Saturday, February 28, 2004
Well I'm in my host family's home! It's really more of a host woman... her name is Marcela, and she has 2 children, one of whom lives in Canada and the other (the daughter) lives nearby here in Santiago and has 2 kids, a boy and a girl.
I am so excited because she has internet! Not dial-up either - it's sort of like DSL I think. So I get to use the computer at night when she's not using it. It's strange using a Spanish keyboard and Spanish Windows XP though.
What's also really exciting is that she works as a translator! She translates courses of study and tourist guides and things like that. So we talked about translating, and she told me that her favorite authors are Cortázar and García Márquez, and I told her that I like Cortázar too (second favorite) and Borges.
They eat everything with a fork and knife here - even sandwiches (well, everything except empanadas). It was sort of hard to cut my round peach with a fork and a knife tonight for dessert.
OK, and I also didn't know that they speak WEIRD spanish here. I knew they spoke fast, but it's almost Italian. Well, not almost Italian but it has Italian influences. It's really interesting that way, but it also makes it really hard to understand. That and they drop sort of random letters. We watched a movie last night at orientation that was called ''Taxi para tres'' (Taxi for three) and we seriously understood about one word every minute or two. Then it got a lot easier to understand, though, as the movie went on.
The countryside is sort of interesting here. It's really dry right now, but otherwise you're just surrounded by mountains.
When we all got off the bus in Santiago Centro today to meet our families we were all waiting around looking for our luggage, and I noticed that my throat was hurting a little bit - sort of like a stinging sensation. I thought that it was strange that I would come down with a cold or something so quickly, because I had been feeling fine. It wasn't until 15 or so minutes later when I was almost to my house that I realized that my throat hurt because of the SMOG. That was a little creepy, because I had only been in Santiago all of 10 minutes before it started to hurt.
I don't know why this happens either, but whenever I'm with a spanish speaking family (like in spain, too), my spanish just goes out the window. I say the dumbest things. I think I just get so nervous and self-conscious that I can't think clearly, because I do well in other situations so I know I'm not totally idiotic.
It was fun hanging out with everyone in the program at our 4 day orientation in Olmué, which is a small town outside Santiago (over the mountains) near Viña del Mar (my keyboard, by the way, has a ñ key :D ). There were a lot of nice people there and it helped to not have to be totally alone the first few days.
It also looks like I'm going to be able to take the intergalactic astronomy class here - if I can handle it otherwise. But it is offered now, so that's cool. My roommate from orientation is a Comp Lit major at Columbia, so she and I may try to take a lit course somewhere together.
The COPA spanish class sounds awesome too - they help us individually with what we need to work on AND they hold 2 pronunciation sessions each week that you can go to if you can/need to. the staff is awesome too - really really nice, knowledgeable, and helpful.
They told us to NOT say that we're new students at the university, because the other students will pretend to be profs and give us a hundred books to read or smudge shoe polish on us. Plus the girls are supposed to be really cold and hard to become friends with. So that's fun. I hope I can make some friends so I don't have to be by myself all the time!
So overall I am SO nervous but very excited, and I think everything will be OK once I get going a bit. I think i came to the right country even though it is a little different. :)
I'm tired so I'm going to bed... night!
I am so excited because she has internet! Not dial-up either - it's sort of like DSL I think. So I get to use the computer at night when she's not using it. It's strange using a Spanish keyboard and Spanish Windows XP though.
What's also really exciting is that she works as a translator! She translates courses of study and tourist guides and things like that. So we talked about translating, and she told me that her favorite authors are Cortázar and García Márquez, and I told her that I like Cortázar too (second favorite) and Borges.
They eat everything with a fork and knife here - even sandwiches (well, everything except empanadas). It was sort of hard to cut my round peach with a fork and a knife tonight for dessert.
OK, and I also didn't know that they speak WEIRD spanish here. I knew they spoke fast, but it's almost Italian. Well, not almost Italian but it has Italian influences. It's really interesting that way, but it also makes it really hard to understand. That and they drop sort of random letters. We watched a movie last night at orientation that was called ''Taxi para tres'' (Taxi for three) and we seriously understood about one word every minute or two. Then it got a lot easier to understand, though, as the movie went on.
The countryside is sort of interesting here. It's really dry right now, but otherwise you're just surrounded by mountains.
When we all got off the bus in Santiago Centro today to meet our families we were all waiting around looking for our luggage, and I noticed that my throat was hurting a little bit - sort of like a stinging sensation. I thought that it was strange that I would come down with a cold or something so quickly, because I had been feeling fine. It wasn't until 15 or so minutes later when I was almost to my house that I realized that my throat hurt because of the SMOG. That was a little creepy, because I had only been in Santiago all of 10 minutes before it started to hurt.
I don't know why this happens either, but whenever I'm with a spanish speaking family (like in spain, too), my spanish just goes out the window. I say the dumbest things. I think I just get so nervous and self-conscious that I can't think clearly, because I do well in other situations so I know I'm not totally idiotic.
It was fun hanging out with everyone in the program at our 4 day orientation in Olmué, which is a small town outside Santiago (over the mountains) near Viña del Mar (my keyboard, by the way, has a ñ key :D ). There were a lot of nice people there and it helped to not have to be totally alone the first few days.
It also looks like I'm going to be able to take the intergalactic astronomy class here - if I can handle it otherwise. But it is offered now, so that's cool. My roommate from orientation is a Comp Lit major at Columbia, so she and I may try to take a lit course somewhere together.
The COPA spanish class sounds awesome too - they help us individually with what we need to work on AND they hold 2 pronunciation sessions each week that you can go to if you can/need to. the staff is awesome too - really really nice, knowledgeable, and helpful.
They told us to NOT say that we're new students at the university, because the other students will pretend to be profs and give us a hundred books to read or smudge shoe polish on us. Plus the girls are supposed to be really cold and hard to become friends with. So that's fun. I hope I can make some friends so I don't have to be by myself all the time!
So overall I am SO nervous but very excited, and I think everything will be OK once I get going a bit. I think i came to the right country even though it is a little different. :)
I'm tired so I'm going to bed... night!
Sunday, February 15, 2004
Friday, February 13, 2004
Here is where I will keep my online journal while I'm abroad in Santiago.
