de "vacaciones" pronto!

What a week! It was my turn to present in my Política y Sociedad class, about authoritarianism and democracy in Latin America. Despite reading the text before hand and having a good summary written up, the planning for my presentation (and subsequent practicing and writing of the accompaning 5-page essay), the presentation pretty much dominated my week, which was a shame because Alvaro was around and I really just wanted to turistear and hang out. Instead, I read the text at least a dozen times, agonized over a measly five pages, and broke down several times while practicing my presentation because I couldn't think of the word that I wanted in Spanish. The good news is that en fin Prof Pablo told me that I had a done a good job. Which is good, considering that as a consequence, I am terribly behind on the readings for my other classes.

The really good news is that Alvaro was really nice and useful and didn't complain about my stress and subsequent bad moods. We managed to use the toaster oven to make lasagna to celebrate finishing the presentation, which turned out super rica, and earlier in the week we brewed up a pretty good Asian stirfry dish, considering we're in Quito.

The bad news is that as of 7:30pm today, estoy de vacaciones- I'm on vacation. I know that this sounds
a) like it's really soon in the semester (or is it just me that feels like a month of class isn't enough to deserve a vacation?) and more importantly,
b) like it should be a good thing.

Let me explain. Despite the popular definition of "vacation" as a relaxing period of time when one doesn't have to worry about one's normal worries, I have a ridiculous amount of schoolwork to do during my "vacation"! My biggest concern is my midterm essay for the same class (Politics and Society in Lat Am) and it's due on Monday, leaving me only vacation time to work on it. I also have to present in my International Relations Theory class next week for thirty minutes, and on Monday I was planning on presenting to my Rotary club. Oh, and because I thought that this would actually be a vacation, I had plans to go to beautiful Cuenca, where I've been feeling urges to go ever since I first came to Ecuador many mooons ago. Just google-image "Cuenca" and you'll see why I want to go! It's also the festivals of Cuenca during this week, making it even more of a perfect trip. We'll see if and how I can manage the Cuenca trip with all of my essay writing and presentation preparing and other non-vacation like activities.

To end on a non-complaining note, I'll mention that I bought some pistachio ice cream and it is incredible! Even more incredible is that it has lasted a week already. Also nice is the fact that my place doesn't have swarming termites. So time for me to stop complaining, and start looking forward to vacation already!