dec. 20 - jan. 2

i am going home for christmas!

it is going to be truly weird to wake up in my parents' house after over a year away. it's strange to think that colorado springs has gone on without me--how dare people have lives while i'm away. i am most looking forward to the following: family, friends, the sound of birds singing (no, seriously), peanut butter (obv), pancakes from ihop, cast-iron cooking pans, underwear from victoria's secret, the fireplace (and the COLD for that matter), getting multiple things done in a single day, yakitori (food variety in general), and makeup for someone as pale as i am (which is nowhere to be found in argentina).

a typical use of traffic lanes in buenos aires:

(pic stolen from sonia's facebook album)

i have a job!

Damn, it feels good to be EMPLOYED (finally)! I’m two days into a student coordinator job at a spanish school, the one where I took a few weeks of class in july, in the midst of swine flu madness. I don’t have to travel all over town like I did to teach, the office has air conditioning, I get a desk and have to dress up a little. I’m drowned in details of course, but I’m getting the color-coding and system of various binders full of papers down. I like it a lot so far, and was thrilled to finally find a good job.

I can tell that this year is going to be crazy; for example, the subway workers have been on strike the past two days (as far as I know, they still are). And, when I made the journey home Thursday night, there was no electricity in my apartment. I came up to my door, key in hand, only to read a sign that said “NO HAY LUZ.” I don’t know why someone felt the need to post this on the door--since it’s pretty obvious right off the bat that the electricity’s out when you have to feel your way down the hall in the pitch black. I guessed it was posted by the gossipy old ladies in the my building, who were standing around at the base of the stairs with their flashlights, chattering about the light being off and when they supposed it might be back on. “There’s no light,” one told me excitedly. “Be careful when you unlock your door!” Big news.

This week has been rainy and grey, so I guess I had my eye out for black-and-white:

(vines growing from the top of a building in san telmo.)

Halloween

Halloween isn't very big here. I think I know why trick-or-treating never caught on (a street-entrance door, especially in an old neighborhood, generally leads not to someone's living room but a maze of inner hallways and a bunch of apartments. If someone rang my buzzer, I'd have to unlock three doors, go down two hallways and a flight of stairs to give them candy. Not happening.) but I can't figure out why costume parties aren't more popular. On the way to my friend Julia's house, I saw a person here and there dressed up, but they were all obviously foreign. We decided to go to one of the foreigner parties, held in a hostel that one of her friends owns. She was dressed as Keith Richards and I went as Lady Gaga. Here's me as Gaga. With Sonia as Rihanna (I don't have a picture of Julia's Keith-ness, which is a shame because her costume was pretty cool). (Taken when she visited me about a month ago: we ALMOST had a costume party ourselves, and got just as far as dressing up. But that's a different post.)

I wonder if the real Gaga has problems with her gums being pinker than her lips. It's a little freaky, I think.

Anyway, the hostel party for me was a bit of a flop. I was over partying with obnoxious American college students when I myself WAS an obnoxious American college student. God knows I no longer have the patience for cross-dressing college boys in tinsel wigs drunkenly singing to the Spice Girls, and girls dressing up as sexy _____s (fill in the blanks. Remember when they talked about this in Mean Girls? Totally true.). Alrightalright I know I dressed up as a singer known for never wearing pants, but come ON. Sexy police officer? Sexy Roman (open toga with gold bra)? Sexy pirate? Funny. Anyway, I called it an earlyish night, making sure to turn the right way when I left the hostel, so that I might avoid catching a cab on Godoy Cruz (a street known for its transvestite prostitutes). Always good advice, but especially so when one is dressed as Lady Gaga.