Learning to live with other people again. Hm.

Well, I haven't managed to find quite as much "me" time as I had hoped. I have recently completed week two of living in this new apartment and my energy level is still wavering like crazy. I still find myself justifying my need to be alone to nearly every single person in the house, when really I shouldn't be learning about it. But luckily I find myself alone in my room nearly every night which gives me some reading time, relaxing time, some whatever the hell I want to time. Though I will say that I've met some good, interesting people!

First and foremost, my new favorite person in BA, Camille, a French ballet dancer, and her equally wonderful boyfriend Anthony. Camille and I bonded over a joined effort at making apple crisp (with, unfortunately, a lacking recipe), and then sat and drank wine outside and found that we are very similar in our energy levels. She and Anthony were the only other people in the house that didn't find it necessary to go out and party and get drunk every single night. She was feeling this difference with particular poignancy, however, since two of the other girls in the house are her friends and didn't seem to appreciate her difference. It was a breath of fresh air for us to meet each other. And with good timing, too, since she and Anthony moved out just a week after I moved in. Such luck! But their new apartment (where I sit and type right now) is so wonderful, very calm, and with a loft. I am so jealous I can hardly tell you.

We also have Nana, a very creative dancer type from Sweden, who's dating a hippy-like Argentinean (who would like to refuse his resemblance to the hippies--he has long hair, has an appreciation fo certain herbs, and he plays the didgeridoo--definitely hippy.) Nana is the sharing, happy, healthy type who actually reminds me of Kalisha a bit. She's taking at least three different kinds of dance classes right now (salsa, tango and some kind of African dancing) and sat me down at the computer one day to look up baking classes in Sydney. She keeps asking me if I've applied yet, but I still think I'm going to wait on that one...

Next is my roommate Amanda, a girl from Minnesota, and I'm not sure how I lucked out, but she's probably the best kind of roommate I could have asked for in this house. Why is it that the roommates I just sort of "end up" with end up being the ones I live with the best? It's a strange occurrence, but there it is. Anyway, as I may have mentioned in my last blog, she likes Jason Mraz and has the Last Kiss soundtrack on her iPod, so we get along fabulously. She's also an avid movie watcher and TV-show-on-the-internet-streamer, so that's fun, too.

Let's see, who else? There are two more French girls, and a Peruvian who makes me roll my eyes with his stereotypical South American male ways (namely being with a bunch of women concurrently, as well as hooking up with another roommate on her first night in the house--he also seems to follow me around with his eyes, or as Camille said the other day, he was "eating me with his eyes"--ew). There are also three roommates who have moved in since I did, and I move out in a month so I'm feeling as though I don't quite have the social obligations I felt before. In fact, I spend a lot of their "party" time down in my room, on my computer, having me time. Lately, that is. I actually started writing this before wi-fi. My life, as we have seen, has been feeling much better since internet came back into my life on a regular basis. :)

Living in this house is like regressing to the crazy college days that I managed to avoid while I was actually in college. Except now my living space is in an international, co-ed frat house. I often feel as though I'm in an episode of The Real World and I would so much prefer to get out of it! It does not make for a peaceful living environment and I can never seem to get enough sleep. There are people filing in and out of the house at all hours of the day and night and I constantly feel cranky because I can't seem to find my equilibrium here. It doesn't help that I've been PMSing like crazy lately and spent a few days with the Midol crazy, but I'm hoping that I'll get out of this funk soon. Running helps, and so does eating a whole (or like today, half) chocolate easter egg. These are not small easter eggs, either, people. I might compare one giant hollow egg to...mm...half or three quarters of the regular-sized chocolate bunnies from home. The solid ones that are maybe 10 inches? Yeah. I also ate two bonbons and had a submarino (read that hot chocolate) for dinner. For Easter. Today I had half an egg, which I gave myself as a reward for taking a two hour Spanish test. We'll see how much I'm learning, I am simultaneously excited and frightened to see what my results look like. I haven't been studying nearly as much as I should be, mostly due to the fact that I'm not getting graded. Which is why I asked to take a test, because I knew that if I was getting some sort of "grade" then I would be forced (by myself) to study and to learn the concepts that were being superficially learned in class. Most of the subjuntivo and condicional simple that we've been learning have not found their way from the theoretical part of my brain to the functional part that actually uses new parts of speech when words leave from my mouth. When I see even half of the sentence structures we have learned over the last few weeks placed up on the white board, my brain does a mini-freak out and throws up a wall, saying, "Excuse me, what are you trying to tell me?" Then it tries to misdirect me to a more pleasant, less-taxing thought such as, "What would it be like to be an apprentice in a wig-maker's shop and make white powdery wigs for those crazy lawyers in Australia?" Although closely related to the Spanish at hand, it just doesn't help me reach my goal of correctly using the concepts that are currently placed on that white board in front of my face. Also not a good idea to let my mind wander very far because I am now the only person in my Spanish class which means that I can't blankly stare into space with wiggy thoughts and get away with it!

Seriously, though, I have been so cranky! I don't even want to hang out with me right now, so I don't understand why anyone else would. I'm not that fun, even when I'm not cranky! :)

Easter was a pretty good time this year, though I did miss celebrating spring festivus with Peter. Oh how I miss the festivus...well, I did Easter with some good people instead. Amanda also understands the importance of festivity and we arranged a little Easter breakfast for ourselves as well as Camille, Anthony, Emily (the girl whose room I moved into) and Lindsay (Amanda and Emily's friend). So there we had it, four American girls and our lovely French couple. We American gals went and did the food shopping and made what is apparently a typicaly, fatty American breakfast. Anthony said he now understood why Americans are so fat! :) I made apple pancakes (from a mix--so good!) with an abundance of melted butter and with Emily's help managed to keep two pans of the tasty applecakes going. Do you have any idea what it's like to cook pancakes on gas-powered burners? The kind that just produce big firy circles? Well, it's fun...and tricky. Oh yeah, I've got some new tricks up my sleeves. :) Anyway, the rest of the meal was completed with cheesy scrambled eggs, cold toast, and mimosas. Oh, and don't forget the chocolate bonbons, because that would just be sad to miss.

Amanda and I were emphatic that we dye easter eggs, so when we set out to the grocery store on Saturday, we didn't imagine that we'd encounter any trouble finding food dye. Silly me, why do I always think I'll find things like chocolate chips and food dye in stores in South America? (They both exist, by the way, they just require a bit more looking than I prefer to do.) Our brilliant idea? Well, what would happen if we broke markers apart and put the ink in water with some vinegar? I'll tell you what happens--not much, unless it's a blue marker. :)

See a little blue there? We did use crayons, though, so that was helpful. :)

You know, I had a lot more to write about yesterday, and somehow all of the topics have just slipped out of my head. Other than the fact that I have a newfound appreciation for ceiling fans. The weather here is still pretty warm, and the ceiling fan adds the perfect touch of wind and cooling down. I love feeling a soft breeze as I'm falling asleep. Even if it is artificial.