large update! whooop!

September 10, 2008
Yesterday was a “bad” day. I put that in quotations because it wasn’t really a bad day. I just couldn’t handle it. It’s a lot of ups and downs here, or they are much more pronounced. I woke up semi early to go get some stuff settled for my “taller de cocina.” Luckily I ended up finding a friend from FLACSO who wanted to help out. This took a lot of the pressure off me, and she is cool. Her mom does kitchen consultations and teaches people how to cook healthily on a budget (future possible job?? I think so!) We negotiated our budget from our program…30 pesos per week. It should be interesting. We only spent 20 on this weeks recipe meringue kisses. Walked to my Spanish class with a friend, and then attended my Spanish class (half heartedly). Treated myself to some good old street candied peanuts (a good source of protein right?) Took the subte to my other class and then walked home. When I got home took a bit of time to get back into a good state of mind, and did a bit of journaling. After that things were better, except for the waiting around for food. This may be part of the reason, my blood sugar gets low in between lunch and dinner…at about the time of my class (2-4). But this also might not have anything to do with it. I waited around for dinner…and asked my host sister the tango dancer about good places to buy shoes. She also told me about a great teacher who teaches private lessons. They are about 30 dollars an hour so I am not sure I will take her up on that offer but it is tempting if I am serious about getting to be a better tango dancer. Hopefully she will come with me to get some “beginner” shoes…and then I think if I really get good I’ll treat myself to some nice fancy “sandals.”
The real today:
Woke up exceptionally early (7.15) and headed to the Casa Del Niño. I was a bit worried since things had gone a bit differently than I had expected last week, and we were to actually do a recipe this week with the kids. We were also a bit scattered since we had just prepared yesterday. We had a short name game, and then a short history of chocolate (which we used in the meringue) and then jumped right in. I got to supervise the girls group, which turned out to be the easier group. I just kid of let them go, and the boys were cracking eggs all over the place, and we actually had to start over since they put the yokes in. I think the boys favorite part was cutting up the chocolate with the huge knige and saying it looked like bird poop. But everything went off without any big problems (other than one of our batches didn’t turn out, and so therefore we had a chocolate, sugar, egg, vanilla batter for our dessert after lunch. Odd, and not exactly healthy. Then we went out and played outside with the kids for a while. I loved having something to actually do, or supervise rather than just “play time.” I taught one girl the “cut the pickle” although I didn’t know how to say pickle in Spanish so I just did the hand motions. We arrived back to FLACSO without any problems (unlike last week).

September 8, 2008
It looks like a beautiful day outside. Too bad I woke up at 12.11. I still can’t really get used to waking up so late everyday. It feels like such a waste to me. But on the other hand I cannot handle getting up at 8 everyday when I am going to sleep at like 3. I ate breakfast and then got to work. I made my schedule for this week and cleared off my desk for IDEAL studying/working area. (but unfortunately I have to sit on a corner of my bed to get internet, so this is where I have ended up). I made a detailed list of what needs to be accomplished and started checking things off. The problem right now is that I am in the introductory stages of everything. I should start my papers, but I am still looking for themes. Once I get my themes nailed down (one is very close) and start outlining and more focused research I think I will feel a bit more productive. I have a couple more hours to work, and then I am off to buy food for my lunch and then off to FLACSO to have a meeting about our trips as a group. We are headed to Jujuy and Tigre (boo I have already been there!). I am really looking forward to northern Argentina jujuy because it is a more traditional way of life, other than the internationality that seems to be BsAs.
Sept. 7
An update on yesterday because I didn’t write was that I got up ate breakfast with my family and then started “studying.” This didn’t last for very long, because I decided to give myself a break and go to the sidewalk fair. I meandered around the booths and ended up actually buying something! Yahoo! I hounds tooth print scarf for 15 pesos or 5 dollars. I also ate lunch at the fair (street food is a joy for me here). A bread thing filled with ham egg and cheese. I am not sure I will be getting this again, but it was good to try it. A churro and a bag of freshly made candy coated peanuts. I came back and intended on doing more studying but my family came back and we watched a movie and drank tea, then I tried to do more studying which was interrupted by dinner and anther movie. So needless to say my studying yesterday was not very productive.