"Sobreviviendo" the First Week

Whew! Well I got through my first week of fall semester at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, or "La Católica" for short. The system of classes is interesting here. They have a system called "modulos" from 1 to 8.So module 1 is 8:30-9:50, 2 is 10:00-11:50, and so on. Luckily, the earliest class I have is modulo 3, at 11:30. That way, I can beat most of the morning rush hour. It's absolutely insane to travel on the micros(buses) and metro during this time. I heard that at some points it's close to 6 people per square foot. I can believe it! This has just taught me to abandon any need for personal space at times.Also, I could definitely go on about the complex workings of Santiago's public transportation that are not always spelled out, but somehow known by a majority of the population. But I'd rather focus on the classes I'm taking, which have pretty translatable titles...

• Political Processes in Latin America: My polisci class, with my gringo profe(the slang for profesor).So yeah, he is actually from the United States and went to Berkeley, but he also lived in Argentina for quite a while. His Spanish is really good, but of course there are hints in his accent and overall pattern of speaking that signal he is not a native speaker. 

• Formation and Development of Latin American Culture:A sociology class that already seems really . One of the topics we discussed was what the symbol of the Virgin Guadalupe(the image of the Virgin Mary always on those glass candles) means to Latin American culture. Our professor's voice is a little affected,like he hangs on every important phrase, but that also means he speaks pretty clearly. So I don't mind! 

• Mexico: History and Culture-At first I thought, "why would I come to Chile to take a class on Mexico?" But when I checked out the class(we had a "shopping" period on Tuesday), the subject material caught my interest. Every couple weeks, we have a different professor teaching a different topic on Mexico. It will be anything from music to U.S.-Mexico relations, which will be interesting to study outside of my homeland. Plus, we get to go to plays as a class...hurray for field trips!

Oh, and I also decided to sign up for a swim class. It's cool, because I'm the only extranjera(foreigner) with all the Chilean students, and I can get a work out in a few days a week. We've been doing conditioning instead of swimming, which didn't work out so well the first day when I brought my bathing suit instead of running clothes! So Friday was my first day of being prepared for this class. 

After my first week at a Chilean university, there were a few factors that stood out to me that I want to point out...

First, there is a phenomenon of prices dropping majorly the moment you step out of the school gates, which I've mostly noticed with food and photocopying. For example a sandwich in a "casino" (dining hall, strange name right?) here runs close to 1,000-1,500 pesos, sometimes more. But you step out the gate and there's a man selling sandwiches outside the metro for 800 pesos.I went to a barbecue they had for study abroad students,and a Chilean student handed me a business card for a group of women who rotate every week to have students in their house for homemade lunches at a pretty low price.  However, I'm fortunate that I pack a lunch to bring, courtesy of my Chilean family. Then there's the photocopying...no one buys books here. Everyone gets the syllabus and just prints out the "lecturas" or readings they need for the class. You can do it on campus, but on the tour we had a Chilean student pointed outside the gates for cheaper photocopying. Literally people have photocopying centers set up in their house, and all you have to do is bring your class syllabus. For example, I told them I have sociology with Valenzuela, and they have the "lecturas" for each course in a folder. It's a strange, but amazingly efficient and cheap system. No more 100 dollar books I get 30 bucks back for! 

Then, there's the class sizes . All of my lectures here are the size of most of my discussion sections in Irvine. And speaking of discussion sections...well some classes don't have them, and the ones that do don't seem to matter at all. I asked a professor if they're mandatory and before I could really get the question out  he simply responded "Ahhh no importa, no importa..." ( Nahhh, it doesn't matter). There are also not multiple time slots for discussions.  So that means two of my classes have discussion sections at the same time, but nobody stopped me from signing up...I guess I'll be switching off each week which one I go to. 

Finally, I want to make a commentary on Chilean students. The people who complain that Chileans don't talk to foreigners are the people who don't talk to them first. 90% of the time, Chileans just will not talk to you first. But once you ask them a question, they are more than willing to open up a bit more.I asked a classmate something about the class reading, and it ended up with her asking where I was from, what I studied, do I like Chile, etc. And she even drew me a map to the cheapest photocopy place near campus.So as long as you make the first move, fellow Chilean students can be a big help. They're just use to having their life in Santiago. Many of them grow up in Santiago, stay at home in Santiago when they go to school, and keep the same friendships they've had for a long time. I was explaining freshmen dorms to a girl in my swim class, and the concept struck her as strange and interesting. Basically, I don't take it personally if they don't go out of their way to make foreign friends. But I will think about this when I come back to Irvine, and try to chat with foreign students. 

It feels good to start getting into the swing of things here, but this week knocked me out! Yesterday I finally got to sit and relax all day like a bum and watch the Olympics. They air them a lot less here. In the U.S. I feel like I can't get away from them, and here I actually have to flip some channels to find them!Then today I went and checked out the Museum of National History, which is free on Sundays, and the Mercado Central. The museum was interesting,but kind of small and the market was full of fish stalls and seafood restaurants. I wanted to whip out my camera to snap some photos of the whole octopuses they were selling, but I had to get away from the terrible fish smells and the yells of "Hello beautiful! What are you looking for? Have you eaten lunch? Great prices! etc.etc." Oh well, all part of the experience! Chile also celebrated "Día del Niño" today, which gave the city a slightly adorable vibe. I was waiting at a bus stop with a mother and her little daughter, and a woman dressed as little red riding hood with a car full of balloons stepped out of the car, handed one to the girl with a bag of candies saying "Feliz Día del niño!" Then the little girl proceeded to hand me a "Negrita"( a type of chocolate coated Nestle candy here) with a smile.Qué tiernooo!(How cuteee!) Even the street venders were laying out toys to sell and offering face painting. And there was a llama chilling on the street for kids to take pics with outside the zoo. But there was a group of protestors wearing animal costumes protesting the zoo at the same time. I've never been, but I guess some people think the animals in there are not treated well...They were a stark contrast to the joyful flocks of kids.  
So that's that with my first week of the semester. Tomorrow I have an interview for a potential internship,so I'll write an update on how that goes! Chao mis amigos lindos!

For those who have already read this post, I wanted to add another update to it...To those who haven't it's like it has always been here! I wanted to mention how on Sunday I was standing by a crafts fair when a white guy walked up to me and asked "trabajas aquí?" (do you work here). "No...soy extranjera(foreign)" He thought I was some Chilean shop owner?! "Where are you from?" I asked and he responded "America." "We're in America..." I thought but instead I said "Oh United States?" "Well uh yeah..." he responded. It just goes to show how "America" has become the natural term for us United Statesians to call our country, even though there is an entire continent below us called South America. I told my host mom about this and she said "Yeah he says he is American, so what are we indians(in this context she meant native people)?" It just shows how important it is to consider that a simple description can be offensive in other places.I agree with my host mom. We seem to have a claim to the term American in the U.S. which is a bit marginalizing to the South American continent. From now on, I can't imagine not describing myself as North American or from the United States. I just thought this experience was pretty eye opening and showed the power that words can hold!