When I first started classes at UBA, I loved it. I loved the students' crazy haircuts and the way they all readied their cigarettes at the end of lecture so they could light them the second they stepped out of the classroom. I loved the arguments about whether to legalize abortion written on the doors of the bathroom stalls and the way everyone knew the difference between the syntagmatic and the paradigmatic axes. I even thought it was kind of charming that half the desks in any given classroom were broken.
By the time my classes ended last week, I couldn't even sit through an entire lecture. For one thing, my Filo y Letras teoricos were four hours long. It kind of makes sense to do it that way, since students live up to two hours away from the university and have to make the commute for every class. But seriously. Four. Hours. Also, the lectures were recorded and the transcripts were sold for 3.75 pesos, so the only thing that got me to class in the first place was an abstract sense of duty.
And then there was the fact that nothing ever happened on time — or even consistently late, which at least would have meant I had some time frame to shoot for. No, some days class started 10 minutes late, sometimes 45. Sometimes it was canceled because of a massive protest downtown, sometimes because the students had staged a revolt, taken over the building, and shut off the power. I'm not kidding, it happened once.
Last Friday, I went to go sign up for my exam at the Filo y Letras building. I went to the window on the first floor that FLACSO had told us to look for, carrying the materials FLACSO had told us to bring. When I got to the front of the line, the man told me I was missing a piece of paper and needed to go to the third floor. I went to the third floor, where a secretary harangued me for not knowing who had initially enrolled me in my class and then sent me to the second floor. The people at the second floor sent me back to the first floor, where the man I had first talked to told me to go to the next window over. I waited in line and asked the people there what the fuck was going on. They told me to tell the man at the first window I was an exchange student. I went back to the first window, said I was an exchange student, and finally got piece of paper I had come for. By the time I left I would have been happy if the Filo building, which looks like it's going to fall apart, made good on its threat and imploded.
I wouldn't change anything about this semester, and that includes the two classes I took at UBA. But I can't wait to get back to Yale, and the slightly ridiculous way everything I could possibly want appears before I know I want it. You mean I don't have to go buy my midterm? The readings for class are in the packet I bought at the beginning of the semester? There's toilet paper in the bathrooms? Free Thai food during exams?
Only about 20 percent of students who start at UBA end up graduating, and I can now say I know why. Going to class takes superhuman patience and effort. I'm not sure I would be able to keep it up for the 5+ years it takes to graduate. UBA students have my utmost respect. But I'm glad that, as of a week from next Tuesday, I'll no longer be one of them.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Ramblings Produced by Three Glasses of Quilmes Stout
Today I handed in my final paper for my FLASCO class. It was 12 pages, in Spanish, and it took me something like 12 hours to write — easily 8 of which were spent reading celebrity gossip on the Internet. (Madonna and Guy Ritchie? What's up with that?) That begins to explain how incredibly bad it was. Then again, it was better than the story I wrote earlier in the semester about a man who walked through a mirror and into a room where Hitler and Videla were plotting to take over the world.
So anyway, now all I have left is UBA assignments. For Genocidas, a paper that Cassie and I are writing on the ramifications of colonialism in Algeria and Rwanda, and for Literatura Latinoamericana II an oral final, which I've chosen to do on Horacio Quiroga. (Never mind that I skipped the lecture on him and have yet to read a single one of his stories. There's apparently one about a bug that lives in pillows and kills people. He sounds awesome.)
So far today, to procrastinate, I have watched "The Simpsons" online, eaten ice cream, and talked with my host mom for an hour about what she should do when she visits New York in few weeks. I also went out to dinner for Daniel's going-away celebration, but I am in denial about that and will pretend it didn't happen. Although the beans were delicious.
This entry had no point except to not be doing real work.
So anyway, now all I have left is UBA assignments. For Genocidas, a paper that Cassie and I are writing on the ramifications of colonialism in Algeria and Rwanda, and for Literatura Latinoamericana II an oral final, which I've chosen to do on Horacio Quiroga. (Never mind that I skipped the lecture on him and have yet to read a single one of his stories. There's apparently one about a bug that lives in pillows and kills people. He sounds awesome.)
So far today, to procrastinate, I have watched "The Simpsons" online, eaten ice cream, and talked with my host mom for an hour about what she should do when she visits New York in few weeks. I also went out to dinner for Daniel's going-away celebration, but I am in denial about that and will pretend it didn't happen. Although the beans were delicious.
This entry had no point except to not be doing real work.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Argentines — They're Just Like US!
Okay, I'll admit it. Sometimes I spend days thinking about the titles before my posts before I write them, and this was one of those times. Unfortunately, chances are that no one who reads this blog — hi Daddy and Grandma! — will get the joke, since they are all far too dignified to read US Weekly.
(For the record, US Weekly has a section called Stars — They're Just Like US! that has pictures of movie stars doing things like pumping gas and buying coffee at Starbucks. I know your IQ probably just dropped by like five points. Sorry. Y'all are smart. You can handle it.)
Anyway. On Saturday night, I had my first, and possibly my only, playdate with Real Live Argentines. This was a phenomenal achievement, since I have been here for four months and made exactly zero Real Live Argentine friends. But on Tuesday after my last Genocides class, I was invited along with Cassie (the other exchange student in the class) to a bar by Juli and Ceci, the Argentine girls we've been talking to in our práctico for awhile now. They introduced themselves about a month ago by offering us candy, and we started talking.
We planned to meet at Acabar, a bar in Palermo where patrons play board games while eating dinner and drinking beers, at 8.30 on Saturday. I got there at 8.35 and Cassie got there 5 minutes later. Juli showed with her twin sister a little past 9, and Ceci didn't get there until almost 9.30. I should have known better than to get there on time. In Argentina, half an hour late is early.
We got a table in the corner of the restaurant, ordered dinner, and talked. And talked. We didn't leave until 2.30 in the morning, at which point we had covered subjects ranging from fake IDs to Ceci's upcoming trip to Europe to the (inexhaustible) topic of the differences between American universities and UBA. All in all, the only really notable part was how similar it was to a dinner between friends in the United States.
The Argentines gossiped about UBA students and professors, and advised Ceci to bring rain gear to London. The one really interesting part, especially from my extranjera perspective, was when Ceci and Juli told us about the interviews they conducted, for a seminar they're taking together, of people who live by the Olimpo, which was one of the biggest detention centers in the city during the dictatorship. Juli described one man she interviewed who actually walled off his balcony so he wouldn't be able to hear the screams of the people being tortured across the street.
Then we split a chocolate cake and talked about the best brands of alfajor.
I think it's taken so long to make Argentine friends because I'm only just starting to really be able to not only talk in Spanish, but to communicate. It's taken me this long to feel comfortable enough with grammar and vocabulary that I also have a personality when I speak. Last week for the first time I got a joke from a commercial on TV that was about the words being spoken, not just about physical comedy.
On Saturday night, I was so tired that around 1.30 I momentarily thought I would pass out, but I held my own in the conversation. Too bad I'm about to leave. But I'm glad I made some Real Live Argentine friends before I do.
(For the record, US Weekly has a section called Stars — They're Just Like US! that has pictures of movie stars doing things like pumping gas and buying coffee at Starbucks. I know your IQ probably just dropped by like five points. Sorry. Y'all are smart. You can handle it.)
Anyway. On Saturday night, I had my first, and possibly my only, playdate with Real Live Argentines. This was a phenomenal achievement, since I have been here for four months and made exactly zero Real Live Argentine friends. But on Tuesday after my last Genocides class, I was invited along with Cassie (the other exchange student in the class) to a bar by Juli and Ceci, the Argentine girls we've been talking to in our práctico for awhile now. They introduced themselves about a month ago by offering us candy, and we started talking.
We planned to meet at Acabar, a bar in Palermo where patrons play board games while eating dinner and drinking beers, at 8.30 on Saturday. I got there at 8.35 and Cassie got there 5 minutes later. Juli showed with her twin sister a little past 9, and Ceci didn't get there until almost 9.30. I should have known better than to get there on time. In Argentina, half an hour late is early.
We got a table in the corner of the restaurant, ordered dinner, and talked. And talked. We didn't leave until 2.30 in the morning, at which point we had covered subjects ranging from fake IDs to Ceci's upcoming trip to Europe to the (inexhaustible) topic of the differences between American universities and UBA. All in all, the only really notable part was how similar it was to a dinner between friends in the United States.
The Argentines gossiped about UBA students and professors, and advised Ceci to bring rain gear to London. The one really interesting part, especially from my extranjera perspective, was when Ceci and Juli told us about the interviews they conducted, for a seminar they're taking together, of people who live by the Olimpo, which was one of the biggest detention centers in the city during the dictatorship. Juli described one man she interviewed who actually walled off his balcony so he wouldn't be able to hear the screams of the people being tortured across the street.
Then we split a chocolate cake and talked about the best brands of alfajor.
I think it's taken so long to make Argentine friends because I'm only just starting to really be able to not only talk in Spanish, but to communicate. It's taken me this long to feel comfortable enough with grammar and vocabulary that I also have a personality when I speak. Last week for the first time I got a joke from a commercial on TV that was about the words being spoken, not just about physical comedy.
On Saturday night, I was so tired that around 1.30 I momentarily thought I would pass out, but I held my own in the conversation. Too bad I'm about to leave. But I'm glad I made some Real Live Argentine friends before I do.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Nicky's Visit
Nicky left yesterday after a brief but awesome visit. He got to experience the EC joys of a cross-town collectivo ride, a parrillada complete with brains, intestines, and a truly alarming liver patterned with lumpy yellow fat, and a chaotic afternoon at UBA.
And to be fair, there are plenty of unconditional joys about Buenos Aires, too. Ordering two kilos of ice cream for delivery and then eating them straight from the container, watching old women in turtlenecks doing a traditional scarf dance at the Feria de Mataderos, and of course understanding the power of the EC to make the worst (and the poopiest) situation better.
The best part about his visit for me was having him understand what it's like to live abroad. He got to eat spreadable cheese, cereal that looks like gerbil food, and Frutigran (the world's best cookie — kind of like a crunchy digestive biscuit. Which is kind of like a fat, round graham cracker with more whole grains).
He even came out with us twice, including once to Amerika, the giant gay dance club that is a cross between Sodom and Gomorrah and the best place ever. He was amused but not at all fazed by the dozens of drag queens, which makes perfect sense given that we live in San Francisco and have a summer house just outside Provincetown. I think his favorite part, actually, was the guy with a single, rattail-cum-dreadlock running down the length of his back, who was hitting on one of my friends. (He was male, she was female — really it's not so much a gay club as it is omnisexual).
Come to think of it, Nicky probably has a slightly warped view of this city now, since the next day we went to Tierra Santa. Tierra Santa is an amusement-park-style recreation of Jerusalem made entirely out of plaster and styrofoam, where the main attraction is a 36-foot plaster statue of Jesus that rises from a plaster mountain once every hour to the tune of Handel's Messiah, blinks his mechanical eyes a couple of times, and then descends. It is truly one of the strangest, least tasteful places on Earth. I went there twice last week.
But then again, he got to see why I like it so much here — a combination of my friends and a growing (although still embryonic) understanding of a city that is never boring and always surprising.
And to be fair, there are plenty of unconditional joys about Buenos Aires, too. Ordering two kilos of ice cream for delivery and then eating them straight from the container, watching old women in turtlenecks doing a traditional scarf dance at the Feria de Mataderos, and of course understanding the power of the EC to make the worst (and the poopiest) situation better.
The best part about his visit for me was having him understand what it's like to live abroad. He got to eat spreadable cheese, cereal that looks like gerbil food, and Frutigran (the world's best cookie — kind of like a crunchy digestive biscuit. Which is kind of like a fat, round graham cracker with more whole grains).
He even came out with us twice, including once to Amerika, the giant gay dance club that is a cross between Sodom and Gomorrah and the best place ever. He was amused but not at all fazed by the dozens of drag queens, which makes perfect sense given that we live in San Francisco and have a summer house just outside Provincetown. I think his favorite part, actually, was the guy with a single, rattail-cum-dreadlock running down the length of his back, who was hitting on one of my friends. (He was male, she was female — really it's not so much a gay club as it is omnisexual).
Come to think of it, Nicky probably has a slightly warped view of this city now, since the next day we went to Tierra Santa. Tierra Santa is an amusement-park-style recreation of Jerusalem made entirely out of plaster and styrofoam, where the main attraction is a 36-foot plaster statue of Jesus that rises from a plaster mountain once every hour to the tune of Handel's Messiah, blinks his mechanical eyes a couple of times, and then descends. It is truly one of the strangest, least tasteful places on Earth. I went there twice last week.
But then again, he got to see why I like it so much here — a combination of my friends and a growing (although still embryonic) understanding of a city that is never boring and always surprising.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Why I Will Never Be As Cool as An Argentine
When I'm in places with a lot of tourists, I like to play the game "Argentine or American?" Sometimes, it's easy, like when the Americans are dressed in "University of Kansas" sweatshirts and madras shorts, or when they're talking loudly about whether they have time to visit Puerto Madero before lunch.
But even when I can't hear what people are saying, I'm right most of the time. It's not because Americans are (necessarily) easy to spot — despite the stereotypes of Americans abroad, the United States is a diverse country. Some people blend in better than others. The real giveaway is that the Argentines look so Argentine.
I've been trying to figure out exactly what that means. It's definitely nothing inherent to people's physical appearance. There's almost no racial diversity here, and everyone looks like they came over three months ago from Italy or Spain: dark hair, light skin, brown eyes. Ojos claros and pelo rubio are rare and highly prized. (And, for me, part of the package that makes me feel like I have a blinking "Foreigner" sign on my back, although there are some people of Germanic descent here as well.)
Then there are the obvious things: mullets, skinny jeans, graphic t-shirts with nonsensical phrases in English. (Merry Christmas for you Geisha? WTF?) There might be a rule that Argentines need to buy a pair of Chuck Taylors upon entering high school, and maybe one in every four young people has some kind of facial piercing. The most popular one is the Monroe, a little black stud around the smile parentheses, meant to look like a mole. My personal favorite clothing item are bombachas, which are cotton sweatpants that puff out at the top and are tight around the ankles. Basically, Hammer Pants.
Sometimes I try to dress like an Argentine. My Argentine disguise, as I call it, usually involves leggings and a black skirt or dress with a cardigan and a scarf. I almost always wear my Chucks, to the point that their insteps are shredded and they're almost sandals. Also, the mecha (it's purple now!) helps.
The best way I can describe it is to say the entire 20-something population of Argentina dresses like American hipsters. It's like the 1980s were resurrected with a sense of irony and a slightly muted palette. Of course, for people like Mom who don't know a hipster from a hippie, that isn't very helpful. In any case there's still something missing. My disguise never works.
But even when I can't hear what people are saying, I'm right most of the time. It's not because Americans are (necessarily) easy to spot — despite the stereotypes of Americans abroad, the United States is a diverse country. Some people blend in better than others. The real giveaway is that the Argentines look so Argentine.
I've been trying to figure out exactly what that means. It's definitely nothing inherent to people's physical appearance. There's almost no racial diversity here, and everyone looks like they came over three months ago from Italy or Spain: dark hair, light skin, brown eyes. Ojos claros and pelo rubio are rare and highly prized. (And, for me, part of the package that makes me feel like I have a blinking "Foreigner" sign on my back, although there are some people of Germanic descent here as well.)
Then there are the obvious things: mullets, skinny jeans, graphic t-shirts with nonsensical phrases in English. (Merry Christmas for you Geisha? WTF?) There might be a rule that Argentines need to buy a pair of Chuck Taylors upon entering high school, and maybe one in every four young people has some kind of facial piercing. The most popular one is the Monroe, a little black stud around the smile parentheses, meant to look like a mole. My personal favorite clothing item are bombachas, which are cotton sweatpants that puff out at the top and are tight around the ankles. Basically, Hammer Pants.
Sometimes I try to dress like an Argentine. My Argentine disguise, as I call it, usually involves leggings and a black skirt or dress with a cardigan and a scarf. I almost always wear my Chucks, to the point that their insteps are shredded and they're almost sandals. Also, the mecha (it's purple now!) helps.
The best way I can describe it is to say the entire 20-something population of Argentina dresses like American hipsters. It's like the 1980s were resurrected with a sense of irony and a slightly muted palette. Of course, for people like Mom who don't know a hipster from a hippie, that isn't very helpful. In any case there's still something missing. My disguise never works.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Culture Shock
Nicky graduated from high school today. Although I was grumpy about coming home, I'm really happy I did. I'm not sure when, exactly, I lost my status as family smart-kid to him, but he totally deserves it, and I'm really proud of him. Also, the family dinner tonight was in itself worth both legs of the 24-hour trip. My mom coined the term "slut-worm," which — if it doesn't become a standard insult — will at least go down in history as making Nicky laugh so hard he cried for the first time in years.
Being back in the United States is strange, if only because everything feels very routine. When I first got off the airplane I was totally overwhelmed by how big and loud everything was — people, colors, food portions. I went to Starbucks during my layover and started laughing out loud at the croissants in the pastry case, easily as big as four medialunas. Of course, that was in Texas, where everything is bigger than in the rest of the US anyway. After the initial shock, I've found it pretty easy to get used to being back.
In the airport, I couldn't get over how dowdy everyone looked in their sweatpants and matching mission t-shirts. But having been here for a couple of days now, I think that was because I was in an airport in Texas, not because Americans as a whole dress badly. The San Francisco hippie-chic rich kids at Nicky's graduation definitely don't — I had major celos of a lot of the dresses on Nicky's classmates. And there are a lot fewer mullets.
The one really weird moment was when Mom and I went to the Mission to get pre-made empanada dough. While we were eating lunch, in a Peruvian-Colombian hole in the wall, a woman holding a case of religious-themed bracelets and rosaries came in and started going from table to table selling them. It was so Argentine, or at least Latin American, and when she spoke to me in English I couldn't figure out what was going on.
Then, after lunch, we went to get the empanada dough at an Italian market called Lucca's. I had found it on the Internet by typing pre-made empanada dough" into Google, and even though the store that came up was clearly Italian, I figured it probably sold empanada ingredients just because it was in the Mission. It wasn't until we got there and discovered the aisle with six different brands of mate and three of dulce de leche that I realized it was actually Italian by way of Argentina. If it's possible to get nostalgic for a place you've only been away from for two days, then the sight of all the varieties of yerba and the alfajores de maicena definitely did it for me.
In any case, I'm glad to be going back to Argentina soon. The one thing I can say for sure is that, culture shock or not, this visit has made me sure I'm not ready for the semester to be over yet.
Being back in the United States is strange, if only because everything feels very routine. When I first got off the airplane I was totally overwhelmed by how big and loud everything was — people, colors, food portions. I went to Starbucks during my layover and started laughing out loud at the croissants in the pastry case, easily as big as four medialunas. Of course, that was in Texas, where everything is bigger than in the rest of the US anyway. After the initial shock, I've found it pretty easy to get used to being back.
In the airport, I couldn't get over how dowdy everyone looked in their sweatpants and matching mission t-shirts. But having been here for a couple of days now, I think that was because I was in an airport in Texas, not because Americans as a whole dress badly. The San Francisco hippie-chic rich kids at Nicky's graduation definitely don't — I had major celos of a lot of the dresses on Nicky's classmates. And there are a lot fewer mullets.
The one really weird moment was when Mom and I went to the Mission to get pre-made empanada dough. While we were eating lunch, in a Peruvian-Colombian hole in the wall, a woman holding a case of religious-themed bracelets and rosaries came in and started going from table to table selling them. It was so Argentine, or at least Latin American, and when she spoke to me in English I couldn't figure out what was going on.
Then, after lunch, we went to get the empanada dough at an Italian market called Lucca's. I had found it on the Internet by typing pre-made empanada dough" into Google, and even though the store that came up was clearly Italian, I figured it probably sold empanada ingredients just because it was in the Mission. It wasn't until we got there and discovered the aisle with six different brands of mate and three of dulce de leche that I realized it was actually Italian by way of Argentina. If it's possible to get nostalgic for a place you've only been away from for two days, then the sight of all the varieties of yerba and the alfajores de maicena definitely did it for me.
In any case, I'm glad to be going back to Argentina soon. The one thing I can say for sure is that, culture shock or not, this visit has made me sure I'm not ready for the semester to be over yet.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Freaking Out About Going Home
I'm getting on a plane in less than two days to go to San Francisco for Nicky's graduation, and I am media-having a heart attack about it. Not because I don't want to go home — I'm really happy to be seeing the family. (I miss you guys a lot!) More because a) I like Argentina, and I don't want to leave, and when I get back it will be halfway through June and I'll only have a month left and that makes me sad, and b) there's going to be massive culture shock in both directions.
To make myself feel better, here's a list of things I'm looking forward to when I get home:
1) Breakfast — Argentines generally eat toast or medialunas for breakfast. Only weird health nuts eat things like oatmeal (which I eat every day) or eggs. I can already taste my plain yogurt with granola and Craisins.
2) The crossword — I can read the New York Times online, but the stupid crossword costs $19.99 a month. The newspapers here have word games, but they're kind of like comedy, which is to say I don't get them. (Silly things like that remind me how far I am from being fluent in Spanish.)
3) Sweat — Women here don't sweat. At the gym, most of them barely top 6 km/hr on the treadmill, and running on the street is almost unheard of — although I do it anyway, and get weird looks. The logic, as far as I can tell, is that you exercise to make yourself look better, so it defeats the purpose to look gross while you're doing it. Heathen norteamericana that I am, when I exercise I turn bright red and start looking like I just fell into the nearest fountain. I'm looking forward to blending in with the crowd on this one.
4) Starbucks — I've been appalled to realize how much I like takeout coffee. It's so much more civilized to sit down with a tiny cup of espresso and a little cookie and take your time like people do in Argentina. But I guess I'm a heathen, because I miss drinking my giant 16-ounce paper cup of burnt-tasting drip coffee on a street corner between classes. And while the first Starbucks in Argentina just opened last week, I feel guilty enough going in the U.S.
5) Cheese — Argentines eat a lot of cheese, but most of it is queso cremoso, a soft, bland cheese that's sometimes so runny it's almost spreadable. I've come to like it, but I miss cheese that stinks. I want some good simple Extra Sharp Vermont Cheddar.
And really, I'm happy to be going home, if just to see my family. And to not feel like a moron every time I go to buy a pack of gum because the person who works at the kiosco talks too fast for me to understand.
To make myself feel better, here's a list of things I'm looking forward to when I get home:
1) Breakfast — Argentines generally eat toast or medialunas for breakfast. Only weird health nuts eat things like oatmeal (which I eat every day) or eggs. I can already taste my plain yogurt with granola and Craisins.
2) The crossword — I can read the New York Times online, but the stupid crossword costs $19.99 a month. The newspapers here have word games, but they're kind of like comedy, which is to say I don't get them. (Silly things like that remind me how far I am from being fluent in Spanish.)
3) Sweat — Women here don't sweat. At the gym, most of them barely top 6 km/hr on the treadmill, and running on the street is almost unheard of — although I do it anyway, and get weird looks. The logic, as far as I can tell, is that you exercise to make yourself look better, so it defeats the purpose to look gross while you're doing it. Heathen norteamericana that I am, when I exercise I turn bright red and start looking like I just fell into the nearest fountain. I'm looking forward to blending in with the crowd on this one.
4) Starbucks — I've been appalled to realize how much I like takeout coffee. It's so much more civilized to sit down with a tiny cup of espresso and a little cookie and take your time like people do in Argentina. But I guess I'm a heathen, because I miss drinking my giant 16-ounce paper cup of burnt-tasting drip coffee on a street corner between classes. And while the first Starbucks in Argentina just opened last week, I feel guilty enough going in the U.S.
5) Cheese — Argentines eat a lot of cheese, but most of it is queso cremoso, a soft, bland cheese that's sometimes so runny it's almost spreadable. I've come to like it, but I miss cheese that stinks. I want some good simple Extra Sharp Vermont Cheddar.
And really, I'm happy to be going home, if just to see my family. And to not feel like a moron every time I go to buy a pack of gum because the person who works at the kiosco talks too fast for me to understand.
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