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So, YouTube is being really awesome today and giving me all these great suggestions for Chilean cumbia songs. Hence the title.


So, this has been a pretty good week. It was a nice break after my last week with those 3 tests.

On Monday, we made dinner as a small group and then registered for classes. I'm signed up for a lot easier schedule than this semester. 3 Anth classes (might switch out of one of those cuz the prof is supposed to be ridiculous), 2 credits of volleyball (gonna take that with Jenna), and a Shakespeare class (this semester's for funsies class). Plus my double load of research.


Tuesday was a big day that didn't start off so great. I procrastinated my way out of half my research by talking to Evan, the anthropology guy I mentioned meeting in my previous entry. I really like Evan for 2 reasons: he's super nice, and he has a girlfriend he absolutely adores. I'm a bit hesitant to develop a strong friendship with him because I don't know if he's one of those people who will be glued to his girlfriend when she comes back from studying abroad. I don't want to waste my time if I won't be able to hang out with him without them being all over each other when she gets back. So, we'll see. I think Evan really likes spending time with me, too, though haha. I think part of it is that he doesn't have a lot to do with his girlfriend gone (hence my glued-together concern), but he's always happy to hang out. We shall see.

About research... there was a reason I let Evan talk through half of my time. I've been hating it lately. I keep hitting dead ends, feeling like I have no clue what I'm doing, hating it, etc. Not a good experience. So I met with my research adviser Tuesday, and it was wonderful. I'm so glad he's mentoring us. He was completely reassuring and nice and made me feel a lot better and gave me suggestions for changing my approach. After that, I mentioned that his ethics and rationalization research had looked really interesting to me, and we ended up talking about his research and scholarships and my future. It was wonderful to get to talk to him about his stuff (which I really do find interesting), and it was amazing to know someone cared about me. He took a genuine interest in my questions about my future and not knowing what to do and how to help me... it was just something I didn't expect, having someone care. So yeah, that was really nice. Made me feel a lot better.

I went for a long walk after that (I really needed to get some of that research frustration out) and couldn't get out into some wild without people, and that really bugged me. I needed a dose of back home, where there aren't people around for miles. Also found that ironic given that I never had that problem last semester in a city of 6 million... I never felt the need to get away like I do here. I think the problem is that we haven't seen the sun for about a week here. That always brings me down. I'm solar-powered, I need my sun.

Then I had a Spanish group meeting. Let it be known, I HATE working in groups where you actually have to work together. I don't mind doing my own part and checking my work against other people's or doing the same individual work at the same time, but I mind when my grade depends on their work. So yeah, the two that did show up were late, and then two of them didn't e-mail me their responses until an hour before midnight. NEVER. AGAIN.

Oh, there was also TTM Tuesday. (Lawlz that was a big day.) We watched a bit of the election and had lighter conversations. It worked out pretty nicely, I think. Always good to see zombie Jacob and Peter.




On Wednesday, we lost another hockey game. Someone whacked my hand really hard with their stick, enough so that it bled and it's bruised now. 'Sall good, though. We played a lot better, only lost 3-0 this time around. My most boring class got out really early, so I hung around and talked with Evan before his next class. (Lol he's just such a nice kid.) Jacob S. came over and punched me on the arm for a yellow car supposedly out the window before disappearing. Oh, and then that night Evan asked me for help on his Spanish since it was too late her time to skype his girlfriend, and I ended up helping him until midnight.




Thursday I was bored to death in Anth. Whew that was a hard class to stay awake through. I slept through my office hours before it cuz I was tired from staying up helping Evan, but I made some progress on research later. Jenna and I had dinner with Brittney (which was awesome, I only spent $3.17) and then went over and watched a movie with Kristyn and her kittens. Kristyn and I also got into a play-fight with cardboard rolls and had fun. I love that about Kristyn. Most people would just freak out and call me immature if I started beating them up with cardboard instead of doing it back.



Today was Friday. Hung out with Michael (Chinese conversation partner) for the first time in several weeks, that was nice. Went to a coffee place and listened to some jazz with Nadine and Evan and friends (including a guy from my Bio lab who turns out to be pretty nice). Had a great talk with my professor earlier. Knocked out my presentation in his class and then went in to his office hours. Learned that, despite his blue eyes and almost blonde hair, his ethnicity is Hispanic. He grew up the only white kid where he lived and had the whole poor thing going on. Related to him on that second part. It was really nice to actually learn about him as a person, anyway. It's not as frequent that he shares about himself, and he did a lot of it today. 'Twas good.

I am doing a very stupid thing staying up late and writing this. Good. Night.