"what's the matter, grumpygills?"

So I woke up this morning in the most irritable mood ever. Mostly because I have not been able to sleep through the entire night still and I have been here for three weeks. I always wake up around 3 a.m. every. single. night. before realizing that I don't have to get up for school for another couple of hours. This doesn't even make any sense because it would be 6 p.m. California time, but alas, what can you do. The other reason I was in an irritable mood was because I could hardly swallow because my throat hurt so bad, I kept coughing and it was almost impossible to breathe through my nose. Good thing I brought an entire pharmacy with me, eh?

So, I was going to write an update regarding the rest of my weekend today, but I don't really feel like it right now. So I am going to complain instead. (Because, clearly, that is a productive use of my time. Might I add that this complaining is completely superfluous and makes me sound like a spoiled child because my life is wonderful, amazing and completely mind-blowingly awesome. But, I digress.)

So, I woke up this morning at the correct time quite upset that I had to go to school, and even considered skipping for a couple of minutes before dragging my butt out of bed like the responsible and scholarly student that I am. I swore at the piece of bread that lay innocently on my plate for breakfast -- I am incredibly sick of carbs, carbs, carbs for breakfast. Where is a breakfast burrito when a girl needs one? Rawr. (Also, tortillas as we Mexicans understand them do not exist in Spain. I am in withdrawal.) I walked the fourteen miles (uphill both ways in the sleet and snow) to the bus stop [note: exaggeration, my walk to the bus stop takes like five minutes. Through a pretty plaza with fountains and puppies and small children playing. But again, I digress.] to climb onto a crowded bus where I am jostled and pushed and forced to stand for thirty entire minutes in a claustrophobia-inducing vehicle. I am then informed that my classroom has been moved to the boondocks. Remember all those pretty pictures I posted of the Alicante campus? Well, I am not having class in those beautiful buildings. I am having class in a portable classroom in the parking lot next to the garbage truck. Which smells like Windex.

Then I have class, which is always a hilarity because I can't understand Spanish. To lighten the mood, here are some funny things regarding trying to speak a foreign language:

• I always mix up the words jamón and jabón, which are two entirely different concepts. Often, I wonder why someone is eating a bar of soap and washing themselves with some ham.
  
• I like the word 'bump'. I also like the word 'bomba' which means the same thing in Spanish.
• "I feel that", a la Mean Girls, does not translate in Spanish. Womp womp. Oh, and neither does 'Jerry! Jerry!'. Sigh, cultural references.
• Spongebob Squarepants is called Boba Sponja in Spanish. What now.
• Additionally, some more funny names for things are: "La Guerra de Las Galaxias", "El Señor de los Anillos", and "Los Otros". (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and The Others). I don't know why I think this is funny.
• Bonito is a type of fish, similar to tuna. Bonito is also the masculine form of the word for 'pretty'. I spent at least ten minutes in class today thinking that the professor was talking about how pretty tuna was. I was like, have you ever seen a tuna?
  
• You can change an entire sentence's meaning by adding an 'a' in front of a person's name. For example, this weekend I was trying to tell one of the Spanish students that Andrew, one of the other Americans, was my friend and that we rode on the bus together every day. She started freaking out, and I couldn't figure out why. "You're in love??" she started shouting. "Uhm, no." I was quite confused. Turns out, Me encanta Andrew versus Me encanta a Andrew have quite different meanings. The first approximately translates to "I like Andrew (as a friend)" and the second means, "He is quite enchanted with me." Guess which one I said? Ooops. And Mom, don't tell the gardener Me gustas because then he'll think that you like him and want to marry him. And no, I haven't figured out how to ask him, "Why are you chewing on my bushes?" yet.

During our hour-long break, I went to the CIEE office to get some things and was completely overwhelmed by information -- somehow, I don't know if it is the Spanish barrier or what, I always tend to miss important information, like dates, sign-ups, times, etc. Oh, anyone want to be my roommate for our trip to Granada? I need to find someone, apparently. Okay, okay, its not like any of these things are a huge deal. Its just that little things, the things that I take for granted at home, are different here, all of them, and it starts to stack up. For example, the fact that Spaniards don't eat lunch until 2 or 3 in the afternoon. That's fine... when I sleep until noon, or eat a huge breakfast. I don't know. People are planning trips everywhere, booking this, doing that, storming the CIEE office and I just feel... lost in the shuffle sometimes. Merp. I think I've just had a rough day. Plus, I'm mildly hormonal, just in case you wanted to know that, entire world of the Internet. At least I have an explanation for wanting to cry at the stupidest things.

Okay, okay, its not that bad. I really am having an amazing time. (Did you read my last post??) But I guess I'm writing this just to show that not every day is going to be fantastic. Sometimes, I just want to lay in my bed and watch a movie (in ENGLISH) and cuddle with my puppy. That's alright. Plus, I'm a little bit sad because of all of the fun things happening today in Santa Clara -- Sarah's birthday (shout out to my sister, by the way!!), first day of classes at SCU (which, surprisingly, I like this day because its always fun because everyone's back!), first chapter meeting at the new Kappa Kappa Gamma house (shout out to my other sisters back home, miss you all! Take some pictures of the house for me!), auditions for the Fall production... yeah, lots of things going down today.

Blah. Okay, writing this was quite therapeutic. I hope you all enjoy this little insight into my journal -- usually, I write everything in my journal, but this blog is sortof like just publishing it online! Alright, I am going to take a little siesta right now and nap...hopefully I'll feel better! I'm going to sit down with Lauren later today and plan out our Fall Break plans, so that should be fun. We want to basically just hop on some buses and see where we end up in Spain and backpack around.....except, minor detail, we don't even have backpacks. Whatever! We'll figure it out. And tomorrow, I'm going to the Castillo de Santa Barbara, so I'll have lots of pictures for you, then!

Alright, loves. Hasta luego. <3


Can't remember if I've posted this before, but this is a picture of one of the streets leading to the old Barrio in Alicante.