Horn Tooting (with a note of sad violin)

So, after all the excitement of yesterday’s Argentinathon, what could possibly compare in splendor for a lovable nerd like myself except...midterms?! The emotional riot of ignoring the books, guilt-tripping myself, cramming all morning and taking my first in-class Spanish midterm. I’ve taken dozens, maybe, of midterms in Spanish, but it occurred to me that for the first time the kids asking the professor questions about the test were asking about *content* and I was up the linguistic creek if I needed to know how to say something not already in my little brain. After two hours of impromptu essay-writing I was feeling pretty good about myself. On a day to day basis it’s hard to see if my Spanish is improving or not, but to just be able to spill out explanations of cultural theory for a couple of hours would’ve almost killed me before I left the US. Sweet...

Poor Randy, on the other hand, passed a beautiful morning back in the good old U.S of A, doing some stolen document replacement. the experience itself was kind of interesting, if not really very rewarding. passing by the buildings next door with the kids spray painting “(expletive) USA”, through the 5 layers of security, body scans, x-rays, and into the little white “consular affairs” box crammed with screaming, crying, pleading humanity crawling up the walls and hanging from the ceiling. several hours and several disinterested embassy personnel later, still no passport but at least it will be mailed at great expense.

Well, the maté water’s getting cold, so we’re onto a congratulatory/conciliatory dinner.



chau,

anna & randy