Coño!

Yesterday was not my day. I got up early to go to the library in the public university to get a book that's supposed to be on reserve for my class "Fundamentos de la historia social de la la Republica Domincana" (Fundamentals of social history of the Dominican Republic). When I woke up, I felt like I'd been hit by a bus. I haven't been sleeping well for the past few nights, and the bed in Dona Josefina's houses is kind of uncomfortable sometimes. So when I got to the university, I was dazed and not at all prepared to communicate effectively with native Spanish speakers. I found the library, which is so big, it's scary. There are two huge staircases on either side and there were tons of people milling around. I managed just enough Spanish to be told I need to go to the third floor to find the reserve desk. The book isn't there. All five copies were checked out. Lovely, as class started in just over an hour (I was a little behind schedule because we'd had a blackout and my back hurt too much for me to suffer through a cold shower).

In class, it turned out that nearly no one in the class had done the reading except the people who were presenting the material to us. Sadly, even our presenters weren't safe; the professor chewed them out for talking about the minutae of Carlos I's birth when there were more important historiographical issues at hand. You would think that this sort of thing would cut our 3-hour class really short but no, never that. We were told about the importance of taking responsibility for our education, the opportunity we were being given, and then a bunch of other stuff I both tuned out and couldn't understand.

I booked it out of the classroom when we were finally released because I had a headache and I was starving. The campus at this university, La UASD (pronounced laWAHS. The 'd' disappears), is a city in itself. There are street names and traffic and stray dogs, almost as if you were in a miniature Santo Domingo. I was lost inside the campus for a half hour.

I finally made it back to my house, only to find that the electricity had gone out again! The Dominican Republic has a huge problem with blackouts. This time, the water had also gone. I thought it wasn't a big deal because I was leaving to come to the program office to use the computer but no sooner do I start writing a cover letter for a summer internship do the lights go out again! They came back really quickly but the computers were gone for good. Christ.

Words:
Mierda! Se fue la luz!--Shit! The lights went out.