wrap up

Jeez I'm terrible at this. I seriously thought I would be writing in this on the daily but clearly I am an utter failure. My new goal is to do a weekly update, let's see how that goes hah. But for now I guess I'll give you a break down on various aspects.

School: Never in my life have I ever felt like I'm doing hardly anything for school. It's not because it's a bad school, far from it, it's just that the University tends to give more projects than daily homework.

Human Resources: im really excited for this class! this class is nearly split in half between foreigners and chileans. my professor actually was an exchange student himself at MSU, small world right? he's really upbeat and sort of reminds me of Robin Williams in "The Dead Poets' Societ," no standing on desks or anything but just how he really wants us to challenge ourselves and think beyond the material. Also great because he wants(and by want i mean he's kindly forcing) the chileans to be in groups with the extranjeros. he went on about how its such a fantastic opportunity that they shouldnt throw away.

Marketing: biggest class EVERRRRR!!! in chile if a class changes location for the day or is just cancelled, the professor or secretary or whoever knows, does not post this information on the classroom door for everyone to see. no, why would you do that, it makes too much sense. so of course, when it was me, 4 gringos, and 2 mexicans awkwardly standing outside the classroom door for nearly 15 minutes with no local students around, we knew the chileans were up to something. and OF COURSE the class is not moved to another classroom, its moved to a whole other building entirely! and OF COURSE that building is blocks away from where we were located. Needless to say we were "those foreign kids" when we walked in nearly an hour late. as we approached the double doors to the class, i could see past my gringo friends, the turn of a few dark heads. as i kept walking i saw a sea of dark hair turn and stare as i desperately scanned the room for any open seat to disappear into. being in this class reintroduces to me the idea of dying my hair black so not to be terribly noticeable (i wont do it though).

CIEE Valparaiso: this is the class i chose as my program class. i chose this one because we actually get to run around the city and see places and meet people, artists specifically. its more of an artsy class because professor alejandro (ale ale jandro!) banda is an artsy poet kinda guy. i find it funny that the class is only 10 girls. just the fact that its 10 girls and then this short happy poet professor. i also eat practically all the delicious crackers that they have downstairs with the wonderful green tea

PIIE: PIIE is the foreign program at the University. CIEE is the program that i actually came with and am here with but PIIE is the Pontifica Internacional something something. PIIE classes are all spanish classes; grammar, communication, etc. each student takes a placement test that evaluates every aspect of language. the test opens the doors to what classes you have the option of taking. even though my grammar part of the test was pretty bad (im not good at that on tests) the head of the international program thought that i would have no problem in the advanced program. so thats where i am, spanish communications and chilean culture, a class taught by a waifish bohemian lady who teaches us swears and all other aspects of chilean slang.

Quik updates: metro > micro; metro student pass = 121(sometimes 160 if its really busy) chilean pesos, vina to valpo. micro = 380 chilean pesos, " ". needless to say i preach the good word of the metro.
friends and i are thinking of Wine Wednesdays, Terremoto Thursdays and Vino Viernes. not to say we're drinking all these nights, ive hardly drank here as it is but i enjoy the alliteration(rhonda yee)
*fun fact: "terremoto" means "earthquake" in spanish for those of you non Latin speakers trudging through my writing. the chileans say the drink (made up of beer, amarretto, something else and icecream) is like an earthquake because when youre done drinking this seemingly harmless and delicious drink, everythings moving like an earthquake! ah ya get it?!
went with my gringas to concon (beautiful) and went horseback riding

i really hate writing such long entries because i feel like no one would read the whole thing especially if its about school so i hope that now i can actually start writing interesting things now that i have you all caught up.

Una Semana

So I've been (clearly) very bad about this whole blog business seeing as I'm writing a week later after my departure from the Dirty D, also known as Detroit.
I guess I'll just brush over and cram a bowling ball of things into a nutshell:
*Chile is awesome
*my host family, Patricia (Patty) and Eduardo (Edu) are the bomb
*alcohol is really cheap
*absolute heathens with no heat
*beautiful
I'm living in Viña del Mar which is known as a resortsy kind of locale. It's a really great location with the beach and great places to check out, even though our guides made it sound like you will get robbed every 5 seconds, which hey, it's probably possible. Valparaiso, only a quick 5 minute micro ride away (Chile transportation is really hectic and strange,surprise, so I may save a tutorial on that for later)