Flavors of the world

Last week, we had an interisting day at the IEP. We ate food from all over the world! All the international students and professors made a Potlock Lunch.

At the beginning I wasn´t sure about cooking something for that day. As I´m the only one from Venezuela I thought it might be really difficult to cook without help. I started to call my mom like crazy: "Mom, what can I cook??, I´m really bad doing this you know it!" As she´s a VERY good cooker she gave me like 5 ideas, one was more difficult than the other! Then I said: "I know! I´m gonna cook this Christmas salad".

I don´t consider myself a good cooker because food is a very important thing in my country, just like in other places of the world. We use many fresh vegetables, beans of different colors etc. Almost in every lunch we drink natural juices, you can find fresh pinneaples, guavas, melons everywhere and make a juice.

In Latinamerica, food is very similar, although we have different dishes, flavors are alike. Here in the U.S, food has a lot of artificial flavors and condiments. In the South much of the time it´s spicy but good.

In the Potlock Lunch I saw a lot of Japanese food. That was interesting for me because I usually relate "Japanese food= sushi", but they had diversityof soups and other things I don´t know the names but tasted good.

The deserts were also very good. There were waffles and "dulce de leche", that´s very traditional in South America, it seems to be very typical in Argentina and Urugay but is eaten in the rest of the continent. Actually I like it more than chocolate!

I learned a lot from this activity, it was really fun and tasty!

In the picture: My chicken salad. It´s very traditional in my country for Christmas and parties.

The football season arrived!

That one was another rainy day. I just could hear people saying: Oh God I don´t wanna see the rain today!! For me? it was normal to see the drops on the glass of my window. But this day was really important for Ole Miss, there was the Tailgating and the football game! With rain or without it, I had to go the famous Tailgating, it supposed to be one of the most relevant American experiences.

Red, blue and white was all I could see on The Grove. That place, always green and lonely, was crammed of people and tents. I walked into the multitude and I found the International Tent. It was pretty quiet for me, but I thought that could change anytime.

The thing is it didn´t. It was always so quiet and borred. Everybody was well dressed, there were a lot of food but bored anyway. I just took many pictures of the things I liked during the Tailgating. At that moment I only wanted to go to the Football game!

Finally it was 6pm, time to go! I arrived very late to the stadium because the game was at 6:30pm and there were A LOT of people! I took the wrong line with a friend, but at the end we got in.

My first impression of the field of game was like a five years old kid in Disney: OHHH!! Simply beautiful! The colors were magical for me. The game had started and I began to watch it. Almost in the third quarter I started to understand it. At the end there were a bunch of things that I didn´t, but anyway I enjoyed very much the whole experience.

In the picture: one of my favorite parts!: the band!!

Hotty Toddy!!

After nine month living in Ole Miss, the time to go home I arrived. I can´t believe the amount of new things I learned. I´m gonna miss my friends...that makes me feel sad! however, I know that I take with me the most beautiful memories.

The whole experience since the beginning till the end was fun. I met many people, I learned about American Football, about other cultures, about southern food etc. I also went to NY!! I always wanted to visit the Big Apple! It was bigger than what I thought! there I bought A LOT a clothes, I love shopping!!

When I decided to come here, I didn't know what to expect. But my first impression of the campus was "a poem", as we say. Universities like this can be seen only in movies, and at that moment I couldn' t believe that I was in one!!

Ole Miss was a school for me all this time, not only in the academic way, but also in a emotional way. I learned how to make many things by myself, I grew up everyday with every experience. For sure this is something that will be known by my grandchildren.

Thank you Ole Miss!!

The Unicef is my goal

When I was in high school, and the time to "start thinking about a career" arrived, I just began to shake. My options were very reduced. I don´t live in the capital of my country (where all the good universities are), but I live in the most industrialized city (where every engineer can find a job).

Thinking about calculators, maths, numbers and all that was scaring me. I´ve always been a reading lover, not someone who would love to wear a helmet an go to check a machine, noway!

Then I chosed the best university of my city, which is the Catholic University. I started my career in journalism. This profession has a lot of branches, you could be a journalist specialized in Health, Economics, Entertainment etc. I´d always loved things related to international issues and my dream is to work in the press area of the Unicef.

This job mixes two things I love to do: helping people (in this case, children), and to be involved in international areas. Also working with any office of the United Nations, offers many benefits and economical stability. Moreover, this organization has a premise hiring many people from different countries and cultures.

During my years in the university, I´ve being avoding subjects about sports, yes sports. Because if I chose to study journalism in sports I will have to learn EVERYTHING about soccer, tennis, baseball and even though I understand most of them, for me is very hard to write news about what happened in the last game of L.A Lakers.

The balance is necessary

Doing household chores is not such a bad thing, I mean, while you're cleaning or washing, you hate it. But a couple of hours after the hard work, you see "the results". And usually, at least for me, it’s like a prize.

It happens very often when I have to clean my bedroom. Only thinking about it makes feel so lazy and bothered, however, I know it is necessary. That night, after cleaning my room, I go to the bed feeling like in a castle. I have to accept that sometimes I do that deep cleaning in my room only to have that feeling again.

In the other hand, there are some chores that I really don't like to do. For example, my friends always tell me that I'm not gonna get married because I don't like to cook... nevertheless, I do like to wash the dishes. Sometimes I feel happy because I know that nobody else likes it and I can do it if somebody else cooks for me. The other chore I don’t like is ironing clothes. It’s a very slow task, you have to do it carefully and my patience is not that good.

Basically my tastes related to household chores are very balanced. There’re many things that I’d be pleased to do, and there’s some others that I have to do, but I’ll never like them.

Picture taken from:

www.istockphoto.com