A break from me speaking...

Julie Gerdes is an excellent, excellent writer, no matter what she says.
This is actually from her current "about me" section on Facebook, but I'm putting it here cuz it definitely captures life in the Tina...

I sleep with 5 blankets because my house doesn't have heat, and the windows don't shut all the way, and it's winter in May. I spend most of class time wondering what the key word that my professor keeps repeating means, later to find out it was as basic as "source." I go to horseback-riding lessons weekly, and generally end up in tears because my horse has reared up or stepped on my toe, and I can't make it stop, but I keep coming back every week. I spend free time doing absolutely nothing at all to better myself-- generally this means napping. I decide to cross the street right as a car or bus or taxi comes flying at me, because here it is mandatory to ignore street signs for survival. I stay up until 7am trying to dance or singing American music entirely too loudly and getting inappropriately grabbed by strangers as I'm just trying to walk outside. I generally laugh entirely too loudly to blend in. I wear hoodies to my rich-kid prep school. Sometimes, I turn my light out at 10pm to trick my host family so that I don't have to eat dinner at 11 or later. I wash my clothes with a hose. I sit in a corner of my bed very still in order to receive wireless, which cuts off promptly at 8pm regardless. I nod and agree to statements that I later realize I am completely opposed to. I listen to tango versions of the Beatles. I can make my cat jump at least 3 feet in the air and into my arms. My host mother calls my Yoolie or "la You," and my father says "Hello Dolly" or "My God/Girl" every time I walk into the house. I fall in love with Argentina one minute, and despise it the next.