i have chilean friends....and gringo friends too!

So I am trying to finish up my work and when I finish these essays, I realize that I need someone to look over them because there are bound to be mistakes. I didn't have anyone look over the 15 page bioarch one but I ended up getting a B+ so that was lucky. For my medical anthropology paper of 15 pages, my friend Cris who is a Chilean from Starbucks told me that he would help me read it. I went over to his apartment yesterday and he read through it with me and he was so nice! He told me he was totally hooked into the story and couldn't wait to finish it! He even told his friends that night all about my two case studies and the interesting program at the school where I did the research. Then I remembered that Meg's chilean roommate Sandra had totally saved me by helping me listen to the audiotracks from the interviews I had done with the mothers of the patients and the psychologist because it was so hard to decipher what they were saying. She sat with me for like 2 hours helping me with that. And then my friend Pablo just called and asked what I was up to and if he could come by and visit me and Megan. Oh AND I am writing my paper for my investigation with the Gastronomy class at Puente Alto and I emailed Mariela who is the English teacher at the school and a dear friend. I asked if she wouldn't mind reading through the paper and she just emailed back and said it would be no problem! Plus I'm just happy because last night while I was at Chris' house I got a call from Anna who wanted to have a movie night and Gary who wanted to hang out! I just feel loved amidst all of this school stuff that I still have lingering over me. And as I lie here on my best friends bed in her comfy apartment and think about how Gary, Meg, Sandra, and I enjoyed a lovely breakfast this morning all together, I am filled with peace.

A Salute To Our Armed Forces

This is a forwarded email that I received from my best friend Meg for Veteran's Day:

The following is a lesson that should be taught in all schools including, or maybe even especially, in our colleges. In September, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a social studies school teacher did something not to be forgotten. On this first day of school, with the permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor; she removed all the desks from her classroom. When the first period kids entered the room they discovered that there were no desks. "Ms Cothren, where are our desks?' She replied, 'You can't have a desk until you tell me how you earn the right to sit at a desk."

They asked, "Was it our grades?"

"No", she said.

"Was it our behavior?'

'No, it's not even your behavior,' she told them.

And so, they came and went, the first period, second period, third period. Still no desks in the classroom. By early afternoon television news crews had started gathering in Ms.Cothren's classroom to report about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of her classroom.

The final period of the day came and as the puzzled students found seats on the floor of the deskless classroom, Martha Cothren said, "Throughout the day no one has been able to tell me just what he/she has done to earn the right to sit at the desks that are ordinarily found in this classroom. Now I am going to tell you."

At this point, Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it. Twenty-seven (27) War Veterans, all in uniforms, walked into the classroom, each one carrying a school desk. The Vets began placing the school desks in rows, and then they would walk over and stand alongside the wall... By the time the last soldier had set the final desk in place those kids started to understand, perhaps for the first time in their lives, just how the right to sit at those desks had been earned..

Martha said, "You didn't earn the right to sit at these desks. These heroes did it for you. They placed the desks here for you. Now, it's up to you to sit in them. It is your responsibility to learn, to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so that you could have the freedom to get an education. Don't ever forget it."

An Unforgettable Couple Days

I definitely won't miss this sight.

I had the craziest/most challenging/most memorable day of my life yesterday. I woke up at 7 am and started studying again for my bioarchaeology final certamen. I studied all the way up until the class at 2:30 but decided to get there early to talk to the TAs about my finger. I fell when I was running and my pinky might have a hair-line fracture because it is super swollen up. I ask them if I could please use my computer for the test and they said yes which was a miracle. I then proceeded to take a two hour test where I wrote 4 computer pages on the importance of the analysis of metabolic diseases, indicators of stress in bones, indicators of diets in ancient populations, etc. The second part was when everyone got their own box with a skeleton inside and had to make an analysis of it in terms of those themes listed. When I think about that test and tell people about it, neither I nor them can believe it. I find myself asking myself more and more as its about to be over: Rosey, what were you thinking girl? haha I mean, I am making it through and my grade is sufficient but really?! A bioarchaeology class with LAB while you are in Chile and the entire class is in Spanish and all the 15 other kids have then the bioarchaeology class for the first semester so are all up in the know-all while Rose is the extranjera. haha This has been a ridiculously crazy experience.

After the test, I gave Addy the present I got her and the 2 page letter I wrote her--thanking her for being my lab partner throughout the course and especially for being my friend. Then me, Addy, Sonia, Pachi, and Rocio all hung out and talked about California, grades, and life, but the whole time I was so happy inside because the people in this class have finally accepted me. It sounds weird but at the beginning, only Addy talked to me. Everyone else didn't say a word to me. So now to have people come up to me before class and greet me...or to give me articles they printed out for me that they thought would help me in my trabajo final...well, it makes me feel like I have really beat-and-won in a situation that was easily the CRAZIEST of my entire life. After talking with the girls, Addy and I walked through campus talking and there was a moment that I will always remember. We passed by a group of Chileans sitting in a circle on the grass...probably like 10...and 3 of them knew Addy so they waved at her and she greeted them and for a minute they looked at me like the extrajera. Then they realized that I was with Addy and they greeted me with an HOLA too...but it was much more than the hola that struck me. It was this sense I felt that because of Addy's kindness, I finally felt like I belonged.

Our lovely Thanksgiving feast!

Mi hermano, mi hermana y yo

Then mama Maggie got home and decided to
revolutionize self-timer picture taking...

The whole family at the dinner table

Even Chiquita decided to grace us
with her presence. Yes, this is little
inappropriate for the dinner table,
but Chiquita never seems to mind.
Oh that cat!

I got home and Jeremy, Hannah, and I whipped up a nice Thanksgiving dinner. Well, I'm not gonna lie, they did the cooking and I brought the wine. haha But when Maggie got home we had everything set up and got to have a nice family dinner. Of course, it was the best of both worlds because I had gotten to Skype with the whole family before I had dinner with my family in Chile. After dinner, we all fell into the appropriate after-thanksgiving-dinner coma and I didn't wake up until 10 am the next day! I woke up thinking that not matter what happens with this bioarchaeology class...I did it. I took that test that I was so scared about. I wrote the 15 page paper (and found out that I think I got a B on it!!! yay!) and took all the in-class tests and wrote informes and even spoke outloud a number of times about the evidence of trauma (for example) in the skeleton. I've done it all, and I've done it with flying colors considering I am a extranjera. After this experience, I can say that I have always been a humble person but in terms of my accomplishments in this class, I will always consider myself a bad-ass. And don't be surprised if I toot my horn from time to time when you see me in January...but I now know that there's not many people who would have made it through this course. And I am crazy for doing it but it has given me the sweetest satisfaction imaginable.

OK back to 10 am, I went for a run and got ready for Meg to come over. She rang the bell right on time and we spent the day working and planning out Buenos Aires and especially Patagonia! I can't believe we are leaving a week! And more importantly, I can 't believe that I am going to be doing tests and my presentations right up until that point. This trip is the hardest thing I have ever had to earn! lol but we all know that my work these past 5 months have earned me this trip! I'm sooooo excited!! :) At 3 pm we had a nice family lunch that didn't differ much from the rest considering everything about the world was still "rico" according to my Chilean mama and well...I guess you just had to be there. Then I worked a little more on my med. anth. essay and sang Rascal Flatts and Carrie Underwood and at 6 pm Hannah, Jeremy, and I left for Bella Vista for our final dinner together. Hannah leaves tomorrow for Vina del Mar for two weeks and I will be gone on my trip when she gets back. But we sure did have a great time and we enjoyed happy hour at a cute restaurant with seats out on the patio and drank our mojitos or pineapple daquaris or what-have-you as we talked about awesome topics and then switched over to Spanish from time to time. I love my siblings and I am gonna miss them a ton!

Did someone say Daquari?

La despedida de Hannah

I made some friends. That happens when they
find out a gringa can speak Spanish. hehe

Rose & Hannah: Ooooh Jeremy got a call.
Let's tease him & put bunny ears on him. hehe
We're goofy but we love it.

I will say this about my discovery process...Chile has made me a lot more capable to say what I want to say without thinking that I am talking too much. I have sooo much that I want to say and I am getting better at formulating it and expressing it to people and I like that. Also, it has made me even more of an observer I must say. I told them last night: wow maybe I should be an author. lol I just can't stop absorbing situatoins and people and life...hope its all for a reason because my brain is exhausted haha. OK well for now I must work on my essay because my friend Chris is going to correct it with me tonight. Oh one more thing, yesterday in Bella Vista I ran into my friend Carissa from church on the street and then made friends with the waiters and both restaurants we went to and then on the way back to the house ran into my friend Fred from the mini-mart and it was hilarious because Hannah and Jeremy were like: "Geez Rose do you know everyone in Santiago?! You are so popular." haha Chao for now. Love, Rosey

Santiago in Summer. Love the burgundy theme

of this picture. Our power color, right mama??

VICTORY...for now

I turned in my bioarchaeology paper yesterday!! I printed it out, put it in a pretty folder, and an hour later (did i mention i hate public transportation??) it was in the hands of my TA for the class. And then I skipped all the way home listening to Carrie Underwood. Little by little...it will ALL get done and then it will all just be a memory as I am sitting on the plane with my best friend on our way to Iguazu Falls! yay...ok disclaimer...for the rest of this entry i am going to try not to use capital letters because every time i hit the shift key i am in pain. eeek. not good but i got up early today to run and fell pretty hard when i was running down a hill. i scraped up my knee and it wasn't pretty for my hands. now my pinky is all swollen and hurts really bad. i am just praying that if i baby it, the swelling will go away and it will heal. i dont want to end my time here with an injury...i started my time here with an injury and i should hope i would not be granted with this priceless experience ever again. lol

Alright, mental checklist...what does Rose have to do in the next two weeks...i have to finish my medical anthropology research paper by tomorrow and then prepare a presentation on the two month study that i did which i will be presenting next wednesday. i also have a crazy bioarch. test on thursday which i have to cram for. then i will have to write my final paper for the investigation i did with the gastronomy class for my scholarship presentation when i get back. but everything in time...thats how i see it. one thing at a time!! and i have faith that it will all get done. gosh i am trying to remember what epiphany i had this morning while i was getting ready. i HAVE (owwwww that hurt! lol) to write that stuff down when i think of it.

i will tell you one thing that has been on my mind alot these past few weeks. seeing my family. oooooh i miss them more and more now that i know i will be seeing them in a matter of weeks. i think that when we begin an experience like this we mentally prepare ourselves to be away from those we love for a long period of time. i mean six months! that is crazy long...and i have really been good these past months with not getting homesick because i am a trooper. i got into this situation prepared to not see the fam for a long time. now that i know it is only a matter of time before i am running off the plane and hugging them, i am always thinking of them. not to mention they are always thinking of me and doing such sweet things to show me they love me. i am always getting cards and packages from them and they mean sooo much to me. i can't express how nice it is to get back from these days that take every last ounce of energy out of you and see a package waiting for you on your bed full of love and lovely things. and i recently got a package from lee lee that she wrapped up with a trader joes bag for memory's sake and then preceeded to hand paint the outer layer of the bag that was not the envelope. in the end, it was like someone had sent me a present with a VanGosh work of art wrapped around it. amazing.

when i get home i have so many things that i want to do that i have figured out through this experience. of course, i am going to keep practicing my spanish because i dont want to lose it but besides that...i am going to learn guitar. i am going to keep singing and learn songs with the guitar so that i dont need a track to be played every time i want to sing my heart out. i am also going to print out all of my pictures from chile and make a bad-ass album. maybe i will even print out the pics from my entire college experience and start making that so it can be done when i graduate. and mama...we are gonna make that album of all of your professional photos too so we can look forward to that. ooooh i hope you know that i plan on spending many many weekends in san diego when i get back. six months is too long to be away from my amazing family and amazing san diego. :) (that smiley face hurt my pinky too but it was worth it lol)

guess what i just did? i downloaded rascal flatts newest songs including some beautiful christmas cover songs. oooh i love them. and carrie underwood has a new album so i am in hog heaven. gosh i can't wait to learn them all and start performing them for my friends at the manor :) if i have realized one thing during my time here, it is that i need to sing. regardless of how loud i sing...i need to let it out and when i live with a lot of other people, i need to not be timid about letting it out. i mean...it took me 5 months to get over the loudness of my singing and actually let it out! lol sounds weird but it is so true. actually one of my dearest chilean friends Pablo and i have been singing together everytime we are together at Megan's house because she has a guitar and he knows soooo many songs. it sounds goofy but we sing like backstreet boys and nsync songs but the words come back to me as if i had listened to their albums just yesterday...wait it was yesterday hehe. singing is singing. i am not gonna go on being all bashful about singing because i can sing and i want to sing and i am gonna sing. punto. hehe i like figuring out cool things about myself. another thing that i have found out about myself is something that is pretty cool and i have constructed this epiphany through the kind words of the people i love and through my experience here. i am a very poised person and i also can "wing" things well. take my experience here for example. how many things have i done for the first time while i have been here....oh basically everything...everything has been a first for me and whats not it was all in spanish. and when i go into these situations for the first time and wing it, i always do ok. and as my mommy told me, i think it is because 1) i am very poised 2) i am not afraid to ask questions because i learn quickly 3) i have faith that the situation will always turn out ok 4) i know that i can wing things well 5) im a bad ass haha ok that last one is a joke...kinda. hehe

hmmm i should probably not write anymore for now because my pinky is really starting to hurt. maybe i will go ask my dear friends at the counter for another bag of ice. haha i am such a regular at this starbucks...the atmosphere, my friends that work here, and the cafe del dia have all really helped get me through this crazy school semester that i am about to finish. and here i sit again...about to finish my med. anth. paper...bring it. i would have written that in capitals for the effect but we all know that would be way too painful haha LOVE you all! that one was worth it ;) CHAO!

"Finals Week" prep & El Taller Ultimo

Hola gente...Obviously this has been the most unique term that I have had while I have been in college. Nonetheless, yet another finals week is upon me and I am in preparation mode to be ready for my big exam and to finish all of my crazy research papers. AHHH I have done so much while I have been here. It gets to a point where it is so hard to even put it down in writing. There has just been so much work done by me during these five months...work for school, mental work in learning everything from scratch--language, directions, people's names and personalities, the street smarts of Chile, etc x 100--emotional work in figuring out who I am. I mean...I have gotten to the point in my time here where every place that I go I am filled with memories of the days that I have passed in Chile before the present moment in which I am strolling through the very spot that I once stood as another Rose...a different Rose in a sense. Experiences like the one that I am about to wrap up in a month are things that stick with you for the rest of your life. This was a crazy, exciting, unforgettable, incredibly challenging, emotionally-tiring, emotionally-rewarding experience that has filled me with so much knowledge! I am such a better person for deciding to take on this challenge of living in another country. And what luck I have had in this experience. I think when you realize that you have 2 more weeks left in the place that you have stayed for the last half year of your life, you enter yet another phase in which you appreciate everything around you so much more. Even though I had been appreciating my surroundings before, now I am really trying to drink in every sight, memory, and experience because I realize that the time is soon that I will be back in the states and missing Chile. Amidst all this drinking (of the sights...that is) I am writing some craaaazy ass research papers for my final papers for both of the classes that I am taking. And then I have a FINAL in bioarch. in addition to the paper and this is next Thursday. For now, what I know is that I have the day completely open tomorrow and I will be running in the morning with Hannah and then spending the day at Starbucks to type away like a fool like I have been doing for the past three weeks. haha Oh Rose. Why are you so crazy? 2 final papers in Spanish about distinct research topics that are each like 15-18 pages. haha Yeah. That's all I can say.

This weekend was very productive for me in terms of school. I spent the whole weekend at Meg's apartment and we have some good study time in between going out with our friends Annette and Casey, cooking yummy meals, watching Year 1 and Frost/Nixon, and having an official hangover day. Oh that is an inside joke that will always be remembered. I can't wait to be traveling around South America with Meg in THREE WEEKS...for THREE WEEKS!! Oh how awesome. That is what is keeping me going with all of these papers. It's like...I have been under this much stress before and I know that in two weeks despite the pain and stress, I will have my papers done perfectly and professionally with copies printed for my teachers and my research subjects in pretty bradded folders. This is simply what will occur. Mark my words that in two weeks, this will be the reality. And then I can just CHILL for a week while I prepare for my presentation for Med. Anth. but that will be about my research that I am really attached to anyways so bring it on. School is such a personal journey. You can work soooo hard on something but people never really understand how hard you work. It's not like they are gonna ask to read your paper or something. Besides, would YOU ask to read someone's research paper that they worked like 100 hours on?! haha It just amazes me what a personal journey our effort in school is.

My students in the English conversation class at Hermanos Matte

OK last thing that I would like to note is that today was the final after-school English taller that I teach at Hermanos Matte. It was a day of presents, food, fiesta, pictures, hugs, and tears. What a great group of students I have been blessed with while running the taller for the past five months. They ate their cheese puffs, drank their chocolate milk, and we played "Best, Worst, or Funniest" so that every could talk for a little bit about their week. One girl confessed that her mother has a complicated disease and started to cry so we connected our hands and prayed for her mother to recooperate. These kids are experiencing things that I would never have been able to experience when I was their age. They are truly inspirational and I would ask you all to pray for a mother in Chile with a complicated disorder who's daughter "needs her" as she expressed. After our taller, we all hung out and laughed and ate good food. Nobody wanted to leave but as all good things tend to do, our time together came to an end. Hugs. Goodbyes. And so much appreciation for the opportunity that I had been given. Now I will always have the memories, the learning experience, the self-confidence in my ability as a Spanish-speaker/English-teacher, and the pics and videos from that day and days past. Here's the videos for your viewing pleasure:

Our little English fiesta with my students :)

Two gringas and one of the many talented students!

The Power of Prayer

And the Power of Hugs, too.

My final farewell/life-advice talk to the students.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Francisca and Juan with their teacher
as well as my dear friend Mary Cruz

"Miss Rose...will you dance for us?"

Rose: "Bailar esta en la sangre de ustedes.
Para la gente blanca, no es tan facil."

hehe oh the memories.

We just can't resist.

Cleaning up my lesson plan just like every
other Monday. Only this was the last time :(
But I can't focus on the sadness of leaving
because the awesomeness of this experience
makes it worth it. Why dwell on the fact that
all journeys come to an end one day?
That's a reason to enjoy it!

Sweet Carlos was brave enough at his young
age to join us "big kids" for a couple tallers.

He is such a loving kid and I know that
he is gonna do great things in the future!

Musical Epiphany

I realized today that music is energy. Think about it. It's like the first law of Thermodynamics that energy cannot be created or destroyed but rather can only change forms. Well when we listen to music, it is like energy entering our bodies. And since this energy cannot be destroyed, we release it in the form of singing or tapping our toes or twiddling our fingers to the beat. I just thought that was a cool thing to think about the next time you listen to your favorite song. :)