la semana del diablo

Life has been pretty hectic the past couple of weeks, hence my silence from the blog world. Having finally restored some tranquility to my schedule, I'm taking a break from mi tarea to write an update on my amazing life in Buenos Aires. Last week was a true test of how I manage stress; first, my very first presentation in ARTE: I spent a sunday walking around BsAs, through the Museo de Bellas Artes, choosing 6 different works of argentine art to present to the class, I walked from mi casa on Scalabrini, down Pueyrredón, to el museo on Avenida Libertador. From there I walked down Libertador to Sarmiento and around the Jardín Botanico and finally back to mi casa. I thoroughly enjoyed my stroll, walking by myself gives me this feeling of peace; I'm completely alone with my thoughts. Monday was spent actually putting my presentation together; the paper consisted of artist name, dates of birth/death, name of work, material, and 5 characteristics of the art movement that can be identified in said work. Not hard, a little tedious, yes, but hard, no. Then, while I was making a very spiffy powerpoint to use during my presentation, I had a small stress freak-out and knocked my bottle of water onto the keyboard of my laptop. After a second mini-freak-out, I managed to clean up all the water with no visible harm down. That being said, my ENTER key no longer works :(  (hence, the reason everything is a never-ending paragraph)  Not having a fully functioning keyboard really made it hard to finish my presentation so I put everything on a jump drive and took it to Belgrano, to use the school computer lab, which, guess what, does not have a printer. Nevertheless, I get things done. I finished my presentation, printed all the necessary materials, and made it to class early. Then, once I'm actually sitting in class, our professor calls roll, asks me if I did the homework, and then asks me to explain which of the six works I chose was my favorite. That was my presentation. Just one more thing that's different in Argentina. The professors here do not expect you to go above and beyond, it's almost like they discourage it. Also, last week was my first week on the running club of Belgrano. I got off to bit a a shaky start, Monday I barely made it one lap around the lake before I had to stop. Wednesday I made it a full 2 laps. Major improvement. A little more than 2 miles running. To top off my week, I spent 4 hours on friday at the hospital solely because I needed a document signed that said I was healthy. And el médico insisted that I had a tetanus booster shot. Oh joy. Friday night and the weekend that followed more than made it for it though. Friday, I met up with some of the girls from Belgrano, and we decided to hit up a free concert at a cultural center. And when I say free concert I mean a band made up of 3 random guys and when I say cultural center I mean someone's basement. It was definitely not what we were expecting but I had a blast. Then Saturday, we headed out to Rosario for an ISA excursion. We toured the city, which is the birthplace of Ernesto "Che" Guevara and the hometown of Lionel Messi, who plays fútbol for Argentina. The girls and I had an amazing birthday dinner in honor of Stephanie's 21st, complete with champagne and a boliche, that ended with Stephanie passed out in the hallway of the hotel. birthday = success. We spent sunday roaming around Rosario, wandering through the street fair, and coming upon a rollerblading competition straight out of the '90's, music included. And somehow, I managed to step on a rusty wire, thank god the doctor insisted on that tetanus booster. We grabbed a delicious lunch at Messi's restaurant, and then made our way back to the restless city of Buenos Aires. Even though it's only Tuesday, I can already tell this week is going to be much less hectic. But in the city that never sleeps, there's always a little craziness.