My Crazy Hectic Week

Well, so I know I haven't posted anything in ages... sorry! I started a new Spanish class at the beginning of this month and it has been an incredible about of work! The class is called 'Advanced I' and it includes a little bit of more advanced grammar and a lot more oral participation - which is good, because I need practice with my conversational skills more than anything! Last thursday I gave a presentation by myself about the 'Political History of Latin America'. It had to be at the very least 30 minutes long and I was only aloud to glance at my notes every now and then to keep my place. Other than that it was 30 minutes of pure talking in Spanish. I basically almost died that week. I got sick the Saturday before so I basically did nothing that weekend to work on the presentation (which had been my plan) so come Monday I started spending ALL of my free time on researching information for the presentation. I would go to class from 8am-12, come home and eat lunch, and then research, write, and organize from like 1pm-7 or 8pm. Then I would eat dinner and do my homework for class the next morning, go to bed, then wake up and do it all again. It was crazy. The hardest part was just reading all of that information in Spanish! First I would read through PAGES of information about the history of a country in Latin America - and this goes slow because I had to make sure I understood it - then I had to choose which information was most relevant to my presentation, then I wrote all of that information down, and then I more or less memorized it. It was probably the most I have every work on a presentation in my entire life - which is saying something.

I was REALLY nervous too about having to talk in Spanish for 30 straight minutes. However, The day of the presentation came, and I got up in front of the class and told them all about the political history of latin america. I chose 3 countries to focus on (Colombia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua) because really, they all have similar histories in general: There was a revolution, then the conservatives took over for a while, then that turned into a dictatorship and then there was another revolution and the Liberals took over, and then they maintained power for 10 years but in that space of time there were about 30 different presidents because a military coup was like what they did for fun on the weekends.... yeah. I was boring myself to death during my own presentation. But, the good news is: I talked for almost an HOUR in Spanish (and all in the past tense which I feel like is quite an accomplishment) and it really wasn't that hard. I surprised myself at how easy it was. I suppose that was the whole point of the presentations anyway - our professor wanted to prove to us, or better yet wanted us to prove to ourselves that yes, we actually can talk that much in Spanish without having to read verbatim from our notes. Well that was the presentation Thursday, then I went back to my house and finished reading a short story for my latin america literature class and then I went to class, came back home, and studied for the midterm that I had the next day. Did I mention that this week was absolutely crazy? Well the long and the short of it is, I made a 92 on the presentation, a 98 on the mid term, and friday afternoon I came home and slept for an hour. So that week had a happy ending!

However, I can't say that this week has been much less hectic. The classes here are just hard with tons of work, but I feel like I'm learning a lot. As far as Spanish itself is going, some days I feel like I can speak it like a pro, and then other days it's not so good. My grammar and pronunciation and everything go way down hill when I'm tired, that's one thing I've discovered!

My little sister Mariana started school this past Monday so our daily routine has changed a little. She is in the fourth grade and her classes start at 7am every morning. This means that by 6am if not earlier the whole house is usually awake - and awake means normal loud life - slamming doors and cooking breakfast (the kitchen is right next to my room) and yelling at Bruno "¡Bruno no! ¡AFUERA AFUERA!" to keep him from peeing on the floor in the living room. What I'm saying is, it doesn't really make a difference what time I set my alarm for, I'm usually awake by 6:20 or before! The first two days that Mariana was in school was really funny as far as Bruno is concerned. He is completely attached to Mariana so when she left for school he would just wander aimlessly around the house whimpering. The first day he wouldn't eat anything because he was so depressed!! It was really hilarious to see the difference in him when Mariana would get home from school around 2:30 - Bruno would run circles around the house and tear up anything left lying on the floor out of sheer joy. Hahaha, he is so much fun! He just recently turned 4 months old - I have explained before haven't I that Bruno is our little schnauzer? - anyway, he's finally gotten just big enough and strong enough that he can now jump up onto the beds by himself. This is both really fun and a bit of a problem. Before, anything that we didn't want Bruno to chew up we would just throw on the bed so he couldn't get to it. now, NOTHING is safe.

It's really funny though because a couple of times I have left my bedroom door open by mistake and when I come back in Bruno is sitting there - curled up in the heap of sheets on my unmade bed! Actually, last night Bruno fell asleep on my lap while I was talking to Luis before bed and when I finally got up to go to bed he was completely dead - in a metaphorical since. haha, when he sleeps he sticks his legs straight out, but his body is completely limp.... really comical sight! Anyway, I carried him to his little bed which is situation just outside of my room. I went to the bathroom to wash my face and when I came back Bruno was magically curled up asleep on MY PILLOW! I didn't have the heart to move him, so I just slid my pillow over to the other side of the bed and used the extra pillow for me. He stayed curled up in my bed until about 3am when I woke up and heard him moving around. I figured it would be better to put him back in his own bed then - he has no scruples about where and when he pees!

Well this weekend I am staying here in San Jose, but I am really glad. I am sooo tired and looking forward to just relaxing and hopefully catching up on some sleep this weekend. My mamá has promised to show me how to make this strawberry cheesecake thing that is absolutely delicious on Saturday, but those are my only plans. I might go out Salsa dancing if I can round up some friends who are staying here this weekend too. We'll see!

Well, that's basically what's been going on with me in the last week or two. I figured it would be way too much to try and put ALL of the information that I wanted to share in ONE post, so you'll have to go read the other ones to hear about all of the fun weekend trips that I've had in the past few weeks!

¡¡Abrazos de Costa Rica!! (hugs!)
-Megan