Y ya empiezan las clases...

at our school, originally uploaded by sammarin.

We started classes yesterday and already had an exam on the things we learned while traveling in Cusco and Machu Picchu, Lima, Puno and Lake Titicaca... fortunately I had studied with my beloved flash cards so it went well. It was a short day yesterday, and the normal classes started this morning at 8am.

I am enrolled in two classes:

El Cine y la Narrativa de España (Cinema and Narrative in Spain) - 20th century - and today we talked about the Spanish civil war. We had read Requiem por un Campesino Español and some chapters from ¿Qué fue la Guerra Civil? I have lots to learn about the war, to understand how Spain developed and influenced the rest of the world events in the 20th century. It is going to be an interesing class.

Also, Culturas de la América Latina (Cultures of Latin America) - an overview of Latin American cultures through studying adivinanzas (riddles). How fun! Different vocabulary for each country, different flora and fauna to which the riddles refer. In the second part of the class we will talk generally (very generally, very briefly, very superficially by necessity) about each country - from social, historical, literary perspectives.

I have a lot of reading to do in Spanish! So, off to a café I go...

bad baby pie

I've never really liked pies. See? Even when I was little I could barely swallow them down.

But I just saw The Waitress, a funny and silly and sometimes-hokey movie that seemed sort of like a play and much like a fairytale (including the violent threats of a villain, the suggestion of magic, and a handsome prince)... and there were some tasty-looking pies in that movie. And of course, the warm feelings and complex domestic skills that are infused in great piemaking.

But the things I really liked about the movie: the crisp acting and sharp, loopy dialogue of the women actors; the names of the pies (for example, "naughty pumpkin pie" and "Old Joe's horny past pie"); and the sappy syrupy warm soft sweet love scene in the kitchen.

What can I say? I guess I'm just a sappy syrupy warm soft sweet-loving kinda gal...

Oh, but what I really, really, really, really, REALLY want to see now is the movie Once. It looks perfect.

spidey 3: pros & cons

rad things about spiderman 3:

1. the crab-like movements of the molten black pleather goo
2. venom/topher's jaggedy yellow teeth
3. mj's waitress outfit

... and the best of all...

4. SANDMAN - everything about him including:

thomas haden church as flint marko, who served as the perfect comic character in his face, body, voice, movements, etc

the way in which his body comes into form at the testing ground

his head being temporarily ripped apart in a fiery explosion

crap things about spiderman 3:

1. james franco's beautiful face gets marred

... but the worst of the worst...

2. peter parker never says he is sorry for being such a butthole, even from before the molten black pleather goo! what a bum.