The Title of the Blog

“You there, are you a foreigner?”
“Um. Yes.”
“Ah, strange. Foreigners don’t usually arrive late to class.”  - Prof. Gabriel Salazar

Well, it had to happen. I don’t know if it’s the influence from the environment, the people, the fantastic sights, or perhaps just pure boredom, but it’s finally happened. That’s right, folks. I am officially writing fiction.

Now, for those of you who knew some of my work back at City on a Hill, this isn’t much of a stretch, just a switch to ripping off obscure fictionistas instead of plagiarizing Wikipedia (bah-dum-shih, naturally).

No descriptions yet of the story, as it’s still stewing. Just be assured that if you see a dip in my grades, be comforted by the fact that I was probably spending the whole time scribbling some random story in a notebook. Because after all, especially in these dubious economic times, freelance writing really is the way to go (much more than economics, naturally). I’ll go ahead and blame the language barrier, but don’t be fooled. An empty notebook is far too tempting of an opportunity to pass up.

Also, you’ll all probably be in the story. So there!

For the record, class has been going well, as I think I’m getting more of a handle on understand professors (and rank and file Chileans), and I can only see it getting easier as the semester continues. Now, I probably shouldn’t be throwing stones, as my history of punctuality is about as glass-house as you can get, but it’s pretty interesting both the time that most Chilean students show up, and how little the profs seem to care. Note, pretty much only for my mom: the quote from the beginning of this entry is not me. I would never show up late, what do you take me for?

My host mom and sister were encouraging me to get more Chilean friends, so some classmates and I got a few beers after class today, hanging out in the quad area of the campus where our class was. They’re all really nice, and good Spanish practice, and we’ve agreed to have a regular hang-out-after-class-and-get-a-beer thing on Thursdays, as well as a weekly-ish poker game. It’ll be nice to have a source of income again!

So you may have noticed that my page has filled with short, CAPS-filled entries. I’ve started posting my Santiago Times articles here, so check those out if you feel like it. For you subscribers, I saved you the trouble of 11 separate e-mails, but they’re there if you want.

My article topics so far (abridged):

Copper: II

Wine: III

See some trends here? I call it “Wining & Mining: A Tour of the Chilean Business Sector.” If that interests you, I welcome you to check out those articles here.

I’m actually somewhat at a loss for words at the moment, a phenomenon which probably has some of you checking the weather to see if hell has indeed frozen over. And who knows? It’s pretty cold here, even more than usual. Still, I have a class at 8 am, a short 6.5 hours away, so I may head to bed somewhat soon. I’ll talk about the radio show as soon as I can get the podcast up, which just requires some studio time to edit audio and get that all squared away, and I’m hoping to get that done quickly, particularly so I can listen to the show and learn a bit before our next one on Monday.

For now, here are several things that interest me:

• Da Vinci’s Notebook – Title of the Song, a hilarious tribute to boy bands (and the inspiration for this blog) from a brilliant group. Everything they’ve done is fantastic, but I think this one is my favorite.

• Hugh Laurie singing – I’ve so far been alone in this, but I’ve basically managed to combine Hugh Laurie and Eric Clapton into the same person. They’re both amazing performers, and both English but in such a way that I never notice (Laurie when he’s playing House, Clapton when he sings), and I think they look similar, if you look from far away, squint a bit, and/or take several shots of strong liquor beforehand.

Hmm… Just listen to this one. Trust me.

My favorite comment: “Featuring lead vocals by Tobey Maguire with Jerry Seinfeld on beatbox?”