Today started out as possibly the worst day yet. Nothing SUPER major happened, but it was kind of one of those "the-straw-that-broke-the-camel's-back" sort of things.
This morning, we had a lecture that was only marginally boring, and then during our break, they passed back our essays. We only got an 83%. Everyone else got at least a 91%. So we got the lowest grade, which I think is bull because we wrote a good research paper. So we took the paper to Dr. Suarez to discuss, and the gist of what he said was "We were more looking for an anylitical essay, not so much the research-fact based paper." WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US BEFORE WE WROTE THE RESEARCH PAPER THEN???? I am really done with CIMAS at this point. The people they hire (read-the people we PAY for) don't show up for lectures, and then they pull stuff like this. I can write an analitical essay, but don't tell me that we just have to write any essay on any topic that we want. Duh. Oh, and my favorite part of this whole discussion??? We lost points because our citations were "wrong". So we asked him how we should have done it (they were MLA to begin with), and he gave us a huge list of things to do for next time, and then finished with "In general, we just use MLA." Good. So do we. So why did we lose points again??? Ugh.
Then lunch was gross. It was some sort of tiny little chicken wings with huge chunks of yuca and yep, you guessed it, white rice.
Then, we had a trip to the supermarket to buy fruit for our presentations (we were all assigned a fruit to research). This part of the day went relatively smoothly. But when got back to CIMAS and was ready to leave, my driver wasn't there. So I asked the other girls where she was, and they told me that they had left 15 minutes before.
My driver specifically told me 4:30 today, but I guess they decided that since everyone but me was ready at 4:15, they would just leave. So in addition to paying for the driver, I had to pay for a cab also. Duh. On Monday, I absolutely intend on making her reimburse me for the $1.50 cab ride, and meanwhile my mom is looking for another driver.
When I got home, my mom asked me if I wanted to go look at her sister's possible new house. Of course I had nothing better to do, so I agreed. We went and toured the model home and also the one she wanted to live in, and it was really nice. The houses were really modern and it was a really cool setup- like every bedroom had it's own private bathroom. But you can definitely tell that the craftmanship here is not as good because there were things like stairs that didn't line up exactly and railing that had weird, unfinished edges...but still it was a beautiful house, brand new, for $150,000. I thought that they should buy it, and they are going to go into negociations tomorrow.
After that, we went to their actual house for tea and croissants, which was fun. Their house right now is in the richest neighborhood in all of Quito (and therefore all of Ecuador). It is a private neighborhood, and it is really pretty and safe.
After tea, they took us home, but they took us the long way to show me around El Centro Historico. It was really nice of them, and it was a fun drive.
Oh...and they have a 1.5 year old, and of course as is custom, she just played in the backseat and on the floor of the car this whole time. Not a carseat in sight....
After the drive we came to my house and I think they're downstairs chatting still, but I am going to bed, so I said goodnight. Tomorrow I have no plans but to sleep in...and we'll see what happens from there. I am really running out of soap and shampoo and almost everything else though, so possibly a trip to the pharmacy is in order.
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