Sunday, December 31, 2006

Goodbye 2006

Every once in a while, check sidebar links in order to ditch all the ones that no longer lead to their original destination. Speaking of which, it appears that while the Beginning of the Internet has stuck around, its End has disappeared.

It was kind of hard to adjust the new profile picture without ending up like Violet Beauregard going off to the juicer. Mommy's camera and mine both exhibit some kind of Blue Shift phenomenon. If someday gets up the initiative to fight it out with the IrfanView color enhancer, that little cropped piece from the family Christmas picture may get modified. Of course, the ideal would be to find some way to get the whole family picture on, permanently.

Happy New Year's Eve for one more hour!

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Vacation from vacation

Here we (Ardith, Jason, Kendra and I) are at Ardith's celebrating the post-Christmas festivities, or warding off post-Christmas depression, or being lazy bums during holidy vacation, depending on which extreme you like. Actually, I think I prefer this one: enjoying half a week with Ardith at her house.

We're making good use of the time, particularly those of us who don't get in as much city experience. Last night we tested out Pizza Hut's stuffed crust supreme pizza while Ardith introduced us to MacGuyver and his creative ways of using matches and maps. Today Ardith and Jason managed a laudable amount of video gaming while Kendra and I finished whole chapters of books... still leaving time for the girls to run a successful shopping trip in which they all walked away with at least one clothing item. This evening Ardith made us a very delicious supper, no leftovers. Then tonight we're off to see Eragon... depending on the person, to see it, to laugh at it, to take in the special effects, to critique it, to compare it to other fantasy films, and then maybe one or two of us are just going to enjoy it and enjoy sharing the seeing with great siblings.

For Derek, Melinda, Carolyn, Ethan, Nolan, Trevor: Hi guys! Are you getting all the Christmas cookies and fudge eaten up? Don't forget to come down on Saturday! :)

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Merry Christmas Eve

As you've all been such good little children (especially the regular non-commenters), you will all be getting somewhere between one and four hundred twenty-two presents.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Oklahoma trip

Last weekend we went down to Oklahoma for our cousin David's wedding. There, that's about all you'll hear about the wedding. Don't go to weddings to visit with the bride and groom, or the bridesmaids or groomsmen. If you're one of them you'll get to see a lot of each other; if you aren't, don't go unless you know plenty of people. Fortunately for us, we went as a family, then met up with at least half the extended Hoyt family.

On the way down: Mommy drove; Daddy kept track of our progress on the GPS and every turn and interstate lane necessary; Ardith played computer games on her laptop; I wrote pages of Spanish diary; and the kids watched DVDs on the special Long-Trip Entertainment Center (which has a fascinating history of its own).

Friday night we arrived at the Hampton Inn with a good hour and a half before the rehearsal dinner to exult in its luxuries and start running into various Hoyts and Baneks around its corners, in its halls, and entering its elevators. That is, David's relations pretty much took over the hotel over the weekend... at least its lobby and pool.

(By the way, why do some people get to go to the rehearsal dinner without doing any work for it? at least suffering through the rehearsal?)

The rehearsal dinner was very delicious, and our table's party especially fine company: not just Ardith and Jason and Kendra, but also our cousins Ryan, Beth, and Chris, and Greg.

The wedding was lovely. Kendra, Carolyn and I got front-row seats, because there wasn't enough room in the row for our family and Kendra and I showed up late. Fortunately this meant being dismissed almost first, which gave me time to go find my station as punch server. It was a very fun job, greeting and serving some hundred people, seeing how many cups of punch several fathers and mothers could manage. It was kind of cold though, handling ice, punch, and ice water in a practically air-conditioned room... by the time I was off-duty I was shattering and chaking. I mean I was shaking and chattering.

Friday and Saturday night we older cousins took over the lobbies for some great games. Apples to Apples, Liverpool Rummy (left to right: Derek, Beth, Kendra, Erin, Erica), Settlers of Catan... and more Settlers of Catan (Catan fanatics, left to right of second photo: Chris, Greg, Ardith, Ryan, Jason, Taylor).

Sunday was skipping church and traveling back. Repeat paragraph #2 of this post, except include Jason among "the kids" (= everyone sitting behind the front row; does not refer in any way to maturity levels, we think).

(Intermission: waiting for video to upload, visiting Jason, Kendra and Derek in living room to see what's happening in Jurassic Park II, just to say I saw it.)

Here's a little video clip to give you an idea of what it's like to watch Jonah in the van.

Hope that let you experience the trip a little!

(P.S. I hope you have "Flash 8 or newer" so you can view the video. Guess who doesn't.)

Just Sharon the technological wizard

This was so funny I just had to share it! Well, tonight I decided to try making my computer's sound function for the second time. Tonight was a good time because Daddy and Jason were both in the room to bail me out if I couldn't find the problem. First I checked all the connections and again turned on the speaker, with no success - no little green light or accompanying depth-click. So I stared over towards Jason and Derek, laughing over something in their corner, and waited till they noticed.

"So why doesn't my sound work?"
"News to me. You must have done something to it," Jason informed me.
"Did you turn it on?" Derek asked.
"Yes, it doesn't come on."
"Did you turn on the monitor base?"
"Yes, it's plugged in," I told him, referring to the speaker into the monitor base... when it suddenly dawned on me that having it plugged into the base doesn't mean anything unless the accompanying AUX 1 switch on the front is on as well.

Jason and Derek snorted and shook their heads. "That's embarrassing," Jason told me.

What, for him or me? I thought it was great fun!

(Oh boy, another one... spelled it 'embarassing' before checking with Dictionary.com.)

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

That is, tomorrow

Did I say tomorrow? I meant within the next couple days. Call it the Argentina Effect. We just decided to induct Kendra and Derek into the horrors of Jurassic Park.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Vacation is busy

Did you know that?

This morning was occupied with sleeping in late, putting in a treadmill stint, and deciding it was too late to eat breakfast.

After lunch Jason and I drove in to Hampton to get jabbed in the upper left arm with a needle and injected with this year's flu virus, ensuring that if we can keep from catching it for two weeks, we may just not get it at all. The nurse told us about the year she got to give the flu shot to nearly everyone in our family, all at once.

The afternoon's activities were insulation work and breadmaking. After supper came top-secret business, which won't be described, and birthday business, which was helping Ethan prepare the Chocolate Truffle Tart for his birthday tomorrow.

Tonight is a movie with Mommy and the older kids.

So because of this busy day, as of yet I have only been able to download to my computer and then upload to the Internet a few of the trip pictures. Tomorrow I will have time to link them and write a little about the trip.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Big weekend trip!

Trevor: "Sharon, are you coming with us on the trip?"
Sharon: "Yes. You mean to the wedding?"
Trevor: "No, to the hotel."

Tomorrow at 7 a.m. we leave, to go to either to the hotel with a swimming pool or to David's wedding, depending on which child you ask. David is the oldest of our three Oklahoma cousins, and what do you know, Amy the bride is too - so everyone will be converging on Tulsa this weekend. It is lovely to be back in the U.S. and meet up with family, little by little... most of our family last Tuesday, Ardith tonight, Jason and a whole lot of the extended Hoyt clan tomorrow!

Despite the trip, don't expect Hoyts to be absent from the blog scene all weekend. The hotel has wireless and we have a Daddy who fixes us up with laptops and wireless cards.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

a little Christmas vacation

Wasn't that a nice break?

Christmas vacation is like always, just how it should be. Stage I - the tree and decorations - went up a little late but very lovely. Every year there's something new, it seems, especially for the kitchen! Stage II will be Christmas cookies next week. Too bad that we didn't make them before Jason got home! (... waiting for reaction...) Stage III, Christmas photo-taking, letter-writing and mass-mailing will be accomplished at a yet-undetermined date, but of course Mommy's Christmas letter is always worth waiting for.

Vacation also means a few little work projects. The breezeway is getting insulated, slowly but surely. Ethan was helping me fill some of the smaller spaces, but now it's just big two-foot-wide fiberglass rows across the ceiling. An interesting job that requires at least three ladders and a plank, a slightly sore neck

(intermission #1: first I typed 'kneck'!)

and lots of white fairy fiberglass dust. Oh dear! Why didn't I think to wish for something?

By the way, an inconvenient place to cut yourself is on top of the thumb. I don't advise it, even with a blunt knife that just breaks the skin. Even two well-applied bandaids only survive two handwashings.

Most college students catch up on sleep during vacation. I just can't seem to get around to it. In fact, it's hard to think of the last week that had all the sleep time desirable. Life is just too interesting to sleep through.

(intermission #2: Joe or one of his friends must be messing with Ethan's computer. Some body's scratching around down there and I don't think it's Santa Claus.)

Normally we should have the climax now, but that intermission happened to show that it's after 11 p.m. More thrilling Hoyt Christmas news items to come as they decide to pop up!

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Good to be home

Do you know that nobody dusted off my computer in five months?!

But there are lots of good surprises. Daddy is back to working on the house, despite still-healing ribs, and has fixed up a walkman as a kitchen radio for Mommy. No matter what she says on her blog, Mommy has a very successful diet. Ardith is riding down to Oklahoma for our cousin's wedding with us in the 15-passenger. On opening my long-unused Intergate mail account, I discovered an email from Jason. Kendra found a brownie recipe that is similar to the cheap off-brand mix and that we all like. Derek is nearly as tall as Jason. Kendra and Melinda have taken over the breadmaking. Carolyn and Ethan helped clean out the breezeway, upgrading it to 'walkable' status. Ethan has a very handsome non-flattop haircut. Nolan can pick out Christmas tunes on the piano and recite word-for-word whole strips of Peanuts comics.
Trevor has outgrown naps but not cuteness.

Is that everyone?...

Tonight on the way to prayermeeting we counted farms and houses with Christmas tree lights: Melinda, Nolan and Trevor on the left, and Carolyn, Ethan and I on the right. On the way home we played a game that Carolyn thought up. Each person had to think of a word that probably no one else would know, and everyone else had to guess the meaning. Carolyn's word was rax. None of us could guess it, though Trevor made a valiant effort, once we knew that hands, arms, and stretching were likely involved (after multiple hints): "When you stretch out two hands and do a backflip."

...Oh, I forgot me. Yesterday I went to bed at 9:30 p.m. and tonight 10:30 already feels very late.

So goodnight, everyone... here's how we say goodnight in our house:

Goodnight,
Sleep tight,
Pleasant dreams,
I love you!

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Arrived

It's lovely to be home! Thank God for safe travels.

I just can't keep awake to type more.

Friday, December 01, 2006

Last Friday

Dooesn't my ingenuity with post titles just make you want to cry?

Once again uploading pictures. I found the multiple upload option but that doesn't make the connection faster. So I may stop at 150 soon as it's already after 1 p.m. and other business awaits.

Yesterday was an all-day trip to Colonia, an old and picturesque city in Uruguay. Three hours of boat ride to arrive was lovely and great for getting burned. Colonia is pretty, as you'll see from a few pictures later on. The best part is crossing the main street, Flores, where the vehicles stop for pedestrians! Even around 6 p.m. there wasn't much traffic. Of course, this was in the old center of town, not the modern.

Today is a little rest before the last big rush. Saturday is all-day decorating for a wedding and the ceremony and party at 8 p.m. Sunday will doubtless be sleeping and a little packing. Monday will be last packing, changing pesos to dollars - at least enough to have the $20 required to leave let me leave the country. There's something about these Latin American countries wanting to hang on to everybody, or at least hang on to their money. Leaving Uruguay cost 5 pesos and I believe some missionary friends had to pay each time they left Haiti.

Then at 4:30 p.m. (1:30 Central, I think) we leave for the airport!

That's all for now. Looking at a screen is getting a little tiring after an hour and a half!

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

The last Wednesday

I was going to post yesterday, but the 20 locutorio minutes were almost up; and then it was time to go shopping.

Yesterday I cooked dinner for my friends. I started around 5 p.m. with the dessert, then around 7 p.m. with the main courses. The meatloaf turned out great, in spite of the fact that most of my brain was occupied in carrying on a conversation with a dinner guest who arrived early. So did the baked potatoes, though I almost thought they would never make it. So did the French vinaigrette for the lettuce salad. I didn't manage to get around to making the chunky applesauce. We started eating around 9:30 or 10:00 with the guests still arriving, the last one coming a little after serving the chocolate cream pie and meringues. What fun the evening was! All except two made it, which still made for around 10 people in total. We five youngest goofiest ones between the ages of 16 and 22 stayed up till 3 p.m., partly to take crazy pictures....

... which you may just get to see by the weekend. This is partly because I'm such a nice person and mostly because I want to clear up memory space before going to Uruguay tomorrow. This way we'll see if the 256 mg limit is really 350-some pictures. I already have nearly 300 on one card. Normally I would have been downloading them onto my laptop, but it's refusing to work. So I'm sitting here in the locutorio spending the horrendous amount of 2 pesos (= some 60 cents) to upload them one by one into Photobucket - one by one, because for some reason Photobucket isn't giving me the multiple upload option today. I must have made it mad. Oh, shoot. (Excuse the poor language today.) That's only the fourth or fifth time that I switched back to the Photobucket page only to find I'd selected the file without clicking 'Upload'.

Oh, you thought I was posting to post? No, I'm just posting to kill time.

Just kidding. Partly.

It's funny how little one can sleep during vacation. Saturday I went to bed at 4 a.m. Sunday was 1 a.m., but that's normal now. Monday was 1 or 2 a.m., and yesterday was 3 a.m. This plus never sleeping in till noon. What can I say... it's impossible to sleep that late, and five or six hours felt sufficient this morning. Must be the low-stress non-semester lifestyle.

Well, we're getting there, only about 15 more photos to go. I wonder how long the post will be for the 275-some on the other card.

In other news, the heat here is nice but it's almost making me look forward to winter in our hemisphere. Some days are so hot or humid (or both) that you just don't feel like doing anything, can't walk at a decent rate, and need three times the willpower to do the next thing--

(I started to say 'the force of the will', then some English succintness knocked on the door)

--This explains the siesta tradition and a lot of other things that can be exasperating for North Americans and Northern Europeans... at least for this one.

Well, that's all for now. It's 8 p.m. Maybe I will get to bed early, like midnight, since I have to get up around 5 or 6 a.m. tomorrow to get to the dock for the boat to Uruguay.

Monday, November 27, 2006

1

That's how many weeks are left between hearing planes leaving Buenos Aires and being in one.

Friday, November 24, 2006

A week

It seems odd to round off a semester of studies in sociology, history and economy with a couple weeks of fun and sight-seeing.

Saturday I went with Mayra ("My-ruh") to spend the night at Mayte's ("My-tay") house. We're a diverse bunch: Mayra came from Bolivia five years ago and is finishing massage studies, Mayte arrived from Peru early this year to study gastronomy, and I came from the States to learn how to speak like them (except Mayte still has her "tu" and "y"'s - which probably doesn't mean anything to you). We spent the evening chatting a lot and eating dessert first, then watched a slightly oldish but interesting movie on the Tribulation, ordered pizza and empanadas and the boys (Mayte's brother Juan and friend Pablo) joined us to watch The Longest Yard. It made us laugh enough that the Main House requested us to pipe down a little. The others started another movie but I had already seen it and went to sleep.

Sunday we all slept in late, ate, and watched another movie on TV (the 'nun' one with Whoopie Goldberg). Juan taught me some chords on the guitar. We girls managed to arrive at the church about an hour late.

Monday... I really don't remember what happened Monday.

Tuesday... Tuesday night Felipe came over to visit. Silvina and Emi lent us their roller blades. It was fun to skate after about a decade; but only a little on the sidewalk, as I didn't feel like trying the street and watching out for traffic. Maybe a good thing, since we had to quit rather soon when Felipe managed to lose some of the screws in his skates.

Wednesday afternoon I went to visit the Chacarita cementary, quite close, only twenty blocks or so away. It is enormous. I only visited a small part of it but took over fifty pictures. One part is a little city of tombs, like houses with narrow alleys between them... and you can see inside some of them. Will be linking pictures when I get back.

Thursday afternoon I went to visit the Museum of Oriental Art, only to discover it was being moved to another location. So I was stuck with the Museum of Decorative Art, which fortunately didn't turn out to be the semi-modern stuff we studied in Argentine Art. Rather, it was a house in a baroque French style, two floors, no photos allowed. Sorry. Afterwards I had time to go back and visit just about all of the Museo de Bellas Artes in a more relaxed manner, instead of hunting up subjects for Art homework. After that it was time to come back for our small group in the evening.

This morning I had planned to go to the city center and take photos of important things like the Casa Rosada (the Argentine White House), Plaza de Mayo, the obelisk, and the world's largest McDonald's. But yesterday we stayed up late to talk about something and then had to clean up the dishes to avoid more cucarachas. So let's hope it doesn't rain this afternoon, despite all the oppressive humidity. But then again, better if it rains today and doesn't rain tomorrow, since Silvina and I are going to a nearby city to visit the Museum of Natural Science (lots of dead animals) and walk around to see the city.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Happy Thanksgiving

¡Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias!

(Happy Day of Action of Thanks)

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Temporary-hometown news

Yes, that's right, we are hitting the season of cucarachas. I'll let you look that one up. It is not advisable to leave food out in the open or go around the house barefoot in the evening. Besides, if you're barefoot you can't smash 'em when they pop out of nowhere. There does seem to be some odd tradition of leaving stomped cucarachas lying where they were stomped, so I have discreetly undertaken the job of giving them a decent garbage burial.

That delightful intolerable heat of a Buenos Aires summer is finally arriving. Taking the colectivo + finding a seat = time for a nap. Before the close of classes, our Spanish professor briefly described the January joys we'll be missing: stepping out of a store and getting punched by a fist of humid heat, or taking the subway sauna - especially developed for businessmen in suits (I was about to say 'tailored' and decided against it, knowing how people refuse to believe puns are unconscious).

No, playing the guitar is not so easy. It really hurts your fingertips to press down the strings for various chords, especially the lowest ones near the left end (nice exact description, huh?).

Christmas season is approaching. Housemate and artist Emi was getting ready yesterday by painting several small decorative boxes (to sell) with snowmen and holly. Though they don't have snow here, our version of Christmas is popular, what with all the foreign films and publicity.


In news outside of Buenos Aires, did anyone else enjoy finding out that NASDAQ wants to buy its London counterpart? Showed up in the daily newspaper El País yesterday.


And that's all we have time for today, folks. On the way home for lunch, I want to stop by a bookstore that has tablefuls of books on sale (5 pesos, or around $1.64), and this afternoon is a visit to the Chacarita cementary - only 20 or so blocks away, walking distance, and with plenty of statues, famous personages, and a big park.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Comics from Argentina

True, they're a lot less interesting without the illustrations. But a book of a '70s or '80s strip called Mafalda makes me laugh a lot and I wanted to share a couple with you.

#1

Felipe is reading the comics and Mafalda is in a chair near him.

1- Mafalda: Listening to the readio has cleared up something in the Vietnam mess for me.
Felipe: Oh, really?
2- Mafalda. Yes! It seems that on one side are the "North Americans", right? and on the other side are the "North Vietnamese". Then there are the "South Vietnamese", that...
(Felipe listens)
3- Mafalda: ... firght agains the "Vietcong", which fights against the "Americans", which in their turn are against the "Communists". There's also "the Union", and then "the Reds", that...
(Felipe listens with widened eyes)
4- Final scene: Felipe running off yelling "Help!", leaving his chair overturned and comic lying on the floor. Mafalda watches him with a ?.

#2

1- Mafalda and Philip playing chess on the floor.
2- Mafalda's dad walks by and says, "Ahhh, chess! When I used to play it nobody could beat me."
3- Same scene as 1.
4- Same, except Mafalda remarks, "Do parents say those things so we'll admire them retroactively?"

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Painful

You can think of and pray for Daddy right now. He broke a rib or two. It's not comfortable or fun.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

More vacation

Excuse me for not posting more. I tried Tuesday but it didn't work, and Wednesday I wasn't around, since I went to a friend's house to eat lunch and talk and watch a movie.

While there I tried to talk to someone else in French. She studied French several years and knows less than me. Guess what. She can almost talk more than I can. I can hardly put five words together. Spanish keeps coming out and interrupting. Probably that's a good thing, for now. Later we'll try to get the two to function simultaneously.

Monday I received my last grade of the semester.

Literature: 8
Art: 9
Spanish: 10
Argentine Society: 8
Traditions: 10
Political Economy: 9

8 comes out to an A-. At least I didn't pull any Bs, although it's been three years since getting as low as an A-.

Well folks, that's all the time left, as the ticking clock on this computer informs me I have 2 minutes to get this published and get off before the price rises to the incredible height of 1 peso.

Friday, November 10, 2006

Vacation

For lack of any better ideas, the last 24 hours of freedom.

After finishing my exam and getting in my Internet time, I arrived back at the house around 5:30 p.m. and then proceeded to celebrate the end of the semester in all the best ways: washed the dishes, enjoyed two sections of a bar of dark chocolate, took a walk, ate a quick supper with Silvina before we left for our small group. Normally the group meets Friday nights, but for the moment it's been changed over to Thursday since everyone suddenly realized last Thursday that they were less tired and sharper for a Bible study. Last night we had 'guests', that is the youth group leader and his wife, Frede and Ale(jandra). Frede had been in San Salvador for the last month visiting his family for the first time in some 25 years. He had some good stories to tell, like how much worse the colectivos are and how strong the heat is, how he couldn't bring back hardly any food through customs, and how some people say that the U.S. is to blame for the country's current situation because it helped out both sides in the civil war.

He gave a short study in Nehemiah, and of course we spent time chatting and eating... for those who hadn't had supper, pizza. Plus there was something called gancha, from Peru; it is a little like popcorn - inflated corn well roasted in oil and salted. But it retains the shape of the corn, doesn't look 'exploded' like popcorn. You're welcome for that scientific explanation. Then there was a strawberry torta (normally translated 'cake', 'pie' in this case) that Ale had made.

Since Ale(jandro, fiancé of Emi - how confusing are these names and shorter versions?) had brought the car, we got to ride back home in luxury instead of taking a colectivo. Went to bed around 1 a.m.

This morning after managing to sleep in till 8 a.m., I got up and didn't sit down once except for breakfast. How lovely is that? (someone's tired of sitting and studying) Cleaned my poor neglected room and washed the dishes and cleaned the front of the oven and swept the floor and organized the semester's papers and notes to put away and drank maté, of course. Silvina arrived home from work and we had lunch.

If that was very boring, don't worry. Now I'm off to hunt up the travel agency that is supposed to be hiding in a shopping center some few blocks from here, in order to get some info for making travel plans. For one thing, finding out if it's cheaper to take the train or the micro (a bus like the colectivo, but for longer distances).

Till the next time! Everyone enjoy your weekend!

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Today's good news

Today Melinda celebrates her 14th birthday! Happy birthday, Melinda!

(Doubtless there will be photos going up at Ma Hoyt's site in the next 24 hours.)

Yesterday marked the 2-year anniversary of Daddy's heart transplant. I don't think Mommy will mind if I link to her reminiscing.

Today at exactly 16:00 I walked out of the classroom 10.5 a free girl! The last exam is turned in and the semester is over! - except for receiving this last grade, Monday.

Thanks to God for all of His goodness!


Now that I have all this free time I should write a really long post. But I'm sure you'll agree with my eyes that they need a break, after spending all of yesterday (only a repeat of the past week-and-a-half) typing and revising a 4-page single-spaced paper and studying copious notes.

Sending you all love and besos!

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

...

Postponing posting till tomorrow afternoon, when two joyful announcements can go up at once (and who knows, maybe some more will arrive in the next 24 hours!). In the meantime, prayers for mental sharpness and timely accomplishment are appreciated.

(it's always fun to write without using the first person singular)

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Feliz cumple!

Happy 12th birthday to my dear sister Carolyn!

You can view the celebration here.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Coming soon

Guess what? French 24 or "CNN á la française" is due to arrive at the end of this month, bringing that long-awaited French perspective to "counter the Anglosaxon sphere of influence with the BBC, CNN, ..." etc. That's from this article in Wikipedia. Scroll to the bottom for some news links. (I'm sure this is old news to some, but it was a delightful surprise for me yesterday.)

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Some fresh air

Ahhhhhhh....

Oh, excuse me. That was just me breathing.

Ten pages single-spaced ready to turn in today; three down, six to go. (You're not supposed to add because I don't feel like changing it.) We'll just skip the part about how and when those were finished since such evidence might cause someone to lose her good name.

If I can just survive the next semester, there are two possible reactions: leave the educational world forever or stick around to reform it.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Professors in Argentina

Once the Literature II professor was thirsty in class and requested that the girl in the front row lend her the girl's water bottle. After about ten minutes and repeated sips in between lecturing, she returned it.

Today the Political Economy professor mentioned (for the first time, to my knowledge) at the beginning of the class that we would need a second mini syllabus, the #5, which logically follows the #4 (just as logically we had had no need of #1, 2, or 3), suggested to the two girls sitting next to me that they run down (to the bookstore in the basement) and buy it, and while they were at it they could buy him one too... either he hadn't brought it with him or he didn't have it (and did not clarify that point).

(Please excuse the frequent parentheses in that paragraph.)

During the break a girl from China was asking him questions and we learned that many professors here teach in several universities... three or four, at least (I know for a fact that at least three of my five professors do this). In order to teach, they don't need to complete any studies of pedagogy, only studies in their field of specialty.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Discúlpenme

Excuse me for not posting. Life continues. Tonight is the last midterm (!) and the next two weeks come due exams and papers for other classes.

Down here we are enjoying the 90s for temperature, accompanied by a good crushing humidity.
One of our professors informed us that this is December weather, not typical of October. But we should be getting rain and the mere 80s soon.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Monday's homework

[This was supposed to go up yesterday, but Blogger couldn't drag itself past 0% publication.]


Contemporary Argentine Art has to be one of the easiest and most fun classes here. Once we had to travel to the center of town to walk along a major street and take pictures of two buildings that reflect a certain movement in architecture. Twice we have been required to go to a museum and take pictures of two works from a particular movement in painting... well, the first time it was paintings, but this one is more open as we have fallen headlong into the bottomless world of modern art, which includes things like oddly-formed mattresses hanging from springs on the wall. Tomorrow I'm off to hunt up such weird things from the '60s and '70s, tomorrow I'll order the photos, and Monday I'll pick them up before leaving for class.

Taking a colectivo (bus) used to be a little scary, but not so much anymore, especially making a particular trip a second time. The most fun is taking a colectivo from somewhere inside the general city center (el Capital) to the surroudning region that tends to be a little more industrial and residential (la Provincia). Why? Because, if you go at the right hour, the colectivo is full and you get to stand up and hold on to a seat back (if you're too short to reach the overhead handholds) and keep your balance while the colectivo zooms along longer stretches and jerks to a stop at the paradas (unless, of course, there is an extra lot of traffic, in which case it's only slugging along and jerks). This is a lot of fun! Of course, if you go at the wrong hour, such as around 11 a.m., you may end up being the only passenger for twenty minutes or more.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

How about...

What? You mean I have to keep posting to get comments?

Please, don't take that as a rhetorical question.

Let's make this more interactive. Does anyone have interesting stories from Friday the 13th to pass on? (I'm exempt; it's Tuesdays that fall on the 13th that count here, not Fridays)

Friday, October 13, 2006

Events south of the Equator

One item of interest in the news here has to do with the former president Perón, who died in 1974. Martha Holgado has been claiming for twelve years that she is his daughter, so recently they removed the body from its protection of 12 locks to take genetic material and make a comparison. Apparently this will take around 45 days. Perhaps I will find out and report the results before flying back.

Next Monday is feriado because it is Día de la Raza ("Day of the Race"). This particular Latin American holiday corresponds somewhat to Columbus Day. I believe the date has some connection with the discovery of America, and the 'Race' may refer to those of Spanish background, since this same holiday is known as Fiesta de España or Día de Hispanicidad in Spain. If you want to know more, go look in Wikipedia. Of course, the pertinent point is that we don't have classes. I expect it will be another study day, as there are at least three papers and three exams that will start coming due at the end of the month.

Speaking of exams, this week I received back all the grades for the four midterms. One 7, two 8s, one 10 - on a scale of 1-10. 7 does not sound that great to me, but everyone else informs me it's a good grade. Probably corresponds to a B in our system. Of course, in my opinion, a B is not a good grade, but then the midterm only partly counts toward the final grade. Anyway, grades are mere numbers; the important thing is becoming fluent in Spanish.

This Sunday is el Día de la Madre in Argentina! Silvina and her mother Miriam invited me to eat with their family in Miriam's house on Sunday. That will be a little more like home, but of course I will be thinking of you, mi muy querida mamá. :)

Everyone enjoy your snow up there... down here it's already practically summer!

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Saturday

Saturday morning I got up in order to arrive at the post office at 10:00, the hour it opens. This wasn't early enough because there was already a line outside. But fortunately it was only five minutes of waiting.

The next and last errand of the morning was at Coto, a grocery store. All I needed was shampoo and some cereal bars to keep me alive during long days of classes. When it was my turn at the register, I handed the cashier a note of 10 and patiently awaited my five-or-so pesos in change. The lady took the bill, opened it, looked it up and down, this way and that, against the light... I had seen them checking other notes, but never so long, and began to be very nervous that perhaps it was counterfeit. Finally she turned and asked something of another cashier, which I could not make it, then opened the drawer, lifted the tray and put it beneath - hmmm, how odd, I thought, maybe that's for the notes that are halfway suspicious - and started pulling out my change from the slot of 20s! Oh my, I thought, did I somehow hand her a 100-peso note and not see the extra 0? She gave me some 32 pesos. I tried to ask what I had given her, but was so surprised it didn't come out very correctly. She reopened the drawer and showed me the note of 10 Euros I had given her.

Ooops...

I tried to explain that I hadn't realized it and could return another time to buy my things in pesos, but apparently the Euro is plenty stable.

Later I realized what had happened. I had been keeping a 10-Euro note and a 5-Euro note with my checkbook (which I never carry with me), simply as souvenirs for the moment (with, of course, the design of waiting for an exchange rate of something around 100 or above) and when for some reason I had to look at something in the checkbook, happened upon these notes and somehow mistook them for pesos - despite the fact that Euros are made of stiffer paper with glossier embellishments; in other words, I was incredibly not paying attention - and stuck them in my purse ("oh, how lovely, look at these 15 pesos that I was forgetting about...").

Of course, this may not seem very funny to you, but after the first block and first shock, I kept laughing all the rest of the morning!

So much for the grand potential exchange rate. Instead I got rid of my lovely 10-Euro note in a little grocery store in Buenos Aires. When I got back home, my calculator and guesses at the exchange rates informed me that the change was correct.

Well, there's always the 5 Euros, just have to wait for a really good exchange rate...

Friday, October 06, 2006

Tranquil Friday

Laugh of the day: Hearing some guy in the street saying, "Waiyt fo mee, waiyt fo mee..."

Nostalgia of the day: Was walking to the university and passed someone mowing the lawn. That doesn't seem to belong to the world of Buenos Aires!

Monday, October 02, 2006

Qué lástima

Too bad, we don't have our Literature class. This means four hours of being stuck around here with free time, from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., at which hour begins Art. Looks like I'll have to study extra or write a blog post - or maybe both.

It has already been a strange sort of day. If it weren't for my alarm clock, I wouldn't have woken up at 8 p.m. because it was raining very hard... and very loud on a tin roof... and we all know how the conscious struggles to take over the mind from the subconscious when it's raining. I didn't know if it was safe to take a shower, considering the lightning and thunder, so I got ready to study, only to discover a mini waterfall in the closet. Ran down to the kitchen and back up twice to get tupperware, which caught most of the dripping.

Silvina got up a little later. Originally she had Monday morning free; then her mother called Sunday night to see if she could work. (!) Emi was supposed to work, then turned out she didn't have to.

It had stopped raining at some point in the morning, but about noon, just when Ramón came to pick up the ladder (that infamous ladder that has been leaning against the wall for all the time I've been here and which I managed to knock over by barely brushing up against it that one time, causing it to bend up the gas heater and nearly knock out a kitchen window, of course while Silvina was gone for the weekend.) But it started pouring again and we had to wait for Silvina to arrive with a lampshade for Ramón to cart off as well....

--Don't worry, you're not expected to understand all the threads of this complicated story - I'm just trying to illustrate how oddly the day is going--

... so Ramón and Emi and I sat around and chatted for fifteen minutes while waiting for Silvina, then fifteen minutes more with Silvina while waiting for the rain.

As for the rest of the day, Silvina is working at the office, Emi is working (painting) at home, and they're both going off to play cards with a friend late in the afternoon. Then perhaps, possibly, Felipe comes over in the evening. But I won't know till I get back around 9:30 p.m., so I don't know if I'll end up making that dessert or not, and so I don't know if I'll have time to study later, and so, in short...

Don't make too many plans for a day because you never know what's going to happen. Just relax and keep working at the next thing, and remember that you have fifteen or twenty or however many minutes to deal with unexpected things, and especially to spend with friends.

Friday, September 29, 2006

late as usual

There, I finally put up a link for you, Jason. (At least you don't know my password.)

Everyone else, you should go visit my brother's site if you haven't yet! (Hint for dumb blondes like me: look under 'Kin' on the sidebar.)

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Just a little commentary

When studying overseas, it seems like everything slows down. The class schedule is less hectic, for one thing.

When studying overseas, it seems like everything takes more time. Meals take more time (especially if you're eating with others). Transportation takes more time... Take the bus and you have to go to the correct bus stop, wait for the bus (late in the evening this could be a l-o-n-g wait), and wait for the bus to get through traffic if it's a busy hour; then of course you may have to walk again to reach your destination, or take another bus... Studying takes more time. Obviously because it's in another language, and also because the professor may have a different style, or you don't know exactly what he or she is expecting.

Business takes more time. Go to the bank and you may have to wait at least half an hour... go to the post office and you'll almost certainly wait an hour minimum. In the case of the bank it's mostly just a question of quantity of customers. In the case of the post office... I haven't figured it out yet. Maybe the employees just enjoy taking their time. It was the same over in France. There I would get up to arrive at 8 a.m. sharp and only have to wait behind 3 or 4 people, but the hours aren't as exact here.

In some ways, life is simpler. In both France and Argentina my host families don't have a dishwasher. In France I hung my laundry over a drying rack, here Silvina hangs it on a line. Both Mme. Josianne and Silvina buy groceries during the week as they think of them and need them... of course, for a family who has to drive at least 15 minutes to the nearest grocery store, one that turns out rather expensive, this doesn't work. We almost never used the family's DVD player in France, and here Silvina just bought a DVD player (and I got to help her set up the Spanish subtitles! - because, of course, all the 'good movies' (= ones that she likes) are in English).

In France if we wanted bread or dessert or a snack, we bought it, and here it's pretty much the same, though I've tried a few desserts that almost turn out right and that mostly everybody loves (it would help if the stores had things like cocoa or chocolate chips... for the latter, have to guess how much I need, buy the bar(s) and chop 'em up). In both homes we rarely turn on the oven, maybe once a week.

And there's probably a heap more, but as I'd like to pick up my VISA tomorrow and don't know how long that will take, and as Silvina's mother is coming for dinner tonight, better get home and study a little...

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Mañana

Just to not go a week without saying anything. Tomorrow sounds like a good day to post, doesn't it? Because I don't have much time this afternoon, and the Internet is really crawling... at least on this computer.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

So much for that

Spring decided to leave us the day after it came.

Thursday the government suggested that Friday be a day of not driving autos (and taking public transportation instead, I suppose), since autos are damaging to the environment and congest the traffic. Apparently it didn't work very well, because traffic was horrible last night. When we took a colectivo in Cabildo, it took us as long to get from the street Olleros up to the street Juramento as I could have walked it.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Feliz primavera!

It's - the -- first --- day ---- of ----- spriiiiinnng!!

How's everything up in the Northern Hemisphere?

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

When walking...

Well, I did promise the post, so even though the university Internet turned very sluggish this afternoon, your BA correspondent is in the locutorio next door to her house in order to fulfill that promise. Besides, Silvina is cleaning and Emi is visiting with Ale. How am I supposed to study?

Speaking of studying, I realized today that there are only three midterms next week, one the week following, and then we just wait for the finals in early November.

The university is only a brisk fifteen-minute walk from our house, but fifteen minutes is nine blocks and plenty of time to see interesting things in Buenos Aires. By the way, whether you are out walking or in a colectivo, remember to keep track of both the name and number of the street. There are so many streets in Buenos Aires and the major ones are so long that they are numbered in hundreds, advancing a hundred with each block. So going from Cabildo 600 to Cabildo 5200 is 46 blocks... a good walk of perhaps an hour, depending on your rate and how many red lights you hit.

In France - at least, in Dijon - it is sometimes possible to walk by eye and not by the light. Don't try that too much here. Drivers are much less thoughtful and will bear down on you honking all the way. Of course, if you happen to be on the right side of the street you can often make it across before the traffic from the other side arrives, especially if you are crossing a street adjoining a larger one where the colectivos and some taxis and a few bold drivers keep heading through the first 15 seconds of red light, considered no man's land.

Streets that are tranquil in the afternoon are a little too tranquil when you are heading home from a class that finishes at 9 p.m., so if alone try to follow busier streets, even if it costs you a few blocks. If you walk with someone and don't like whistles try to make sure that someone isn't a girl who doesn't mind wearing a skirt that you wouldn't.

Despite afternoon and evening classes, if for some reason you leave on an empty stomach, there are plenty of little stands where someone is roasting peanuts and packaging popcorn and candy to sell... averaging about one a block on the major streets. There are also plenty of people hovering around subway exits and newspaper stands waiting to shove flyers and business cards in front of you. May as well take them, you'll feel generous and you'll probably pick up some with a blank back, which will save you from buying post-it notes.

As in France, there are plenty of dogs, and dogs leave gifts. Somehow Buenos Aires seems more dangerous in this aspect than in France. The best time to go walking is around 7 or 7:30 a.m., when the sidewalks have just been hosed off. You will often see dogwalkers with a group of dogs, anywhere from between four and twenty (well, okay, I've never counted...). This is a job invented during the economic crisis of 2002 and it sticks around. However, it sounds like some dogwalkers occasionally beat the dogs and take long smoke breaks in the park.

Consider it a great triumph when you are returning home one night and realize where you are not by street names or numbers but by recognizing the man at the newspaper stand one block from where you turn off. This means you're getting quite comfortable in Buenos Aires... at least in your little part of it.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Short

This is a pretty pathetic blog for an overseas student, isn't it?

As it turns out, next week is midterms week, so I have an excuse this time. Midterms in every class except Spanish, but sounds like they will be pretty short and straightforward.

Tomorrow will be more tranquil with only one class, and I promise that there will be something more interesting to read.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Wonderful day!

Happy 48th birthday to Mommy!

And congratulations to Daddy, who is retiring -- today is his last day at FedEx!!

How much lovelier can this Friday be?

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Next vacation

Thursday of next week is another día feriado. This time it's El Día del Estudiante! Clearly a tradition that the U.S. should import.

I would have had Wednesday through Sunday free (just think, a 2-day week), but as one of my two classes that meets Thursday also has a Wednesday section that doesn't get off, it seems better not to miss a chunk of the material, even if I already have some of the notes. A one-class day isn't that bad.

Actually, it isn't a holiday for all students, just for most high school and university students. Sounds like the Argentinian students go party for one day. Me? Midterms are coming, I plan to study! At least un poquito.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Las noticias

Not that there's much news to report.

Let's see... Spring is coming. I haven't worn a coat all weekend.

The student life continues. Studying and homework take quite a long time some days, but drinking maté with salsa music in the background is generally a good combination! For those who don't know, maté taken in the traditional style is like tea leaf pieces (from a plant that isn't tea) in a little wooden vase. Add hot water (not boiling) from a kettle, a little at a time, and sip it with a sort of metal or wooden pipe. At the beginning it's stronger than green tea, at the end pretty bland... needless to say, I prefer the beginning, but as long as there's hot liquid it's quite good. Better than tea but not recommended right before bed, unless you're one of those people who fall asleep on stimulants.

Getting used to the Argentine schedule now... that is, never getting up before the sun, having afternoon and evening classes, eating supper at 9 on average, rarely going to bed before midnight.

Castellano (Spanish is what they speak in Spain) is coming along. However, I was slightly disappointed to wake up from dreaming in English and realize that I can't recollect dreaming in castellano yet. However (only English speakers studying abroad are allowed to use two "however's" so close together) the subjunctive mode is becoming more natural, almost a daily occurrence. The Spanish subjunctive is more fun than the French because there is always a change in the verb structure, not just one that hides in typical endings and unpronounced vowels.

Well, that's all for today. Tomorrow is a day off and I just might be able to give you a quick description of classes... something promised long ago, when the Internet connection was more reliable and private.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Comment in a Post

Since I can't visit the comments, I will just have to imagine them till I get to a locutorio sometime. But I did forget to include something yesterday. Why did the photography line take so long? There was one man sitting behind a desk, arranging numbers for us to hold against our chest, taking pictures, printing them off and then trimming them - by hand - with a scissors. How much it would take to pay an extra person to at least sit there and trim the photos, I don't know.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

... Getting the VISA ...

We're on a roll here: second day straight of blog access and this is even a different computer! (#1)

Today is Wednesday, which means no classes (for me) and normally an afternoon visit to the university for Internet. Usually I get here before 5 p.m., at least on days that we (international students) don't have to visit Immigration to obtain student VISAs.

We had to arrive at the university at 8:30 a.m. to take a bus. However, we stood or sat around for probably half an hour before.... either before everything was ready or before the bus arrived.

First stop was a different office in town where we had gone the week before to get our fingers all blacked up. That stuff was hard to get off. They had bottles of lemony-something gel and it took at least three batches to get most of it off. They needed our fingerprints in order to give us today's form announcing that we aren't criminals. So we showed up at this building and formed a line that was constantly being broken by other people trying to pass. It didn't take long to shout out names and hand out the forms, but afterwards some of us stood outside close to an hour while they finished up with a few students. It wasn't really cold, but just enough to be a little uncomfortable.

Then we took the bus to Immigration. This was more interesting. First we had to sit and wait for them to call us up to the desks one by one to fill out a form and cross-check information; then go stand in line at the cashier's to pay the 200 pesos; then return with the receipt to the desk of the same immigrations agent; then go stand in line to have our picture taken; then return to seats and wait till our particular agent was free to finish up with us; ... only to receive a form that we're instructed to keep with our passport till the day we can come back to receive our VISAs. Somehow I thought this was just a two-visit process. Oh well, nothing like the joys of waiting! Those of us who finished first were lucky. We only had to wait about an hour for the bus to arrive to take the first load of students back. Many of the others were still standing in line for photos, some of them at least an hour. One girl hadn't even been called up for the first time when we left!

I just hope the day we go back is another no-class day for me, or I may have to resign myself to actually missing.

Now that's quite enough sitting for today, time to head back home!

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Surprise

What a miracle! My blog works. I don't know what happened. Maybe it only works on the fourth and last computer?

Last week we enjoyed much warmer weather, which promptly changed back to nearly frigid cold on Friday. Today is a little better. Just think, spring is coming in less than three weeks!

Here's an event of the week. A good-sized wooden ladder has been sharing the house with Silvina and Emi and I. It has been leaning up against the wall next to the door... the only place for it in this quaint little house... in a relatively stable position. Well, guess what happened Saturday night. I was unlocking for Felipe, a friend who was leaving (both the house door and the gate to our set of houses), and as we went out the door I barely bumped against the ladder. We were just outside when crash the whole thing came down, knocking over a good-sized fan with it. It knocked the gas heater and came within inches of hitting the windows to the kitchen. Of course, nearly everything's funny at such a dark and early hour, so Ale and Emi and Feli and I all had a good laugh over that. Wouldn't you know that this would happen to happen the weekend that Silvina was visiting relatives in Rosario. She is going to have someone look at the heater, but so far it has been working fine.

That's all the time available for today. Tomorrow, who knows... maybe the same computer will be free!

Monday, August 28, 2006

Briefly

As my wireless connection decided to take a vacation and I will have to depend on the university computers for a while, don´t expect too much. For one thing, I just can´t bring myself to spend an hour on this computer when someone else might be waiting to do legitimate research.

In other news which I just discovered ten minutes ago, Jason has a blog! This is great, except that I can´t access the comments. But you have a good blog, Jason, and the template is just fine.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Time

That was a nice long weekend and this will be a nice short week.

Just to give you an idea of some of the crazy hours we've been keeping...

Friday night was a Bible study that didn't go according to plan and we went to bed around 1 or 2 p.m., despite the fact that it was at our house.

Saturday we got up relatively early, that is, before noon. All afternoon Silvina and Emi were getting their hair done at the peloqueria and dressing and such, because there was a wedding in the church that night. They left around 7 p.m. Saturday. They came back around 6:30 a.m.

Sunday, after spending all night at the after-wedding party which was mostly a lot of dancing interspersed with a lot of food (that's what I gather from what they told me). I, of course, went to bed long before 7 a.m.

On Sunday the girls were waking up around 3 p.m. Around 5 p.m. we left to go to church. We
came back with friends and didn't go to bed till at least 2 a.m. for me, 3 a.m. for the others.

Monday was much more tranquil and I promise I was asleep before 1 a.m.

Monday was a holiday commemorating the death of one of the great liberators of South America - José de San Martín, commonly known (here) as El Libertador. The widest street in the world is la Avenida del Libertador in Buenos Aires. The actual anniversary of his death was last Thursday - 17 August - but they conveniently adjusted it for a long weekend. However, there was no mention of him the entire day. But then it's true I didn't get out much.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Friday...

Ah, what a beautiful lovely day. I only wore a jacket to the university!

Next week will bring Sharon's personal take on her Argentine classes.

Not much to say. Life is great, weekends are super and now I've spent enough English time on the Internet, time to get back to the Spanish world (too bad I save the blog for last, huh?).

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Miscellany

Today was the day planned for the London-U.S. flights.

As they love to say on NBC's Today, "on a much, much lighter note", today also marks the first full month in Argentina. Three more to go!

Instead of the French double-cheek kiss, the greeting here is a single, usually on the right side. This beso is used to saludar not just friends and family but almost anyone you talk to (except the locutorio worker and other business situations, of course...), and is given on meeting and on departing. Sunday is a good practice day, with a minimum of 20 or 30 people. Yesterday was too, since it was Silvina's birthday...

When I got back from class at 9:30 p.m., she was still at the birthday party with her family. Emi had returned around 9:00, and we both ate supper while watching one of our favorite novelas. I am pretending not to like it because it's mostly just a bunch of stupid relationships... however, much funnier now that I understand more. Soon Dardo (a friend from church) came over with a present for Silvina and stayed since we expected her back soon. When she did arrive, her mother and aunt and cousin came along with her to visit for a few minutes. Soon after they left, Ale (Emi's novio) showed up. The five of us chatted a while and then Dardo left. Silvina and I were about ready to go to bed when Noellia and Ramón (Noellia's novio), more good friends, dropped in for a visit. Some of us then hit the sack around 1 p.m. However, it didn't matter for me since I don't have classes today.

Tomorrow is my day to give a 15-minute presentation in Spanish class. My professor left the topic up to me, so I eventually decided to briefly describe the homeschooling movement in the States and our family's own experience.

I have exciting news. Well, it may not be exciting for you, but it is for me. My brain is treading water in the stream of Spanish comprehension!... now it's generally a minority of words, phrases, expressions that go underwater.

The great disappointment to counteract this occurred on Sunday afternoon, during a trip made to Carrefour in pursuit of the same cheap dark chocolate (Carrefour brand, 74%) that I found in France. Apparently the store here stopped carrying it recently because it was not popular enough.

What?! I could have kept up their sales with at least 6 bars a week. Why couldn't they have hung on a couple more months till I got here?

There's another brand here, but it's a little more expensive and only 60%.

Well, just so I don't end with the sad news, here's some more good news: next Monday is a holiday. That means no sticking it out 6 hours at the university and a no-guilt sleep-in!

Till the next time, thinking fondly of you all!

Friday, August 11, 2006

Why not be optimistic?

"After all, let's remember that in the beginning was chaos. And if the crisis doesn't consume us first, the cosmos will impose itself sooner or later."

Isn't that amusing?

What fun to find that at the end of some dry sociological study after 11 p.m.!

The writer of the (non-included-above) article just got done explaining how Argentinians have some hope that their protest marches with saucepans will call attention to current employment difficulties. Right before the above quote he says, "The savage (and ephemerous?) music of the saucepans sometimes becomes chaotic and out of tune." (to explain the "chaos" bit)

By the way, I'm not really sure what he's talking about. I haven't seen anybody with saucepans. (or "casseroles" for that matter.) I assume the idea was 'no jobs, no food.'

In case you want to check the original Spanish:

La música salvaje (y efímera?) de las cacerolas resulta a veces caótica y desafinada. Pero recordemos que en el principio fue el caos. Y que si la crisis no nos consume antes, el cosmos se impondrá tarde o temprano.

(Notice the Spanish version of "sooner or later" is actually "later or sooner". Interesting, huh?)

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Weather

Before I left, they told me that Buenos Aires winters were cold and humid, but with lots of rain, not snow... rain that goes right through any Argentian umbrellas. So I packed my little cheap American umbrella that somehow made it through the spring rains of Dijon, plus the recommended layers. It was funny to carry a coat to the Des Moines airport in the middle of July.

Whether it's Delta or the Boeing 767, the plane from Atlanta to Santiago had screens that periodically informed us what was the speed of the wind or what was the current degree of longitude and latitude, and other interesting information obscure enough that I can't recall it right now. One thing I did understand was the exterior temperature, so low you don't even want to think about it. Planes tend to be cool so the coat came in handy before we even hit the right latitude.

The first week in Buenos Aires was similar to pleasant fall days in Iowa. Then the temperature dropped the weekend before classes started. Three layers plus a light coat and a good scarf and maybe a hat is about right. Even the buildings are rather cool.

However, in the last couple days we've had rain and somewhat warmer temperatures. I hear that tomorrow it might be getting up to 14 degrees Celsius. Judging by experience in France, this could be exciting... we might be passing the threshold from cold to cool! But then even cool tends to feel cold when it's humid, at least it has a way of burrowing down to the bone.

There's nothing like central heating in our house. Instead there are gas heaters in the two main rooms plus a couple regular (plugged-in) heaters, including one in mine which keeps it plenty toasty at night. But we can't leave the gas heaters on overnight or when we are gone, so the house keeps moving from cold to warm to cool, not to mention every room is a different temperature...

Gas heaters and gas ovens and stoves are fun to light. If it weren't for the lighter that Silvina bought to replace the old one that wasn't working, I would already have used more matches than I ever have at home, even burning trash those couple months that Daddy and Mommy were at Mayo. There's a neat long stick that can be used to transfer the flame from one gas burner to another, or can be lit with a match to start the heaters or the oven. The trick for these latter is keeping up the gas long enough for it to 'catch'. (Don't worry. So far I haven't burned the house down.)

Speaking of weather, we're thankful that the hail didn't break our roof like it did many other roofs in the same departamento. All you can see from inside the patio are nice choppy undulations with the paint knocked off.

Well, spring should be coming along in September. In the summer we get to open the roof on the patio / dining room. Kind of cool in that room in winter, especially in the morning when the heater hasn't been on all night - but then it's nearly perfect for judging the outdoor temperature (adjusting for wind and rain). Besides, there's nothing like stepping out of your cosy little heated room into a big cold one to wake you up in the morning. Better'n coffee!

Monday, August 07, 2006

This won't be long

First: Derek's heart is back to a normal sinus rhythm. Praise the Lord who answered our prayers.

As the subject line announces, this won't be long because, for some reason, I did not get anything typed up for you over the weekend! What happened?

Friday: I went to a museum as homework (that was a real annoyance). In the evening two friends of Silvina and Emi came over for supper and TV and canasta and conversation, till about 1 a.m.

Saturday: I got up relatively earlier to hit the school's WiFi before 2 p.m., when the building closes. For the rest of the afternoon and evening we watched two movies, spent time with friends, and I made cookies for

Sunday:, when we got up to go work on the bathroom of a friend from church. Did some minor painting and some prepping of the walls and ceiling for more. Nice to keep in practice and help someone out. We got back home in time to get ready for church that evening.

Now I'd better go study before my 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. class, since a friend may be coming over to visit this evening. Everyone stay out of trouble and enjoy your August heat!

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Help needed

Please pray for my brother Derek.

(In case anyone hasn't already been to Mommy's blog or Ardith's.)

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Let the weekend begin

First the numbers.

Argentina: 38 million people
Buenos Aires: 2 million

Let's see, that would make 5% of the population!

As for Belgrano University, it has several buildings in the neighborhood of its main one, which is 19 stories tall. My Contemporary Argentinian Art class is on the 19th floor. What do you think, will I be able to take the stairs by the end of the semester? I remember how exciting it was for us kids that the Iowa City Hospital had 8 floors and Daddy was on the 8th. Or maybe it was the seventh. Anyway, both buildings need elevators. The elevators here (at least the ones we students are allowed to use) only stop at about 5 or 6 different floors, so you do have to use the stairs sometimes.

As it happens, this is Thursday around 11:40 a.m. I didn't get around to typing last night. First I had a little bit of homework, just reading a basic review of Spanish verbs. Then I finished catch-up reading for our small group on Friday night. Then Alejandro came over, we ate and the four of us played Phase 10 and watched a Spanish TV show. Ale won. However, I was just glad to make it to the last phase after being stuck on a run of 8 for four rounds. Funny how you can enjoy a game yet have the worst luck in it.

This afternoon I have two classes, from 1 to 5 p.m. This evening will be a lot of fun because we are renting a movie to watch with some friends from church. Sometimes friends come over to Silvina's house to watch movies because she has a VCR player. 36 Quai des Orfèvres is a police film starring Gérard Depardieu. We're going to watch it as El Muelle with Spanish subtitles, but still the original French. I can't wait!

We won't be staying up too terribly late since Silvina and Emi work tomorrow, but that's okay... maybe I'll get an early start on the weekend for a change. No classes tomorrow!

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Mid-week break

I'll post tomorrow. No classes today, so I'll type something out tonight. Last night I had class up till 9.m.

If there's something you want to hear about or ask about, please do. Then you aren't stuck with Sharon's boring entries.

In the meantime, you can guess some numbers: how many millions of people live in Argentina, how many of them live in Buenos Aires, and how many floors the University of Belgrano has.

Monday, July 31, 2006

Back to school

Before classes start tomorrow (today) may as well remember some of the fun things from this past week-and-a-half.

One of the fun things is the prices. (Multiply prices by 3.06 to get the amount in pesos) Taking a colectivo (city bus) for 45 minutes costs about 26 cents, a tren to another side of the city only a few cents more. So going to church costs me about 52 cents every week. There are three very good ice cream places (Chungo's, Persicco, and Freddo) that give two nice-sized scoops for $1.63. Of course, one can get more by paying more, but the stuff's so richly good that two scoops are plenty (especially flavors such as chocolate amargo and dulce de leche con brownies). And the movies? Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays the cinema costs around $3.92; Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays it's a whopping $2.29, including IMAX theaters. That's less than I pay to rent a new movie at our local grocery store!

Speaking of movies, that's another fun thing. Sunday night I watched Pirates I... for only about the seventh, eighth, ninth time... on the Disney channel with Silvina and Emilse and Alejandro (Emilse's boyfriend)... It was dubbed into Spanish, which was interesting since I know nearly all the English lines by heart and could analyze the change in sense. And it was fun to explain parts of the plot to a first-timer. Not to mention we had some really yummy sweets from the birthday party of Silvina's sister-in-law to eat up...

Monday night last week I went with some people from church to see Pirates II for the second time. It had just come out down here, July 20, almost two weeks after the States. I think it was an IMAX theater. I'm not exactly sure what an IMAX theater is because I never bothered finding out, but it was a nice big screen and great sound. There were some people sitting on the steps, preferring that to the row way down front.

(warning -- movie spoilers ahead)

Now I understand the movie a little better, but I'm not sure if I could see it nine or ten times in three years like the first one. We had a great audience that broke into applause when Jack popped out of his tomb-canoe and when Captain Barbossa appeared, then again after the end. There may have been more clapping at one of the other high points, such as one of those rare victories over the kraken, can't remember now. Only thing was that we thought the movie started at 9:30 p.m., only to find it started at 10:30, so some of us didn't get to bed before 2:30 a.m. that night ... morning... that's what sleeping in is for.

Oh, that's right, we also went to see a movie Tuesday night... Silvina, Amy and I. We went not knowing what might be showing and ended up choosing Superman Regresa. Of course, since it didn't start till 10 p.m. and we got there around 9, we were forced to eat ice cream first. The movie's pretty good, but frankly, Superman is too perfect and too good. I prefer Spiderman.

Now back to real life and classes this week. All my classes are on Monday (3 p.m. to 9 p.m.) and Tuesday and Thursday (1 p.m. to 7 p.m.), leaving Wednesdays, Fridays, and mornings free.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Weird weather

Yesterday afternoon Amy came over to visit. After making those famous chocolate oatmeal things (no-bakes for you uninitiated) we started playing Phase 10. An odd banging noise. Another. Was someone throwing rocks at our windows? Then more and more, so we walked over and discovered it was hailing. Pretty soon it was making a horrible racket since part of Silvina's roof is some relation of tin. It was so loud we could just barely hear enormous blasts of thunder overhead. Afterwards a neighbor knocked on our door to find out if our roof was broken. No, just dented, with paint chip dust all over the dining room and almost on our precious cookies. Here are three hail photos in the little corridor in our apartment area. Three hands holding hail: the man sweeping it up, me, Amy.

This was the first time some Argentinians had seen hail in their entire lives!

Traveling tales

Ahh... tantas cosas a contar...

Oops, was that Spanish?

It was a very interesting trip. Saying good-bye at the airport was much easier this time, with no tears... at least on my part. After going through security I glanced back to see a man putting his shoes back on, wondered briefly, walked on in my own untouched footwear. The signs for my terminal number sent me down to a basement level. It would have been boring to sit where one couldn't see takeoffs and landings except that the doors were occasionally open to let in plenty of noise, especially when those two military jets zoomed past, almost too loud to bear! We passengers boarded our dinky Canadian jet by stairs, you know, like the president, except for some reason they forgot the cameramen. And I was going to include take-off videos, but some de-bug program isn't working at the moment. The flight from Des Moines to Atlanta was perfect, beautiful, scenic all the way. Here's what Iowa looks like from a couple thousand feet up. If you look hard enough you might find the blacktop road in that photo. Yep, those are clouds.

The Atlanta airport was a little bigger, even had a 'train', which was more like a subway, my first since Paris six or so weeks ago. As soon as we got to the international terminals there was more Spanish than English. The Boeing 767 flight from Atlanta to Santiago was very long, longer than from Paris to home, but seemed a lot shorter. Could be because – you're never going to believe this – I actually slept on the plane! - nearly THREE HOURS! Not consecutively, but it still deserves capitals. I had a window seat... here are the Andes, not sure if the white is cloud or sea. Two more.

Santiago was a long wait of around four hours, most of it spent sitting in Terminal 15 as directed, wanting to fall asleep without missing the flight, waiting for some flight agent to come around, till 45 minutes before departure I decided to check and was redirected to 16 just in time to go plead for a boarding pass and get on the waiting 777. This one was operated by Air France, since Buenos Aires was just a stop on the way to Charles de Gaulle in Paris (thought about stowing away... French was sounding pretty beautiful by then...). You could tell it was Air France by the trim hair-up flight attendants and the four-course lunch they served us plus bread offered twice. Too bad they didn't have time to serve us coffee because some pilot got us to Buenos Aires faster than intended.

The Buenos Aires airport was a little easier than Paris but with a super-long line for customs (why didn't we have to go through customs in Paris?), baggage much faster. Then I headed out to find the man from church who was supposed to pick me up and saw a sea of waiting people, many with names on signs. Thank the Lord that just before I began feeling very lost, Carlos found me. He drove me back on huge six-laner BA avenidas to Silvina's house in a bumpy little manual that refused to start up the two times he stopped (in town and at Silvina's).

BA is one of those places where our study abroad program arranges for students to stay with host families, in this case with members of the same church. Silvina is a single girl ('single lady' makes her sound too old) with a lovely little apartment which she shares with another girl, Emilse, and now me. It is all ground level with tall ceilings except for a little staircase up to a room just my size.

The first evening was tough. Everything was new (duh), I couldn't understand much Spanish and could speak even less. However, some friends from Grace came over to visit and we had a good chat. Next afternoon was better after sleeping extremely late. Speaking of sleep, I'm getting into some great habits. Bedtime averages around midnight, with past 2 a.m. twice in one week and till-noon sleep-ins when possible... the schedule probably won't change much because church is at 6 p.m. on Sunday and none of my classes are before 1 p.m., with Wednesday and Friday completely free. We're two hours ahead of Central in the States so I figure I'm just keeping to my normal Iowa schedule.

Well, what do you know... the first week here has passed. How did that happen?

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Wheeeee...!!!

Ah! Yes! Yes! Wireless freedom!!

(sorry, just had to get that out of my system)

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Adiós

We're leaving in about thirty-five minutes. Goodbye. I'll miss you heaps.

Oh, did you think I was talking to you? No, that's for my computer. Last post from the Pinecrest PC home network till December. But this blog will be getting posts again by the weekend, Lord willing.

Please do pray for safe flights: Des Moines, Iowa to Atlanta, Georgia; Atlanta to Santiago, Chile; Santiago to Buenos Aires, Argentina, which arrival should be around 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, their time. Think of Daddy too, who's working long hot hours this week. Thank you!

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Well,

this weekend Ardith and I locked ourselves into a dark dungeon to undergo self-experimentation on reactions to bright flashing lights and booming noises. If you feel like it, you can translate that into this: Ardith introduced me to the Firefly series (notice the user rating on the linked site? how could They cancel it?) and somehow we ended up watching the whole thing, plus the movie.

Of course, that's not all we did. Friday evening we had a yummy supper (actually, every meal was yummy!) and went to see A Prairie Home Companion. By the way, just to warn you, Garrison Keillor doesn't look at all like he should, from which we get the moral "Never try to imagine a radio person's appearance from his voice." Saturday we slept in (a little) and protected ourselves from heatstroke by relaxing in a darkened basement with said Firefly series, plus we got plenty of exercise by running up and down stairs for various things like food and drink. Sunday we went to church and finished the series and watched a movie. And of course every day involved Internet surfing and discussing the latest world news, especially Middle East developments.

Hopefully you got to read this before bed. It'll put you right to sleep.

(By the way, thanks for the comment guesses for the previous post - they were very funny!)

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Summer vacation

I'm at Ardith's for the weekend and we're having a blast. Bet you'd never guess in a million years what we're doing.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Skip two

Yes, I really did do that post on our trip. Only it was a draft started before the last post and I can't change the date. So skip these two shorties to get to it.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Overloaded

The computer room was rewired today and the power decided to shut down. You understand that I don't want to risk my computer.

There and back again

If a picture's worth a thousand words, I'll give the photos and get off easy!

Last weekend, as you might know from Mommy's blog (on which I'm developing an alarming dependency), Jason and Kendra and I went out to Indiana to visit friends - Uncle Rene, Aunt Vici, and Rachel, Isaac, and Hannah, who are roughly the ages of us three travelers. We kids have been friends since before we were born, before we were even imagined, since our dads "bached" it together. In the good old Hoosier days of Warsaw, our families lived five minutes apart and got together for Christmases, Thanksgivings, and lots of times in between.

So I figured that as long as I was going out to see Rachel, I might as well take Jason and Kendra along to keep me awake on the drive... then maybe they could have some fun too.

The driving was great fun. Jason drove through most of Iowa both times and I took the rest, including that exciting traffic on I-80 south of Chicago. Only they were doing construction near Chicago and our already finicky car decided to overheat. We took an exit and a little detour that let us stay above 40 mph, then got back on just in time to miss the rest of the stop-and-start.

We had heaps of fun learning card games like "Crazy Eights" and "Schwimm" and "Skip-bo", went swimming and bowling, ate good grilled food and lots of ice cream, made weird chocolate fructose cookies, dragged Jason along to Act II of Swan Lake (Isaac didn't get back till late that night so Jason was stuck with the girls, but he was a good sport), watched National Treasure (I'd always thought it was just another horse movie, till we saw it, shows how much I'm up on things)... etc. etc. etc.

Here are the six of us without flash and with flash - me, Jason, Rachel, Isaac, Kendra, and Hannah on the footrest.

Then Sunday afternoon and evening we headed up to Goshen to visit Uncle Doug and Aunt Cindy - real blood relatives this time - and some of their kids, and Grandma came over. More swimming and grilled food and laughing and ice cream. Some of the laughing was due to our traditional Dutch Blitz mini-tournament.

I got Jason to take some pictures for me (Can you tell he's standing on a chair?). Here's a game with Uncle Doug and Kendra and me - four photos in succession to let you experience the speed!

#1 - Calm start
#2 - Blur
#3 - Second lull
#4 - Uncle Doug and Kendra get ready to whap down and blitz out

(I don't remember who won that round.)

Then I snapped the others. These two of Kendra, Jason, Aunt Cindy, and Uncle Doug were just before I started a great video that got some glares from Jason when he found out about it... afterward. Sorry, that's personal family property for us to laugh at. Jason should be thankful to have such a kind sister.

So that's a synopsis of the trip. On the first gas stop en route to home Monday morning, I discovered I'd left the gas cap in Morris, Illinois. In Morris I went through the lost-and-found at the same station and picked out the closest I could find, which probably isn't ours but works great.

Jason had the bright idea to stop in at Ardith's while passing through Cedar Rapids, so after two calls to Mommy and some hunting around, we found it. Worked out great because Ardith had only just got home, so we tried the doorbell that didn't work and then went in and surprised her.

Here's Ardith's new couch.

Here's Ardith's new couch with her on it. Yep, that's her making faces.

And on that sweet note I bid you good-night.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Summertime is movie time

Okay, I decided not to go on strike after all, especially since I won't be able to sleep for a while tonight. Blame the pirates and the deer.

Jason and Kendra and Derek and I went to see Pirates II tonight. It was very intense - although that might change after five or six more viewings. I got several good jumps out of it, the hardest one hitting when the native popped out of the bushes. Yep, as Jason said, the same old trick, and it gets me every time. Trying to restrain a jump like that in mid-jump hurts. I think we were all pretty much glued to our seats during the movie, then spent the half-hour drive home analyzing it and arguing about it (and its prequel) up and down, till we spotted the deer crossing the road ahead of us. After that I made myself dizzy scanning the ditches the rest of the way back. Pirates and deer can make a person jumpy, especially in the same evening. Besides, I want to attain my goal of keeping the car from changing hood color for the next year.

That was today. Tomorrow you'll hear about last weekend, which I'm saving because my camera is in a room of three sleeping girls and the adrenalin is finally winding its way down.

Monday, July 10, 2006

Home

Safely.

Post?

Maybe tomorrow.

Actually, I'm thinking about going on strike till readers start leaving comments.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Oh, by the way,

we're traveling home tomorrow. I meant to post the night before we left. Thankfully, Mommy remembered. If you think of praying for our Monday trip from Warsaw, Indiana to somewhere-out-in-the-country-by-Ackley, Iowa, that would be very kind.

But hey, everyone needs a vacation, even from blogging.

Monday, July 03, 2006

Good ol' Memomail

Memomail has started sending me titles like "Your complimentary baby carrier awaits!" or "Snatch a stroller and designer baby bag".

Of course, you can't expect Yahoo account junk mail to know that your youngest brother has recently turned four, been potty-trained, and really is past the baby carrier stage. He's even tough enough to walk around the fair a couple hot sunny hours - between backrides.

Friday, June 30, 2006

Dix-sept ans

Happy birthday to my sister Kendra who is now 17!

Thankfully I forgot to post this first, which means you'll see it first, which is just right.

We celebrated her birthday tonight, and you can see photos at the above link! (she'll love me for passing that bit of info on)

A tale of OPIs

This morning I called my French professor from Grace in order to have my OPI (Oral Proficiency Interview) with her. This was my second French OPI... or actually the third, since the first was a practice to estimate student levels during the Intermediate French class, which was in a galaxy far, far away, many, many lightyears ago. Oops, lightyears measure distance and not time, right? Wrong. They measure both, given the theory of relativity. But I'm getting off subject (which I have a perfect right to do on a Friday night, right? Wrong... well, okay, I'll stop being annoying. By the way, can you tell anyone's had to write a lot of French style dissertations lately: thesis-antithesis-synthesis?)

The second OPI, late in the fall 2005 semester, was to determine my level before leaving to study abroad in France. Somehow I attained Advanced despite having spent a several-hours-long Language Table lunchtime of speaking French and German, followed by the Spanish OPI (in the cafeteria), followed at last by the French OPI, all on several hours of sleep. Afterward my brain felt tired.

Today's OPI was post-study-abroad and resulted in Superior, the highest level attainable. Praise the Lord!

(For those curious, ACTFL describes what characterizes the various OPI levels.)

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Never too little time

Oh, how sad. I had to spend most of my free time this evening working with other languages.

Writing an email to the lady who will host me in Argentina was a real exercise, especially after four-and-a-half months of a similar language (it will take a while to switch from et to y). In fact, it was such an exercise that it will have to be finished tomorrow, with the help of my handy little nineteen-years-outdated Spanish-English dictionary.

After that was helping Derek resolve the last and deepest questions encountered in his German textbook. Good thing we did it tonight, since he's been done with that subject for a while and much of the German in his head is clearly undergoing deactivation, that perfectly normal process which kicks in at school year's end to make brain room for more important things, like enjoying summer vacation.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

A more-or-less real post

Well, the last three or four posts haven't been much of anything, just fillers to prove that I still exist and go online for at least a few minutes a day. You try working all day and sitting down in front of your computer after supper without feeling like falling asleep.

Just to be redundant, it's really good to be home. Two weeks have already flown by. Since this summer is a mere five weeks long, I set three simple goals:

1) Sleep, so I can
2) Work and
3) Study Spanish

It's hard to sleep a lot when your only free time is the evening and then you want to get up and do things the next day... especially since the sun come sup before six. It takes discipline to be lazy. Or instead of laziness, we could just call it reparation for past sleep loss and preparation for future sleep deprivation.

Yup, it's good to be home and be a real countrified girl again and do all those important things: do hard physical work, watch Lone Ranger episodes with my siblings (you have to have enough people: some to laugh at it and some to protest the laughter), try to help Carolyn decide which car color should go with which day if she were to have a different car for every day if the week, dig trenches with Jason, and eat real home-grilled burgers and huge bowls of ice cream (instead of, say, a nice cut of meat or a little bowl of ice cream - refined, I suppose, but sometimes you want the burger or the big bowl).

Of course, sitting at an outdoor café in the sun and drinking an expresso while chatting with a friend and people-watching isn't bad either. And I do miss speaking French. I just get 'looks' around here if I try that, especially (how typical) from the boys.

That's as much of an update as I'm coming up with for now. Updates are boring anyway.

Saturday, June 24, 2006

A note to the girls

Do you want your fingernails filed? If you don't mind a slightly flattened look, may I suggest at least two hours of sandpapering, especially a good bumpy stretch of plaster-patched drywall.

(Warning: Frequent pauses to check progress are highly recommended)


Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Drywalling is fun

It's also long work. Trevor came up to the partly-done 2nd-floor-addition bathroom to watch me for about ten minutes. Then he slid off the stool and left, announcing, "You not very far yet."

Thanks a lot, Bud. You're a big encouragement. Don't you know job security when you see it? The longer the project, the longer I have work.

Actually, I think he got bored because Jason wasn't there to trade smart remarks.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Time

It isn't that there aren't enough hours in a day. It's that we try to do too much. Or too little.

Monday, June 19, 2006

Down with homework

It's already almost 10:30 and bedtime, so I'll just leave you with some quotes from this NYT article.


"And when parents are told that their children's skills will slip without summer homework, we have to wonder: if those skills are so fragile, what kind of education are they really getting?"

"Most studies have found little correlation between homework and achievement (meaning grades and test scores)..."

"... many [teachers] told us homework assignments are an 'afterthought'."


That last one makes me glad I missed out on experiencing homework till college. If I ever teach, I'd rather skip homework altogether than waste my students' time and neurons.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Help wanted!

I need some kind of Most Recent Comments system for my blog. Who can help me? I'll find you a suitable reward if my nearly-eternal gratitude isn't enough.

[Update: read Comments for Wilson's helpful suggestion. Just scroll down past the "Recently" section on sidebar to view the end result. Let other Blogger users profit!]

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Modern language

Did you know that obstaculizar is a real Spanish verb? Reminds me of the French bloquer. You can easily imagine the translation. Language makes me laugh, it's so often... rigolo, marrant, drole. (Sorry, "funny" just doesn't cut it.)

Good clean dirt

Here in Iowa we take pride in our good black soil, rich enough to make this state one of the most fertile areas in the world. But underneath we've got our share of clay. Try digging in the stuff for six hours - especially when it's damp. After one or two tries, there's more sticking to your shovel than you're taking out of the hole, which suddenly renders digging a great alternative to weight lifting.

(Jason and I are getting the necessary holes, pipes and trenches ready in the addition and breezeway basements in order to move the sump-pump from the former into the latter, which will become the Grand Central Pumping Station for the mansion, I guess.)

I handed a couple good clay-ey clods up to Ethan and Nolan because I remembered the happy hours we older ones used to spend making our own pottery. Clay was a precious commodity. We would hunt for 'clay mines' in the piles of dirt dug up from the addition and garage basements. The clay veins would always be lighter - kind of golden. Once found, the clay had to be molded quickly before it dried into crumbly orangey dirt.

But it passed... the age of the dirt mountains and the rock piles covered in glorious forests of weeds... and boring civilization took over.

Of course, some things don't change. Like the dead mouse Jason found and buried.