Last Month was Ridiculous

Sorry it's been so long. I've been outrageously occupied with a bunch of seemingly trivial crap this month, peppered with small and amounts of fury, wonder, fear, surprise, and pleasure.


To start the month, I had been getting pestered by my doctors in the U.S. to go get some checkups. For those of you who don't know, I had an illness when I was younger that requires I receive some rather complicated medical attention every once in a while. I detest hospitals and medical attention with a virulent passion, which I inherited from my father, who would rather suffer until he dies then get a physical, but that doesn't change the fact that I have to go. Anyways, you can imagine the hassle I felt having to hunt for a doctor down here. (A note about the medical system in Chile: there are public hospitals and private hospitals. You must pay for the services you want to receive up front at both types. However, if you were gut shot with a pistol point blank and went to a public hospital, you would probably bleed out and die on the floor from lack of attention next to someone who was dying from a stab wound who had been waiting longer than you for help. I went to a private hospital.)


I had been trying to set up an appointment with this hospital in Vitacura but the line had always been busy, no matter which one I called, so I had to physically go to the hospital just to ask for an appointment. Vitacura happens to be one of the wealthiest comunas in the Santiago area and is located all the way on the other side of the entire city from me and my humble and pobre surroundings. Getting there requires my riding the metro at the beginning of one line to the end of the line and transferring to a different line, riding that to the end of the line, walking to a huge bus station where people literally are shoving, shouting, punching and kicking to get on one of like, three buses, and riding that super over-crowded bus a half hour and then walking a few more blocks to one of the nicest hospitals in rich person Chile. So, I got up at six in the morning on a friday which is retardedly early. I usually don't have to work until two and sleep until noon, but on fridays I don't work until five, so you can imagine how pissy I was. I didn't know how long this process was going to take so I got up extra early, to be safe. Completely unnecessary.

I got to the hospital at eight thirty after unintentionally groping and being groped by thousands of public transportation passengers. Slightly flustered after this ordeal, I made my way to the ninth floor. The time was eight-thirty three. I spoke with the receptionist and set an appointment for monday at nine in the morning and left at eight-thirty five. I was a little annoyed but became more annoyed when I realized I still had to battle the rush hour commute to get back home.

Monday rolled around and I went back to the hospital. I met with a doctor and scheduled some appointments over the next two days, as my schedule would allow. Tuesday I came back ass-early in the morning and the nurses at the blood lab had some outlandish rules about drawing blood and wouldn't take my blood because I had eaten a bunch of food right before I came in. I was like, okay that's fine, and asked if I should eat anything before I came in tomorrow afternoon. They said no. So the next day I didn't eat any breakfast or lunch, went to work, then went all the way back to the hospital where the nurses wouldn't take my blood because I hadn't had anything to eat in fourteen hours! I flipped out in my head, which they kind of gathered, and left in a huff. At least I got one test done while I was there that day. Wednesday, I got up early again (which was starting to wear on me) and had another test done and discovered that they had changed the date of my next test to thursday morning at seven-forty and there was a two hour wait at the blood lab, which I couln't swing. By this time I was used to leaving the hospital red with fury, so I just left in a stormy silence. Also, for the thursday test I couldn't eat dinner the night before or breakfast, and I ended up not eating for the entire day just because I was super busy. Thursday rolls around, and I get to the hospital at seven so I can get my bloodwork done no matter what. I slide a white lie to the nurse (I had thought this handy trick up the night before to ensure my goals were accomplished.) and finally had my blood drawn. I leave and pick up the results of the previous days tests and zip up to the other lab to get my last test done. I'm chatting with the cute receptionist after making sure everything is ready to go. She asks how I'd like to pay, and I begin to pull out my credit card when I realize that somewhere in the hour between my arriving to the hospital and coming to this last, final obstacle in the massive pain in the ass this whole experience has been that I've lost my wallet which contained both my public transportation card, ATM card, my credit card, my super important chilean ID, and all the money that I had to my name. So, after a mild heart attack I politely excuse myself, and go back to the last place I was, which was the X-ray place where I picked up my results. I budge ahead of fifteen people as nicely as possible to ask if I left my wallet there and am promptly told that I need to take a number and wait at the back of the line. As I begin to protest, another receptionist interrupts me and says the same thing in broken indecipherable English, much worse than my Spanish, which only helps to infuriate me. My final appointment was quickly approaching and here I was, in a forty-five minute line (at least) waiting to ask two snotty receptionists if I had left my wallet there, which I probably hadn't! I was furiously damning the Chilean medical system, Chile as a country, all the Chileans that worked in this bastard hospital, as well as the initial medical problem which required I be there in the first place when the one thing I had to my name, my cell phone, rang. A nurse in the very blood lab that had been the previous bane of my existence had called to let me know that she was in possession of a wallet that had all my documents and a sizeable amount of money in it and wanted to know if I was still in the hospital. Joy of joys! Tearfully happy, I exited the X-ray department, went to the lab, got my wallet, kissed a slightly bewildered nurse, and returned to the second floor where to my amazement, everything went perfectly smoothly, and I left with only the beginnings of a slight ulcer, as opposed to a full on bleeder. I had to return fridayto go over the results with my doctor but at the more respectable time of eleven thirty. He pronounced me perfectly healthy and told me what my U.S. doctor always told me, stop smoking and don't drink so much. My week long trial of fire in the Chilean medical system had been completed successfully! That night I celebrated by drinking and smoking heavily.



Compared to the hospital crap, sending the results to the U.S. was only a slight pain. They don't sell envelopes big enough to fit X-rays, despite the fact that I was continually told that the next office supply store around the corner was sure to sell them, because they knew it for a fact. Lies! All lies! I had to buy a plastic tube that was way too big but would have to do. I also had to photocopy all the paper results and receipts and crap which turned out to be a hassle because I only had big bills for two days and all the places I went to couldn't make change. When I finally had smaller bills the first two shop's machines weren't working and the third one was out of ink. I went to another one who could make photocopies but got pissed off because I didn't have really small bills, only medium sized bills. Who has problems making change for the equivalent of ten U.S. dollars, especially when the dollar blows right now! Anyways, I finally get the photocopies made and everything packaged up. I get to the post office right before they are closed and are told that this particular post office doesn't have the means to process credit cards. I was a bit suspicious and asked probably a little too incredulously and sarcastically if this was an actual post-office, and not just a store pretending to be a post office, and was chased out by the sassy post-matron who was apparently not up for taking the insults of a close-minded gringo. The weekend passed and I found a post-office that was operating in the modern world and could process credit cards.



In between all these hiccups I went to a barbeque for my homestay brothers birthday, which was really fun. On weekends this massive park called Parque Intercomunal de La Reina fills up with young people and families grilling, listening to music, drinking, playing soccer, riding bikes, smoking weed, playing intsruments, and in general just enjoying themselves. I've been there a couple times and this was just as fun as before.



I also went to the pre-cordillera of the Andes to a place called Cajòn del Maipo. Me and a couple friends hiked up to some small waterfalls and wandered around some dusty villages in this weaving canyon. It was really nice to get out of the city and breath some fresh air and hear the wind blowing through the trees and nothing more. I think we'll be going back soon because there are some lakes at the end of the road that we weren't able to get to that I'd like to see.



There were some more riots in a park downtown. Every sunday the park fills up with hippies hawking every imaginable thing and creating big drum circles with dancers flying all around. There's a lot of pickpockets and drug dealers that come up, and you can literally see a cloud of marijuana smoke hovering above a couple thousand people. Normally, the carabineros don't break this up, but there most have been a real preponderance of drugs and tomfoolery, because they came blasting in with full riot gear on. Almost immediately the air began to be full of not only marijuana smoke, but flying bottles and rocks, directed at the carabineros, who deflected the projectiles off their kevlar and plastic riot shields, while surging forth into the crowds. After a heated half an hour the park had settled down for the most part, and some people had been arrested.



Hand in hand with urban violence goes muggings. I was at a bus stop with my friend Andy and two girls we had met at a club that night. It was about five-thirty in the morning and we were fairly close to my house, maybe three-quarters of a mile, but were right by a sketchy neighborhood. A guy and his girlfriend were at the bus stop with us, and we weren't paying much attention when all of a sudden, these two guys jumped out and started wailing on this guy, kicking and punching him, trying to go after his girl's purse. He's fighting back and Andy thinks he sees a gun and books off. I'm unsure as to whats going on and don't know who is attacking and who is being attacked. The guy's girlfriend runs off sans purse, and the girls were with are dragging me across the street. The guy gets punched a couple more times and lets go of the purse and the two guys book it towards El Nuevo Amanecer, a shitty neighborhood right by the bus stop. Craziness. You really have to be careful late at night. It all happened so fast, but I still feel kind of like a sissy for not helping out.

These last two weeks have seen a real change in the weather from hot in the day and cool at night to cool in the day and freezing cold at night. Due to this, I've developed a wicked cold and have been resfriado for the last week and a half. Most of the time, I wander around the school high as balls off Nastizol, which is like Chilean sudafed, and sort of helps with the congestion. I'm starting to feel a little better though. The pollution doesn't help and has been pretty nasty. We need a good rain to clear it out for a day or two.

So in between all these going ons I've been able to hang out with the secretary at the school a little bit. She's a cute little lady and enjoys my company. That's all I'll say about that.

That's all that's fit to print, and I'll let you know what happens when it happens.
(The computers are to slow to put pictures on, so I'll have to go to a different café to put some pictures of the mountains up, but there beautiful.)

Just to say hello...

Hello all. It's been a hell of a month and I can only say that I'll keep it brief. Muggings, riots, the pre-cordillera of the Andes, medical services, medical expenses, several late night parties, post office malfunctions, being "resfriado", the attractive school secretary, and a general lack of sleep have keep me very busy and demasiado cansado. I can only say that within a couple days those of you who pay attention to this thang should be graced with some sweet photos and a rather lengthy explanation to the aforementioned happenings... until then, chau! Which of course is Chilean for ciao.

Finally, Some Photos of the School and My House

I finally charged my batteries and am able to upload some photos of my house and the school. I hope you enjoy! They are: my room 2x, Princesa, my ancient dog, the living room and a colectivo, my main mode of transportation to and from school. Graffiti on the way to school, a view of the building from the street and a couple shots from inside the building and the patio. I also work at an annex down the street but it's not very photogenic. There's also a ton of graffiti in the school, which I'll have to upload at some point in the future. The graffic design students have a lot of skill and there are some awesome murals in the hallways on the fifth, sixth and seventh floors that I enjoy all the time.

Also, I had the opportunity to help some of my students out with a video they were making for a different class. I played the part of a tourist who asked the wrong person to take a photo of me and had my camera stolen. It was fun because the students had to make an actual video with multiple angles and cut shots and other technical terms. I had to memorize a few short lines of dialogue for my part and was in several scenes. It was pretty fun and my students enjoyed the extra points having a professor in their video might bring them!

My First Riot!

Today was Day of the Youth Combatant in Santiago. Two sides to this story. 1. It marked the killing of two young brothers, Rafael and Eduardo Vergara, who were fighting for MIR, or the leftist revolutionary movement. They were assasinated by carabineros in the Pinochet regime March 29th, 1985. High school and university students protest against a dictatorial educational system and various other demands, like changing the newly established transportation system, Transantiago. 2. The two brothers killed were robbing a bakery, and the carabineros showed up to arrest them, the situation escalated, and they were killed. My director told me that today is also called "El día de los Delincuentes" because in general, delinquents use the occasion to rob, beat up, break windows, burn tires, and cause general mayhem. Unfortunately, I don't live in a well lit area and have been directed to cancel my last class, which would normally end at 10:45, and go directly to my house. Also, I've been told that my neighborhood is rife with delinquents and there isn't reliable transportation anywhere: colectivos, taxis, metro, buses, and the like are spotty. How will I get home? I certainly don't want to walk through some of the projects that litter my path to and from the school...

Anyways, students usually come out in droves for these protests, which often turn violent, with students clashing against water cannon spraying and tear gas lobbing carabineros. Today has been no different. Lots of fire bombs and rock throwing went on as carabineros in riot gear knocked some heads around and arrested a couple hundred people. Some students had organized a peaceful protest in Plaza Italia, at the center of the city, but everybody knew that fighting would break out, which it did sporadically throughout the city. As I write this, it is early evening, and more mayhem is predicted to occur later tonight.

I had plans to go clubbing with all the people from Pelotón, the reality TV show that one of my acquaintances was on. We've got free VIP passes and are going to rub shoulders with a lot of rich people that piss me off and make me wish I had paying job, not a volunteer job. Either way, I'm pretty far away from the a majority of the violence, and only need to worry about my long, dark, and now, presumably dangerous trip home. Don't know if I'll make it to the club though. I will be going downtown tomorrow, but by then the carabineros should have kicked everybodies asses enough so they calm down.

Classes are going well and I have my first test to give on Monday and Wednesday. I was able to burn my photos to some cds and should have some new ones of my house and my school posted whenever I write next. I also get my first stipend next week, which is dandy! I can blow through that instead of my own money, which continues to dwindle rapidly...

I would've put some photos of the riots on there, but I couldn't transfer the photos correctly. Just look up http://www.infoshop.org/ and search for Day of the Youth Combatant, Chile. It's a pretty leftist website, which you might gather from all the "comrades" and "down with capitalism" that pops up, so take it with a grain of salt and search CNN, too. Or google image the photos, because I've certainly never been anywhere where stuff like this happens.

Week One, Almost Done

This has been an interesting week. I've met with all my classes and tommorow will finish my first week. Thursday and Friday I teach until ten-forty five at night which is kind of a bummer but that's life. I've learned quite a bit about the flexibility required to be a teacher and have already encountered some troubles, which are as follows:

1. Students who have class late at night are about as motivated to learn as a millionaire being told they have to eat fast food the rest of their life instead of going to awesome restaurants.

2. Students don't like to either 1. Show up for the first day of class or 2. Show up for the first day of class and then don´t come for the rest of the week, even if they saw their professor twenty minutes before class starts and said hello.

3. Students have a wide variety of knowledge about the English language ranging from extensive (even if they´re in basic one) to not at all (even if they're in intermediate one) and I have to make sure that there is an even blend of difficulty so that everybody can grasp the material.

4. If a lot of students miss class, I feel obligated to review for at least twenty minutes what we covered in the last class, while everybody else who came before nods off or starts talking to their friends in Spanish, which is an English class no no.

5. If I go through the material too fast, I have to think up activities for the students to until at least seven minutes before the class is done, otherwise the students feel jilted and the other professors think I'm a slacker. (I found out that making everybody write paragraphs about what we've learned can suck up seven or eight minutes, and having them share what they've written can suck up another five to seven minutes, leaving me with twenty minutes to panic until I can kick them out and breath easy.)

6. Beauracracy sucks! I have to grin and bear it when the administration tells me that I won't be receiving any of my books for at least two weeks and I just need to review what they learned last year for the next two weeks, about which of course, I haven't the faintest clue. Also I won't have my password to access the school's network to communicate with my students about upcoming homework assignments and quizzes until the middle of the semester. (Using the school's network is a required part of the curriculum, I should point out.)


Despite all these frustrations, I feel incredibly successful and happy with how I've taught. There are several little things about teaching that I've already noticed that make me really happy, which are:

1. Recognizing your students and remembering their names and having them say hello to you when you're not in class.

2. Having students tell you after the class that they really enjoyed class and look forward to the next one.

3. Having a student who is having a really hard time grasping the material finally have it click in their head and being able to praise them for the small victories and knowing that they feel good about what they learned.

4. When students say something that you haven't taught them specifically but have been using in class, and they form a sentence or a statement with vocabulary they've never used before.

5. What teacher doesn't like being in a position of power? To be at the helm of a class and have everybody taking notes over what you're putting on the board, following the directions you give them for activities, and participating in the manner you want them to is a great feeling, especially if they're laughing and enjoying the activities that you planned. It is nice to be in a position of respect, and I hope that through diverse lesson plans and sound teaching, I maintain and cultivate the respect that the students and staff have for me. Although the power thing is awesome.


So getting through this first week has been a big challenge, but now that it's almost over, I'm looking forward to the rest of the semester even though this lesson planning business takes up a huge chunk of my time. I signed up for it though, so I better produce.

Oh, yeah, and having all my chica students who wore unflattering pants on the first day show up in mini-skirts on the second day smiling widely at me was pretty sweet, too. Down boy!

First Day of Class!

Well, I´m halfway through the first day of classes. I had one intermediate class at two in the afternoon and then a four hour break until my first basic class at seven in the evening. My last class is another intermediate class from eight thirty until ten o´clock at night. Tuesday I have another intermediate class at two and that´s it. Wednesday I have a new basic class and my fifth and final class, which is an intermediate class.

I was pretty nervous for my first class but it went really well and I feel a lot better about stepping into the other classrooms. My students were hesitant at first but got into it as the class went along. I only had four students in that class, even though there is supposed to be fourteen in the class. Similar to the United States and the first day of classes where no one shows up.

I teach blocks of students that are all in the same program. For example, my first class were all computer engineering students and my next class is graphic design students. I think I have some publishing students and one other program that I´ll be teaching English to. Either way, it went really well and I hope to be able to prepare some fun classes as the semester progresses.

I am all moved in with my family now and it´s nice to have my own room. My room is tinier than when I lived in Costa Rica but that´s okay. I have all my stuff unpacked and was able to find my credit card and drivers license but need to get my card unblocked so I can use it.

My family is really nice and I went out salsa and merengue dancing with my homestay sister and some of her friends and we came home all sweaty at like, five-thirty in the morning. It´s nice that I don´t have to work until two in the afternoon everyday. Hopefully I can get into some sort of excercise rythm because I feel like I´m getting pretty out of shape, but who´s to say? At least I´m close enough to the school to walk every day until it starts raining heavily. It´s still pretty hot but that should change in the next month or so.

My friend Jane with whom I studied and traveled with in Costa Rica is down here in Santiago trying to find work. Ironically, we went out for some beers and a movie and while we were dringking she enquired about work and might have gotten a job working in a bar right next to where I teach at Mall Plaza Vespucio! Hopefully when this year is done if I want to stay I´ll be able to find work fairly quickly. Who knows? I might have to start working in a restaurant again down here, but I doubt that. My years worth of teaching experience and native language skills should be able to secure a job in the rich part of Santiago to the northeast.

Well, that´s all for now. I have to get ready for class. I need to burn some pictures to cds so I can take some of my family and where I live. I will talk to everybody later!

Night Terrors!

All right, so I´ve wrapped up my training this week and next week begin four days of training with the Chilean educational folks for my work at DuocUC. It sucks that soon a lot of my friends will be spread out around the country and we won´t be able to hang out so much but at the same time, it is nice to be moving in with a family and next spending so much money.

I´ve met some really cool people and went to an asado, or a barbecue, with a family of Carabineros. The Carabineros are the national police and a branch of the military. God forbid I get arrested for anything down here, but at least I have some people I can call and name drop...

I also met this girl on a Chilean reality TV show and a guy that plays for one of the most popular soccer teams in Chile, Colo Colo. They are all friends with the Carabinero family and through them I met a really cute girl who I´ve been hanging out with. It´s pretty expensive to do any dating, but girls are nice, so I´ll have to sacrifice a little something I suppose.

Probably the most god awful experience I´ve had occurred last week at three in the morning. That evening, I had just finished reading a terrifying psychological thriller that was on par with ¨Silence of the Lambs¨. I went to bed around one AM and had these really creepy dreams where my apartment was being broken into and there were dead cats with kittens mewing and crawling around. Really creepy stuff. Well anyways, the guy that sleeps on the bunk below me snores, and around three in the morning, I woke up because he was kind of snorting a little. The ambient light was really bright, and it was like a city looks like in winter at night, kind of reddish brown. I look down, and my other roommate is on top of his sheets with his arms flat against his body, which is completely rigid and looks like a human board. That kind of creeped me out, but then I hear this other noise, that isn´t my friend snoring. It sounds like metal tearing while a teapot is whistling, with weird clicks and sounds like the kid from The Shining saying ¨redrum, redrum¨. I look over on the other top bunk and see my other roommate with his arms extended behind his head, screeching. He then slams his arms down on his side and whips his body halfway and starts jerking erratically and shaking, all while making this noise. Then he stops with his leg extended all the way out over the bed. He flips his leg back on the bed and stops. Five seconds later, he whips back up and starts jerking around and making this noise, seemingly like someone possessed by the devil. He slams back down on his bed and doesn´t move. I´m basically crying in fear at this point and spent the rest of the night sleepless, or bolting awake if anyone makes any sort of motion whatsoever. When everybody gets up, I tell this dude what happened, and he´s like ¨I don´t remember any of that, but my leg is really sore, and I didn´t do anything strenuous to make it sore.¨ Needless to say, it´s been hard for me to fall asleep now.

That´s it for now. Here´s to no more night terrors!