The Adventures of Flat Stanley

Well, as some of you may know, my dear friend Flat Stanley decided to accompany me on my trip in Argentina (and hopefully around South America). It's been a while since we've been able to hang out, so we've done lots of catching up these past few days. Stanley, Suji, and I went to La Boca, Spanglish, and to get some ice cream at Freddo. Stanley is still a little bit jet-lagged so we didn't get too crazy. Suji is a friend from California who I met at Spanglish... she's by far the funniest person ever. The best part is that she thinks Stanley is just as funny as I do. 

The whole Flat Stanley thing started way back in Elementary school. You would take pictures with Stanley and places he's been then send it to another classroom or person participating. So ultimately Stanley can travel all around the world. I still am just baffled by the fact that no one knows what Flat Stanley is. Clearly their childhood sucked.

While hanging out with Stanley, Suji, and other friends at Fabrica del Taco aka the best Mexican restaurant around. I heard a song faintly in the background. I could kind of make out the song, but not really. Now let me remind you this is a Mexican restaurant in Argentina, so it's already a bit off. But then all of a sudden people near me started singing and it was "Lose Yourself" and I immediately stopped and thought of John. It was perfect timing for me to just sit back and take everything in and remember John. Today was a year since his accident. That day is very blurry because I had only been out of surgery for 3 days. I vaguely remember mom saying he was in an accident and is going into surgery, but would be okay. Then 2 days later, I remember her telling me he had passed away. John and I weren't that close and didn't keep in touch or text like him and his other friends. However, no matter what every time I saw him it was like we were the best of friends.. which is what I loved about it. The days after his accident were a blur because of the pain medicine and everything. However, I will never forget heading to the Clinton's for his Celebration of Life. We tried to get there a little early because I was on crutches, but it didn't matter. There were already tons of people there. It's amazing how many people's lives he impacted in such a short short time. He'll never be forgotten.

Like always, this week was pretty uneventful. Mom and dad will be here on Friday and I cannot wait!! I am so so so excited. I've been trying to get clothes washed and things done before they get here! I feel like a little kid the week before Christmas. All of my friends are getting super excited too. They know how much I want to see my parents and they want to meet them.

Anyways, just wanted to check in and say hey. I'll try and post some pictures or something while mom and dad are here!! :)

love to everyone!

Stanley goes to the bar

Stanley meets the Sujinator

Stanley works on his Spanish

Stanley loves Quilmes

Stanley tries Fabrica

See you again, sweet angel

Maddie running away didn't end as I had hoped. I kept praying that she was just going out for an adventure and coming down to Argentina because she missed me. Unfortunately, she was found on Friday and the story ends there. I say unfortunately, but then again I am thankful she was found. It makes me feel a lot better knowing that she is at peace. I don't have to constantly think about if she's out there wandering somewhere confused. I never thought that March 2, 2012 would be the last day that I ever saw her. And honestly, had I known.. I never would have left. She's been my sidekick for the past 13 years. I don't know what it's like to be at home without her. I don't know what it will be like when I go home for the first time and she's not there. That's when it will really hit me. She's been my napping buddy, personal heater, and all around happiness the past 13 years of my life. She was right there by my side when I broke my arm, had my wisdom teeth out, had wrist surgery, had a muscle biopsy, and then the 2 awful fasciectomies. No matter what, she was always putting a smile on my face. But, I know it was her time and she is no longer suffering. But, it sucks... it really does. It was selfish of me to want to keep her around as long as possible, but I never wanted to let go. She truly is man's best friend and I will never forget her.

RIP Sweet Angel, we love you and miss you.

Maddie Watkins 4/25/99-6/15/12

On a happier note, mom and dad will be here in 12 days!!!!! I'm getting so excited! Who ever thought it was a good idea to go 4 months without seeing them was #wrong! It will be a nice break from a world full of crazies. Well I guess they aren't completely normal, but as close as it gets!! And way more sane than most of the people here :) There's not much going on down here. It's still pretty chilly. Good news is that in August it will slowly start warming up! I'm excited for that... I need some warm weather in my life! One of my students  got fired last week and now the other 2 want to try and change the classes. At this point in time, I really don't care. As much dumb stuff that has happened since the time I started teaching, I really could careless. There is no organization to this culture and no respect for other's time. Which is fine, I've learned patience since I've been here. I've also learned patience with the fact that people call me Anne. I hate it and I want to punch the people who do it. My name is Annelise. If I wanted you to call me Anne, I would have introduced myself as Anne. I don't care if you can't pronounce it, at least try. It drives me absolutely crazy. Don't call me Anne and then get mad because I don't respond. It's not me being rude, but I don't know any Anne's. My name is Annelise and forever will be. Not that difficult. 

Ok, I'm done ranting. This might be my last post for a while. I've gotta start getting things ready for mom and dad to get here. They come for 10 days then 2 days after they leave Emily gets here! So I've got a pretty busy July and I couldn't be happier to see the people I love most!

love -A

Happy Father's Day, Daddy! I love you. Thank you for everything!

"Love Knows not it's own Depth until the Hour of Separation"

Well, we're back on the roller coaster of emotions. Hey, who knew roller coaster wasn't one word... not me! It's amazing how much pain people can endure just to be overjoyed with happiness a few days/weeks/months/years later. In the past year and a half so much has happened, and it has been a roller coaster. For the most part, the good has out-weighed the bad. As many of you know, and if you don't know.. I don't know why you are creepily reading this... my granddad passed away in February of 2011 after suffering PSP. However, with that downfall we officially adopted Arthur, the little rascal. Three months later, I tragically lost a friend. A month after that, I had my LAST surgery on my leg which inevitably changed my life for the better. However, unfortunately a few short days later, another friend tragically lost their life. Then in August, mom's entire side of the family got together for a memorial service/celebration of life for Feepapa. In December, I graduated from Clemson!!! Then three months later I decided to move to Argentina. A month or so after being here my grandmother got sick. I felt like my world was crashing down. I barely had any friends and the language barrier didn't help.. the last thing I needed was for something to happen to my best friend in the entire world. Luckily, she is doing great and I couldn't be happier... or so I thought. Everything was great on my end, mom and dad are coming in less than 3 weeks and life here is getting easier. Little did I know what was going on back home with my sweet angel, Maddie. My poor baby just celebrated her 13th birthday. She's old and gets disoriented very easily. Apparently she had wandered out of the electric fence twice and everyone had to search for her, but was finally found. However, on Saturday night she wandered off and has still not been found. I know she is old and inevitably we were going to lose her... I just don't want it to be this way. I knew it was coming eventually, but who knows what she is thinking right now. I am just as lost and confused is she is. She's my world, my rock, who I go to when things get bad. Yeah, I know... white girls and their dogs.  We had another dog before Maddie, but only for 6 months before she died. I've had Maddie for 13 years... that's a long time. I hope and pray someone finds her... and SOON! I don't know what it's like to go home and not be greeted by her kisses... that's all I've ever known for the past 13 years. Obviously it hurts so bad now, but nothing will be worse than walking into my house in November where I left her 8 months ago and her not being there. Everyone, please keep praying she comes home!! With that being said, I couldn't be more happier that we have the 1 man party now.  I don't even know what life would be without having a dog, especially one to come home to in November. No matter how sneaky he thinks he is and how weird he may be for not liking cheez-its, I still love him.  God has a plan, no matter whether or not we like it.. He is in control of the situation. As hard as it is, I have to constantly remind myself that.

Ok, on to something HAPPY! Mom and dad will be here in 18 days!!!!! I'm super excited. I've been trying to sort out a few details with getting our visa's to go to Brasil and figuring out places to go eat while they are in BA. Nothing too exciting has been going on recently. The dollar situation down here is awful. I have a friend going back to the states for 2 days JUST to get dollars out of the bank. It's crazy. This country never ceases to amaze me, there's always something crazy going on. Friday night, like always I went to Spanglish. I hung around with Maya and Johanna for a bit and talked. Thank God for them! Then came home and skyped a friend until 7am... dumbest idea ever! Seriously, I thought I was going to die on Saturday. I went to an Underground Market Saturday afternoon. Everything here is super unorganized so of course it was nuts. It was in an old factory which was pretty cool. There were a bunch of people from the states who cooked items and were selling them... like red beans and rice, bagels, chocolate chip cookies! The bagels and chocolate chip cookies were delicious. I am so glad that I got them, so nice to have a bite of the US sometimes. After that I literally could not keep my eyes open any longer so I came home and napped then went to Spanglish again. There were SO many people there.. it was awesome! Unfortunately it ended on a bad note with a friends bag getting stolen with her DNI, credit cards, house keys, etc. Like I said... something is always happening in this country.

Today was interesting. I had my classes and was obviously still upset about Maddie. I got very frustrated in the first one towards the end because I just wanted to skype mom to see if there was any update. I'll have to apologize to them on Wednesday. Then I had my classes at Duke Energy. The lady from HR came to observe one. This is the class that complains about absolutely everything. They told me that they liked a lot of conversation and that's what they wanted, but then complained to HR that we talked too much. That's not the case, it was an equal medium of both. Anyways, the HR lady observed for part of the class. Of course, we were talking about employee benefits and not being motivated by the company, all of that kind of stuff. None of my students said anything because they were nervous since the HR lady was there. They didn't want to say the wrong thing, which I'm sure made me look bad. She just picked a bad day to come. The lesson was planned and everything, but I had to semi-alter it because I could tell the students were super uncomfortable. So it'll be interesting to see how that goes.

That's all for now! Hope everyone is doing well. Please keep praying that Maddie finds her way home safely!

love -A

27 Days!!!!

Well, today officially marks the 3 month anniversary of being in Argentina. It has been a wonderful experience and I have learned so many things. The culture here is completely different. The city never sleeps. I don't know what it is about this place, but there's something. The city will make you crazy that's for sure, but at the same time you don't want to leave. I have mixed feelings about this place. Some days I love it, other days I would pay $5,000 to fly back to the US. However, more importantly... today means that there are only 27 more days until I see my wonderful parents. Hopefully if you are reading this you know me, if not.. well that's just weird. I have never been longer than 4 1/2 weeks without seeing my parents. So needless to say after not seeing them for 4 months I am going to be one happy girl. I'm a daddy's girl and my momma is my world and I cannot wait to wrap my arms around them on June 29. I am so blessed that my family has the means to be able to come visit me. Now, if only they could bring Matthew, Amanda, Maddie, and Arthur :)

I think that it's officially winter here, but I'm not positive. Right now, it feels awesome outside... but tonight it is going to be freezing. Some days it's cold and some days it's hot. If you know me, I hate dressing in layers. But here you almost have to. While you're waiting for the bus in the morning it is so cold, but then you get on the bus and it's hot. You get off the bus and walk to where you're going and it's cold and then you walk inside a building and it's like a sauna. I admit 50 degrees is cold, but my word these people act like they're in Antarctica. I see people in these HUGE jackets, scarfs, pants, boots, and gloves. I mean, yeah it's chilly... but it's not THAT cold. It's so funny to see... normally I'm in leggings a dress and boots, maybe a sweater. People stare at me like I'm absolutely crazy.

I lost one of my classes this week. You would think I would be upset about it or feel some kind of way, but I have never been happier. Pretty sad, huh? This was my 8am class on Tuesday and Thursdays. Of course, since it was at 8am I didn't like it to begin with. But my students just drove my crazy. So everything here is unorganized. So I had a student who was upper intermediate in the class and then 2 who should have been pre-intermediate. Anyways, the class was Intermediate 1 and the guy I work for somehow doesn't see the differences in the students levels as well as with the book we're using. Well I have another class that is Intermediate 1 and they are great. So I think I expected my 8am class to be at the same level. It was very hard for me to prepare classes because 2 of the students didn't understand anything, where as the other student was bored. The more advanced student would always complain to me after class about how he thinks he should be in a different class. One girl would want to do extra assignments and want me to correct them outside of class. I'm sorry, but no.. I don't get paid enough for that and your hand writing is terrible and I can't read it. So things weren't really working out and I think we all knew it. One of my friends from my TEFL course is taking over the class. She isn't a native English speaker which I think will be better for them. Anyways, I am much happier now that I don't have to teach that class. It was stressful having to wake up that early and travel across town for work, come all the way back across town for another class, then back across town that evening.

This experience has definitely made me realize that I am so grateful that I wasn't an education major. I always wanted to be a teacher and I think I still could teach little kids. However, there is no way I could do this my entire life. On the other hand, teaching ESL in a foreign country probably wasn't the best way to get introduced into teaching either. The infamous questions that I always get asked are: Were you a teacher in the US before you came here? Are you going to teach when you get back? Well then what are you going to do then? No I was not a teacher, I am 23 and just graduated college. I am absolutely not going to teach when I get back. There's a possibility that I'll teach ESL here and there, but it will not be my job. And finally, I have absolutely no idea what I am going to do with my life when I get back. I've realized that I'm at that point where I just want to do new and exciting things. I know I have an awesome degree from one of the top schools in the nation, but I want to live a little. I wouldn't mind working odd jobs like being a bartender in a big city, working at a cupcake place, anything like that. I have definitely realized that I do not want a 9-5 immediately when I get back. I wish I could win the lottery and travel the world for a while. I want to go to South Africa and Greece so bad.

Okay, well enough rambling... I probably won't write for a while. I actually have to start planning my classes now. All of my classes wanted a lot of conversation and of course now they are complaining. No one is ever happy with what they get here, even if they ask for it. It's such a pain. I hope everyone is doing wonderful and I miss you all!

Much love! A

Here are a few pictures from Colonia, Uruguay!