you will say this is ridiculous

Last week, I went to buy some new tennis balls (I'm trying to become better than Federer) and the man at the store told me ONE can cost 21 PESOS. That's $6.77 in USA, dead president currency. I almost had a heart attack. No way José.

So I asked a family at BAICA whose kids I teach that knew of someone coming down to BA if they could pass the word along to personally import some tennis balls for the math teacher. This wonderful, nice guy brought me THREE cans of tennis balls, good ones, that had been purchased for $5.50! US dollars!!

So let's review:
1 CAN = 3 BALLS = $6.77 in ARGENTINA.
3 CANS = 9 BALLS = $5.50 in the states BROUGHT to Argentina.

Even factoring in possible weight load of the 3 cans and their fair share of the person's fuel charge of their plane ticket...this is COMPLETELY ridiculous!! I know you'd agree...

sewing buttons and ironing your underwear...

For my life management class on Friday, I went over basic laundry knowledge, you know, seperating whites and colors and wash temperatures and the little trick that you fold your clothes soon after the dryer cycle is done to reduce your need for ironing -- important skills they will need for their soon-to-arrive college years where mom and dad won't be around. I also talked about how to iron, and we had a special guest, a professional seamstress (a parent of a student), who showed us how to replace a lost button. Then I assigned homework.

Their homework for this weekend was to ask their parents to do a load of laundry, do it, and then iron at least one garment, and I said that underwear counted as a possibility. It is a low surface area item, not too intensive. A student asked if he could iron a sock, and I said it was permissible. They'll do whatever yields them the least amount of work -- it's the same in my math classes.

winter in BA

Well, it seems to have quickly become winter here in BA. It's fairly chilly, but it feels so good! This is some great running weather, and good weather for smores...but marshmellows aren't sold in Argentina, so we'll have to wait on the smores...

humbleness

A good read on being humble if it interests you:

being humble

Earth day and recycling

In case you didn't know, Earth day is this Sunday, April 22. Just this week in life management class, I assigned to my students a project to create and implement a recycling program for our school...so pretty soon we'll be recycling at BAICA. For more on Earth Day, you can read more on this site: Earth Day

There are some Earth Day sermons as well on the site. In my opinion, we shouldn't take care of the Earth, cut carbon emissions, and seek to use resources most efficiently by doing things like recycling and minimizing waste because it's the current socially acceptable thing to do -- we should do it because the Lord calls us in The Word (The Bible) to be good stewards of the gifts He has given us, especially His creation!!

Argentine teacher strike

No, no, don't worry, I'm not striking. I will when my demands for cereal aren't met. Just kidding. Throughout the rest of Argentina, teachers have been striking due to a demand for pay raises, and in some provinces, class still isn't happening. There are a couple of reasons why I agree that the teachers here should be paid more:

1. It is a very worthy profession, teachers are underpaid in many societies around the world, and seem to play a very important role in shaping the future economic and political health of a country. Comparatively, teachers earn not much here.
2. Inflation is high in this country, and thus wages should keep pace accordingly for a profession that already has a tight financial state between costs and income.
3. You are investing in your future. See point #1.

I will also say that in Argentina, strikes and walking off the job are quite common. I strongly disagree with the mentality of "hey, let's strike because we're lazy" which I think is what's going on with some of the teachers. Also, while the teachers were striking, jobs tied to the transportation industry and in other industries went on strike as well to show support for their colleagues who are in the same big labor union. They said "let's just be lazy and miss work, and we'll still get paid."

It didn't help that a high school science teacher was shot and killed by a tear gas cannister by a policeman who had been sentenced to prison last November for beating up a prisoner. Why the heck was he on the job you ask?? Remember, this is Argentina!

See the CNN article: article

Friday the 13th

Thus far, I have escaped anything bad happening to me today. Our super didn't smile at me this morning on the way out, but he usually doesn't smile, so that was normal. Only when we pay the building expenses does he smile. Craig suggested that we pin money on our clothing so that it is in sight, then our super might smile at us.

I'm not really superstitious, so I don't really buy into the Friday the 13th thing. However, I was riding my bike this afternoon, and I passed a solid black cat chewing on grass and then eating it, which was kind of weird. Then a pure white cat crossed in front of me 1 block later, so I'm not sure what all that means.

Deacon Tower

So everyone knows the Deacs did exceptional this year in football. The athletic department & University is going to take advantage and re-do the football stadium. I liked the smaller, more intimate stadium, but I understand that a D-1 football program probably needs something a little more big time. I bet it'll be really nice when it's done.

You can see for yourself: http://wakeforestfacilities.com/index.htm

the 11th plague?

There have been a ridiculous amount of mosquitos here in Buenos Aires lately. There has been alot of rain, but it's semi-cold, so I don't get why there are so many. If you open an outside door, and go into a building, or into the school, or into the soccer place, in the 5 seconds it takes to enter, you probably let in 10 mosquitos -- 3 of which will bite you. So, if you're coming to BA anytime soon, bring your OFF.

Happy Resurrection Day!

I opted for "Resurrection Day" because I think it's a bit more fitting. I was curious this weekend as to where "Easter" came from, so I looked it up.

As it turns out, an ancient pagan god of Spring of the European Northern Saxon peoples went by the name of "Eostre"; the god´s name derived from an ancient word for Spring, "eastre".

So anyways, pagan gods and Spring aside, Happy "Resurrection Day" or if you prefer, Happy Easter!! As long as the focus is on the fact that:

Jesus rose from the grave as proof that our sins that He bore on the Cross couldn´t hold Him in death,

nor could anything that the devil could muster up,
then we could call today alot of things...

And so...
Happy Easter!!
Happy the Lord lives Day!!
Happy our Redeemer lives Day!!
¡Feliz Pascua!
Happy Resurrection Day!!

Talladega Nights

Last night, I rented Talladega Nights starring Will Ferrell. Extremely funny movie. If you want to laugh alot at stupid, possibly offensive things, then you should rent it.

ran to Belgrano today

I ran from the apartment to Belgrano today. It was a great run, excellent cool Fall weather, lots of good tunes, and I saw some interesting things along the way.

On one street, I saw some people filming a commercial where some trashmen who were dressed very neatly and nicely (ironic huh?) picked up some trash, and in an attempt to throw the garbage into the back of the garbage truck, missed, and hit a car driving by. The driver of the car stops, gets out, and on this take, started laughing hilariously. I didn't stick around to see any more takes or to try and understand anything about it.

I next saw a collection of driving school cars all on one street, lined up, so that all the wannabee drivers could practice. I don't even know why they have driving school in this country, I don't think it does any good. Let's just say I quickly ran away from there.

The next weird thing that happened to me was when I purchased my train ticket to come back. I pressed the button for my destination, my total flashed ".70", and I put in 1 peso. It prints the ticket, drops it to the removal tray along with my change of $1.30!!! I made 1 peso, and got a train ticket out of this deal! Now, if this had been a person, the honest being in me would have given the peso back. If a machine is going to be dumb enough to give me incorrect change, then that's just too bad.

Cool run, cool sights, and I made money! what else do you want out of a run?

sharing with you...

Here's a recorded song by the group who leads the CFC church "youth" service I attend on Saturday nights. The service I talk about alot that is really awesome and that has really great worship. Yep, that one.

click the green play button to hear:

small dogs are not my favorite

Especially when you are trapped in small spaces with them. On my way to church yesterday, I pressed the button for the elevator, it comes up, and I open it. Immediately from within the 3 ft by 3 ft elevator space, this small husky dog on a leash starts barking at me and growling. To give you a better picture, this dog's ears are not symmetrical in appearance in the way they fold back, and it's got crossed eyes with one of them being severely bloodshot. Basically, it looked like it had spent the past hour running itself into a wall, beating itself up. Not a little fellar I wanted to be BFF with.

To compound the aggresive, pent up dog, also in the elevator is the dog's owner -- a petite, yet stocky woman who I think may have had an earlier career in wrestling, possibly wrestling men. Of course I hesitate to get in to the elevator.

She yanks back on the already tight leash so that the dog smashes into the back of the elevator, and says "get in, get in, don't worry." So I get in, holding my breath, and feeling butterflies in my stomach, thinking I'm about to be bitten on the leg by a dog that looks like it has alot of circuits upstairs not connected properly.

As we start going down, the owner says "he just doesn't like it when he thinks someone is trying to mess with his outside time" as the dog moves over to me so that it is now over my feet, smelling my shoes.
"Oh" I reply, "I like to get outside to, I might react the same way." thinking, don't bite me, don't bite me, I'll so kick you in the face and then step on you crazy dog, don't bite me...
"Ya, but you probably don't bark at people" she responded.
"No, I can't say that I do" I reply as the elevator arrives to the bottom. I open the door, and quickly make my exit, feeling a large rush of relief come over me.

So it was nothing close to a near death experience, but this incident just reaffirmed previous thoughts that I really don't like small dogs all that much. They just seem to frequently bark in very annoying manners, and be aggressive, pent up bundles of anger. That's not true for every small dog I've come across of course, but that seems to be the norm.