Move on

The sun has arrived in Buenos Aires! The weekend has been scorching, strange to associate hot, sunny weather with October, never mind the heat of summer with December? Christmas with blue skies and the chance of a tan? Lo que sea!

A rather strange statue of a bull but mira! blue skieees!

It has been a few weeks and indeed I am nearing the end of the semester, the end of work and the end of the house. It is the end of a mini era, part I of Buenos Aires is coming to a close. As is always the case, it has gone so quick, nearing November?! I remember the days of thinking and praying for the mystical opportunity of going to BA, "Yeh going to study in BA next year, touch wood!" Wood was touched and here I am! Currently planning, or thinking about planning, a big trip, November to March is holiday time! I will stay here in November, taking some little weekend jaunts away to various places but spending the time getting to know the city, which will be good. December off to Patagonia con los viejos and then the trip will continue solo up north to Bolivia, Peroo and Brazil, hopefully, need to start planning for seriousnessly.

I am currently considering my first escape from the city for a while, it is getting to me a little, brought up on t' country air n all that! I long for countryside and peaaaaaace! That is one thing about this city, it is a long way from escapism, not like glasgow a wee jaunt into the hills and fresh air. The buses, cars, heat and noise gets to you every now and again. Thinking la sierra de Córdoba..mountains! green! clean rivers! fresh air!



On another note, these past two weeks have seen me actually doing some uni work! Also been carrying on working like 18 hours a week so been a bit heavy. The argentine education system is a little different from what I am used to, or at least it is at USAL. Everything depends on the class and the teacher, deciding the way the course will be assessed and there are no real "official exams", as all the classes are quite small, all the exams just happen in the class hour. I had my first partial, like a mini exam, last Tuesday for History of Art. I thought it went terribly, for one, the whole class left after about half an hour, of a two hour class, and left me alone with the teacher halfway through the second question, feeling somewhat bemused and panicky. I asked the teacher and she just said, oh it is fine just continue until you are ready, we have plenty of time, so I continued, in a rushed manner, and scribbled what I knew down in no particular order. Turns out I got a 9/10?! I think she was being kind to me due to my englishness or maybe argentines are lazier than me?! Earlier in the day I found out my mark for the argentine literature course: 8/10. All good so far considering I only need a 4, not even sure if I need that, Glasgow didn't really do a job of informing me of what I had to do: bad idea!

Just getting over a small bout of what is presumed to be rubella, a poxy chicken like thing which includes a rash, temperature, aching joints and comes with a complementary cold, which is the only remaining sign, oh and the itching of non existent rash, "it's all in your head!" That may be the case but it still itches and feels satisfying to itch, I likened it to smoking before, I know it is bad but I can't help it and it feels better afterwards (itching of course...!) Managed to miss two exams, Portuguese, but hopefully can rearrange them. It also resulted in the second fund boost for the argentine private health system from the Robin Perkins illness foundation. A total of nearly $400pesos, nearly £80, pfft. bluddy german hospital.

While the world seems to fall deeper and deeper into a pit of financial uncertainty each and every day, Argentina is also feeling the heat and doesn't seem to be doing itself any favours. I have discovered that people do not like Kirchner II, she is unpopular on a lot of fronts, well, that is the impression I have so far. A quick survery: my boss thinks she is generally bad for the future of the country and the whole region, the man who cut my hair said he didn't know anyone who admitted having voted for her and people were fed up, christ, even her vice president voted against her! Not exactly a vote of confidence. Her latest move which has riled investors and economists, was the nationalisation of private pension funds, a move to free up capital for the govt. I am no economist but a "private source" (Jason) told me that private pension funds are key to keeping an economy going by attracting investment, Kristina says the govt needs the money more and the investment funds were just a money drain in light of the worldwide crisis. It is being seen as an obvious way of raising capital for the govt, which is seriously lacking, in order to help pay off some of it's quite moutnainous debts to the world. The stock prices fell by 9% in light of the move but some people seem to be saying it might be a good thing in the long run, allowing for state pension funds alongside an optional private pension fund which workers could opt in or out of, similar to what Brazil has. Brazil is numero uno in economy round these parts, a big player for the future so I hear :)


Now if economy isn't your thing, I apologise but it seems we can't avoid it these days. Watched a nice simple, quite amusing little BBC video on the whole crisis yesterday, kind of a crisis for dummies: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7688308.stm. The end of the weekend, the beginning of the weekbegninning :(