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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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!

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...

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!

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.

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.)

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...

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.

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.

Feliz primavera!

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

How's everything up in the Northern Hemisphere?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.