Time and Money

Now we're gettin' down to the nitty-gritty, folks. This is the stuff all y'all want to know. I'm sure you have many questions, like:

1~ Why is the United States the only country that obstinately refuses to switch over to metric, which is 100 times easier?
2~ How many feet are in a mile again? Like five-thousand-something, right?
3~ Do toilets really flush the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere?
4~ Why would anyone ever use a bidet?

(Answer key:)
1~ We are stubborn slash proud.
2~ I don't know. I think there's a 5 and a 3 and a 2 in there in some order, though.
3~ Once I tried this while Skyping my family, and it's real. It's amazing.
4~ If I am out of toilet paper, I would end up water-wet than pee-wet.

That was a warm-up for today's cultural lesson, which has to do with United-Statesians' two favorite things: Time and Monayyyyy.


TIME

Perhaps upon reading the word "time" you suddenly fell into a web of self-doubt. "What significant cultural differences relating to time could there be in Argentina?" you think to yourself. "Ohhhh, is this because they don't have a time change? Or maybe they do. I don't remember. Shouldn't I know these kinds of things? Am I ignorant? And insensitive? I can't even name all 50 states, let alone their capitals, let alone other countries' capitals.

I'm a horrible person."

Hey, stop being so down on yourself! Yeesh, if I had known you were gonna go and get all pensive and weird on me, I would have been more specific in the first place:


MILITARY TIME

There, feel better?

For the most part, military time is used here in Buenos Aires. As in, I have class at 13:30 hours (rather than 1:30 pm) and dinner is served at 19:00 (not 7). This is tough for me, since I have it ingrained in my wee l'il brain that the clock only goes up to 12. So, to make it a bit easier on myself, I have made the following set of flashcards:

 

Hopefully this will make it so that I don't have to consistently subtract 12 from every hour after noon.

 (Note: military time is used more often when writing times than when saying them out loud.When speaking, it's about as common to use 'Murrcan numbers as it is to use military time.This eases the blow a little bit.)

 

WHAT DOES THIS EVEN MEAN

 

AND WHY, AFTER SOME THOUGHT, IS IT ACTUALLY WAY MORE CONVENIENT?

MONEY

Now, you may remember when I posted a picture of a burger combo that appeared to have cost $26 at the good ole Golden Arches.

 

It took me several days to become somewhat accustomed to the exchange rate, which is officially around 8 pesos to the dollar. So in reality, this burger meal is actually about 3 and a half bucks.

Approximately.

8 is not a nice number to divide by, so I tend to follow this method:

# of pesos  + throw like a buck on there or sumthin

                    10

Remember, division first.

One interesting thing about the monetary system here is that the largest paper bill has a value of about 12 American dollars.

There are five different bills:

These bills total about 21 dollars.

 

The two-peso note, which is the smallest paper bill (there are some coins too), comes to about 25 cents.

 

 

As I mentioned previously, there is no bill larger than the 100-peso note, which is just greater than ten dollars.

 

This means that if you want to pay cash for, like, a mattress or something, you've gotta be packin' a fat stack.



 

Rachel and I wondered why there were no larger bills; it seemed really inconvenient to us. Then my dear friend struck upon a brilliant idea: in around 2000, the exchange rate of the peso to the dollar was 1-to-1 (this means that 100 pesos were worth 100 dollars). Due to a rapid and dramatic economic downturn, Argentine money has devalued to almost 1/10 of its former worth.

 

Fifteen years ago, Argentina didn't really need anything bigger than 100 pesos. And-- maybe this is completely me projecting my ideas onto another culture-- to develop a larger bill might be to admit defeat; to say, "We never expect our economy to return to its pre-inflation state. "

 

 

I guess somebody decided they needed to de-manlify money or something, because there is a new 100-peso note around town:

 

It features Evita, whom I wrote a bit about in my post about the cemetery.

 

And it is, like, WAY COOLER than the old bill.

 

The color scheme is purple, as well as bright orange and bright blue. This is the bill I would make if I were ever allowed to do such a thing. Except I would hide a butt on it somewhere.

 

Just in case you're running a counterfeit operation, here's the watermark.

 

ATTN ALL GOVMT AGENTS: THIS IS A JOKE

I REPEAT: HA HA

 

 

 

BONUS PICS:

 

My favorite graffitti: "Jamon" means "ham."

 

 







Ultimatums for the Faint of Heart, Part II

To be perfectly honest, I’ve reappropriated the word “ultimatum” to mean something a bit different. Normally an ultimatum looks a little like this:

“If you don’t (stop doing drugs/smoking/cheating on me/watching porn/etc.), I will (divorce you/kick you out/stab you with a fork/etc.).”

Simply put, an ultimatum can be reduced to this basic formula:

“If you do THIS, I will do THIS about it AND THAT’S THAT.”

So I thought to myself, Can ultimatums look different? Can they be the opposite of what we see them as now? E.G., Can an ultimatum be positive?

 

I’m going to ruin part of your childhood now. When you were a kid, if you ever got a chance to go to a travelling summer carnival, did it have a little water-filled track crowded with floating rubber duckies? And if you picked just the right duckie with the magnetic fishing pole, you won a prize? Well let me tell you, children, YOU WERE BEING LIED TO ALL ALONG. Mom or Pop slipped the barker a fiver so no matter what faux avian you chose, you were sure to win a cheap velveteen stuffed animal (unless they dropped fifteen bucks on you, in which case you’d be upgraded to an inflatable electric guitar). Let me repeat: EVERYONE’S A WINNER. Especially the carnival.

Duck 1 à Prize 1

Duck 2 à Prize 1

Ducks 3- 5,000 à Prize 1

 

 

 

Let’s translate this duck example to ultimatum form:

“If you (perform any conceivable behavior, positive or negative), I will (single possible response)."

 

 

 

Examples:

“If you bring me a bouquet of fresh roses every day, I will love you.”

“If you petsit my thousand cats, I will love you.”

“If you write me romantic sonnets and douse them with lavender perfume and hide them under my pillow, I will love you.”

“If you spit in my lemonade, I will love you.”

“If you let all my thousand cats die while I’m on vacation, I will love you.”

"If you spent all our life savings at the casino last weekend, I will love you."

 

 

As some of you may have guessed, this is all a thinly veiled metaphor for

***JESUS***

Dat's right, whoaaaaaa blew your mind

 

 

 

 

 

God was really bad at doing basic math, folks. Like worse than me.

He claims to be perfect Justice and perfect Mercy at the same time. But in my mind, those two things are opposites.

 

Justice= giving or withholding a punishment based on what is due

 

Mercy= withholding a punishment despite what is due



Ya can't be 100% of two opposite traits at once, God! That's impossible!!! That's 200%! Come on, this is BASIC STUFF!

But God is like, "Whatever. I invented gravity and sex. I CAN DO WHAT I WANT"

Somehow, He surpasses our tiny little human brain-logic and manages to perfectly meld together two opposite traits into something that makes sense: Jesus as Scapegoat. God gets to dole out the necessary 100% justice and still manages to deflect it from us-- 100% mercy.

 

 

I once heard the phrase "The hardest 12 inches to travel is from the head to the heart." As in, "You can know something intellectually but not feel it." As in, "Technically I know 'the doctrine' says I'm forgiven and God loves me and stuff but it just really doesn't feel like it right now."
 

This is where that mercy comes in. God's all like,

"You're a little bit right. Maybe you don't deserve my mercy and grace, since you're not exactly perfect and I'm Mister Justice and all. But I paid my five dollars, so YOU'RE FREAKING GETTING THE PRIZE."

whoooo dang that came out of nowhere and even surprised me

 

Let me go back for a moment to that word "feel." It doesn't "feel" like God loves you? I know how that is, dude. Or at least it doesn't feel like he could love you. Maybe you feel like a ball of slime sometimes (or a lot of the time).

THAT'S WHY FEELINGS ARE DUMB AND DON'T MATTER for the purposes of this illustration!

 

 

 

"To feel" could actually be replaced by the more specific phrase, "To experience a subjective emotion at a given point in time and in given circumstances."

"To know" something implies that whatever's receiving the action of your knowing is a TRUE THING.Whereas when you "feel" something, it's admittedly been subjected to the bias of the observer.

Are we following so far? When you "know" something, it's real. When you "feel" something, it may be real... or it may be false.

Somehow, people are able to accept negative ultimatums much easier than positive ones. It's much easier for us to grasp "I will punish you when you do something bad" than "I will stay with you even when you leave me." Maybe this is because we don't have too many examples of dramatic Mercy among our human peers. If we did... if people forgave more easily, would we be able to more easily conceive of positive ultimatums?

Anyway, I wanted to lead into this all gracefully and artfully, but I'm running dry on connective metaphors.

God offers us a bunch of positive ultimatums, and we too often defer to our negative feelings instead of believing what He says is true.

 

For example, God says through Paul:

"...my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses." (Acts 13:38-39, NIV)

 "If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection." (Romans 6:5, NIV)

"... now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life." (Romans 6:22, NIV)

(Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®.
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.)

As I type these verses, my brain is already fighting them. "What if I don't really believe, though? Does "believing" consist of obedience as well as intellectual assention to a precept? Maybe I don't really count as a 'believer' because I don't always obey. Maybe I was only halfhearted when I committed my life to Jesus. What about when I'm backsliding? Do I still count as 'united' then????"

Ya know what? I don't know. I don't know all the answers to every deep theological question and I never will.

All I'm trying to do here is point out that God says a lot of good things about us, but we typically ignore them. Instead we take all the scary-punishment parts of the Bible and act like they're more true than the happy parts. I do this too. Probably more than you. And this distorted view of God likely contributes to my fear of going to hell.

If I knew-- and by "knew" I mean, "accepted as true everything God says about me"-- I'd probably be less scared.

But like I said in my last post, it's really hard to distinguish truth from fiction when you're right in the thick of it. It's not easy to get head knowledge down to your heart.

Much of the time, the unspoken motto of Christians is

"Fake it 'til you make it."

Don't love your neighbor? Act like you do, and soon you might find your hatred starting to melt away.
Don't actually want to serve anyone? Well, start anyway and maybe you'll find out it brings you joy.

Don't really believe that God's grace is the only component necessary for salvation?

PRETEND YOU DO, AND IT'LL HAPPEN.

 

That's my non-theologian, broken-brain advice. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to write some of these verses down and stick them in places that are obvious to my eyeballs.

 

 

The advent of the next post will return you to your regularly scheduled Argentina jocularity/poop jokes.

Ultimatums for the Faint of Heart, Part I

This is not really going to be a funny entry. Sorry ‘bout it, folks. This is about mental health—which I implied earlier I’d talk about, but hadn’t gotten around to until now. Before reading the rest of this post, here are four things you ought to know:

1)      Sharing is scary. Also, I will probably forget I posted this and when you see me in real life and ask how my OCD is I will stare at you and ask under my breath, “HOW DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT.”

2)      I’m doing very well with my anxiety right now, thanks for asking.

3)      There is no way my words are going to be able to express the intensity of anxiety, so you’re just gonna have to trust me that it’s a real thing, and that it can be a HORRIBLE real thing.

4)      It may seem like this is a deviation from the regular topic of “Argentina.” But guess what? This relates to every area of my life, so it applies to my time in Argetina too. Suck it up.

 

For some nonsensical reason, during high school it seemed like I was the only person with deep-seated issues. When I went to college, I realized that was a load of poo-poo and that pretty much everyone has at least one big problem that has been really formative in their lives. Rape…. Abuse…..Addiction….. Disorders….. you’d truly be hard pressed to find someone who’s encountered only smooth sailing during the span of their years.

The lot that fell to me just happens to be Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Based on genetics and my occasionally anal personality, I managed to develop a very specific subdivision of OCD called “Scrupulosity.” In order to help me describe this affliction, I will defer to a book specifically about the subject:

proof that it's a thing I didn't just make up

 

 

In the first chapter, Ciarrocchi gives a very simple, concise definition of this burden:
 

"The term 'scrupulosity' refers to seeing sin where there is none. Some call it a 'phobia concerning sin.' The person judges personal behavior as immoral that one's faith community would see as blameless."

 

That's the gist of it. I worry about sinning. Laugh if you want. But the human brain has a funny way of making mundane things REALLY, REALLY scary for no particular reason.

Some people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder worry that they left the stove on and accidentally burned their house down. Some find it physically impossible to leave a room unless they take a certain number of steps on the way to the door. This, while it sounds trivial, can cause the sufferer an incredible amount of mental anguish. I tend to  worry about things like:

1) Copywright law
2) Jaywalking
3) Being completely, 100% honest on paperwork
4) Actually reading Terms and Conditions
 

 

Let me be clear: you can worry about stuff like that and not be "Obsessive Compulsive." (A rule of thumb is that if a worry greatly and regularly impedes your everyday functions, it's more than a "normal" level of worry.) You can also be Obsessive Compulsive AND worry about those same things and still NOT be scrupulous.

Scrupulosity is linked distinctly to "the religious." For OCD to be considered scrupulosity, something about your obsessions has to link to religion, whether you yourself are actually religious or not. Some people obsessively repeat prayers. Some confess the same sin multiple times.

My "base fear" (what all my obsessions revolve around and my compulsions attempt to assuage) is that God is going to send me to hell when I die.


This is probably not going to make sense to you, either because you don't really believe in God/hell or because the equation "repentant sinner + grace of Jesus= going to Heaven" is, like, SOOOOOOO obvious to you.

I agree with you on the equation, really. But there's a difference between intellectually knowing something and knowing it experientially-- i.e., living it out. And the dumb, stupid thing about mental disorders is that they make your own brain lie to you. An eating disorder might make your mind tell you you're fat, and somehow YOU BELIEVE IT even if LITERALLY everything else says otherwise. Depression tells you everything is hopeless and pointless, but it's not... it's just your brain chemistry konking out again. There's even an actual, real disorder that compels you to cut off your own limbs, because you don't feel complete while they're still attached. IT'S REAL, I SWEAR.


Basically, MENTAL DISORDERS MAKE YOU BELIEVE SOMETHING THAT'S NOT TRUE. But the tricky part is, when you're in the middle of a distorted thought process, you can almost never tell. I constantly have to ask myself, "Is this a real worry, or an obsession? Is this something other people would worry about?" And a lot of the time I still can't figure it out. It isn't until later that you can look back with clarity to see where your brain was deceiving you.

 

Sometimes it takes a lot of patience to be around me. Sometimes I make people wait with me for the "walk" signal to turn on so I can cross the street without feeling like an octopus is grabbing my stomach. And sometimes I'm a huge jerk and I make other people try to do things my way because I'm afraid if it's not all perfect I'll go to hell. So it's not just rough on me, it's also hard for the people close to me who have to tolerate my stick-up-the-butt behavior. Maybe my mom's feeling awkward as she reads this because I'm letting so much of my "deep inner life" fly out onto the Internet, but isn't that what we're here for?

To share our burdens and to carry those of others? How can we lean on each other if no one wants to admit they need a cane in the first place? Or, to hearken back to the wee beginnings of my blog, How can people love us as we really are if we never let them see us naked?


To recap:
Sometimes I'm a jerk, but I'm not always a jerk.
I still deal with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder on the daily, but it's about 80-90% better than it was four years ago.
I hate breaking laws.
I'm trying to "be naked" for the glory of God.


This is the first of two posts on this topic. If you made it all the way to the end of this one, I ask that you would please read the second as well. (The next one has all the mind-blowing metaphors.)

 

P.S. My family is pretty darn good at tolerating and I love them a lot.

Empanadventure and Decrepitopolis, a Twofold Tale

Today I have two stories to share. One of them is homey and cuddly, and the other is vague, gray, and windy.
 
Part I: Empanadventure
 
Despite some initial misgivings about my ability to act like a normal-enough person to make friends, I have found myself surrounded by delightful buddies. Some of them are compañeros de clase (classmates) (SHOUTOUT TO MACARENA-- YOU READING THIS, GIRRRRLLLL???) and some of them are girls from the residence where I live.

In this particular case, the friends in question happen to be some chicas I met in the dorm computer room when Netflix wouldn't let me and Rachel watch "Battlestar Galactica." The only good thing about having a vaguely weird accent is that people will ask me questions about where I'm from, and I can draw them in with my wittiness and trick them into being my friends. Which is exactly what happened in this instance!!! Paloma, Sol, Rosario, Rachel and I chatted into the night and were invited to an empanada-making party in our honor.

Based on certain past experiences with the polychronic lifestyle of Latin America, I had some doubts at first as to whether this little fiesta would actually happen or not... but my concerns were soon assuaged when Paloma reminded us, like every day, of our dinner date.

So we made some empanadas de carne on Tuesday night :)

The lovely Rosario!

Rachel, Buckwheat, and Rachel's empanada!

GRUMPYCAT SAYS YES

Not really though

  Paloma, empanada queen!
P.S. support my nonprofit, "Scribbles for Anonymity"

 

Mi Sol :P

 

Paloma also made us a great cake!

 

I am the worst at folding empanadas. This is the lesson I learned. Oh wait, one more lesson: empanadas are really great with sugar. I know, you'd never guess! USE THIS INFORMATION AS YOU GO ABOUT YOUR DAILY LIVES.

 

 

Part II: Decrepitopolis

 

As we had no class Wednesday, Rachel and I decided to-- WHAT ELSE????-- go on an adventure. Her well-traveled Uncle Mark recommended that we visit "the most beautiful beach in Buenos Aires." So, Rachel having done all the research (which bus to take, what stop to tell the driver), we boarded a 37 and began our great journey to Parque de la Memoria.

 

Upon arrival, we did not see a beautiful beach-- instead we saw what appeared to be the setup for a post-apocalyptic zombie movie. In fact, so not-beautiful was our first impression of the place that Rachel began to fear that we had been April-Fooled and sent to die by her seemingly-trustworthy uncle.

 

Photographic evidence of the attempt on our lives:

Two enormous, decrepit university buildings greeted us upon our arrival. I believe this one is the "School of Mass Murder."

For a closer look at the creepiness, click on the pictures to enlarge.

Throwing caution/precaución to the wind

A peek into my future

Explanation unnecessary.

A tree growing out of a house

 

I wish I had taken pictures of the abandoned playground, but alas. We all make poor choices sometimes.

 

We took the eerie amosphere in stride and continued on, confident that if we just kept walking we would find something sometime.

 

And we did! Parque de la Memoria turned out to be a grassy expanse dotted with large sculptures, along with some wide concrete walkways with explanatory signs like:

 

pregnant woman in a cage???

Probably I am a jerk for making light of these signs.

 

Maybe you are getting sick of pictures by now, but I'm also betting you're sick of snow. I'll use that fact to keep you hostage until the end of this post. LOOK, MORE PHOTOS OF GREEN GRASS AND WATER IN ITS LIQUID FORM!!!

 

A giant sculpture of a mace or something???? There was a hawk on it but it flew away.

Rachel climbed a big house-scultpture. Was Oppenheim somebody famous? Because in that case she climbed an Oppenheim.

And she was sooooooo excited!

^^^ Teleporting pad

After many attempts.

We maybe need to get a closer look at this one

JUST A LITTLE CLOSER

*effort face*

 

 

I swear, I'm almost done recounting our adventures. Just one more small tale:

We discovered a strange dock-like area (not in the Park) that extended far beyond our first impression. It looked as though it had once been intended to be a well-used thoroughfare, but had since been abandoned to weeds and adventurous fishermen. Here, Rachel decided she needed to find out whether the River Plate is freshwater or saltwater.

 

Now, let me be clear: I, who readily eat food off the floor, was unwilling to taste this water. I, whose friends voted her “Most Likely to Die in a Stupid [read, ‘Self-Inflicted’] Way,” was not ready to risk my life and/or intestinal health to test this murky brown liquid. To emphasize what a bad idea I still think this was, let me show you what this river washed up:

 

Weeds, plastic bottles, and the prow of a Viking ship

Rebar. DO YOU WANT TO END UP WITH THIS GROWING INSIDE YOU??? Unless you want to be extremely structurally sound, I DON'T THINK SO!

 

 

But there she went anyway:

To strengthen my argument about the impurity and deathfulness of this water, I haven't seen Rachel all day. Probably this means she's languishing in bed with a dreadful case of "The Amoebs" (pronounced "ah-meebs").

If I ever see her again, I will let you know. Until then,

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH