Diary/Diario

   May:

  Week 3 

Monday – 5-16 

      I finally received my grade for my paper that I wrote and got a good grade.  Finally I don't have to worry about writing yet another paper.  Granted it is very good practice, but I think I've proved that I can write decently, and read decently.  Now I really want to work on the listening and speaking parts. Oh yeah, my grade was a 6.0.  They don't use A B C here, it's a scale from 1 to 7, seven being the best one can get.  The students don't like to get anything less than a 5.  I'm guessing that's like a B- to them.  Hopefully I will get my test back tomorrow that I took last week.  I'm anxious to see how I did.  Also since I leave in the middle of July, I realized I only have about 60 days left here.  I remember when I thought the two month marker would never come.  The days started slowly, but now they are flying.  I was happy to see that the Pistons won game 4.  Did Rasheed guarantee that win like he did last time?  Except I think he guaranteed game 2 last year.  I'm hoping to record some of the funny commercials that they have here, but I don't know if I will be able to put them up on here.  It takes awhile for me to decode video on the computer that I have, and I'm not here to work extensively on decoding video.  Therefore I will most likely be discontinuing the video section.  There aren't that many to begin with.  So I will mostly be updating my journal section, and the photos.  Oh yeah, for all you weathermen out there, it's been raining a lot, and it always always rains diagonal because of the wind.  Basically the weather here is similar to when I went to Italy, so it's no big deal.  My second mom angela left yesterday because the first mom, marisol, and daughter sol, came back.  It was nice having the other family here though, because I had something in common with all of them.  Basically I will probably be going over to their house to visit.  Also cuz they have the internet.  Muuuahahahahaha.  

Tuesday – 5-17 

      I didn't get my test back but I'm sure I will by next Tuesday.  Today we learned about the beginning of the Independence of Chile.  Guess what, it hailed this morning.  I was so surprised to see white stuff on the ground.  At first I thought it was snow, but then I looked closer and saw that it was hail.  My aunt Ligia was excited to see it because they usually don't get that here.  Now I know what that loud sound was when I sleeping this morning.  I really wanted it to be snow so I could have a snowball fight.  Oh well.  So yeah, it's really cold here now.  Colder than ever and the heat isn't on yet.  It reminds me of al's house from 10pm and later because they always turned off the heat.  I think it's probably in the 40's right now.  Yuck.  Now I wouldn't mind being in Michigan.  I ran into Mary today after my only class and we talked for awhile.  First she told me that we are going to practice our speech in front of the teacher this Friday, so now I really have to perfect that thing.  That's ok because I really don't have much else to do this week; especially since I'm not going to write that paper.  She was running around campus because she's decided to stay for an entire year.  I'm starting to really work on speaking and listening like I had wanted.  Now instead of going into my room I stay out in the living room and try to talk more than I did.  I figure I just need to be a little more confident when I talk.  My aunt Angela told me that she was in the states for 2 years and didn't really learn much because she spent her time with spanish speakers.  Which reminds me, Rocio told me we should have a day in all English, because she had done the same with Laura, the exchange student who studied here before I.  The thing is I want to do that when I'm with the kids of Angela, because some of them are learning English.  Plus the more the merrier.  Then I will understand their point of view.  Also Mary asked me if I would help her do a conversation hour kind of like how we have them at CMU.  I said I would do it because it will increase my contact of spanish because I'm sure they aren't fluent and we will probably have to speak in spanish as well.  I'm really looking forward to this weekend because Carola is coming and I'll probably get to go see Jose, Loreto, and Charlene and and.....Ivancito(thats little ivan the dog)!  It's been funny because since Sol came back her and Rocio have been fighting, but it's more like joking around.  I can tell they missed each other, but I'm sure that when Carola comes it'll get worse.  hahahahaha.    

Wednesday – 5-18

     The oldest daughter Carola came back today.  I had thought she was returning on Friday, but that's when her graduation ceremony is.  Basically, I had a pretty good day of classes.  They were interesting and when I came back I had almost the perfect conversation with Carola.  Meaning, that it flowed pretty well and I didn't have to ask twice to hear what she said.  After awhile I heard that we were going to have a party and was it ever.  There were over 25 people in this house's small living room, and I tell you it was hard to find a seat.  Then as so many people were talking at the same time I could barely follow the conversation.  Basically what I have found out is that I can handle discussions of 4 people or less more or less ok, but when there's more I get lost sometimes.  I guess that's something that will come with time; a lot of it.  I also discovered that Star Wars will be showing here in the mall.  I just hope it's in English with Spanish subtitles.  I want to hear how it is supposed to be heard and not in some translation that loses the feel.  

Thursday – 5-19

     After a most boring class I came home and ate.  I was suppose to help cook, but I had class.  Anyways, yes I want to learn how to cook some of the dishes here so that I can bring that knowledge back and cook a little more healthy.  This will be helpful for the rest of my life, and will assure myself that I won't be eating Mac & Cheese.  After dinner, the sisters and I played cards.  I tried to teach them spades but since we had already played a million games of Uno and Disorder they weren't really up for it.  It was fun though because Carola just could not pay attention.  She couldn't remember the rules and kept messing up.  

Sunday – 5-22

     You'll never believe this.  We finally got a dryer because it takes like a week to dry our clothes without one.  I didn't have a problem with not having one, but it seems that they are doing laundry nonstop.  When I woke up I happened to look out side to see what the weather was doing.  I was shocked to see that one third of the backyard had flooded to about 2 inches deep or so.  About 3 hours later I checked again and now half of the backyard was flooded.  I thought well, this must be Valdivia, but when I alerted my aunt Ligia about it she said the backyard has never flooded.  I don't know why nobody seemed to think ahead about this, but around 7p.m. the basement turned into a pool, and it was past knee deep.  The problem is that their are ground level windows in the basement that are wide open.  So once the water reached them, it just poured in.  I was in my room watching TV when I heard a noise from some machine.  I went outside to see that the backyard was completely flooded, and my uncle Mario was wading around in knee deep water to try and block the windows with whatever he could.  It was really dark and I could barely see all of this, so I went into the kitchen and saw a firefighter standing there which meant it was serious.  Then I walked to the living room where I saw a giant hose pumping water from the basement into the street.  It sure was impressionable.  It looked like the Trevy Fountain in Rome.  haha.  I just kept thinking of how ironic it was that we buy a dryer and then all this water comes from nowhere and says: "nothings gonna be dry now."  We lost our boiler and most of the wood to heat it.  So no heat, no hot water i suppose.  I do think that it will still work but I don't know for sure.  The reason for all of this you might ask?  Because it rains so much?  Not really, the cause is those stupid construction workers behind us.  Before the had built anything, there was a small lagoon that collected all the water and it was about 2 meters deep.  What they did was fill it all in blocking where the water normally drains to.  So now where does it drain?  To all the surrounding houses of course.  The neighbors to the right have no basement so the water just entered their house.  You would think that if you cover a frickin lagoon that you'd have some sort of drainage system made.  It just seems obvious, but I guess they are cheap.  I do know that they have basements in the houses they just built so maybe those flooded and they will see what they did.  I have some pictures of this in the photos section flood.

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