21!

This was a big week. I finally feel very comfortable here. Things feel good with my family, and my Spanish is finally feeling comfortable. I think I'm understanding more everyday.

I turned 21 on Monday! Thanks to all for the wonderful birthday messages! My mom and my sister sang to me when I came downstairs, and we had a wonderful fruity cake for breakfast...the best time to have cake. They have this thing called "mordida" here which consists of the birthday girl/boy taking a bite out of his/her cake. Everyone chants "mordida" until you do it! It's sort of like blowing out the candles, but it's so awkward to have lots of people watch while you try to gracefully shove your face in a cake. It reminds me a lot of when the bride and groom put the cake in each others faces, which I never plan on doing. Then at school I got another cake during our break in the middle of the morning, which was delicious...it was strawberries and cream and vanilla cake. Mmm so much cake. The best part of the day was definitely when I got to talk to mom and dad on skype, and got to actually see them because of the camera on mom's computer! It was awesome! If anyone else wants to chat on skype, we can make a date to talk...

The only bummer about this week was that there was so much homework. All the academic stuff picked up really quickly. Today, I had to hand in grammar homework, 2 1-page summaries for 2 different classes, I had to read lots of history, and I had 2 quizzes! I'm essentially taking 6/7 classes, which is way more than I would ever do at Earlham. I can do it, but it's hard to try to enjoy life here/spend time with family AND get all the work done.

On a positive note, my project is going wonderfully. I think I mentioned it, but I'm working at UNILA (La Universidad Latina) as an English teacher. Next week, I start with my own class of 15-ish students. The scary part is that I am the the teacher. I have to do a lot; I decide how to grade them, when to test them, what homework they get, etc etc. I'm a college professor! It's really daunting, but I also have a really complete teacher's guide to help me. They're pretty advanced, so we'll mostly be doing conversation, lots of reading and writing, etc. The grammar is stuff like future perfect, gerunds, the passive voice, etc. I think I will learn a lot of English grammar in the process, which I suppose it good. The students are great. This past week, Brian (another Earlham student), Nelly (professor at UNILA, also the dept. chair for languages), and I had all the intermediate and advanced students together, so I already got to know my students pretty well. I hope I am creative enough to make the class fun, but each class is 2 hours, so I need to plan a lot! Yikes! If anyone has any advice to offer me, please let me know! I'm a little terrified! Thankfully, it's only Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I will have time between to get stuff done (apart from all my Earlham classes!!!)

But it's the weekend, so I shouldn't worry! And Independence Day is Monday! So that will be fun! UNILA doesn't have class Tuesday, so I think I might go to a party Monday night at the house of a friend on the program. Tonight, a bunch of us are going to Pritsker to celebrate my birthday (on the weekend...) so hopefully that will be fun. I will try to write more than once next week, but it's so crazy here! The schedule is nuts, and I've also been going to aerobics every night, so there's not a lot of free time!