I’m the only one who can get high enough (it doesn’t go that high, but the other two girls are altos) easily to sing it, so that’s fun… also it gets me out of classes a couple times a week to practice >: )> haha. I’m special. Lol :D
That’s basically where I am with school… after this week, I’m not even sure I have to go to school, but I think I do because we’re putting on a play in Lengua now that we’ve taken the final. It’s a comedy, and I’m actually acting with the kids in the other Segundo (it’s a parody of a year… each class – both Segundos and both Terceros – are a season, and with Segundo B (with whom I’ve chem. and phys.) we’re fall). Not everyone acts, but it’s pretty silly… Segundo A is summer, and the big event is that Shakira is coming, so it ends with one girl singing Hips Don’t Lie, but they needed a guy to sing the guy’s part, so one girl’s brother who, apparently, raps at home, was recruited, and I’m supposed to teach him the rhythm and pronunciation of the rap parts… cuz I’m such a rapper and all… haha we’ll see how that goes XP it’d be a lot easier if his girlfriend wasn’t in the class and wasn’t INCREDIBLY jealous (she hates the Belgian girl cuz she thinks she wants to steal her boyfriend. Please. Aside from the fact the Belgian girl doesn’t even like the guy, it’s a bit silly).
Anywhooo we’ll see how well Ada does as a rap teacher to an Argentinean. I’m thinking the result will be… amusing at least… interesting, we may say >: )>
EDIT: So yea I wrote this Sunday, then today (Monday) when I was supposed to have that stupid tech test, I got out of it by my host mom saying, as we’re all just rather worn out from the not-easiest week ever, we just kind of didn’t go to school hahaaaa. So that was nice, I slept in till noon, then after lunch we drove into the capital to get the package from my parents/Arthur, and since we’ve all been listening to all the CDs! :D Thanks, guys! You’ve no idea how sick I’ve gotten of the maybe 30 songs my sisters have on their computer and the three CDs Meri likes that we hear NON STOP. Haha I hate listening to the same bloody music over and over!! The only other thing to edit, is the pix I’ve also got pix of Meri’s and Sofia’s roller skating dance performances… like figure skating, only on roller skates, which was both Saturday and Sunday night, though the pix are from Sunday, and are mainly the reason we didn’t go to school today… even though I’m posting this tomorrow cuz I don’t have time today. Ok now even I’m confused time-wise. But then again I always am. I wrote August the other day trying to write the date. NOVEMBER SHOULDN’T BE HOT. Haha I’m special. Ok, end edit : )>
Double Edit: So I didn’t get to post this Tuesday cuz there was the end of year gym party thing… anyway apparently it meant that afterwards, the seniors all threw eggs, flour, polenta, dirty water they’d scooped up from the street gutters, mud, etc at everyone… so after school, before I could go to a cyber, my wonderful friend chased me till he caught me and cracked an egg on my head yelling WELCOME TO MY COUNTRY!!! Then my other friend dumped flour on me lol XP So then I was waiting with them and someone else dumped polenta on me but by that time I didn’t even try to run away, I obviously couldn’t go to a cyber like that, so I just went to my friend’s house (the one who’d dumped the flour), and we rode home on the bus free, cuz we were both so disgusting, the bus driver recognized the custom of seniors at the end of the year, and thought we were both seniors. So that was… interesting lol. I’ve never had an egg cracked on my head before haha. There are some odd customs here… they do this to you when it’s your birthday as well… hm… I prefer water balloons. Made with clean water. Lol so that’s my next excuse!

HOST FAMILY
WELL. Been an… interesting month… definitely WAY harder than the first two. No, not all of it… it’s really just the past week and a half. Before that it was pretty much the same as before… so we’ll separate it. There’s an event in the middle that marks when it was easy, and when it wasn’t. Not the kind of event I’d like to have cause problems. And in a normal family it wouldn’t. But mine’s a bit… odd. SIGH. So, before.
Las Termas, Entre Rios
The weekend of October 20th we went on another mini trip, to a place in the province called Entre Rios (being between two rivers), where there were natural hot water springs, that the place had built pools over, so like giant hot tubs. It would be an amazing place to go in winter, when it’s cold. But when it’s 90+ degrees in the sun… you just don’t really feel like going into a hot tub. But there was nothing else to do. So it was a lovely place, very pretty, and I’ve got some pix (as well as pix from Mar del Plata, which I never did get around to posting, and some pix of the extended family on my host mom’s side when they all came over for an asado one Sunday, so check those out).
But. Maria Paz didn’t come as she was on the class trip to Cordoba for a week (another province), so it was basically just me and Sofia… we were SO BORED haha. We got there Friday around 3pm, and were there until 11pm, as we didn’t actually have a place to stay; the day before as usual, the car had broken as usual, and my host mom hadn’t made any reservations. Hmm. In a tourist place, not sure that was the smartest thing. Actually it wasn’t.
But that was later… all day we were in and out of the pools, the hottest one was where Sofi and I spent the most time, because Meri couldn’t come. She’s a sweet kid… sometimes… but… gets SO ANNOYING other times. And for me, the pools that were just kind of warm, not hot were the worst. Cuz they weren’t refreshingly cool or relaxingly hot. Just… warm. So there was a nice hot one, indoors as well so there wasn’t blaring sun, that had water jets, and Sofi and I hung out there mostly. Finally it was nine o’clock which meant the sun went down which meant it wasn’t as hot, and so with a bit more energy I was able to amuse Meri for a while (Maria Luz, the youngest… not sure why, but her nickname’s Meri Li, or Meri… there’s a story but I forget).
Anywho, apparently the water jets are called “chorros,” well, “chorros de agua,” but a “chorro” is also a name for a thief. So when Meri tried to drag me away from my hot water jet and I asked what it was called, she said chorro, then started to explain that it was also someone who robs you. Well I missed the “also” part, so I heard that the chorro was going to rob me, and got REALLY confused. Then, realizing the word difference, I jokingly told Meri to save me before the water jet robbed me… that amused her for a while. Still amuses her. The unfortunate thing about little kids is when a joke amuses them, they will tell it OVER AND OVER AND OVER for WEEKS. Oh well lol. Anyways, it was finally 11pm, time to leave, still there weren’t any spaces open (we’d been hoping someone wouldn’t turn up, but no), so we all went to shower and change, as the water is salt water.
So I was done before the others, and really bored… my host dad had to wait to all us girls were done so he could use the shampoo, so he was outside waiting, and waiting with him we saw some guys playing soccer, and I absentmindedly said I wanted to play, then just then (way randomly) they kicked the ball over by us and my host dad calls out HEY SHE WANTS TO PLAY WITH YOU! Maybe I wanted to die? Haha it was pretty funny, the guys couldn’t really say no lol, and but it was fun though. After a bit when it was clear that, maybe I’m not THAT good and I can’t aim to save my life, I at least do know how to play, but here, girls don’t really play soccer… like, there’re girls teams but the general reputation of girls who play soccer are… as my host mom described it, more men than women haha XP Same goes for polo… so much for learning polo… lol o well.
Anyways, they asked, quite surprised, if I played, and I said I played “there” but I couldn’t play here, assuming they’d know from my accent where “there” was… well they heard the accent but – and I’ve NO CLUE how, asked if I was from Spain. Huh?!? I definitely don’t have a Spanish accent… American but… haha I thought that was pretty funny. I suppose it’s better than American, and it was probably that they just could hear I wasn’t Argentinean, and figured as I played soccer I wasn’t from South America, and I guess my Yankee accent isn’t THAT obvious… perhaps… or whatev. It was fun though, but unfortunately they weren’t gonna be there the next day, as they lived in the area and had just come for the evening :( Oh well haha.
So we finally did leave, at like 11:30, and drove into the small town called Villa Elisa, where the place was. I think we drove to every single hotel in the place, and the last one we went to FINALLY had room. But didn’t take a credit card. No place in the town, with the exception of Las Termas (the hot water place) took credit cards. But for some reason we couldn’t eat first (there were restaurants that took credit cards), and THEN go to the city about 40 minutes away to sleep. No we had to go to the city first. And drive around forever again to find a place, which we EVENTUALLY did. So now we had somewhere to sleep. Now just to eat. There was a main street that had most of the restaurants on it, but instead of just going to the first one, it being 1:00 in the morning, my host dad insisted on driving up and down it like three times before he FINALLY stopped at the first place we’d thought about. Meri and Sofia were asleep… I finally asked why we didn’t stop, and laughing, my host dad pulled over… I was a bit too sleepy to understand the joke, but whatever.
Anyways dinner brought another one; there was a headpiece for cows to pull plows or something hanging up, and my host dad asked the waitress what it was. Thinking about cows, I absentmindedly asked how to say bull (well, how to say the male cows). Still being in his “funny” mood, my host dad replied “baco.” For anyone who knows any Spanish, that word does not exist, and upon hearing it, the entire family started laughing hysterically (yea they’re a bit like that). So I obviously knew the word was NOT baco. My host mom then replied “torro” which I swear I knew, just had forgotten. However, my host parents (and everyone my host dad tells the joke to, which would be everyone we meet and everyone we know who hasn’t already heard it), still ask me how the “baco” is doing, and get a LARGE laugh out of it lol. My host family is building up a whole stream of jokes… Meri continues to find it absolutely HILARIOUS when I say “mierda” (shit) not sure why (and nor is anyone else… nobody understands what goes on inside that little brain of hers haha). So yea… that was the first day.
The second, we drove first to some other place across from the river that separates Argentina from Uruguay, so I saw Uruguay (yay…) lol then we drove BACK to the first place… didn’t really understand why, but as I’ve said before, this family does like to drive haha. The second day was basically the same, and the night as well, though I did meet one guy who I made friends with and have actually sort of kept in touch with, so that was cool. It was a relaxing trip, but we all came back tomatoes, as this family isn’t big on the whole sunscreen thing, but even though I had put on some, being in the hot sun all day with only about SPF 15 doesn’t help much. Oh well, it tanned out in a couple days, and only one spot started to peel, and not badly… Meri got the most burnt, but Sofia, after like 2 days, started peeling like crazy it was disgusting. Ok that’s enough about that haha. So yea, that was the trip… I’m not sure we’ll go on any trips like that or Mar del Plata in the summer because my host dad doesn’t have more vacation time… For some reason, his was in October, but whatev, my councilor told me the originally planned November trip to Uruguay will now be in January, so that should be fun : )
So that was the only big thing about my family there is to tell… what’s rather been pretty annoying for me is that, obviously, my sisters use my stuff. That’s not a problem. But my stuff includes my computer, which I’d not have a problem if they used it, but somehow they keep DELETING stuff and changing names and crap. I mean it’s got to be them cuz I know my host parents would never do anything like this, and I think it’s Sofia, because she gets really jealous sometimes… Still. The other thing is like, one day I couldn’t find ANY of my pens, so I started looking in the pencil cases of Maria and Sofia, as well as the backpacks, and I found not only most of my pens, as well as my tweezers, a bracelet of mine I thought I’d lost that had been given to me by my neighbor… I had NO idea they’d taken that stuff and it wouldn’t bother me at all if they’d ask, or if they’d RETURN THINGS. It gets really frustrating. I’m missing all my pens again, but I haven’t been able to find a time when the room is securely empty enough for me to search for them. SIGH.
A couple weeks ago I had a really long talk with my host mom mostly about my host sisters, and mostly about the older two, and their relationship with me… With Meri, obviously, everything is peachy keen, cuz I mean, she’s only 7 years old. If I can’t have a good relationship with my baby sister something’s wrong with me, there’s no reason not to get along with her, even if she is incredibly spoiled sometimes XP The only problem with her is that as I generally like little children, and she’s easily amused, I do stuff with her, and one day, apparently (I wasn’t there), she yelled at Sofia “ADA PLAYS WITH ME MORE THAN YOU DO, I HATE YOU SOFI!” Ooops. That didn’t really help my relationship with Sofia… So what came out about her is that some days she’s INCREDIBLY jealous of me, and other days, perfect (those are the days when we’ll play cards or something FOREVER… I think I’ve taught her every card game two people can play that I know, as well as Solitaire). But she’s just a jealous kid; she gets incredibly jealous of Maria Paz as well, and of everything. If my host parents buy something for Maria, they’d better have bought something for Sofia, or else. Then also with Meri, as I’m her “American sister” she shows me off to everyone, but if she went up and was like “Sofi’s my sister!” people would just kind of be like… ok… great… but cuz I’m the exchange kid, it’s really cool. And I understand that, but what Sofia has to understand is, she’s 13. She’s just kind of got to grow up a bit. Meri’s a little kid, Sofia isn’t.
Then with Maria, who I find INCREDIBLY hard to talk to, my host mom told me that she was jealous the first two weeks and that now (or so she says) she just sees me as an older sister. Maria likes to be the center of attention, so she was afraid she’d never be the center of attention again. Then my host mom told me that Maria’s said she’d like to be closer to me, but she’s afraid to talk to me sometimes cuz I seem so “serious” at home. I dunno. I generally don’t see myself as a serious person, but I guess she’s coming from the direction that when she’s still laughing 15 minutes later about something someone said (usually something she said), and I’ve stopped after maybe 2 minutes, I guess that could come off as serious, I dunno. But it’s a little hard for me to believe she’s THAT scared that when I try to talk with her, it’s SO incredibly hard for me to talk to her. The other day I said “hey it’s been a while since we’ve done anything together, we should go out for an ice cream one day.” She replies “what day is today?” and when I answered, walked away. And I don’t know what to do about that, it’s weird. I’m determined we’re gonna go though, and I’ve got her to tell me SOME things just by downright asking them, but it’s sooooo hard!! I don’t get itttttt :P
So that’s the first part. Then what happened was I went to the house of one of the exchange students who lives in the capital, and she had most of the exchangers over, as well as some friends from school, as well as a friend of her brother’s. Well. This friend of her brother’s happened to be a friend from basketball, and he happened to ask me out by the end of the night : ) So that’s all well and awesome, and I told my host mom, who thought it was fine, pretty cool… she asked me first accusingly if I’d fallen in love, then before I could reply NO (which I did afterwards), she was like “anyways it’s better, then you’ll come and live here forever” haha :D that was funny. Anyway first she told me not to tell my host dad, as she was afraid he’d get really mad. So I wasn’t sure what to do… like it’s stupid my host dad thinks I’m too young to have a boyfriend. He’ll give me Piña Coladas and more when we have asados, he’s told me it wouldn’t bother him if I smoked (I made it VERY clear that will never happen), but I can’t have a boyfriend. I’m not really sure from where he’s getting these priorities… what my councilor thought was that he was just jealous, but he’s got to learn cuz his daughters, very soon, are going to want to have boyfriends, and as my host mom told me, she’s scared that if he can’t deal with ME having a boyfriend, can’t deal with having an idea of what’s going on with me and guys (which, as everyone who knows me, knows is rarely much hahaaa but rest in peace it’s a bit more now lol) anyways, his daughters are never going to tell him anything, and I can say that it’s true; there’s stuff Paz has told me that I KNOW neither of her parents know. And I’m not gonna say anything, it’s not my place, but still… it’s a bit weird. SIGH. So that was the first thing.
But what happened with all that that made me so upset was, so I went out with the guy, and my host mom told me that she’d told my host dad, as she didn’t like keeping secrets; that’s great, I don’t either. But afterwards, she sends me a text message: do you guys want to come back for matte, so we can meet him? Uhhhhhhhh. Hm. There wasn’t really a way we could say NO, but GOD it was so awkward!!! Haha it’s like… yea… sure… we’ll be right there… so yea, and it wasn’t that bad, and my host dad seemed in a perfectly good mood. The next day I asked him what he thought, and he tells me “well, he seems like a nice boy but I just don’t like it. I’m not mad at you- don’t be mad at me, but I don’t like it.” I figured, well that’s not great but I can deal with that, we can talk about it or something. However. The day after THAT, though, he was sooo mad! At me, and at my host mom as well!! And that I just didn’t understand. To me, it felt like he’d lied to me, telling me he wasn’t mad, then getting SO MAD. And it’s such a stupid thing to get so mad about!!! Then the other part was, he couldn’t tell me when he was mad about something I did, or didn’t like it. So my point is then HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO CHANGE IT IF I DON’T KNOW YOU DON’T LIKE IT?? What am I supposed to do if you don’t tell me when you don’t like things? And maybe I’m not going to change them if they’re really silly, but we can at least talk about them, and hopefully after that, we can come to some understanding. Cuz at some point, you’re gonna have to accept that there’re some things you just can’t control. We’re not THAT young!! SIGH. O well. That was the problem with the host dad, it’s rather cooled down, just as I don’t actually think he’s known when I’ve seen the guy again, cuz we haven’t done anything at night, and we’re usually with other kids AND it’s hard to see him much cuz he lives in the capital. So yea (and if anyone’s curious, the guy’s name is Juan haha ; )
Then with my host mom, for some reason the past week was REALLY difficult. First, they all sent me into the capital by myself one evening, so I had to come home; I had school the next day! So what does she expect me to do, take a taxi back? That’s INCREDIBLY expensive. I’m gonna take the bus home. So the bus is going to take a while. So if I arrive home at 10:30pm it’s not my fault! So she wasn’t MAD about that, well at least she didn’t get mad at me, but she said she worried a lot. Well as usual, I didn’t have credit on my cell. And if I’ve told her once I’ve told her a thousand times if I don’t have credit and you want to know where I am CALL ME. But she doesn’t call, and just worries! As I think I’ve said, she’s always on medication, so that makes her a bit… off sometimes, but it also makes her worry a lot more, like paranoid. Then the next night, I went with friends to a girl’s house for her birthday, and I told my host mom to call me around 8:30 to see if she could pick me up in Pacheco so I didn’t have to ride the bus home, but she never called. So I’m not gonna spend the night in Pacheco! So I took the bus home, and I took it WITH MY FRIENDS WHO LIVE CLOSE, so I wasn’t alone, and she got mad this time! I’d told her to call me and she hadn’t; what’s she expect me to do? I asked her this, and she told me to take a Remis. So now we come to another problem: transportational money. I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to pay for it. But I’ve been paying for it. So I’m not going to take Remises cuz I usually don’t have enough cash to pay for them; from Pacheco home is like 10 pesos! So I’ve got to talk with my coucilor about that, to see if she can talk to the family, cuz if they can’t afford it, that’s one thing, but then they’ve got to get over their paranoia about busses after dark. My councilor said no busses after midnight, whatev, but when it’s just dark, I don’t want to take them alone no more than they don’t want me to, so I dunno. BLAH.
Then the next day got even worseeee. Here arise my biggest problems: there’s a lot of times when I feel like what they’d do for their daughters isn’t what they’re doing for me; I’m getting SICK of always being late for my riding lessons; we’re always at least half an hour late. My host mom always told me it was too dangerous to take a bus, so she had to take me, just like she takes my host sisters everywhere, and we’re NEVER late for their stuff. But for some reason, she doesn’t seem to get it’s a class, and I’ve tried to explain, but we’re ALWAYS late!!
Then my voice lesson. So this day was Thursday, and I came home for lunch, and I didn’t have coins for the bus (you need coins; the machines don’t take bills), and the kiosk near our house was closed. So naturally, being the family, they should take me. I had gym at 2, but my host mom was just like “I don’t have coins either, but I’m not going into Pacheco now. And anyways nothing will happen if you don’t go to gym, right?” Well I hope not, cuz I didn’t go. But I told her “I’ve still got my voice lesson at 4, ok?” And she said that was fine. So at 3:15, I still don’t have coins to ride the bus. And I asked if she could take me in half an hour to Pacheco? But then she tells me again, she’s not going into Pacheco until 5pm when Sofia has English; I can’t just change my voice lesson time!!!!!!!!! And she goes to sleep! With the door locked!
My host sisters are just sitting at the table each doing their own things, NO ONE is talking, I was at a COMPLETE loss; I asked them what I should do if she’s asleep and no one answered, so fed up I just said I was going over to ask the neighbors if they had coins, then I’d go to my voice lesson, see ya guys. So I went, and my neighbor unfortunately didn’t, but at least she like searched the house (her husband and son weren’t home, and she doesn’t usually go places without them so she rarely has change). So we started talking; she’s incredibly nice and I talk a lot with her, especially about my family cuz she’s good friends with my host mom, and so when my family’s just being a bit too crazy, it’s nice to talk to someone who knows, and who can at least sympathize, and who lives really close. So we were talking till her husband got home, and then they had to go get their daughter from school, so I walked back to my house. MY HOST MOM FLIPPED OUT. She was like this past hour I thought you were in Pacheco!! And then she goes off on a RAVING RANT about me, how I don’t respect her, how it’s like she doesn’t exist; I asked my host sister why she was so mad, and my Sofia told me it was because she didn’t like that I’d asked the neighbors for coins, cuz they’re not family, and that she’d told my councilor this. Well, NO ONE TOLD ME. There’s a lot of crap it seems no one EVER tells me!!! And I just don’t understand how I’m supposed to not do things, or do things, if no one tells me!! Well I went to my room and started crying, then they ALL left. I was completely alone in the house, couldn’t call anyone cuz as usual I didn’t have credit on my cell phone, cuz it was all used up talking with my host mom trying to tell her where I was enough to keep her happy, we don’t HAVE a home line, there’s no internet, and I couldn’t leave the house cuz I didn’t have a key. So I was completely alone for 3 hours. Worst three hours of my lifeeee. Then they all finally returned COMPLETELY happy. My host mom had talked to my councilor and god knows what my councilor told her but it’s all well and good my host mom’s happy but I’m still there going WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON??????? ONE MINUTE YOU’RE SCREAMING ABOUT ME THEN YOU COME HOME AND EVERYTHING IS PEACHY PERFECT- WHAT IS GOING ON??
I don’t know how much more I can take if she’s always like this. It’s like they’re false sometimes, or I don’t know what. I don’t want to switch families cuz MOST days it’s good, everything (I THINK) is ok, maybe they just never ever tell me, and it’s only now I can kind of understand enough to see more of it, or I don’t know what. But I dunno what to do. Like today was fine, and yesterday, cuz I didn’t go anywhere with my friends or anything but… I dunno. I think my host parents need to talk to my friends’ parents or something, to see what my friends are like cuz they obviously have no idea that 14 year olds are very different from 16 year olds, especially 14 year olds who don’t tell you anything that isn’t stuff, I dunno, 12 year olds would do. It was NOT a very happy week. Thursday (which also happened to be Thanksgiving) did not find me a very happy camper. Saturday either, when I was 40 minutes late coming home from riding; again, I HAD my cell, but no credit; she’s got to call me!!! And if for some reason I don’t pick up, she should call my riding teacher, she’s got her number as well! When I got home, she’s all like “What’s your explanation this time, eh? What’s your explanation this time?” Well apparently it was good enough cuz five minutes later everything was peachy perfect again. I realllllllllllllly don’t understand this family sometimes. My neighbor told me her daughter (who’s 7) had asked her why I didn’t live with them. Me: Please? You guys are more sane!!! BLAHHH.
Well that’s my host family right now… DIFFICULT. That was more a rant guys, sorry… I just feel like complaining in English, cuz I can complain in Spanish, but not as much. So unfortunately for my friends who speak English, you get to hear more than my Spanish speaking friends!! Haha XP I’m ok… and like, I don’t want to switch families, I just feel like it’s too late, they’ve become too much like a family for me, and honestly if I was gonna change, I’d want to live with my neighbors, but that would be WAY to awkward, as we’re always together. But my neighbor told me whenever they were being insufferable (as well as all my friends, especially those who live close, as well as my riding teacher) all told me to come and just hang out with them. I definitely have the best friends here, they’re SOO nice : ) So that’ll take me to friends!

FRIENDS
I’ve FINALLY started getting closer with my friends here; like it’s more that I can be friends back, it’s not just them being my friends, I can be their’s. I’m still kind of friends with the entire school, but there’re a couple groups of kids I’m close with, as well as a couple kids I’m closest with. It’s funny though, this past week when all the crap was going on with my host family, I still think the whole school probably knows, just for the complete variety of the kids who I happened to be talking to when stuff came up… most of the school kind of knows that Paz is a bit of a bitch to people who aren’t in her group of friends (there’s like 6 of them, the “Verris”) and she’s not a bitch to me, but it’s nice to know it’s not just me that have a hard time getting on with her. Anyways, with them, we haven’t gone out dancing but for the one time, or been to a thousand parties, just cuz we’ve all got soo frickin’ many tests… I was talking with my friend the other day and he’s like just wait, in the summer you’ll see, we’re lots of fun, we go out every day, you’re gonna have so much fun!! And I mean, obviously I won’t go out every day, but still, I can’t wait for summer!! :D I’ll be sure to think of you guys all in school while I’m hanging around the pool with my friends or something >: )>
The other thing that’s not so much with friends, but is pretty cool, is that in January, both the riding teachers for the little kids are going away all month, so my riding teacher asked me if I’d be willing to teach them!! It’s just three days a week, but in return, I basically get a free lease on a horse all summer, so I can come whenever I want, and there’ll always be a horse “all mine” that I can ride, which is AWESOME, I’m really excited about that. Haha for me it’s better than getting paid : )> The other thing with riding- remember how I said my host mom’d always told me it was too dangerous for me to go by bus? Well Friday (the day after Thanksgiving), she told me to go by bus, and return by bus as well!! That didn’t make my riding teacher very happy, and when I came Saturday as well, just cuz I didn’t have anything else to do, she insisted on taking me home… for her, one of the things she really doesn’t like about my host family is how they have me riding the bus alone a lot… it doesn’t really bother me, just the having to pay for it all the time, cuz it’s usually more than 1 peso, as from Pacheco to my house is 1.25, so it adds up to a lot… but that’s something we’ll work on. Hahaaaa she called my host mom the Spanish version of a dumb blond the other day, that was nice to hear after a not so very easy day >: )> My family’s definitely difficult, and so it’s just nice to know that it’s not just me having a hard time with them; everyone pretty much kind of knows they’re a bit off. They do all love each other a lot, I know that, and for my host parents especially, I know that I am like a daughter to them, as well as for all my host mom’s family… that’s really the reason I can’t switch. Blah. It’s just hard some days. Oh welllll thank god for friends, and riding. But next week I better get to my voice lesson. Lol XP Aight guys, again I guess this post was more of a rant, first about school and all the damn tests, then about my host family, sorry!!!!! And a really long one too. But it’s hard to rant as much as I want to in Spanish. So as I said before, unfortunately you guys get the worst of it haha. Don’t worry about me though, I really am ok : ) It’s just funny, whenever I talk about this stuff with my friends or neighbors or whatever, they usually make me feel like … why are you still with that family??? They’re crazy!! And when I talk with AFS people, like my councilor or even with my temporary family (I went to visit them the other weekend, that was really nice, cept the fact that I had a temperature of 102.4 when I went… kind of missed that… cuz my family didn’t have a thermometer, and school ended up being closed – after we got up and drove there – cuz the mayor of Tigre (Pacheco is in the.. basically county of Tigre, and it’s not the mayor but I don’t really know how it translates. Mayor was the closest job I could think of haha) anyway he died, so it was a quiet day, and my riding lesson made me stop shivering, being exercise, but yea… when we finally took my temp with the Medici’s they wanted to take me to the doctors and all… I just wanted to go to sleep with two Advil, and the fever broke at like 3am so it was fine… haha yea)… yea anyways sorry about that, forgot to mention it earlier, anyway, they all make it seem like nothing’s really that big of a deal. So I’m kind of stuck in the middle. Am I crazy for staying with this family? Or not? With how they treated me Thursday, I was pretty sure I was insane. But even after they came back all bipolared and happy, cuz they stayed like that the following days it didn’t seem that bad at that moment… so I dunno. Oh well, talk to ya all later!! Hope everyone had an AWESOME turkey day!!! Miss you all, love you!! Xoxoxoxoxo and I promise to write again sooner, cuz there’s just the one more week of tests, and then I’m basically out for summer!! And like always, send me more emails, leave comments, I PROMISE I will respond to emails within two or three days, and keep that up! And check out the pix, links at the top, talk to y'all later!!!!