Rain Delay
It's obvious that my posts are getting farther and farther apart and less and less funny. This is because after almost 2 months, everything seems more normal. It's normal that when you are walking you have to be on the alert for the dog shit all over the side walk, it's normal that you greet every single person individually when you enter a room, and it's normal that life is a constant search for moneda and small bills. The only exception is guys kissing guys when they greet, that will never be normal.
I'm slowly getting more entrenched with the Argentinians whereas before it was only the other exchange students. For example, yesterday after soccer practice I went with a group of players to a cafeteria type thing and we shot the breeze for an hour or so. Still, it's hard to understand them but if I keep doing this type of thing there is a possibility I could pick it up.
Random News: Eloise Mumford is going to be appearing in a new t.v. series based on the movie Crash. That's pretty fucking cool when somebody you know well is on t.v.
The students of San Andrés are of the highest class in Buenos Aires. Tuition is about $700 US/month, which is like $2,100 to them, and multiply that by 8 months or so. Although that seems comparable to a private school in the US, the cost of a public university education in Argentina is zero, the state pays for it. So compare 18,000 to zero and you'll find that it is infinetly larger. Whenever I talk about the price of an education in the US, foreigners are astounded at the cost. $45,000 to go to Harvard for 1 year is unfathomable to them.
The internal soccer league continues. Our name of Inter Urmum was rejected and we are back to Barassalona. Numerous Argentinians have asked me if I am aware that I spelled Barcelona wrong, and are generally quite confused by the name. I think that makes it even funnier. We are appartantly in el Grupo de Muerte, (Group of Death) which is the name coined each world cup for the group with the best teams because only two of the four can move on. So the group is us, the champions from last year, the champions from last semester, and a new team called the Mercenaries that stole a bunch of best players from various teams. Maybe we can pull some upsets. I've included some pictures for your viewing entertainment.
Rain Delay: Today's soccer match wasn't canceled due to harsh weather conditions on the soccer pitch. In Washington the weather conditions would be described as fair. It's about 50 degrees and mist/sprinkling on the Washington Standardized Rain Scale (Downpour, dump, pour, cascade, shower, spray, drizzle, sprinkle, mist.) I'm not complaining because playing in the rain isn't exactly fun, it's just interesting to note the difference. Tonight the men's and women's soccer teams are having a dinner/party together so I'll have to be on top of my game tonight. Girl soccer players are the typically the second hottest players just after beach volley ball players, plus their Argentineans which bumps them up to a whole new level.
Great news regarding grades. I thought that my grades would get converted directly from the 1-10 scale of Argentina. This would have been devastating because the median is a 6.5 or converted a 2.6, but I just found out that if I get an 8 or higher I get a 4.0, a 7 is a 3.7 and a 6 is a 3.3. This will take some of the stress off studying down here for sure.
Language: One of the exchange students is from Italy (of royal blood in fact, his last name is like 5 words long), and when he came to Argentina one month ago he didn't speak any Spanish. However, since Italian and Spanish are so similar, after about 2 weeks he told me he could talk to people fairly well, and now after a month he is perfectly conversational. Portuguese and Spanish are also very similar as well. According to Argentineans when they talk to Brasilians the Brasileans can understand them, but they can't understand the Brasileans. Portuguese is definately a language I would be interested in learning in terms of business becuase Brasil is becoming a power house in South America and they recently descovered a huge amount of oil. The country itself is huge with a ton of natural resources and the population is 5 times that of Argentina. Brasil is really coming up in the world.
I suppose that's all. Classes are all going really well, at least for now, and midterms are in two weeks. Soccer is going as well with both the school team and the inter-school tournament. I'm constantly meeting more and more Argentineans which will help me improve my Castellano and we're having a party next week. later.
I'm slowly getting more entrenched with the Argentinians whereas before it was only the other exchange students. For example, yesterday after soccer practice I went with a group of players to a cafeteria type thing and we shot the breeze for an hour or so. Still, it's hard to understand them but if I keep doing this type of thing there is a possibility I could pick it up.
Random News: Eloise Mumford is going to be appearing in a new t.v. series based on the movie Crash. That's pretty fucking cool when somebody you know well is on t.v.
The students of San Andrés are of the highest class in Buenos Aires. Tuition is about $700 US/month, which is like $2,100 to them, and multiply that by 8 months or so. Although that seems comparable to a private school in the US, the cost of a public university education in Argentina is zero, the state pays for it. So compare 18,000 to zero and you'll find that it is infinetly larger. Whenever I talk about the price of an education in the US, foreigners are astounded at the cost. $45,000 to go to Harvard for 1 year is unfathomable to them.
The internal soccer league continues. Our name of Inter Urmum was rejected and we are back to Barassalona. Numerous Argentinians have asked me if I am aware that I spelled Barcelona wrong, and are generally quite confused by the name. I think that makes it even funnier. We are appartantly in el Grupo de Muerte, (Group of Death) which is the name coined each world cup for the group with the best teams because only two of the four can move on. So the group is us, the champions from last year, the champions from last semester, and a new team called the Mercenaries that stole a bunch of best players from various teams. Maybe we can pull some upsets. I've included some pictures for your viewing entertainment.
Rain Delay: Today's soccer match wasn't canceled due to harsh weather conditions on the soccer pitch. In Washington the weather conditions would be described as fair. It's about 50 degrees and mist/sprinkling on the Washington Standardized Rain Scale (Downpour, dump, pour, cascade, shower, spray, drizzle, sprinkle, mist.) I'm not complaining because playing in the rain isn't exactly fun, it's just interesting to note the difference. Tonight the men's and women's soccer teams are having a dinner/party together so I'll have to be on top of my game tonight. Girl soccer players are the typically the second hottest players just after beach volley ball players, plus their Argentineans which bumps them up to a whole new level.
Great news regarding grades. I thought that my grades would get converted directly from the 1-10 scale of Argentina. This would have been devastating because the median is a 6.5 or converted a 2.6, but I just found out that if I get an 8 or higher I get a 4.0, a 7 is a 3.7 and a 6 is a 3.3. This will take some of the stress off studying down here for sure.
Language: One of the exchange students is from Italy (of royal blood in fact, his last name is like 5 words long), and when he came to Argentina one month ago he didn't speak any Spanish. However, since Italian and Spanish are so similar, after about 2 weeks he told me he could talk to people fairly well, and now after a month he is perfectly conversational. Portuguese and Spanish are also very similar as well. According to Argentineans when they talk to Brasilians the Brasileans can understand them, but they can't understand the Brasileans. Portuguese is definately a language I would be interested in learning in terms of business becuase Brasil is becoming a power house in South America and they recently descovered a huge amount of oil. The country itself is huge with a ton of natural resources and the population is 5 times that of Argentina. Brasil is really coming up in the world.
I suppose that's all. Classes are all going really well, at least for now, and midterms are in two weeks. Soccer is going as well with both the school team and the inter-school tournament. I'm constantly meeting more and more Argentineans which will help me improve my Castellano and we're having a party next week. later.
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