Monday, August 20, 2007: Welcome back to the real world

Monday, August 20, 2007

Wow, I’m finally caught up to today! I slept till 9:45, had breakfast, and headed off to class. I still can’t believe that I only have class 2 days a week and they don’t start till 11:30! Anyway, in my first class Doctrina Social of the Church, the professors asked all the Extranjeros (Foreigners) to stay after class. After class the profé (Chilean for Professor) told us he is worried that we will think the class is a waste of time since it is geared towards Chileans. He wants to make sure we enjoy the class and learn as much as we can (great!) but than said that what we talked about in this class wouldn’t necessarily apply in the States (bad!). I tried to explain to him that there is still a huge disparity of wealth and that this was a Universal concept. I think he understood, but still, the professor had a propuesto (proposition) for us: instead of writing the required essay and taking the in class final, we can write a group paper, in English, about a book (written in English) titled The Priority of Labor, by Gregory Baum (a masterpiece according to the professor). So now I have to decide: take the easier, potentially highly fulfilling way in English or take the much hard, potentially highly fulfilling but in a different way in Spanish. We’ll see, but I’m definitely leading towards the English! I figure I learn Spanish better outside the classroom anyway!

After mass, I went to my Education class, where the teacher surprised us with a pop quiz! I of course didn’t do the reading. This is the first time in my entire life that I honestly had no idea what to write. I couldn’t even BS it. So I wrote something along the lines of, “I didn’t understand the Calendar and didn’t know the reading was for today. Sorry!” After class I asked the TA and she told me that the teacher drops on quiz at the end of the semester and that they aren’t worth much anyway. So I guess I learned my lesson!

Christian and I met up for lunch before I went to my Bible class on the other campus. During lunch it hit me how tired I was and I could barely carry on a conversation. Bible class was again very difficult to follow, especially since my brain was fried. I hate not completely understanding because the 20ish% that I do get, I absolutely love. He is great about class participation and everyone asks questions and gives their opinions. I think I would have a lot to ask about and say if I could only catch up! At the end of class we got back our informes that we had written the week before. This was the two page summary of one of the lectures. I was really nervous about my grade, but I ended up getting a 5 out of 7, which is actually quite decent for my first Chilean assignment. The TA wrote (in Spanish), “Your paper is very interesting. But I think you could develop your arguments more. Don’t worry about the tangles with the language.” So for my next paper, I’m just going to ramble on. Yeah for chill TA’s!!

After class we had another “Chélaton”, or “go have a drink with the professor”. I learned that the name Chelaton actually is a play on words on Tele-a-thon (you know, to raise money for organizations) except that Chela is a Chilean word for beer. Anyway, we all shared a pitcher and Fanta while chatting. I walked the 25 minutes home from campus since it was beautiful outside and needed some exercise. Its really starting to warm up and I’m loving the spring time feel!
I had dinner with Olga and she filled me in on the end of Alquien te mira. It sounds like it was a horrible ending and I’m not too upset that I missed it. I guess that is what you get with telenovelas! Now I’m finally caught up on my journal/blog and I can finally start doing my actual work! Yeah for school!