Algarrobo

After a few days of settling into our new family stay and our new home, we set out on a two day orientation to Algarrobo. This is a small beach town that was practically a ghost town while we were there. This is because it is winter in Chile, but it was cool because it was like we had a hotel to ourselves. The place was beautiful! Roaring fire in the fireplace, antique furniture, and great food! Annie and I had a room on the first floor and Annie didn't feel comfortable to be down there so we asked for a change of room. The new one was on the 4th floor with an ocean view so we were both happy that we said something! :) Those days passed fast but basically it was just a chance to meet a lot of cool people, get all the information about the EAP program, our future Chilean university, and all that fun stuff...

After getting back from the Algarrobo trip, Annie invited me over to spend the night. I was SUPER tired but it ended up being fun. A group of us just drank some vino and had a heart-to-heart. The next day we explored Providencia which is a comuna with a ton of shopping. We went to a two story ice cream store that reminded me of the movie Good Burger...except if this place was in a movie, it would be called Good Ice Cream. I took my first taxi home from Annie's after a fun day in Providencia. I was scared at first to take a taxi at night and worried that I wouldn't be able to find my house. But one of the many things I have learned here is that it is scary to do something new for the first time. Then the next time is easier...and the next time is even easier. You just have a keep an open mind and an open heart while you are experiencing a new culture because literally EVERYTHING is something that you have to learn!

Departure Day

Hey everyone! I hope that this travel blog will allow all of my friends and family to feel they are a part of my adventure here in South America. I have been in Santiago for 3 weeks now...mas o menos...but either way the time really has flown by! My goal now is to think back on what has happened these past few weeks as there has been a whirlwind of action. I left the US on June 21st at 1:15 pm. It was so hard to say goodbye to the family, but I was lucky to have my travel buddy Annie who could share in all the same things that I was feeling. We had a 4 hour flight to Mexico City, waited 4 hours there, and then jumped on a swanky LAN plane headed to Chile.

Upon arriving at the Campus Oriente at Pontificio Universidad Catolica, we began meeting tons of kids from the program. There are students here from all the different UC's and there are 68 of us in total! At 12:00 noon, we met our host families and I was SO SCARED! All of the families were waiting outside of the open doors and all of us US students were waiting inside with all of our luggage. They would call off a name and the kid would go forward and be greeted by a smiling "mama" who would then take them back to their house and make sure they felt comfortable.

My mama's name is Margarita Diaz, but she goes by Maggie. She said that I am the 40th student that has stayed in her house. Also, one of the first things that she asked me was if there was anything I needed at the moment. I confessed I was really thirsty. So without hesitation she stopped at a store that is only 1 block from the house and bought me two big bottles of water. When we got home, we got lunch and she just made sure that I was comfortable. I found out there are two other American students at the house, and one of them came home shortly after his introduction. We ended up going to the hospital to get a Yellow Fever shot for his trip to Brazil, but after this, Kyle and I walked to the metro to buy my BIP transportation card. He also showed me a really good ice cream shop which I will have to stop by again! It was a great first day in Santiago!

Selfishness

Am I selfish? Is everyone selfish? Well it is a natural human emotion to show from time to time due to our innate adaptations of survival. However, I think that in this life we tend to look at situations through rose colored glasses. And that rose colored tint is often the selfishness that clouds our thoughts. I think the moments that we tend to be most selfish...or should I just speak for myself when I say that the times I am most selfish?...is when it comes to relationships. I am so happy with my life and so happy with the fact that I have the coolest sister in the whole world, that I forget to be grateful for all the other blessings I have like all the awesome friends I surround myself with. As we become more and more comfortable with our lives, we are often less likely to reach out to others who are going through trying times. It is human nature. We want to enjoy our good times and not dwell on the times that we were once in. However, I think that this is the test of a truly unselfish person. Someone who can look outside the box...get outside of her/his comfort zone...and do the right thing.

To overcome selfishness, we must be willing to step out of your comfort level and put yourself in the shoes of another person. Think for a moment about the last time you purposely made yourself feel uncomfortable. This might be hard to remember because during this technological age, we tend to keep pretty well inside of our comfort level. What I am guilty of is not allowing myself to see through the eyes of another. If someone is trying their hardest to make me happy, sometimes I am too stuck in my ways to 1) let myself take the flattery and 2) give them a break. I need to forget about my own short-comings and realize that this other person is being completely selfless by putting their pride on the line. I need to realize that they deserve the benefit of the doubt for doing something that I only just think about doing. I need to be more of a bona fide unselfish person. That's what it comes down to.

Journaling and Sleeping

I do a lot of thinking in the early morning. I think it is because the world is quite and it leaves time for me to finally relax and listen to my thoughts. I realized that I live my life through other people. I weight out my own enthusiasm and happiness of an event by what their reaction is when I tell them about the event. Leigh Anne lives her life, and then maybe she will tell me and Mom what happens. But for the most part she holds those experiences in because SHE knows what happened. And each one of those experiences meant something to her. For me, I guess I feel like I have to tell everyone what happened to me if it is something cool. This is wrong because not only do I look for justification of my enjoyment of an experience through others who WEREN'T there and thus won't have the same emotions about it. How can I expect them to feel as happy/sad/excited as I am?

Yesterday LA and I went to see Celtic Woman in SD. It was the most fun ever because we got to hang out with mom and see Frank. The trip quickly ended as we had to leave at 5 am the next morning but when I got back to SB, I was like WHOA THAT WHAT CRAZY!? We just did all the stuff and everyone else was just chilling back in IV. That is when it hits...the "you should tell people this so they will be impressed". And then the more people I tell, the less impressive it becomes even to me. My new goal is to write in my journal again. I feel that for the hours I spend on the computer, I should replace some of that time with journal writing. Why? Because I feel that if I write it in a journal, then it will be like "TELLING" someone. Then when I get to the real world with people I know, I won't necessarily feel the need to tell them. This is great because it means I can listen to their stories or talk about the present moment...etc.

Porque?

I've been up to my ears in responsibilities due to preparation for my Chilean visa. It is SUCH a lengthy and complex process. But luckily I am not taking very hard classes this term. I did that last term and I think I deserve a break before I challenge myself for 6 months in another country. Ya...I think I deserve a little break. Once this car ordeal is over, I can also relax a bit. If all goes well, we should have our car back tomorrow. That is after I bike another 5 miles out there (again) to see if it is ready. I can't wait to have my baby back...it will be nice to have transportation again. You know, I always seem to feel so stressed out about life but as long as you get at least two things accomplished each day that move you towards your goal, you will feel much more sane.

Every day I get one more thing ready for Chile or I make one call for school or FAFSA or job applications. And I find peace in this because if I tried to get everything done all at once, I would go crazy. I told my best friend to do this too and I think it has kept her sane as well. Actually never mind she is just naturally kinda crazy ;) jk meg Pray that I get the Gilman scholarship and that I get Financial Aid for next school year. I will be hoping and praying too! Much love and thanks for reading...

Awesome Quote

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

This is so true. So many times in my life I have held myself back because of my fear of looking like a know-it-all or making people feel insecure. I need to let my talents out full force. I need to stop caring what people think about me. I need to live to the full potential of my talents.

Back for Spring Term

Howdy friends and family...It is time for Spring Term to begin and I must admit that I am still pretty burnt out from my 21.5 units during winter term. But Spring term always offers great opportunity because the sun is out and I can get in shape and everyone is super happy. I am taking a lot of cool classes this term including a Personal Training practicum, Spanish 25, an exercise physiology lab, and an anthropology class about Primate Life Cycles. I am also in HEAL again and I will be continuing as a TA for Kinesiology.

I am actually doing a million little things to prepare for the term. I never thought I would be this busy at the start of things but I feel like there is always something that needs to get done. All the same, I do not regret for one minute that I had the most relaxing spring break EVER! Just hung out with family and lazed around and it was beautiful. Man, it has been so long since I wrote I need a starting point...a foundation for this blog...if you will. I am just gonna start by writing down some quotes I recently came across. They offer a lot of meaning to my life I feel.

"It doesn't take any more time to dream a big dream than to dream a small dream."

"Everything you want in life is just right outside your comfort zone. What are you waiting for?"

“I’m the kind of person who needs everything to be justified and needs all of her time to be worth the energy. So, let’s say I date a guy who really does nothing but damage me. And you’ve spent time, you’ve spent effort, and you’ve put everything into trying to make that work. And it didn’t. So you write a song about it. It was worth everything, if you write a song about it.” --Taylor Swift

“I have always been fascinated with fairy tales and the idea that Prince Charming is just one castle away. You’re gonna run across a field and meet each other in the middle, and have an amazing, perfect movie kiss. And it’s all gonna be happily ever after.” --Taylor Swift

OK so that gives me a good starting point. Those Taylor Swift quotes really speak to me because that is what I believe and that is also what gets me into trouble. I believe so much in fate that I find myself incapable of action. If I like a guy, I am not willing to bring myself out of my comfort zone because I don't want to go against fate. It is bad because I am not working for anything...I am hoping that this abstract force in the universe does the work for me. I have to work to change this. I can make a little bit of an effort albeit out of my comfort zone...then I can see how fate works on that action.

I watched Under The Tuscan Sun over break and another quote from there also caught my attention. "Never lose your childhood innocence. It is the most important thing." I feel like I still have my childhood innocence within my reach but as I grow up, it is harder and harder to hold on to it. This is because with every experience, my knowledge of the world grows more rich and unfortunatly, there are many consequences that come from knowing more and more about the world. The world can be a dark place. True, it is what you make of it so people who want to see the good things can remain aware of only the good things. But for me, it is hard to ignore those dark looming aspects of the world...and the knowledge of these elements is what threatens my childish innocence. So I shall keep this quote in mind as I am growing up and experiencing so many things in these fast-paced 4 years of college.

The last thing that I want to address in this Blog is my physical therapy plans. I am as hot and cold about my future as a sink with two faucets. One day I can be all about physical therapy and then the next I am wondering why I would ever choose to pursue that. I just can't decide. The thing that I want to do for a job must incorporate helping people and health education. I know that with my minor I will be able to be a personal trainer and a group fitness instructor. But I have heard that this is only a side job. I think that is what led me to thing that I kinda HAD to thing about physical therapy as a way to support myself with a "real job". But I don't want to be a doctor...I just want to help people. PT requires physics, hard core science classes, and math. I am not saying that I am not willing to do the work because I know I can do anything I put my mind to. But here's the thing...

As mentioned above, my belief in fate is leading me to question if all those science classes are a way to show me that PT isn't for me. I feel after 4 years at UCSB, I will be more than ready to start in the health world and start learning about work in the real world. I don't want to be in school for another 1 year with super mathy, sciency classes just to go through 3 more years of schooling. Don't get me wrong, I want to go to graduate school but I want to go for exercise science. Another instance that brough about my change of heart (for the moment??) in PT was my correspondence with a PT in Denver. She said that if I wanted to start on my path to completing the pre-reqs for the PT program, I needed to move away from the Exercise Sciences and start moving towards the Advanced Sciences. This really caught my attention because to move away from exercise sciences would be, for me, like moving away from singing or from Lee Lee. I would be robbing myself of something I truly love and stand for.

PT DOES interest me but my questions are plenty. Is it worth all the suffering in those sciencey, mathy classes? Will I really be happy as a PT...as a DOCTOR? Does my personality FIT physical therapy? Can't I still help people in the way that I want by being a group fitness instructor or a health educator or a personal trainer? Maybe I am just scared to graduate and not know for SURE what I will be doing? But isn't that the excitement of life...applying and finding out where you are meant to be. I know a woman who moved to SB to be with her true love and she is now teaching Nutrition at a high school and focuses on educating obese teenagers. What an edifying occupation. I could find myself doing that if I just have faith. So I think that I am going to really take time to think this through.

I would LOVE to know what you guys think of anything I wrote about here. I know I can be long-winded but let me know your favorite topic that I wrote about at least. Y'alls opinion means the world to me. I love you all!

Well I always want to write more but for the moment, more thoughts shall not escape for me.