class in the street?

September 4, 2008

This day was a good one for the blog. Lots of cultural experiences. I got up and headed to my class. Unfortunately, when I walked up to the building there were desks and chairs all over the place (on the sidewalk). I went into the building and tried to walk up the stairs but that was blocked with a stack of desks/chairs/debris and a student. I asked him about the situation and he explained that there were no classes, or at least no one could get up stairs to go to classes. Meanwhile the place was bussing with poster making, and chatting…I quizzed him a bit more and he explained that yesterday a roof fell off of the bathroom or something, and they were protesting for a better building. He said that classes are not necessarily cancelled, if the professors come (which some don’t since they are protesting higher salaries) then you have your class outside or in the street. I left a bit befuddled…since it was such a sight to be seen. I sat down and was at a loss of what to do with myself. I had planned on a hectic busy day rushing across the city, but this was not it. I waited around a bit, but then decided that I wasn’t going to wait for a class that wasn’t going to happen, or was going to happen in the street. It is hard enough to concentrate on the Spanish when I am in the front row in a classroom. I made my way down town via subte and wanted to go to the tango museum. Unfortunately that was closed so I found a nice little café (which was empty) and enjoyed the special, a café con leche, 3 media lunas and a small glass of orange juice (all for 2 dollars). I read a bit and watched the parade/protest walk by. There are so many protests/parades/demonstrations here. I then asked the owner about a good museum and headed over to the casa rosada (the argentine white house). I finally found the museum and read everything, half heartedly in spanish and then even more half heartedly in english. I made my way to my Spanish class. After Spanish I headed to FLACSO to get some info for my tango lesson tonight and then quick hurried to my tutoria. I was a bit nervous about this but my tutor seems awesome. She walked me through the paper, and I got to bounce around some ideas and practice my malo espanol. I am less worried about the class in many aspects, but more worried since I have to pick a theme, and interview people. The question is whether I should focus on youth in Oregon, or youth here. Youth here will offer more of a challenge but my field work will force me to meet more people. Youth in Oregon will be easy as pie, just odd to be writing about Oregon in Spanish. I almost broke the elevator door when I tried to stop it so we could go in, luckily it wasn’t broken, but I won’t be jumping into any more elevators. Pretty embarrassing… on the way home i walked by UBA and there were classes being held in the middle of the street. i just smiled to myself... i think ill try that at UO next time we need something. I just got home and now am going out to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants here, and then to the tango thing. Hopefully both will be fun and go well. I am also trying the bus system---not including the bus I know how to take for the first time as transportation here. Yikes.

On a side note, my English has been going down hill since I have started this blog. If you take note of any grammatical mistakes or odd sentence structures, forgive me.