The Swing

I've found my rut, my swing of things here. I've found my normal, I know what's going on most of the time. I've nearly my classes memorized too! I know where to sit in recreo, I know what classes to do my Greek homework in. I know which café will be nice and empty and quiet, which has the delicious chocolate blanca con dulce de leche, I know which café all of my friends will be at, then the one with all the "cool" boys, and the one with all my sister's friends. I even know the exact hours that my favorite waiter works on Sundays.
8am-4pm.
Okay, maybe that's just a little creepy.

I like this kind of normal.
I like my swing.
Everybody is so kind to me; everybody knows who I am but nobody has a reason to dislike me yet. Well, maybe Hugo.
I will so miss all of the holas and chaos in the halls and all of the questions about cuss words or what time my school starts.
I'm planning on enjoying my normalcy up to the last second.

Tomorrow is already Thanksgiving. How in the world did that happen? I didn't think that it could ever come; I didn't think it was possible.
It seems like it was just yesterday that Olivia said "my parents are coming in 9 days!" But nope...that was like 9 whole days ago.
A large part of me wishes that I could be with my dad and my aunt and uncle and auntie and cousins and dogs. I'll miss the food and dessert and games and conversation and craziness.
Olivia's parents and 13-year-old brother from Pennsylvania came today! They decided to come for Thanksgving. I just met them a couple hours ago and I like them a lot. They are all so tall; typical blonde Americans and I finally feel short again....ugh. Olivia's brother is hilarious, he made me spit café con leche all over myself. Her father reminds me an awful lot of my own in the way that he speaks and handles things that he knows nothing about. Her mother is great too, she is so much like Olivia.
Tomorrow I am skipping school to cook Thanksgiving dinner with the fam ALLLL day long. I'm so excited for a little Americanness.
We are preparing an enormous dinner for Chicho and Tibi and their parents, Xandra, Alina, Iria, Pelayo and his friends, and our good friend Davíd.
I can't believe it's already here.
We are already kissing November goodbye next week.

In other news, the ladrona de sueños is making her way to the edge of the scene. Yesterday, we were café-ing after afternoon school and it was windy, stormy, and freezing, but we had to sit outside with our friends who smoke (which you'd think wasn't working out too well because of the monstrous wind) and so we were all cuddled up in our hoods, coats, sweaters, and scarfs drinking warm things when Bianca suddenly said "oh hey! Samuel told Paula that he wants to tomar algo with you after school in the afternoon next Tuesday!"
It is sufficient to say that Olivia has been a little ray of sunshine ever since.
Today, she met her parents at the airport and didn't come to school, so in recreo I swear Samuel was looking up and down and all around for her.
We are just so successful!
But why with only 40 days remaining.....ugh.
Plan de Iván?
Initiation week?
I know you want to hear about it.
Well, today, my mission was the same as yesterday: Obtain the número.
Iván talked to me more than usual in TICS, and when I was walking home with Iria, he said "Morrgahn, Morrgahn, eso es tuyo?" referring to the scarf that Juan was holding and started bragging to his friends that I understand everything he says now, which led to another extra conversation that doesn't usually occur. Both opportunities, however, certainly weren't coincidentally correct. In TICS, I simply wasn't close enough to just thrust my phone into his hands and say "dame tu número" and after school, Juan was staring at me intently as I was talking to Iván and I would rather not be known as the girl who hits on everyone.... So, my good friend Paula, who is very involved with my Plan de Iván, was frustrated with me because she knows this is my week of initiation. Aisa then came up with the brilliant plan of asking him on tuenti...so I did...an guess what? That was all I ever had to do, darn it.