Ahhhh, I'm back...

Ahhh! Time has been seeming to go by so quickly. Mainly I’ve been freaking out about what to do when my family comes and about writing my thesis proposal. But I guess in terms of all things foreign, stuff down in Santiago has been a little bit crazy of late as well. This past week there were two protests filled with tear gas and protesting youth. The first was about… well it was a day of commemoration for these two kids who got brutally killed by the cops in 1985 for being communist. But, as my waiter that night described to me, some people commemorated and some people abused. As in, stuff was destroyed, cops were beaten, and tear gas was sprayed, streets were shut down, businesses closed at three in the afternoon and everyone went home. The second was a Pinguinos revival. The Pinguinos are the high school students here in Santiago who were black jumpers and white oxford shirts and travel everywhere in groups and therefore look like penguins, duh. In any case, last year they protested against the public education system by locking themselves inside the schools, surviving off of substance provided by parents and teachers, and demanded better education for the students, which the government agreed to. This year, the Pinguinos, like everyone in Santiago, decided to protest TranSantiago, so they all skipped school for the day and marched down some street that Fabia warned us all not to go to because it was being doused in tear gas and torn apart by enraged fourteen year olds. Okay not really, but kind of. In any case, it makes a better story this way. Aside from these two days, in which the entire city kind of shut down, Santiago has been like Santiago always is. Only it seems more smoggy.
In terms of Stanford, the new kids seem very different. But that may just be my second-quarter perspective looking back on how I felt at the beginning of last quarter and all that happy-goodness. It’ll be interesting to see how things play out. I’ve been trying to get Stephen Funk (and his middle name is Eagle!) to give me his opinions on everyone, but he has been holding out for a while. And our discussions instead revolve around what would happen if the blue parts of the US secede from the red and deciding that, despite all, this could never be feasible. Things are also different this quarter in terms of Stanford in that the Bings have decided to give us all our special treats early on. First we had the Bing dinner (so much better than last quarter!) and then we had Cole Porter Jazz by a bunch of eighty-somethings who were from New Zealand and just really enjoyed Cole Porter. And then we all got to go to Isla Negra (where Pablo Neruda had his favorite house) and have lunch and a poetry reading. And then next week we go to La Serena, the number one city to live in in Chile. I feel like I’m going to OD on Bing gluttony.
Which has only been supplemented by the visit from the family. So much foodie goodness! And family time! Yay! No one can do the floss dance quite like my father, or charm any Spanish-speaking person quite like my mother, or pretend I’m deaf, blind and dumb quite like my sister (Rock on Helen Keller!). Sadly, as I realized when they were leaving, I didn’t spend quite as much time with them as I should have. Stupid school.
And today I will spend writing my Spanish essay and doing my Spanish homework and listening to Spanish music, or Latin American music and Keane (what is Keane doing here). Oh what also happened in the past two weeks was a game of ultimate with some crazy Chileans (most of them are), a giant mass in Plaza Italia with Los Javias (yay!), and some awesome times with the host family, and lots of work on my thesis proposal, but more on that later. Okay, that’s that for now.