La GRIPE A!!

La gripe A, aka the swine flu, H1N1, whatever you want to call it - I'm just going to say I have something similar. Sick as a dog, not really that sick, but I do definitely have a mild flu (which is all the swine is/has been for most people). The world health scene got all worried about the 'epidemic' because it is more catching than your every day flu - but when I had it at Madison last year I was surprised by how mild it was. I am currently holed up with a very low fever (we're talking 99, 99.5), muscle aches, congestion, and coughing. My host mom, being the typical melodramatic Argentine woman has suggested every few hours that I go to the clinic, or the HOSPITAL. For a cold/mild flu. Hence the use of the word melodramatic.

Other than being cooped up in my bed watching and digging into my host moms stash of ripped off DVDs, I started my Portuguese class today! As you can all tell, I have been extremely bored all day so I am writing in my blog twice in two days, after not writing for a full month. The class was really fun, although it was 3 hours long and I started feeling pretty wretched by the end of it, regardless of how many mg of ibuprofen and throat lozenges I popped. It was fun, the professor spoke to us in mainly very clear, slow Portuguese, which was awesome, considering that I really understood some of it!!! It's also blowing my mind thinking of all of the material that we covered today. We started with the alphabet and the phonetics of the letters then moved onto pronunciation rules, basically the exact opposite of Spanish, where everything sounds as it looks (in Portuguese it seems to me that NOTHING sounds as it looks!). We continued on with pronouns, 3 basic irregular verbs in the present tense, as well as a smattering of vocabulary words that were throw into the mix. I would have to check my 6 pages of notes to be more precise about EVERYTHING we covered but he already had us doing a work sheet, a listening activity and learning the mandatory compound words! The professor is muy buena onda, or pretty legit in American, and I can't even imagine how much I will learn in just 16 weeks with him.



I threw in this picture just to give you an idea of where I would like to use my Portuguese in 2014, if anyone else would like to start taking classes now and be my travel companion. In the off change that I don't make it back to South American in 2014, I am going to do my best to make it to Brazil before I come back to the states - hopefully in time for Rothe Door County 2011.

Have a good night everyone - and AVOID THE SWINE FLU!