Monday, September 10, 2012
Desayuno
We have been out of eggs for a few days, and also only had decaf, and my mornings have been, umm, not the best. Today though there was a new flat of eggs waiting for us, and I got to meet the guy who sells them to the family, who was really nice. It's very cool to have someone bring over fresh eggs from his chickens, and know that they are not living in a tiny cage with no beaks or whatever. Also, look how pretty they are!
Curiñanco
The weekend before last we had our first excursion, which was to a nature reserve on the coast, about 45 minutes north of Valdivia. It was really beautiful. Similar to the Oregon coast, there was a forest extending to the cliffs overlooking the ocean, where the waves crashed into rocky outcrops sending huge plumes of spray high into the air. When we first arrived it was clear, and there were some great views of the ocean and cliffs:
We then headed into the forest, and while we were in there, the fog rolled in THICK. When we returned to this same viewpoint, you couldn't see a thing. It was just a wall of white, you couldn't see the cliffs or anything. It was cool though, because the fog looked really amazing in the forest:
After this, we headed back into the village con gran dientes (literally large teeth, but an expression for having a large appetite) and had a delicious lunch at a little restaurant with what was supposed to be a lovely view of the ocean, but all we could see was a whiteout of fog. We sat down to mussels and some amazing seafood soup. I felt really bad for the various vegetarians who are on the trip, because this was some of the best food I've eaten on the trip.
Mussels!
School
And time flies.
Classes have started. I'm taking 3 courses while I'm here, as well as volunteering for the American Corner, which is a club in the library to help the Chilean students practice their English. The courses are a survey of contemporary Latin American literature, a survey of Latin American cinema, and a political science class: Relaciones Internacionales entre Los Estados Unidos y América Latina. The rest of the students also have to take a composition class, but having already taken both the Intensive Grammar Review and Advanced Writing courses in the Spanish program at the U of O, I don't have to take it, which gives me a good amount of free time to explore the city and be out speaking instead of sitting in a classroom. I'm using this free time to help out a company in town that teaches English, which will be great experience when I make my way back down here after graduation to do just that while I continue to hone my Spanish skills.
Homework has been sparse so far. I've had one assignment, which was to watch The Motorcycle Diaries. Tough, I know. Especially since I've already seen it twice. The cinema class has been fun, we've watched a couple films our professor made, which ordinarily I would object to, but they were both shot quite beautifully, if they were a little boring. Last week our Relaciones Internacionales professor gave us a humongous stack of reading, which we have a couple months to get through before our mid-term in November. One of the readings is a declassified report on the USA's covert actions in Chile leading up to and during the 1973 coup d'etat. It's kind of humorous, many of the conservative people in Chile who are wealthy due to the policies and economic development during the dictatorship deny that there was US involvement, and here we are reading a 15 page report that was presented to the US senate in 1975. Our literature class thus far has been reading pre-colombian literature from the Americas, which is not contemporary, and I have already studied in depth. It's kind of frustrating, I've been looking forward to finally getting to read some works from the Latin American Boom. Whatever.
Classes have started. I'm taking 3 courses while I'm here, as well as volunteering for the American Corner, which is a club in the library to help the Chilean students practice their English. The courses are a survey of contemporary Latin American literature, a survey of Latin American cinema, and a political science class: Relaciones Internacionales entre Los Estados Unidos y América Latina. The rest of the students also have to take a composition class, but having already taken both the Intensive Grammar Review and Advanced Writing courses in the Spanish program at the U of O, I don't have to take it, which gives me a good amount of free time to explore the city and be out speaking instead of sitting in a classroom. I'm using this free time to help out a company in town that teaches English, which will be great experience when I make my way back down here after graduation to do just that while I continue to hone my Spanish skills.
Homework has been sparse so far. I've had one assignment, which was to watch The Motorcycle Diaries. Tough, I know. Especially since I've already seen it twice. The cinema class has been fun, we've watched a couple films our professor made, which ordinarily I would object to, but they were both shot quite beautifully, if they were a little boring. Last week our Relaciones Internacionales professor gave us a humongous stack of reading, which we have a couple months to get through before our mid-term in November. One of the readings is a declassified report on the USA's covert actions in Chile leading up to and during the 1973 coup d'etat. It's kind of humorous, many of the conservative people in Chile who are wealthy due to the policies and economic development during the dictatorship deny that there was US involvement, and here we are reading a 15 page report that was presented to the US senate in 1975. Our literature class thus far has been reading pre-colombian literature from the Americas, which is not contemporary, and I have already studied in depth. It's kind of frustrating, I've been looking forward to finally getting to read some works from the Latin American Boom. Whatever.
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