Plantastic!

Phrase of the week: festivally plump
This week was a week spent planning.
Chilean Universities: Monday, Fabia sent the five of us who are staying an email saying that she had gone to pick up our orientation packets from U de Chile, which consisted of a messenger bag and a book full of classes like “Social Memory, Official History: Conflicts in Chile.” Aubrey and I went to talk to the lady in charge of the U de Chile branch of foreign students, and all she basically said was go ask the prof if we could sit in on classes. So on Thursday, we went to classes, both of which were filled with gringos. Because we were slightly disappointed, we both decided to go to a class next Tuesday together, and I think I’m going to stop in at a couple others. I intended to go to one on Friday (only for this Friday) but was scared off by all the Chileans there. There are also some classes at the U Catolica that sound interesting, so I have to go talk to those folk as well.
Community Service: Tuesday, I tried to find my community service interview. So I took the metro out to where they told me to take a collectivo (a cheaper form of taxi) to where I needed to go. Since I couldn’t find the collectivo, I took a taxi. The taxi driver thought that I was lost so took me to a street and a hostel in Barrio Brasil that I did not tell him to take me to. I went back to Fabia, tired of trying to make this stupid community service thing work. But then I talked to Kara and her community service boss and now will be talking to women at an old folks home close to Palacio Cousiño, if you wanted to orient yourself.
Host Family: rocks. They are really, really great and very different than the host family I am living with now. There are two little boys who are absolutely adorable. The mom is really sweet and knows all the right questions to ask and the dad (who wasn’t there for most of the time that I was) is also really sweet and they are going to make life very easy and family oriented for me next quarter. Which at this point is kind of what I need. I miss home and Wednesday morning coffee.
Bing dinner: Was a preparation for saying goodbye and looking forward to new people coming in some ways. There were also strip dancers and professors. To say the least, it was a little awkward. Fabia found this Cuban dance place for Susie Cashion, the visiting prof. The show include with dinner had girls in thongs and men in sparkly athletic wear. Sad panda. We all embraced the awkward together, clothed.
This weekend was not planning but generally awesome with jazz, wine and cheese, a visit to Villa Gremaldi and climbing a cerro with Kara and her host dad (whose like a mountain goat! and generally awesome), a failed flourless chocolate cake, violence in the Spanish civil war (go rebels and good computer graphics!) lots of food and very little work. So now I will go back to writing my essay. Oh, and I got my grant and can look forward to living in SF for sure this summer. Yay me!