And it's already the end of ma-jo

My body is finally adjusting to living in Argentina, now that I eat breakfast at 7 a.m., lunch at 3 p.m. and dinner at 10 p.m. Sleeping? Ha. Completing a 12-hour semester during the summer has its drawbacks, but is definitely worth it.

If you ever want to see me stressed, impatient and/or freaking out—wait for public transportation with me. Our bus did not show up to the stop for a good 15 minutes, and it took us 45 minutes to get to school. Arriving barely on time to Spanish, we learned about payadas, a South American tradition where men with guitars improvise rhyming songs in a call and answer style. Honestly, they just remind me of rap battles but more classy, competitive and in Spanish. How awesome!

Tuesdays are the day where I don't come home for 14 hours--leaving the house at 7 a.m. for class and getting back from work and a gender seminar course around 9 p.m. I'm loving Entercomm more and more each day, as I get to know my coworkers, complete projects and feel satisfied after every English-Spanish translation. Today's work stories include...

• Clipping- I'm sure I'll start with this everyday, because it's not the most desirable job, but I once again find it fun and accomplishing to dig up the news on all of the clients. It's like an investigation game. See how much news you can find with our company's name that's in Spanish and published in Argentina--go!!
• Google Reader- I created a GoogleReader tablet for the additional bookmarks like blogs and websites specifically in Argentina that Google doesn't always recognize (like .ar pages) to search for company names. Thank goodness for this invention, it saves me about an hour of searching through websites.
• Translations- I started off by translating a British Telecom advertisement for World Environment Day on June 5 from Spanish to English. Next, I translated a five-page document with a lot of technological terms from NetApp and its new software security programs. When I'm doing this, I still do not believe it's real life. I feel like a Spanish teacher just told me to do this to practice...but it's not. It will actually help some Spanish speaker understand what the article means. Very satisfying.
• Lunch- I ate lunch with three of the women at Entercomm, my boss Brenda, a designer named Vanessa, and the secretary. We had a great conversation and they are always interested in learning about my endeavors in Argentina and the United States, Chicago and Mizzou are like. Sometimes I think they ask me questions just to help me improve my Spanish, which is very courteous. I realized the reason I understand the women from Argentina so much better than the men is because the men tend to mumble more; it's not even related to slowing down. Since the workplace in Argentina is a bit more relaxed (that's an understatement), Vanessa, Brenda and I went on a 15-minute walk around Puerto Madero after lunch to power up for the rest of the afternoon. Why am I living a dream?
• Brenda said she used my headers and copywriting for the construction group in California's new website and that they were what she needed!
• Spanish story of the day: Martín, one of the Entercomm employees, just got back from vacationing to London and Spain. He was making fun of some of the English words he learned, and the whole office got a kick out of the word mattress. I don't know why they thought it was so funny, but they checked with me to make sure he learned the right word. Colchón means mattress in Spanish, and they just all thought it was hilarious.

From work, I walked to the Mizzou office building (about 15 minutes down the same street, my pretty Puerto Madero walk along the water) for the first night of my Women & Gender Studies course with Carolina. The decision to take this course makes me so happy I chose to go to Mizzou, because it's just our teacher and three students. I like having the opportunity to take classes of a variety of sizes and especially in such a controversial topic to some, it's great that we can discuss and ask whatever we would like. The syllabus emphasizes gender roles in the media and in South America, touching on the US and Latin America as well. As a person who already respects feminist ideals, I'm really excited for our lessons and discussions!

T.G.I. Friday's- Buenos Aires

The Friday's is right next to the Mizzou office; it was only a matter of time until I tried it. Being starved after class, Elizabeth and I went in to see the menu. It happened to be Happy Hour (2 for 1 appetizers and drinks) so we got these beautiful mojitos! Yes, I can order drinks at a Friday's for once in my life. The service charge also included bread and a salsa-type sauce, how funny. Other than those two things, everything else was just about the same with the prices hiked up. My Sesame Jack Chicken Strips had the perfect JD glaze and tasted great as usual. The menu was a year or two behind, but even the uniforms were the same. Oh Friday's.

Mojitos and bread from Friday's- Buenos Aires

We took a new route to the Subte and walked past the Casa Rosada (pink house) on Plaza de Mayo! Look how beautiful it is at night.

Casa Rosada

Argentine Dialect

Although the Spanish accent here is incredibly different and even called castellano, emphasizing J-sounds instead of L's and Y's, I finally realized today how much it makes sense. A lot of the Y's specifically are included in Spanish words where Americans have Js. Look at these examples!

• Proyecto (Spanish) --> project (English) --> projecto (Castellano)
• Mayoría (Spanish) --> majority (English) --> majoría (Castellano)

Argentines are not just weird, they're in SOUTH AMERICA so they're picking up on American sounds rather than European sounds. I get it! Obviously the Y still applies to words like May * mayo (Spanish) --> majo (Castellano), * but it makes so much sense now.

Have a great first day of June!