Friday's Feast and goodbye until the 26th January

Appetizer: What is your favorite beverage?
Anything with caffeine in it: Coca Cola, coffee but not Red Bull. Too old for that.

Soup: Name 3 things that are on your computer desk at home or work.
1- Our new printer, which I love and give kisses to when my boyfriend is not looking.
2- One of my coursebooks, the one I covered in a garish purple cover (see post below).
3- A letter with a drawing that my mother's 7 year old step-grandson made for me. I sent them a Christmas card and he found it fascinating, this novelty, "the post". He said, "You mean she puts the letter in a box in England and it appears here? Wow!". He then made the drawing to try and see if it works the other way too, hahaha.

Salad: On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being highest), how honest do you think you are?
I think I'll give myself an 8. I consider myself very honest but I'm human after all.

Main Course: If you could change the name of one city in the world, what would you rename it and why?
I would give Buenos Aires her original name back, complete with its old spelling: Santa Maria (wink) de los Buenos Ayres.

Dessert: What stresses you out? What calms you down?
Crowds, waiting, rude people, disorganisation.
Looking at the sea or any other body of water, a nice sunset on the sea (preferably in Necochea), my boyfriend's hugs, watching the Simpsons.

And this is goodbye until the 26th, I really need to concentrate on my essay now. Please leave your comments anyway, because my blog-fast starts tomorrow. Have a great weekend.

Honk if you like Grammar (honk, honk!!)

I'm doing an Open University course called TESOLW. When I started it back in October I was really happy because for the first time after 10 years I was learning something new and not the same old thing over and over. Even though I enjoyed the Trinity TESOL course I did at St Mary's College in 2005 and I made very good friends, I didn't feel I was learning anything that I hadn't learnt in Buenos Aires 15 years before. To be honest, I didn't actually think I would learn much, I did the course just to get the "piece of paper".

I love grammar and an important part of this course I'm doing is something called "functional grammar". This is completely new to me (or was when I started the course) and at first I thought it was really interesting. I'm reading chapter 4 of "Using Functional Grammar" now and it is getting less and less interesting. I guess it was more fun (if the word "fun" can be applied to grammar) when we analysed the sentences to the most minuscule detail all together with my fellow students in BA. Doing it at home on my own is not much fun. In this grammar there's no subject or predicate; there are processes, and depending on what kind of process we are talking about the subject will be called Actor, Sayer, Senser, etc. Too complicated. Or is it laziness?

I found a very nice purple wrapping paper that looks like a hologram (difficult to explain, refer to photo below) and I covered the grammar book with it to make it more interesting but it didn't work. It looks very exciting when it's closed but when you open it, it gets boring again. Well, you can't say I didn't try, can you?

Friday's Feast

Appetizer: What is your middle name? Would you change any of your names if you could? If so, what would you like to be called?
My middle name is Marta, I don't like it very much on its own but I like it after Maria. I wouldn't change any of my names and I would actually like to be called Maria Marta and not just Maria, as people here in Europe call me. Since I moved to the old continent, people keep calling me Maria and I'm having an identity crisis. Maria has almost become a different person now and it is almost as if I've left Maria Marta in Argentina. I now it sounds crazy, but there it is!

Soup: If you were a fashion designer, which fabrics, colors, and styles would you probably use the most?
I would use cotton and wool, my colours would be white, light blue, turquoise, brown and camel and would design clothes for everyday use, comfortable, nice and soft on the skin. I'd also try to
design clothes that look good on people with "generous" sizes, like me!

Salad: What is your least favorite chore, and why?
Anything that's a chore I don't like, but if I had to choose my least favourite one, that would be cleaning the kitchen and bathroom floors. It requires a physical strength that I don't have and the floor gets dirty 10 seconds after I finish.

Main Course: What is something that really frightens you, and can you trace it back to an event in your life?
Anything that looks out of control like people fighting or fire. I have no idea why, the only reason I can think of is the fact that "being in control" is quite an important thing for me. Not so much control of others but self-control.

Dessert: Where are you sitting right now? Name 3 things you can see at this moment.
I'm sitting on the sofa in the living room. From here I can see:
1) The two monstrosities of plants that my boyfriend has just bought for the living room which now looks like the rain forest. I think he thinks I may be missing South America and wants to make me feel at home. For your information, darling, I'm Argentinian, not Brazilian!!!!
2) Ian's DVD collection, in ALPHABETICAL ORDER, mind you.
3) The remnants of breakfast, which I haven't bothered to pick up yet.

The Historian 2

I still think it's not the best written or most interesting book around but it's ok, so I'll have to finish it now. :(

Friday's Feast (on Sunday) Getting better now!!

Appetizer: When was the last time you received a surprise in the mail, and what was it?
I can't remember ever receiving a surprise in the post.

Soup: If you could have a summer and/or winter home, where would you want it to be?
Summer home in Necochea, Argentina. My family already has a flat there but I'd like to have a small house between the woods and the beach.

Salad: Pick one: pineapple, orange, banana, apple, cherry.
Mmmmmh! Cherries!

Main Course: Describe the nicest piece of clothing that you own.
That would be my red and white flowery Monsoon summer top, nothing fancy, but it makes me happy to wear it.

Dessert: If you could forget one whole day from your life, which day would you choose to wipe from your memory?
I tend to find the positive side in even the most negative situation so there's nothing I really want to forget because that would mean forgetting whatever positive there was to learn from it too.

The Historian

I'm reading "The Historian", what a waste of time. It's the most unnecessarily complicated and repetitive book I've ever read, and worst of all, it is about vampires. How 1970's is that???? Who is afraid of vampires in the 21st century??? The author wanted to write in the style of Bram Stoker, using letters to advance the plot. Soooooo annoyingly slow. You might be wondering why I'm still reading it. I'm planning to read half of it and then decide whether to finish it or take it bak to Oxfam. We'll see.