Monday, August 31, 2009
explanation?
So just by way of explanation, this weekend my study abroad program took a trip to San Pedro de Atacama in Northern Chile. In case that was somehow unclear.
More of the desert, less of the industrial exploitation
One of the two mountain ranges that encircles the desert... the other one is the Andes.
Plain of Patience
Meghan and Jessie being tourists
My whole CIEE group, all 30 gringas, clambering down a sand dune--basically sums up the entire weekend.
and me
La Valle de la Luna at sunset. A hellish climb up a massive sand dune, but totally worth it to see this view. At night when there's a full mooon the salt flats below reflect the moonlight and the entire valley glows.
The weekend in pictures: Welcome to Copperland
This is San Pedro de Atacama, the driest desert in the world, and a 20 hour bus ride north from Santiago-or a 2 hour plane ride, thank goodness.
Part of the world's largest open pit copper mine
Smelter and hydrometallurgy ponds--looked a lot like a modern day Moridor to me
My vote for craziest part of the mine: These are the trucks that carry the copper/tailings out of the mines. They're so big that all normal cars have to carry flags on their roofs to avoid being run over. Each of their person-sized wheels cost $20,000 and have to be replaced once a year! Also, they use a ridiculous amount of diesel, and pollute like no other.
I couldn't quite bring myself to smile
Monday, August 24, 2009
santiago or kalamazoo?? alternately, when veggie tales meets pirates of the caribbean, to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody
So, I finally have homework, and it sort of hit all at once, which means....time to procrastinate! Just like home.
This weekend one of my chilean friends Claudia invited a bunch of us Americans to her pololo's=boyfriend's friend's party. Although it started out intenesely awkward, with all the chilean boys on one side of the tiny one-room apartment and all the american girls on the other, with the help of an embarrassing game of pool and a little social lubricant(pisco), we started to mix. I really liked her boyfriend and his friends, and their niceness was only emphasized by the sketchiness of these other guys that came later. Plus, later she said that their friends had really enjoyed talking with us too, and its just nice to meet non-creepers and be able to hold a normal, college-student party conversation, in spanish!
Saturday I made banana bread for my host family, since I'd been telling them how I loved to cook over and over again, without any proof. Considering that chilean ovens don't have numbers on them, only dots that get bigger and bigger, and taking into consideration the fact that I almost mixed up baking soda ("bicarbonato" in spanish) with baking powder ("polvo de hornear"), AND adding to all that the utter lack of measuring cups/spoons/anything, the bread turned out fabulous. It literally disappeared in minutes-they really really loved it, and of course I felt so relieved that all my boasting was backed up by tasty proof. Mi "tia", aka our housekeeper, was even mad b/c we didn't save any for her!
Saturday night my friend Grace, our German friend Anya and I went to our University's musical(this is La Universidad Catolica, or "The Catholic University", fyi). They had an ingenious advertising campaign that had caught my attention, and I love a good musical, so we decided to go and support the arts. The advertisements had consisted of posters with a big boat and the title "The last voyage of San Pablo" and then they had covered all three campuses with paper boats; trees, buildings, water fountains, benches, you name it, and the theater dept had coated it in little brown paper creations. This, and my scanning of the poster, had lead me to believe the musical was going to be about pirates--oh man was I wrong.
The best way to describe the musical is this: imagine veggie tales(a cartoon where vegetables sing songs about the bible), plus just a dash of pirates of the caribbean(basically there were some rowdy sailors in the show) mixed with bohemian rhapsody and you start to get an idea of the show. I never knew whether to laugh, cringe, or just throw my hands up in frustration. Every single word was sung, which in spanish is incredibly difficult to decipher, leaving all three of us totally in the dark as to the nuances of the plot. All I know is San Pablo was Saint Paul, the apostle, and he was being held prisoner on a ship, guarded by Roman soldiers, who periodically fought with the piratey sailors onboard, while slave girls cringed/sang and a few cartoonishly stereotypical Jews COUNTED THEIR MONEY.
OF course, it all ends happily ever after when San Pablo manages to convert everysingleperson onboard, miraculously make a few loaves of bread feed tons of people, and meet up with what I think was the Virgin Mary.
all in song.
backed with drums and electric guitar.
It was a sight to behold.
This weekend one of my chilean friends Claudia invited a bunch of us Americans to her pololo's=boyfriend's friend's party. Although it started out intenesely awkward, with all the chilean boys on one side of the tiny one-room apartment and all the american girls on the other, with the help of an embarrassing game of pool and a little social lubricant(pisco), we started to mix. I really liked her boyfriend and his friends, and their niceness was only emphasized by the sketchiness of these other guys that came later. Plus, later she said that their friends had really enjoyed talking with us too, and its just nice to meet non-creepers and be able to hold a normal, college-student party conversation, in spanish!
Saturday I made banana bread for my host family, since I'd been telling them how I loved to cook over and over again, without any proof. Considering that chilean ovens don't have numbers on them, only dots that get bigger and bigger, and taking into consideration the fact that I almost mixed up baking soda ("bicarbonato" in spanish) with baking powder ("polvo de hornear"), AND adding to all that the utter lack of measuring cups/spoons/anything, the bread turned out fabulous. It literally disappeared in minutes-they really really loved it, and of course I felt so relieved that all my boasting was backed up by tasty proof. Mi "tia", aka our housekeeper, was even mad b/c we didn't save any for her!
Saturday night my friend Grace, our German friend Anya and I went to our University's musical(this is La Universidad Catolica, or "The Catholic University", fyi). They had an ingenious advertising campaign that had caught my attention, and I love a good musical, so we decided to go and support the arts. The advertisements had consisted of posters with a big boat and the title "The last voyage of San Pablo" and then they had covered all three campuses with paper boats; trees, buildings, water fountains, benches, you name it, and the theater dept had coated it in little brown paper creations. This, and my scanning of the poster, had lead me to believe the musical was going to be about pirates--oh man was I wrong.
The best way to describe the musical is this: imagine veggie tales(a cartoon where vegetables sing songs about the bible), plus just a dash of pirates of the caribbean(basically there were some rowdy sailors in the show) mixed with bohemian rhapsody and you start to get an idea of the show. I never knew whether to laugh, cringe, or just throw my hands up in frustration. Every single word was sung, which in spanish is incredibly difficult to decipher, leaving all three of us totally in the dark as to the nuances of the plot. All I know is San Pablo was Saint Paul, the apostle, and he was being held prisoner on a ship, guarded by Roman soldiers, who periodically fought with the piratey sailors onboard, while slave girls cringed/sang and a few cartoonishly stereotypical Jews COUNTED THEIR MONEY.
OF course, it all ends happily ever after when San Pablo manages to convert everysingleperson onboard, miraculously make a few loaves of bread feed tons of people, and meet up with what I think was the Virgin Mary.
all in song.
backed with drums and electric guitar.
It was a sight to behold.
Monday, August 17, 2009
highlights, lowlights and whatever is in between
After a frustrating week (from a making-chilean-friends perspective, which seems to be my go-to right now) this weekend was awesome.
Friday it rained all day, but since I didn't have class I slept in late, curled up in my bed and watched How I Met Your Mother and Entourage episodes on semi-bootleg websites (megavideo and surfthechannel, if you were wondering...)
However, since my family is Chilean they expect me, as any young person in Chile, to be out partying all weekend and so as nightfell they asked me when I was going out to party. Partly because I was getting stir-crazy and partly because of "peer pressure" (but really, is a 50year old maid a peer?!) I called up my friend Grace and we went out for sushi. I think I mentioned before, but sushi is really the hip food right now in Santiago, and there are dozens of sushi places just in my little neighborhood! We managed to find a really delicious place nearby, packed with Chileans, that had a 50% discount if you paid with cash--I tried not to think about what sort of salmon you can buy with only $4--and then at the barely respectable 12:30am I went to bed. (As a bit of context, that night my host mom went to bed at 2am and my host sister who is 17 came home at 3:30am)
The next day, I had this major urge to explore the city and get out of the house so I went online and searched for interesting museums in Santiago. Being the capitol city there are a million, and I just randomly chose the Museum of natural history an and an interactive art museum called Artequin. Although I would've been content exploring alone, its always more fun with a friend, so again I called up Grace and thank goodness she was game. I really appreciate having friends who don't mind wandering strange streets in the rain just to "explore" a natural history musueum. and actually enjoy it as much as I do.
The musuem turned out to be wonderful, first it was free, and in a massive stone building very similar to the natural history museum in Chicago, but smaller. Half the exhibits were wood paneling, with random sentences written in white paint on the walls and crumbling fossils showing the wear of thousands of little hands. I wish we had brought our cameras b/c the exhibits were just so anachronistic, they literally had timelines that ended in the 1970s. Jars of creepy looking fish were filled half-way with embalming fluid, leaving half the head to decompose at will. Other exhibits included stuffed animals so decrepit, dusty and disfigured we decided they must have been done not by professional taxidermists, but some 1920s Chilean with a penchant for weekend taxidermy. The other museum was in this gorgeous, whimsical, Lemony Snicket looking mansion modeled after the Chilean contribution to the Paris Worlds Fair and turned out to be full of pictures of famous works of art.
Artequin=Quirky, but entertaining on a rainy day, and good for a few laughs.
That night I met up with some other American girls, and one Chilean, for drinks and then I dragged them to a local club. Like many aspects of Chile, and most Latin American countries, the music industry is primarily focused on importing other country's successes and imitating them (favoring imports at the expense of domestic industries is obviously a problem in other areas besides music). This means that there are no less than 3 ACDC cover bands, tons of depeche mode imitators, and on any given weekend you can watch "Jimi hendrix", "U2", "Nirvana" and dozens of other greats perform in Santiago, with only the slightest hint of a Chilean accent. These cover bands are called "tributos", and my host mom showed me this awesome club near our house that has tons of tributos every weekend. This weekend I had marked on my calendar because not one, but TWO Red Hot Chili Pepper bands were playing, facing off to see who was the best cover band. OF course, I had to go-who knows if I'll ever get to see the real Chilis perform. Honestly, I wasn't expecting too much, but both bands were amazing and the club was packed! We danced and danced and head-banged and generally rocked out. I felt so happy and free and relaxed, and it was just what I needed to shake off my frustrations of the week. I would go to concerts every night if I could, so I think I will! Or at least, aim for one a week. The great things about Chile's fledgling music bizz are that concerts are cheap, the venues are intimate, and tickets plentiful since most people would still rather hear a new American band than a Chilean one. Maybe I'll try to post some songs/bands next time...
Friday it rained all day, but since I didn't have class I slept in late, curled up in my bed and watched How I Met Your Mother and Entourage episodes on semi-bootleg websites (megavideo and surfthechannel, if you were wondering...)
However, since my family is Chilean they expect me, as any young person in Chile, to be out partying all weekend and so as nightfell they asked me when I was going out to party. Partly because I was getting stir-crazy and partly because of "peer pressure" (but really, is a 50year old maid a peer?!) I called up my friend Grace and we went out for sushi. I think I mentioned before, but sushi is really the hip food right now in Santiago, and there are dozens of sushi places just in my little neighborhood! We managed to find a really delicious place nearby, packed with Chileans, that had a 50% discount if you paid with cash--I tried not to think about what sort of salmon you can buy with only $4--and then at the barely respectable 12:30am I went to bed. (As a bit of context, that night my host mom went to bed at 2am and my host sister who is 17 came home at 3:30am)
The next day, I had this major urge to explore the city and get out of the house so I went online and searched for interesting museums in Santiago. Being the capitol city there are a million, and I just randomly chose the Museum of natural history an and an interactive art museum called Artequin. Although I would've been content exploring alone, its always more fun with a friend, so again I called up Grace and thank goodness she was game. I really appreciate having friends who don't mind wandering strange streets in the rain just to "explore" a natural history musueum. and actually enjoy it as much as I do.
The musuem turned out to be wonderful, first it was free, and in a massive stone building very similar to the natural history museum in Chicago, but smaller. Half the exhibits were wood paneling, with random sentences written in white paint on the walls and crumbling fossils showing the wear of thousands of little hands. I wish we had brought our cameras b/c the exhibits were just so anachronistic, they literally had timelines that ended in the 1970s. Jars of creepy looking fish were filled half-way with embalming fluid, leaving half the head to decompose at will. Other exhibits included stuffed animals so decrepit, dusty and disfigured we decided they must have been done not by professional taxidermists, but some 1920s Chilean with a penchant for weekend taxidermy. The other museum was in this gorgeous, whimsical, Lemony Snicket looking mansion modeled after the Chilean contribution to the Paris Worlds Fair and turned out to be full of pictures of famous works of art.
Artequin=Quirky, but entertaining on a rainy day, and good for a few laughs.
That night I met up with some other American girls, and one Chilean, for drinks and then I dragged them to a local club. Like many aspects of Chile, and most Latin American countries, the music industry is primarily focused on importing other country's successes and imitating them (favoring imports at the expense of domestic industries is obviously a problem in other areas besides music). This means that there are no less than 3 ACDC cover bands, tons of depeche mode imitators, and on any given weekend you can watch "Jimi hendrix", "U2", "Nirvana" and dozens of other greats perform in Santiago, with only the slightest hint of a Chilean accent. These cover bands are called "tributos", and my host mom showed me this awesome club near our house that has tons of tributos every weekend. This weekend I had marked on my calendar because not one, but TWO Red Hot Chili Pepper bands were playing, facing off to see who was the best cover band. OF course, I had to go-who knows if I'll ever get to see the real Chilis perform. Honestly, I wasn't expecting too much, but both bands were amazing and the club was packed! We danced and danced and head-banged and generally rocked out. I felt so happy and free and relaxed, and it was just what I needed to shake off my frustrations of the week. I would go to concerts every night if I could, so I think I will! Or at least, aim for one a week. The great things about Chile's fledgling music bizz are that concerts are cheap, the venues are intimate, and tickets plentiful since most people would still rather hear a new American band than a Chilean one. Maybe I'll try to post some songs/bands next time...
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Pochoco
At the Choripanda my friend Grace met a Chilean guy named Fransisco, and they bonded over their love for outdoorsy things. Later he invited her and any friends to go hiking Sunday=today. So, I figured, lets be outgoing, make friends and get into the mountains... However, I was a little weary about the hiking part since I love being in nature, but I'm not a hardcore hiker(or hardcore any physical activity, let's be honest/see the gymnastics post) so I made her ask Fransisco how hard the hike was and he replied, "relatively easy!"
mmmhmmm.
Well it ended up that Grace, our American friend Katie(who's hand is in a cast after getting fractures skiing), this Spanish student Carlos, Fransisco and I met up at the last metro stop before the Andes at 9am. This is unheard of. Chileans party from like 1-6am. no exaggeration. So to meet on a Sunday anytime before 12 is crazy, but 9am...
After two micros and a taxi, we were at the foot of the Andes, in a gorgeous valley and basically, from the beginning the trail was like 100%vertical, just absurdly steep. We were sliding around on rocks, scrambling our way up Pochoco, the mountain, and after fifteen minutes I was dying. I kept going for a bit but I could tell I was slowing them down, although they were super nice and denied it, so I finally sat down and made them keep going without me. I spent the rest of the day lying in the sun on the side of this mountain, watching hardcore Chilean hikers with poles and camelbac backpacks and funny-looking sun hats booking it up the trail as I ate my lunch, read Isabel Allende and napped. For the first hour or so, I felt sort of guilty and lame for ditching out, but it turned out to be an ideal day. Nothing makes me happier than lying on the ground, and gazing at the sky/trees/birds/snow-capped mountains. I can literally do it for hours on end.
Finally they returned from the summit of this enormous mountain, exhausted and not resentful at all. After leaving at 9am, we didn't get home until 6:30pm.
However, Fransisco and Carlos were awesome, so new friends=check, and I did hike as much as I could, so exercise=check, and I spent a whole day contemplating the universe and feeling incredibly at ease, so spiritual rejuvenation=check!
mmmhmmm.
Well it ended up that Grace, our American friend Katie(who's hand is in a cast after getting fractures skiing), this Spanish student Carlos, Fransisco and I met up at the last metro stop before the Andes at 9am. This is unheard of. Chileans party from like 1-6am. no exaggeration. So to meet on a Sunday anytime before 12 is crazy, but 9am...
After two micros and a taxi, we were at the foot of the Andes, in a gorgeous valley and basically, from the beginning the trail was like 100%vertical, just absurdly steep. We were sliding around on rocks, scrambling our way up Pochoco, the mountain, and after fifteen minutes I was dying. I kept going for a bit but I could tell I was slowing them down, although they were super nice and denied it, so I finally sat down and made them keep going without me. I spent the rest of the day lying in the sun on the side of this mountain, watching hardcore Chilean hikers with poles and camelbac backpacks and funny-looking sun hats booking it up the trail as I ate my lunch, read Isabel Allende and napped. For the first hour or so, I felt sort of guilty and lame for ditching out, but it turned out to be an ideal day. Nothing makes me happier than lying on the ground, and gazing at the sky/trees/birds/snow-capped mountains. I can literally do it for hours on end.
Finally they returned from the summit of this enormous mountain, exhausted and not resentful at all. After leaving at 9am, we didn't get home until 6:30pm.
However, Fransisco and Carlos were awesome, so new friends=check, and I did hike as much as I could, so exercise=check, and I spent a whole day contemplating the universe and feeling incredibly at ease, so spiritual rejuvenation=check!
Choripanda and Camila Moreno
So La Universidad Catolica, the smaller, private, obviously Catholic University I'm taking classes at, has a wonderful welcome committee for exchange students and they put on events throughout the year to help us acclimate, make Chilean friends and generally enjoy our time in Chile. The first and major event they sponsored was last night and it was a traditional Chilean bbq, called a Choripanda, where you eat choripan, a delicious mini sausage/chorizo thing. Anway, a ton of exchange students came, there are almost 300 of us, and a ton of Chileans were there too so it was a really great party. At first there were definitely tables of Americans sitting separate from the tables of Chileans, but after a while(and some free Pisco sours=Chile's national drink) we all started talking and mingling and I made friends with Bolivian, Korean, American and Chilean students who were super nice.
Saturday I went to the Buddhist community center again for a student division meeting(ie when just University students get together to chant and talk) and I met like half a dozen really sweet Chilean buddhist students. They asked me to do a powerpoint presentation about myself and my major, which I was surprised by but figured it would be a good way to introduce myself, so I agreed. Turns out its more of an exercise in public speaking and presenting info than a get-to-know you, but it went well regardless and now they know all about me. I told them I live in Nunoa, which is my neighborhood, and now they're looking for a district near me so I dont have to go all the way to the center everytime I want to meet up with buddhists(its like 45 mins away)
THEN Saturday night was concert time! I found this Chilean singer-songwriter named Camila Moreno who's only 23 but is incredible and sounds a lot like Chile's female version of John Lennon, Violeta Parra, and I was dying to see her in concert. Turns out she plays all the time but Sat was a free concert downtown with two other singersongwriters, so I dragged my other American friends and it was FANTASTIC. I highly recommend her(she has a myspace) and the other artists were great too, plus my friend Grace and I, being obvious gringas, showed up on the jumboscreen?tron? two times in the hour long concert, which was hilarious.
Saturday I went to the Buddhist community center again for a student division meeting(ie when just University students get together to chant and talk) and I met like half a dozen really sweet Chilean buddhist students. They asked me to do a powerpoint presentation about myself and my major, which I was surprised by but figured it would be a good way to introduce myself, so I agreed. Turns out its more of an exercise in public speaking and presenting info than a get-to-know you, but it went well regardless and now they know all about me. I told them I live in Nunoa, which is my neighborhood, and now they're looking for a district near me so I dont have to go all the way to the center everytime I want to meet up with buddhists(its like 45 mins away)
THEN Saturday night was concert time! I found this Chilean singer-songwriter named Camila Moreno who's only 23 but is incredible and sounds a lot like Chile's female version of John Lennon, Violeta Parra, and I was dying to see her in concert. Turns out she plays all the time but Sat was a free concert downtown with two other singersongwriters, so I dragged my other American friends and it was FANTASTIC. I highly recommend her(she has a myspace) and the other artists were great too, plus my friend Grace and I, being obvious gringas, showed up on the jumboscreen?tron? two times in the hour long concert, which was hilarious.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
making friends and not fainting
So these past few days have been very up and down.
Since Friday I’ve been getting progressively sicker (but as far as I can tell its just a cold) which is never fun, let alone in a foreign country away from family and in the midst of my first week at school. Thankfully during the day I feel better so I’ve been able to attend all my classes, but at night I feel terrible and get little sleep. Last night was definitely my worst moment, capping a pretty crappy day, but today was much better. Backtrack: So yesterday was supposed to be full of fun; gymnastics in the morning then ceramics in the afternoon. I honestly don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t realistic. Gymnastics started with running laps in the gym for 5 minutes, then crazy calisthenics and leaps and skips. Then we moved into stretching, ab workouts and these odd handstand exercises where you had to kick your legs out and stand on your hands over and over again. Everyone in the class was sweating and many girls were having trouble-red-faced and half-heartedly executing the moves, but I started to feel absolutely “pesimo” or abominable. The tell-tale signs of losing consciousness, dizziness, nausea and blurred vision all converged on me at once and I knew I had to lay down. I spent fifteen minutes in a corner of the gym on the floor with my feet up before I felt better. I just kept chanting in my head, “I am NOT fainting in this gym! I am NOT getting taken in a Chilean ambulance for fainting!” Thankfully I didn’t faint, but I know I came close. The only positive part was when a very cute Chilean gymnast asked if I was ok and offered his water, but I was too out of it to respond coherently.
After realizing I had to drop gymnastics (I was waaay too out of shape for that class, and I’m not ready to bring myself to the brink of fainting three times a week in order to relearn back-handsprings), I had a nice Chilean lunch with my friend Grace; we sat facing the snow-capped Andes, people-watched boys with mullets making out with their pololas (girlfriends) and I ate an avocado and chicken sandwich washed down with fresh-squeezed pineapple juice. Gotta love Chile.
Then we took a circuitous bus/metro/bus ride to another campus for our art classes. I had high hopes for ceramics, which really means I was just hoping to mess around with clay and make some friends. However, again, my expectations were waay off. First of all, the class turns out to have been full, meaning there were no extra spots and the prof was very surprised that I hadn’t tried to register before hand-yes that’s the exact opposite of what I’d been told to do, but w/e… I decided to stay since she said sometimes students drop the class so I might as well hear the first-day schpiel(how do you spell “schpiel”??! spellcheck apparently doesn’t know yiddish). Turns out only one other student was a non-art major, and she was also an American, and the class was veeeery intense. We had a page long list of materials to buy, including parts that needed extra assembly and I was just really overwhelmed. I had also developed a headache that would eventually evolve into a migraine.
Ok, so that was terrible day #1, aka Monday. Tuesday was much better. I was scheduled for Ecology of Agriculture and Livestock(I think that’s an adequate translation of “Ecologia Agropecuaria” but I’m not really sure) and then Ecological Social Movements(again, rough translation) so I decided to wear my doc martens in solidarity with the environmentalists I hoped to meet. I got to my first class waay too early which was fine with me, so I sat outside and talked with a girl who’s majoring in Fruit production! She was very nice and I thought it was an auspicious way to start the day. I was right! Ecology of Agri/Livestock turned out to be super popular and according to the teacher there were 100 students! The teacher was really young, smart, and I’m really excited about the class. At first no one sat next to me, which made sense since a) there were over 100 seats to choose from, and b) like in most Universities, these students specialize in Agronomics and basically know each other well/have well-developed friend groups so they sat with their longtime friends. However I knew that my best shot at making friends the first day would be whoever sat next to me, so I kept hoping some nice girl would. Finally, just as class started, a girl did sit next to me. Half way through the class, when the Profe was speeding through her powerpoint, the girl made a noise. It was something between a “hmph” and an “ugh”-as in, god this class is boring or god I’m overwhelmed. I looked at her and smiled knowingly (knowing what, I don’t know…) and she smiled back. Then as class ended, and I was trying to formulate some sort of introductory comment, she said, “wasn’t that fast?!” and I happily said, “Yes!! I was hoping someone else thought so, and it wasn’t just me” and then we had a nice convo which ended with her kissing me on the cheek-the standard hello/goodbye amongst friends. So, mission accomplished, I have a friend in my class!!! Seriously, appreciate how big a deal this is. CIEE told us that it was KEY to make friends (on top of the fact that this is one of my biggest personal goals while I’m here) because the students know when tests are, how to find the reading material and get it copied from the secret-confusing Department-specific copy machines, etc. etc. The message was, if you don’t befriend Chileans you’ll be lost. So, now you can understand why I was SOOO happy that Rosia(Rosio? Not sure) kissed my cheek, signifying we were at least beginning friends.
Since Friday I’ve been getting progressively sicker (but as far as I can tell its just a cold) which is never fun, let alone in a foreign country away from family and in the midst of my first week at school. Thankfully during the day I feel better so I’ve been able to attend all my classes, but at night I feel terrible and get little sleep. Last night was definitely my worst moment, capping a pretty crappy day, but today was much better. Backtrack: So yesterday was supposed to be full of fun; gymnastics in the morning then ceramics in the afternoon. I honestly don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t realistic. Gymnastics started with running laps in the gym for 5 minutes, then crazy calisthenics and leaps and skips. Then we moved into stretching, ab workouts and these odd handstand exercises where you had to kick your legs out and stand on your hands over and over again. Everyone in the class was sweating and many girls were having trouble-red-faced and half-heartedly executing the moves, but I started to feel absolutely “pesimo” or abominable. The tell-tale signs of losing consciousness, dizziness, nausea and blurred vision all converged on me at once and I knew I had to lay down. I spent fifteen minutes in a corner of the gym on the floor with my feet up before I felt better. I just kept chanting in my head, “I am NOT fainting in this gym! I am NOT getting taken in a Chilean ambulance for fainting!” Thankfully I didn’t faint, but I know I came close. The only positive part was when a very cute Chilean gymnast asked if I was ok and offered his water, but I was too out of it to respond coherently.
After realizing I had to drop gymnastics (I was waaay too out of shape for that class, and I’m not ready to bring myself to the brink of fainting three times a week in order to relearn back-handsprings), I had a nice Chilean lunch with my friend Grace; we sat facing the snow-capped Andes, people-watched boys with mullets making out with their pololas (girlfriends) and I ate an avocado and chicken sandwich washed down with fresh-squeezed pineapple juice. Gotta love Chile.
Then we took a circuitous bus/metro/bus ride to another campus for our art classes. I had high hopes for ceramics, which really means I was just hoping to mess around with clay and make some friends. However, again, my expectations were waay off. First of all, the class turns out to have been full, meaning there were no extra spots and the prof was very surprised that I hadn’t tried to register before hand-yes that’s the exact opposite of what I’d been told to do, but w/e… I decided to stay since she said sometimes students drop the class so I might as well hear the first-day schpiel(how do you spell “schpiel”??! spellcheck apparently doesn’t know yiddish). Turns out only one other student was a non-art major, and she was also an American, and the class was veeeery intense. We had a page long list of materials to buy, including parts that needed extra assembly and I was just really overwhelmed. I had also developed a headache that would eventually evolve into a migraine.
Ok, so that was terrible day #1, aka Monday. Tuesday was much better. I was scheduled for Ecology of Agriculture and Livestock(I think that’s an adequate translation of “Ecologia Agropecuaria” but I’m not really sure) and then Ecological Social Movements(again, rough translation) so I decided to wear my doc martens in solidarity with the environmentalists I hoped to meet. I got to my first class waay too early which was fine with me, so I sat outside and talked with a girl who’s majoring in Fruit production! She was very nice and I thought it was an auspicious way to start the day. I was right! Ecology of Agri/Livestock turned out to be super popular and according to the teacher there were 100 students! The teacher was really young, smart, and I’m really excited about the class. At first no one sat next to me, which made sense since a) there were over 100 seats to choose from, and b) like in most Universities, these students specialize in Agronomics and basically know each other well/have well-developed friend groups so they sat with their longtime friends. However I knew that my best shot at making friends the first day would be whoever sat next to me, so I kept hoping some nice girl would. Finally, just as class started, a girl did sit next to me. Half way through the class, when the Profe was speeding through her powerpoint, the girl made a noise. It was something between a “hmph” and an “ugh”-as in, god this class is boring or god I’m overwhelmed. I looked at her and smiled knowingly (knowing what, I don’t know…) and she smiled back. Then as class ended, and I was trying to formulate some sort of introductory comment, she said, “wasn’t that fast?!” and I happily said, “Yes!! I was hoping someone else thought so, and it wasn’t just me” and then we had a nice convo which ended with her kissing me on the cheek-the standard hello/goodbye amongst friends. So, mission accomplished, I have a friend in my class!!! Seriously, appreciate how big a deal this is. CIEE told us that it was KEY to make friends (on top of the fact that this is one of my biggest personal goals while I’m here) because the students know when tests are, how to find the reading material and get it copied from the secret-confusing Department-specific copy machines, etc. etc. The message was, if you don’t befriend Chileans you’ll be lost. So, now you can understand why I was SOOO happy that Rosia(Rosio? Not sure) kissed my cheek, signifying we were at least beginning friends.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
in case you wanted to send me something....
My address here in Chile:
Allie Sachnoff
Avenida Irarrazaval 1729 Dept#301
Nunoa, Santiago, Chile
If you give me yours, either through the comments section or through facebook or smoke signal, I promise to send something!
Allie Sachnoff
Avenida Irarrazaval 1729 Dept#301
Nunoa, Santiago, Chile
If you give me yours, either through the comments section or through facebook or smoke signal, I promise to send something!
order in the midst of chaos
So, I’ve finally gotten one of the required Study abroad experiences out of the way:
Getting sick.
Thankfully its just a cold and I think I headed it off early, with, yes…raw garlic shots. And a ton of tea. Everyday the average Chilean drinks three cups of tea, and I’ve been doubling that at least. I even bought my own box of Chamomile tea because I felt bad about how much tea I was chugging a day, and because everyone else in my family prefers caffeinated black almond tea.
On the plus side, I figured out my classes!!! It seriously took me an entire week of pro/con lists(in my head), making color-coordinated schedules, talking to university students* and mapping out the metro/bus routes to and from each class. It was exhausting. BUT here it is, my tentative schedule for the rest of my time here:
Monday: Gymnastics and Ceramics
Tuesday: “Ecology of Agriculture and Livestock” and “Ecologic Social Movements”(hard to translate) and “Human Rights of Indigenous Tribes in Chile and the Criminalization of their Demands”
Wednesday: Gymnastics and TA session of “Eco of Agri and Livestock”
Thursday “Ecology of Agri and Livestock” and “Human Rights of Indig Tribes”
Friday: Gymnastics
Yep, pretty fantastic schedule I have to say. I’m super excited for all the classes, and like I posted earlier, because I can shop around for a while before commiting to clases, I’m also going to check out some other classes just in case: “Confronting Poverty”, “Conservation and Management of Natural Resources”, Analysis of International Conflicts”, “Environmental Politics”, “Strategies for Chile’s Sustainable Development” and “Sexuality in Chile”.
If that sounds like a lot, its because it is. This coming week is going to be insane, which is why I have to be all better and raring to go in order to run(probably literally) all around Santiago and make all these classes. Which is why, after helping to plan an awesome ski adventure for this Saturday in which half of us (American girls) would go skiing all day, and the other half would sit in a cozy couch by a raring fire drinking hot cocoa spiked with kahlua, reading books and gazing out the window at the Andes, I bailed and stayed home all day in bed watching bootleg Entourage episodes. and drinking tea.
Getting sick.
Thankfully its just a cold and I think I headed it off early, with, yes…raw garlic shots. And a ton of tea. Everyday the average Chilean drinks three cups of tea, and I’ve been doubling that at least. I even bought my own box of Chamomile tea because I felt bad about how much tea I was chugging a day, and because everyone else in my family prefers caffeinated black almond tea.
On the plus side, I figured out my classes!!! It seriously took me an entire week of pro/con lists(in my head), making color-coordinated schedules, talking to university students* and mapping out the metro/bus routes to and from each class. It was exhausting. BUT here it is, my tentative schedule for the rest of my time here:
Monday: Gymnastics and Ceramics
Tuesday: “Ecology of Agriculture and Livestock” and “Ecologic Social Movements”(hard to translate) and “Human Rights of Indigenous Tribes in Chile and the Criminalization of their Demands”
Wednesday: Gymnastics and TA session of “Eco of Agri and Livestock”
Thursday “Ecology of Agri and Livestock” and “Human Rights of Indig Tribes”
Friday: Gymnastics
Yep, pretty fantastic schedule I have to say. I’m super excited for all the classes, and like I posted earlier, because I can shop around for a while before commiting to clases, I’m also going to check out some other classes just in case: “Confronting Poverty”, “Conservation and Management of Natural Resources”, Analysis of International Conflicts”, “Environmental Politics”, “Strategies for Chile’s Sustainable Development” and “Sexuality in Chile”.
If that sounds like a lot, its because it is. This coming week is going to be insane, which is why I have to be all better and raring to go in order to run(probably literally) all around Santiago and make all these classes. Which is why, after helping to plan an awesome ski adventure for this Saturday in which half of us (American girls) would go skiing all day, and the other half would sit in a cozy couch by a raring fire drinking hot cocoa spiked with kahlua, reading books and gazing out the window at the Andes, I bailed and stayed home all day in bed watching bootleg Entourage episodes. and drinking tea.
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