Random thoughts...

¿Estudió Ud. en España?
Practically every tico that I’ve met has commented on my accent. Apparently, it’s obvious that I studied in Spain. Here, they speak pretty smooth (more or less). I however, do the Spanish I’ve-got-phlegm-in-my-throat-when-I-make-a-j-or-g-sound pronunciation. Luckily, I don’t have the Spanish lisp (there are plenty of those among my fellow students).

Cocinera fabulosa
I am extremely lucky because my mama tica is an AMAZING cook. Although rice and beans make an appearance at every lunch and dinner (and sometimes breakfast), she manages to make the rest of the meal a feast. We eat a lot of chicken because Wendy is a semi-vegetarian and mama tica doesn’t want her to go hungry. In addition to the main course, we have rice, beans, some sort of salad, another salad, and sometimes bread. Today, we ate stuff shells that had cheese and egg. Yummy!
Every once in a while, she serves up something…interesting. For instance, yesterday at dinner we had “apple cinnamon milk.” It tasted rather like oatmeal, and when I looked at the package I realized that it was, indeed, oatmeal. Instead of cooking it a la americana, she dumped some of it into a pitcher of milk. It was ok, but very bizarre. We’ve also eaten some weird breakfasts. We always have a plate of apple, pineapple, and banana (which, by the way, they call banano). Then we have either eggs and toast or toast with some topping. The toppings have included: black bean puree (actually quite tasty), cheese (Wendy’s and my fav), ham, turkey, chicken, and avocado (by far the most interesting).
She also makes 99% of her juice by hand. Literally. I’ve seen her squeeze about 10 lemons to make lemonade. I’ve had lots of exotic fruit drinks here, many of which I have no idea of the name. I know cas is one and the other is tarmandino (or something of the sort).

Profe. fabulosa
I had a bit of a panic attack after receiving my score on the first composition. Because I am a nosey Rosey, I saw what my neighbor’s grade was, and it was significantly higher. I was in a funk for the rest of the day, and eventually I wrote the profe (Ale) saying that I was frustrated. She responded with a really long email telling me that because I wrote more and had more elaborate sentences, I had more room for errors. She agreed to pre-read my second composition and go over the corrections with me. Then she signed it “A hug, Ale.” Today in class, while everyone was working on a review sheet for our test tomorrow (my first test since 2004!), we went in the hall and she helped me out. She reassured me that I am very capable and that I have a big vocabulary, but I need to watch my prepositions. Seriously, prepositions are so hard to learn in a foreign language because the English equivalent isn’t necessarily used the same way. They don’t really teach prepositions in school, so you have to learn by osmosis. Not. Fun. Nor. Easy.