Lame And Loving It

March 29, 2013. Today I rolled out of bed around 8am. I had corn flakes for breakfast and my host mom went about cleaning the house like she does on weekends (or maybe everyday? No idea since I'm usually at training then). I spent most of the morning re-reading letters, responding to the new ones, looking up random Spanish words, spending 3 pesos on a text to Nate (which will be taken out of my allowance later but even without a response, was totally worth it... Though I don't actually know if he got it yet lol), playing Set (!!! out of practice already), listening to Christian Spanish music, suffering through a dog crying so bad for twenty minutes, attempting once more to figure out Prezi (nothin), doing sets of 10 push ups in my bathroom (every hour or so), looking at my peeling back (eeewwww, it's bad), drinking coffee, and blogging. My host mom gave me some warm soup thingy in a bowl (see picture below) that looks off-white with corn. Except it's sweet and that was totally not the consistency of corn. She said the word for it ("chaca") but it's not in my dictionary. Damn. It's delicious! But I'd love to know what I'm eating... Oh well. If she's trying to kill me, it'd be pretty easy while I'm still at this level of Spanish. Haha
Oh, I also may or may not have made my host mom and host sister something small for when I leave (see below). Totally lame but I really wanted to do something haha :). It says (or at least I think it says this... some grammar may be wrong there...), "To Carmen and Paola: I'm going to miss you! For five weeks! Thank you for everything! See you soon! From, Julie." Hahaha oh god I'm so awesome.
Around noon, we had lunch. Again, no clue what it was but it was good! Haha and a lot. I didn't finish it but even still, a short hour later, my host mother came into my room while I was reading with more "chaca." Lol I asked her if there was corn in it and she said yes! Lol no clue how she made corn feel that way... During lunch I tried to converse more with my host mom. I asked about what we were eating, told her about my plans to go to the caves tomorrow, mentioned how windy it is, etc. She would answer but never initiate a conversation herself. Oh well. I learned the word for breeze since I was totally saying the wrong word lol. I'll take it and count lunch as a success anyways :). I'm convinced that my host mom only eats lunch. I've never seen her eat breakfast or dinner but she always eats a lot at lunch. I don't know how she does it but she sure is skinny.
I've enjoyed this relaxing day. I did pace my room for a bit unsure of what to do since Paola has been watching TV all day but it's been okay. I'm super glad I got books on my iPad though; helps me get away a little bit which is nice. I do wish I had some Spanish books though. It would be a struggle but I almost hate going back and forth between English and Spanish so much when all I want to do is be a damn 10 in Spanish lol.
I found a totally cool setting on my camera!! Apparently I can take pictures that isolate a certain color (either green, blue, red, or yellow). Everything else in the picture will be black and white except for the certain color you choose. Love it and can't wait to play around with that.
I probably should've stayed lame and in my room because when I went outside, it got yucky. I sat on the floor and just listened for a bit while Jenny, Paola, and my host mom chatted. Then a man came over (he's been here before and might be Jenny's husband? Don't know). They started playing Dominoes and Delmar wanted to play cards. Again, confusing and I wasn't talking much. Then one of Paola's friends came over and she has absolutely no patience for me and my lack of Spanish. She talks really fast and doesn't enunciate. So when I said I don't understand, she just got in my face and talked eeeexxxtttrrraaa sssllloooowww with an attitude. Drove me nuts. At one point she was asking me how I move my ears and I said, "No se" which means, I don't know. She, of course, thought I was saying I didn't understand her. So she repeated the question (because if I had actually not understood her, repeating the same words would totally help me understand lol) 100x times, getting louder and more annoyed each time, before I finally (sorta) yelled a bit and said, "I understand you but I can't explain how I move my ears. I just can do it." Ugh. Lol I said I didn't want to play cards anymore and escaped to my room. Julio and Francis came soon after I went inside and I knew I shouldn't stay in my room long (only 3 more hours at this point until I could go in my room and close the door for the night... Is that bad that that excited me? Oops.). I guess I just get overwhelmed fast. And I hadn't spoken much Spanish today up until that point 3:30pm. I know I'm nervous for a new host family next week but maybe I'll do better. Hopefully I'll have someone like Paola to be my saving grace though...
I watched the trilogy of videos left on my iPad by my brother and sister and they brought the smile back. Goodness I miss them and their craziness. Love you Sammy and Jake.
Watching those must have been good luck too because as they ended, I heard the Lion King on Paola's TV. She was in the kitchen washing dishes so I went and asked her what movie she was watching (even though I knew; so sneaky) and she said she didn't know but she'd look after. When she did, she told me, and I said oh! I love that movie! To which she responded by inviting me to watch it with her (win!!). We did but it was very fuzzy so after ten short minutes, she got frustrated and asked if I knew what Nintendo was. ???!!!Yes!!! Haha she had Mario Kart and we played for so long! It was awesome! Right around 7:30pm we lost electricity though. Se fue la luz! Everyone yelled and we migrated outside with the adults. They were playing Dominoes by cellphone light but gave up pretty quickly. They chatted, laughed a lot, told jokes; I was mostly lost. My host mother made me eggs and potatoes for dinner and I went back out after. They were talking about some chick in a bikini that was super skimpy and went on and on and on about it lol. They then started talking about paying for something and suddenly, I was paying for everyone to go? To where? No clue lol. Then it was decided that if they went with me, no one would have to pay. What??? Oh god so lost haha. But they were laughing so hard, I couldn't help but laugh with (oh and the power came back on at some point. My host mom was yelling for me to do something with the bathroom but i was so lost. She kept repeating bano, bano and Jenny yelled in English, "bathroom!" I knew she had said bathroom but I had no idea what she was saying about it. I followed her and she took the lid off my toilet to check to make sure there was water. Then she ran my faucet, which stopped working and made funny noises for a minute. It came back brown at first but then normal again. Guess I gotta do that whenever we lose power?). Then they started talking about how crazy they all are. They asked me if it was true and I said yep! But I love it! They laughed some more and started throwing English words in with the Spanish. I started interacting and talking a bit more so they would know I understood. Jenny's husband (I was right) scooted next to me and said, no way, you're all crazy, not us. And I looked at him and said, "Ay no, soy loco tambien!" (I'm crazy too!). They seemed to enjoy that :)
They finally all left, saying goodbyes in Spanish and in English lol and now I must go to sleep. Tomorrow: Caves!! And a break from the crazies ;). Buenas noches.