Classes: Day 1 (U. Chile Style)

Classes started this week at the Univeristy of Chile, Santiago. I was mentally preparing for lectures in Spanish, problems with public transportation and directions, and meeting new people. Luckily for me, I only had class one day this week.

Let me explain...

I have heard that Chileans are always late. They just aren't used to sticking to schedules like us (east-coast) Americans. When a Chilean says "Nos vemos a las 9," the actually mean "Saldré de mi casa a las 9 y nos vemos a las 9:30 o cuarto para las 10." That being said, I was also told that this stereotype/cultural difference doesn't apply to things that are schedule, like classes, and business meetings. This week, I found that to be simple false. Thanks, Peter Winn.

Classes officially started Monday, July 27. I should have known that something was up when the Tufts program had an orientation and campus tour planned on Monday morning when we should have been free to go to classes. I ended up spending Monday on the Juan Gomez Millas Campus of U. Chile, confusing the heck out of myself with the locations of each facultad adn so on. I returned home to a meal of cazuela. Allow me to paint you a picture... Cazuela is served in a large bowl. It consists of a whole, peeled potato, a large hunk of squash, and some cut of meat submerged in a delicious chicken broth with pieces of rice and corn swimming around in it. Most Chileans I've seen eat the broth with the rice and corn first with a spoon, and then attack the vegetables and meat with a fork and knife. This is one of the ultimate comfort foods in my book. Since it's winter here and every edifice is freezing inside, it's nice to have your meat and potatoes soaking in hot chiken broth instead of getting cold on a plain, white plate.

In the end, Monday was fine.

Tuesday arrives. We have a meeting with our program director and our advisor from U. Chile. All goes pretty well except for the fact that I was not prepared for this meeting at all. Somewhere along the line, I forgot that I needed to submit a list of potential classes to the director so I was starting from scratch at this meeting. After the meeting, I began a wild goose chase that is Chilean beaurocracy in order to sign-up for a class in the Facultad de Economía y Negocios. Even though it's part of U. Chile, it has it's own registration system and everything. I had to get a pass, go to a building, see a woman who sent me to another building where I saw a different woman who finally was able to get something accomplished. All this effort for a class that I'll probably end up dropping since EVERYONE says econ classes here are tough. (I'll come back to this under "Thursday.")

Wednesday is the first day I don't have anything on my schedule except class. I was pumped to head out because my first class was the econ one that I had to jump through several hoops in order to sign up. I get to the classroom and find out that class was cancelled for the day, but only 15 minutes after class was supposed to have started. Que Chilean. After this class, I spent some time translating my résumé into Spanish in hopes of getting a nice internship this semester. After struggling with that for a while, I met up with Alli, Becca, and Javiera (Becca's host sister) to go shopping for some school supplies for Orfebrería (metal working). Comimos algun pescado de antarctica para la cena con arroz con cocoa.

Thursday, today, was my first real day of classes. I went to the econ class where the TA spoke a mile a minute about things I didn't understand. After the class I was talking to some chileans and they said his speech was terrible before they knew that I had trouble understanding, which made me feel a little bit better, but still, it's going to be a rough semester in this class. I also met an American, Bobby, who is studying here. He's a really nice guy, friendly and such. We comiserated about things and went our separate ways. Maybe he knows some good places to carretear? The class ended ten minutes early. I gathered my notebook and my self-esteem, packed them up and headed for the door. I spent the next hour trying to get to Juan Gomez Millas (the U. Chile campus in Ñuñoa). I didn't get lost, it's just far. I get to the Orfebrería (metal working) class an hour late and talk to the professor. She couldn't have been any nicer. After discussing my class conflict (The econ class ends half an hour after this one begins), she allowed me to sign up for the class and have my own schedule since the econ class wants to be the center of attention these days. My friends Becca and Alli also went to this class. The were there on time and left 45 minutes after class was supposed to have started. No one showed up. When I arrived an hour late, there were 6 Chileans there and the professor was amongst them, professing, or doing whatever it is that art teachers do...(?).