And Bring Some Servilletas!

It´s been a while, eh?

Life isn´t very eventful these days. Parcials a.k.a. mid-terms are coming up, so I´m just trying to figure out how my school/teachers are going to handle mid-terms.

Yeah, and a day or two after my last blog post I became familiar with the British hospital here. It is quite possible to hurt yourself tripping up stairs. I was heading to breakfast in the hostel in Buenos Aires before we were going to leave on the boat for Buquebus on the way back to Uruguay when this happened, so it was very ill-timed. I had a water bottle in my right hand, so when I fell all my weight went on my left hand and I "traumatized" the joint. It healed pretty fast but I was left with the bruise for about a week and a half which hurt every time I tried to use my hand. I got to wear a sling for a few days and he wrapped it up for me too. It looked a bit dramatic for such a small wound. I survived though! I, also, picked up some new vocabulary as a lot of people in the British hospital don´t actually know a lot of English or at least they are very out of practice. Radiografías, sala de emergencia, and yueso are some and I found it funny no one knew what sling was in Spanish, but they gave me one to wear any way.

And the reason I waited till Uruguay to get it looked at is because I knew for sure where the British Hospital was in Uruguay and that they spoke English. I knew nothing at all about hospitals in Argentina. I just had Rachel help me with my jacket and carrying things and had to hold my hand out and away from the rest of my body for about 6 hours... but it all worked out. And to the lady who whispered to her husband in Spanish about me holding my hand out like a weird person... I heard and understood you. :P

Last thing, I am having to consider going back to the US sooner than I wanted. To make things less complicated: I´m having to drop my literature class that I said didn´t seem impossible before and it´s going to make me graduate in the summer now and not in the Spring. I was looking forward to being to graduate on time in the Spring of 2011 but now it will be Summer of 2011 unless I can talk to the Spanish department and get them to work with me. So, by staying the rest of the year I will probably have to graduate a little late and if I go back after this semester then I can make sure I graduate on time. I´d still become fluent in Spanish, eventually, if I´d just have to wait another year or so before I get to Mexico to start teaching English and if the other three years at UNCG have been any indication, I won´t be improving my speaking skills very much while I´m still in school. Choices. Edit: Just re-reading this and other posts I think it´s obvious which choice I was going to make.

Random: In my Communication and Culture class we read an article about Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Mulan. I read the entire article in an hour and a half (record!) AND understood it. (I love Disney in case I never mentioned it).

P.S. Servilletas are napkins. The title is one of our bad Spanglish jokes we make which are the stories of our lives down here. Example:

Me: Que te duele?/ What hurts?
Hayley: Este partido/ This game.
Me: Que? Parte?/ What? You mean 'part'?
Hayley: Partido!/ Game!
Me: OK, fui a un partido de fútbol ayer.... Entonces, 'parte'. / OK, I went to a soccer game yesterday.... So, you mean part.
Hayley: Oh, parte. You know what I mean!

We had a conversation just like this one almost two months ago over borracho and barato....