Cosas que odié de ser Au Pair

Surfing around different Au Pairs' blogs a bunch of negative thoughts and memories came to my mind... so here's a list of things I hated about being an Au Pair.

1. The schedule during the Au Pair academy or training, well known as the "Week in New York" 
2. Didn't get good support from my Au Pair Agency when having problems with my Host Family.
3. Getting lost every time I went out during the first three months or so. 
4. Not being able to use the car specially on the weekends because  there were only two cars in the house and three drivers. I also had  to ask to my Hosts every time I wanted to use the car, although they used to drop me and pick me up from the metro station when I needed it and they could do it, it was really nice and they still do it when I go to visit VA.
5. The feeling of being ignored by my Host Family after my work hours, sometimes I could leave the table, clean the whole kitchen after dinner and they didn't realize I had left. Other times, they didn't even notice I was in the house (even though my keys where on the house's key holder)  and texted me asking if I was going to come back home soon ¬ ¬ !
6. Getting fat!!! Once you put up a pound in the U.S.A.  you will gain more and more weight. Probably it won't stop until you go back to your home country.
7. Dealing with people... My advice for you guys is to try to make friends whose hobbies and goals during the program are similar to yours. E.g. If you want to travel and go to concerts don't get too close to people who want to save all their money (which is good)... they could be really great humans but, when you want to do your stuff it would be difficult to find someone to join you. Because  they probably would say No most of the time.
8. Food. You don´t know what is good and what is bad... Looks like everything here is horrible for you and make you fat. So, STOP EATING  McDonald's or IHOP, this is U.S.A. no home. 
9. The water... it is way better in Colombia. The water here turned my hair like cra*! 
10. My health insurance and the fact that during the Au Pair academy/training they don't explain how it works... for what we can  go to the doctor or how to get and pay for prescribed medicine. 
11. Traffic lights and right turns. For those who don't know, here in the U.S.A. you can turn right when the light is in red, you get pretty confuse about it at the begging or at least it was my case ( such a thing doesn't happen in Colombia).
12. Taking off the snow of my car ¬ ¬ ! and shuffling snow in Winter.
13. Didn't have my own refrigerator.
14. Drying my clothes in a dryer machine. Afterwards I wasn't sure if my clothes had gotten smaller or if I was getting fatter (At the end of my program it was totally me who got fat)
15. Had to cancel or change my plans (including classes) because of my Hos Family and their thingy of changing my work hours at last minute. 
16. To show my disagreement with my Host Family, doing it in English make that three times more difficult.
17. Last but not least , TAXES. 💣😠

I think this all I have in mind for now, I can come with more later. 

Thanks for reading!

Note: I want to clarify that I love both of my Host Families but like in any family in the world there would always be difficult and tense moments as great and memorable ones. I'm sure there's a whole list of things I loved about being an Au Pair and my Host Families too. I'll come up with that later. 

Ps. Yay! This my first post in English... Pardon any mistakes, I'm still learning ;) 

Summer Update

Hola a todos!!

Hace mucho no escribía en el blog, he tenido un verano muy ocupado. Hace tres semanas que terminaron mis clases y ahora estoy disfrutando de un corto descanso antes de iniciar mis clases en otoño.

Como les conté en mi entrada anterior, ahora estoy estudiando en University of Washington. En este programa, y creo que por haber sido semestre de verano, tuve poco tiempo libre para dedicarme a mi misma. Tomé tres clases en total, "Lectura y Escritura 5" y dos electivas "Gramática" y "Pronunciación". Mis clases fueron en las tardes, de Lunes a Viernes, de dos a seis de la tarde, pero los Martes y Jueves eran hasta las 8:30 p.m.

En un principio sentí frustración en mi clase de Lectura y Escritura, en la cual debía escribir y leer artículos académicos, resúmenes, reseñas y otros estilos de escritura académica, diariamente. Por alguna razón sentía que debí haber iniciado en nivel 4 y no 5 pero con el tiempo esta sensación pasó y me sentí cómoda en el nivel que estaba.

Mi clase de gramática fue divertida, a de ser por el profesor que tuve y mis compañeros. Cualquier clase de gramática sigue la regla "confunde y reinaras" pero entenderla es vital, así como ponerlo en practica. Tal vez en un principio tenemos todos los errores del mundo al tratar de usar gramática al hablar, pero como le decía la abuela a mis host kids "practice makes perfection".

Sin duda alguna "Pronunciación" fue mi clase favorita, mi profesora es la mejor ella es apasionada por el tema y esto lo refleja en sus clases, el dominio del tema y sobre todo en sus forma de acercarse a sus estudiantes y el querer ayudarnos al máximo. Mi pronunciación no es la mejor, aún me siento insegura respecto a esta, pero en mi clase aprendí muchísimas reglas que me han ayudado a ser más asertiva al pronunciar palabras o al leer en voz alta.

Al finalizar semestre se realiza una pequeña ceremonia de graduación, en donde también conmemoran a los mejores estudiantes del semestre y ¿adivinen quién recibió certificado por una de las mejores estudiantes?

via GIPHY