Doan-tuh eh-smo-key!

So the title is a bit random, but it´s from teaching Fernando English yesterday. We were doing some excersizes that his computer program has. That´s how he pronounces ´don´t smoke.´ It´s really quite endearing and I thought it was a pretty creative title for the entry. He´s making progress and it´s fun to teach him.

Fernando cutting bacon on the kitchen table. Him and Mayte take great pleasure in offering Katie and me some.

The library system through the university is really poor. I´m used to being stressed, but I´m not used to being stressed about being able to find the materials that I need to write a paper. I knew that Cornell has a great library system--I always talk about it on tour--but I never fully appreciated it. Cornell has all sorts of electronic systems and databases and will even have a book fed ex shipped to you from another university if the book is unavailable on campus (even if it´s just that someone else has checked it out, you can still have your books shipped over!). It really is an incredible system. I will appreciate it much, much more when I go back.

Liliana was trying to take out books yesterday. Most of the books she wanted were in a private room, so the woman had to keep running down to the private room, getting the books Liliana wanted, and running back up. This also makes it impossible for Liliana to browse or look through any other books, which is a key element when writing a term paper, which she has to do. They also use the card catologue system. All of the checking-out process is done completely with pencil and paper. Liliana worked at the Ann Arbor Public Library last year and there was an enormous difference between the two systems. It felt like US libraries 20 years ago or something (right. because we know what libraries were like 20 years ago). Anyway, point is, it´s not a walk in the park to get books to use for class here. Resources to do well can be hard to come by, and that´s frustrating.

Work is also piling on. I´m stressed. Decent bit of reading. Papers and presentations. All in Spanish, mind you, so it takes a decent chunk of time. Giving a presentation in Spanish to a class of Spanairds on an anthropological topic is hard (I chose how our modern notion of progress assumes a sense of linear time and I think I´m going to apply it to the way American University students think about the future). As I already said, finding the books is hard. Knowing what books to find is harder! I would know where to start in an English anthro class, bu Spanish makes it hard. I can do it. Just a bit stressful. Depending on my mood, sometimes I see the presentation as a fun challenge. That´s how I try to see it, anyway.

Katie with the massive amount of chocolate Mayte brought back for us when she went to England about a month ago.

My tutoria for Anthro of America is helping a lot. Yesterday in class I followed everything much better. I wasn´t having problems with the concepts, I just couldn´t categorize the information in terms of different anthropological schools of thought. My time frame was also all messed up. Now that all that stuff is becoming clearer, I´m realizing that the class is actually nothing lke what I thought it would be about. It´s not about civilizations in America, but rather about the different Anthropological theories that have developed in America. It´s kind of a bummer because it makes everything pretty dry, but on the other hand it´s probably good for me to have that background. I just don´t know if it was worth learning that background in Spanish. Oh well.

Next semester I think I´m only going to take one anthro class (anthro of communication, taught by my favorite teacher ever). I´m not sure why I was so set on taking anthro here when I could be taking Spanish Lit or History classes. I think I thought anthro would be interesting and easier to handle, but I don´t think that´s the case. But that said, my reading skills have also improved a lot, so now I consider a lit class to be much easier than I would have at the beginning of this semester. Ah, progress. Yes indeedy! Or... I hope progress, anyway.

A random tribute to my friend, Oliver, who drew this awhile ago.

I got a scarf in Toledo with Caroline. It´s a popular, fashionable scarf and tons of women (and men) wear them here. I found out yesterday that the scarf has origins among people who support the state of Palestine. Huh. Interesting. So now the question is do I wear my scarf simply because I like it and I don´t think it really represents that anymore, or do I put it in the back of my closet? Really, a ton of people here wear them and I don´t think it can possibly still have that connotation. Then again, origins are origins, and I don´t want to declare myself as siding with anyone based on my clothing. It looks kind of like this: http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d124/jami0821/Arafat_Scarf.jpg but only kind of. And I definitely don´t wear it like that blond girl does. Anyway, I had no idea that getting a scarf that I liked was going to involve such political dilemmas!!