Last week felt more like a real life than any of those before it. I had things to do, and they felt more like part of a routine than discovering new things all of the time. That wasn't bad at all actually. This was a very good week. I'm feeling more comfortable with just about everything-- what I can do in the house, who I can call if I need something to do, how to get where I'm going when I go alone, etc.
My weekly afterschool schedule:
Monday- Soccer
Tuesday- Soccer, then to the gym with the other exchange students for the fitness class that's replaced our Cueca class. I'm going to steal the phrase step-aerobics from my mom to describe it, tho part 2 of each class is a core workout on mats. It isn't necessarily my cup of tea, but I don't feel particularly insecure about my masculinity, and it's good to see the other kids while getting some killer abs. Anyway, I think I'm going to be particularly tired Tuesday nights.
Wednesday- Nothing. This week I helped some classmates with their English homework then walked around downtown with Liz, an exchange student from Michigan.
Thursday-Fitness class otra vez!
Friday- hopefully soccer games most weeks. I can only play when the games are friendlies, but so far that's been 2/3 weekends (I didn't join the team until my 2nd week and we were on break for one week). This week we won 4-1. I started at sweeper, but played most of the game at stopper. It's good clean fun.
Saturday is not going to have a routine. This saturday was actually pretty mantastic. I went to Molina (a smaller city a half hour from Curicó) with the other Rotary exchange students in
Curicó and some of the host families for an after-the-fact asado (BBQ) for 18 Septiembre, Chile's independence day. Lots of good relaxing and hanging out, as well as delicious sopaipilla (fried squash bread), kite flying (I'm actually pretty good at it now after being taught by my extended host family at their 18 asado), and a very silly relay. I lost because I dropped my egg at the end, but it was because I was running to catch up with Breno the Brazilian who ended up winning.
Later that night I went to a party with some friends. I was with the kids in the class above me, who are all my age , and it was a healthy heaping of fun. Plus, I now have an open invite to call them on the weekends and join in on their plans are, so that's pretty dope.
Sunday for me was a lazy day, since I got back quite late Saturday night/Sunday morning. Yom Kippur (holiest Jewish holiday, AKA The Day of Atonement) started Sunday night, and I watched Kol Nidre and the rest of the night service through streaming video on OurJewishCommunity.org, which despite the lame name, is actually pretty sweet. It's based out of a humanistic synagogue in Ohio, where they rewrote all of their liturgy to de-emphasize god and miracles and such in favor of "the humanistic values of intellectual honesty, open inquiry and human responsibility." They change some other things too, and I find it really interesting (BTW, thanks mom for sending the link). Yom Kippur actually passed pretty well. Fasting wasn't as hard as I expected given that I was doing it alone, I got some quality reflection in, and at the end of the day, I wandered around the centro with Anna from NC, then ate a gigantic meal at a Chinese restaurant for my break-fast.
On an unrelated note, I was in a local paper (for the second time) a few days ago. Check it out. I'm the one in the purple shirt.
3 things that are different here
1.To illustrate counting, instead of making 4 parallel lines then one diagonal across them, Chileans draw the 4 sides of a square, then a diagonal line through the middle. It's easier to count at a glance, but it's less space efficient.
2. The whole dynamic of college is different here. Right from the start, you have to know your concentration, and you're quite locked into it. It's a lot more career oriented, and there are relatively few elective classes. Also, nobody lives in dorms, the application is just grades and a standardized test, and it's really common to go home every weekend.
3. At least in my school, no one uses three ring binders-- spiral notebooks for everyone. That's not weird at all, but I was a little more surprised that all of the notebooks here are full of graph paper. I'm yet to see a single college-rule or wide-rule notebook, even in the store.
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