This is for you, Grace Unruh

So apparently Grace Unruh thinks I should post things more often on my blog. I said that she probably didn´t want to hear about the boring day-to-day stuff, and just to show her that I´m right, I´m going to tell you about Tuesday, January 25 (Two months until my birthday). Oh, and Grace, if you do end up liking what I´m about to post, I´m sorry because I don´t plan on blogging about my life every. single. day.

Woke up at 7:00. Got dressed. Put in my contacts. Ate a breakfast that consisted of banana, apple, milk (cold), pancakes with syrup, and a fried egg. Brushed my teeth. Applied sunscreen. Packed my backpack. Left the apartment. Walked to the bus stop (it only takes me two minutes to get there). Hopped on a green bus to Cumbayà. Got off at the bus stop and walked through the bank parking lot and across the street to school. Headed to my Advanced Spanish class at 8:30. We spent the period discussing the uses of el presente de subjuntivo. Went to Intermediate Conversation at 10:00. Right now we´re working on knowing the differences between the various meanings of a single verb or when to use which verbs that have basically the same meaning. We had written sentences for homework and so we just read those out loud. Then some girl (Allison, i think) presented an article about Obama improving relations with Cuba. I didn´t really understand what she was talking about so when she asked the class three questions at the end of the presentation, I had nothing to say. Neither did a lot of other people. Class over. Walked to Supermaxi and got a couple pieces of bread for 69 centavos. Also had a banana from home. Ate it. Accompanied some people to the sandwich store where they ate lunch, then to a little store to get 30 cent bottles of water. Improvisation class at 1:00. Did a warm-up game where we walked around the room and shook people´s hands and smiled and stood like two inches away. Invasion of my personal space and pretty uncomfortable. But Daniel (the prof) has this goal that by the end of the class we will be able to feel comfortable in the uncomfortable. Then we worked on narration, which was hard because it was in Spanish. we went around the circle and everyone had to add some lines of narration to the story. I didn´t understand half of what was going on and I was the first gringa to go. By the time it got to me, the story was that Daniel had rescued a street dog, Daniel had a knife in his neck, and the neighbor lady was running around outside naked. I didn´t know what to say so I followed up with "El perro hizo caca." (The dog pooped. basically). Got a good laugh out of the class with that one. Then we split up into groups of three and I was luckily with 2 other gringas. Daniel let us play the games in English because he said this isn´t a language class. whew. We played "Si, y" (Yes, and). You just go back and forth, but you always have to start your sentences with Yes, and. Then we played the question game where you can only ask questions. Finally, we had to go up in front of the class in pairs and play one of the games. I was with Hannah, another gringo, so we got to play in English. We played Yes, and. The situation was that we were cooking and one of us is vegetarian and the other isn´t. Pretty ironic because the situation was suggested by a classmate who probably doesn´t know that Hannah actually is a pescatarian (sp?) and that I cannot survive without meat. But for the fun of the game, we switched roles and I was the vegetarian. Pretty fun, and a whole lot easier in English. Class over. Changed into soccer clothes and hung out with Wesley until we were picked up at the university by Galo. Went to Tumbaco to volunteer with the kids. Practice supposedly starts at 3:30, but we didn´t have enough kids until like 4. Ecuadorian time. Stretched, did some drills. Played against some older guys who were hanging around the field. Andres and another volunteer played with the big boys, while Galo, Wesley, and I played on the kids´ team. Pretty fun. We lost, but some of those youngsters can really hang with the older ones. It was impressive. Lots of running, though. And polvo (dust). Went home, ate supper, did some homework. A friend of my mom´s came over with two of her young daughters (los monstruos as my mom would call them). Always asking questions, wanting to play with chiquito Bibi, etc. They weren´t too bad. Entertaining at the very least. After about an hour they left. I went to take a shower and realized my underwear had been inside-out all day. Perfect. Did some more homework. Went to bed at 10:30.

The End

(Happy Grace?)