sorry i´ve been so bad about writing...

so i am in the middle of moving from santa maria to maipu. i have been staying at a hostel in santiago by myself for the last few days trying to figure everything out and it has been hectic, which is an understatement. i got a text from dad today saying that he´s been checking and there´s been no blog, so here is a quick one.
i have to go to a meeting with the chilean ministy today and they are telling me the facts about my new school and new host fam. so far, all i know is that i am moving to maipu, and am living with a 24year old girl and her dad. next week is my week off, so 6 other volunteers and i are going to buenos aires via bus. the bus ride is 20 hours but they break it up with a trip to a really nice vineyard area in the andes called mendoza. so that should be awesome.
other than that, i´ve just been really busy packing my stuff and moving from santa maria into the hostel, then meeting with the chilean ministry to try and figure things out. i went into maipu for the weekend last weekend and was hanging out at jamal and gabe´s house and their host mom told me that there was no good reason for me to go back if i wasn´t happy. she helped me contact the chilean ministry people and talk to them and tell them i wasn´t going back. apparently it is almost impossible to move both schools and cities, but i didn´t leave them much choice because i packed all my stuff and got out of santa maria.
the director of my area, clayton, was a jerk about the whole thing and claimed that he hadn´t been receiving my emails of complaints. but i caled karina and belen, two women in charge and above clayton´s head, and they helped me immediately. i think they felt bad for me. i also met a couple other volunteers since i´ve been at the hostel that are here volunteering for 8 months and they seem to have similar problems with the ministry. this summer program is the pilot program for the 10 week program, so i am the person being used to help fix out the kinks. kind of lame for me, but i am glad that i have everything figured out and that i´m going to buenos aires for a week and then i´m moving to maipu.
i am sorry that i lagged on the blog but as u´ve read, it´s been a pretty hectic week. right now, i am in santiago staying at the hostel and hanging out with 5 of the volunteers because we all have a meeting this afternoon with the ministry. i am excited to have people to hang out with and believe me, i waited a while to write a blog because i didn´t want to worry anyone with any bad news. but no bad news as of now. i´m cold and it´s rainy, but i´m happy things have worked out.
okay time to go get some food...email me if u want and again, sorry if i worried anyone by lagging on the blog. i haven´t been able to get ahold of grandpa, so if someone could tell him to call my american cell, that´d be awesome.
chau
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bad at keeping up on my blog...

so i´ve kinda sucked at keeping up on the blog this week. sorry if u´ve been checking it and didn´t find anything. i hope that everyone looked at my pics too.
i´ve been trying to not catch a cold this whole week, but i don´t think it´s working. my english teacher, lindsay, and 3 of the other volunteers in the area are all sick. yesterday was our 2 week mark of being in our assigned cities, and i think the climate has started to sink in to everyone´s bones. i didn´t go to school today. the cats (there are 3 that live outside of the house) all decided that it´d be fun to jump and crawl and pounce all freaking night long, right above my head. the roof´s really thin, so it sounds like they are bouncing on my bed. ugh. and i don´t feel so hot. yesterday in class, i felt like i had a fever all day. the kids were really rowdy because it was raining outside, and that didn´t help either. one of the teachers said that when it rains, the kids and the animals all lose their minds. it makes sense to me.
so i am basically sitting here, trying to kill time, before i go into santiago and spend the weekend with the volunteers there. they all don´t get done with school until around 4, so i should probably leave around 1. i was thinking that i might go early and look for some new shoes, since my boots and my chuck taylors have the thinnest soles ever. it´s like walking on concrete, which is why i alwys have 4 or 5 pairs of socks on, on top of 2 pairs of tights. i just don´t want to walk around the big city with my backpack full of clothes for the weekend.
ugh, i am exhausted. my english teacher has been "sick" all week with "head aches" but obviously, i think she´s full of it. lindsay went with her to viña last weekend, and florinda (the english teacher) bailed on her and treated her like she was the hugest burden ever. she´s a bitch. my host dad calls her "la bruja" and it´s hilarious because she rides around sant maria on her little bicycle and it totally reminds me of the evil witch in the wizard of oz. haha.
next week is the last week before i get 2 weeks of vacation. i´ve emailed clayton, the director of my area, 2x and asked if i could volunteer in maipu for a week, but he sucks at responding to emails in a timely fashion. oh well. if i don´t go to maipu for one of the weeks, i think i might travel with some of the other girls that have 2 weeks off, too. only the volunteers in maipu get 1 week off, everyone else gets 2 :)
alright, well i am going to go and finish packing up and get ready to take a bus to san felipe, then another bus to santiago, then walk around and stall til i have someone to hang out with. i miss u all and hope that everyone had a fun 4th. i watched chile and mexico play in the copa america, but neither team could score a point. if anyone needs to get ahold of me, the chile cell sucks internationally, but i always have my u.s. phone with me.
peace and chau
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weekend etc

this weekend was an amazing break from santa maria. i am putting up pictures on facebook and i think i can put a link on my blog to view them, so hopefully i'll figure out how to do it.
alright, so this weekend, in a nutshell:
friday i took the bus into santiago and met up with hannah, maggie, jamal, gabe & michael. we all went out to dinner at a restaurant near the hostel and then called it a relatively early night for latin america (2am).
sautrday we walked around all morning in santiago, then met up with gabe and jamal's english teacher, who took us to his aunt's beach house in quisco. it was nearby isla negra, where one of pablo neruda's houses, but we never got around to going there. in quisco, we watched the copa america game, where chile lost, and just hung out and mellowed out a little. it wasn't warm, but it was definitely warmer than santa maria. i didn't even have to wear leggings under my jeans like i do everyday here. i had a good weekend, but it was interesting trying to get anywhere in a timely matter with 8 people. i am such the person in charge that it was hard to let the english teacher, lorenzo, take over and do things his way (latin=slower pace)...okay they are kicking me out of the biblioteca, where i'm using my laptop, because the school is closing, so i will write more at home later, or in the manana. okay chau for now :)

here is the link to my photo album so far...if it doesn't work, email me asap and let me know...
http://sandiego.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2039290&l=ae7f0&id=24504079

earthquake!!!!

there was an earth quake today! it was crazy--lindsay and i were sitting in the office making posters and stuff and all of the sudden, everything started shaking! i knew that there were a lot of earth quakes here, but i didn´t think i´d feel one within two weeks of being here! crazy! haha it was awesome though! nothing major, just a little rocking back and forth and it was over. but ya, other than that, today was another typical day of teaching i guess. i taught a lot today--close to 7 hours. it is so exhausting. but i have made copies of 5 basic rules for all of the classes i teach and left a copy taped to each wall. the rules are: show respect to everyone, no cells or music, no food or drinks, raise your hand to speak, and do not interrupt. they seem to be working more or less. there was one class today, 7th grade, where i intercepted a note between two boys, that roughly translated to "the english teacher is an asshole" but whatever. they both got expelled from my class :) serves them right and i hope that the other kids will all hear about it and learn from their mistakes. after class, lindsay and i went with my english teacher into san felipe, the town that is a little bit bigger, and had once (like dinner but not called that here). it was nice to get away from the pueblo, even if it was only for a little bit. the change of pace was nice. okay, well, speaking of change of pace, i need to go and pack my bag for the weekend because i am going to santiago to visit some friends. it is a long weekend, no classes on monday, so i am super excited! okay, i will write tomorrow if i have time, but it is a travel and party day for sure :) thanks for the love and support from the other side of the world...chau (they spell it like that here, btw)
peace
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copa america

chile won their futbol game against ecuador in the copa america today. it was a good game--they were supposed to lose and they won 3-2. i watched it with my sister while i made posters with basic questions for the kids to learn in english. now we´re watching mexico and brazil, and mexico is up 2-0 with 76 minutes done out of 90. i don´t really feel like writing a long blog. i´m super tired from speaking in spanish all day. my host dad told me that my spanish is getting a ton better, but that is because i speak it all day every day. hopefully anyone´s 2nd language would get better in my situation. so, quick recap of my day:
i only had classes from 11:30 til 1, and they were supposed to be the awful 7th graders. apparently, someone in charge hd talked to them and told them that if they didn´t act nicely to me, i wouldn´t teach them. it worked. the kids were super well behaved, for chilean kids at least, and we came up with 5 basic classroom rules. i wrote the rules on a poster tonight and i am going to go and put it up in class. the first rule is to show respect towards everyone. i think they´ll get it. i hope so at least. the rest of the day, i hung out at home with me host sis and made lunch, then chatted, then hung out some more. she is so sweet, i´m going to miss her when her school starts up again in a week or two.
i also found out that during the 2 week winter break from classes, where i thought i´d have to teach one of the weeks, i don´t actually have to teach at all. that means that i have 2 whole weeks off- one of which i want to go to buenos aires and the other i think it´d be cool if i went to maipu and helped them teach there. i think it´d be cool to see the differences in schooling between rural and metro life...and to hang out with some english speakers for a while :)
okay well i am going to go watch the rest of the game, then go to sleep. i have to work all day tomorrow--thursdays are my longest days of the week.
peace & chau
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Culture shock

so, today was a little better. i didn´t lock myself in the bathroom and cry, so that was a major improvement. i went to school and lindsay helped me plan lessons and think of good songs to use to help them learn various things. i taught mainly by myself, but only after the director went into each class and told them they´d better quit the shit if they knew what was good for them. the kids were more or less okay. today i was more of the foreigner than the one they didn´t listen to. in the 8th grade class i taught in the afternoon, for example, one of the older boys who i´d noticed whistling at me yesterday had his cell phone out and was sitting there taking pictures of me with it. i took it and put it in the front of the room with my stuff and told him that if anyone had their music or phones out when i was teaching, i´d take them for good the next time. i think that made them realize that i was serious. it just sucks that i have to be the one disciplining them, especially because its so obvious that they don´t get it from anyone else. some of the younger girls, from kindergarten or so, were super cute and took me around saying ¨hello teacher¨ because that´s all they know. there was a staff meeting after school, which ends at 5 (and starts at 8....UGH) and the 2 ¨english¨ teachers and lindsay and me went over some of the stuff that we wanted to accomplish in the 7 weeks we have left. the teachers want lindsay and i to teach such complicated things, even though the students haven´t even started to cover the basics. i got home around 7 and just chilled in the freezingness. i guess mom and grandpa were worried because of the "anti-american" ideas here, but it isn´t like that. they just don´t like the war in iraq, which i don´t think too many people are pro-war at the moment. if anyone wants to read anything about chilean history, here is a link about pinochet that mentions some of the horrendous things he did to people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet
my two host parents were just 2 of the 30,000 tortured. it was in the late 70s, not recently, so don´t freak out about me being tortured for god´s sake. it isn´t like that. if anything, i am the one that is like the ones they see in the movie. i´ve been told i have beautiful eyes about 10x a day since i´ve been here.
oh, i also talked to clayton, the guy in charge of the volunteers in my area. he said that if i am that uncomfortable, he can cut back my hours and i can go and travel more or sit in on classes in maipu. i am obviously not made for the rural life. maipu is on the outskirts of santiago, which im sure i´ve already mentioned, so hopefully i could go hang there for a week or something with the 6 volunteers that are there. there is also a week break for winter vacations where a few of us are trying to coordinate a trip to buenos aires. that´d be awesome. it just sucks that all i have to look forward to as of now are the weekends. but, like i said, it is a learning experience. the phrase "what doesn´t kill you, only makes you stronger" comes to mind. alright, so i have said my two cents. i need to go get into the warm blankets on my bed and dream about friday being here already. my chilean cell is lame and doesn´t like int´l calls. if u want, call my american phone, even though my bill is going to be INSANE. haha what else is new? okay thanks for the concern, chill out, i´m okay. i will survive. i just would rather be in the city with my friends in a fun school, but anyone can do anything for 7 weeks, right???? haha okay chau and peace
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Today was....

I cried 3 times today. I got in the shower this morning at 7:30 to start getting ready for school, and the water was luke warm, at best. I started shivering, then laughing, then crying. I got ahold of myself, finished my shower, got ready for school, and left. I got to school and the director introduced Lindsay and me to the school. Lindsay went and taught the high school kids and i went to teach 5th graders. my english teacher´s name is florinda, but come to find out, she isn´t the english teacher at all. she´s an art teacher that teaches english like 3 times a week to the younger kids, even though her english is at an extremely basic level. so we get into the 5th grade classroom, and its like walking into hell. the kids were insane. like no respect for anything or anyone. they were taking a test in english, but they were all walking around, looking at each other´s answers, making paper airplanes, and saying shit and fuck because those are the only 2 english words they apparently know. so i sat and watched the insanity, then helped florinda grade the tests, which were terrible. half the tests were blank, and like 2 or 3 were actually 1/2 correct. after that first period, i sat outside in the sun with florinda and helped her grade more papers. it was recess for some of the little kids, and they came up and just made fun of me for everything. then one little shit gets his milk carton and jumps on it, getting chocolate milk all over my legs and my stuff. florinda didnt even send the little bugger to the principal or anything. the lack of discipline leads to a complete lack of respect. its a terrible cycle. so i wandered around after that, and each classroom i´d walk by, the kids would open the windows and whistle, make kissy noises and say shit and fuck. awful. i locked myself in the bathroom and cried. then i went back and tried to work on some lesson plans, then went home for lunch. i called katie and of course, recapping made me cry again. my poor host sister was home and didn´t know what to say to help. she walked me back to school, then i taught with lindsay the rest of the day. her older kids were a little better, and actually cared to learn english. but, for example, she asked who in the class wanted to travel outside of chile and only 3 kids raised their hands. the campesino way of life is so stuck in these kids´ heads that there is honestly no way for me to help. i have never felt so useless in my life. i am going to finish this up, write the coordinator of the program and ask that i either work with lindsay, be transferred to maipu (a suburb of santiago, where there are 6 other volunteers in schools where the kids actually realize the importance of learning english) or go home. i´m trying so hard to make this work, but it is just too much. my sanity is more important than disrespectful little kids attempting to learn english. so, i hope tomorrow is better, but if not, i´m requesting to be transferred. i haven´t been getting many emails from any of u...i´d really appreciate it if u had time...