Este...

Just to warn you before reading this...this blog is going to be sooo boring compared to yesterday's!!  Anyway, remember how I said at the end of my last blog post that my 8 a.m. class was going to be rough..well it wasn't.  You want to know why?  Well, it's because somehow I slept through my alarm and missed it.  I don't exactly know what happened.  When my 5:50 a.m. alarm went off, I woke up and pushed snooze through my pillow (since I still keep my travel alarm clock in my pillow) :), and a couple of hours later I wake up and see it is light outside and know that I'm in trouble.  Too bad you weren't there to wake me up Taylor. :)  It was 7:20 a.m. and even if I would've headed straight to the bus stop from rolling out of bed (I don't actually roll out, I climb out, since it's a loft and I really don't want to hit the ground by rolling) I still would have been 20 to 25 minutes late-not worth it (to me anyway).  So instead I got up and started getting ready at my own pace.  Once my host mom realized I was still home she asked if I was okay (I'm sure she thought I was sick or something), but I informed her that I overslept and that I was missing class.  She seemed really worried by the fact that I was missing class so clearly she doesn't understand the life of an American college student.  I just kept saying "está bien, está bien" (it's fine, it's fine).  Also, it's the class that I don't really need so I am still considering dropping it or auditing it, but Tonisha might kill me if I drop it.  Plus, it truly is interesting.

Now for the real reason that está bien that I missed class.  Estaba bien because since I missed my class I took a later micro and I feel I was destined to take the micro that I took this morning because one of my dreams came true on it.  What was my dream you may ask?..to sit in the passenger seat of the micro!!  Yep, that's right!  I got to sit in the passenger seat of the micro.  It was pretty fun and that was definitely one of my goals before I left Perú.  It was kind of funny.  I climbed to the front seat and I was sitting there for a little bit.  The driver said something to me, but I couldn't hear/understand him so I asked him to repeat what he said twice before he and the guy sitting behind him both yelled "¡Cinturón!" (Seatbelt!).  I felt like an idiot, but at the same time I understand why I was so confused.  Who would think that you had to wear a seatbelt in a micro?  Well apparently if you sit in the front passenger seat, it's a necessity.  I don't think I would do it again.  I wanted to sleep in the micro, but I felt weird sleeping while in that seat, plus I was busy watching everything from a different perspective in the micro.  Oh and one last thing...I felt really uncomfortable because everytime the driver would look in the rearview mirror on my side I felt like he was staring at me. :)  I think the front seat was maybe a one time thing, unless it's my only option.

Now on to the classes I actually attended.  In Realidad Social Peruana again we talked about the Andian people and their ways of life.  It's a pretty interesting class and it goes by pretty fast.  Second class was my Spansih writing course.  We not only write, but we work on grammar things too so when we learn grammar we usually have to give examples.  Well, I'm really not creative when it comes to making up sentences so obviously I start all my sentences with "ummm..," well much to my surprise (not really a surprise) Peruvians don't say "um."  They use "este..." or "emm.." so that's one of my goals of the semester is to start saying "este" or "em" in replace of my "um's."  I know that this seems like a really odd goal, but honestly it makes sense (to me anyway).  Although I shouldn't be saying "um's" at all, fillers like this are ALWAYS used so I might as well learn them in Spanish, too.  Plus, even if I spoke the best Spanish in the world I'm sure as soon as I said the word "um" they would know that I'm not a native speaker.  So this is one of my goals among many.

So on to my 4 p.m. Etnografía Amazónica class.  I was supposed to go for 3 hours today, rather than 2 in order to make up for not having class last week.  Well, 4:30 rolled around and our professor still wasn't there.  One girl got up to check with the main office to see if we had class and we didn't, which is great, but hopefully we don't have to go for four hours next week. :)  I'm sure we won't, but it's kind of ridiculous/funny to think about.

Anyway, sorry for the boring post today.  It doesn't even compare to this past weekend, but anyway I have no class tomorrow because it's a feriado (holiday).  The holiday is to celebrate Lima's patron saint Santa Rosa.  I've been asking people all day how it's celebrated, but apparently nothing big happens.  Some people migrate to the Santa Rosa church or go to the convent to see her cell where she lived.  Also, apparently there is a well somewhere and people write their wishes on a piece of paper and throw it in the well.  Well, now that it's midnight I feel that people do "celebrate" Santa Rosa or maybe they just celebrate the no class/school part.  There is definitely a party going on upstairs and it has been all night.  They have been playing loud music (American old music).  For example, the song that is playing now is Billy Idol's "Dancing with Myself."  Also, I can hear tons of people in the street, about 5 minutes ago I heard fireworks going on at Larcomar, and about 2 minutes ago I heard sirens.  Everyone is definitely out and about tonight whether they are celebrating Lima's patron saint or just celebrating the fact that they don't have to work or go to school.  I am hoping the music dies down though soon so that I can sleep.  Buenas noches!