i haven't fallen off the planet yet

just wanted to let you all know that i'm still here.
sorta.
i'm up to my ears in research and it's due two weeks from tomorrow (freaking out a little bit).
and when i'm not doing that, i am probably sleeping, eating, or showering.
or watching netflix on skype with hart.
i'm also applying for a summer internship at the truman presidential library, so wish me luck with that.
that's all i have to say for now.
have a lovely day :)

my life is crazy/awesome

this semester is insane, but i kinda like it.

the insanity is mostly because i just started my research. all the deadlines for this project are pretty tight, so that's the main source of all my stress. well, that, and still having four other classes to take care of. 

anyhow, here's the skinny on my research project:

• final product (due at the end of the semester) is 20-25 pages (the longest thing i will ever have written in my life)
• i just narrowed my topic yesterday to the roles of women in fascist spain under general franco (his dictatorship was 1939 until his death in 1975)
• i have an annotated bibliography due tomorrow and a historiographical essay (8-10 pages) due next thursday and then two weeks until my first draft is due (!!!!)

so. welcome to the insanity. i'm just really glad it's something i'm genuinely interested in.  if you don't hear from me for the rest of the semester, you can probably find me crying and drinking wine in my bathtub trying (unsuccessfully) not to die of an anxiety attack.
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anyhow, life is otherwise great. being 21 is wonderful for obvious reasons, as referenced in the previous paragraph. (i don't actually cry and drink wine in my bathtub. my life isn't that sad. though this research may drive me to that point.)
amnesty is doing pretty well, but i'm too focused on research to be wholeheartedly involved in curing the world of injustice. though i wish i could be.  
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in other huge, giant, wonderful news, as of the end of september, i am now dating my best friend since high school. we've known each other for five years and were strictly friends for a long time, so that's pretty solid. he's basically the greatest person ever. his name is hart. yay!
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that is all i have to say for now. if i don't update for a long time, just know that i am drowning in research and will probably come out alive. maybe.

welcome back!

i bet you thought i wasn't going to post, didn't you?
i've actually had a post-it on my desk about it for a couple weeks now...
but as i always say, better late than never.
so, junior year. here we go.
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classes are pretty good so far. i'm doing my research for history this semester (modern european women). i haven't actually gotten into the research part of the class yet, so i'm expecting my semester to get really busy around midterm. besides that, i'm taking oral history, astronomy, foundations of education, and american national government. most of those aren't too intense, so that's good, considering the whole research thing.
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amnesty is working on getting it together this semester. we don't have a campaign that we're working on yet, but on friday we had a table in the student union to raise awareness about/petition the human rights violations in syria. if you're interested in amnesty international's stance (which we were promoting), you can find that here.
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as for spanish club, i am not able to attend this semester. my astronomy lab is at the same time. hopefully next semester.
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as you may remember, this year i am living in an on-campus apartment with a stranger i met on the internet. she is interesting. she has never slept here because she always sleeps at her boyfriend's house, so that's really nice. he is here almost as often as she is. i can't decide how i feel about him because he is nice enough, but a little weird and kind of annoying. but my roommate i don't mind so much. she is very quiet when she is here, and provided some nice things for the apartment. the weird points: (1) she is really into my little pony, (2) by and large, lights do not exist to her, (3) she leaves food out all night when she isn't here/sometimes it stays there for day(s). i am mostly entertained by these things because, let's be honest, they are rather comical.
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i am preparing for my 21st birthday. and by that, i mean i'm freaking out because i don't know what i'm doing so that's annoying. i'll let you know how that one turns out.
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that's all i have for now. life is not that exciting up here so far.
have a lovely amount of time until i post again

how could i forget?!

i remembered when i was in class just now.
another thing i miss about america:
free water and free bathrooms.
that's right. you have to pay for that shit in spain. every time. it. sucks. 

an update from spain

greetings! i meant to make one last post during finals week, but being finals week, that didn't happen. (you're not really missing anything, finals week was not super exciting).
so i figured i'd make up for it now by updating you a little on what's been going on. except i don't really have time to write out a month's worth of adventures. so instead, i'm just going to make a list of things i love about spain and things i can't wait to come back to in america.
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things i love about spain

• chocolate y churros.  most delicious thing ever. churros and the richest hot chocolate you've ever tasted for dipping them in. it's mainly a breakfast thing, but we have been able to procure them at night on occasion. we need this in america.
• heladerias. we get ice cream a lot. and it is so delicious. 
• k bueno. made by the same company as nutella. these are hazelnut and chocolate candy bars. oh my god. 
• fresh sea food. living in missouri doesn't really allow for fresh seafood to be a regular part of my diet. (i hated tuna before coming here based on the smell alone. my host mom made rice with tuna the other day and i loved it).
• people here look like me. it gets annoying when people in america ask me if i'm mexican/hispanic/whatever. but here, i look like a lot of the people i see on the street. no one has asked me where i'm from or what my nationality is. it's a nice change.
• siesta is not just for special occasions. people take naps every day. not just after they've pulled an all-nighter.
• hours in general. spaniards hate getting up early and love staying up late. i feel less weird for my personal hours of alertness here. (as americans, we go to bed about the time spainards are just getting the party started.)

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things i miss about america

• my (clean and nicely sized) house. my house in america is not huge, but there is room to breathe, unlike this almost-cramped flat in spain. also, our floors are a lot cleaner. i am glad i brought slippers because the tile floors have a lot of dirt on them. in just two weeks here, the bottoms are almost completely covered in grime.
• my bed. currently sleeping in the top bunk of an awkward bunk bed.
• my shower. the shower head here is in the middle of the tub instead of at the end. not diggin that. also, the temperature is really touchy, so it's either scalding or freezing, which i also hate. 
• being in control of what i have at meals. our host mom brings us out plates already filled with food. i like to be in control of my own portions; i waste less that way. also, i don't like it that meals are always a surprise. basically, i just like to be in the know/in control of the food i am consuming. [side note: none of this food has been bad. i have liked almost everything my host mom has put in front of me. this has nothing to do with the food itself, just my lack of control over it.]
• my favorite people. i have met some cool people here, and our group from truman couldn't be better, but of course i miss my family and my best friends. the big time difference and my inability to use my phone here make that even harder. 

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that's all i can think of for now, though i'm sure there is more.
for more on my adventures through iberia, check out my flickr. i still have more photos to upload, but most of them are up for your enjoyment.

i am so good at posting, guys.

alright, so that whole "i'll break everything down into smaller posts so it will be less overwhelming and i'll get it done faster" idea didn't really work out. sorry about that (i feel like i'm always apologizing on this thing..)
anyhow, recap of what i should have posted about:

• it snowed a lot. all we got was one day off, but truman is pretty stingy with snow days. this was only the fourth one ever in truman's history. 
• valentine's day (wow that was a long time ago) was great. we made breakfast for dinner. 
• i went a week with no phone because my old one decided to give up on life. i wish i could say i learned something, but basically i sometimes felt like something was missing and sometimes felt liberated. also, driving all the way home with no phone is one way to make you nervous for a few hours. 

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so spain. it's slowly taking over my life. i don't like it. i have a three-hour-a-week class every thursday in march and april. six thirty to nine thirty. it's pretty rough to sit there and listen to pites (pronounced PEE-tays, my spanish professor) talk about spain and watch videos from the late 80s about spain. that's all i really have to say about that right now.
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amnesty had the hunger banquet last tuesday. not a very big turnout, but considering the fact that we pulled some pieces of it together at the last minute, we did a pretty good job. now we're focusing all our energy on the slut walk, and kate and i are making sure that that is all taken care of/not a last minute affair. because this is really important, especially after what happened in steubenville. and if you don't know about that, you should go peruse the internet and find out about it. or watch this video. because this is absolutely appalling and i could not be more disgusted with society. anyhow, moving on to brighter things.
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actually i don't reallly have much else to say. classes are alright. break was good, but it went by way too fast. ...that's about all. wow. i was expecting this post to be a lot longer. guess i'm not too exciting lately :)
have a lovely few weeks until next time!

let's get the easy stuff out of the way first.

organizations! woo!
first of all, exciting news: i am now an honor student in my areas of study! i am (almost) officially a member of phi alpha theta, the history honor society (induction hasn't happened yet, but i've already paid dues and everything), and i am becoming a member of the cultural and societal honor society as well. wooo hoo!
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as for spanish club, i'm working my way through it. we're planning some fundraisers, so that should be interesting. i still can't wait to be done with it, though. it just feels like one more thing to worry about that i really just don't need. but it'll be okay. it's not a huge time commitment.
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amnesty. amnesty, amnesty, what can i say about thee? it's getting really frustrating to go to. i don't mean to sound like a total downer because usually amnesty is what keeps me happy, but maybe the fact that we're actually planning events is causing an issue here. because we talk about things a lot. but we never decide on anything. the hunger banquet is the tuesday after break, and we're still trying to get details ironed out. i don't want to bitch too much, but it's irritating kate and i considerably. hopefully things will get better.
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that's all i have to say about my organizations. in the next installment, i will inform you of the love holiday, snowpocalypse 2013, and my week without a phone. this should be a more exciting post. wheee!

my life is insane.

WOW has it been a long time. i am SO behind on this and i am really sorry. i meant to post, like, two weeks ago. two? three? i don't even remember. but a lot has happened so i'm going to do this in installments.

my life has been super crazy. (like you didn't get that based on the title of this post). anyhow. just letting you know. i plan on getting my life story since the end of january up here on the internet for you within the next week. but this is also midterm week, so don't get too upset if it doesn't happen. wow, i'm good at guarantees. i'll start working on the first one now..

welcome back

january's almost over. what's up with that? it feels like it just got here. anyhow, happy new year.
on the agenda for this semester: structured inequalities, sociological theory, spanish conversation, latin american history at the movies (once a week; we essentially just watch movies and discuss them), and liberal arts and sciences calculus (calc designed for those of us who could care less about math but need to take it because it's required). it's a relatively easy semester. which is nice, because i have a lot of crap to get done for spain, and in march & april i will have an additional three hours a week to my course load with the required class to get ready for study abroad. exhausted yet? i am.
things have been going relatively well with my extracurriculars, but they haven't really taken off for the semester yet. especially spanish club. the activities fair is this week, so hopefully we'll pull in some more members. as far as amnesty is concerned, we're busy planning (hopefully) two events for this semester. one is a hunger banquet. we want to have a dinner to raise awareness about global hunger by corresponding the percentage of attendance to percentage of the global population in various levels of wealth. so, (this is not the correct statistic, by the way) if 70% of the global population is in the lowest wealth bracket, 70% of participants will receive the typical amount of food someone from that group would experience in a typical meal. (we're not going to let them starve, though. we'll have a buffet later.) the other is a slut walk. you can find more information here, but it's basically a movement that started in Canada saying that it's not okay to blame the victim of sexual assault based on what s/he was wearing, or anything else for that matter. so i'll let you know how those are coming along once we make some more progress. and if you have any questions, ask away.
i spent the holiday (MLK day, in case you already forgot) in Columbia with Kaitlin. we watched girls (the hbo show), and that was basically all we did. it was awesome.
other than that, nothing much has really been going on, just running around like a headless chicken trying to get stuff done for spain (ok not really, but that's what it feels like).
also, being poor really sucks.
leaving the country makes you poor. 
that is all i have to say for this installment.
have a good rest of january/beginning of february!