Na terceira semana

Well, completed week 3 of school. Its going by soooooo fast and Im meeting some really great people as I continue to say. Im still all alone in the apartment, the guys will be back next week in the midweek I believe. It will be nice to have them back in the house to keep me company hehe. But it was nice to have the place alone to myself for a bit but Im such a people person, I love having people around me. Anyway, so school is going really well, like I said I totally understood everything in my Macro class last Monday and then in my Mercosur class....eh more or less. I understand what he is saying but then he starts talking about personal stories of Argentina and then he loses me. I wish I was more knowledgeable on Argentine history and even the history of my own country. Its soooo embarassing when he says, and what happened on December 7th 1942...and all the Argentines scream out Pearl Harbor before I can even think of what the date is. Haha! O well, Im sure if I heard it in English it wouldve come right to me. But thats how it is. Second languages are hard, 3rd not so much. I think breaking that surface into a second language takes a while, and I have to wait until my full year is complete in order to really feel its affects. Anyway, so that class is good because I have my little French Canadian buddy, Coralie, who has two roommates from Montreal also who are living here with her. And we all went out on Thursday night to see a punk band. They are really cool chicks! And Coralie says they just adore me, so it all works out great! Then what else? On Friday, I went to a reunion with my Portuguese class friends from the class I took before school started. It was just 4 of us but it was cool. We didnt speak Portuguese though...boo hoo but all Spanish because they are all Argentine. Its really amazing, even though Argentines might have less education on English in school, I feel like they know more about English than most people in the US know about Spanish. They really study when they want to know something and most learn from watching movies or TV shows in English. Its really amazing to me! I wish we were more like that, o well I can only wish for myself to be more like that and I believe I am. My friend at the reunion said to me hey now your trilingual like me! I said no far off! He said no you are, accept it and be proud. It does feel nice to know more than just my own language. I feel like I can connect more with more people. And Portuguese and Spanish are highly spoken among the world, now just Chinese and Hindu and Ill be set haha yeah right! Anyway, then on Saturday I went with Ms. Jillian May to the park and we laid around like lazy bums. I kinda studied, so thats exactly what I will be doing all day today after writing this. Then on Saturday night I went with my friend Cris to the movies. I love the system here in Argentina. You reserve your seat online before you go to the movies! Its such a good idea. It makes people sit next to each other so that there arent and vacant seats. Its such an amazing idea! Plus in the parking garage at the shopping center, which was 5 times bigger than anything Ive seen haha, is really smart too. It has a number on each row of how many vacant spots the row has, then the vacant ones have green lights above them and red above the ones who are taken. Its so amazing the differences in technology here. Sometimes its so developed like that and then sometimes its completely opposite. For this reason, I think its so important that we learn from each other. This idea would be so helpful in the US for parking, I really thought it was cool anyway nevermind haha. So then I was also thinking about how much I really want to finish up with Portuguese and seal it as my 3rd language. I began researching schools that offered programs for a Masters in Environmental Studies and also offered exchange programs to do Masters thesis in Brazil or in Africa. Guess who has one? UCSB!!! cool huh? Also Davis as well! But UCSB was more adverstised on the internet so Im assuming its more popular. Also, I had applied for a scholarship with Boren that I didnt get because I was studying Spanish which isnt considered a language that is important in terms of global security for the US. So it wasnt given priority. Obviously I didnt get it but I looked up the scholarship again and Portuguese and studying in Brazil are both given priority when it comes to this scholarship and its completely paid for when you study. Sooooo anyway, Ive decided that when the time comes in about 3 years when Im in the Masters Program, if I get the scholarship, I will go and live in Brazil or Angola. I know you all probably think Im crazy but I just have to do it. I really love Portuguese and obviously it wont be like my Spanish but I want to atleast just be able to hold a conversation with an important political figure if it comes to that one day. I want to have all the options open to me so I can be successful and I can feel like Ive really accomplished all that I can. Anyway, so thats my plan. Its a good one huh?

Love Rachel
Off to study Macroooooo