Music, tests, and other things

So I finally feel like I'm seriously in school... two tests this week (Monday and Tuesday morning) and a small project due Tuesday afternoon. So I'm spending the day today studying, with a-bit-too-frequent breaks to check football scores, upload pictures, etc. But oh well. I have all tomorrow afternoon too, and all Monday afternoon for the Tuesday stuff. The main problem is that I have not read all of the books I need to read for my lit class... as in, I'm about 1.9 books behind! But I think it will be fine. First of all, we never talked about these 2 yet, so I'm not entirely sure they will be on the test. Second of all, its going to be half-in class and half-take home, so probably the later stuff will be take home. Finally, she said if the exchange students don't finish reading, we can just note it on the test. The problem is that the book that I've read a little bit of is (from an English description online) the most "linguistically complex" of the genre and includes all sorts of plays on words and double meanings and such... yikes!!

In other news... this week was much nicer weather-wise in the middle of the week- probably in the 70s. Its colder again now because its the third cloudy day in a row, but these warm days are a good sign of whats to come :-) On Wednesday I walked down to a park somewhat near my house with an incredible view, and worked on some homework there. That might become a more common occurence...

View of Valpo from the park:



On Thursday evening (after I went to Pastoral), my friends Jen and Zan (short for Alexandra) and I went out to eat and then to a Jazz club in Valpo. It was pretty cool. I drank legally :-) (a Pisco Sour, which is like Mike's Hard Lemonade, only a bit harder) This is the band that played.


It was a very musical week... last night Jen and Maria and I went to a church in downtown Vina to see Coro (choir) Mozart. They performed a variety of religious music, from Mozart and Italian church music to traditional Christian Folkloric songs from when Christianity was first brought to the Americas. Just before the folkloric songs were 2 "Negro Espirituales" (me: "What? Did they just say Negro Spirituals?!?" and yep they did... the first song was "Swing Low Sweet Chariot"!... talk about random... a Mozart Choir in Chile singing "Swing Low Sweet Chariot")


After the concert we walked to the ocean and just stood on the short concrete ledge edging the sidewalk and watched the waves crashing on the rocks below us and talked for probably an hour. It was nice.

This is from on the way back, the picture turned out orange-er than reality but oh well. This is from the same bridge where I have that reflection picture from around sunset time, looking the other direction.


Other interesting happenings: the students at the Universidad de Santa Maria are on strike. They are upset about some poor administration and mis-management of money, from what I gather. Mostly they're just not going to classes, but on Thursday there was a demonstration. I just happened to be walking home on Thursday and walking right past (across the highway) the university during the height of it... The police were there, and spraying high powered hoses at the students, who kept ducking behind the stone railing on the platform of the steps up to the university. Finally, the police threw out tear gas! Crazy how things work in Chile...

Well, this coming week is somewhat busy but the week after will be super-slow. There are no classes the 17th-19th for the Fiestas Patrias (Patriotic holidays), and probably a lot of profesors, at least for the exchange students, won't have class the rest of the week either, because a lot of people are leaving to travel. I might go with Sarai and our tenant Alejandro to visit his family for a few days after the 18th, they live a couple hours north of here and I guess in a really beautiful area. Not sure on those plans yet, though- we still haven't bought tickets. A lot of people are doing really big trips- there are some people going up to the desert in Northern Chile and then on to Peru and Bolivia. It sounds pretty awesome. I'm a little jealous of all the trips people are planning sometimes... Macchu Picchu in Peru, the glaciers in the south... but hopefully in the end I'll be glad that I decided to save money and only take one or 2 small trips (I plan to go to Mendoza, in Argentina, its pretty cheap by bus).

Anyway... I do have some plans for the week off. My birthday, obviously, is Chile's big holiday and so I'll spend that probably just with my host family. They always have a big barbecue here with relatives and family friends and such. The weekend before some friends and I are planning a picnic on the beach which should be fun. And I'll be able to do some more exploring. And, of course, read more don Quijote. lol.

Sorry for such a long post... I really need to work on more small stuff throughout the week!!

Love, Katie