Diario

Tidings.

Looking over my previous post, I realized it's what a Chilean would call pesado, which translates approximately to "heavy", "boring", "obnoxious", or "tiresome". So, for those interested, here are some lighter bits of news, observations, and goings on.

My classes are interesting and very diverse, both in subject matter and pedagogy. I'm studying silviculture in native forests in a class that meets rarely, packs in lots of information, visits plantations, and has reasonably hard quizzes. I'm in a literature class where we don't read very much literature and the lectures range, seemingly at random, across a broad selection of social, artistic, and historical topics. I'm taking a microeconomics course in which I am the only student. It's very demanding, but at the same time I have lots of opportunities to investigate the practical examples of the material that interests me. The most regular and organized course is History of Chile with the other members of my program. We're all quite fond of the professor and grateful to have a class that meets regularly and covers interesting material in a systematic manner.

Every week brings new challenges. This week's has been bomb threats in the University. The students are completing make up classes and quizzes to finally finish the semester they should have finished six months ago, and some students still don't want any academic activity whatsoever until the movement's demands are met. So they've hit upon a new strategy, which is to call in phony bomb threats, which force the police the evacuate the entire facility and thus interrupt any quizzes or classes in session. I've had three classes interrupted in the past week due to bomb threats. In two cases we simply canceled, and in the third case we went to a nearby gas station and finished the class at their fast food tables.

On a lighter note, here's a kitty:

This is Mime (Mee-May); she's the pet of Carla, my host family's youngest daughter. Mime's hobbies include capsizing the trash can and trying to sneak into the house. Unaware of my cat allergy, she often attempts to climb through my second-story window when I leave it open too wide.

It's been sunny for the past couple of weeks, and occasionally it's been possible to walk outside without a jacket. Spring has arrived. Today I think I'll go to the city park with Jessie to visit the firewood festival.