Health: I'm feeling pretty darn good lately. My stomach is much stronger than it's been for the past few weeks, my foot is doing really well, I've no pain from in it for sometime now. My new problem is a strange pain in my lower abdomen that is rather inexplicable. In they beginning for the trip we were warned about bladder infections, so I'm drinking as much water as I can/is reasonable for a human body and hoping that sorts it all out (as I've been told it should).
School: It's still pretty loca, but I'm starting to get a little bit better at handling the stress, the readings, the essays, and the presentations all along with keeping up in my exercises and attending the new conversation circle that's been happening at 'Gabbi's school' in the middle of town. However, I do think that our teachers seriously overestimate our abilities (at times). For example, today we had an exam that our Teacher told us, 'Si, es un examen muy corto, entonces tenemos tiempo para hablar sobre otros temas' (Yes, it's a really short test, so we have time to talk about other things). Well we talked really briefly about some other things, and then jumped right into the test. I was the first one done, and I finished about two minutes before class was over. The test was short, but extremely time consuming considering what it was. That being said the test was completely fair, just not quick at all. That's also absolutely my favorite class.
Extra Curricular: Like I mentioned above I'm keeping up on some fun things along with school, and I've added another thing that I'm probably going to be doing four days a week for the next two weeks (and did it four days a week this week as well). It's a conversation circle that a girl who is a student at the university is doing as part of her major (which is linguistics in spanish, and literature(!)). She's very friendly, and knows a lot about Spanish in terms of metalanguage, not just how to speak it. These being my last few weeks I think it's a really good idea to spend as much time as I can speaking and practicing, not that that wouldn't have been great from the get go, but A: this is only available now and B: now that I can understand more and speak better I think that this will be more beneficial. I could learn a ton from just practicing my in my classes, a little on the streets, and in my house, but now I feel that more time just explicitly speaking a listening will really benefit my speech.
Excursion: Since I'm here for twelve weeks, and almost everyone else involved in this program is only here for 6, We have plans to repeat most of the excursions that we did in the first session. This weekend we will be returning to Mexico City, which here is called two things: DF (Distrito Federal) or Mexico. Since I've been hearing that a lot lately, it's getting less confusing as I am now able to remember that we are, in fact, in Mexico, so the mention of it as a place to go or where something is generally means the more specific DF (remember, this is pronounced day Eff'eh). This trip is going to be from tomorrow (Friday the 13th (!!)) until Sunday the 15th (stupid mundane dates...) Needless to say I will be out of contact for that time and will be unable to post a new blog, which is partially why I'm getting this one up here now despite the fact that my life is really much too boring right now to bother reading about, but of course now that you are this far in the blog you might as well finish (Muwhaha, Connor, the life thief). And on that note, I would like to tell a story from awhile ago that I'm pretty sure I have not put up on the internet, but it was one of the more fun experiences so I'm really not sure why I didn't blog about it. Possibly because it's a much better story in person, but I'll do my best.
Funny Story: The director of the program from the Queretaro side of things is an awesome lady named Gabbi, and she has some pretty awesome connections. One of these connections she used to get us $15 tickets to a comedy show for a mere, well, free actually. The show was in extremely rapid Spanish that used lots of puns and just a general playing on words, that being said I spent a great deal of the show just enjoying the more obvious spoken jokes and the physical comedy that requires no language to appreciate. At one point in the show, they were running with one of the jokes I actually understood, they took out a coat rack filled with ridiculous clothing and starting given them out to the audience to wear. Myself and my friend got more or less matching jackets that looked quite formal and were unfortunately made of something like wool (it was already hot in there). Just a little bit later in the show, a group of people came out dressed like soldiers and were about to start something, but started looking around nervously like they were missing someone; the soldiers were wearing the same jackets with which we had just been adorned... The "Director" of the show, who actually played a very large part in it, ran over to us and hurried us onto the stage with the other soldiers who actually turned out to be dancers. So as we are moving onto the stage (in front of a crowd of.. 60? 70? 90?) we have to watch what they are doing and try to mimic it (at one point I broke from the learning process and did my own silly little dance until I could again actually see the feet of the people I was trying to learn from). After dancing around for a bit and trying to follow the stage directions not only without knowing what was going on but also unable to understand what they were saying to us in whispers and playful commands, we had to rush to the fountain that was in the middle of the floor, grab a cup of water, make a Cherub like pose, and spit into the fountain. I did everything but the spitting into the fountain quite well, but the last bit ended with me wiping my chin furiously with my hand trying to save my shirt from being soaked for the rest of the night. We went back up on stage and danced for another few seconds and then ended in a dramatic (see: absurd) pose and the dance was over. Scott (my fellow jacketed amigo) and I returned to our seats and to the group of gringos who had come with us. They thought we were awesome, which was nice to hear, because I had a blast and it's nice to know that that didn't come at the cost of the show. I guess I'm just a born entertainer; language barriers can't stop me!
Departing Words: And there you go folks, I hope that is sufficient awesome to hold you over until I return from my trip to Mexico (the city not the country) and some how find time to post again.
Love you all. Keep rockin' keep readin',
-Connor
I think I would have actually paid the 15 bucks to see you take part in such an event. It sounds hilarious, and I am glad you had a good time.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the language group thing seems very interesting. Did you mean linguistics of spanish AND literature -or- linguistics of spanish and linguistics of literature? It is slightly different you see. Thus my confusion and request for clarification. :)
I hope all is well, and am glad you are feeling better!
Love much,
Alexandria