My... armpits hurt, my feet stink, and I don't love Jesus

I'd like to thank Jimmy Buffett, sort of, for the title of this post, as well as say that I'm actually doing quite fine here. :)

I'm at this exact moment a little worried because tomorrow we're to pray the rosary for an hour and I have neither rosary nor willingness to pray by one. Maru's out of town, and I don't want to ask my grandma. I wouldn't be concerned at all about respectfully sitting it out but I'm afraid that the principal (for an example of her nature, I used her to illustrate the meaning of the phrase "she has a stick up her ass.") will reprimand me, which will lead to the inevitable and honest "I'm not Catholic and I respect the religion too much to pretend to be," which hopefully leads to nothing bad.

Today in PE we got an awesome and gnarly-intense two hour workout. If I did that every day I would be ripped.

On Saturday night I went to the birthday party of my friend Borbua. Everyone was there, the cake was great (of course), and I had a blast, even plus headache and sleepiness (I apparently wasn't the only one... the blasting tipico probably had a lot to do with it). Unfortunately, at 11pm, when the dancing was just starting up, I had to leave, but that's not too horrible because it was mostly bachata anyways and I can't dance that.

Sunday I went to Mireybis' house with Aleida and Rafael and we worked on a display for Science Week, which turned out ridiculously elaborate and required sanding a ton of styrofoam.

Friday we only have two hours of real school because there's another schoolwide beauty pageant, fruit-themed, and we all get to run around the gym and eat free food made from each candidate's respective fruit. Hey, I can ignore the antifeminist implications long enough to stuff myself (I kid, I kid, it does kind of disgust me...).

...and uh, my armpits really do hurt.

Welcome to the new bimestre

So things are pretty good here; exams are over, finally, and I now understand how I'm supposed to organize my schoolwork in order to get full credit (how nice). My new haircut is very indie boy, and this pleases me. I feel like I'm rebelling without having to do anything sketchy and I don't get in trouble, which is a-okay with me.

On Sunday I went to my aunt's house in Panama City for her birthday party while Maruquel was at a Christian retreat. It was really fun and I kept getting invited to drink with the men. I didn't, but I was still entertained. I ate the most delicious ceviche ever there, not to mention some highly decent cake. All the birthday cakes here seem to be really, really good, and I don't know why but I am a fan.

I'm currently working on a watercolor painting for Sebastian (my awesome friend), because his 17th birthday is tomorrow. I was supposed to go to Panama with him on Saturday but it didn't work out because my family thought he would take advantage of me, which is actually hilarious if you've ever seen this guy... But that's okay, I'm sure I'll get a chance to go at some point.

Weeeell, hope all is well in your various locations.

Love,
Laurel

Exams are fun! (not.)

Here I am, in my favorite internet café (I´ve been through a lot with them, namely power outages), not writing my impossibly intense history investigation, like I really should be. This week, along with the Thursday and Friday of last week, have been entirely exams, which is nice in the sense of getting out of school at 10:30 am but not so nice in the sense of being forced by the principal to complete tests in subject material I haven´t learned (the 16 or so types of conscience) or have completely forgotten (organelles... yeah Heather, shoot me) in a language that I am just starting to get a handle on in a conversational sense (technical vocabulary? forget it!). I did get a 5.0 (perfect) in Informatica Aplicada, aka write out equations in the right format for Excel class, but that didn´t surprise me. Today was the only day where the exams really made me want to shout expletives, for entirely different reasons. Half of the Ethics and Morals final was about the innate differences between man and women and why they should be paired in marriage at all times.... Well, you can see how much I liked that.

Things have been mostly good. I am cutting my hair tomorrow at a really good (and not bank breaking) salon tomorrow with my friend Roxana, if all goes well. I tried the most amazing drink on earth, chicheme, and all I want is more. Also, at my uncle´s birthday party I got to try a bunch of traditional panamanian food that nobody makes in my house, which was both very tasty and a refreshing change.

Maru is still a little ridiculous, but I´ve been learning more about my host grandma and she is fascinating... she has been through so much crap and continues to go through it, and she has the best attitude she could have while still accepting the bitter facts.

Love,
Laurel

Telephone? Please?

So I've called some folks and not called others, and I was thinking that if any of you want to spend some money on me, I'd be beyond wonderful if you called, even for like 10 minutes. Anything longer than that and I recommend a phone card; they are wonderful and easy to use from your home phone.

My number is:
011-507-253-3664

If you call, it's best to call in the evenings, no later than 9 o'clock my time, please! (that is 7 PST)

Thanks so much!
Laurel

yay, internet cafes!

My poor computer is sick with a virus so I´ve made the trek in the rain to an internet cafe, fairly succesfully. I´m slowly getting comfortable navigating here, especially now that I can weasel my way out of the house alone every once in a while. This is majorly nice and allows me to walk everywhere as I am accustomed and not pay for taxis like my friends here usually do.

Things are going pretty smoothly here; I feel like I am finally starting to adapt to the way of life. Relations with the family have improved drastically, and my grandmother apologized to me about the whole deal with Jaime, which I appreciated. Maru let me sleep through Church on Sunday, too. School is good; the classes are still boring but I am making more friends and am having way more to do after school. Also, politeness seems to dictate that boys should buy girls things. Hey, I´m into free ice cream.

My hair is still not quite long enough for a ponytail, but does go into cute little pigtails rather nicely/disturbingly. I have to buy more hairties though because I only have one, and pigtails implies two. When I wear my hair down I have I Rio-style pseudo-mullet, which might work fine for Rio but just looks like 80s style death on me... Oh well, what can ya do...

Today I think that I don´t have school, and hope that everyone was telling me the truth, or else I´ll have fun explaining stuff tomorrow. I still haven´t actually had a full week because these people party so damn much. No, really, anyone will tell you so.

Tuesday I start choir and Wednesday my flute gets back from the repair shop so I will hopefully start band.

Miss you guys!

Love,
Laurel

Movies and Swear Words, Oh My

Well, life goes on here in La Chorrera, same as always, I guess. My mom and grandma are furious with Jaime, my brother, and I don´t know why because with raised voices, fast speech, and intense amounts of swearing it´s hard to glean any content from what they say. Therefore things are a little stressful here at home, and kind of leave me confused.

Last night I went to the movies with some friends from school, including a kind of attractive Chinese guy who´s favorite singer is Alanis Morissette. The movie, Invisible, was actually good, so I enjoyed myself. The night before I went to another movie with Kate, my American AFS friend, which was not really my kind of film. I had a great time anyways because Kate is awesome and it´s always a relief to hang out with somebody who has any kind of clue what you are dealing with on a daily basis.

Today Maru tried to give me chicken sausage and I told her that I didn´t want any and she started yelling at me about how it is still chicken and how there is NO difference between that and any other chicken, blah, blah, blah. My grandma interjected feebly, "We already know that she doesn´t LIKE sausage," but to know avail. Then Maru said, "She´s not vegetarian, she´s just a weird eater!" and I interrupted in my `icy voice of steel´ that I am vegetarian, I do not normally eat chicken, and I am only eating chicken here so that I do not starve. She looked shocked and said, "Really?" and I thought, how many times have my mom and I told her this already?

Similarly, last Sunday we were at Mass and she was telling me what to do in Church and I told her that I didn´t feel comfortable crossing myself, etc., because I respect Catholicism and thus do not want to imitate it without belief. The response: "You´re not Catholic?! You never told me!" Yes, I did Maru. More than once. Do you actually hear a single word I tell you or do you hear what you tell yourself?

School is boring but okay. People are nice, but I wish that my classes were challenging in any way, shape, or form. Also, my chemistry teacher keeps giving me zeros because I´m not on his class list or because he supposedly can´t read my name (which was quite legible, thanks, I asked my classmates) when, uh, he has to ADD ME to his class list because I´m a NEW EXCHANGE STUDENT. D´oh.

Whatever. So in some ways things are great and in others they are stressful as hell and not so great. If anyone wants to send me books, cds, or rainbow things that would be very appreciated.

Love,
Laurel

The end of another week draws nigh...

Things are going pretty well here, especially schoolwise. The math and physics we are doing here is all stuff I have been doing since 6th or 7th grade, so I want to teach myself calculus. Tomorrow I audition for the choir, which should be interesting, to say the least. After the 12th I start playing in the band, so we´ll see how that goes.

There has been some family drama, because I am always sleepy and cannot eat enough (ME, not eat enough!), but for the most part I really like my family and cannot imagine changing households. Turns out that half the problem anyways was that I was eating cereal for breakfast instead of oatmeal... My grandmother in particular is basically made of awesome, and we get along. We are both kind of uppity people, and thus we understand each other better than Maru and I, who get along but are of entirely different mindsets.

Hopefully not this weekend, but next, my friend Aleida and I are going into Panamá City to buy me some clothes... I´d like to have a few more things to wear and according to my compañeras, nobody shops in La Chorrera.

This Saturday all of us AFSers in Chorrera and our families are going to the house of María Elena, the coordinator, to have a party. That should be fun!

Oh, mom, if you check this, could you send me the enchilada recipe? Thanks.

Anyways, miss you guys A LOT and talk to you later.

Laurel