Laziness/ La Pereza/ La Mandra

In whatever language you want to say it... yes, I have been lazy; terribly lazy, in fact, when it comes to writing in this blog. I guess Eva was write - writing in English, Spanish, and Catalan would be a lot of work. Oh well, I am up to the job, though my entries may not be as frequent as they once were or as detailed. I guess I will just provide a numbered outline with some key bits of news from my love - again, my laziness kicking in! :P

La Dolce Vita de Kayla Isaacs

(Yes, for those of you who are half-awake while reading this, that is not English. It's Italian!).

1. My "multi-part" series about the important people in my life - namely, my host family - will not be continuing, because I have switched host families. It was not my choice to switch family. No, that was a suprise my host mother pulled on me while I was away from home, which segues into event #2.

2. I spent two weeks in northern Italy during the Semana Santa (Spanish spring break). For those of you who know that Semana means "week" - as in, one week only -, I should clarify that I took a couple extra days off school. It was well worth it. :)

3. The original reason I wanted to go to Italy was to see European Championships (affectionately abbreviated by fans as "Euros") of Artistic Gymnastics in Milan. I did go to Euros indeed, and it was amazing. While many complained about the decline of European gymnastics over the years and found the meet outright painful, it was the first major competition that I've attended, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. A month later, I would still say I'm on a post-Euros high!

4. Speaking of Euros, I am trying to learn Romanian. Guess why? I met Steliana "Kick Ass" Nistor while I was there! For those of you living under a rock (which I'm guessing would be anyone who doesn't regularly follow gymnastics), Stela is a retired Romanian gymnast. She has a team bronze medal from Beijing, two silvers in the all-around and balance beam from the 2007 World Championships in Stuttgart, and several Euros medals. Unfortunately, these successes probably don't even measure her true potential, as she was plagued by injuries for nearly all of her senior career.

Stela at 2004 Junior Europeans, before her knee and back injuries and her growth spurt.
Her all-around total surpassed that of even Alina Kozich, the senior winner.



On bars at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Stela and I talked throughout the competition and ended up exchanging email addresses. She is a sweet, sweet girl and deserves nothing but the best (are you listening, Romanian Gymnastics Federation???) in her future.

Stela speaks to the Romanian press after women's qualifications in Milan.

5. I will be attending Mills College in Oakland, California this fall (and hopefully for all four years!). I have been getting to know my classmates through a Facebook (Oh, what would we do without it?) group, and they seem like wonderful women. Yes, it is a women's college, not a "girls' school" -

Dumbass!

6. It is now May. May 4, to be exact. That means that my birthday is in two weeks (!!), and also that I have been in Spain for over three months. Now that is crazy.

7. I still don't understand exactly why I had to change host families. I found out my last day in Italy that I was moving (way to ruin an otherwise perfect trip). My host mother sent me an email saying that her mother had to move in - no reason was ever specified - and that she needed me room. People from the exchange student organization packed my stuff for me, which I was really pissed about, and that was it. Aside from host mother, no one else even attempted to say goodbye.

8. On the bright side - I like my new host family much better than my old one. I have a mother (Antonia) and a father (Francesc), and two siblings (Berta and Eudald), which was basically the structure of my old family, except that this one actually wants to spend time with me. My host sister is 12 and my brother is 10 - obviously much younger than my previous host siblings (two boys, Ignasi and Joan Pao, who were 23 and 19, respectively). I'm sure the fact that they have younger kids contributes to the fact that we actually spend time together - my old host brothers were just always gone, and when they were around, we never talked. My old host father only wanted to talk about obscure historical events and was vaguely senile, while my host mother was almost always working or tired. In all fairness, I don't think they were a "bad" family - I just think they either were unwilling or unprepared to make the emotional investment of having an exchange student. Perhaps if they had a student who was a little more outgoing and who craved a little less familial contact, things would have worked out differently. Who knows?

9. I have come down with a bit of a cold. My host parents have been playing doctor, making me ginseng tea and asking about my well-being. It's adorable. :)

10. Our poodle, Claude (my father and stepmom's dog), died last night after a battle with some sort of immune disease. He was 9 1/2 years old. I was always afraid that one of our dogs would pass away when I was at boarding school (or, as the case may be, abroad), and now it has. I had thought he was doing better, but I guess not. Poor baby. He was truly a good dog, until very recently behaving like the puppy he was at heart. He will be missed.

Claude in happier days.

11. Right now, I don't feel like translating this to Spanish or Catalan. If anyone has a serious problem with that, leave a comment and tell me, and I will provide it. Other than that...

¡Adios!