Last night I was doing homework (big surprise) so let´s see if I can remember stuff. Again, I´m in the computer lap typing on a Spanish keyboard, so have mercy. Incidentally, Spanish keyboards are great for typing Spanish composiciones. OK, well, yesterday I got up at 6 to catch the bus at 7, I was super early but we almost left a girl there because she was late! We picked everyone up and drove down to the university... I swear, the road is so vertical that I´m sure it would be illegal in the US. It´s actually a pretty awesome feat of architecture... I´m just glad I´m not driving. Ana Maria, my academic writing professor, and I met in the library and did things like go over the syllabus and analyze a poem. I have to do a research project as my final, and I think I´m going to do it on knitting in indigenous groups. Nerdy? Next I had Survey of Spanish American Lit, and we spent the first half hour of class looking for the classroom... the original classroom didn´t exist and the second one we tried was occupied. We finally did get together with the professor (only 4 in the class) and we read some José Martí. A little boring, but probably because I was so hungry (potato soup, cucumber and zucchini salad, rice, a type of stew, and TRES LECHES as well as mystery juice.) It turns out that I didn´t have class that afternoon so I did important things like check email and facebook, wandered around, and sat next to the lake and pirate ship with Melanie while watching Loba, the university dog, and discovering that the bushes we were sitting next to had limes and avocados on them. Pretty cool. We took the bus back and I got back to the apartment and did homework! Yay! A lot of reading Spanish lit and something titled ´what is culture´in English. Zeheivy made me soup, with banana chips and a type of chicken sandwich except instead of bread there was rice... Enrique came over, too. It´s nice when he´s around because the house feels more full. The two of them discuss like a married couple and it´s really cute. I also had agua de jamaica. Not really sure what it is, but the best way I can describe it is that it looks like KoolAid and tastes kind of like autumn, like the smell of leaves. Pretty weird. I study more and go to bed at 9! I haven´t kept hours like this since, well, never. I woke up at 6 again, which is harder than it sounds because I still dream in English (as far as I can remember) and I have to get back into Spanish mode to talk to Zeheivy. She made me some kind of cereal with oatmeal, apples, ans what I thought were grapes but are really cranberries in it. It was good; I also drank hot chocolate and half a pb&j. Incidentally, the PB had NO sugar in it. I checked. But it´s still peanut butter. She walked with me again to the bus stop and everyone was on time. I didn´t have class so I worked in the library and wrote my description compo on Quito, there was more classroom trouble with Survey, and I was starving again for lunch (quinoa soup, rice and fish, salad, melon juice, and mystery might be lemon cake). And now I´m in the computer lab blogging! Really things haven´t been too exciting because we´re not going anywhere until the weekend, but for a geek like me Spanish lit is pretty exciting. I haven´t gone running yet, but both Charlie and Melanie run so I´ll be in good shape if-when I get in shape... going up the stairs is like running a track workout.
More fun facts: Did I tell you the cheese here is white and squeaky? And that there´s dog poop on the sidewalks? The guards at the apartment recognize me; big surprise. The sun can burn you through the clouds. I live next to the National Conservatory of Music and a ballet school. Zeheivy loved the Cavs sweatshirt I gave her and asked how I know that she is an athlete. It´s good because people here are cold all the time, although I swear it never dips below 60, maybe 55 in the early morning. There are clouds in the mountains in the morning. There are a lot of other US students here, but they all always speak English. Slackers. I do miss speaking English, but I´m getting over it now that my grammar is going to the dogs in favor of Spanish. Everyone knows right away that I´m not from here; people stare at me in the street and always speak to me in English (if they don´t know any) supposing I don´t know a word of Spanish. The is my new biggest pet peeve. Oh, and you can´t throw toilet paper in the toilet here. It goes in the trash can.
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