Day 2
It was my anniversary today. :( And I missed it! I miss Noah and I wish I could have been with him today.
At the same time, I've had a crazy day. It's 10:30 and I'm exhausted.
Today me and Caitlin started off with breakfast here at the house and then went to school for orientation and our placement test. The written placement test was pathetically easy... obviously just checking if I knew grammar rules, which obviously I do. We also had a little oral interview thing to help place us. I got afternoon classes and so between the test and our classes at 2:30, we just went shopping for some stuff... I want to get a smaller backpack-y thing to bring to class but I didn't find one I liked. But I got my hair cut..... kind of a lot! I'm undecided on whether I like it or not, but it's too late now! I was just so used to having long hair. Oh well! The girl did a really nice job and it was fun to chat with her.
Actually, before we got the the salon, we were looking for a good place and we came across a sign over one little entrance for un salón de belleza so we asked about it, but the girl said like they weren't open or something and so she walked us to a different one. Her name was Luz and we chatted for a little bit. It was fun. She gave me her business card so I can contact her and we can hang out.
After our haircuts, we went to school for classes.... I ended up in the advanced G2. I don't know how many levels there are but there was like Inicial G1 and G2, Intermedio G1 and G2, and Avanzado G1 and G2 in the afternoon. And even though I feel so yucky about my speaking ability, I ended up in Advanced G2.... it was just me and one other girl from Brazil who I thought had awesome Spanish (but super Portuguese accent which made it hard for me to understand her). So just us two for our classes! Our first teacher was named Charo and she is from Spain, actually. She started to review some grammar with us but then when she realized we already knew what she was going to teach us this week, we kind of just randomly talked trying to shove in the grammar point as much as possible. I am obviously a pretty shy person so the other girl Marilu really dominated the conversation. Boo. Oh well! I can't help how shy I feel!! After two hours, we had a little break and Marilu and I chatted a little in Spanish and then our second teacher came. She is Peruvian and her name is Desiree. Basically we talked about random stuff, the same way as before, and tried to use random grammar stuff.
At the end, she told us that we had to go talk to the office because Charo told the office that we were too advanced for the level we were in and we needed to go up a level. When we got there, the lady in the office Libia (?) told us we were getting switched to a higher class in the morning. So, uh, yay? Way to go me? I told her I was nervous though because it seemed like Marilu spoke so much more easily than I did and I didn't want the upper class to be over my head because then I couldn't learn anything, but she told me not to worry... so I won't?
Oh, when I got my schedule today, they told me I didn't have individual classes... but I did! And I paid for 2 hours a day! So I showed them my receipt and they schedule them from 6:30 to 8:20pm. Ewwwww! But, then when they switched me to morning classes, now I have private classes from 2:30 to 4:20. But, tonight I did have one late private class. I forget my teacher's name though... it was a man. Anyway, most of the time we just talked because at first he asked me if I had grammar questions and I told him, no, I just want to make my vocabulary bigger. So he had me read this little thing about people who are thrilling seekers and then we just talked for a long time about that... but it got pretty off topic and at one point I was trying to tell him the whole plot for the movie Skeleton Key... haha, so hard to do because the story is so confusing! And eventually we had this big discussion about doctors and medicines and natural cures. It was fun and I thought it was so much easier to talk with just one person. I think I get stage fright in the group class, haha. But it's sad because that was my only day with him. My individual classes will be with Charo, I found out, which is cool because I like hearing Spain Spanish.
After my individual class, my teacher walked me to the restaurant where we had our student welcome dinner. Dinner was okay... but... Caitlin is just.... overwhelming. Just very overbearing and kind of whiny. I think she means well but..... siiiiiiiiiigh. Afterwards, she wanted me to carry home this heater she bought so I trekked the whole way back alone with the heater. I was scared to take a taxi by myself..... I know it would have been safer in a taxi, but on my walk home, I just walked behind other groups of people and that just FELT safer than being alone with some dude in a taxi... so... whatever. I made it home alive, though I am super tired.
I think the only altitude problem I am having is not enough water... I will definitely drink even more tomorrow. My lips are dry and look very dark and its kind of scaring me. Last night, I had the hardest time falling asleep.. so actually I lied, I did had other altitude problems. I felt like I couldn't breathe through my nose... like I couldn't get enough oxygen and I was kind of gasping through my mouth so I started to pray the rosary and then my breathing kind of calmed down and eventually I did fall asleep. I really hated that feeling of not being able to feel like I could breathe deep though. Also, the elections were yesterday and people partied like ALL night long so I kept waking up to the really loud music and singing until past 1 am.
I wish I had had time to e-mail today. I got online for like a couple of minutes when I pulled up my invoice to show them I really did pay for classes and Maria was the only person who responded to my email so I just sent her a quick one back.
Ok, now it is almost 11 and I am beat, so goodnight!
