I look back on my posts(and my life) and realize how much less cynical I am today than I was six months ago. I'm proud of this. I think going abroad and living in BA provided so much more opportunity to really live and as a result enjoy life even more. I feel like this all really set in for me in Brazil, where I was surrounded by carefree -yet, not apathetic - people. The Brazilians have this attitude of loving life and not letting things get them down. So many of the Brazilians I met were the type of people who wouldn't complain about having to get up at 5 am to go to work, they'd just do it and joke around with their friends when they got there. They're the type of people who you see stripping their business clothes during their lunch break and jumping into the ocean with so much gusto! A lot of places I went, people thought I was brazilian and would start talking to me in portuguese. Sometimes, i'd understand and would respond in spanish/italian before i got out that i don't falo portugues. Other times, id just look confused and smile, and they'd be like honey, you ain't got any idea what i just said and laugh. And for that, I thank them because they always made light of it and had the patience to start speaking slower and try to help me understand. They didn't give up or get someone who speaks broken english to translate. In general, I've never seen so many people take that little bit of extra time to make a joke, smile, or care a little. I've really tried to adopt this. They say it takes three weeks to break a habit and form a new one. When I left after three weeks I definitely felt different and that I had gained an appreciation for their way of life and incorporated it into my own.

They say that Buenos Aires has the most beautiful people, I can't say this really stood out to me that much. I guess coming from NYC where everyone has their looks in check, it's not that striking. The people here definitely keep up with the fashion and take care of themselves; also, one in ten argentine women has plastic surgery. They also say that the people here are very vain and egotistical. This, I have noticed. I'm not talking about checking out your outfit in the store window, I'm talking about an overriding sense of superiority and haughtiness, a stereotype of the porteño. Por ejemplo, during dinner, when my host sister speaks, she stares at her reflection in the mirror across the table. She does this all the time. Whenever she opens her mouth, 

it's as if she were revealing some awe-inspiring solution to world peace.   She also often repeats simple phrases she just said in spanish in english, just to make sure rachel and I understand. Her dad always gets mad when she does this because the host families aren't supposed to speak to the students in english, but she says, "i just thought they should be able to understand what i was talking about." Yeah, she probably does win the crown for most poised and eloquent at our dinner table, when the only others are two rambling old people who don't make all that much sense when they speak and rachel and me, who speak spanish with a 6th grade vocabulary. 

I'd like to  mention that I love being here and I love the city. The people are wonderful and I enjoy their eccentricities. 

I've been here for 11 days now. At first, I would walk down the streets thinking i heard people speaking in some bad italian dialect I couldn't understand. Like when people are like, oh, my grandma from sicily 80 years ago always says blahblahblah.. and I never know what it means.  Argentines use a lot of the same intonations as the italians. My spanish has definitely improved, though not as much as i thought it would in a week and half (that's with 5 hours a day of intensive spanish M-F). I haven't been out around the city as much as I thought I would or as much as maybe I would have liked to. I know, I left saying I had no expectations, but obviously, I had a few... that I would travel and explore way more than I have. I guess it's just the first few days in a 5 month span so this shouldn't really affect how well I get to know the city. I haven't really found anyone to do things with.

The first week I didn't have internet or a phone, which was a strain on my 'i want to talk to you every day' parents. Understandable for the fact that I'm never at home and if we didn't speak on the phone, we'd never really talk. Plus, i like talking to them. Unfortunatley, Jorge is always in the common room where the wifi reaches so talking on skype always makes me feel awkward or is, outright, unwelcomed.

Things are good, I'm just getting over a cold. I went to the free clinic that argentines go to in Belgrano, where I live. This was an experience that I'm glad I had. Reassuring in case something bad happens and interesting to see as an aspect of socialized healthcare. The clinic was really nice and I barely had to wait to be seen. The doctor saw sat right up next to me on the examining table and got all up in my ears, nose, and mouth to see what was up. A few people came into the room while she was examining me, totally against HIPPA.. ya know. She wrote down so perscriptions, though no actual perscription needed to get meds, and then besos and suerte and sent me on my way.

i'm at work right now, trying to find robert rodriguez's phone number. Confused why he wasn't in the DGA, wikipedia helped me out and dropped this in:

Rodriguez co-directed Sin City (2005), an adaptation of the Frank Miller Sin City comic books; Quentin Tarantino also guest-directed a scene. During production in 2004, Rodriguez insisted that Miller directed the film with him because he considered the visual style of Miller's comic art to be just as important as his own in the film. However, the Directors Guild of America would not allow it, citing that only "legitimate teams" could share the director's credit (e.g. the Wachowski Brothers). Rodriguez chose to resign from the DGA, stating, "It was easier for me to quietly resign before shooting because otherwise I'd be forced to make compromises I was unwilling to make or set a precedent that might hurt the guild later on." By resigning from the DGA, Rodriguez was also forced to relinquish his director's seat on the film John Carter of Mars (2006) (at the time "A Princess of Mars" after the book on which it was based) for Paramount Pictures. Rodriguez had already signed on and had been announced as director of that film, planning to begin filming soon after completing Sin City.