hola, me llamo Lincy

Tuesday (aka- The terrible horrible no good very bad day that got better)

So despite all of my efforts not to take early morning classes AND have a tuesday-thursday class schedule, I´ve realized that the only way to make my classes fit both of those criteria would be to take really lame classes that don´t interest me. Therefore, my new goal is to find a happy medium: take interesting classes monday-thursday with only one 8:30am class. Not ideal, but it works. Plus I only have one class on Mondays, so it wouldn´t be a tragedy if a need for a 4-day weekend ever arises.

So Tuesday was my first attempt to go to a 8:30am class- The LatinAmerican Telenovela. Not only is it an early class, it´s also located on an obscure campus about an hour away. However, the course sounded very interesting so it was worth the sacrifice of sleep. Fortunately one of my friends had a class at the same time and at the same campus, so we decided to navigate our commute together.

Things started off well - we met at 730 at a metro station and boarded the correct bus in the correct direction. However, with so many people on the bus we had trouble reading the road signs and consequently missed our stop and then had no idea where the heck we were. Got off the bus, wandered all over, first relying on our own intuition and map-reading abilities (bad idea) and then asking people for directions (good idea).

After getting lost in many a foreign land with many hours of lost frustration, I´ve finally realized that asking people for help is nothing to be embarrassed about or scared of. Even if people have no idea how to get you to your destination, they can usually give you one little tip or suggestion that will help you along your way and then a friendly onlooker often steps in to contribute a little more knowledge and then usually you´re good to go. Besides, talking to people takes you out of your ¨i´m so frustrated and lost and confused" discombobulated mentality and forces you to calm down. Sometimes when I´m lost and I´ve been staring at the same map for an extended period of time, I just lose all common sense and start running in circles instead of taking a moment to stand still and think logically.

Arrived on campus around 8:45, but then I had to find out where my class was located b/c the room wasn´t posted in our course book. Of course, the rooms are not posted in a central location, so i go to the theater department and they tell me to go to room R1 and i go to R1 and nobody is there and eventually I learn that the class has been cancelled and won´t be offered this semester (GAHHHHH).

So then I make attempt number 2 to go to class. Travel 30 min to a new campus, cant find the building, so I assume I must have confused the street name with the name of another street in a different part of the city. Travel there, then call my friend and learn that my original location was correct- the building is just kind of hidden. So I go back to my original location (after accidentally going the wrong way on the metro) and run into a friend who is heading to the same class as me. We ask the front desk for the room number of the class and it´s not listed on the schedule for this campus! And we eventually find out that the class doesn´t start til Thursday. Fabulous.

Fortunately, the day improved from there. Since we didn´t have class, my friend and I grabbed lunch at a little hole-in-the-wall. A lot of these small restaurants don´t really have menus - they just have a meal of the day and you can choose certain aspects of the meal (soup or salad, fish or meat, etc) Ate salad, salmon, rice, fresh pulpy pineapple juice and chocolate flan for $5. yum yum.

Then I successfully went to my first class of the day - Images of Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral. It´s a poetry class about two of Chile´s finest writers, but it´s more geared towards foreign students to help us develop our speaking and writing abilities as we discuss the poems and draw pictures about the poems (sweet!) and write our own poems (yikes). Should be interesting....

And miraculously my next class was a success as well - La Catolica offers a mountaineering class where you learn the essentials of mountain climbing and then you get to go on a bunch of excursions throughout the year. Walked into class and was greeted by this crazy ponytail wearing mountain cracking jokes at everyone and wearing a Wharton Leadership Ventures t-shirt. Apparently, he´s guided the WLV trips to Antarctica and Patagonia and such for the past 6 years, and I can see why -- this guy knows his mountain stuff and he also knows how to keep a group of people entertained. I´m desperately hoping to take this class, but unfortunately, only 20 spots are open to foreigners. Hopefully Ill get in!

Wednesday (aka - Hola, me llamo Lincy)

Despite my attempts to avoid North American chains of all kinds, I simply couldn´t stand the weak excuse for coffee (Nescafe instant mix) that is available at my house. Therefore, after pondering and pondering, I came up with three reasons that would validate my urging to enter the Starbucks that I pass every day.

Reason 1: My dad asked me to look for a Santiago city mug (sorry pops- they didn´t have one. Are they still selling them in other parts of the world?)
Reason 2: I was thinking about looking at globalization/the intrusion of American chains in Chile as a potential paper topic. So I needed to do some field work.
Reason 3: I needed to be awake for class and therefore needed a real cup of coffee.

So I got my soy dulce de leche latte (so much better here b/c its real dulce de leche) in a cup with my name (Lincy) written on it. I think I´m going to start writing my name like that because then people will have an easier time saying it. When they see Lindsay, they want to say Leen-saaay because they don´t pronounce d´s.

Then went to my second class of "The Feminine in God". Once again, it was a good class and I understood the lesson. Hoooray.

Moved to the next campus and thirty minutes later arrived at a class titled "Chilean Political Institutions" that ended up being a second-semester (they just finished winter break, so this is like their spring semester) Chilean Constitutional Law class (why don´t they say that in the course book!!). I thought something was wrong when there were no other foreigners in the class and everyone was staring at me. When the professor started talking going into a lecture about Article 5.3434 of the Chilean constitution, I made my graceful exit and heard an explosion of laughter as I closed the door. Sigh.

THEN since I was having trouble finding ANY polisci classes, I decided to check out beginner´s French (I´ve been wanting to learn it for awhile...might as well start now...). Once again, it´s a mess finding the room and then the teacher showed up 20 min late and then I find out that this is ALSO a second semester class...so it´s not beginner´s french - it´s intermediate french. I leave when the professor starts handing back the french papers that the students wrote from last semester. GAH.

Walked home to release some of my frustration and then did my poetry homework. Had a terrible dinner of¨vegetable torte (layers of flour tortillas, mayo, tuna, avocado, corn and lettuce) and explained to Victoria that I´d prefer less mayo on my section. (her response: "but it´s light mayo!") Well it´s not light when you squirt it on like icing on a cake!

Thursday:
Made an attempt at another 830am class. Got to campus and found out that the class was not going to be offered this semester either. Now I´m in the computer lab killing time until my next class starts (let´s hope it starts!). Better go work on my paper and start my poem.

Ciao!

Lindsay