An Angry Brian

I find myself really frustrated today...OH BOY...are you ready for this blog?? Haha!! I am learning through my experience how to use the internet an email. Anybody that knows me, knows how against the technology of the internet I am.

I am a little frustrated because I cannot watch baseball here. I have settled for the simulation versions on gameday. Of course today, I am trying to watch the Sox Tigers makeup game and there is a rain delay. Oh well... Yesterday I tried to watch the Twins game but the site kicked me off in the 8th inning. Oh well... its only a game.

I tried to call home this week, but oh wait my phone card doesnt work. The operators keep sending to the same voice recordings which eventually hang up on me. Oh well, I can email them....HAHAHA!! I am funny.

This week is my 21 birthday. Its on a thursday which is a perfect night to go out in Argentina. I only have one class the next day at 2:30. Even so, I could bare to miss one class. Oh wait my professor decided to change our midterm exam to Friday. This means that none of my friends want to go out anymore because they have to study. GRRR!! It`s only my 21st birthday an all. Oh celebrate Friday... its just not the same... Oh and I am supposed to go somewhere with my family this weekend. But none of these slight inconveniences made me terribly upset.

The one that makes me upset, is... Remember how I said I could email my family. Well someting is seriously wrong with Saint Mary`s Internet Technology department. The only site I seem to have problems operating in Argentina is my email. All my friends here don`t have any problems with their emails, so its got to be the SMU server. This makes it really difficult to contact with my family. How do I let Saint Mary`s know about my concerns, oh well why dont I just send an email (haha). I am solving this problem by complaining now. This blog is for several reasons... One is to help me vent, Two is to make you laugh because here I am being ME again and complaining about stupid things, and Three is that I know there is a link to my blog on the SMU website. Maybe by some rare chance somebody from SMU will read it and forward it to the IT department. And they actually encourage me to use email more often?? hahaha.

The picture is the best I could find of me looking angry.

Chau

TWINS!!

People from home are often asking me... What is one thing you miss from home?? Besides the obvious answer of friends and family... Its Baseball and the Twins!! I am still following the Twins the best I can down here. I read articles online pretty much daily. I have also been finding short news clips as well.

The White Sox series this past week was difficult. I watched the simulation version of the game on the Twins website. Game one, I was able to find some site that showed it live.

My host brother Jero has found interest in watching the games with me. The other night we were going crazy at the miraculous come from behind win to sweep the Sox. I am so sad that I am missing all this excitement. My brother and I had fun laughing at each other´s pronunciation of the players names. I apparently cannot pronounce Carlos Gomez correctly, and he can´t pronounce Denard Span.

I am rooting for the Twins the best I can down here. Baseball does not really exist in this land, but I am finding it the best I can. I am also using this blog as a test, to see if I can figure out how to include a video. Apparently its not working though.

Go Twins!!

El Dia de los Estudiantes

I mentioned in my last post that there was supposed to be a big festival at my school on Friday, but that it rained and was postponed until Monday. Monday was a beautiful day. It was probably 80 degrees F and sunny. Their were little activities to participate in all day and a stage that featured a few bands. In between bands, there were contests and other music being played.

For the Day of the Students, most classes were cancelled or shortened. Of course my classes were not cancelled. My Spanish class was short, but we needed to have it because it was the last one before our primer parcial otherwise known as a midterm.

Some of the activities throughout the day included a toro mechanico or mechanical bull, an inflatable rock climb, and tons of Metagol or fooseball. I really mastered the bull riding. My friends kept telling me to try it again and again. It was very fun. The rock climbing was a different story. It was very very difficult to get to the top. Many of the "rocks" kept ripping causing me to crash to the bottom.

I hung out with my argentina friends a lot on this day. We ate free empanadas for lunch, (one huge reason I was present at the festival) we played hackisac, listened to the bands, and we drank a mate. My friends also taught me some jokes, and of course some pickup lines. They even filled me in about certain contests when they were happening.

The winners of the contests won a shirt. First, there was a joke telling contest. I didn`t win with my stupid spanish joke - Habìa una vez... Truz. Next, they were trying to find people for a dance competition. What kind of dance you ask?? Striptease!! Apparently I was the only one to volunteer. I went up on stage in front of all these Argentina students and began stripping to music. Don`t worry, I kept it appropriate, but the girls loved it. They ran up to the stage trying to touch me and everything. The only reason I went through with this was for a free shirt. I guess I am pretty cheap. Had I known that I was going to win another shirt later, I would not have done the strip tease.

Later, there was a Reggaetòn dance contest. It didn`t take me long to find a girl to dance with. I met Augustina, a very cute 20 year old argentina girl. We were the last group dancing and both won a t shirt. Since, I already had one, I gave one of my shirts to Augustina`s friend, thus making me another friend.

At the end of the day, there was a sorteo or raffle to win some prizes. In order to win, the person had to be present. The prizes included a pen drive for the computer, a trip to the Iguazu Falls, an MP4 player, and a new labtop computer. Noboby that I knew won anything. Most of us were late to tango class, but it was worth the chance to win a computer.

There are some pictures from the day, but there are none from the strip tease. I am worried somebody has a photo somewhere, but I do not want to find out.

El Fin de Semana del Primavera

I am starting to have so much fun here, that I cannot keep up with my blog. The fun combined with a row of parcials or midterm exams are inhibiting me from keeping up. This past Sunday was the first day of spring; Primavera. The University set up a huge festival for the Friday before, but it rained all day so it got postponed to Monday. For all of you reading this, you might think, oh rain of course, it rains all the time. Nope!! This rain on Friday was the first time its rained since I have been here. In fact it was the first time it rained in Cordoba since March. My hope is that it never rains again, because the streets were a mess and everything was flooded.

Friday night I went out with my tutor Pancho and my friend Brad. We met up with some guys at their apartment in Nuevo Cordoba otherwise known as downtown. We hung out there for a while and then went dancing at a pub. We met some girls, one which spoke english farely well. (I scored major points for knowing english). I returned to my house around 7:30 in the morning and slept until 4 in the afternoon.

Saturday was the big night for Primavera. One of the tutors, Flor, had a house party to celebrate Primavera. It started at midnight, so it was officially primavera. The theme was to wear a sombrero or some type of wig. I plan ahead so well, that at 11:45 I realized I needed something to wear. Luckily my family came through. They found me a greenish had with fake green hair. So I wore it.

The night was fun. There was pizza and chips to eat, and lots of alcohol. If you wanted to drink, it cost 13 pesos for the entire night. There were different kinds of drinks too. Cerveza, Fernet con Coke, your mixtures of fruit juices with vodka. It was one big party of dancing to english and spanish music. I made it home Sunday morning around 6:00 and slept until about 4 in the afternoon again. It was the by far the best way I have ever celebrated the first day of spring.

I have posted pictures from the party.

Mendoza...Rafting, Rapelling, and Ziplining

This past weekend the entire CCCS group (CCCS is the program I am studying through) took a trip to San Rafael, Mendoza. It was only for the weekend, but served as a very fun and needed break from school. The coolest part was that everything was already paid for. Again, I finally feel somewhat satisfied about my tuition money. Atleast I am paying for fun stuff and great meals oppose to a really expensive and crappy, uncooked meal in the CAFE.

We all boarded a big coach bus Friday night. We drove through the night. We played games, sang songs, and watched the movie "The Bucket List" on the trip. Some people slept a little bit, but not me.

We arrived around 9 or 10 in the morning and went straight to Rafting. It was a beautiful day outside, but the water is always freezing in the mountains. We all dressed in clothing that we didn`t care if it got wet. Over our clothing we wore water pants, a water jacket, and a life vest.

We boarded 5 different boats or rafts and set out down El Rio Atuel. My team was the best beacause we finished first and probably had the most fun. Our team name was Los tiburones (The Sharks). We had the most pride with our chants. ¿Que somos?...¡Tiburones! (What are we?...Sharks). We also liked to jump around a lot as we chanted, so we came up with...¡Yo quiero mover el bote! (I want to move the boat). We worked real well together as a team. We bumped into the other boats on purpose quite frequently and splashed them with water. However, we got soaked also because everybody retaliated against us. The water was freezing cold, but we survived. Unfortuanatly I do not have photos from rafting for obvious reasons. After rafting, we all changed clothes and had an asado.

After lunch we took the coach bus to our next event. We did activities of rappel y tirolesa (Ziplining). I did not think twice about these activiites, but others had a little bit of fear climbing down the side of a mountain, and sliding across the sky holding onto a rope. I was one of the first ones to go. Rapelling was a lot more fun than Ziplining. The ziplining was not very steep. Either way, these events were pretty sweet. It was even fun to climb up to where we had to rapel from.

Next we went to our hotel, where I shared a room with my tutor Pancho. We each took showers and went walking around the city. Later we had dinner, and after dinner a large group of us went to a boliche called "La Zona". It was a lot of fun as there was a live band that played. We returned to the hotel around 4. We got about three hours of sleep before we woke up, checked out of the hotel and went to our next activity.

We took the bus to a bodega (winery). We received a tour of how they make wine and even got to try some. The wine was very tasty.

After that, we boarded the bus to leave...BUT WAIT... We couldn´t get out of the parking lot because the bus was too low to the ground. Everybody got out, but the bus still couldn`t get out. The sidewalk was elevated a little bit so the bottom of the bus kept touching the ground and getting stuck. This was quite hiliarious.

Due to this inconvenience, we decided to do a little bit of landscaping for the bodega. We took shovels and dug up the garden, stole some sticks and logs from across the road, and even took a hammer to the beautiful brick boarder around the garden. We used all of our materials to build a ramp. After many trys and an hour later, the bus drove up our man made ramp and made it out of the parking lot. Did we bother to clean up our mess, NO. We left the beautiful new landscape for the owners of the bodega.

Finally we boarded the bus, stopped for lunch, and headed back to Cordoba. We arrived at the University around 2am. Me being as cheap as I am, was contemplating walking home because I did not want to pay for a taxi or wait for a bus. Suddenly, a car drove by and yelled "BRIAN". It was my host brother Jero and his friends. Que suerte (lucky). I got a ride home and went to sleep.

There`s my trip!! Nice and short huh??

Una Obra de Teatro

Last night I was invited out by my friends to see a short play. I took the bus downtown to meet oh you know 6 girls. I was told specifically not to be late. We all know how I am with time, but I ALMOST made it on time. I tried so hard, but I was a few minutes late. Oh well.

The show was really funny. I was able to understand most of it which really made me happy. Apparently they perform a show every couple weeks, so I plan on returning sometime.

Afterwords the girls and I went out for some ice cream. We had a nice long walk through downtown on a beautiful clear night, and topped it off with some shakes.

Unfortuanatly I missed the soccer game, but I heard Argentina played really poorly anyway.

My Status

Many of you might be wondering how I my spanish is coming along down here. I have improved dramatically since I have arrived. My English on the other hand has declined. I have reached a point where I am very confident speaking in spanish now. I am fairly fluent with what I want to say and need to say. If I don´t know how to say something, I am getting very good at describing what I want to say. I still have a problem understanding others when they talk. In my house I am very good and with my friends outside of class, I am pretty good at understanding. My problem is with the profesors, radio, tv, and such things like that.

Last Thursday I gave a 10 minute presentation on the traffic here. I did very well and my classmates said I spoke very fluently. I believe I received an A for the presentation, but as we all know, I could really care less. I was proud that I got up in front of people and talked intelligently for 10 minutes. I have trouble speaking intelligently in english sometimes.

Apparently, I am not a very good listener or "checkerer of email". We received this huge project in my art class last week or perhaps two weeks ago. Supposedly we all got an email about it. Well, a half hour before class yesterday my friend Carla asked me if I had done the homwork. I responded with an innocent Brian face, "What homework"? This girl freaked out and starting talking english to me, so that she could quickly explain the reading. Then she told me that I had to choose two paintings of art and compare them using what I learned from the reading and post them on some blog for class. Funny how I had no clue about this project.

I went to class a half hour later to find out the the profesor was ABSENT... What luck I have. But wait... the homework was to be posted on a blog online, so I actually had to do it anyway. I worked my butt off, not having a clue what I was doing because I never got the emails with the directions. I haven´t finished yet, but hope to tonight. I tried working on it before this blog, but found that my file would not open on this computer.

I don´t know why I always have troubles with my email and computers. I actually checked my email this time. I hope I get my stuff done. There´s nothing like trying to do a two week long project in a foreign language in one night. I reminded myself that this is an experience, and I can´t fail at it. I laughed all the way home last night because I realized that I am still completely lost here.

By the way, about a month ago I picked up the last paper for my Visa. I am officially legal in Argentina. Now I have to stop procrastinating and figure out my art project. After that I have to prepare a presentation for Tuesday as I am taking a vacation to Mendoza this weekend.

Mi Nueva Familia

I switched families this past Monday at 8 in the morning. To clarify, I switched because I decided that I wanted to switch. After I made the decision, it took a week or two to arrange the actual move. I had to move at 8 in the morning because that is the only time that would work for Marta.

I was really excited before the move because I received an email from my new host mom, telling me how excited she was to have me as a part of her family, and telling me that she would help me with anything I needed. When I arrived Monday morning, my host mom and brother were home to welcome me with open arms.

My new host mom is named Irene. She is 53 years old, and when she was 21 studied in England. I believe she speaks a little English, but she does not use it with me at all. She is very patient and always offers to help me with my homework. My first day we sat and talked for an hour in spanish.

Irene is divorced with 2 kids. My host brother, Jeronimo (Jero) is 18 years old and works with veternarian. He also coaches tennis a few times a week. My host sister, Camila is 14 years old and is still in school. Both of my new siblings are very patient, and they help me whenever I need it. Irene also has a 66 year old boyfriend named Luis. Luis is also very helpful.

I am very comfortble in my new house and so far love my new family a lot. It is nice to be able to sit in front of the tv with something to drink in my hand while putting my feet on the coffee table. Jero even told me to relax and put my feet up on the table. The first thing Irene told me is that I was just like one of her kids. She told me that if I wanted something to drink or eat, to help my self. She showed me how to use the computer and gave me permission to use it whenever. The family has internet also, which is really nice.

I have to adapt to some things in my new house. I only have 3 television channels now as my new family does not have cable. This is good because now I am forced to watch tv in spanish. My bed is a little bit smaller, but I have lived my whole life with a smaller bed. And probably the biggest adaptation I need to make, is that I live a little further away from school. It`s about a 45 minute walk or a 5 minute bus ride. However, I am really cheap (imagine that) so I have been finding other ways to and from school.

My first night returning to my house, I played the "Where do I live?". I got a ride from a friends host dad, and luckily I faintly recognized some buildings and street names near my house. I eventually made it home. Other times, when Jero does not need his bike, I have been riding that to school. It is a bit dangerous as only one of the breaks works and that break barely works. There is no stopping quickly on this bike.

I am now allowed to eat meals pretty much whenever I want. We all have different schedules in my house, so if I am late for a meal, it is usually sitting on the table for me to heat up in the microwave. For breakfast, there are usually different kinds of break, cookies, and cereales for me to choose from, along with coffee or juice to drink. It is amazing.

Jero has been really cool engaging me in other activities. He invited me to his friends house my second night there. We hung out with ten GUYS (and one girl) and it was just like being home. Chilling with the boys while listening to music and talking. Last night he invited me out to eat some Lomitos with two of his guy friends Walter and Juan.

Overall, things are a lot better in my new home. I feel way more comfortable, and I only use spanish in this house. When I don´t understand something, we work around it with other forms of communication. I am really excited because I have always been the youngest person in the family. I finally get to be the BIG BROTHER. I am looking forward to this weekend and the next 3 months with this family. I was a little nervous about the switch, but as of right now, I am so glad I went through with it.

Saying Goodbye to Family Number One

I have officially switched host families. About a month back, I was talking with Alfredo who is the director of the program here. We were just chatting so that I could practice my spanish more. In the conversation, we began talking about my family here. I explained how I was not comfortble in my home. He told me that I could switch if I wanted. I was not too sure if I really wanted to switch or not. Things were not terrible in my house, so I thought the evil I didn´t know could be worse than the evil I know.

I honestly think, Marta (my first host mom) had the best intentions, but she spoke a lot of english with me. My brother Edzui was very cool, but he spoke english with me a lot too.

I am definately going to miss watching movies and cable tv with Edzui. I loved our conversations about sports and yelling at the tv when the soccer players screwed up. I will miss studying in the sun in the back yard. I enjoyed the location with many kioskos nearby and my school within 15 minutes walking. I also got to know the other exchange students that lived near me. I will miss Marta´s laugh when and her smile when she was relaxed. HOWEVER....

I will not miss feeling completely uncomfortble all the time, feeling like a thief if I drink or eat something from the refridgerator. I will not miss being yelled at for turning the water faucet off too hard, slamming the car door too hard, or being yelled at to make chocolate milk when I don´t like milk, and then being yelled at about how I mixed the chocolate. I will not miss being told how to hold a fork and a knife. Most of all I will not miss explanations in english. It seemed like everytime I did not understand something completely the first time, I would get told in english, instead of another way of saying the same thing or the same sentence slower. I will not miss being told to be careful with the keys, or to unplug the tv.

The point of all of this, is that in general I was not comfortable in my home. I felt like I was always doing everything incorrectly, and I felt I was never given a chance to understand spanish. I had been hearing from my friends how they always have asados with other family members and always drink mates, but I realized I had only met my host sister once and had gone to one asado. The ironic thing about all this is that my last day with this family, we had an asado and I was invited to my host sisters house for dinner.

I hope this gives everybody an idea of why I wanted to move. I felt like I was not getting the culture or language aspect of Argentina in my house. That combined with me feeling uncomfortable led to me switching families. Stay tuned to hear about the new family... That is if you care.

There is more to Poland than Kuba

This past Saturday I was invited by Marta to a Polish Festival. I decided that I had to go since I was finally invited somewhere. Edzui, Marta, two of Marta´s Friends, and I went to this festival. We met up with a lot of my host families friends at the festival. Unfortuanately I forgot my camera, so I do not have any pictures for this blog.

Everything at this festival was polish. I could not help but to think of Kuba. There was tons of young men dressed in bright red and blue polish clothing. The night started with food. I still don´t know what makes a sausage polish, but I ate two polish sausages or salchichas polacos.

My host family obsesses about the polish culture so much that its kind of annoying. Its probably similar to the environment in Yons Hall last year last year. Anyway... During dinner I decided to add my bits of polish knowledge. I started using the little polish that I knew. Apparently, the only words I know aren´t really the nicest things to say (Why didnt you teach me anything polite KUBA??) I started dinner by telling the lady next to me in perfect polish that she smelled like a monkey´s ass. Later we had a toast, so I raised my glass and said in perfect polish "cheers..." All was good until I added "...to the fat cow" not realizing that I was looking straight towards an overweight woman. I realized my mistake an accidently spit out "shit" in polish. For this I am blaming Kuba.

After dinner there was a show. There was polish music and a lot of polish dancing. The young men and women danced together and separately. They danced with a lot of passion and stomped their feet with a lot of force. It was very impressive and interesting to watch.

After the show they invited everybody else to join in with the dancing. After a short while, I felt like I was at a dance. They played some songs in spanish, polish, and english including YMCA. It was a very interesting and fun experience. I am so thankful to have met other polish people that are not as crazy Kuba. (for those who dont know, Kuba is a very strange polish kid that I go to school with and am friends with. However after this blog, I don´t know.)

A Long Week Leads to a Pub

Natalia, Gaby, Me, y Ceci

Friday night, I had an adventure. I really wanted to go out after my long week of frustrations and classes. I went home for free dinner, and as always got distracted doing something completely different. Therefore the girls left without me. My friends Ferron and Brenda went to the house of Natalia, who is a native, for some dinner.



I knew which neighborhood Natalia lived in and I had the address, but no idea how to get there. Using my map, the address, and my knowledge of Córdoba, I flagged a cab. The cab driver got lost and didn´t know where to go. Finally after 15 pesos, I told him to let me out. I was not about to pay to get even more lost. I eventually was rescued by Natalia, Brenda, and Ferron.



We decided to go to a Pub in downtown Córdoba called Paris. It is the same pub I have been to before. We met up with two other girls there named Gaby and Ceci. Brenda and Ferron got bored and left very early (3 am). I started talking with Gaby and Ceci, and before I knew it, I was dancing with them and Natalia. Somehow we kept getting free drinks, so I kept drinking them. It was fantastic. We all know I am not a big drinker, but I had my fair share Friday night. Natalia helped me home safely at 7:15 in the morning. It was a great night with the girls.

I have to admit, I have seen better afternoons than Saturday afternoon when I woke up.

How Important is the Accent??

So spanish has accents on a lot of words. At first it seemed useless to me. So what if my accent is a little bit different?? I am not native, I am supposed to have a different accent. Well I learned the hard way this past week about the importance of the accent.

First I was reading an email a loud. It was supposed to say that "Marta called me", but because I messed up the accent, I said that my name was Marta (Marta was my first host mom). I got a strange look, being a young thin male and saying my name is Marta.

Thursday night, after class, the girls invited us all to a restaurant for dinner. We all piled into the cars to go. Someone mentioned my messy hair. My calloch (ah I have no idea how to spell that word and I dont have an english dictionary) was sticking up. Well, I decided to practice my spanish at this moment. I tried to say, ¨I don´t have a comb¨ but instead I said "I don´t have a penis". You wouldnt believe the look I got from my friend Fernanda. At least this time I caught my mistake and was able to laugh at myself. For those of you wondering how I made this mistake... Comb in spanish = peine and penis = pene. I forgot to stress the "I" in "peine". Yeah huge mistake, especially when I was trying to flirt with the girls.

Yesterday, I had an asado (a barbacue) with one of Marta´s friends. Its amazing that once I said I was moving, they started inviting me more places. The asado was great with very tasty meat and lots of wine and pop. Well, I was wearing my bright red SMU CREW shirt with the cardinal on the front. One of the men at the asado asked what the logo was... I responded Pajero instead of pájaro. Pájaro means "bird", but pajero means "jerk off". Again, I did not get the best look from this man. He laughed and then explained to everyone what I had said.

The same thing is true with gestures. A common gesture here is to brush the tip of your chin with your fingers. In the United States this gesture is interpreted as duragatory. I asked a question to my host brother the other day and he gave me that gesture. I thought, why is he flipping me off, but what I learned later is that simply means "I don´t know".

This serves to show that I am learning here. Sometimes it is the easy way, and other times it is hard way.

A Little Catching Up

I want to let everyone know that I did not get lazy and stop blogging. The blog site was not working and of course it took me over a week to figure out how to fix the problem. Actually I have no idea what the problem was.

Anyway, Argentina won the Gold Medal in fútbol and the Bronze in basketball. It was really cool to be here for all that. It was also fun to watch the United States win the Gold in basketball, even though I really don´t care about those NBA players.

This past week was an up and down week for me. I encountered many things that were frustrating, but I also learned a lot. It was a little weird in my house because my family found out that I would be moving houses. Most people would consider it awkward when your host mom asks you why you dont want to live in her house anymore. It was fine though. I talked my way out of that jam....(IN SPANISH TOO). It really was a great week in my house though. My family invited me places and were more patient with me.

This week was a tough week because I had to decide which classes to take for the rest of the semester. It was easy to eliminate a couple. I dont need a ethics class or computer class, so I dropped those; however, I did enjoy the classes. The other easy one to drop was my Institional Sociology class. I really like the class, and I was the only male in a small class of 10 very good looking chicas, but there is no way I was going to take a class on Friday nights from 5 to 8:30. That left me with the tough decision: Art class where I would kill my general education requirement or a public relations class where the beautiful girls always invite us out after class. We even watched the Simpsons in the Public Relations class. I decided to take the Art class because those same girls that I have gotten to know so well now are in my art class. The class is more difficult to understand, but what a perfect way to interact with my new friends. I will be asking them if they would like to ¨study¨ a lot.

So for those of you who are still reading this long boring blog (Probably you Tracy because you are the only one that cared which classes I am taking, which is the whole purpose of this part of the blog.) My classes are: My spanish grammar class which I really like, A popular culture class which is very interesting, A one credit culture class, Tengo, Horseback Riding, and a Contemporary Art class. I also meet with the director of the program here 2 to 3 times a week for extra practice.

Well now that you all are caught up, you can read my next couple blogs which will be a little more interesting.