A girl from my language class threw a party.

It was only there, outside the full immersion of the classroom, that I realized everybody in the class also speaks English. English which is better than my Castellano and in some cases, perfect. I felt humbled, stupid, and perfectly stereotypical. It only got worse when I realized that they also speak Portuguese, French, and some Italian. The Russian, so I hear, speaks Russian as well.

I fumbled my way through a discussion about alternative energy sources with one of the Brazilians. He is a petroleum engineer. When I didn't know a word I would say it in English. It seemed funny that we were both struggling to communicate with each other in Spanish when we had a common tongue. Still, practice is practice. He said nothing would make him happier than clean energy, even if it meant that he was out of a job. However, he didn't think he would see the shift in his lifetime. Later, we went out on the balcony and smoked a joint that my deceptively cool professor brought. The city's skyline is very pretty at night.

The next night I went to a party at an art gallery. I was very out-cultured. It seemed like everybody I talked to had attended university in France. There were a lot of blazers and horn rimmed glasses. We danced cumbia and I couldn't tell if the girl I was with was laughing or smiling at me. Cumbia, from what I can tell, involves a lot of arm. I will investigate this further and get back to you. The music was loud and she talked fast, so I responded to everything with a nod. She got bored of the nodding American mute who couldn't dance pretty quickly. I can't imagine why.

I think some of the people here think I'm stupid. I'm not. I am busy listening and digesting, even if I am not speaking. The other day I bought Cuentos de la Selva-- basically a hundred page children's book. I bunker down with my dictionary and look up the words I don't know. It takes me about twenty minutes a page.

Still, I'm a little better each day.