Young, Restless, etc. Part 2

So sopaipillas are delicious, and that was a great meal. Unfortunately I’m very much not over this cold, and until the whole “breathing like a healthy person” comes back, I see myself pretty much tied to this bed.

So, why not update more? A few of you have been asking pretty basic questions about daily life, and of all things I’d say that’s what i’ve been able to get a handle on, so I’ll descibe a bit.

First of all, I’m testing out a new offline client for WordPress called Qumana, which should let me update despite my spotty internet connection. Let’s see how it works.

Also, some logistics. My iPhone does not work here, at least not with the true power of Jobs that it has in the States. It’s become a neutered iPod Touch, still cool, but more of a toy than a PDA. On the other hand, I love having it, as it lets me take the pictures you see here. My real camera is a bigger device, and while it has many wonderful attributes, subtlety is not one of them, and I’ve basically not used it since being here (as opposed to 344 pics on the iPhone).

Instead, just about every student in the program bought prepaid cheapo phones, either from Entel, Claro or Movistar, the latter being the biggest cell phone company in Chile. To that end, if you want to call/text me, and I hope you do, my number is (011569) 97112957, with the extra numbers to get out of the country, specify Chile, and alert the CIA to start their wiretaps (or something, haven’t quite figured it out yet). The phone was fairly cheap, costing just $40ish for a phone preloaded with $20 credit. I’ve recharged it once, and it serves me well.

We’ll be finishing up with our ILP Spanish class at the end of this week, and so I’ve had to start thinking about what kinds of classes I’d like to take down here and also the nature of internships that I want to pursue.

As everyone has been asking me what I study and what I plan to study, I’ve basically adopted a standard reponse that I was an econ major back in the States, but I really don’t have to take any econ here, so I’ll basically hopefully just end up taking the classes that interest me the most. Problem is what I take will determine which campus I go to, and the super convenient La Chile campus that’s across the street, what’s the subject? That’s right, economics. So we’ll see what happens.

In terms of internships, or “practicas” here, there are a couple of things that I really want to do. The first one, one from the “Journalism” section of the list, is an internship with the Santiago Times, an English-language newspaper about Chilean and Latin American news. It’s mostly expats and has a ton of interns, and seems like a good place to work. I’m interested in writing, both to have more practice writing and also because I think journalism is a great way to get to know the city. I had some aspirations about working for a Spanish-language paper, for additional practice, but at this point in my writing career I think that English is a much better idea. I’m pretty terrible (“unpracticed”) at writing in Spanish, and I’d like to put my best foot forward at a new place. Plus, given interviews and the like, I’ll get plenty of Spanish practice working there.

The other practica that interests me is Inglés Abre Puertas (English Opens Doors), where they recruit visiting students to teach English to locals, either college students roughly of similar age or children in bad parts of town. This sounds fascinating, both because I’d like to try my hand at teaching and because I’m actually really curious what it would be like to be taught English, grammar and all, given that native speakers like us almost never get taught anything about our own language.

This is kind of a change for me (the wanting to teach, not being a word nerd), because the one thing I knew when I was younger was that I didn’t want to teach, given that every single person in the history of the Zarchy clan has been a teacher of some sort (counting counselors, therapists, and other support staff, etc.). Now, I’m reconsidering that and I’d like to figure out if teaching is for me. I don’t see myself jumping into a credential program the first day back to go teach high school or anything, but I can see it at some point in my future. We’ll see.

I feel like I had more to update on, but I think I’m gonna hit the sack soon, and I’ll try to crank out on update on the beach and Papudo soon. For now, I’ll leave you with a true, inspirational sign of English’s spread to Latin America, beginning with the most important word of all.

Tags: food, sopaipillas, breathing, phone, iphone, steve jobs, ipod, teaching, Santiago Times, Inglés

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