Friday, Sept. 2nd, 2005, 4:11 p.m.
I got a job!
I am so thrilled; I was accepted to be a freelance editor with EssayEdge, a website which edits application essays. What this means is that I will be well paid to do independent online work, which I can do from anywhere. It's especially exciting because it means that in San Francisco I'll be able to support myself without having to waitress or do something lame. I've been waiting on this for a while, so I'm pretty excited. :)
Other really fun things that have been happening:
- I went on a date, like a real date, with an Argentine boy. Like, he picked me up and everything. Actually, this is funny. OK so the first time we met was in a club and we exchanged contact info and everything, and the second time we meet, he shows up late and I'm pissed. I'm basically a bitch and I leave as soon as he arrives and he's confused and I'm annoyed and the whole thing is terrible. So after that I sort of explained to him why I was mad, that he was late, etc., and so after this he's super careful to be on time always. OK so for the date he was supposed to come and get me at 9, and instead shows up at 8:40. Here's a hint for all the boys out there: You can't show up early. You can't show up too late, either, but you definitely can't show up early to a date - not when you're picking her up and she has to get ready. So he texts me "I'm downstairs," and I text back, "Give me 5 minutes!" which of course turns into 10, and he texts, "Amiga!" because it's cold and he's waiting. Anyway I thought that whole situation was funny. Then we went to a magic-themed restaurant, which included like a whole 45-minute show. And let me tell you, if you can understand stand-up comedy in another language, you are fucking fluent. They speak so quickly and use so much slang that I was lucky to catch 20%. They also did physical comedy and card tricks and stuff, too, though, so it was cool.
- We went out twice with Mayte, our new Argentinean girlfriend who was our tango instructor. We went to a great bar called Deep Blue which has yummy drinks in a modern-ish decor, with pool tables and iced beer on tap. Then the second time we got all-you-can-eat sushi (really, really GOOD sushi).
- We hung out with an American who is a friend of a friend from Stanford (he's Evan Berger's friend from high school, for those of you who know him), who is a writer for The Economist. He covers Argentina and lunch with him was interesting.
- Super, super, weird random coincidence: Back when I was at my Dad's, I was brainstorming what I could do with this weird 4-month period between when I come back from Bs.As. and go back to Bs.As. We thought perhaps I could crew on a superyacht in the Caribbean. So I went online to a site called CrewFile and looked to see if there were any jobs. I didn't really find anything substantial, but another person searching caught my eye: he was looking for work roughly the same dates I was, and he said he had studied Spanish in Costa Rica and would be going to Argentina for a year. So I wrote to him randomly to say how funny it was that our background was so similar, and after swapping a few e-mails and both of us vaguely alluding to a scholarship we had to study, it comes out that we're both Rotary scholars! On the same fellowship, to the same destination, and we met through CrewFile. Sooooooooooo random. Plus he'll be at U Belgrano which is like practically adjacent to my campus. Weird.
- We have found a neighborhood eatery where we have lunch practically every day. It's called alma-zen and it serves healthfood, but really yummy healthfood. I guess we're regulars now, because the whole staff knows us now and when we come in they automatically start making us fresh-squeezed juice, which we always order.
- Between the two of us, Marina and I have bought 4 new pairs of heels, all of which can be used as tango shoes. Some of them are really, really cute, and one is a total luxury purchase. I'm not used to making those.
Other observations:
• Small businesses: One practically forgets what small businesses are like when one is in the U.S. Here, almost every business you go into, our video rental store, the grand majority of the restaurants we go to, clothing stores, etc., are family-owned. The owners get to know you, the staff gets to know you, and you get to know them. It's a completely different mentality. For example, the person for whom I translated was the owner of that restaurant; he was able to give me my tea for free because he owned the place. The owner of the video rental store didn't charge us a late fee last time we came in, because he knows us and knows how many videos we rent. He gave us a break because he could, and because it's good business. Can you imagine a lowly Blockbuster employee doing the same? I believe something is lost when corporations and larger businesses dominate the market, something important.
• Incidental architecture: Architecture here is beautiful. They have really nice fountains and statues and buildings, but they're not featured the way they are in Europe, for example. Paris isn't just beautiful because it has beautiful architecture: it's beautiful because across from that great statue, there are church steps from which you can admire it. It's because they put a pretty garden with benches around their pretty fountains. Here, the architecture and fountains and everything are more incidental. It's like, here's the rest of the city flowing around this gigantic marble decoration, and it's nice, but there's nowhere you can stand and gaze at it; there's too much traffic surrounding it or it's too loud or ... I'm not sure what it is.
• First-world vs. third-world: Is Argentina a first-world country? Is it a third-world country? Is it a second-world country? Does that exist? Do countries just go from being third-world to being westernized, first-world ones? ATMs here often don't work. They either just straight-up don't work, or they won't give you money in dollars even though they say they will, or they won't give you as much money as you want because they don't have enough inside them. We have gone to ATMs on multiple occasions and not been able to get more than $100 (pesos) ... can you imagine this in the States? Can you imagine going to an ATM and it saying it had insufficient funds? It is especially bad here on Fridays, because people get paid through the ATM so they get their salaries, plus people take out money for the weekend. No one here uses credit cards. Marina and I were commenting on the fact that people in the States barely use cash anymore. We use it for small purchases but mostly, we pay for everything with a credit card - groceries, going out to eat, gas, clothes, etc. Here, they often either don't accept credit cards or charge you 10% more to use one (as in, if you pay cash you pay 10% less).
Language spot:
Some Argentine Spanish for ya:
Slang: lunfardo
Have a good time: que te pase linda
Cool/Nice (for people): copado (sos muy copado)
Quotes from The Great Gatsby
"She was only extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words."
"I began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of it at night, and the satisfaction that the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives to the restless eye."
"The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its fine wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world."
"'There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.'"
"A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the clock ticked on the washstand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor. Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid scene with an oblivious embrace. For a while these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination; they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy's wing."
"She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand."
"The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight, and, turning my head to watch it, I saw that I was not alone - fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbor's mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens."
"'One thing's sure and nothing's surer
The rich get rich and the poor get - children'"
"He was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American - that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work in youth, and, even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games."
"Most of these reporters were a nightmare - grotesque, circumstantial, eager, and untrue."
"Her porch was bright with the bought luxury of star-shine; the wicker of the settee squeaked fashionably as she turned toward him and he kissed her curious and lovely mouth. She had caught a cold, and it made her voice huskier and more charming than ever, and Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor."
"Slowly the white wings of boats moved against the blue cool limit of the sky. Ahead lay the scalloped ocean and the abounding blessed isles."
