Terminando las Clases, los Examenes, y Tengo un Mes Libre!

Yes my dear readers, I have completed my first quarter in Argentina. Two months ago I wouldn't have thought I'd have made it to mid December and been happy about the prospect of 4.5 more months here. Despite the bad food, increasingly sweltering heat, salty bottled water, and missing home I have survived almost three months in a foreign country. Once I got adjusted it hasn't been nearly as hard as it was in the beginning.
This week was finals week. On Monday I had my Folklore exam and got a 91%, which means I should have an A in the class. Tuesday was my Composition and Orthography finals. I don't know what my Comp exam grade was but my final grade is an A which was all that matter and my final grade in Orthography was an A-. Conversation, Grammar, and History were Wednesday. I must have an A or A- in Conversation because my professor told me I would be able to move up to Advanced 1 next quarter. Grammar I got an A and I'm still waiting for my History final grade. Yesterday was my free day like the rest of the semester. I spent 3 to 3.5 hours in the ice cream parlour, Gridos, and used their internet to call my parents and some friends from school. Today was my open book Geography final in which we had to create a brochure for two regions of Argentina and advertise the finer tourist spots in those regions. I think I did fairly well on it. Hopefully I've walked away with all A's this quarter so I can boost my GPA a little bit.
I've added a trip to my Christmas Vacation plans. Next Wednesday I'm off with three friends, Megan, Tanique, and Erin, to the beaches of Uruguay. We're going to spend 4 wonderful days on the beaches relaxing and recovering from a rather stressful three months. We return on the 17th and on the 19th I leave for Trelew, Bariloche, Penguins and Chocolate. :-)
Four ACA students are returning home for good at the end of this week. They only planned to be here for the quarter and now get to go home. Two leave today (Molly and Tyler), one tomorrow (Tina), and the last on Sunday (Daryl). It's sad to see them go and makes staying here during Christmas a little harder but next quarter we will be traveling to Iguaze Falls in the province of Misiones and in February, Machu Picchu! April is the trip to Rio de Janeiero in Brazil and May (if plans work out the way we'd like) Megan will be coming down during the last week and after my last final we'll be having our own little excursion through Argentina before I come home. The next 4ish months are going to go by really fast, which is good and bad at the same time. I've been able to recognize that my Spanish is actually improving even though I don't feel like I'm really learning. I use it more readily and I understand more or can pick up the general idea a lot quicker than I used to.
Next quarter I will be taking Advanced 1 language courses (yay!!) and several other classes that will be good as well.
Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas! And may God bless.

Week 10

Yes my friends, it is the end of my 10th week here in Argentina. I've befriended three really great girls: Megan, Tanique, and Erin. We've been hanging out, watching movies, drinking terere, studying, and practicing our  Spanish together for the last couple of weeks. Last Sabbath we went over to a friend's apartment (his name is Isreal but we we call him Izzy) and had a home cooked meal there. It was really nice in comparison to the comedor. This week was the end of school for the rest of the UAP. It's the end of their school year, not just Christmas Break for them, so everyone is going on their summer break. Some students have finals over the next few weeks (why they're so spread out I don't know) but  one of my roommates has already left for home. I got to move down to the bottom bunk which means I can use my computer and charge all from my bed now. It's really nice :-). ACA will basically have the run of the campus until the end of February.
Next week is finals for me. My hardest final is in Folklore and that's on Monday. As long as I get 85%'s on my Grammar, Composition, and Conversation exams I will be moving up to the Advanced 1 classes. I already and getting signed up for classes for the next trimestre. I'll be taking the three language classes along with Bible, Folklore (which is focusing on cooking and food this trimestre), Phonetics, Translation, and one other class, I dont remember what it is.
I'm ready for my Christmas Break to begin. It's been a long couple of weeks. In another two weeks we will have been here for four months. It's hard to believe I've really been here for that long and yet it feels so much longer. I made a comment the other day to the girls that it feels like this has always been our normal life and that everything else wasn't real. I suppose that's how life gets sometimes.
Anyway, it has been a very long week and I'm planning on sleeping soon. Good night and happy Sabbath.

Thanksgiving

Today is, of course, Thanksgiving. I think this year is the closest I will ever feel to how the Pilgrims felt all those years ago at the first Thanksgiving. They were far from home, in a land different from their own, having to communicate with people from a different culture with a different language, they had strange foods, they missed their family and friends.
Today is a day where we traditionally give thanks in preparation for one of the greediest holiday traditions in the world: Black Friday. Instead of ranting about the irony of the situation, I've decided to take some time to really think about the past year and what I'm most thankful for. Below I'll be listing those things:

1. It is the end of week 10 here, which means I'm just over 1/4 of the way through this experience.
2. Tonight we get "real" food (aka not food from the comedor)
3. My parents were able to help me with this trip financially.
4. My church family has helped me financially.
5.  I have a fan to help keep me cool in my dorm room.
6. My roommates are going home in two weeks.
7. I get to go see some really cool things over my Christmas break.
8. My sister is awesome
9. My friends back home have been supportive and encouraging about this experience.
10. I'm learning something while I'm here :)
11. I don't have to deal with snow for another year.
12. The internet is faster than I thought it was going to be.
13. I don't have to write any papers.
14. Besides Folklore, my classes are not that hard (except for them being in another language)
15. I know that I have mail coming my way soon.
16. The update from Skype has made it easier for me to talk with people while being in my dorm.
17. I'll hopefully be getting my actually computer over the Christmas break.
18. I have 2 weeks until break left.
19. Most of my finals shouldnt be over much new information (except Folklore of course)
20. I haven't broken anything (a kid here broke his foot)
21. The stray dog leave me alone
22. The really tough semesters I had over the past year prepared me for this.
23. My sister is taking care of my fish for me :-)
24. Tabasco sauce.
25. Although I'm writing this last, it is the most important: God knew this year was the year I needed to be gone, not last year. I'm thankful the pieces didnt fall together just right two years ago for me to have been gone last year. It all worked out. :-)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Midterms, Elections, and Funny Realizations

It has been another busy week here in Entre Rios Argentina. After a week with only one class and walking around Buenos Aires, it was really hard to get back into things. I found out Sunday afternoon that a midterm exam I thought was next Monday was actually this past Monday. I didn't get to study nearly as much as I wanted to and it was not a very good test. It was pretty confusing and I don't think I did well in it. Thankfully that test, in Folklore, was the hardest exam I had all week. Tuesday I had my Ortografia exam. Orthography is like Hooked on Phonics, we are learning the rules of Spanish spelling kind of like "i before e except after c." Right now we've been focusing on syllables and tilde placement. I memorized the rules and I think I did fairly well on that exam.

Tuesday night I stayed up with Sheryll and Megan to watch the election proceedings in the basement of our dorm. We fought off spiders and cockroaches until 4 am our time; but it was worth it to know who was leading our nation and hear Obama speak. It was also not the smartest decision I made all week. I had two exams Wednesday morning (beginning at 8:30 am): Grammar and Conversation. Both of the tests weren't took bad and I think I did pretty well on them. We reviewed for our History exam during class in preparation for our exam next week and I'll have a unit exam in Bible over Hinduism. Yes, I came to Argentina and I'm taking world religions...again .

Today I had my geography exam. I could have studied a little bit more, but after only sleeping for 3 hours Tuesday night, I was exhausted and chose to sleep instead of study more. After my exam I got right back in bed today and slept until around 12. Actually, I've pretty much been in bed all day. It's been raining here and since I didn't have any classes and I didn't want to get drenched (down pours all afternoon) I stayed in bed.

The power's been flipping on and off all day. It was quite a pain because my fan would obviously stop working and so did the WiFi. The weather's calmed down a bit but I think we're in for more storms tonight. I hope not though. I'd rather my fan work all night long.

It's been in the 80s all week and relatively humid. Today, because of the rain, has been very humid which is irritating my knee.

It feels like I've been here for a long time already but at the same time I'm not sure how it's already November. We're still working on Christmas plans, which will hopefully be finalized soon. But we really only have 4 more weeks of classes and a week of finals before our Christmas break. My roommates will be going home for the summer and the campus will be less full for a few months. Hopefully I won't get any new roommates and the internet will speed up. I've been told it does. I still don't have many friends, really no real friends to speak of, but I'm much more acclimated to being here. Every day there's a new reason as to why this was the best time for me to come.

Thanks for all of your prayers and cards of encouragement. I'm working on writing back to everyone, I promise I will write back as soon as I can.

Until next.

Pictures of Buenos Aires

^This is me with a random soccer sculpture guy at La Boca. 

^These pictures are slightly out of order, but this was a sculpture outside of the president's house.

^All over La Boca they had this really cool murals. I loved them!

^This guy was just chillin and playing music for the shoppers in La Boca. I gave him 2 pesos. 

^La Boca is known for tango as well as the soccer field thats nearby. 

^This was a relief sculpture at La Boca.

^This was a fountain outside of the President's house, which is in the back ground. 

^This is the President's house which is called Casa Rosada. 

^This is a church/shrine to San Martin, the guy that liberated Argentina. 

^This is me in front of Casa Rosada. 

^This is the actual shrine to San Martin inside that church from above. 

^They had guards outside the shrine to San Martin. 

^The obelisk. 

^Me outside a church near the cemetery we went to. 

^This was a giant tree. I didn't hear what it was exactly but we made a stop here so I took some pictures. 

^This is a special cemetery. I also didn't hear anything about this place either but it was super cool. There were 55,000 shrines/crypts. 

^This was one of the crypts in the cemetery. It looks like a real church doesn't it?

^This is another shrine. I thought It was cool because you could see inside. 

^After the cemetery we went to a rose garden. It was SO pretty!

^Baby geese in the rose garden. I was confused for a minute, and then I remember it is spring here and not fall. 

^The rose garden. 

^A bridge at the rose garden. 

Well that was my trip in pictures to Buenos Aires. There will be a few more things happening tomorrow but I will have to post those pictures at the UAP, and we all know how well that works. 

Fiesta de los Naciones

^Some of the ACA girls finishing up the booth for the USA at the "Fiesta de la Naciones" From left to right: Shelby, Megan, Dylon, Vernee, Tiffani, and Rikita.

^Me pointing out the White House and WAU on the East Coast. :)

^The Peruvian students were beast. Apparently there was a competition on the booths and the presentations. Peru won. Clearly.

^The Canadian booth. I thought it was cool. 

^Part of our presentation. We had students pretend to be from various countries and have Uncle Sam accept them as US citizens. The two kids on the right are actually Korean and, of course, respresnted their country. From Left to Right: Marianne, Spencer (as Uncle Sam), Jane, and Christian.

^Me and Uncle Sam (Spencer).

Pictures (Catching up with the first few weeks here)

 ^ The ACA girls I was on the team with in the tournament.

 ^ Me warming up :)

^Those of us that made it to the awards ceremony. From Left to Right: Tina, Molly, Cheryl (on the floor), me, Leah, and Jane.

^Our trophy. Cheryl, me, and Leah.

^This was about a week after the award ceremony. Jane, Tina, and Cheryl with our trophy at Panchos. Panchos is a restaurant that sells hot dogs (aka panchos in Argentina) and hamburgers. And since this is mostly an Adventist town, they have meat and vegetarian options.

^This is Jason with his clown nose at the escuela we sang at for the La Sonrisa trip.

^The ACA students in our group created a skit about brushing teeth. Megan, Andrea (hidden behind megan) and I were BonBons (chocolate candy with different fillings) and our fried Daiana (for the UAP not an ACA student) was our fabulous tooth brush. Kyly (not shown here) was the dentist. 

^This was our whole group that sang and painted at the escuela. I dont know everyone's names so I won't try to identify them. I am, however, in the back row, second from the right in a grey t-shirt.

^The statue here was some form of the Virgin Mary. As you may know, Argentina is predominately Catholic and pretty much every city has some statue of a saint or Mary hidden there. She was kind of creepy looking up from. But I thought from afar and at sunset it was a nice picture.

^This is the entire group of La Sonrisa participants. I chose to take a picture instead of being in this one. There were approximately 250 students that attended.

^This is me in front of the place where we were staying for the La Sonrisa event. 

^On the way home, the sunset was really pretty and I snapped a couple photos out the bus window. This one might be my favorite picture of Argentina so far. 

^Last week (Oct 19-26th) was a week of prayer at the UAP. The chaplain office asked for the ACA student choir to do a special music. We made a smaller group for the special music. I will see if I can post the video tonight since the internet is cooperating here. Sorry that this picture is off center. There group was a little larger but I couldnt see this picture very well when I was choosing which to upload. Anyway, from left to right: Camilla (half cut off), Marianne, Melanie, Hawa,Daryll, Dainia, Cameron, Jason, Me, Symone, Rhondi, and Camile. 

^My pictures are a little out of order. This was at La Sonrisa. We had a bunch of free time in the afternoon so we went down to the flooded river and skipped rocks. 

^These were all the ACA students (plus Daiana there all the way on the left by me) and students from the escuela. From left to right: Daiana, Me, Andrea, Vernee, Marvin, Megan, and Christian. And at the bottom, Kyly and Jason.