rock that estancia.

Day sixteen: actually im in bed right now, so really quick like- we went to an estancia today. i met a few horses and petted a bald dog. that was the highlight of the day. oh, and its my friends birthday today, so happy birthday! not that you'll ever know, but whatever. anyway, meeting was canceled, more on the estancia tomorrow.

merowww

Day fifteen: again. nothing. i think because the final cuts for the project are due this weekend, papi has been editing most days, and we just stay at home and chill. on the up side, most of the music in my computer has album work for it. which makes me feel infinitely better about uploading music onto my ipod... ( i know, im crazy, i think its hereditary. :P). well, and then i went to the meeting, where we saw some rough cuts of videos, which was cool. tomorrow, though, we are going to an estancia all day, which means general rocking of the house. :) with all the college kids, this could get really interesting. :)
on a different note, i've just noticed how much prettier hanna has gotten in the past few years... i know, im behind the times, and i know, she's not exactly a beauty, but... (hahah just kidding hanna, you are gorgeous. :) anyways, much love to those of you reading this, which i know is zero. hah. but still.

cause we can...

Day fourteen: Well, we didnt do squat today! today was my kind of day, all we did was drop off the laundry, go shopping a bit, and nap/munch on foods. twas excessively diverting. but more great was i got to talk to all of my friends... well, not all of them. >.> but i talked to isaac (first time in like, months. good on ya, mate!) and some of my best friends, although grace still hasnt emailed me back. (as hanna says, *foushafousha*) but one of my good friends was a positive saint, and listened to my whining and groaning about my emotional state, and all that i need to get straight with God... which, mind, is a ton. there wasnt a meeting tonight, just a gathering of general discontent because of deadlines... as per usual on these projects. tomorrow, we might go elsewhere, or just go street shopping again, as i still havent gotten my friends souvenirs... i dont know, but im in a good ish mood, thanks to one of my very saintly friends... for all that its only day three of other stuff. working on forgiving, too. also, today is the end of the 2nd week of travels- 2 down, 3 to go! until i get back and we go shopping for dorm stuff! right, thats pretty much it, computer is dying! much love to you all!

GOALLLL

Day thirteen: today we went to the plaza san martin for the argentina.mexico soccer game, which was pretty epic. the game was being shown on huge screens, and there was hundreds of people there. i took some really cute pictures of kids dressed in their argentina regalia, screamed as argentina scored, kept tabs on my sisters and laughed with the crowd at kids playing games. it was awesome. when the game ended and we met back up with my papi, we went to the center of the city, the "obelisco" and shot the rejoicing stage of the after math. there was everything from street vendors to moshpit like areas, from blow up jerseys to babies. hung out there for a bit, then found a pizzaria, and ate some banging food. then we came home and have just been chillin ever since. didnt go to the meeting, though, cause it was canceled. nice.
on a side note, for the 2 of you who actually know whats going on, its been 2 whole days, and i think im dying inside. but im still angry... i dont know how i would react to talking right now. sorry, cant help it...

i love animals.

Day twelve: today we went to the argentina zoo. which was /awesome. they had these weird animals just sort of running loose and they sold food you could feed them. one was a patagonian hare, (or patagonian cavy, or a mara...) which is this half rabbity half deer thing... it was bizarre looking. we also saw a thing called a coypu rat, which swims, got a rattish tail and kind of looks like a beaver. it was weird. and then there were the random animals. giraffes, elephants, tigres, pumas, red pandas... oh, and red pandas. they are so awesome, look it up, i dare you. we refer to them as racoon dogs, because thats what it looks like, but its this asian animal that has a cuteness factor of awesome. i shall share pictures later perhaps. after finishing, we went to this pizza place, where i had some of the best pizza i have ever had, it was great, and we came home. now i type this, and i think we go to the meeting later on. so.

and then yesterday...

was kind of boring, really...
Day eleven: We didnt wake up early today, and lazed around most all day. i enjoyed this, stayed at home most of the time... then papi had to go to school, so we decided to hit a museum, and come back, just to say we did something. the history museum wasnt as interesting as we'd hoped, but i did get to see some authentic daguerreotypes, which was fun. we stayed at home a bit more, then followed papi to school. and then went to the meeting.

Sorry about that.

Just when i was getting good at getting on everyday (2ce in a row. >.<) i stopped.
Day ten: papi woke us up rather early this morning, early being about 9.30. im sure that counts. anyway, we got up and went to an authentic argentine protest, which was cool. We managed to block off one of the main roads in the city and marched for a little bit that way, which was fun. we stayed until about 2, when my stomach was making itself known, and headed home with warm ham and cheese sandwiches. i picked up some stuff, and then we went to the school, for papi to edit, and then went to the meeting.

ack

this blogger=doesnt want to blog tonight.
waayyy tired.
but i think i should.
what to do...
ok, really quick like... (not that im ever long winded about anything. )
Day nine: yargh.
9.00- wake up, hang out in pjs.
10.00- go downstairs. get on computer.
11.00- still on computer.
12.00- still on computer.
1.00- off to florida shopping street.
2.00- chillin on florida.
3.00- buy earings.
4.00- grocery store. sometime in here, get lunch.
5.00- on computer while mum makes yummy dinner.
6.00- eat dinner. leave for meeting.
7.00- have arrived at UCA, on computer, while people edit.
8.00- on computer.
9.00- on computer.
10.00- in meeting started b/w 9-10 ish. on computer.
11.00- meeting done. on computer.
12.00- a student needed a new assignment, went to cafe for dad to discuss.
1.00- some time between 12-1, arrive home.
done.
tiredddd....

Finally caught up. ish.

Day eight: not a whole lot happened today. i went to a morning meeting. we went to the bank. got our laundry dropped off. ate lunch. and then we watched the argentina.greece game. which was totally awesome. contrary to what those of you who know me might think, i really like to watch sports i just hate playing them. it was a lot of fun; we went to a bar.cafe down the street from our place, and watched the game with all the crazy argentinian fans, drank a submarino(an argentinian hot chocolate) and watched people go crazy over the ¨"GOALLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!" every time argentina scored against greece. which was fun. and then i spent the rest of the day wasting away being lame. =)
and now im at the meeting.

and then i have bad days.

Day seven: i was sick. it sucked. (slept for 8-12 ish hours)
... and then i went to the nightly meeting.

onward and upward!

Day six: We had sunday to be awesome, so, we went and visited a walking street with street vendors called Defensa St. in the morning, they had an old antique block, where people just showed up with random antiques and sold them on the street. we managed to find an interesting market with all sorts of really cheap produce, and so, we got bananas,plums and oranges. on an unrelated note, i found out yesterday that i like foreign yogurt, but not american yogurt. weird.anyway, if you walked farther on, you find various types of street vendors and street performers, which was great. there was a man dancing tango with a maniquin, some guy with parrots (dont know why though), guys with guitars, and the invisible man, all trying to get money from passing tourists. we found a man selling chocolate dipped churros (delicious) and people selling awesome craftmanship stuff. now im really hungry. at the end of defensa, we found a plaza mayo, which houses the argentinian equivalent to our "white house", and a ridiculous amount of pigeons. it was crazy awesome. we walked back at this point, and i think we took a nap. but im not sure. and then i went to the nightly meeting.

but i really dont remember this day.

Day five: we did stuff. it was great. but i dont remember what we did. maybe i´ll ask mum. sorry!
actually, now that i have thunked about it, we did switch apartments with some other people of the project. we no longer live in the noise jungle that was across the street from the bar. its a bit quieter and stuff now. so, nice.
ya, and then i went to the nightly meeting.

schwinnnggggg.

Day Four: Not much happened yesterday. we went for orientation at the argentinian school, UCA, where we got a lecture about the importance of this, that and the other thing, what to do if this, that or something else happens, and be safe by doing this, that and otherwise. i tried my hardest not to fall asleep, but that didn’t happen. i passed out halfway through, and woke up slightly after “what to do if you get whistled at in the street”, which was confusing and a bit amusing. they were nice enough to give us a lovely lunch, which consisted of some yum bread, tomato sauce with some random kind of pasta and a drink. which i’m sure you are all really interested in. afterwards, we trekked over to find the j-school at UCA, and have a meet and greet with the argentinians. Fun stuffs. i thought it was amusing at some points (there was a guy with a t-shirt and black gloves. he had Style.) we then got horrendously bored, so, we went and found a store, bought phones for the project, and then, i went to the nightly meeting. (a meeting for the photogs. i show up every once in a while...)


... so i found a word doc i had it on.

i am behind

right.
Day four- I just realized exactly how behind i am in posting. >.< our first day in argentina was relaively uninteresting, just recoup and rest. i dont remember much else, i apologize...

poetry....

Day three: I can hear the city of buenos aires moving, humming and drumming around me. i feel lost in the sea of sound and unfamiliarity of this city, and i am surrounded by the chaos of life, alone. why am i waxing poetic? well. serious sleep deprivation, complete alienation, and i think im dehydrated. but thats not the point. the point is that we finally made it to argentina! finally. i was beginning to think it would never happen. right now, im (trying to) lie down and unwind, but all i can hear is the buses and complete strangers conversation in spanish. and im so tired, but its only ten according to evil jet lag, and so. whatever. in anycase, after we staggered off of the long and decidedly horrendous flight to santiago, we had to chill in the chilean airport for four hours to catch the connecting flight. i found a (very expensive) can of diet coke, and took a hour or so bit of nap. we took off a bit after noon, and suffered another three hour flight. im sure we were quite the sight- a group of 18 haggard looking collegestudents, teachers and kids barely alive if not for the promise of clean clothes. praying that we would all receive our luggage, we flagged down a flight attendant, gently interrogated the poor man, and rejoiced when luggage was retrieved and handed to us. some poor soul was sent to pick us up in all our glory, and for the life of him couldnt speak a lick of english. well, we got straightened and he brought us to our apartment (more on that when im actually awake) where we prompt ly changed, napped and offed to eat dinner. shortly thereafter, we met with the students, discussed various things and now im in bed. sorry. its not too coherent, but it’ll be better tomorrow, i hope....

hulu was a great idea.

Day two: the next morning found me in better spirits as we (well, I) got up at the crack of 10, and showered, lamented the distinct lack of suitcases which were in the airport, and adventured off to find the nearest connivence store for caffeine and maybe breakfast. i indeed found an adventure as i walked 10 minutes down the street that was (sorry) vaguely reminiscent of downtown Durham. after my probably unnecessary jumpy walk, i found a family dollar/dollar general/i forgot what it was called store and got my precious caffeine. Immensely pleased with myself, i power-walked/jogged back to the hotel, where i related the story to my familia. by this point, we had the clock turned to 11 thirty or roundabouts, so we straightened room business and went to the waffle house to eat. i had 3 small cheeseburgers, thanks to which has saved my appetite until round about 10. we then went back to our rooms, where i watched a few tv episodes, and edited a paper (still not done.) and generally was a lazy bum. my mom and sister went off on their own adventure to find the store afore mentioned, and came back with swim shorts. we scrounged t shirts from the overnight bags given to us by delta the night before, and went swimming! i hate swimming, but that was a ton of fun. go figure. i valiantly came back to attempt to continue working on the paper, and ended up just watching more hulu tv. off to subways for dinner, hopped to the airport, and caught another awful plane. hate planes too. someone needs to develop teleportation. anyway, the flight was round abouts 9 hours long, or so, and true to my increasingly more so insomniac self, i slept about 30 minutes of it. i’m cool. :)

i refuse to proofread for gramatical errors.

To the brave and noble souls not reading my blog, i have to begin documenting this trip to argentina. Get ready for the awesomeness.
Day one: We set out for argentina yesterday (wellll, by this point, its 2 days ago. and by the time i get internet to actually post this, it’ll be 3 or 4 days ago... but technicalities.) in the late afternoon, spirits high, laptops packed, camera gear ready, only to find at the airport that the plane was to be delayed in our home airport for around 4 hours due to the weather preventing landing at the airline hub we were going to go to. (lorrrrdd have mercy...) Eventually we did end up getting on the plane, and were airborne within the turn of the 5th hour. when we finally did land, we found our gate was taken by another jet, and had to wait another hour to get into the actual airport. at this time, it well after midnight and we had missed our connecting flight. my father, being the “fearless leader” that he is, found us another flight tomorrow, albeit a bit more complicated (one more layover.), and a hotel for the night. thankful we didn't have to spend the night in an airport, we followed him to chase a shuttle (literally...) and crawled into bed at around four am. Sorry, but i hate atlanta...

fun stuffs.

So, this weekend I just was given my very own macbook pro :)
I am so excited! I can blog about the impending trip to Argentina for all the zero of you who do actually read this blog. huzzah. now, to find how to upload photos...

Dear World

I'm not really sure what I'd like to say to you, but this:
I love you deeply. I don't care what you do to me, or what I say to you, but please know that I will always forgive you. You are near and dear to my heart. I will always love you because God loves you, and God loves me.

-To a very special friend:
Dear, I love you so so much. I know that you have had your own battles and confidence and relationships are not as fluent as for some people, but I want you to know that I love you. Any time you have problems, or you're sad, please know that it really is an honor to be able to hear you and (I hope) help you along the way. You are amazing.

-To my darling love:
I love you so much. Sometimes I might not show it, but dear, you make my world go round. You are the cheese to my macaroni, peanut butter to my jelly, my bow to my violin. Thank you so much for picking me up. I really don't know what I would do without you. You have reached in so many times and saved my world, and I am so so so grateful to you. Please know that I love you and I am TOTALLY honored and ecstatic to be able to call you my darling. Thank you for being you.

I love you all, and I am glad to love you.
mariko