Happy Halloween, Witches!
(Pretend like this went up two weeks ago. Sorry I keep doing this but I forgot to finish it in time, and then I was insanely busy for a week straight. If you're subscribed and are reading this in the form of an email, I recommend clicking my name at the top to read straight from the blog. It's just nicer to look at that way)
Wow this was a very eventful week. Halloween was incredible, I got past sucky last week, and have made loads of progress on my long to-do list. Let’s start with last week, shall we? Because the majority of our classes were cancelled that week (21st-27th so we’re on the same page), I was stuck at home with nothing but homework and studying to do the majority of the day. You can only take so much before you lose your mind, which reverted to me spending way too much time on my phone. I’m talking, wake up at 9, scroll through pinterest for a couple hours, get dressed, watch YouTube for a few more hours, eat lunch, look at Instagram, go to seminary at 3:30, come back and watch TV until dinner, and maybe do some homework if I was feeling it. I was never feeling it. Oh, it was such a bad week. It was the most homesick I’ve felt yet, and I let that take over every other aspect of my life. I was sad all the time, and would rarely get off my phone long enough to talk to anyone. I didn’t eat much (but mostly because I had lost my appetite and nothing was appealing) which led to me being hungry but too tired, sad, and lazy to do anything about it. I felt like asking for anything more would make me a burden, and just did my best to stay out of the way and uninvolved. I totally ostracized myself from everyone, which just dug me deeper into my depressed situation. It was a definite low point for me; and was pretty visible too. On Sunday Tania and Andres asked to talk to me, and basically they brought me back down to earth and told me that I was a member of their family, and that nothing I do would make me a burden for them. They even asked me if I wanted to go home, which means my misery must’ve been pretty obvious. Of course my answer was no, because no matter how homesick I am, I am pretty dedicated to finishing the school year here. They told me that I have a home here, and I am free to treat it so. I can raid the fridge when I want, I can invite friends over, I can go out for ice cream whenever I’d like, and I am free to control my own life. I’ll be honest, it was an emotional wake up call for me. I just missed my family back home so much that I forgot I have one here. I realized, from this, that I need to stay busy if I want to stay happy. When I have too much free time, I end up wasting it away and doing nothing with my life; which in turn makes me sad. After that week, I decided that I was not going to do that again. Luckily, our classes were back on schedule and Halloween was right around the corner. To avoid melting into my bed again, I have made a commitment to learn 100-150 new words a week. I have this great app called TinyCards (made by the same people as Duolingo) and it’s basically digital flashcards that arranges itself into mini lessons. You can create whatever flashcards you’d like, and after you finish writing them up it will save it into a deck of up to 150. Each deck contains lessons, and each lesson contains 5 words. It has different ways of organizing and viewing the cards, designed specifically to help you memorize information. Sometimes you have to write the translation or just choose the correct one out of three. It’s really helpful, and will go back and repeat any you got wrong. It takes me about half an hour to get through the whole deck, and I make sure to get through the whole thing at least once a day. I highly recommend it to anyone trying to memorize or study. It could work for just about anything. This totally sounds like an ad but I just really love the app. So far I’m a week in and I’ve actually learned all the words. I find that the more I learn, the easier it is to remember. I guess all my practice of cramming 70 words right before the test in Spanish class last year actually helped. Now I can learn something quickly and usually hold on to it. Making my decks is pretty easy too. I’ll literally just come up with anything I don’t already know, find the translation with another app I have, and keep going until I reach at least 100. Sometimes I’ll read through an article in Spanish and add any word I don’t know. Other times I’ll even just look around and any little detail in my surroundings that I don’t know the name of will makes its way into the deck. We only know so many words in our native languages, so if I can get close to that number with Spanish I’ll have all that I need. It’s only a few thousand right? Hehe…
Let’s take a walk down memory lane and go through Halloween week shall we?
Monday: Pretty normal day. In the morning I had photography class and I finally started the project I’ve been wanting to do for over a year now. The teacher let me borrow her nice camera and I finally got a shot I like after 20 tries. I’m excited about it. (Since I wrote this forever ago and haven’t gotten around to finishing until now, future Andrya is here to say that the picture is pretty cool. I’ll put it in the next post, but if you follow me on insta then you’ve already seen it.) That afternoon I had seminary, and I’m understanding the teacher’s really fast talking a little bit more every day. Afterwards we had drawing class, which was good but my picture is taking forever. I’ll need to start working on it more than just a couple hours a week if I want to finish it by the end of the year. Then that night I went to ballet, but the teacher was just rehearsing the jazz routine for the younger kiddos. I’m not in it, but the teacher let me stick around and learn the routine anyways. It was fun, and overall was a pretty good day.
Tuesday: I don’t really remember anything from that day, so this’ll be quick. I woke up really late around 10 or 11 (hi future me again. I have a problem and have been waking up this late every day for the past two weeks. I need some help) I think I just spent the whole day editing my picture and then went to seminary that night. It was a good day.
Wednesday AKA HALLOWEEN!!!: Y’all this day was so good. Imma walk you through it all because it was just so bomb and I want to remember all of it when I’m old and my memory is gone. Ahem.
I wake up to a beautiful morning. The birds are chirping, the sun is streaming through my window, and the dogs in the street are, for once, not barking at each other. My eyelids flutter open and I can’t help but smile. Today is Halloween. With a deep stretch and a yawn, I roll over and pick up my phone. 11:15. “Ughhh why are you like this? You could’ve spent the last 4 hours being productive, but instead you waste away and hibernate for 12 hours straight. Hun, we have a problem. You better make up for lost time and go for a run or do some homework right now. It’s a real shame we have no self control when it comes to sleeping, but we should at least pretend like you’re going to figure it out.” After my very uplifting and inspirational mental pep talk, I scroll through Instagram and completely ignore what I had told myself 0.2 seconds earlier. After catching up on my very pressing YouTube updates and many text messages (jk, nobody texts me. rip. But honestly, I’m getting lonely out here. Please talk to me.) I roll out of bed like the graceful and majestic angel I am and instantly trip over my backpack that I left on the floor the night before. It’s all good, I already knew I was a wreck anyway, so the horrific view I see next in the mirror doesn’t even surprise me. My bedhead is usually pretty decent, but I straight-up had a mullet. Yeah, it was bad, but I mean... it’s been worse. I make my way to the kitchen where Andrea is finishing up breakfast. Good, I’m not the only one who slept in. We all sit down and enjoy some wonderful eggs, sausage, and orange juice. After breakfast I pick out my classy Halloween outfit and hop in the shower. After getting dressed and blow drying my hair, I am informed that Alejandra and I are on lunch duty. It’s a holiday, which means the parents get a break. We agree on a recipe I found on Pinterest, and send off Andres to buy the ingredients. After he returns, we get to work. Alejandra helps me with a bit of food prep, but it soon becomes clear that there’s only enough work for one person. I continue cooking as she goes to the dining room to make dessert. An hour or so later, the table is set with creamy lemon chicken with rice and caramelized onions. This was the least-Colombian thing I had eaten in months, and OH MY GOSH was it good. I hadn’t realized how much I missed cooking, but I felt right at home working in that kitchen. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I had been missing food from my home, so I took my opportunity and made the best easy meal I could think of. It was a really great lunch, made only better by Alejandra’s cake pops for dessert.
Soon after, Camila dropped by. Her face was painted day of the dead style, and wore a flower crown. I hadn’t given much thought up to that point of what I would dress up as, and kind of figured that I could just go as nothing if I didn’t have the time. That idea was soon thrown out the window when they told me about what we were doing that night. Everyone dresses up, so I didn’t give myself much of a choice. I had brought a lot of my makeup with me, but I was missing a few items. After lunch I head over to the makeup store to get everything I’d need. One thing you should know about Cota is that just about anything you buy other than food is either a knockoff or too cheap to be any good. There’s a reason everyone is walking around in Supreme sweatshirts and Yeezy’s: because they’re not real. I grabbed some eyeliner, eyelash glue and a little eyeshadow palette and headed back home to begin my masterpiece. The eyeliner was actually decent for the first few minutes. By the time I was finished it barely worked, but I bought it to be a one-time use anyways. The eyeshadow was so much better than I expected considering I only spent a dollar on it. It wasn’t nearly as good as most of the things I’ve tried, but it was a fraction of the price and got the job done. The eyelash glue was labeled Ardell but I don’t believe it for a second. No matter how much I let it dry it would burn my eyes from a foot away. I did ballroom, and have worn many-an-eyelash in my time. It shouldn’t burn, and never like this. I quickly gave up on the eyelashes, and settled for mascara. About an hour and a half of shading and blending later, I had this.
We headed out to the town square where the party was happening. They had blocked off the streets and the entire plaza was filled with people and booths showcasing Halloween-esque things. It was insane. The entire town showed up, and Colombians deliver when it comes to parties. There were haunted houses in place of the arts school, performances by the dance groups, and the stores were handing out candy to the kiddos. I was told there would be a flour fight, which I was looking forward to, but unfortunately we left before it started. Nonetheless, we still had a great time. The energy was insane, and everyone was just out having a good time. We watched the twins perform with the breakdance group (I opted out because A: I’m not a big fan of dancing for a crowd, and B: I’m not loving breakdance all that much anymore and usually opt out of going to class anyways), and stuck around a bit to just enjoy the atmosphere. We left around 8, and headed for the mall in Chia.
Now, you may be thinking, “Wow, what a party. It sounds like that was a great Halloween,” and you’d be right. BUT IT GOT BETTER! We arrived at the mall (the super awesome and modern one) around 9. Loads of people were dressed up, and everyone was kind of just hanging out all over the place. We went and bought our movie tickets, and wandered around to kill the time. I also got to know the girls a little better in an interesting game of never have I ever. After an hour, we went to see Bohemian Rhapsody. I know!! The perfect cherry on top to an amazing day. I carved my way through my mountain of theater food, and two hours later I was on such a high. Oh my gosh, the movie was so great. If you have the chance to see it, please do. I didn’t realize until afterwards that it came out 2 days earlier in Colombia than in the states, which I admit made me feel special or whatever. It was the perfect way to wrap up Halloween. The movie ended just after midnight, and I finally was back in bed and asleep around 3 in the morning. Not too bad.
Hi, Andrya here from November 13. This (↑) was a really great week, but unfortunately I got kind of lazy again and that mixed with my busier schedule was kind of detrimental to my productivity. I don’t remember the rest of that week, except for the next day when I woke up with a Halloween-induced version of a hangover (getting no sleep didn't help), and we learned how to change a car tire at mutual. I really want to do better at these blogs, because it’s the only way I’m going to remember anything in even a few months, but please just be patient with me. I just had a really great weekend at Youth Conference, which will be featured in a future post; as well as the stories of how I almost killed their dog and recent developments in my life. Stay tuned for those because I think they’re gonna be good. Until then, thanks to everyone who stuck around and is still reading these, and I hope you all had a great Halloween two weeks ago. It is insane how fast the time goes by. Stay chévere, and I’ll see you soon with some good stories hopefully sooner than in three weeks.
Wow this was a very eventful week. Halloween was incredible, I got past sucky last week, and have made loads of progress on my long to-do list. Let’s start with last week, shall we? Because the majority of our classes were cancelled that week (21st-27th so we’re on the same page), I was stuck at home with nothing but homework and studying to do the majority of the day. You can only take so much before you lose your mind, which reverted to me spending way too much time on my phone. I’m talking, wake up at 9, scroll through pinterest for a couple hours, get dressed, watch YouTube for a few more hours, eat lunch, look at Instagram, go to seminary at 3:30, come back and watch TV until dinner, and maybe do some homework if I was feeling it. I was never feeling it. Oh, it was such a bad week. It was the most homesick I’ve felt yet, and I let that take over every other aspect of my life. I was sad all the time, and would rarely get off my phone long enough to talk to anyone. I didn’t eat much (but mostly because I had lost my appetite and nothing was appealing) which led to me being hungry but too tired, sad, and lazy to do anything about it. I felt like asking for anything more would make me a burden, and just did my best to stay out of the way and uninvolved. I totally ostracized myself from everyone, which just dug me deeper into my depressed situation. It was a definite low point for me; and was pretty visible too. On Sunday Tania and Andres asked to talk to me, and basically they brought me back down to earth and told me that I was a member of their family, and that nothing I do would make me a burden for them. They even asked me if I wanted to go home, which means my misery must’ve been pretty obvious. Of course my answer was no, because no matter how homesick I am, I am pretty dedicated to finishing the school year here. They told me that I have a home here, and I am free to treat it so. I can raid the fridge when I want, I can invite friends over, I can go out for ice cream whenever I’d like, and I am free to control my own life. I’ll be honest, it was an emotional wake up call for me. I just missed my family back home so much that I forgot I have one here. I realized, from this, that I need to stay busy if I want to stay happy. When I have too much free time, I end up wasting it away and doing nothing with my life; which in turn makes me sad. After that week, I decided that I was not going to do that again. Luckily, our classes were back on schedule and Halloween was right around the corner. To avoid melting into my bed again, I have made a commitment to learn 100-150 new words a week. I have this great app called TinyCards (made by the same people as Duolingo) and it’s basically digital flashcards that arranges itself into mini lessons. You can create whatever flashcards you’d like, and after you finish writing them up it will save it into a deck of up to 150. Each deck contains lessons, and each lesson contains 5 words. It has different ways of organizing and viewing the cards, designed specifically to help you memorize information. Sometimes you have to write the translation or just choose the correct one out of three. It’s really helpful, and will go back and repeat any you got wrong. It takes me about half an hour to get through the whole deck, and I make sure to get through the whole thing at least once a day. I highly recommend it to anyone trying to memorize or study. It could work for just about anything. This totally sounds like an ad but I just really love the app. So far I’m a week in and I’ve actually learned all the words. I find that the more I learn, the easier it is to remember. I guess all my practice of cramming 70 words right before the test in Spanish class last year actually helped. Now I can learn something quickly and usually hold on to it. Making my decks is pretty easy too. I’ll literally just come up with anything I don’t already know, find the translation with another app I have, and keep going until I reach at least 100. Sometimes I’ll read through an article in Spanish and add any word I don’t know. Other times I’ll even just look around and any little detail in my surroundings that I don’t know the name of will makes its way into the deck. We only know so many words in our native languages, so if I can get close to that number with Spanish I’ll have all that I need. It’s only a few thousand right? Hehe…
Let’s take a walk down memory lane and go through Halloween week shall we?
Monday: Pretty normal day. In the morning I had photography class and I finally started the project I’ve been wanting to do for over a year now. The teacher let me borrow her nice camera and I finally got a shot I like after 20 tries. I’m excited about it. (Since I wrote this forever ago and haven’t gotten around to finishing until now, future Andrya is here to say that the picture is pretty cool. I’ll put it in the next post, but if you follow me on insta then you’ve already seen it.) That afternoon I had seminary, and I’m understanding the teacher’s really fast talking a little bit more every day. Afterwards we had drawing class, which was good but my picture is taking forever. I’ll need to start working on it more than just a couple hours a week if I want to finish it by the end of the year. Then that night I went to ballet, but the teacher was just rehearsing the jazz routine for the younger kiddos. I’m not in it, but the teacher let me stick around and learn the routine anyways. It was fun, and overall was a pretty good day.
Tuesday: I don’t really remember anything from that day, so this’ll be quick. I woke up really late around 10 or 11 (hi future me again. I have a problem and have been waking up this late every day for the past two weeks. I need some help) I think I just spent the whole day editing my picture and then went to seminary that night. It was a good day.
Wednesday AKA HALLOWEEN!!!: Y’all this day was so good. Imma walk you through it all because it was just so bomb and I want to remember all of it when I’m old and my memory is gone. Ahem.
I wake up to a beautiful morning. The birds are chirping, the sun is streaming through my window, and the dogs in the street are, for once, not barking at each other. My eyelids flutter open and I can’t help but smile. Today is Halloween. With a deep stretch and a yawn, I roll over and pick up my phone. 11:15. “Ughhh why are you like this? You could’ve spent the last 4 hours being productive, but instead you waste away and hibernate for 12 hours straight. Hun, we have a problem. You better make up for lost time and go for a run or do some homework right now. It’s a real shame we have no self control when it comes to sleeping, but we should at least pretend like you’re going to figure it out.” After my very uplifting and inspirational mental pep talk, I scroll through Instagram and completely ignore what I had told myself 0.2 seconds earlier. After catching up on my very pressing YouTube updates and many text messages (jk, nobody texts me. rip. But honestly, I’m getting lonely out here. Please talk to me.) I roll out of bed like the graceful and majestic angel I am and instantly trip over my backpack that I left on the floor the night before. It’s all good, I already knew I was a wreck anyway, so the horrific view I see next in the mirror doesn’t even surprise me. My bedhead is usually pretty decent, but I straight-up had a mullet. Yeah, it was bad, but I mean... it’s been worse. I make my way to the kitchen where Andrea is finishing up breakfast. Good, I’m not the only one who slept in. We all sit down and enjoy some wonderful eggs, sausage, and orange juice. After breakfast I pick out my classy Halloween outfit and hop in the shower. After getting dressed and blow drying my hair, I am informed that Alejandra and I are on lunch duty. It’s a holiday, which means the parents get a break. We agree on a recipe I found on Pinterest, and send off Andres to buy the ingredients. After he returns, we get to work. Alejandra helps me with a bit of food prep, but it soon becomes clear that there’s only enough work for one person. I continue cooking as she goes to the dining room to make dessert. An hour or so later, the table is set with creamy lemon chicken with rice and caramelized onions. This was the least-Colombian thing I had eaten in months, and OH MY GOSH was it good. I hadn’t realized how much I missed cooking, but I felt right at home working in that kitchen. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I had been missing food from my home, so I took my opportunity and made the best easy meal I could think of. It was a really great lunch, made only better by Alejandra’s cake pops for dessert.
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| Kinda ugly picture but I swear it tasted good |
Soon after, Camila dropped by. Her face was painted day of the dead style, and wore a flower crown. I hadn’t given much thought up to that point of what I would dress up as, and kind of figured that I could just go as nothing if I didn’t have the time. That idea was soon thrown out the window when they told me about what we were doing that night. Everyone dresses up, so I didn’t give myself much of a choice. I had brought a lot of my makeup with me, but I was missing a few items. After lunch I head over to the makeup store to get everything I’d need. One thing you should know about Cota is that just about anything you buy other than food is either a knockoff or too cheap to be any good. There’s a reason everyone is walking around in Supreme sweatshirts and Yeezy’s: because they’re not real. I grabbed some eyeliner, eyelash glue and a little eyeshadow palette and headed back home to begin my masterpiece. The eyeliner was actually decent for the first few minutes. By the time I was finished it barely worked, but I bought it to be a one-time use anyways. The eyeshadow was so much better than I expected considering I only spent a dollar on it. It wasn’t nearly as good as most of the things I’ve tried, but it was a fraction of the price and got the job done. The eyelash glue was labeled Ardell but I don’t believe it for a second. No matter how much I let it dry it would burn my eyes from a foot away. I did ballroom, and have worn many-an-eyelash in my time. It shouldn’t burn, and never like this. I quickly gave up on the eyelashes, and settled for mascara. About an hour and a half of shading and blending later, I had this.
 |
| Washed-out makeup ft. Camila y Alejandra |
We headed out to the town square where the party was happening. They had blocked off the streets and the entire plaza was filled with people and booths showcasing Halloween-esque things. It was insane. The entire town showed up, and Colombians deliver when it comes to parties. There were haunted houses in place of the arts school, performances by the dance groups, and the stores were handing out candy to the kiddos. I was told there would be a flour fight, which I was looking forward to, but unfortunately we left before it started. Nonetheless, we still had a great time. The energy was insane, and everyone was just out having a good time. We watched the twins perform with the breakdance group (I opted out because A: I’m not a big fan of dancing for a crowd, and B: I’m not loving breakdance all that much anymore and usually opt out of going to class anyways), and stuck around a bit to just enjoy the atmosphere. We left around 8, and headed for the mall in Chia.
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| The whole gang plus Yangelis (a friend) in the middle |
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| Cuter/happier version of the photo above |
Now, you may be thinking, “Wow, what a party. It sounds like that was a great Halloween,” and you’d be right. BUT IT GOT BETTER! We arrived at the mall (the super awesome and modern one) around 9. Loads of people were dressed up, and everyone was kind of just hanging out all over the place. We went and bought our movie tickets, and wandered around to kill the time. I also got to know the girls a little better in an interesting game of never have I ever. After an hour, we went to see Bohemian Rhapsody. I know!! The perfect cherry on top to an amazing day. I carved my way through my mountain of theater food, and two hours later I was on such a high. Oh my gosh, the movie was so great. If you have the chance to see it, please do. I didn’t realize until afterwards that it came out 2 days earlier in Colombia than in the states, which I admit made me feel special or whatever. It was the perfect way to wrap up Halloween. The movie ended just after midnight, and I finally was back in bed and asleep around 3 in the morning. Not too bad.
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| She was Wednesday Adams, not mad for no reason |
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| Killing time at the mall ft. the twins |
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| Killing more time at the mall ft. my inner soul |
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| 12:30 bathroom selfie, cuz this witch is basiccc (I'm so punny) |
Hi, Andrya here from November 13. This (↑) was a really great week, but unfortunately I got kind of lazy again and that mixed with my busier schedule was kind of detrimental to my productivity. I don’t remember the rest of that week, except for the next day when I woke up with a Halloween-induced version of a hangover (getting no sleep didn't help), and we learned how to change a car tire at mutual. I really want to do better at these blogs, because it’s the only way I’m going to remember anything in even a few months, but please just be patient with me. I just had a really great weekend at Youth Conference, which will be featured in a future post; as well as the stories of how I almost killed their dog and recent developments in my life. Stay tuned for those because I think they’re gonna be good. Until then, thanks to everyone who stuck around and is still reading these, and I hope you all had a great Halloween two weeks ago. It is insane how fast the time goes by. Stay chévere, and I’ll see you soon with some good stories hopefully sooner than in three weeks.
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| Me "helping" at mutual ft. post-Halloween hangover face |
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