Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Chilean Snacky Snacks (Vlog)
Again, the thingy isn't working, but the YouTube video of my latest vlog is now public! :D Yay. You can check it out here if you'd like.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Identity Crises
So over the past few years, I have undergone a slight name change. For all of my primary and secondary school life I was known as Danny. I never DREAMED anyone would call me Dan, mostly because I only knew a few Dans and they were mostly old (or older) men. I had a hard time imagining the name for myself. However, when I went off to college, it just sort of...happened. I wasn’t sure how to introduce myself. Danny, suddenly felt really childish but I still sort of stuck to my preconceptions about Dans and Daniel felt altogether too stuffy. I didn’t know what to go with. In the end, I wasn’t the one who made the decision, it was the people around me. Some people started called me Danny, since that’s how I introduced myself for the first week or so. Others (probably the majority) naturally switched to Dan. Soon I found myself not thinking of Dan in a stuffy and old way, but began thinking of Dan as me. I don’t have a problem with Danny, I accept that there are some people who just know me as that, and it’s totally fine.
However, in Chile, I’ve had yet another identity crisis. Dan is not a name her. It’s a verb. It means “they give.” Daniel IS a name here, but the way you pronounce it in Spanish is more or less “Danielle” (dah-nee-YELL or sometimes even dahn-JELL) which I have a hard time accepting as my name. I know that they use “Daniela” for Danielle, but still. It feels weird. There are also those who call me Danny which seems better, but I know that in their heads they probably spell it “Dani” since that makes most phonetic sense in Spanish, so again, the female version. It’s not a massive problem and it’s one that I’m quickly becoming accustomed to, but it’s difficult when meeting new people to have to introduce yourself with a name you don’t recognize.
I think it’s because names are very important to people. Without even thinking about it, we find ourselves assigning so much meaning to such small things as names. It helps us to define people and to make them easier to access. It’s such a common thing, we rarely take the time to think about what a name really is and what they really do for us. Without names we’d have a much harder time telling stories, relaying messages, even thinking about people because names help us distinguish people from one another in our own minds. It helps us to categorize and to recall information. So when the word you use to define yourself changes, it’s not a problem, it just takes some getting used to.
So as I adjust to a new culture, I’m learning to adjust to a new name. It’s one of those little things that you didn’t think you’d have to deal with, but comes with the territory of being somewhere totally new. A territory that, with each passing day, seems to have another life lesson for me to learn.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Duped. (Vlog)
So, I posted a new video blog. If you have interest in it click THIS link. I'm not sure why it's not letting me post it in the video window like last time. But it's not...so....just click it.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Erorrs.
Okay. So it's been about three weeks? Four weeks? I'm losing track. But in the time that I've been here, I can already tell that I'm learning more and more Spanish every day. However, you know what they say: "You learn from your mistakes." If this saying is true, then I should be a master at Spanish by now, because with these three or four or however-many weeks, I've made quite a few fantastic fumbles. So today, I'd like to share with you five of the follies for which I've fallen in the past four fantastic but failure-filled weeks:
1: "Two by Two" or "Like a Polaroid Picture"
One of my biggest problems when speaking Spanish (and occasionally in English) is that I will confuse two words that sound very similar. For example, one when I was describing a situation from my Traditional Dances of Chile class to one of my Chilean friends, I wanted to tell her that we all had to get into pairs for a dance we'd learned. However, the word "pareja" meaning "pair" has slipped my mind and had been replaced by "pájaro"...meaning bird. So I told her that we all got into birds and started the dance. When talking with the same friend, later in that conversation, I was trying to ask what the word "shimmy" was in Spanish. She didn't recognize the English word, so I tried to explain in Spanish that "It's when you shake a part of your body. Like when you shake your shoulders" However, "hombros," the Spanish word for shoulders, is quite similar to "hombres" the Spanish word for men. So I explained that "It's when you shake your body. Like if you shake your men." Of course she thought this was hilarious and asked if it was common in the U.S. to get into birds and shake men.
2: "Greener Please!"
The following is not a problem I have with Spanish, but with the Chilean accent in Spanish. The language is more or less the same as what is taught in America (though with a few different words here and there), but understanding Chileans is especially difficult because they speak very fast and very slurred. It's not uncommon in the Chilean accent to drop final syllables of words or to take an "s" in the middle of a word and exchange it for a short exhalation (which may or may not be audible). This is what I assumed happened when one day my host mother asked if I could pick up some bananas on the way back from class. I agreed I would and then she added what I thought was"Necesitas comprar bananas mas duro." Translation: You need to buy harder bananas. This made sense, I thought since if you didn't want to eat them for some time it would be better to get greener ones so that they don't spoil right away. On my way back from class, I stopped by the market near my metro stop and bought one thousand pesos (about $2 USD) worth of the greenest bananas they had. When I got home and presented the verdant fruits to my host mom she gave me a strange look. "No te dije que necesitas comprar bananas mas duro?" (Didn't I tell you to buy harder bananas?) "Sí," I responded, "Pero esos fueron todo que tendieron." (Yes, but these were all they had). "Ah ya. Pues, la próxima vez compras unos mas duro." (Ah yes. Well, next time buy harder ones.) I was confused at this point. These were pretty hard and pretty green as well. So I asked, a little astounded "¿¿Más verde??" Then I realized what she'd been saying when she repeated it again, "No. Maduro!" Maduro means mature or ripe. I can't say that mistake is totally my fault since their accent does set the precedent for such errors to be made. Still, it was a rather humbling moment.
3: "You trust them how much??"
Some of our idioms in the U.S. carry over to other countries. Some do not. Occasionally I'd been trying some out in Spanish to see what did and did not translate. I don't do that anymore. Not since I once said, "I trust him about as far as I can throw him" (though the translation was probably much rougher). But then I learned. You don't say that. You just don't. "To throw someone" apparently means something ENTIRELY different here in Chile. Entirely different. I've stopped testing our phrases against theirs in common conversation now.
4: "Do you happen to have an artichoke?"
Sometimes, even I've learned that I confuse some words, the words keep mixing themselves up in my mind. "Enchufe" and "alcachofa" are two that do this for me still. I know that enchufe means outlet or plug-in. I also know that alcachofa means artichoke. That still hasn't seemed to stop me from embarrassing myself when asking café workers if there's an artichoke I can use for my computer.
5: "All in the family..."
Okay. This is one of the first mistakes that I made while speaking with my host family. And it's a big one. We were sitting around the table and they were asking me basic questions. Where am I from. Where do I go to school. What am I studying. Then someone asked how big my family is. I was trying to explain that there were five people, me, my parents, and one brother and one sister, so I said, "5 personas. Mi madre y padre, y una hija y un hijo"
"¿Hijos?" My host mother asked
"Sí" (Yes)
"¿De tú?" asked my host brother. (Yours?)
"Claro que sí. Son mis hijos" (Of course. They are mine.)
I was fairly confused at this point, but so were they. Until my host mom repeated, more emphatically:
"¿Hijos?"
Then it hit me. Hijos means children. Not siblings. Hermanos are siblings.
"NO!! No! Hermanos! Una hermana y un hermano!"
Everyone laghed. I did too, though more uncomfortably than the others.
Aaaand that was how I met my host family. Good first impression, I think. Just a 20 year old with two kids who he's willing to leave for 5 and a half months. Glad that one got cleared up.
Anyway, this has been a fairly common occurrence in my life in the past 3-4 weeks and I've been trying to keep track of the best (and worst) mistakes I can find from both myself and from others. It's reassuring when I talk with some of my other foreign friends and find out that they've been making similar mistakes. Like what I'm doing isn't so dumb, and is just a natural part of the process. However natural and normal it may be, I hope this phase doesn't last for too much longer since I'm starting to worry what might unwittingly come out of my mouth next.
1: "Two by Two" or "Like a Polaroid Picture"
One of my biggest problems when speaking Spanish (and occasionally in English) is that I will confuse two words that sound very similar. For example, one when I was describing a situation from my Traditional Dances of Chile class to one of my Chilean friends, I wanted to tell her that we all had to get into pairs for a dance we'd learned. However, the word "pareja" meaning "pair" has slipped my mind and had been replaced by "pájaro"...meaning bird. So I told her that we all got into birds and started the dance. When talking with the same friend, later in that conversation, I was trying to ask what the word "shimmy" was in Spanish. She didn't recognize the English word, so I tried to explain in Spanish that "It's when you shake a part of your body. Like when you shake your shoulders" However, "hombros," the Spanish word for shoulders, is quite similar to "hombres" the Spanish word for men. So I explained that "It's when you shake your body. Like if you shake your men." Of course she thought this was hilarious and asked if it was common in the U.S. to get into birds and shake men.
2: "Greener Please!"
The following is not a problem I have with Spanish, but with the Chilean accent in Spanish. The language is more or less the same as what is taught in America (though with a few different words here and there), but understanding Chileans is especially difficult because they speak very fast and very slurred. It's not uncommon in the Chilean accent to drop final syllables of words or to take an "s" in the middle of a word and exchange it for a short exhalation (which may or may not be audible). This is what I assumed happened when one day my host mother asked if I could pick up some bananas on the way back from class. I agreed I would and then she added what I thought was"Necesitas comprar bananas mas duro." Translation: You need to buy harder bananas. This made sense, I thought since if you didn't want to eat them for some time it would be better to get greener ones so that they don't spoil right away. On my way back from class, I stopped by the market near my metro stop and bought one thousand pesos (about $2 USD) worth of the greenest bananas they had. When I got home and presented the verdant fruits to my host mom she gave me a strange look. "No te dije que necesitas comprar bananas mas duro?" (Didn't I tell you to buy harder bananas?) "Sí," I responded, "Pero esos fueron todo que tendieron." (Yes, but these were all they had). "Ah ya. Pues, la próxima vez compras unos mas duro." (Ah yes. Well, next time buy harder ones.) I was confused at this point. These were pretty hard and pretty green as well. So I asked, a little astounded "¿¿Más verde??" Then I realized what she'd been saying when she repeated it again, "No. Maduro!" Maduro means mature or ripe. I can't say that mistake is totally my fault since their accent does set the precedent for such errors to be made. Still, it was a rather humbling moment.
3: "You trust them how much??"
Some of our idioms in the U.S. carry over to other countries. Some do not. Occasionally I'd been trying some out in Spanish to see what did and did not translate. I don't do that anymore. Not since I once said, "I trust him about as far as I can throw him" (though the translation was probably much rougher). But then I learned. You don't say that. You just don't. "To throw someone" apparently means something ENTIRELY different here in Chile. Entirely different. I've stopped testing our phrases against theirs in common conversation now.
4: "Do you happen to have an artichoke?"
Sometimes, even I've learned that I confuse some words, the words keep mixing themselves up in my mind. "Enchufe" and "alcachofa" are two that do this for me still. I know that enchufe means outlet or plug-in. I also know that alcachofa means artichoke. That still hasn't seemed to stop me from embarrassing myself when asking café workers if there's an artichoke I can use for my computer.
5: "All in the family..."
Okay. This is one of the first mistakes that I made while speaking with my host family. And it's a big one. We were sitting around the table and they were asking me basic questions. Where am I from. Where do I go to school. What am I studying. Then someone asked how big my family is. I was trying to explain that there were five people, me, my parents, and one brother and one sister, so I said, "5 personas. Mi madre y padre, y una hija y un hijo"
"¿Hijos?" My host mother asked
"Sí" (Yes)
"¿De tú?" asked my host brother. (Yours?)
"Claro que sí. Son mis hijos" (Of course. They are mine.)
I was fairly confused at this point, but so were they. Until my host mom repeated, more emphatically:
"¿Hijos?"
Then it hit me. Hijos means children. Not siblings. Hermanos are siblings.
"NO!! No! Hermanos! Una hermana y un hermano!"
Everyone laghed. I did too, though more uncomfortably than the others.
Aaaand that was how I met my host family. Good first impression, I think. Just a 20 year old with two kids who he's willing to leave for 5 and a half months. Glad that one got cleared up.
Anyway, this has been a fairly common occurrence in my life in the past 3-4 weeks and I've been trying to keep track of the best (and worst) mistakes I can find from both myself and from others. It's reassuring when I talk with some of my other foreign friends and find out that they've been making similar mistakes. Like what I'm doing isn't so dumb, and is just a natural part of the process. However natural and normal it may be, I hope this phase doesn't last for too much longer since I'm starting to worry what might unwittingly come out of my mouth next.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Things I've Learned from Non-Americans
I did not come to Chile to speak English, however, not surprisingly, my native tongue has still been a major part of my communication since I've spent a good deal of time around Americans. We can understand each other. We can joke, have fun, explore, etc. But, more and more and more I've been spending time with people who aren't from the U.S. Many of these people are Chilean, obviously, but there are also quite a few students from other countries studying in Chile at the same University as I. Since they don't speak English and I don't speak their native language, all we have is Spanish. They say it is extremely important for us, as people trying to learn a language, to practice it in every day situations. They tell us that that is how we learn the most. Well, through my talks with some Non-Estadounidenses (Spanish for American), my Spanish has improved, but I've come to understand some very interesting things:
- I don't speak Spanish with an American accent. I'm not quite sure how this can be true, but on numerous occasions, Chileans and other non-U.S.-ers have commented that I don't sound like other people from the States. I sound more like someone from Germany. Something about my R's. As Americans our R sound is very flat (Rrround the rrrough and rrrugged rrrrocks, the rrragged rrrascal rrrrrudely rrrrran), but in Spanish, the R is pronounced as either a rolled R (imagine a cat purring if you don't know what this sounds like), or, the more common version of the R is a sort of soft "flipped R" which sounds more like a gentle D (if you're confused, welcome to my life). Apparently, it's very difficult for most Americans to make this distinction and to reproduce it in their speak, especially early on. However, I have been told that I have it down. However when you remove that aspect of the American accent, but keep many of the other features of it, it results in what can be confused as a German accent. I guess. I don't really understand it to be honest, but my host family, an older Chilean woman who shared a collectivo with me, a group of French students, an even a German student have commented that they thought I was German. So...yeah. Weird, right?
- Americans think that everyone else thinks more poorly of them than people actually do. I, for some time now, have been given the impression that all other countries look down on the United states. However, in my talks with non-Americans, I've found that, generally, that is not the case. Now, it IS true that we could use a little PR help in some aspects of our image. There is a strong impression that Americans don't know geography, which, for many is probably at least sort of true. (Wanna prove me wrong? Point to Burundi on an unlabeled map. I dare you.) There's also a stereotype that we are too trusting in our government, also probably mostly true. Also, some Chileans are of the impression that Americans are (to put it lightly) "a tad easy". However, many of the things I thought they'd think about us, don't seem to be as prominent. For example, they recognize that there are SOME obese people in the states, but they don't think we're all fat and lazy. I was also afraid I'd run into the preconception that Americans are all loud, annoying, over-privileged, and brutish (because I was led to believe that that opinion exists) though two things seem to disprove this. First of all, some (not all) Chileans can be very loud themselves. Very loud. Very. The second and perhaps stronger proof against this that I've found is that the first way any non-American has described their idea of Americans is that we're generally friendly, quick to share our things, easy to smile and friendly, though perhaps a bit naive. When talking some new French friends of mine, they explained to me that the general consensus of the states has been improving, but even at it's worst it wasn't all that bad. We're seen, as one French student put it (in Spanish), the U.S. is like a "bastion of capitalism" that other countries look to and admire. I was first of all a little surprised to hear the word "bastión" in Spanish, but secondly surprised that the general consensus is so positive. I have to say, I'm okay with it, though I still want to prove the more negative stereotypes wrong.
- Swearing is the first part of learning a new language...I guess. I know when I started learning Spanish (back in Grade School) a few of the kids had learned some...saltier Spanish words. The secret words spread through the Fourth Grade class like a virus until everyone knew which words to avoid saying...or which ones were perfect for certain circumstances. In Chile, things seem no different in this regard. One of my host brothers only speaks minimal English. Most of his English lexicon consists of the swears. F's and S's and B's and even a few C's spew from his lips like a fountain of foul-mouthedness. When I first encountered the French students whom I've mentioned a few times in this post, one of them was swearing in perfect English. I assumed he was American but realized the truth when I started a conversation in my native tongue. I'm not sure I can give a definitive rationale for this phenomenon, but I can't help but be reminded of young children who accidentally stumble on the perfectly horrible combination of syllables. They don't REALLY know what they're saying, but they know it gets a reaction and that's funny or entertaining or something. It's not so much the intent of the words that they care about, it's the reaction. Except unlike babies, these people DO know what they're saying (more or less), and it's far less cute.
I'm sure that as my experiences delving into a new language continue, I'll come across more of these unexpected and rather surprising discoveries. I suppose it's not so surprising that I'm learning things, but the surprise is what I'm learning. Before going to Chile, I was prepped with all sorts of information. I felt like I knew all that I could about going and that when I got here I'd learn about Chile and Spanish and Latin America and stuff like that. Little did I know that I could learn about myself and where I came from in the process.
Monday, August 6, 2012
Learning Experiences Part 2: Failure
Monday, July 30, 2012. Viña del Mar, Chile. 8:17 AM
I woke up with a start. I had that feeling, you might know the one, where you open your eyes and instantly know something is off. That feeling that its lighter than it should be when you're supposed to wake up. The one that lets you immediately know you've overslept. I looked at my small black alarm clock on the nightstand next to my bed. "8:17," it read. Two minutes after my first class in Chile had started. Wonderful. I changed. Made sure my hair wasn't a birds nest. Grabbed my things. Quickly explained in to my host mother that I was late and wouldn't have time for breakfast. I ran to the corner, hoping the right collectivo would pass by soon. A minute or two later I hailed the right cab and hopped in, 500 pesos in-hand to pay the driver, and requested to be dropped of at the university.
Finally having a moment to sit down in the collectivo, I realized that something else was wrong. My face felt weird. And my stomach. And my head. "Oh great," I thought to myself, "I'm sick aren't I?" Sure enough I was sniffling the whole way to the college, my throat felt like it'd been thoroughly scrubbed with sandpaper, and my head was pounding something horrible.
When I finally arrived at the building. I had a very difficult time finding my room. My class was in G 4-1 meaning the Gimpert Building, Floor 4, room 1. However, the Gimpert building shares an atrium with another building (which I don't know the name of, but it's initials are RC). So it's very easy to accidentally go to RC 4-1 instead of G 4-1 and then realize you're in the wrong classroom, and have to excuse yourself sheepishly. Once I finally made it to the room I was about 20 minutes late. Though, as we found out in orientation, Chilean classes are a bit more chill about this since they, as with most of Latin America, don't care so much about punctuality. So despite what would be terrible tardiness in the U.S., I wasn't even the last student to arrive to class. In the end there were five of us in that class. I was the only Gringo. Because of the small class size, the professor expected us all to respond individually to his questions. This made me feel very stupid. Normally I can understand most people when they speak Spanish, or at least catch most of what they say. Not in that class. The students especially spoke with very, very mumbly, thick Chilean accents. I was struggling to keep up the whole time, and my illness wasn't helping me focus at all.
When the class finally ended and I felt sufficiently miserable about myself I had about an hour between classes, but my second class (one which I wasn't very interested in and which I was fairly certain wouldn't transfer as useful credits to my home university) was all the way in Viña del Mar, a good 45 minute drive or so from the main building and offices of the university so I tried to get there in plenty of time. I went to the information desk and asked the men there how I could get to the building I needed. I showed them my documents and they confirmed that the classroom I needed was in the building I'd presumed. They instructed me to buy a ticket from the cafeteria for one of the University's busses that go between the two locations. They told me the bus came every ten minutes or so.
I followed their instructions to the letter. I bought a ticket (which cost me about twenty cents, American), I went to the place they told me to wait, and I watched for a white vehicle with the university's logo on it. And I watched for a white vehicle with the university's logo on it. And I watched for a white vehicle with the university's logo on it. For about 30 minutes. By that point I KNEW I was going to be late for class. I went to the International Studies office across the street and confirmed that I'd done everything correctly. They said I had and that a bus should be coming. So I went out into the semi-warm of Chilean winter and waited for the bus some more. When it didn't show up for another 15 minutes I walked to the nearest metro station (only 2 blocks away) and took the train home. I knew that I'd probably end up dropping this class anyway since it wasn't very useful for me. I'd only signed up because we were instructed to sign up for more classes than we could take, since in the Chilean university system, it is normal to take tons of courses then trop them. This was one of my backups in case another class didn't work out.
The train ride was short and I trudged back to my house, getting a little lightheaded from a couple of the uphill stretches and quickly arrived back in my bed. I took a long nap, and felt significantly better afterward. It was one of those moments when I remembered a few of the things I'd been told.
First from orientation sessions: Interchange students often get sick when arriving to a new country, especially when switching between north and south hemispheres. The stress on one's body is often too much and it will force you to rest it. I saw it happening all around me, but assumed I'd be immune. I wasn't.
Second from previous students I'd talked to: The first three weeks are the worst. I don't know if they meant of the whole trip or of classes, but I'm hoping that was bottoming out there. Everyone I've talked to says the first few weeks are just confusing and stressful, but somewhere around the 3 week mark, everything really clicks and begins to make sense on a consistent basis.
Third from my dad (that fountain of wisdom): He emailed me the following quote from C. K. Chesterton this week (without knowing what was going on in my life at that moment): "An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered." It doesn't make the sickness go away, but it makes it more bearable. It's another piece of the adventure. I mean you can't have anything exciting without a little bump along the way now and again.
It's been an oddly disappointing feeling, especially after I thought I was doing so well. Though it wasn't the fact that I was having a problem that bothered me quite as much, it was the particular issues I was having that got me down. I knew I'd have some difficulty with the language but I'd hoped I'd pick it up faster (though I have to keep reminding myself I've only been here barely two weeks). And as for getting sick, I thought that if I'd have a "bump in the road" while on an "adventure" in South America that I could at least manage to have a little more interesting difficulty than the common cold and being late for class. I mean, I'm not asking for any more misfortune (since as my friends can attest, it seems to find me regardless), but I guess I'd imagined the problems being something a bit more adventurous, like having to face a criminal warlord while trying to decode the last clue to find the sunken ship my new friend's ancestors had lost (yes I recently saw "The Adventures of TinTin," why do you ask?).
So I guess what I've learned from all this is that (A) no matter how good things seem, they can turn around in an instant (with one flip of an alarm's switch), and (B) adventures of all sizes should be embraced, be it a big or a small (though you might not want to share the small ones as much as the big ones, since to be honest, they don't make for very interesting reads. In fact, I'm surprised you've gotten so far in this blog post) So, here's to adventure. Here's to changing outlooks on life. And here's to whatever combination of the two might be just around the corner (waiting to smack you in the face with a baseball bat).
P.S. I realized how dumb I was sounding part way through there and had to quickmeme the situation #firstworldproblems
http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3qdcrj/
I woke up with a start. I had that feeling, you might know the one, where you open your eyes and instantly know something is off. That feeling that its lighter than it should be when you're supposed to wake up. The one that lets you immediately know you've overslept. I looked at my small black alarm clock on the nightstand next to my bed. "8:17," it read. Two minutes after my first class in Chile had started. Wonderful. I changed. Made sure my hair wasn't a birds nest. Grabbed my things. Quickly explained in to my host mother that I was late and wouldn't have time for breakfast. I ran to the corner, hoping the right collectivo would pass by soon. A minute or two later I hailed the right cab and hopped in, 500 pesos in-hand to pay the driver, and requested to be dropped of at the university.
Finally having a moment to sit down in the collectivo, I realized that something else was wrong. My face felt weird. And my stomach. And my head. "Oh great," I thought to myself, "I'm sick aren't I?" Sure enough I was sniffling the whole way to the college, my throat felt like it'd been thoroughly scrubbed with sandpaper, and my head was pounding something horrible.
When I finally arrived at the building. I had a very difficult time finding my room. My class was in G 4-1 meaning the Gimpert Building, Floor 4, room 1. However, the Gimpert building shares an atrium with another building (which I don't know the name of, but it's initials are RC). So it's very easy to accidentally go to RC 4-1 instead of G 4-1 and then realize you're in the wrong classroom, and have to excuse yourself sheepishly. Once I finally made it to the room I was about 20 minutes late. Though, as we found out in orientation, Chilean classes are a bit more chill about this since they, as with most of Latin America, don't care so much about punctuality. So despite what would be terrible tardiness in the U.S., I wasn't even the last student to arrive to class. In the end there were five of us in that class. I was the only Gringo. Because of the small class size, the professor expected us all to respond individually to his questions. This made me feel very stupid. Normally I can understand most people when they speak Spanish, or at least catch most of what they say. Not in that class. The students especially spoke with very, very mumbly, thick Chilean accents. I was struggling to keep up the whole time, and my illness wasn't helping me focus at all.
When the class finally ended and I felt sufficiently miserable about myself I had about an hour between classes, but my second class (one which I wasn't very interested in and which I was fairly certain wouldn't transfer as useful credits to my home university) was all the way in Viña del Mar, a good 45 minute drive or so from the main building and offices of the university so I tried to get there in plenty of time. I went to the information desk and asked the men there how I could get to the building I needed. I showed them my documents and they confirmed that the classroom I needed was in the building I'd presumed. They instructed me to buy a ticket from the cafeteria for one of the University's busses that go between the two locations. They told me the bus came every ten minutes or so.
I followed their instructions to the letter. I bought a ticket (which cost me about twenty cents, American), I went to the place they told me to wait, and I watched for a white vehicle with the university's logo on it. And I watched for a white vehicle with the university's logo on it. And I watched for a white vehicle with the university's logo on it. For about 30 minutes. By that point I KNEW I was going to be late for class. I went to the International Studies office across the street and confirmed that I'd done everything correctly. They said I had and that a bus should be coming. So I went out into the semi-warm of Chilean winter and waited for the bus some more. When it didn't show up for another 15 minutes I walked to the nearest metro station (only 2 blocks away) and took the train home. I knew that I'd probably end up dropping this class anyway since it wasn't very useful for me. I'd only signed up because we were instructed to sign up for more classes than we could take, since in the Chilean university system, it is normal to take tons of courses then trop them. This was one of my backups in case another class didn't work out.
The train ride was short and I trudged back to my house, getting a little lightheaded from a couple of the uphill stretches and quickly arrived back in my bed. I took a long nap, and felt significantly better afterward. It was one of those moments when I remembered a few of the things I'd been told.
First from orientation sessions: Interchange students often get sick when arriving to a new country, especially when switching between north and south hemispheres. The stress on one's body is often too much and it will force you to rest it. I saw it happening all around me, but assumed I'd be immune. I wasn't.
Second from previous students I'd talked to: The first three weeks are the worst. I don't know if they meant of the whole trip or of classes, but I'm hoping that was bottoming out there. Everyone I've talked to says the first few weeks are just confusing and stressful, but somewhere around the 3 week mark, everything really clicks and begins to make sense on a consistent basis.
Third from my dad (that fountain of wisdom): He emailed me the following quote from C. K. Chesterton this week (without knowing what was going on in my life at that moment): "An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered." It doesn't make the sickness go away, but it makes it more bearable. It's another piece of the adventure. I mean you can't have anything exciting without a little bump along the way now and again.
It's been an oddly disappointing feeling, especially after I thought I was doing so well. Though it wasn't the fact that I was having a problem that bothered me quite as much, it was the particular issues I was having that got me down. I knew I'd have some difficulty with the language but I'd hoped I'd pick it up faster (though I have to keep reminding myself I've only been here barely two weeks). And as for getting sick, I thought that if I'd have a "bump in the road" while on an "adventure" in South America that I could at least manage to have a little more interesting difficulty than the common cold and being late for class. I mean, I'm not asking for any more misfortune (since as my friends can attest, it seems to find me regardless), but I guess I'd imagined the problems being something a bit more adventurous, like having to face a criminal warlord while trying to decode the last clue to find the sunken ship my new friend's ancestors had lost (yes I recently saw "The Adventures of TinTin," why do you ask?).
So I guess what I've learned from all this is that (A) no matter how good things seem, they can turn around in an instant (with one flip of an alarm's switch), and (B) adventures of all sizes should be embraced, be it a big or a small (though you might not want to share the small ones as much as the big ones, since to be honest, they don't make for very interesting reads. In fact, I'm surprised you've gotten so far in this blog post) So, here's to adventure. Here's to changing outlooks on life. And here's to whatever combination of the two might be just around the corner (waiting to smack you in the face with a baseball bat).
http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3qdcrj/
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Learning Experiences Part 1: Success
This weekend was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
Where to begin. Friday maybe?
Sure, we'll start there
Friday: After we finished up with our final orientation sessions and registered for classes (hyper stressful!) our program director, Lizette took those of us who were interested to a youth group meeting at her church. We arrived to find the praise band singing and it was a really great time.
Then was the message. It was also good, but less so. Not because it was bad or boring or wasn't relevant or anything. I'm sure it probably was. I just couldn't really understand it. I mean, it was in Spanish. It was fast. I tried my best. I didn't get it. I felt better when the other Americans couldn't either. I understood it was about time because he kept saying "tiempo." That was about it. We got a quick summary from our director later who explained it was about how our timing and God's timing are sometimes very different. Afterwards there was a quick meeting of some of us exchange students and the youth leaders. After this, some of us Americans and a few of the Chilean youths went out to eat at, where else, McDonalds.
I ordered "Mac Nooguts" as they call them and fries. The McDonald's was actually really nice for a McDonalds. Maybe foreign ones are like that. I don't know. I don't visit overseas American fast food chains all that often. Anyway, as I went upstairs to join the group. It was such a good time. We were laughing and talking. We got along like we'd known each other for years. Everything was clicking. Translating was easy when it was so natural. For those of you who have learned to speak another language, may you'll know what I'm talking about when I say that when learning a language, at first you have to hear in one language, but think in your native tongue. This is how it's been for me most of my Spanish-speaking life (about 8 years I think?), but that night I wasn't hearing Spanish and having to translate in my head to what it meant in English. I heard in Spanish and it just was in my head in Spanish. And I could respond without thinking my response in English first, translating, then sending it through my face hole. It felt like all my years of Spanish studying had finally come to mean something. I was elated.
I was especially happy, because that night, I understood my first real joke in Spanish and, for the first time, made a joke in a foreign language. Now, when I say joke, I don't mean the formal type that follow the lines of "A [blank] walked into a bar..." or "What do you get when [blank]," What I mean, is I added a piece of humor to our conversation. Now for those of you who know me personally, you might understand why this is so important for me. Being able to make jokes and be humorous is a HUGE part of how I communicate and form relationships with people. I feel like if I weren't able to joke with people, they wouldn't be able to understand who I really am. It's exciting and encouraging to know that I'm sort of regaining this ability.
Later that evening, my friend Christina and I were heading back to our homes in the same neighborhood when she, apparently in as good a mood as I, said, "You know, I think I'm starting to love it here." I couldn't have put it better. We had walked the few blocks from the McDonalds to a main central plaza where we could hail a collectivo to our homes. We navigated the city like pros. This place, like the language, was beginning to feel less foreign and more familiar.
The next day was a glorious relief. The week up to that point had been scheduled to bursting, with seemingly every minute packed with some thing to do or another. But on Saturday, there was nothing. I slept in. Walked around the city a bit. Chilled. It was great. That afternoon I received a text on my new phone. (Oh yeah, I have a phone here now. It's super simple, no camera, no full keypad, just the necessary buttons to call and text. Since most Chileans use a pay-as-you-go plan it's super cheap to own too, which is especially nice.) It was one of the Chilean girls from the night before. She said a few of the exchange students were going to go to her house that evening to watch the first two Christian Bale Batman movies. I agreed (of course) and later that night found myself yet again in good company.
At one point in the evening, after we'd finished "Batman Begins" and then agreed that we didn't really want to watch the next one that same night, one of our American friends, Jordan, found a spider on the ceiling. It was kind of small and dark brown with long spindly legs. It descended from its perch on the rough white ceiling and began to descend slowly on a strand of silk. Jordan, being a brave individual who likes creepy things like spiders was about to reach for the spider to pick it up and play with it. I've always kind of admired people who can do that. I can't. I hate spiders. I think they're interesting to examine. But only when dead, under glass, or online. Anyway, as he reached out, several of the Chileans exclaimed "Araña de Rincón!" Directly translated, this means "Spider of the Corner," and Jordan didn't seemed bothered that this spider had come from the corner and didn't really flinch.
Because of my (somewhat) irrational fear of the eight-legged monsters, had Googled "Chilean Spiders" before the trip, just to know what I'd be up against here. There are numerous spiders in Chile, but only a few really notable ones. There is the Mouse spider, The Chilean Rose Tarantula (I didn't even have the courage to open the wikipedia page on that one, thinking that some things are better left unknown), and the Chilean Recluse Spider, or as it's known in Spanish: La Araña de Rincón. It's a more deadly cousin of the North American Brown Recluse Spider, and can cause necrosis of the skin around the bite, leading to possible tissue and muscle death which can lead to gangrene and may require amputation of the affected area. It's also been known to cause death in several cases due to renal failure or other complications. So basically it's horrible. And he was about to touch it.
Knowing this, I calmly looked at him and stated, "WAIT NO THATS A POISONOUS SPIDER ITS THE CHILEAN RECLUSE IT CAN KILL YOU OR TAKE SOME FINGERS DON'T TOUCH IT." That did the trick. We killed it with two placemats. Ever since, anything that brushes against me or moves in the corner of my eye causes me to flinch. And I have to check under my covers every night, just to make sure there's not some vengeful relative of the dead arachnid, looking to seek revenge (What? What do you mean I let my imagination run away with me?). We had a fun time the rest of the evening though, playing Dutch Blitz, a semi-obscure card game I had grown up with and was apparently fairly popular in Chile (who knew?)
On Sunday church was good (the music was great, while the sermon, yet again, lost me). I talked with my parents that evening and went to bed early. Classes would begin the next day, and I had a class at 8:15. I knew I would want to be early and there on time. I made sure my alarm was set to the right time and switched the on/off switch on the top of my small batter powered alarm clock so I'd be ready for the next day. I fell asleep quickly and slept soundly, calmed and reassured by my recent progress and the relaxing and fun weekend that had just ended.
Where to begin. Friday maybe?
Sure, we'll start there
Friday: After we finished up with our final orientation sessions and registered for classes (hyper stressful!) our program director, Lizette took those of us who were interested to a youth group meeting at her church. We arrived to find the praise band singing and it was a really great time.
Then was the message. It was also good, but less so. Not because it was bad or boring or wasn't relevant or anything. I'm sure it probably was. I just couldn't really understand it. I mean, it was in Spanish. It was fast. I tried my best. I didn't get it. I felt better when the other Americans couldn't either. I understood it was about time because he kept saying "tiempo." That was about it. We got a quick summary from our director later who explained it was about how our timing and God's timing are sometimes very different. Afterwards there was a quick meeting of some of us exchange students and the youth leaders. After this, some of us Americans and a few of the Chilean youths went out to eat at, where else, McDonalds.
I ordered "Mac Nooguts" as they call them and fries. The McDonald's was actually really nice for a McDonalds. Maybe foreign ones are like that. I don't know. I don't visit overseas American fast food chains all that often. Anyway, as I went upstairs to join the group. It was such a good time. We were laughing and talking. We got along like we'd known each other for years. Everything was clicking. Translating was easy when it was so natural. For those of you who have learned to speak another language, may you'll know what I'm talking about when I say that when learning a language, at first you have to hear in one language, but think in your native tongue. This is how it's been for me most of my Spanish-speaking life (about 8 years I think?), but that night I wasn't hearing Spanish and having to translate in my head to what it meant in English. I heard in Spanish and it just was in my head in Spanish. And I could respond without thinking my response in English first, translating, then sending it through my face hole. It felt like all my years of Spanish studying had finally come to mean something. I was elated.
I was especially happy, because that night, I understood my first real joke in Spanish and, for the first time, made a joke in a foreign language. Now, when I say joke, I don't mean the formal type that follow the lines of "A [blank] walked into a bar..." or "What do you get when [blank]," What I mean, is I added a piece of humor to our conversation. Now for those of you who know me personally, you might understand why this is so important for me. Being able to make jokes and be humorous is a HUGE part of how I communicate and form relationships with people. I feel like if I weren't able to joke with people, they wouldn't be able to understand who I really am. It's exciting and encouraging to know that I'm sort of regaining this ability.
Later that evening, my friend Christina and I were heading back to our homes in the same neighborhood when she, apparently in as good a mood as I, said, "You know, I think I'm starting to love it here." I couldn't have put it better. We had walked the few blocks from the McDonalds to a main central plaza where we could hail a collectivo to our homes. We navigated the city like pros. This place, like the language, was beginning to feel less foreign and more familiar.
The next day was a glorious relief. The week up to that point had been scheduled to bursting, with seemingly every minute packed with some thing to do or another. But on Saturday, there was nothing. I slept in. Walked around the city a bit. Chilled. It was great. That afternoon I received a text on my new phone. (Oh yeah, I have a phone here now. It's super simple, no camera, no full keypad, just the necessary buttons to call and text. Since most Chileans use a pay-as-you-go plan it's super cheap to own too, which is especially nice.) It was one of the Chilean girls from the night before. She said a few of the exchange students were going to go to her house that evening to watch the first two Christian Bale Batman movies. I agreed (of course) and later that night found myself yet again in good company.
At one point in the evening, after we'd finished "Batman Begins" and then agreed that we didn't really want to watch the next one that same night, one of our American friends, Jordan, found a spider on the ceiling. It was kind of small and dark brown with long spindly legs. It descended from its perch on the rough white ceiling and began to descend slowly on a strand of silk. Jordan, being a brave individual who likes creepy things like spiders was about to reach for the spider to pick it up and play with it. I've always kind of admired people who can do that. I can't. I hate spiders. I think they're interesting to examine. But only when dead, under glass, or online. Anyway, as he reached out, several of the Chileans exclaimed "Araña de Rincón!" Directly translated, this means "Spider of the Corner," and Jordan didn't seemed bothered that this spider had come from the corner and didn't really flinch.
Because of my (somewhat) irrational fear of the eight-legged monsters, had Googled "Chilean Spiders" before the trip, just to know what I'd be up against here. There are numerous spiders in Chile, but only a few really notable ones. There is the Mouse spider, The Chilean Rose Tarantula (I didn't even have the courage to open the wikipedia page on that one, thinking that some things are better left unknown), and the Chilean Recluse Spider, or as it's known in Spanish: La Araña de Rincón. It's a more deadly cousin of the North American Brown Recluse Spider, and can cause necrosis of the skin around the bite, leading to possible tissue and muscle death which can lead to gangrene and may require amputation of the affected area. It's also been known to cause death in several cases due to renal failure or other complications. So basically it's horrible. And he was about to touch it.
Knowing this, I calmly looked at him and stated, "WAIT NO THATS A POISONOUS SPIDER ITS THE CHILEAN RECLUSE IT CAN KILL YOU OR TAKE SOME FINGERS DON'T TOUCH IT." That did the trick. We killed it with two placemats. Ever since, anything that brushes against me or moves in the corner of my eye causes me to flinch. And I have to check under my covers every night, just to make sure there's not some vengeful relative of the dead arachnid, looking to seek revenge (What? What do you mean I let my imagination run away with me?). We had a fun time the rest of the evening though, playing Dutch Blitz, a semi-obscure card game I had grown up with and was apparently fairly popular in Chile (who knew?)
On Sunday church was good (the music was great, while the sermon, yet again, lost me). I talked with my parents that evening and went to bed early. Classes would begin the next day, and I had a class at 8:15. I knew I would want to be early and there on time. I made sure my alarm was set to the right time and switched the on/off switch on the top of my small batter powered alarm clock so I'd be ready for the next day. I fell asleep quickly and slept soundly, calmed and reassured by my recent progress and the relaxing and fun weekend that had just ended.
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