Starbucks, Sisters, & School Work

I just finished my 6 page paper for my EAP Class!! It is the last thing that we have to turn in for this class. And the way my mind works is that I get one thing done...one chapter of my time here finished...and then I can have a clearer mind to start the next things that I have to do. Now that this EAP class is totally done, I can set my mind on my two other research papers and that one that I have to do for the gastronomy class. So nice. Well not really...but at least I have a plan. Oooh I got a membership to Blockbuster finally and I watched 17 Again and last night with Hannah I watched The Ghosts of My Past Girlfriends. Not 100% sure of the title of the last one because it was in Spanish but it was really cute. And 17 Again was GREAT! I can't wait to get home and watch it with mom and Lee Lee so we can just laugh and laugh!

Hannah & I at Hermanos Matte School

I have a new host sister named Hannah who is with the same program that Annaleigh and Sally were with. It is called United Planet and they send people all over the world to volunteer. Hannah was in INDIA for a month before this and came straight to Chile! She will be here for 5 weeks and she is working at the same school I do the taller at. Actually, I went with her the first day that she had to work there and we hung out with the kids all day and got to know each other. It was a lovely day. I felt like I was really helping her because it would have been so much harder to go do it all by herself. And plus that school is like my stomping ground so it was the least I could do. She came to the taller too but it was kind of depressing because there was only 3 kids there. I am gonna have to start talking with Mary Cruz to make sure that there will also be more students than that because it is just not a good use of time when there are only 3 kids and two of the boys were in 6th grade and had just wanted to be there to observe more. But ehh...I know that the school has a lot of afterschool activities so maybe that is the problem. I'll figure it out.

Another fun day at Starbucks...

On Tuesday I worked all day on my EAP Essay which as I said, I just sent into my teacher!! YAY! And then on Tuesday night after Hannah got home we walked over to Starbucks and got coffee and talked outside on the patio near the fountain for like an hour. We are like two peas in a pod which if you think about it...is SO awesome. I mean considering that I could have had to live with ANYONE for the next 5 weeks in the same house and eat all the same meals together and talk to them...and wouldn't that stink if that person was "fome"...boring. But we were like immediate "girlies" as mom and LeeLee would say ;) And I know that I was fine before but all I'm saying is that it is just NICE to get home and have someone to shoot the breeze with and talk about cute boys that I meet at Starbucks and what not. So on Tuesdays after Starbucks we walked to the pharmacy and ran into this old dude that spoke English. I think he was from Hawaii but I also got this feeling that everything he was saying was a lie. haha Sorry to be so cynical but we listened to this guy's far-fetched stories for like 30 mins. and it was just obvious that he wanted to act super smart in the face of two teenagers. He would throw out these abstract world facts and then belittle us when we didn't know them. OK I know that there is a stereotype for teenagers not knowing about the world but dude F-U...we are LIVING in another country. I am attending a Chilean university and living with a Chilean mom and I have Chilean friends. Hannah was in INDIA for a month. She is volunteering in a dangerous community at a school teaching kids English. We are both breaking the stereotype so don't talk to me about some guerilla group in the hills of Malaysia (to use a random example) and then be condescending when I have never heard about them. But whatever...I just thought it was cool that when Hannah and I left the pharmacy, she was like: I hope you don't think I am too quick to judge or cynical but I didn't believe a word of that guy's stories...AND I was like: OMG I was thinking the same thing!! haha

Yesterday (Wed.) I had class at 2:30 so I woke up early and walked to Starbucks to read that crazy 25 page spanish article about isotope analysis for our quiz today in bioarchaeology. I met this really cool guy who speaks English and wants to be a chiropractor and is a vegetarian. That's all I am going to say. Addy called me to make sure that I had gotten the email of the reading for class!! Ahhh she is so nice!! And then I came home to eat lunch and went to my class. After class, I went to the library to do more work on the article and I ended up staying there for like 2-3 hours. Who knows? But I ran into this guy from my bioarch. class named Francisco who had missed the last three classes because of work in Vina del Mar. And he came over to sit next to me and we talked for a little. He was my partner in lab one day during the first couple weeks and he is all hippy and totally chill. haha So I told him that I was making an outline of the readings and that I could photocopy them for him. And he was like Muchisimas Gracias!! So I totally made a friend. Yay! And then I talked with the photocopy dude for like 10 mins and basically it was just a good Spanish day.

OK now I am going to get breakfast and run and get ready for the day and then study more for the quiz. I get to go to Victoria's birthday party after and then come home to SLEEEEEEP before tomorrow when I have to go to Puente Alto to collect the questionaires from Erick and the parents so that I can start formulating my final paper and setting up interviews. Eeek I'm scared to have interviews with the parents but at least with some of the answers that they will have already given me, I will be able to keep up. Plus my voice recorder from EBAY came in the mail yesterday! :) Oh and thank you mom and dad for all the letters that you have been sending! I loved the halloween and thanksgiving ones! Can't wait to all be reunited in LA on the 28th!

Un abrazo para todos, Rosey

Argentina Memories

I could NEVER hope to write down all the memories that I made during my trip to Cordoba, Argentina this past weekend. But what I do want to say is that todo pasa por algo, my penpal is an amazing friend, I am super proud of my Spanish and of myself as this weekend, and I absolutely LOVE Argentina. Here's some pics to commemorate my amazing time...complete with inside jokes that might only make sense to me, Megan, and the girls but oh well! Enjoy:




















The Most Memorable Lines of the Trip:

• R: El tiene mucho pelo en su pecho...M: Huh? He has a candle on the ceiling?
• OK we are definitely never going on a boat with him. I don't want him having even a notion that his dream will be coming true. --M
• Bus dude: Quieres champagne? (while I had wine in my hand) Rose: Tengo dos manos..?
  
• Look at that guy. He's got those sad Elijah Wood eyes. --M
• Simon says touch my pico.
• Just because he's short doesn't mean he has nothing to offer the world. --Meg to me
• Just because he's old doesn't mean he has nothing to offer the world. --Me to Meg later
• Foto con la frutilla! Foto con la frutilla! --Man with a strawberry for a head
• HEEEEERREE!!
• Meg: Que es una planchita? ... Dani: Ah un lisador. ... Meg: Ohhh si! Quita risas, hace lisas.
  
• Hot heladero: Que flavor? ... Us: Ummm vainilla con un pinche de amor. ;)
• My ice cream cone crazily breaking in half suddenly and my appreciation for the power of Karma
• "Breakfast of Champions." --Meg about our breakfast of m&m's and coffee
• Ella es espantosa. Ohh ooops I mean: Ella es espantada.
• That guy from Venezuela was hella shady. HAHA
• Thou hads't me enchanted m'lady.
• There's nothing exotic about being an American. .... He DOESN'T know that! (my favorite line from PS I Love You which we watched on the 15 hour bus ride home)
  

My English Conversation Class

Just an update on the English conversation class that I teach...it is going great. We had a couple of weeks in which we couldn't meet but I am trying to make up for lost time by making our time together really fun for the kids. I don't want it to be like "school" for them. I want it to be fun for them amidst learning. So I always try to bring a song and print out the lyrics with spaces for some words so they can listen and fill in the blanks. And we always discuss words that they don't know in the song before we listen to it. I also have another game that they love which is basically about 20 questions that I wrote down on different strips of paper. I lay them out on the floor and we do different activities using those questions. I am also trying to teach them transition words too like FANBOYS but also like: therefore, however, instead, since, without, etc. We really enjoy our time together and there is no language barrier between me and them because if we can't understand each other, we have two language between us that we can use to maneuver our way to the central point of what we are trying to say. Gosh, I really love those kids. And I love Mary Cruz who is the teacher at the school who monitors the taller. She is such a dear friend and since she is the English teacher, she and I have so much to talk about always...be it in Spanish or English. She has been teaching at the school for FORTY YEARS and has probably gotten about 5 days off during that time if I have understood correctly. She is always overworked and I really think that it is time for her to have some time for herself. So of course, I have something planned to celebrate her for all of her hard work. I was thinking during my morning run about what the kids and I could do celebrate Mary Cruz. And then it came to me so I'm gonna get on making that happen during our next taller on Monday. I am supposed to bring Beyonce's If I Was a Boy...by request. Last week it was Miley's Cyrus' The Climb. Oh the global unity that exists through music. :) Teaching this English class has been one of the coolest things I have done while in Chile. It is also going to be one of the hardest things to stop. I would stay in Chile forever for those kids. They don't get to meet ANY extranjeras that come to their school for longer than a couple months so obviously since I have been there almost four months now, we have really built strong bonds. Ugh. I don't want to think about leaving. I'm not going to think about it. Instead, I am going to go print out the song lyrics and plan the lesson for this Monday. Lista.

Hello World. It's been THREE weeks!

Hace tanto tiempo que he escrito!! In English, that translates to: wow it has been a long ass time since I have written a blog entry. haha I have really been having fun these past three weeks but also have been doing a lot of work too. Hmmm sounds like the summary of my life. I never know where to start when I am attempting to express all that I have experience in the span of weeks. Let's see...Argentina was amazing. I would write about it here but I wrote about 10 pages in my journal on the bus ride home detailing the entire trip. My penpal and I got along swimmingly. Megan and I had such a blast with Dani and all her friends. We went to Oktoberfest and drank beer all day and met people from all over the world. There was a huge downpour and we were stuck under random tables for about 30 minutes meeting drunk people and then dancing in the rain with them. And basically it was just a magical weekend. I can't wait to get back to Argentina because it is completely different than Chile. The accent is awesome and they don't talk 1000000 words per minute like the Chileans. I came back to Chile with my mind set on getting to Buenos Aires during my month of travel time in December and since I returned I have been reading a travel book on Buenos so that I can be super prepared when I get there!

When I got back from the trip with Megan, it was really hard to concentrate on school. During my time abroad, I realize the intensely difficult balance that we all have to try to attain between working hard in school and our social lives. I don't want to be stuck in my books all the time because there are so many cool things to do here like traveling, talking to locals, and doing the cultural things. BUT I know that at the same time I have 10 page essays due in all of my classes by the end of November...in Spanish...which is gonna require basically a shit load of work. But whatever...with great opportunities comes great responsibility. My medical anthropology class has been going well because we use class time now to discuss/plan our final research projects. Michelle is my teacher and I recently found out that she got her masters from OXFORD! So she speaks English perfectly and when I don't understand, she speaks English with me. I am so grateful for this because the classes that I chose at the Uni are very challenging and I am the first extrajera to take them in history. Leave it to me to blaze my own trail, eh? But it is great to have her speak in my own language sometimes when I am confused.

I turned in my project proposal a couple weeks back and this week she handed it back to me with algunos consejos. Probably the coolest thing was that when she gave it back to me, she put her hand on my arm and said: Bien Rose! It was so heartfelt and really meant the world to me because I never know how good my work is that I turn in here because it is in Spanish! But she really likes my idea for my research question and she gave me the chance to correct the things I needed to in the proposal to turn in later. Of course, I took the time to correct it but I would say that this "redue" process probably took me about 10 hours. No joke. I read and read and read all the articles for the class and wrote and wrote and wrote the things that I wanted to express through my project. Gosh, I hope all of this hard work pays off.

My bioarchaeology class is crazy. Yeah...that is a good way to express it. That class is such a challenge!!! For so many different reasons. I am the first extranjera to take the class and I really don't get any handicap for being an extranjera either. I am expected to do all the readings and take the quizzes in the same amount of time as the other students regardless of my differences. I dunno...I'm all for challenges but honestly these people have taken the first part of this class during Semester 1 and since this is Semester 2, I am already at an disadvantage. Then add on the fact that I have never taken a Bioarchaeology class AND I am not fluent in Spanish AND we use these crazy big words like osteomielitis and hiperstosis porotico and riquetismo...oooh I know the last one...it means RICKETS in Spanish which is associated with iron-deficiency which is a type of anemia that is common in children in which the bones become spongy and weak. This can lead to a bending (or doblamiento) of the bones which we can see projected in the skeletal remains of the child. Ok great Rose...now say what you just said in Spanish. haha Oh gosh its great that I have such a great sense of humor.

This bioarchaeology class has probably been one of the things that has been the most interesting thing about my time here in Chile. From the beginning I have had Addy who is like my best Chilean friend now. She is SO caring and open and understanding. Even when I can't understand her sometimes, she keeps trying and gosh it's hard to express how grateful I am for her kindness. They say that one person can completely change an experience and she has totally proven that. I would have crashed and burned in this class without her as my selfless lab partner who listens patiently to me as I try to express the stuff I know about the skeletons we are analyzing...be it that they have an infeccious disease, a metabolic disease, an arthropathy, or osteoporosis. And because of her kindness, I am slowly starting to see the others in the class opening up to me. Honestly, let it be said that Chilean university students do not talk to the extranjera. Sorry to be blunt but this is blantantly true. I am still trying to figure out the reasons but basically they are either uninterested, super intimidated, or too impatient to see if I may or may not understand them. But like I said, over time and due to my very open personality and possibly my ability to laugh at my mistakes, I am seeing more and more of them open up to me. And that is a good feeling. Now if I just didn't have to write a 10 page research paper on the history of osteoarthritis in past civilizations in the Tarapaca region in the Greater North of Chile, including my analysis of 4 skeletons from these regions. Chucha.

On Thursday, we had our last EAP Culture Class. It is actually quite nice having my Tuesday and Thursday free and not having to get back at 10 pm to my house! But it was a good class overall and I am looking forward to our final essay only because it is a 5 page assignment but it is actually FUN! We get to write about the classes of our choice in the form of a journal entry, adding in our own thoughts about the class amongst cited sources of course. But it is quite obvious that I have no problem expressing myself through journaling so bring it on you final assignment you. My sights are totally set on November right now which actually keeps me working hard on all my school work without complaint. I am going to be traveling 3 out of the 4 weekend in November but that is the same month when all my final essays are due. But dude WHATEVER, I will get the shit done one way or another but I am ALWAYS a good student and I deserve to be rebelious which I am in South America and go travel on the weekends without feeling guilty like I should be working. And that is what I have to say about that.

October 16 to 18

Such a busy last couple of days. So we had our last EAP class like I said previously and that night we all went over to Kelly's house to celebrate. Our friends that we met on the backpackers' train on our way to Machu Picchu were in Santiago staying with Meg so they came. And so were Gary, Elena, Kelly, me, and Megan so it was a Peru Travel Group reunion of sorts. :) I hung out for a couple hours and then Victoria and I left for home. It was nice because we ended up walking through the comuna of Nunoa at 2 in the morning. She has such a great spirit that we just talked and laughed and enjoyed each others company as we walked through the serene neighborhood. Actually, I don't think I will even forget the feeling of safeness that I felt in that place even at 2 am. It was a good feeling.

The next day was our cultural activity to Villa Grimaldi. Villa Grimaldi was a torture center used during the dictatorship and that day our guide was a man who lived through the dictatorship and even spent 2 weeks at Villa Grimaldi. Of course, it felt like more time to him because of the intensity of his time there and he even confessed that he couldn't be sure how much time he was there. But he talked to us in the classroom first for a couple of hours about the layout of Villa Grimaldi and expressed the stories of the people he had spoken too during his decades of research into the events of the dictatorship. To say the least, it was a humbling experience to hear about all the pain that was endured by these people during those dark years. After he spoke to us in the classroom, we took the bus over to the actual center and he took us around and recreated the scenes and experiences that he remembered like it was yesterday. He told us that things like that don't ever leave a person.

There were times when he would stop what he was saying and fight to keep back the tears. Sometimes he couldn't hold them back and we were left helpless...trying to console him but knowing we could only offer our sympathy. To show empathy for an experience such as his would be almost impossible for most people to express. Nonetheless, he gave us his entire account and the accounts of others and we left the place with a solemn appreciation of the difficulties that he and countless others had to experience. After Villa Grimaldi, we went to the Cementario General in Santiago to finish the tour. All in all, the day remains one of the most memorable that I have had during my time in Chile. I will never forget our tour guide and his bravery in expressing all the memories that are still so vivid in his mind and yet so difficult to tell time and time again.

The next day I had another cultural activity to visit a Mapuche population in Santiago. We were greeting by the man and women who were going to lead our discussion that day. The woman was a Machi which is a woman doctor in the Mapuche culture. The man was a type of chief I believe but I dont remember his actual title. Their granddaughter Malen Kiyen behaved much older than the typical 14 year old and we enjoyed several meaningful conversations during the day. They spoke to us about their culture, gave us a tour of the Rucka and the surrounding Ruckas, and we got to eat a lunch of their typical food. Cornbread, sopaipillas, bean soup, fruit kabobs, Chilean wine, and of course, pievra which is a spicy salsa which is usually put on bread during once. After watching an educational movie, we went outside to enjoy the sunlight and sat in a circle to give our introductions to the group. It was kind of like the first day of 10th grade all over again, but in a way, it was super cool because I got to hear all of my fellow EAPers speak Spanish to the group. This is wierd but I have never heard a lot of them speak Spanish because if you think about it, when would I? When I talk with them, we speak English. And if I'm not taking any classes with them or hanging out with them WITH chileans...I never get to hear them. So it was a cool memory. Then we danced a typical Mapuche dance and eso fue todo.

When I got home, Liz came over and we talked about boys, drank tesitos, and then watched YouTube videos. Note: Tesito is just a little cup of tea. Chileans add -ita or -ito to the end of many words and one tends to pick up this habit after being here long enough. It was a great girls' night. You really have to appreciate those as life gets busier and busier. Continuing with the chronology of days past, on Monday I went over to the Puente Alto school to visit with Erick and was lucky enough to intersect the mother of one of the patients that I am observing for my research. I was so scared to ask her if it would be ok to observe her daughter and also to ask her to take her time to fill our my questionaires and do an interview. But she was SO WARM and WILLING TO HELP that I just about fell out of my chair. She was like: What can I do to help? When do you need me to turn the questionaire in? Etc etc. It was absolutely amazing. Actually I am writing this entry a week after all of this occurred but I was at the school today too and I gave all the questionaires to my "subjects" if you will. And when I gave it to the mother of Marie Jose who was there to pick it up from me, she asked me again when she should have it filled out and she must have said THANK YOU 3 times to me. I was blown away but her warmness and willing to help. Those are the kind of people that really make me want to succeed in the challenge of the language. Those are the kind of people that make all the difficulties and challenges and tears and frustrations that one experiences while studying abroad worth it in the end. God bless that woman. But ALSO today I went to talk with the mother of the other patient that I am observing named Tomas who luckily works at the school. And it was the same story which her. Erick gave me an introduction and I explained the rest to her after he left and she was so ready to help that even when I handed her the questionaire, she took it with open arms and wanted to make sure that I would get it back by next Friday and that she was happy to help. SIGH. It just is so lovely when things happen like that.

Study Break

Hey everyone! Gosh this has been a super crazy week...and it's only just begun. I worked alllll weekend on three essays that I have to turn in this week. This whole writing essays in Spanish has proven to be a very difficult process for a perfectionist like me. When I write essays in English, it is bad because I write and rewrite and switch and mix and match...you get the idea. So I'm sure you can only imagine that process that I go through to write these "scholarly" essays but in Spanish. Aye...what discipline I am building here. Well this week I might have a lot to turn in, and last week I might have had a crazy "prueba" that was definitely more like an "examen" at which I wrote 8 pages of solid Spanish vocab for bioarchaeology...but my point is that I am going to Argentina this weekend with Meg to meet Dani Ismael for the first time since we've been penpals. And that was FOURTH grade! So it is going to be a sweet reward that I get three/four days to just relax in Argentina with great friends :)

Yesterday we went to the Teniente Copper Mines with the program, and then I came home and got to go to bed at 8:30 pm!! CRAZY! But knowing me...of course I woke up at 6 am to start my EAP essay to make up for not getting much work done the night before. But I felt so rested that as I sat down at the computer with my slippers, bed head, and cup of hot coffee, I was ready to get to work. I actually managed to write like a page and a half straight so that is nice. Now I just have to go back and finish it. Damn...I hate that part. haha I left the house at 10:30 am to go to Puente Alto to meet with Erick--the occupational therapist who I am going my research with for my medical anthropology final research paper. He works with 8 students who have been integrated into the classes with the other children while working with Erick on Mondays and Fridays to perfect certain skills to promote greater selfconfidence and independence in their daily lives. I observed a little girl named Maria Jose who was in kindergarden but was born without muscle function of her lower extremities. Therefore, she is in a wheel chair and is just about the cutest girl I have ever seen! What an angel! I observed the session and took a ton of notes. It is all so interesting to see how Erick's job requires him to interpret the human mind albeit damaged from some act of nature...and then figure out how he can "trick" it to make it do the job it is supposed to do. I look forward to developing my research for this project, and I actually have to turn in my research proposal on Wednesday so I will be working on this right after this entry. Amidst all the school work, I have to remember that I am being exposed to so many amazing opportunities here that I need to be grateful for every day I can spend here working hard.

After my time with Erick and Maria Jose, I headed over to Hermanos Matte to have the long-awaited taller! We hadn't met for three weeks! There was only three kids today but it was actually nice because it was such an intimate setting that we got to really work on some important concepts. I tried out some new games and we all checked in about how our lives have been since we last met. My lovely friend Annette (who I sang literally the entire N'Sync album with on the bus home from the mines yesterday) taught me a game that she plays when she has all of her friends together which is "Best, Worst, or Funniest" in which you relay either the best, worst, or funniest part of your day. So I told my three students about that game and when I heard that their unanimous answers to my question were: "The best part of my day was Miss Rose's games," I smiled from ear to ear! :)

Hermanos Matte has a new volunteer for the next three weeks named Mikey who is a woman who recently retired from the army but must be in her late 20's at the most. Her husband is in the army still and he is over in Iraq so she needed to get out of the states and do something to keep her mind off that fact. I hope we become great friends during her time here because if she loves Hermanos Matte and all the people there as much as I do, it's going to be hard not to like her! Mikey, Mary Cruz, and I all walked to the metro together and then Mary Cruz and I headed off in one direction towards Los Heroes which Mikey headed the other way. I love Mary Cruz...what a lovely woman. And whenever we speak, it is either/or in terms of English or Spanish because we both speak both languages. What a great combination, huh? On my walk back home from the metro, I gave the most genuine smile to these two workers on the street which I just did spontaneously. But the guy like fell in love at first sight I think because he dropped his hammer and was like: Hola! Hola! hahahah I just said: Hola, como estas? and kept on walking. haha Got home. Skyped with my mama. Fell asleep for a couple hours. And now here I am in the wee hours of the morn' trying to get all the school sheyyyyuttttt done! It's worth it. It's worth it. It's worth zzzzzzzzzzzzzz haha

Well, tomorrow it is back to Puente Alto for me to work with the Gastronomy class. Then I have a big break where I used to go to Hermanos Matte but that is now going to happen on Monday. But its gonna be nice to have 2 to 7 pm open until I go to my culture class. Oh gosh and we only have two more weeks of culture class so my time will be a little more open in two weeks time! :) But you know me...I will quickly find SOMETHING to fill it with. Then Wednesday is my "reward" day because I plan on being done with everything and then going to see La Decision Mas Dificil, going to Med. Anth., and then meeting up with Meg, Mollie, Mikey, and some cool Chileans dudes we met at an international party who are super fun! That's the plan...we'll see what despliegue (<--unfolds...pliegue is fold--like a fold in your clothes...cool huh?)

Now I am going to attempt to upload a video file on here. I hope it works because it would be cool to be a part of this technological exploration that all the kids are doing these days. It's just a little video file...how hard could it be, right? Right. Speaking of technology, my computer definitely has something wrong with it. And I don't know where to take it because I don't know that I could explain the problem in Spanish. That's not really an excuse but I am really gonna have to take it somewhere because it keeps freezing and won't acknowledge things in the USB post and then it freezes I have to manually restart which it is never happy about. Actually in the middle of writing this paragraph about the problem, it just did it again. Bad luck. OK I'm gonna stop writing and add that video to see if I can...before it freezes again. I promise I'll fix it (whining voice)...I just don't wannnnna right now. LOVE YOU ALL! Muah, Rosey