DONE!

Well, today is officially my first day of summer (kind of...) vacation!! Yesterday I turned in my last final paper and gave my 15 minute presentation on how the scene changes in two Argentine documentaries show their different objectives...kind of technical for Spanish, but I survived. The presentation actually went really well, and I was so proud of myself after. I couldn't pronounce the name of one of the documentaries (which was obviously going to be a problem in an oral presentation), and the night before my host mom helped me practice the word, writing it out phonetically and with different accents to make it easier haha. I didn't really realize how stressed I had been until it was all over. I honestly can't believe all the writing, reading, and presenting I did in another language over the past couple of months. At the beginning of the semester I would have said it was absolutely impossible. I remember last semester actually crying in my Spanish professor's office when I found out I had to redo my first paper / she thought I shouldn't be in the class and told me my Spanish was horrible, the same day I found out I was accepted to my study abroad program. I used to spend hours and hours slaving away on 3 page papers. And yet I was successful writing 10 page papers here AND even more importantly gained so much confidence. I just now in the shower caught myself thinking in Spanish. So anyway, although I am still certainly not perfectly fluent, I've realized that my Spanish really has improved so much and I've picked up so many mannerisms and vocab words specific to Argentina. Now I feel like I can do anything academic-wise...next semester I'm taking my hardest major classes but they'll be in ENGLISH, so I'm not worried at all haha.

After my class yesterday my friend Kara and I went out to pizza and ice cream to celebrate. I was absolutely mentally exhausted, so I went home to try to take a siesta, but Skype and Michael Jackson's death were too distracting...speaking of MJ, my friend Ed from Madison has a choir concert with one of the universities here tonight and we're going to watch. They're singing a Michael Jackson song, which they had planned way beforehand, so that'll be interesting. Very sad. I'm listening to the Jackson 5 Greatest Hits right now :) Also in the news, the whole Governor Sanford and his Argentinian mistress thing was quite interesting. It's in the news here too, and I've been on the street in Palermo where the woman lives and everything. So bizarre that he was in the same city as me. I was telling my host mom about it and she made some comment about how Argentinian women are notorious for stealing husbands or something odd like that.

Last night was our last soccer practice. After, 3 other Americans and I went to this Northern Argentine (more indigenous, traditional) restaurant and I had the most delicious stone-bowl, wood fired casserole thing of sweet potato, cheese, corn, and honey. I slept in late this morning (on and off, awakening every time the phone rang, a door opened, someone's alarm went off, etc...it is hard to believe how loud this place is), then went to the gym for the last time because my membership is going to run out. Now I'm going shopping with an Argentine from my soccer team, and hopefully I'll finally buy some boots! We have a soccer game tomorrow, then the whole team is getting lunch after because some of the Americans are starting to leave already.

Other random things...I had my last day at my volunteering place Wednesday, which was kind of sad. I found an Oshkosh B'gosh kids shirt with stuff on it in English, but it must have been made here or somewhere foreign because it said something like "Happy campers are from THE Wisconsin." Anyway, I got excited about WI. I always find random Chicago Bulls t-shirts and such in the donated clothes, and whenever I pass someone on the street with a U.S. college shirt on it's also really exciting ha.

The legislative elections here are on Sunday. It's obligatory voting, and I guess all the bars and boliches shut down at 2 AM tomorrow night because of it. Apparently they've had the biggest campaigns for awhile, and you're always hearing about the elections and there are posters and propaganda everywhere. Fran was explaining some stuff about it this morning...very interesting. They still have gender-separated lines. They vote in schools, but you go into this classroom with all the windows blacked out, alone, pick up the ballot for whichever party you want, seal it in your envelope, and go back out. His older brother Pablo is "presidente de la mesa" for their district, which I guess is a volunteer position in which you kind of run the voting at the specific location or something. Everyone here has a DNI (like Social Security number...national ID), and they stamp it when you vote, so if you ever try to leave the country they check to make sure you've been voting. I was explaining that in the U.S. there are a lot of non-partisan, get out the vote, democracy type groups that publish unbiased info on candidates' platforms, etc. He said there's nothing like that here, he still doesn't know who he's going to vote for, and none of the young people believe in the system because there's so much fraud and "vote-stealing." For example, parties will persuade poor people to vote for them by busing them to their location or providing them lunch for their vote. Anyway, it is all very interesting and it will be cool to be here to see how it all plays out Sunday. The director of one of the documentaries I presented on is actually running for the House (diputado), as a very leftist candidate. His documentary is from the '70s but it is very famous and liberal, all about the oligarchy, oppression, Che Guevara, violence of the dictators, etc. He's very old now, and I had no idea he was running until yesterday morning crossing the huge 9 de julio on my way to my presentation I saw this big tent set up with loudspeakers, balloons, and people giving out pamphlets about his ideology.

Ok, well I'm going to be late to meet up for shopping....but now I'm late for everything so it's not that important...haha. Hasta luego.