Fear, frustration, fun, and food!

So Sunday saw me at another Christian church, and it left me with mixed feelings. I really liked the people and the music, but the people being filled with the Holy Spirit and falling down at the end kinda turned me off. I did buy a great CD, though, by Alex Campos. It's a fantastic mix of rock, ska, piano ballads, and vallenato (Colombian accordian music).


Then, I had the most frightening experience I have had in Ecuador thus far. I saw a cockroach in my room!!!!! So I froze, shoe in hand, just waiting for it to come out of the corner. I had two unsuccessful shoe-throwing attempts, then more waiting, seriously paralyzed in fear. After about 30 minutes of staring, attempting to journal, but really just staring and waiting, the bugger reappeared and I luckily called Jairo into save me. Um, kinda embarrassing, come to think of it...because it wasn't a cockroach at all! It was a grillo--a cricket! It looked a little different than the massive Venezuelan cockroaches I battled nearly every night, but it was dark in the corner and it stayed under the bottom of the curtain so I couldn't really see it. Plus, the wall is a long way from the bed on which I was seeking refuge. So it took about 20 minutes for my panic and all its physiological effects to dissipate, but I was able to sleep peacefully knowing there wasn't a cockroach (or cricket, for that matter) in my room! I'm pretty pathetic, I know.

So after a good night's rest, Monday was just fine, and right after school I went to a jewelry-making class that Monica kinda pressured me into. I may have been too supportive of her own love for jewelry making, or I may have been too open with details that my mom is into it now, or I may have seemed too interested in learning the techniques myself...because now she thinks I love it and has convinced me to buy all sorts of beads, fasteners, wire, etc. that I will certainly never use or make anything beautiful and wearable with. The problems are two-fold: 1. I'm not creative and have virtually no fashion sense whatsoever, in addition to a preference for wooden anything over any type of metal; 2. While it's fun to learn techniques and knots and such, I would much rather spend 4 hours browsing beautiful and cheap hand-made jewelry at the local market, and then moving on with my day than spend those same 4 hours putzing with a bunch of tiny beads, taking out 1/3 of what I'd just done and redoing it, and then giving up in frustration and impatience. Seriously (and I did tell Monica this, though she didn't seem too supportive), I don't have the patience nor talent for jewlery-making and therefore my bracelets and necklaces look like a 4th grade craft project. But I think I'm stuck in this task for awhile because each night Monica tells me of a new place to buy pearls (which I personally disdain) or a new technique she wants to teach me. Seriously, if I really wanted to learn this art, I could buy a magazine or look it up on the internet. But i haven't yet, have I? And what do we think that means? Anyways, if I ever finish the stupid bracelet I started, I'll post a picture.

Moving on to Tuesday, all I did in the afternoon and evening is make up the Year 12 ecology exam for tomorrow, as well as 30 review questions for the Jeopardy! game we played yesterday. No one had ever heard of it, but they all really liked it, so I was glad to spread the Alex Trebek joy.

And last night, after watching some NatGeo and CNN in the evening, I made empanadas de viento with Monica, some filled with cheese and others with jelly. I'm still not pleased with my edging technique, but they tasted great!