Thursday, October 25, 2007 Off to Pucon!

Thursday, October 25, 2007 Off to Pucon!

I went and volunteered as usual but today the teacher decided to show a film. Part of me was relieved that I wouldn’t have to deal with the kids but another part of me was a little disappointed because I was pretty much useless. The movie was a 20 minute short film in English made by a famous rock group that I can’t remember now. Maybe the Smashing Pumpkins or something. She told me that they would understand it because it was slow and had good images, so figured it would be a cool video. Come to find out it is about a drug addicted couple who lives on the street. The woman, who is pregnant, narrates the story basically talking about her past, her hopes for the futures, and the vicious cycle of drug addiction. There was no lack of f-bombs, alcohol and drug use, prostitution, violence, and basically all the things that you should NEVER show to a class of high school kids. I couldn’t believe it! The worst part is that the kids didn’t understand anything and just watched the craziness.

And what’s worse is that the kids convinced her to let them watch it twice so they “could understand more”. So after the 2nd class I asked her if I could just leave because I wasn’t doing anything. I was honestly starting to feel nausea and she didn’t seem to care, so I came home early.

I went for a run, showered, and then had lunch with Olga. In the afternoon I went to pick up a letter of admission to the Universidad Católica so I could get a Student Transportation Pass for the Metro. A friend of mine heard how foreign students could finally get a pass which was a new thing, so I jumped on the band wagon. The student passes are 1/3 the price of the regular passes, so with it I will save almost 70 bucks over the next month and a half. So I got my letter, went to the office, got my pass and came home. About 2 hours after I got back we got an email from our program director saying that the new “program” to allow foreign students to get a Student Pass was actually a loophole in the system and we shouldn’t really be able to get them. But darn, I already got mine!!

I spent the rest of the afternoon doing homework and getting ready to leave for Pucon with our program. We were supposed to meet up at the office at 9 pm but Courtney was going to come by to eat a quick once on her way since she didn’t have time to go home between her volunteer job and getting to the office. But she didn’t get to my house till about 8:30, so we ate super quick and left right at 9 pm. We are apparently slowly becoming Chilean: always late. When we finally got to the office everyone was on the bus and they were waiting for us.

Thursday evening consisted of hanging out with some of the coolest kids I’ve ever met on our way to Pucon. Basically all my favorite people from my program went on the trip so I was super excited. We watched a stupid/funny Adam Sandler movie “I Now Pronounce You Ted and Larry” or something like that. Around 1 am everyone fell asleep, knowing we’d need some rest for tomorrow.