You can´t swing a dead cat with out hitting a pharmacy in SA

Hey Everyone! Well another week has come and gone, and today believe it or not is our FIVE MONTH MARK!!!! You know, this week went by rather slow for me, if I must admit. It was a week full of ugly finals, and then nothing else…ha-ha. You see finals would start at seven in the morning, they´d get done between 8:00-8:30, and then I’d come home crash for a little bit and then study for the next ugly final that was coming up. The weather wasn´t all that great and dandy either…It rained basically all week, minus one day, I believe Wednesday. Thursday we had another power outage which made it so that I wasn´t able to go to institute, so I was very sad about that. However, let´s focus on some good news…so that I don´t seem like a total and complete scrooge… good point number one would have to be, finals are over until the end of the year! Yippee! And because this last semester I was kind of just learning the ropes and such, this next semester I am fully ready to accept all challenges, and do my best academically… you never know…I might actually learn something! Ha-ha.
Good point number two would have to be that I received a package from home! Well actually three…however two are still at the post office, and I hope to go get them Monday. But one package made it safely to the Xplorer office, and it was from my awesome family! Mom included pics from Christmas, the conference ensign, (finally) the February Ensign, News paper clippings from the Inauguration, and Louie threw in some pretty bead work for me. It was just the right thing to make me smile.
Things have kinda been tough for me lately…trying to find the silver lining to things has become tougher and tougher. Being thrust into a friendship group of 15 and 16 year olds has defiantly finally taken its toll…I love them to death, but I am kind of a little tired of being the older sister, I just need a friend, someone to be there for ME! And not me being the one there for everyone else….don´t get me wrong…I love the xplorer group, each one of them…it´s just time for a change. School offers little relief from this also because all the students in my class are preparing for college, finals, and their senior year. When I ask them what they are doing over the weekend, “studying” is the common answer, if not…”diskoteching”. I know I am only a little over a year older than my class mates, but I think that sometimes my beliefs, my life experiences, and my maturity level exceed everyone else´s so much that I feel like I am SO old compared to them. I don´t find the same dumb things funny that they do, I really could care less about who´s dating who, or who is doing what. My life has moved on from that point, and it´s really tough right now to find a happy medium.
I know you guys are probably wondering what happened to the girl who wrote the blog last week…and frankly I am wondering that too…but don´t worry I will find her again, I promise, right now I am just in a rut, and I need to figure a way to get out. If any of you have suggestions I will gladly accept them.
The picture I have included on this blog, is of Cotopaxi. I see this every morning on my way to school. It´s hard to catch a clear view of it, through the morning fog that settles over the valley in the mornings, but last Saturday you could see it so clearly and so beautifully. Of course I don’t have a camera, so I hope that some time before I leave I will get a clear view of it again. The views of Ecuador honestly without fail every time will take your breath away. I like to think of the buildings that stretch up on to the mountains as legos…that´s what they look like, little brightly painted building blocks.

A few months ago I wrote a blog entry about “quirks” of Ecuador…i´ve decided to add a few more, just to cheer this blog up a bit.
• You don´t flush your toilet paper, due to plumbing issues, it must be put in the trash can
• Milk comes in baggies, like big Capri suns (and it tastes like powdered milk, I never thought I would crave farm fresh milk, but it´s defiantly on my “to do list” with I get home.
• There´s is about the same size of variety of roses here as there is fruit, they even sell black roses. You can buy a dozen roses for about .50 to 1.00!
• The American Embassy´s security guards are Ecuadorian…(that confused me)
• You have to pay to receive your packages from the states
• The people here are very superstitious…they truly really do believe in ghosts!
• The church building doesn´t provide Hymn books, you must bring your own
• “para agua” is my favorite Spanish word right now, literally translated it means “for water” in English we call it an umbrella! (whoever invented the English language…was retarded…we need more words like “para agua”!
• Long term bus trips cost a dollar an hour, so to Guayaquil it´s seven dollars, to Otavalo, two.
• “Me Cachas” is a slang word meaning do you understand, but literally translated is like, do ya catch me?
• Yuca is a very common food here, kinda like a sweet potato it is served fried, mashed, in soup, in bread, and just plain…
• I could live on the fresh fruit here and be just fine
• But the fresh bread is also to die for
• When it rains in SA, it REALLY REALLY rains!
• The Spanish language is still just as beautiful to me…I love it!
• You have to go to a pharmacy to buy shampoo and conditioner!
• VIVA ECUADOR!

now just as a closing note, i thought i´d touch a little bit on my blog entry title. this is one of my favorite quotes here, and it´s so true...there are so many pharmacies. but i do have a funny story about this. maggie caught me saying it once and she just about died. well the other day she told me "okee dokee" and after words said, "oh my heck i just said okee dokee, i need to go die now." i replied with, "hey! i say okee dokee...!" she then said, in her very maggie way " oh great, that´s coming from the girl who swings dead cats...i really should go die now..." haha
i am cheered up alot now, it´s amazing how sometimes just venting out your feelings makes you feel better...i love you all! thank you for your love and support. and Congrats to Auntie Heidi!!! yeah!
love you all,
Hasta Luego
Em