I am so sorry for being so behind on updating the blog! As you will see from the series of posts I am about to write, life has been pretty hectic around here...never a dull moment ;)
Ok...so...I've decided to put dates along with the titles of some of these posts as a way for you to understand where in the whole scheme of life these things took place :)
After returning home from my retreat, life immediately picked up speed once again. Monday was not too bad, but after that, things became a tad bit stressful. I had so much I was trying to do at once...needed to pick up pumpkins and candy to celebrate Halloween with the kids I tutor for Wed and the following Mon, had an extra credit poster due Tues that I had not yet printed or put together, needed to choose a poem to read on Tues for more extra credit, and had a presentation I needed to write for my art history class for Wed (and she hadn't told me until that Monday that I actually needed to visit the Church I would be presenting about...yikes!
So...Tuesday and Wednesday were super stressful. I was running late on Tuesday and still had to fix a couple things on my poster before class...barely made it. Then after class in my 2-hour break, I had to run all the way to Sol (center of the city) to see the Church, look for something at Corte Ingles, and see the 0 km symbol I finally knew where to look for. Managed that with plenty of time to spare...but only because the inside of the Church was closed...shit! So I decided I would see it before class the next morning.
Then went to my next class having barely answered the homework questions and not having read the article about which students were to present during class. After that, dashed to print stuff and walked around til I had to tutor looking for pumpkins...found some, but paid more for them than I had hoped unfortunately. After tutoring and dinner, I was too exhausted to do my presentation for class the next day and I had to be at school at 9 to meet a friend and complete our partner Phonetics homework for Thurs (Thank God I did not have my intercambio that morning...that would have been a total mess).
Woke up early the next morning (Wednesday), but not early enough. Only completed part of my presentation and was late to meet my friend. Then I spent every last second til class finishing up the presentation instead of visiting the church, and I was still afraid it was not too good a presentation.
Well..I must have been born under a lucky star...my professor LOVED my presentation and kept stopping me to comment on things I had mentioned or other things I would not have known to point out but that I had made it convenient for her to mention. She then skipped entirely over that part of her presentation because I had "covered it all." And everyone genuinely believed I had seen the inside of the Church.
As happy as I was, I felt guilty...1. because I hadn't actually seen the inside of the Church, 2. because my professor had stopped me enough during my presentation to comment that I felt like she was the one giving the presentation...but it helped me make my presentation better because what she said opened the door for me to mention other things I would have forgotten, 3. because I had used Google Translate to help me read the websites in Spanish so I could understand what they said about the church, 4. because I hadn't paraphrased nearly as much as I could have. Oh well. I think I made up for my lousy first midterm grade in my professor's eyes anyway.
(Oh and to add to the stress of the week, both mothers of my 7-year-old students told me I needed to speak only English to the girls because I had been speaking entirely too much Spanish and they wanted them to hear more English (and I discovered the girls were capable of more English than I had thought after trying this). Normally this would not have been a source of stress, but as stressed as I already was, any criticism did not help even if it was petty and they were not mad at me. )
After all of this stress was out of the way and my friend had helped me semi understand the homework we were working on, the week calmed down a bit...thank God. More to come on that later.
So...here are the photos of the outside of the Church I presented about...
Peace and Blessings,
Melanie
Spanish Word of the Day: ocupada = busy :)
2 comments:
I don't know why your blog stopped coming to me automatically. I've had to go through the link in your FB page. Now, after four weeks, it has reappeared.
Now I can more easily share in your happiness and excitement.
That's strange...I have no idea! Glad all is now well again with the technological world (especially since I would have no clue how to fix that problem if it were still occurring) :)
Melanie
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