The Grammys Cure

The greatest thing I have learned so far: I need a routine. Without a routine or a schedule my productivity (and attitude) seriously plummets. Unfortunately, I have endured the last 101 days with absolutely no routine. My visa is taking forever, my privates students are unreliable and the glimmer of light- a yoga studio- has mysteriously not opened. My days consist of blogging, reading blogs, reading novels, watching Bones with Spanish subtitles (I am now addicted), searching for recipes, making these recipes, thinking about cleaning and the occasional walk around the block. The multi-tasker, type A personality in me is going crazy.

Everyone (well, mainly Alvaro’s mom) is telling me to be patient. Be patient and things will get better. There’s only so long you can tell yourself to be patient. And when every seemingly good opportunity goes awry, it’s hard not to lose hope. This is how I was feeling yesterday.

I was miserably homesick. I yearned for the winter, my friends, Mexican comfort food, a job, the YMCA, my car, my parents’ warm home, Target, roommates, recycling centers, libraries and washing machines. Generally speaking, I am out of touch with American culture happenings but thanks to Lady Gaga’s egg performance (I never thought I would be thankful for that) and CNN’s live coverage of her strangeness, I realized, “The Grammys! Tonight! America!” I wasn’t sure that my TV would air the show, because only very big events are transmitted live, most everything else is a day or two late. My Peruvian cable provider, Cable Mágico, thought that the Grammys were big enough and they were live.

In the States, I rarely watched big award shows like the Grammys or the Oscars. Mostly because my Sunday nights were reserved for Phi Mu meetings and homework. Every award season I had big plans of finishing my homework early so that I could watch the red carpet guilt free, but that just doesn’t happen in a busy college girl’s schedule. Since in Peru I don’t have a schedule, I watched the show guilt free. If I ignored the Spanish overdub, focused really hard on the English and didn’t look at the buses driving by my apartment, I could pretend that I was in the United States.

For those few short hours, the Grammys cured my homesickness. I could pretend like all the celebrities were my friends. Nicole Kidman- I saw her at Bongo Java! Dierks Bentley- I met him! Martina McBride- She shops at Banana Republic! I grabbed on to every connection I could find, anything to let me experience some of the Americanness that I so desperately missed. I didn’t recognize some of the performers or winners and thought, “Have I really been out the States for that long?” Thankfully, the blogging world told me that I wasn’t alone: Esperanza who? I followed Facebook and Twitter feeds to soak up every bit of American commentary I could get my hands on.

Now I am post- Grammys. It’s another week in Lima and since all my students are “too busy” my schedule consists of the above mentioned activities with a Valentine’s date and coffee with a friend thrown into the mix. How long until the Oscars?