I didn´t realize how accustomed I had grown to using my roommate´s laptop. I have it during the day when she´s at work, she has it when she´s home at night. But these past few weeks she´s been taking it to work with her. Who does she think she is? But today I have it. And Jorge reminded me that my last blog was bitter and negative. Which doesn´t even sound like me. But I am happier with the world today so I will write something. Jorge and I are back together, but casually. Not casual because we´re seeing other people or anything, but because I´m leaving in two months and even if I was staying it probably wouldn´t work out long term. I told him he has to be on the look-out for a girlfriend to replace me in December, and he said that I occupied such a big space in his heart that he´d have to find two girlfriends to replace me. Sweet, right? Maybe you had to be there.

I´ve been teaching this english conversation class on tuesday and thursday nights. I don´t really love teaching english, but this class is really cool. I don´t need to teach grammar, or push them through boring textbooks. I can do whatever I want. Last night we played scrabble. I might have had more fun than they did, but that´s what I get paid for. It´s actually really fun. They speak english extremely well- they´ve graduated from all the classes at euroidiomas (the institute) and this is just practice for them. There´s so much material on-line to teach classes like this that I usually don´t even prepare, just print out lessons that come with interesting, recent articles and practice exercises. There´s only 5 people in the class and sometimes only 4. I give them exercises where they have to work in pairs, so if only 4 people come then I don´t have to participate. But I also really enjoy talking to them. Two people are I think early thirties, professionals, really nice, smart, good-looking. A girl and a guy, I think they should get together. And a 21 yr old guy and a 13 yr old girl. But they are pretty mature and we have interesting discussions. And there´s one other young professional guy. It should be a class where I tell them about the US, but more often the conversation turns to Peru and I´m learning a lot from them. I think they´re learning things from each other as well, because of the big age gap- for instance, the 13 yr old tells them what school is like now, and they tell her what to expect from university and adult life. We had one discussion about the prevalence of nicknames here, like chino for someone who looks chinese, or gordito for someone who is fat or something. The 13 yr old said the nicknames are so common that even teachers use them to refer to their students, which surprised the adults in the class. I would be so thrilled to be able to speak spanish as well as they speak english. If I could speak spanish that well, I sure wouldn´t be taking a class.
I am still planning on traveling, but I think on the weekends. I have three day weekends so that is enough time to go to most places in Peru.
A few people have asked me to give them english classes, which would be cool. It´s still chilly here. I made maracuya juice, which is the best juice ever. It kind of reminds me of the fruit we had in our back yard in grenada, but the fruit is bigger. It´s so easy to make, I don´t know why I didn´t make it before. Inside are these seeds and pulp and you just put it in the blender, add water and sugar. I also bought fig jam yesterday and finished it today. So good.
I´ve been reading Tolstoy´s short stories, The death of Ivan Ilvych and three others. I haven´t read Anna Karenina in maybe five years, and I don´t remember it that well. But I think I prefer these stories. They´re all pretty depressing, as you must expect when reading a russian author. Even the "positive" story, Master and Man, ends with the main character´s death. Even translated, though, the way he expresses the human experience is so apt, his characters so bizarre and yet recognizable.
On a completely different note, I saw The Hangover, which for some reason they decided to translate for spanish distribution as ¿Qué Pasó Ayer? (What happened yesterday?) I didn´t appreciate some of it, for example the conventional premise that people (especially men) should celebrate finding a life partner by having sex with or at least seeing other naked women before they get married (hence, going to vegas). But that was an extremely small part of the movie, only hinted at through a photo reel at the end of the film. And there was an antagonist introduced halfway through the film that was not funny at all. He was the the way I feared the entire movie would be, a cardboard character comprised of cheap laughs and juvenile sensibility. But the movie as a whole was actually really funny, with compelling characters and plot.