los colectivos

I guess as much as I try to deny it, in many ways I am a habit person. And when I get in a bad habit, I sort of get stuck there. Or when I need to do something that really isn't hard, I put it off as much as I possibly can, which ends up being a ridiculous amount of putting off. The best example that comes to mind is the fact that I still don't have Microsoft Word on my computer, after one and a half years. So instead of buying it or finding some sort of solution, every time I have a paper I write it on TextEdit, and spent an extra, I'd say 5-10 minutes reformatting my paper at an NYU computer lab. When I think of it, this is really silly. How many papers have I written, and how much time have I wasted? Another thing is my organization with school, which is plahguhgdkrghjsldhea terrible. I end up with everything, for all of my courses in one big pile of looseleaf--handouts, notes, readings, papers, tests, all of it. Why can't I find a system that works? And the sad part--I honesly believe, at the beginning of each semester, that THIS TIME WILL BE different. Of course it is not. I still have faith in next semester. I always have a bigger faith about the next semester to come. Anyway, what I am getting at is that I got into a bad, bad habit with this course of not turning things in on time, and now here I am turning something in that was due months ago. It's just a late open topic post:One thing about my time here in Buenos Aires that I have not yet written about, is (probably) my favorite part of the city--the buses. Here, they call them "colectivos," and they are much, much better than any other public transit I've ever experienced, although also a lot more confusing. You can find one that goes pretty much from any one point in the city to any other. Figuring out which bus to take is the hard part, since there are hundreds of different lines. They have a little guide booklet that tells the path of each bus, so you can go almost anywhere. Although NYU gave each student a copy of this booklet, I think only about half of us used it. I can't be sure, 'cause I didn't talk to everyone, but I spoke to many people who never use their guide-booklets, and hardly ever take the bus. Then there are the other people (like me) who use the booklet constantly and take buses all the time. The reason I think we're divided in this way is because using the booklet is really confusing. Of course we've all had it explained to us, but for me at least, I needed it to be explained at least twice, and had to spend some time on my own figuring out how to use it. This was sort of a pain in the ass in the beginning, and I almost gave up on the bus system, but as I came to understand, it's just a system you have to get used to, no matter how clever or not you are with the "guia" (guide-booklet). This is a type of getting-used-to which I don't think I've ever experienced. In no way did it come quick, but eventually it came. When I think back on my relationship with buses in the beginning compared to now, it doesn't seem to make any sense. I really thought I just would ask venders which bus to take to go where, and would never understand the "guia." Now I understand it very well, and of all my experiences and habits here, I think my relationship with the "colectivos" is the closest I've come to being "porteño" ("porteño" = person or quality from Buenos Aires).

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