New Friends, New Schedule and My Birthday

So its been awhile since my last blog and a lot has happened in that time. First of all, things have been going great down here. I am having a great time and I still love being in the classroom. The weather down here has been a bit unpredictable, sometimes is goes from beautiful and sunny in the morning, to cold, rainy and windy in the afternoon, and then back again. So it feels just like home. My Spanish is impoving quite a bit, as I'd hoped, but I still have a lot to learn. Chileans speak very very fast and have a lot of slang that doesn´t exist anywhere else in the world. So talking with students has had its difficulties, but they payoff will be great.

Last week I continued observing classes and I had the opportunity to work with three new teachers. In one of the classes we ended up spending the entire time just talking about where I was from and what I was doing. So that was really cool. As much fun as that was, the really cool part was that after the class I was approached by two students, Victor and Rosio. Victor and Rosio are a couple and they are studying tourism. They came up to me after class and asked if I wanted to hang out some time outside of class. I of course said yes, that I would love to. I had mentioned in class that my birthday was the next day, so they said that they wanted to do something with me. This was great because up until that point my big plans had been to sit in my cabaña and watch TV. So doing anything would be a big improvement.
Most people who go to a new country for school usually go in groups. Or, if they are there to study a language, they have classes with other foreigners. I, on the other hand, came to Chile alone. So my friend base started at nothing. There are other American students here at UACh, but if I wanted to spend my time hanging out with Americans I would have stayed in the states. So this was a great opportunity for me. We made plans to meet up the next afternoon, so hang out and walk around the city.
The next day, my birthday, I met up with Victor in my office. Then we walked downtown and he gave me a tour of the city. He was very good at this, as would be expected from his major. He mostly spoke English while I mostly spoke Spanish. So it worked out pretty well. We walked arounf for a couple hours until lunch, then we made plans to meet up that evening. After that I went back to Estela's and ate.
The thing about Chile is that the nightlife doesn't really start until around midnight, and things don't really get started until 1am. So I spent some time relaxing at home. We planned to meet up in downtown at midnight. So at 11:30 I left the cabaña, found a colectivo (kind of like a taxi, only shared by others) and went downtown. I met up with Victor, then his girlfriend Rosio, and then one of their friends. So the four of us left downtown and went to the Mira Flores campus of UACh. UACh has two campus in Valdivia, the main campus is Teja, where I work, and the other is Mira Flores, for the engineering students. That night at Mira Flores there was a concert. This was kind of a new concept for me, since we don't frequently have concerts on American campus', and never ones that start at midnight. Nor do they usually take place in the gym, nor do they usually sell alcohol or allow smoking indoors. So there was a lot of new things for me. When we got there things hadn't really started yet. There was music, and some people, but not many. The music for the night was reggae and reggaeton, both of which were very enjoyable. We got some beers, which were terrible, and then started talking to people. I met a lot of new people and got a lot of 'happy birthday's'.
Around 1am things started to pick up. I the states that's usually when the party is winding down, but not in Chile. It got very crowded very quickly, and I'm pretty sure I was the only American there. Then another strange thing occurred. Apparently that night they were crowning Miss Campus Mira Flores. So all of a sudden there were girls on the stage, walking a makeshift runway in their bathing suits and answering questions about why they would be the best to represent the campus. A little strange to me, but oh well, when in Rome. After this was finished the music started again. There was much dancing and talking and drinking and that sort of thing. The band didn't start until around 3 or 3:30AM. They played for about a 45 minutes or an hour. I'm a little fuzzy about the timeline, as I didn't have a watch, and it was so late, and I was a little drunk. After the band played, which was great, we went outside to talk some more.
At around 5, Rosio said she was hungry, so we went back downtown to find food. Food turned out to be giant hotdogs covered with salsa and guacamole. By this time there were a lot of drunk people wandering the street. At one a hilarious point, we came across a very drunk Chilean students who could barely stand. When he heard that I was from America he let fly with some of the things he learned from watching American movies. This mostly consisted of various forms of 'what's up mother f&$%er?!'. In my intoxicated state I thought this was the most hilarious thing I had ever heared. At 5:30am we got into a colectivo and headed home. I wasn't in bed until 6am. It had been a hell of a night, and a damn fine birthday experience. I went to bed with the spins, and woke up with a terrible hang over. Gotta love birthdays.

I haven't seen Victor or Rosio since that night/morning, but they are off on a field trip for their major, so I don't expect to hear from them until next week. This week has been great also, so far. This is the first week that I have my actual schedule, so from now on I'll know where I'll be and when each day. I am going to be working in two classes, both of which meet twice a week. So every week I will go to four classes total. I have class monday morning, tuesday afternoon, and two classes on wednesday. One of the classes is fourth semester accounting class that I knew I'd be working in from the start. The other is a fourth semester tourism class. So the students have all had the same ammount of English, but they are at different levels. The students in the Tourism class are much better at English. I think this is because they can actually see the use in knowing English for their careers. The accounting students weren't very excited about English, and some of them really don't like it. But I think that is all starting to change. I think having a native English speaker in their class is going to help them see the advantages of knowing English. I'm very excited to start actually teaching in these classes.

Yesterday, three of the students came to my office after class. Two of them were from my accounting class, and the third was one of their friends from another major. They came to my office with a letter in English that they had prepared. The letter basically said that they wanted to be friends. That they wanted to practice their English with me and that they wanted to help me with my Spanish. They said that they wanted me to think of them as friends and people I could count on for what I needed. It's difficult for me to say this, because they are all my age and one of them was a guy, but it was really cute. That's the only word I can think of to describe it. So we all talked for a bit about what they wanted to do. When I told them yes, I would love to, they were actually excited and relieved. I think they expected me to say no. One of them even said that she had tried to make friends with some of the American exchange students, but that it hadn't worked. Apparently the exchange students are really clicky and like to stay in their little group of Americans. I on the other hand, was hoping to make some contacts among my Chilean students. So I was very happy and excited about this development. We have plans to meet on Saturday, so we'll see how it goes.

Today was crazy. I have been moving non stop all day. First, I slept through my alarm and didn't wake up until Estela was knocking on my door to leave. So I had to run around and get ready very quickly. Then I had the accounting class first thing in the morning. Today was their oral exam, so I took part in listening and grading them. Then, when that finished, I had another class 10 minutes later. So I had to rush across campus to that class. In that class I taught my first mini lesson. By the time that finished it was 1pm. I was getting ready to go back to Estela's for lunch when Ximena reminded me that I'd promised I would teach the last half of one of her classes because she had a meeting. So instead of going home for lunch, I stayed and prepared for that. it would have taken me half an hour to get to Estela's, and half an hour to get back, so there wasn't really any point in leaving. At 2:45 I went to Ximena's class and spent 45 minutes having a conversation about Easter Island, my life, and how I liked Valdivia. At the end of the class one of the students approached me and told me that he was worried about his English. He told me that this was his last semester of English and that he needed to improve before he stopped taking classes. He said that he understood English fine, but he had trouble speaking, and a lot of problems with grammar. Then he asked me if I'd be willing to help him. I, of course, said that I would love to. He told me that we could go get a beer sometime and talk, if I wanted to. At which point I informed him that I love beer and would never pass on an opportunity to have a beer. So he is coming to my office in about 45 minutes to talk about it.

So things are finally starting to pick up around here. I love working with these students and I love being able to help them. My schedule is about to get a lot busier, and I'm really happy about that. The last thing I want is to have too much free time and get bored. So this is all perfect with me. So that more or less covers the last week. I'll try not to wait so long between posts from now. I hope everybody who is reading this is doing well. Hasta luego.