Mirelis Gonzalez, Pet Murderer.

In my last post I mentioned how Chilean students are excellent, consistent protesters. While it's great to not have classes every once in a while and the students are admirably protesting for important reasons, it's also a little annoying. Mostly because I never know in advance that the classes are not in session and I only find out when I arrive and am the only person there! One of my classes has been canceled since last week and will be canceled until the 22nd of this month (although next week doesn't count - almost all schools (K-12 and higher education) will be on vacation for at least half of the week) and the school where my law class is unexpectedly canceled all classes because the students are also in protest. The power university students hold in this country is fascinating and inspiring. There's also been some controversy surrounding those officials that entered the campus and began tear gassing and arresting protestors, because that is not allowed here (and shouldn't be anywhere...). Students are free to peacefully protest on university grounds, and police are not allowed to enter and intimidate/try to control the situation.

l

The sign outside of the Law School, informing students
that the school is protesting and classes are not in session.

Sign inside the Law School, roughly translated, it reads
"UChile is not for sale!! Her children will defend her!!"

In other news: I accidentally killed my 11-year-old host brother's crab last week. How, you ask? Well. Somehow the thing escaped from the tank (this means that, one way or another, it climbed the wet walls of the tank?), came down from the countertop, and made its way across the very large kitchen, where I accidentally stepped on it en route to the fridge. I heard and felt its brutal death, but for some reason I thought it was a small, abnormally shaped red pepper or onion. I was rushing and decided I'd leave it there and let my host family decide what it was, and off to class I went.

That night at dinner, my host mom tells Vicente (host brother) to tell my host dad what they found dead on the kitchen floor, and Vicente tells him they found the crab, squashed, all the way by the island. I immediately shoot up and, in Spanish, say what would probably translate to: "oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! That was what it was?! It was me! I am so, so sorry! How the heck did it make it all the way over here anyway?! I thought it was a dry vegetable or a roach!" My sincere, guilty panic attack was received by a roar of laughter, claps, the works. They all said it didn't matter and that it wasn't the first time an aquatic pet escaped from the tank (?!).  I felt terrible for days and ultimately bought Vicente a new crab two days ago, which he was noticeable happy to receive. He's still really getting a kick out of calling me an assassin, though.

Birthday updates: Yesterday, my host sister Javiera turned 13 and we celebrated with lots of delicious sandwiches and Chilenitos* and a strawberry shortcake kinda thing. I wanted to get her the latest Justin Beiber CD (she is seriously in love with this little guy) but it is sold out everywhere! Instead I bought her a cute shirt and a Justin Beiber poster. We'll also be celebrating more birthdays this weekend, as yesterday and today are the birthdays of two students in the program (Feliz Cumple a la weona* Ali y al weon* Dave!).

Last Saturday we went to Valparaiso, a UNESCO-declared World Heritage site reminiscent of San Francisco, except more old-fashioned, historical and colorful. I honestly cannot adequately describe Valparaiso's amazingness in neither words (if you couldn't tell by my elementary use of "amazingness") nor photos, but here are some pictures anyway:

View from Pablo Neruda's house

I must also mention that I took the hardest exam of my life on Monday. The exam was for my Chilean Art 1950-2000 class, and the professor announced that we had an exam but did not provide any information about what would be on it. All he told us was that we had to visit a museum, find two traditional paintings and two paintings that break away from traditional art. If I hadn't asked him if there would be anything else on the exam, I would've assumed that was it. He recommended I study from a book covering late-19th century and 20th century art, and so I did. For well over 20 hours. So when Monday arrived, I thought I was well prepared. Except that part of the exam was on random, relatively insignificant paintings from both centuries and somehow you had to know who the painters were. I won't bore you with the rest of the really, really difficult exam, but my coordinator thinks that the professor is just trying to frighten the Chilean students who are not art-majors and take the class for fun, but don't show up. Where the heck does that leave me?! Hopefully he'll have some mercy on the non-art, non-Chilean students!

FYI (and completely unrelated): City buses here are ridiculous. People board the buses without paying like it's nobodies business, and bus drivers never say anything. This is especially true for students, who get on the bus and say something like "Permiso, tío*!" or "excuse me, uncle!" with deceptively innocent smiles on their faces. There's also the issue of poor service on the driver's part. I've had to wait 30 minutes to get on a bus, even though they pass approximately every 5 minutes, because many drivers have the penchant of driving right past bus stops if they aren't on the lane by the sidewalk or if they feel like catching the light. This happens extremely often.  It's definitely a vicious cycle, though: customers don't pay, so drivers don't feel like they have to deliver quality service, creating a generally informal and poor public transportation system, which doesn't give customers the incentive to want to pay, and repeat.

Below is a picture of a very popular hairstyle Chilean guys like to sport. It is absolutely hideous, but I've realized that I've gotten so used to it that I hardly notice it anymore. So before I become completely desensitized to this phenomenon and forget its absurdity, here it is:

It's blurry because I took it in creep-mode, but, no, your eyes do not
deceive you. That is ONE single dreadlock you're seeing. They wear their
hair short all around, except for one dreadlock all the way at the bottom.

Here is Vicente playing the drums at a gig he had a couple of weeks ago. He is so cute and so into it!

And these little stand are incredibly popular here. I thought they were just a New York City thing!

*Weona- derivative of huevona, slightly vulgar but very regularly used. It's something like "f*cker." Chileans refer to each other as weonas and weons as frequently as Americans refer to each other as "dude" or something of the like that.
*Weon- same as weona, but masculine.
*Chilenitos- are a mouth-watering Chilean dessert which are essentially manjar (dulce de leche) and cracker sandwiches with coconut shreds on the edges of the cracker.
*Tio - Chilean children refer to everyone as tío and tía, or uncle and aunt. It's confusing.

P.S. Chill the eff out, Floridian pastor!

Over and out!
Mirelis