Muchas poco cosas
First, Skin So Soft has proven to be highly effective. The day I woke up with the mosquito bite on my face was due to my not applying the lotion liberally and effectively enough. I have not found a new bite for several days. Skin So Soft has my recommendation.
Saturday saw me and three other chicas from the residence taking the train out of town to La Plata. [as a little side note, "plata" means silver, and colloquially means dinero (money).] It is a college town, and was unusually deserted for a Saturday. Either they were at the beaches, or they were in the libraries studying. La Plata is very lovely and we all nearly immediately felt relaxed just walking around. The best and nicest plazas I've seen were in La Plata, and the streets are remarkably clear of dog poo. Speaking of dogs, there is a whole population there of dogs that just hang out on the street. They are not vicious, nor are they aggressive in any way -- they just slept in the sun.
My face got sunburnt on Saturday (applied the Skin So Soft, by mistake, instead of the sunscreen...), and today my nose is peeling.
Sunday, I did precious little except lie in bed and read. I made a little pilgrimage for food in the afternoon, and went out to dinner with a couple others late in the evening. It was at Cumana, a regional [Argentinian] food restaurant, and it was my favorite meal here. Just a simple canneloni with sweet corn and cheese. Yummm.
I'm doing better with the reflexive verbs. Finally had the best explanation of how and when they're used today, and the proper usage finally makes much more sense. Reflexive verbs don't exist in English (reflexive actions are expressed as "I woke myself" not "I me woke"). I'm starting to think in Spanish, and that helps the whole learning Spanish phase. I dream occasionally in Spanish. This is probably because I generally do my homework before going to bed. It seems like my speaking Spanish is going a little slowly. However, I do fine with the simple questions (Where are you from, how long are you here for) and for requesting things in shops. This morning, I was running late and took a taxi to school -- I gave instructions for my destination (albeit, not difficult) in Spanish, and the taxi driver started to say something else to me and was surprised when I said I didn't understand, as I was just starting to study Spanish). The real difficulty is practicing Spanish. Everyone I live with speaks good to excellent Spanish, and it takes me a while to compose non-very-simple sentences, and I'm very conscious of my limited vocabulary. Also, I still haven't learned the past verb tense, so it is difficult to communicate some things in Spanish. Someone did tell me how to say 'I went', 'I saw' and 'I ate' this weekend, and that was extremely useful. Yo fue (sp?) a La Plata, yo be (sp?) muchos plazas y perros y yo comei (sp?) uno guisando irlandesa.
A few things I miss: fog; hugs from my friends; my pillow. I was very sad yesterday, from missing hugs and from several other personal reasons (sadness not related to being in Argentina -- sadness from some events from earlier this year). I'm feeling a bit better today, but still sad. I've slept a lot the past several days and I haven't felt much inspiration to do anything other than go to classes. I haven't gone on a walk in days (aside from it having been somewhat rainy here recently), and I've just felt like being alone. I've been reading a lot, too. Alas, reading in English, not Spanish.
In brighter news, I discovered a channel that shows CSI. Five nights a week. This made me very happy.
I guess it goes to illustrate my state of mind if I'm taking the time to channel surf in the evening, and watch tv, instead of going out in to the city.
The sadness will pass, I know. One of the reasons I was so happy to leave on my trip, was that it was providing me with a geographical distance from several things that happened this year. The sadness I'm feeling is after the realization of aspects of these past events. I have a post I wrote about a month ago, about some of what I've gone through this year, and one of these days I will edit it and post it. Until then, just know that several major friendships of mine went through much turmoil, and I [intentionally] count fewer friends today than I did a year ago.
Tomorrow will mark four weeks since I arrived in Argentina. Time flies too quickly.
Saturday saw me and three other chicas from the residence taking the train out of town to La Plata. [as a little side note, "plata" means silver, and colloquially means dinero (money).] It is a college town, and was unusually deserted for a Saturday. Either they were at the beaches, or they were in the libraries studying. La Plata is very lovely and we all nearly immediately felt relaxed just walking around. The best and nicest plazas I've seen were in La Plata, and the streets are remarkably clear of dog poo. Speaking of dogs, there is a whole population there of dogs that just hang out on the street. They are not vicious, nor are they aggressive in any way -- they just slept in the sun.
My face got sunburnt on Saturday (applied the Skin So Soft, by mistake, instead of the sunscreen...), and today my nose is peeling.
Sunday, I did precious little except lie in bed and read. I made a little pilgrimage for food in the afternoon, and went out to dinner with a couple others late in the evening. It was at Cumana, a regional [Argentinian] food restaurant, and it was my favorite meal here. Just a simple canneloni with sweet corn and cheese. Yummm.
I'm doing better with the reflexive verbs. Finally had the best explanation of how and when they're used today, and the proper usage finally makes much more sense. Reflexive verbs don't exist in English (reflexive actions are expressed as "I woke myself" not "I me woke"). I'm starting to think in Spanish, and that helps the whole learning Spanish phase. I dream occasionally in Spanish. This is probably because I generally do my homework before going to bed. It seems like my speaking Spanish is going a little slowly. However, I do fine with the simple questions (Where are you from, how long are you here for) and for requesting things in shops. This morning, I was running late and took a taxi to school -- I gave instructions for my destination (albeit, not difficult) in Spanish, and the taxi driver started to say something else to me and was surprised when I said I didn't understand, as I was just starting to study Spanish). The real difficulty is practicing Spanish. Everyone I live with speaks good to excellent Spanish, and it takes me a while to compose non-very-simple sentences, and I'm very conscious of my limited vocabulary. Also, I still haven't learned the past verb tense, so it is difficult to communicate some things in Spanish. Someone did tell me how to say 'I went', 'I saw' and 'I ate' this weekend, and that was extremely useful. Yo fue (sp?) a La Plata, yo be (sp?) muchos plazas y perros y yo comei (sp?) uno guisando irlandesa.
A few things I miss: fog; hugs from my friends; my pillow. I was very sad yesterday, from missing hugs and from several other personal reasons (sadness not related to being in Argentina -- sadness from some events from earlier this year). I'm feeling a bit better today, but still sad. I've slept a lot the past several days and I haven't felt much inspiration to do anything other than go to classes. I haven't gone on a walk in days (aside from it having been somewhat rainy here recently), and I've just felt like being alone. I've been reading a lot, too. Alas, reading in English, not Spanish.
In brighter news, I discovered a channel that shows CSI. Five nights a week. This made me very happy.
I guess it goes to illustrate my state of mind if I'm taking the time to channel surf in the evening, and watch tv, instead of going out in to the city.
The sadness will pass, I know. One of the reasons I was so happy to leave on my trip, was that it was providing me with a geographical distance from several things that happened this year. The sadness I'm feeling is after the realization of aspects of these past events. I have a post I wrote about a month ago, about some of what I've gone through this year, and one of these days I will edit it and post it. Until then, just know that several major friendships of mine went through much turmoil, and I [intentionally] count fewer friends today than I did a year ago.
Tomorrow will mark four weeks since I arrived in Argentina. Time flies too quickly.
posted by Shana @ 2:05 PM
1 Comments:
At 8:15 AM,
DementedPhotographer said…
If you've only been there four weeks and are already starting to dream in Spanish then you are doing quite well. At least, certainly much better than I would.
I hope for you new friends, new relationships to ease the pain of events past.
-G
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