Week 5

It's week 5 already. WOW! That is really crazy. It is truly remarkable how fast time is going. Now that my Teotihuacan trip is done and over with, I'm looking forward to future endeavors like a trip to Oaxaca, Mexico, and spring break of course. But spring break is a long time away - not during the usual college time of spring break. It's the week before Easter. Speaking of spring break, my friends and I have officially decided that we are going to go to......ISLAS MUJERES!!!! I'm really excited! Islas Mujeres is an island near Cancun. I can't wait. It's going to be so much fun and since I'm going with friends, that will make it even better. I already bought my plane ticket so it's as official as ever and my friend Amelie is booking the hostel we will be staying at tomorrow I think. It's a really cute little hostel :)
As far as school goes, school is school. It has been going pretty well. I've been getting good grades on my assignments as far as I know. Only 2 of my professors have been posting our grades online so hopefully I'm doing equally well in each class. The first set of exams are this week and next week. It's called "Primer Parcial." And there are 3 parciales during this semester I think.
Something I've been thinking a lot about lately is my purpose here in Mexico. I know that I am here for more than just studying and going to school, but I have yet to see what God has placed me here for exactly. I'm curious and excited to see what will happen during the rest of my time here as well as all that I will learn spiritually and how I will grow.
Another thing I've been thinking a lot about has been how much I miss cooking and baking! It is so weird not having to make any of my meals! I truly miss it! Laura always makes such wonderful meals and wonderful foods every day. I'm truly blessed! But I miss making my weird and healthy concoctions that no one seems to like except me. Haha. Like my spinach oat pancakes and my various flavors of oatmeal. Thankfully I've been able to eat french toast here quite a lot! which I love, but I always have to eat it with syrup, where I'd much rather put a bunch of cottage cheese and sugarfree jam on it with maybe some homemade granola. But it's still just as good! Laura knows how much I like french toast, so she makes it quite often thankfully! haha.
Tonight for dinner though I made myself some oatmeal! It was so good and a taste of home. haha. I put some brown sugar, some hazelnut and vanilla type of nutella stuff, and some chocolate icing in it and microwaved it. I probably nuked all of the nutrition value out of it by this point, but it was really good. I would say one thing I'm excited to do when I get back to the US is bake and cook away and also get myself some protein powder and make some protein pancakes!
Another cool thing is that I just found the channel for the Olympics today! FINALLY! I was looking for a couple days and could never find it, but I finally found it.
Lastly, I managed to write a 5 page Spanish paper in a 2 day span, which is really cool for me because this is the first spanish paper I've written while I've been here. The rest have been small little essays like a page or less. I had to write about the Templo Mayor of the Aztecs and the Catedral Metropoliana that replaced Templo Mayor when the Spanish and Aztecs fought and then destroyed the temple and replaced it with the cathedral. I had to write my opinion on that and such. It actually wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be! woohoo!
I think that about sums up all that has happened within the past week or so and where I'm at today. I do get bouts of homesickness where I'd rather be at home or at Central just because it is what's normal for me, but thankfully these don't last long. I'm glad that I'm here because I know I will learn so much and my spanish will hopefully improve so much too! I can already tell I can understand people better than when I got here and I can read a little faster as well. The speaking part is what's getting me because I don't like to talk in class, so I've been trying to force myself to talk at least once out loud in each class. That's my current goal and once I do that I'll increase it to 2 times, etc.
Lastly, last night or in the middle of the night, I started thinking in Spanish and out of nowhere I started thinking about spanish pronunciation. haha. I don't know what that means, but hopefully it's a good thing!
One more lastly, haha. the dog Sofia got a hair cut the other day and her fur is so short! It's like a summer haircut, but she's still just as cute and has little bows in her ears too :)

That's all for now!
Hasta luego!