I'm Alive!

That's about all I have to report. Most of my musings are found in personal diaries and in short Facebook posts.

I guess a quick update can't hurt.

I'm taking French in Spanish with one of my bilingual classes from the Director of the school, to whom I am teaching English. That's fun, and I'm learning new and silly things about languages, as well as strengthening my understanding of Spanish.

My Master's studies are going effortlessly, and sometimes this concerns me that I'm not doing enough work. I think that's how the program was designed, though, so I'm not going to worry about it too much.

I'm still waiting to find out about my grant and whether or not I'm traveling the world to do science or not.

I'm also currently getting ready to apply for jobs in Seattle. Hopefully I'll have a bunch of interviews lined up for when I visit home in April, then I can have some solid ground to land on once I'm back, whenever that may be.

That's about it.

The Past Few Weeks

1. I found coffee that is delicious. It's from La Mexicana, and it's roasted fresh in-house. They grind it to my specifications, and it's quite lovely done up in a French press.

2. We went on a field trip to the jardin botanico, and I got to see all kinds of awesome Spanish plants and then a lot of plants I'm really familiar with.

3. Halloween for me included a long long Doctor Who scarf and two totally different parties - Karaoke at the US Embassy, dancing and charades at a flatball party.

4. Trevor (the other estado unidense at my school) and I had dinner at another teacher's house. It turns out her husband is my dad's Spanish doppelganger, but more in lifestyle than looks.

5. The day before my birthday, Trevor and I visited a different teacher from the school - Elena, the science teacher I'm working with. We had delicious baby sheep for dinner and some great conversation.

6. Two days before that, I spent my Friday night Skyping into a Team Science (grad school) seminar. It was awesome! It was great to talk to everyone and think critically about science teaching.

7. My birthday (update to the previous post) was rather uneventful. I accidentally slept through my alarm, but it was the perfect time to replace the glasses I lost, give a copy of my residency card to my bank, and get some much-needed rest, as I am STILL sick! The two teachers who I've had dinner with each gave me a really cool notebook for my birthday. One of them made it herself! It's awesome! I'm going to start using them to write reflections that are too boring to put here or too personal to share with the entirety of the internets.

8. I have some work due for the Master in Teaching that I need to get moving on. It's due by Thanksgiving, and it's already partway into November! Crazy!

Worst Start to my Birthday Ever

I was feeling bad (again) yesterday, but planning on going to school. I woke up this morning at 10am, which is just late enough to have missed all of my classes. My alarm went off, but I turned it off in my sleep. I didn't wake up at all last night that I remember. I woke up and had no idea it was Monday. This is...terrible. Worst. Birthday. Ever.

Other Things

In backwards chronological order, here are some pictures of things:

Elena explains a student's cell analogy - Mt. Olympus.

Another cell analogy. The US is the DNA.

Saying goodbye to Dutch, in apparently the most amusing way possible.

And skeptical?

Very skeptical.

They make the Irish coffee very Irish here.

Zoom in and see the invisible man!

So...this is for Katie. Rocks from Argentina!

At the chocolateria. Unfortunately, the chocolate has gluten in it.

Also for Katie. They like the US here.

This is one of my favorite things - live music in the Metro. This guy is really good. Some people come onto the trains and play there.

Back again to the Vuelta. It's a pretty fountain.

Liquigas drives the front.

Okay, so those are some pictures.

Spanishness Weekend

I've spent the weekend so far in bed, what with the being sick. I'm hoping I'll be well in time to enjoy some of it.

"Interesting" things:

1. It rained yesterday. That meant practice was canceled. This proves that I am, indeed, in a different country.

2. I made a soup today. It includes onions, leeks, potatoes, and zucchini. The only color in it was the skin on the zucchini. Nevertheless, it was tasty.

3. As I write this, I found out that my friend GUI or "Pastor Gurath", as people are calling him now, has malaria. He's still preaching with the parasitic buddies inside him, so that's a good sign. If you're the praying type, please pray for him (and everyone else with malaria and everyone working on the cure, which I hear from SciFri is coming).

4. Tuesday, there's evidently a military parade in town for Spanishness Day. I don't know what time it is, but I have a location, so that's helpful. Evidently they bust out all the planes and tanks and whatever else and roll them down the street. I'll take pictures if I can figure out when it is.

And that's all I've got. Exciting times in my apartment.

Down With the Sickness

What's living in a new country without being really sick?

Yeah, pretty awesome.

It definitely is time for Friday Night Fever.

That joke would have gone over better if it was Saturday night.

Back to bed.

Things from Before

Alright, so there are some pictures I could post, and you could look at them if you wanted to.

So here:

Sangria is good, especially right before practice.

This is Rachel, one of my roommates.

And that's Jen, another one of my roommates.

The Vuelta comes to Gran Via!

And it was pretty.

And they had lots of motorcycles.

I'll probably post more later, I'm skyping now, and uploading pictures crashes the connection.