Well.. it's almost over.
I can officially say i leave next week... and i don't want to. Next weekend i will be in Port Huron.. ugh. the thought makes me feel sick.. haha, not that i HATE home.... i am just not ready to go home. I'm not ready to go back to "life" i guess. This whole semester has kind of just felt like an on going break. Don't get me wrong, learning spanish and being thrown into a whole different way of life wasn't easy by ANY means.. but things are just so relaxed here, i haven't had NEARLY as much homework, i've had more time to get to know people and hang out with peopel  and explore and just have free time,i NEVER got that at calvin.
Its just basically been really amazing
I'm ridiculously excited to see my family and friends.. i cant even explain to you how excited i am. But the thought of not being able to quick walk somewhere, or the thought of not going to the beach after comida, or  not being able to go walking down marcos de campo, or going to get coffee, or "group studying", or going to tracy's for a barbecue.... uughhh. i'm going to be so lonely and bored.. haha
I know i'll have my friends at home in PH who i've missed SO SO much, liek everyone else in the states.. but i can't talk spanish to them... or learn knew words with them.. who am i going to talk to?
Aj and i were talking about going home today. and we almost cried like little girls.. thats how i feel now. I'll stop this entry now.
haha
Today i had the idea of writing one thing i missed about spain each day i was home.. then i realized that was an awful idea.... but i'll probably do it any way.:)

oo i have an idea.. how about a list of 10 things i can think of right now that i WILL NOT miss about spain.
in no particular oder.....
1) my host mother doubting my spanish or my knowledge.. ESPECIALLY when i'm saying what I mean to say.. and she STILL "corrects me"
2) the amount of food i have to eat.. because if i don't that CLEARLY means i don't like it and the cook is a horrible cook... obviously......
3) The worst drivers on the face of the earth
4)people having fiestas.. ALL THE TIME.. like at 5 in the morning.. in the calle... below my window...
5) a pile of vomit SOMEWHERE in my walking path at least once a week. and/ or dog poop.. because why would a dog EVER poop on grass?  how preposterous .
6) the internet/ its unreliability
7)spanish cell phone service.. i hate you movistar
8) pig legs everywhere ( all ham really..) and my food having a head and eye balls when its served to me. ( come lo! come lo!.. todo?.. si todo!) no! i will never again eat fish heads, or rip open the body of a sea creature with 30 legs, never again
9) "tsst tsst" i will now cringe or jump every time i hear this noise
10)motos.. your are in fact a vehicle and you do in fact need a drivers license.. which means you know there are at least SOME laws you have to follow. you are not a pedestrian.. as much as you wish you were.. i dont like the feeling of risking my life every time i cross the road because YOU feel you dont have to follow automobile laws


the end for now. I'll do one more entry before i leave probably.. and it will probably include my final essay for class. its a 'reflection' paper. ooooo.

adios.

OK, so my sister emailed me to tell me about this new tonka commercial that says "boys are built different and tonka has the blue print". What is that supposed to mean? How is it we've decided little boys and little girls are so different that they need their own toys? One has a penis and one has a vagina.ok lets make one cook and one build, sounds good... no
Our culture has gotten this idea that we need to smother kids in "sex friendly" colors and toys and games to make sure they grow up "normal" we can't have little boys playing with dolls and little girls should never play with tools, because "thats not how they were built". We raise our kids this way, and then they end up doing things their sex is "supposed" to do, dance, play football, art, play with bugs, show emotion.. and then they go into a career their sex is "expected" to go into. We wonder why it seems like careers are normally dominated by a certain sex. Education, the sciences, business, social work, we've been brain washing kids from the second they were born.
"You cry like a girl" "You throw like a girl". "be a man" it's common, everyday phrases liek these that make growing up and finding ones identity so difficult. People "worry" about a little boy who likes dolls.. or plays with his mothers makeup. What the hell, it seems like we dont let kids find themselves, we TELL them who and what they're going to grow up to be. And the ones that "rebel" and find themselves in a different way are labled "butch" or "fag".
A woman my sister came across was talking about the commercial and modern feminism.And how she just "doesn't get it" I admit, i am a feminist, but i dont think it takes a feminist to admit our culture feeds us gender roles and expects us to live by them, and if you don't theres "something wrong with you".  Ok first,  she says "So why is this commercial worth such scorn? Because they actually said the word “boys” out loud, instead of just implying it by only showing little boys playing with it? Give me a break." Please lets just use our brains here, clearly the fact that they said "boys" is not the problem , the problem is by saying "boys are built different" and saying tonka... a toy company that makes only TRUCKS, has the "blueprint" is the problem. If they didn't say that, and just left the little boy playing with a truck, and not chauvinistically imply that boys are so different from girls that they need a special toy company to make them ( BOYS) special toys that only boys can play with.. THEN, there wouldn't be a problem.
She goes on to say.. "Maybe I’m missing something, but it’s starting to feel like anything deemed ‘male’ is coming under attack anymore. Boy Scouts are being sued to allow girls, men cannot have social clubs that women are not allowed in. Men are just not allowed to be men anymore, and I think that’s a damn shame if there ever was one." What?! WHAT?! i think shes trying to sound ridiculous.. really i do. Under attack? WOW. ok, first of all tell me why men STILL to this day. in 2008  get paid more (on avg) than women. And usually within the same education and job level. hmm? Please tell me this. Men ARE allowed to have social clubs without women.. and they do.. stop making things up for your argument please. Tell me also, how and why men move up the "ladder" more quickly than women. And why women can't seem to get into positions of leadership as easy as men. Maybe .. just maybe thats why it seems like anything labeled as "male" is under attack these days, because women don't have a chance to be women. The other sex, that is just as capable in succeeding, they just aren't given the opportunity.
One more quote from her, "One of these days the feminists are going to realize that there is a certain amount of androgyny that occurs in the human species, but overall, boys and girls really are VERY different creatures." Yes we know.. clearly. hence the testosterone, and penis and such. But the point is these "differences" your talking about, are social and cultural creations. What we see as "male" and "female" are not the same in every culture please note. So who decides whats "male' and whats "female"? societies do. And when females get oppressed becuase they were born with a vagina, and they're told what to do and how to act and what to play with.. thats what feminists refuse to "realize".

thank you that is all.
i just needed to vent, i thought i was going to expload.