The longest birthday celebration ever

Hi! Right now I'm eating chilaquiles or something like that and not having anything to do. Plus it is def time for a post. Apparently this food is really Mexican and I've been meaning to try it but haven't yet. It's kind of like soggy fritos with chile and cheese and stuff. Sounds nasty, but it's SO good.

This week and next week is our first wave of partials (exams) which stinks because they all come at once. They're far worse than USC's exams because (1) all professors have to give them and (2) there are four waves of them instead of two. Blech. I've got two down, which went ok, I guess, but I still have three more. Oh, and a 5 page research paper in Spanish due in a week and we just found out about it. Whew. Ok. I promise I'm done whining. Oh wait, one more thing. Leaving the TEC today, Christie and I had to cross rivers instead of streets. Yay for Chacos! PS the tan lines are absolutely out of control-- I really need to start putting sunscreen on my feet.

In other news, I'm twenty! And feeling old. But then I think of my friends that are twenty and remember they're not old. Now I'm just babbling. I think it's because I'm senile. The birthday weekend was amazing! It consisted of a Saturday night at a Chivas game and an antro, a Sunday carne asada, and a laid-back Monday out. Here's some pichas!
That's me, Edgar, and Christie at el estadio. Oh my goodness! All my friends got me a Chivas jersey for by birthday! I love it so much! The game was against the Santos from, um, somewhere up north and I think they won the national championship last year. So we lost, naturally. 5-3, with their last point being in the last few seconds. Kind of like that Clemson game. Sigh. BUT last night USC beat NC State 34-0. I was doing homework and clicking refreshrefreshrefresh on ESPN.com. Wow, that's a long caption.

The stadium looked like a page from Where's Waldo:

Here were are at this antro called Mood. It was chido, but I probably won't go back. Too expensive and not enough reggaeton. :) This is Megan, Christie, Jessi, me, and Eva.

Here's the carne asada! This is me, Heather, Lisa, and Erin.

Here's my sweet roomie and what was going to be guacamole, but the avocados were as hard as rocks. Therefore, we had avocado salad.

Monday, my actual birthday, just involved me, Jessi, Eva, and Edgar going to a bar, and I look really bad in those pictures, so you'll just have to imagine it. Oh yeah and that morning I woke up ridiculously sick again. I think I am allergic to Mondays. But it was cool because I just slept for a long time, and then when I woke up, I got to talk to Julie online. She seems extremely happy and healthy.

Now that I'm done with my chilaquiles, I'm gonna go sleep and shower, o sea, take care of two things that get put on the back burner when one is studying for an exam. Mmmm. Then Eva, Jessi, Edgar, Omar, Tere and I are going to an antro. I'm pretty sure it's another Tec welcome party, even though we've been here for a month. Eek! Upon realizing that the other day, I started feeling like time is flying by. It's weird that that was just the getting-used-to-things period and now this place is really starting to become my home. Don't get me wrong, I definitely miss things from my real home, e.g. family, friends, Gamecock football, and peach cobbler, but I guess that's part of the deal.

The rest of the weekend will include a visit to a taco puesto (stand, or literally, "put") tomorrow that we walk through every day on the way to school but have never been to. Other potential events include going downtown for the parade that begins the month-long mariachi festival. Since mariachi is from here in Jalisco, bands from all over the world come here for an expo. Sunday I'm going to be doing a lot of studying and hopefully trying a new church with Lisa--yay!

So this might be really nerdy, but I decided I'm going to start including a fun Spanish word every blog post. This one's is las palomitas, or "little doves" AKA popcorn. Mexicans put chile on it. They pretty much put chile and lime on everything. I'm loving the second and getting used to the first.

And last but not least, thank you so much for all the warm birthday wishes! :) I could definitely feel the love, even though it was sent from far away!