paz_mp's blog

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:

It's difficult to say what exactly I got out of this trip. Of course, like any time in life, I got a number of things, definable and undefinable alike. Right now, more than anything, I feel like I made some solid friendships and learned much, much more Spanish. Of course, nothing turned out like I planned, just like any situation in which you plan things. I had all these little exciting plans which I failed on. I don't really feel sad about this, or glad, just kind of silly for having planned them. They were little things, like "I'm going to take a dance class," "I'm going to volunteer no matter what," "I'm going to floss everyday" and "I'm going to try to read the paper everyday." I know those are trivial, but I get excited about things like that and I sort of let myself down on that level. I think I made up for it though, or something, on other unexpected levels, mainly the social level. In my time at NYU I've sort of been a hater, and really didn't make many friends before being here (especially because I never dormed, and always lived with my boyfriend.) I really didn't want to have much to do with the NYU social life, since I'm weird and skeptical about college life in general, but by the end of last year I felt sort of silly and bad about this. The group here in Buenos Aires is really great (I think), and, I guess it's sort of ironic, but more than anything, I'll be leaving BA with good friends in New York.

Overall, I have confusing feeling about this course. It's been helpful in a lot of ways, but I guess it's also been very strange for me to do things online, without any face-to-face interactions. I mean, I don't even know what Steve Hutkins looks like. (I'm sure I will meet him/you soon:).My first feeling is disappointed in ME, for having turned all of my blogs in so late. This is especially frustrating, since procrastination is a big problem of mine, and a course like this makes it very easy to procrastinate, because deadlines in virtual reality just don't mean the same thing.In terms of what was helpful, I am really glad I have this bunch of writings to remember certain aspects of my time here by. I think it will be nice and sort of funny to look back on in the future, like any diary-type writing. I also have really enjoyed reading other peoples blogs, because I sort of feel like I know these people, but again, have never seen them before (save 3). Regardless of this, it has been refreshing and, I guess I want to say, "mind-opening" or something, to read about people's experiences in all the various different study abroad locations.

In a lot of ways, I know what de Botton is saying about the mind-set of the traveler. Still, I don't think it's necessarily boredom at home or a search for the exotic that makes us go. I don't know if I could ever exactly define it, but I think it has to do with the excitement of sort of switching mind-sets, seeing different things, and consequently, seeing things differently, for better OR for worse. I don't think the mind-set and outlook abroad is always better. I remember coming back to NY after spending time in Italy with my mom, and noticing for the first time how visible the empire state building was from almost anywhere in the city. I started noticing other buildings too, or I should really say, the tops of them. I was 15 and I was finally looking up! Of course I'd looked up other times, but never before so often as when I came back from that trip. I realized and remembered at the same time that the gorgeous old architecture and churches in Italy had got me in a different habit, the habit of looking up. And surprisingly for me, New York had something to offer on this plane as well.This was fun and exciting to experience, and really felt eye-opening in a lot of ways, but I don't think it means my eyes were closed before, just seeing a little differently. Now that I was looking up, I wasn't so often looking in front of me, my neck kind of hurt, and I was missing out on my usual staring-at-New-Yorkers game. Of course, I can look all around (which I like to think I do now), but my point is that mind-set, room travel vs. travel travel, breaking habit, etc., none of these are simply better or worse like de Botton proposes. I think it's good to break habit, but I also think that habit can be good on its own. More importantly, in my opinion, is appreciating whatever habit or break-of-habit you are experiencing.

american day sillyNYU did Thanksgiving for us, and it was wonderful. Since my boyfriend came to visit for these past two weeks, we rented a furnished apartment to stay in while he was here. I wanted to do my own Thanksgiving...I was excited about planning it, etc., and I even asked Ben to bring cranberries from the States (since they don't have them here). So I suppose I was happy but also a little sad when I found out NYU was going to have one for us. Of course, I could have skipped NYU's, but they were planning it, it was free, and it just made more sense to go to theirs. Also, as I mentioned in another post, the NYU staff here does everything really wonderfully, so it would be silly to miss it. Even so, before the big day I was still sort of grumbly about not having my own. What this is all leading up to is that NYU's was very spectacular, with excellent food, much better than anyone could have expected, and I even brought my own cranberry sauce. I think it's important to mention that turkeys, and typical Thanksgiving food are not in any way normal or easy to find in Buenos Aires. I think the staff had to hire a special turkey guy to get hold of some turkeys. They definitely went out of their way, and it turned out delicious.I know Thanksgiving is really pretty bad and evil and fake in its roots, and I don't mean to ignore this, but I also think it's nice to have a really American holiday, which is for everyone, not just people of one religion or another, or one group or another. Sure in a lot of ways this is silly and tacky, but I'll always enjoy any celebration of food.

    Yes yes, I recommend this program for many reasons. Of course, everyone has a different experience with everything, so I can only tell about mine. But mine has been really great. I've enjoyed the city, the people, the NYU staff here, and basically my whole time. Last year I was not so into NYU, both the people and the institution. I spent the year attending my classes, but that's about all I had to do with the school, I hardly ever hung out with students or did any NYU activities. Since I've always lived off-campus, being so detached from the school has been too easy--and it' what I wanted in the beginning. I'm till happy about it, since I still have my reservations about the whole NYU thing in New York, but here in Buenos Aires, I think they do an amazing job. The center where we take our classes is great, big, and nicely located. The staff are all wonderful (in my opinion) and seem to be friends will all of us students. Also, I know planned activities can be silly, but theirs were really good I think. Maybe orientation week was a bit much, but I think that always happens with orientations. I think I already mentioned this, but the trip to Salta (which NYU planned and paid for) was really, really wonderful, beautiful, and nicely done. Also, as I'll write about in my next post, they did a free, huge, great Thanksgiving dinner for us, in a country where it can be very difficult to find turkeys.     More on Buenos Aires, and being here--I think the whole study abroad was a lot different for the last group who came, and will be a lot different for the next group to come. This is because the size of the group changes so much. Last semester (the first one here) they were only about 30 students. Now we are about 60. I don't know how it will be next time.

limite sudI think it's really interesting how whenever we go to a place as a tourist, we always seek out art. I'm sure this is a big generalization, but at least for me, visiting a new city always means visiting at least one, if not a few of its museums. The more interesting part, for me, is that I probably see more art in the cities I visit than I do in New York. Anyway, here in Bs.As. I guess I have seen a reasonable amount, but again, I'm also a different type of tourist now, since I'm spending real time here; living here--not just passing through. Also, since my boyfriend is really into art (and is visiting), I felt like I should know something about the art scene here, to show him when he came.    Other than a few museums, I went to two big art expos, one of which was really interesting, the other not so much. Regardless of my opinions, it was cool to attend these events 'cause they were two of many open, expo-type events that are always going on in Buenos Aires. I'm not exactly sure how it is in New York, but expos here are big--they have these huge buildings that always have some sort of expo-event going on, like the two I went to, a wine expo, or an international handcraft-type fair, among others. Other than the Javits center (which I've never been to) I haven't heard of other expo-type places in New York. It seems like there aren't many, especially compared to here...but maybe this stuff exists in N.Y. and just isn't advertised so much. I don't know.

I'm glad to write about this last weekend, in which NYU paid for a trip to the north of this country, near Bolivia. I've been thinking about how this was probably the last class trip I will ever go on, which is sort of sad, but even with that in mind, it was really wonderful :)
To start, the names of the places we visited are sort of great. "Salta," a city and a region, means "jump" and the story, as I understood it, is that they had many little bridges in between mountain/cliff gaps, and they would break, so they'd have to jump. Better than this is the other region we visited, "Jujuy," which is actually just an expression of excitement, exclamation, etc.
I'm not exactly sure what you would call some of the places we visited, in terms of geography, but we spent a good deal of time driving through high altitude desert-like mountains, called "puna," which were like nothing I've ever seen before. On that day, we spent twelve hours on a scenic bus route (including many stops). The beginning of that trip was pretty magnificent for me, because I fell asleep on the bus when we left the city of Salta (whose geography is more or less green, mountainous, not wildly exotic for me), and woke up an hour or two later to desert mountains. I stepped out of the bus and everything was a beautiful dusty light brown, with high mountains all around and a canyon-like dried up river cleft, with a train track-bridge that crossed it. I took my shoes off and squinted my sleepy eyes at this surreal scene, with powdery dust under my feet. Never before have I felt so much like I woke up to step into a dream.
Another magnificent place we stopped at on that long bus ride were salt flats, which are much easier to understand through pictures than words.

guide booksHey. Sorry this blog is so late. It's because NYU took us on a trip to the north of the country, and I got back late Sunday night. The trip was amazing, and I'll write it about it in my next open topic, if any of you are interested:)
I'm not sure if I am following this assignment exactly correctly, because the book I am writing about is actually a travel guide, not a read-through book. Although this definitely gives a different, probably generalized view of the place, I think it's interesting to look at in terms of defining the relationship between travel experiences and what we read. The specific book is called "the Rough Guide to Argentina."

rojo sangreSo I guess it's good I'm turning this one in late, because I want to write about what I did yesterday. I went to see short, animated, experimental horror films. I think this probably sounds cooler than it was, at least it did to me. Anyways, in terms of touristy vs, non-touristy, this goes into the realm of non-touristy and sort of weird. I found out about it searching online for different art festivals in Buenos Aires. This wasn't an art festival, but rather a horror film festival called "Rojo Sangre" (Red Blood)! I was excited about it a month or so ago, thinking I'd be able to do something very un-touristy and fun. In fact, it was actually just sort of strange, but fun nonetheless. The people attending were a weird, small crowd, and right when we got to the theatre, things were already a bit unclear, and not what I expected. It wasn't a nice little artsy weird theatre, but rather a big, musty, busy theatre on a walking street in the equivalent of midtown for Buenos Aires. We bought our entradas and entered the main lobby. Our tickets said "sala 3," we saw signs for 1, 2, 4, 5, but no three...asked someone who told us to go to a door outside to our left...found that entrance, signs for 3, but completely barred closed...re-entered main lobby, asked again, told to go to our right. Finally we got to our entrance, an unmarked stairway underground which a man at the top told us led to sala 3. Ok this is fun to describe but I'm not really answering the prompt. I wanted to get into the fact of the crowd there. Everyone had some sort of dark clothing, a few weird hairdos, and then there were also 2 or 3 older, completely normal looking people, who I assume were the parents of some of the short film makers.