Hi everybody! A while ago, I was hit with blogging writer’s
block, probably because I have gotten used to blogging my travels and I haven’t
gotten out of Santiago much lately. But that’s okay, because I figure most of
you are here to learn about normal study-abroad-in-Santiago life, anyway. To
break out of the writer’s block I was stuck in, I decided to ask a fellow
member IBA to do a Q&A with me. As she is a member of Batch 2 of the cohort
and will be traveling to Chile for her own study abroad in a few months, I
figured she would have some good questions for me, and she sure did! It will
probably take me multiple blogs to answer them, and I’m just going to start the
basics.
Q: What does your day-to-day schedule look like?
A: There is honestly no such thing! I have had to become A
LOT more flexible living here because something unexpected always seems to come
up. Sometimes the unexpected thing that comes up is an assignment that wasn’t
in the syllabus, which isn’t great. Sometimes it’s a friend or classmate inviting
you on some random outing, which is always fun! I have basically accepted that
I will wake up each morning not really knowing how the day will unfold. Of
course, this is just my experience and I certainly allow myself a lot of
flexibility here, especially this semester when I am only taking three classes
at FEN and then working on my thesis and research on my own time. Many of the
other members of the cohort have internships and therefore have pretty set
schedules around work.
To actually answer your questions, here’s what today has
looked like:
I had International Marketing class at 8am. I’ll just
note—you’ve heard of Chilean time, right? Just because a class is scheduled to
start at 8am doesn’t really mean that it does.
On Tuesdays and Fridays I only have this one class, so after
that I’m free to do as I please or do whatever needs to be done. Immediately
after class, I headed to the FEN library to study for my Urban Economics
midterm. This has turned out to be the most drawn-out studying, seeing as this
exam has already been rescheduled twice. See what I mean about expecting the
unexpected? Anyway, it works for me that the exam has been moved so that I have
more time to prepare.
After studying in the library for a while, I decided it was
time to eat. I walked the whole ten minutes back to my apartment and
on the way up, I chatted with the concierge in the lobby and got the laundry
key to wash the rain jacket I finally purchased yesterday, after seven months
of living here without any rain jacket or umbrella. I made what can only be
called brunch at this point of the day, chatted with my roommate (a lovely
French girl—don’t know if I’ve updated on that), and continued to draw graphs
and study while I ate and did laundry. (Could this day be any more thrilling?)
At one point this morning I saw on facebook that Starbucks
was offering free coffee in celebration of Global Coffee Day, so I walked
there, mug in hand, studied there for a while, and then at my favorite spot at
FEN. There is a balcony off the second-floor study room that provides views of
FEN’s soccer field, the Virgin Mary statue on Cerro San Cristobal, the
snow-capped mountains, and some tall palm trees. It’s an interesting mix.
Eventually I came back home and got organized a bit more and
finally sat down to write this blog! Soon, it will be time for dinner and then
for “Spanglish,” a language exchange that takes place every Tuesday evening.
If you got through that without yawning of boredom, thank
you. Of course, some days are more exciting than others (and hoepfully you realize that today is one of the less exciting days). Honestly, on most
school days, day-to-day life here isn’t so different from life at USC. Go to
class, study, and go to some sort of event or meeting. Just sprinkle in some
Spanish interactions and some of the hilarity that ensues as a foreigner in a
big city. Typically, this is either overhearing something in Spanish because of
the assumption that you don’t speak it or overhearing something in English because
of the assumption that everyone here is a Spanish speaker. Actually, these both
happened to me today but I’ll spare you the details because in both languages,
the thing that I probably wasn’t supposed to hear was mostly just a bunch of
curse words.
Since I’ve now managed to take up a lot of your time and
mine by answering only one question, I think I’ll save the rest for another
time. Just to spice things up, I will add in some photos of life since we’ve
last caught up. I hope you enjoy them!
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| The view of a gorgeous sunset from about a quarter of the way up Cerro San Cristobal |
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| International friends & the view from Cerro San Cristobal at night |
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| Ocean view near Pablo Neruda's house/museum in Isla Negra |
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| Just creeping on some Kpop fans from a park in Santiago |
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| Also on children playing games at a fonda on Dieciocho |
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| Also on these statues at the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino |
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| My art made in the children's play area of the same museum |
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| Some adorable houses that I was surprised to find in the center of Santiago |
