Merriment and Misfortune

I think this slackerishness may be a new theme for me. Life is just too busy to be properly expressed in neat little paragraphs every few days, it just moves too fast.

The deadline to drop classes is fast approaching and making me nervous as HELL. The professor for my two Spanish Lit classes has yet to arrive to a single class, but these are the classes that I suspect will be most important for me, since they are the only ones that really pertain to my major. I'm loving my Pragmatics class, it seems challenging yet doable, and the professor is really helpful and sweet. Last week I made sure to go to her office hours, and I've already begun our first paper in the hopes that I'll get it done in time to revise a little and try and make sure my grammar isn't totally fucked. I have a presentation today for my Methodology of Teaching class, and I'm stupid nervous, even though it's in English, which is obviously an advantage for me... My North American Lit class is a little bit ridiculous. Last week we had our first "discussion" on Rip Van Winkle, and the political commentary went completely over my teacher's head. A few of us are wondering if our essays for that class will have to be a regurgitation of her ideas or if we'll be allowed to argue for different readings...

This weekend was, of course, total madness in the best way possible. Friday night, I really wanted to go see a cheap metal show, and had a bitch of a time finding someone to come with me, but at the last minute, my Santa Cruz sista, Michelle, returned my call and we had a fucking AWESOME time listening to this bad ass woman sing the most beautiful lyrical type stuff and then scream the most guttural brutal screams while rocking a sexy red dress and a pair of Converse. Yeah. Karim and his adorable girlfriend, Danielle, met up with us afterwards and took us on a whirlwind of Granada barhopping friend-meeting awesomeness. At one point we tried a kind of rum ONLY found in Granada, at another point we visited a Western style pub and munched on sunflower seeds and at another place we tried a kind of alcohol that is consumed by pouring a stream from an awesome little tea pot into someone's mouth. They let me crash at their place, which was great because I got some Leto-lovin (he's their enormous, sweet, slobbery Great Dane mix!) in the morning. They are seriously the sweetest couple ever. They even tried to feed me in the morning, but my stomach protested.

Karim and Leto in a loving embrace!

Directly after arriving home from their house, I realized I had to get my shit together and bake some cookies STAT because I was scheduled to go hang out at Leah's with a group of Spanish pals to chow down, play some drinking games, etc. Luckily, I was actually the least late of the bunch (ohhh, Spanish time) and we ended up having an amazing tinto de verano (or in some cases beer) drinking marathon that began somewhere around 4pm and ended around 1am. The group of boys that came over are these hilarious Granada natives that have all known each other for a billion years and are all madly in love with each other, the result of which being lot's of man-on-man lap dances, tons of goofiness and lot's of affection. Later on, Fran came and brought us tortilla de patatas, which he made with the help of his grandma (awwww) and when everyone dispersed I decided to go to a bar with him and a few friends and he took me on his moto! So much scary thrilling cold fun!

Group photo! At this exact moment, the chair Pablo was perched on broke, hence my awesome facial expression.

The next morning (well...if 1:30 is morning...) I went back to Leah's (unannounced, of course) and shortly afterwards Courtney arrived, also unannounced and we tried to book a hostel for our upcoming trip to PORTUGAL and SEVILLA which I'm really fucking pumped about. It took us a billion years to do so, because we were all semi-deliriously sleepy and we discovered two untouched bottles of tinto de verano, which we promptly consumed. Eventually, inspired by our mellow tinto buzz, we began to clean the house, but only after taking some fantastic photos, of course:

All in all, success. After all this, I finally returned home. It's gotten so disgusting in this apartment. I clean the kitchen just about everyday, since I have to cook in it, but I could give a fuck about dealing with everyone's mess in the living room, so it's gotten pretty heinous. Last night I firmly resolved to not deal with any of the horror accumulating, but this morning I just couldn't bring myself to make breakfast in the scum, so I washed alllllll the dishes, even the ones growing mold in the living room, threw everything that was laying around away and swept the floor. Ben promised to take out the enormous stack of beer cans, soda cans and bottles and booze bottles away, but, well, that was two or three hours ago...

On a much more unpleasant note, I finally got to Skype with my dad and Karen last night and was told that my lovely fluffy pooch, Duke, will probably not be around much longer due to the fact that he has some pretty serious cancer in his knee that has probably spread through his bones and into his lungs, etc. I got to see him on Skype and it was really sad to think that it may be the last time I'll see him. He obviously recognized my voice, and was cocking his head and looking around, but he also looked a little doped up. I guess he's in a ton of pain. It's hard to feel so much at once; I love him so much and am absolutely devastated that he will probably be gone by the time I'm home, that it almost makes me feel guilty to be having such a great time here.

Duke, 2010.

I know he's not gone yet, but it's still been a pretty tearful day for me. Duke has been my fluffy friend for the past ten years; he's family.

In slightly more uplifting yet darkly humorous and relevant news, last Friday Casey got...

A mini lint roller. Why? Because our pup is white, and her fur dominates ALL. Seriously, I'm still finding puppy fluff on my clothes and I've been gone over a month.

Anyhoo, class in an hour, time to make the trek to Cartuja. Hopefully I'll be able to write a little before next week, but Wednesday I should be Portugal-bound and I don't think I'll be back to Granada until Sunday!