This university never ceases to amaze me. I want to browse the campus bookstore - I have to leave my bag at the front and take a number. Fine. They don't want me stealing their overpriced paperbacks - I understand. I want to check out a book at the library - I have to look for the book in the e-catalog - not a problem at all. I have to write down the title, author, LOC code, date, my school ID number, and take the piece of paper with my signature to the appropriate floor where I hand said slip of paper to someone behind a desk who then retrieves the book for me. Students are not permitted to browse the stacks. That's right. How on earth do PUCP students write research papers? And if I want to sit down in the reading room I have to leave my school ID card with the security dude, who gives me a number that tells me where I have to sit. What? Are they afraid I'm going to steal a desk? No clue. I want to use the campus WiFi - a student tells me, "No, there's no password." Yes, there is. "Excuse me, sir, could you tell me the password for the campus WiFi?" "Oh you'll need to go down to the Electronic Resources Room. They have it in there."
Ugh. I just keep repeating to myself, "Cultural relativism...cultural relativism...cultural relativism....."
3.30.2009
3.25.2009
Update 5
I haven't really felt like recording, uploading, and embedding recently given that I'm not even sure anyone is following this thing. However, I sent an email to a friend today summarizing some of the events of the past week and it seemed like it would make a nice blog update. So here is an admittedly edited version of said email:
Had lunch today with a ling professor (not mine, but another in the department) who approached me on campus last week. I was lying under a tree and he comes up to me and is like, "You're new here, aren't you?" (Duh. Gringa. What gave me away?) I was like, "Oh. Am I not allowed to be lying under this tree?" I thought I was in trouble. Turns out he just saw a gringa and wanted to be nice. Anyhow, he's a cool enough guy. It's hard to understand him sometimes but he taught me all about the Spanish equivalent of the English work 'fuck' so I guess we're friends. Ha.
My Peruvian boyfriend is supposed to call me in an hour. He makes me mad and I know I frustrate the daylights out of him, but somehow we make it work about twice a week. He isn't really my boyfriend (obviously), but we go to movies and walk around together and go dancing and stuff so...I guess in Limenyan (anglo spelling that I COMPLETELY made up) terms we're like engaged or something.
God they love gringas down here. It is absolutely insane. It is a multiple-times-daily experience to be shouted at on the street. A car stalked me as I walked to the bus stop the other morning - the guy kept shouting out his window at me insistently, "My queen! My queen! Hey! Princess!" I wanted to be like, "I'm your queen, huh? Come lick my dirty, sweaty feet then." Ew. I don't know why I just said that. Anyhow, and you don't have to be attractive. If you're white, they holler. As off-putting as it was at first, it's quite amusing nowadays. Taxis will stop short in the middle of the street on the off chance you want a ride. And they will stay stopped there, with cars piling up behind them honking their horns, until you nod your head 'no.' When I first got here Mary and Katie and I would joke about making t-shirts to wear around the city that say "No se busca ni taxi ni esposo" (Not looking for a taxi or a husband).
My History of the Peruvian Theatre professor is in a play that's running this weekend; I think I'm going to go see it. Profesor Isola - he acts and directs as well as teaches. Very nice, very willing to help me outside of class, which I appreciate. All my professors seem nice enough. Oh, so now seems an appropriate time to tell you what I'm taking. I registered this past Monday (3/23) and got all the classes I wanted - jure! (<--That's my Spanish spelling of hooray.) I'm enrolled in Pragmatics (a ling course), History of the Peruvian Theatre, Education in Sexuality, and Modern Dance. Woot! I pretty much love my classes. My Pragmatics professor is by far my favorite. He always comes into class looking kind of solemn but when he starts teaching you can tell he loves teaching and he loves linguistics and it's just contagious! He's so funny and wonderful and...man I just love a good professor. Nothing like it. It's like the one time out of 100 that you call Time Warner Cable and you talk to someone who's really friendly and helpful and you think, "Man, that person BELONGS in this line of work." Ew. TWC. I don't miss you.
OOH! So we went on this three-hour bus tour the other day, Saturday I think it was. Mary and Katie and I. It took us all through the center of Lima, a lot of which was just dirty and looked like everywhere else in Lima. However, parts of it were really cool. We saw the Plaza de Armas and the president's (Alan Garcia) house and then we went to...hmm...how to translate...San Francisco Cathedral? Something like that. The inside is a museum, so we enjoyed a guided tour of that PLUS the catacombs underneath. Spooooooky. Not really. It was really cool. So many bones. And we learned a lot about the history of the church and catacombs. It was a little hard to breathe down there but well worth it. There was a chick on the tour - hispanic, perhaps Peruvian - who was SO hot. I was making eyes at her the whole time and I'm not sure she was really making them back at me, but she was definitely like, "Hey gringa lady. You're awfully different looking. Interesting..." But yeah that was a fun little tour. Because the three of us are absolutely, uncontrollably bonkers when we're together I think the most fun we had was waving at all the people walking along the sidewalks - we were like celebrities to them! How funny that we're as much a novelty to them as nearly everything about their city is to us. We also blew kisses to all the Peruvian men who whistled at us, and even to the ones who didn't. It should be noted that this was only fun because we could escape on the Mirabus. Obviously under normal hooting-and-hollering circumstances we simply ignore people.
Anyhoo...so I think I'll post this to my blog (an edited version anyway). I'm not sure why I just kept going and going but yeah I think that would make a nice little blog update. I don't feel like recording and uploading anyhow.
* * * * *
Hope everyone's well. I may or may not update soon.
Oh and p.s.b.t.w. totally tried to record a tour of the house and Cecilia's granddaughter, Ariana, who likes to torture the rabbit, KEPT talking to me and following me around. Haha. I might post some of that footage at some point simply because it's kind of amusing watching me attempt to record this video for you guys with a little munchkin on my heels.
KISS KISS KISS!
Had lunch today with a ling professor (not mine, but another in the department) who approached me on campus last week. I was lying under a tree and he comes up to me and is like, "You're new here, aren't you?" (Duh. Gringa. What gave me away?) I was like, "Oh. Am I not allowed to be lying under this tree?" I thought I was in trouble. Turns out he just saw a gringa and wanted to be nice. Anyhow, he's a cool enough guy. It's hard to understand him sometimes but he taught me all about the Spanish equivalent of the English work 'fuck' so I guess we're friends. Ha.
My Peruvian boyfriend is supposed to call me in an hour. He makes me mad and I know I frustrate the daylights out of him, but somehow we make it work about twice a week. He isn't really my boyfriend (obviously), but we go to movies and walk around together and go dancing and stuff so...I guess in Limenyan (anglo spelling that I COMPLETELY made up) terms we're like engaged or something.
God they love gringas down here. It is absolutely insane. It is a multiple-times-daily experience to be shouted at on the street. A car stalked me as I walked to the bus stop the other morning - the guy kept shouting out his window at me insistently, "My queen! My queen! Hey! Princess!" I wanted to be like, "I'm your queen, huh? Come lick my dirty, sweaty feet then." Ew. I don't know why I just said that. Anyhow, and you don't have to be attractive. If you're white, they holler. As off-putting as it was at first, it's quite amusing nowadays. Taxis will stop short in the middle of the street on the off chance you want a ride. And they will stay stopped there, with cars piling up behind them honking their horns, until you nod your head 'no.' When I first got here Mary and Katie and I would joke about making t-shirts to wear around the city that say "No se busca ni taxi ni esposo" (Not looking for a taxi or a husband).
My History of the Peruvian Theatre professor is in a play that's running this weekend; I think I'm going to go see it. Profesor Isola - he acts and directs as well as teaches. Very nice, very willing to help me outside of class, which I appreciate. All my professors seem nice enough. Oh, so now seems an appropriate time to tell you what I'm taking. I registered this past Monday (3/23) and got all the classes I wanted - jure! (<--That's my Spanish spelling of hooray.) I'm enrolled in Pragmatics (a ling course), History of the Peruvian Theatre, Education in Sexuality, and Modern Dance. Woot! I pretty much love my classes. My Pragmatics professor is by far my favorite. He always comes into class looking kind of solemn but when he starts teaching you can tell he loves teaching and he loves linguistics and it's just contagious! He's so funny and wonderful and...man I just love a good professor. Nothing like it. It's like the one time out of 100 that you call Time Warner Cable and you talk to someone who's really friendly and helpful and you think, "Man, that person BELONGS in this line of work." Ew. TWC. I don't miss you.
OOH! So we went on this three-hour bus tour the other day, Saturday I think it was. Mary and Katie and I. It took us all through the center of Lima, a lot of which was just dirty and looked like everywhere else in Lima. However, parts of it were really cool. We saw the Plaza de Armas and the president's (Alan Garcia) house and then we went to...hmm...how to translate...San Francisco Cathedral? Something like that. The inside is a museum, so we enjoyed a guided tour of that PLUS the catacombs underneath. Spooooooky. Not really. It was really cool. So many bones. And we learned a lot about the history of the church and catacombs. It was a little hard to breathe down there but well worth it. There was a chick on the tour - hispanic, perhaps Peruvian - who was SO hot. I was making eyes at her the whole time and I'm not sure she was really making them back at me, but she was definitely like, "Hey gringa lady. You're awfully different looking. Interesting..." But yeah that was a fun little tour. Because the three of us are absolutely, uncontrollably bonkers when we're together I think the most fun we had was waving at all the people walking along the sidewalks - we were like celebrities to them! How funny that we're as much a novelty to them as nearly everything about their city is to us. We also blew kisses to all the Peruvian men who whistled at us, and even to the ones who didn't. It should be noted that this was only fun because we could escape on the Mirabus. Obviously under normal hooting-and-hollering circumstances we simply ignore people.
Anyhoo...so I think I'll post this to my blog (an edited version anyway). I'm not sure why I just kept going and going but yeah I think that would make a nice little blog update. I don't feel like recording and uploading anyhow.
* * * * *
Hope everyone's well. I may or may not update soon.
Oh and p.s.b.t.w. totally tried to record a tour of the house and Cecilia's granddaughter, Ariana, who likes to torture the rabbit, KEPT talking to me and following me around. Haha. I might post some of that footage at some point simply because it's kind of amusing watching me attempt to record this video for you guys with a little munchkin on my heels.
KISS KISS KISS!
3.15.2009
Update 4
One of the first things I say is that this update is going to be shorter than the others but it isn't...that was false. Sorry! Forgive the bounciness of the camera - I know now not to record an update on my bed with my computer on the pillow. Love and miss you all.
3.13.2009
Swimming with the sea lions
The ones with the life jackets are the tourists; the ones without are the sea lions. Katie and I are the two on the right, the rightest one being me. At 0:27 what you hear me saying is "Me estan mirando!" or, in English, "They're looking at me!" Haha. One of them was for real showing off for me. No joke.
Notice how loud they are!
Notice how loud they are!
3.12.2009
Las islas Palomino y nadando con los lobos del mar (Palomino Islands and swimming with the sea lions)
I will post a video update soon. But I thought you might like to see pics of our 4-hour tour of the Palomino Islands. Katie, Mary, and I went, and Katie and I swam with the stinky, noisy sea lions! Woot! Mary's legs got super burned and parts of mine did. But all in all it was a great deal of fun. I met a man named Hector who had lived in the Greensboro/Winston-Salem area. Whoa. Anyhow, enjoy!
Wow. Update: It takes forever to upload pictures on Blogger. Lame. See my Facebook profile. For those of you who aren't on Facebook, if you love me you'll sign up.
3.09.2009
Anyone know how to embed a vid in a post here on Blogger?
There's a mini cactus in it for ya if you can help me out.
Video blog - OWW! (And Update 1)
I have FINALLY managed to sort out this video blogging thing. (Apparently kids call this 'vlogging' - whatever.) So I may occasionally go to the trouble of writing a little something, posting photos, etc. Primarily, though, I'm going to be posting links to YouTube vids that I've uploaded and that feature yours truly talking about - what else? - herself. Just trying to keep everyone posted re: what and how I'm doing and so forth whilst I'm in Lima (that's Peru, not Ohio). If all works as it should the title of each post should link directly to an update vid. Let's give it a go...
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