"Caitlin sure is having a GOOD TIME there in Chile."
"We love reading her stories about her study abroad, but tell me...she IS taking CLASSES, right?"
It isn't that I am not engaged in learning or that I don't value the education I am receiving this semester; it just didn't occur to me to write about my classes. There isn't much adventure, irony or surprise sitting in a classroom, researching a presentation or translating a poem. I guess since I've been in classes at Southwestern for three years now, and have lived semester-to-semester for the past fifteen/sixteen, I didn't see the interest value in a post about my academic life. I have lived it for so long, that it doesn't strike me as intriguing or novel. It is a fair request, however. This is a STUDY abroad. And there are only so many consecutive camping stories that one can read. (That's false. We have AWESOME camping experiences. Be out of your mind not to want to hear about them...) And I have to keep in mind that as an audience, you would naturally want to hear a little about all the aspects surrounding a given subject or circumstance. So without further ado, proof of the elusive, much hypothesized about, often requested and indeed existent, life of a student that I lead here in Santiago.
To follow the always applicable advice of Lewis Carroll, "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop," I shall embark upon this assignment with a description of, as well as a few stories and photos from, the class that starts my week.
Dibujo I:
I wanted to take some sort of art-related or otherwise interactive class this semester, and as it turns out, Universidad de Chile, Universidad Catolica and Universidad de Diego Portales (these are the three schools we can take classes from in addition to the courses that IFSA-Butler offers) have a wide spectrum of options, from drawing, painting, and photography to watercoloring, sculpture and screen printing. It was a big decision to make, which class I would choose - a decision helped out a lot from the fact that whatever subject I chose couldn't interfere with my already chosen IFSA time slots and helped out a little from the other fact that any class that began before 10 in the morning was out of the question. I'm not that lazy, its just that I have to factor in commute time during the end of morning rush-hour, which is roughly an hour to any campus in the city. Back at Southwestern the farthest class from my on-campus apartment was a ten-minute walk, max. So as you can see, Drawing I fit nicely into my preferred schedule: Mondays and Wednesdays from 10:00 to 1:00.
I have never taken a drawing class in my life. I satisfied all my "fine arts credits" in high school with concert band and in college with guitar lessons. But I've always wanted to learn some of the basics, to try it out at least once. And yet with all my eagerness, I don't think the professor was very keen on having me in the class for the first few weeks... My Spanish was at its worst, and while I pride myself on being able to pick things up quickly, I never seemed to get the first assignments quite right. Drawing just wasn't my area of expertise, so my artistically uneducated interpretations from the parts of the instructions that I thought I understood were often, if not always, met with some confusion from the professor or his teaching assistant. I would have the right idea, but wouldn't execute properly. Por ejemplo: One of the first assignments was an exercise in frequency and intensity to practice drawing lines closely together and far apart as well as using light strokes or pressing down harder to achieve more depth and dimension in the drawing. Sounds complicated doesn't it? Try translating it from Spanish first. I brought the homework to class, happy to turn in my work, when the assistant stared at it for a second, and then at me for a few more. Apparently I hadn't understood that I was supposed to cover the entire sheet with these exercises. I had only covered about 1/3 of the paper, and it had taken me hours. And I got these confused looks with a handful of different assignments, especially the more abstract ones. When we began drawing 2 point perspective cubes, I took it upon myself to up the ante and get ahead of the game, and began drawing 3 point perspective thinking that I would be praised for my forward thinking. But as it turns out, the class was based in 2 point and my attempt to show off had resulted in the assistant thinking that I really had no idea what perspective was at all. Not hard to imagine that I wasn't exactly at the top of the professor's favorites list. And don't try and tell me that it was only in my head, because for a while there I had told myself that, too. Then I began to realize that the professor never came around to my easel during class time. He would walk around the entire room, the entire room, and skip right over me. I would watch him do it. Couldn't blame him much though; "Silly non-artistic gringa that only understands a portion of the words I am telling her." No doubt he was just waiting for me to change my mind about the class all-together. There was one day, after our journey to Patagonia (where we spoke mostly English for about 6 days), that I stayed after class to ask him a question. But I could not understand his answer. Finally, he just told me that the assistant would email me about the issue. I was so embarrassed and was mentally willing back my tears. I'm telling you this whole situation was really stressful. But there is a happier ending...
For the time period of our first two "exams," where we turn in the best of each exercise we have been working on, this relationship did not change. Then, one day when I was drawing a set of pliers and listening to my iPod, he came over and tapped me on the shoulder.
"Tienes una pregunta?" Except in the Chilean accent it sounded more like "TieneOonuhPreoonta?"
"Uhm, yeah. Where the hell did this come from. I had headphones on. You could have legitimately passed me this time," I happily thought to myself before posing a question about the proper perspective in which I had drawn my pliers.
I think that once we started drawing real objects rather than squares and cubes and ellipses, I stood a much better chance of successfully completing the assignments, and it was only a matter of time until I got used to Chilean Spanish and became a little more comfortable with conversation. Right now he sets random things in the center of the room (boxes, buckets, pieces of wood nailed together at 90 degree angles), and we have ten minutes to draw them before he turns them around and changes our perspectives or replaces the object completely. We are finally utilizing all the exercises we started the semester with, and it is a lot more challenging now. Overall it has been a very interesting experience, Chile-wise and art-wise. I've met some really nice Chileans in my class who teach me slang and correct me when I've misunderstood something. The professor knows me by name, and I understand one of the most basic rules to drawing, which is to start from a cube shape with a 3-D, 2 point perspective and whittle away from there. It was frustrating at first, but I feel like I've really settled in at this point, and I look forward to each class to see what we will be drawing next.
Follow this link to see some of my drawings and a quick example of 2 point vs. 3 point perspective:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026198&id=38601976&l=b2dc18155e
Gramática:
Mondays and Wednesdays from 4:00 to 5:30. Wow, this has been long-winded so far. I'm only on the second class... I am going to try and speed it up a little here because I still have a lot to talk about.
Not much to say here, this is one of my IFSA courses so we only have about seven students, and we all know each other. I really like our professor - she is so sweet, super helpful, sufficiently firm but understanding, always accessible, and it is obvious that she is really passionate about what she does. Paula explains things so well and I ALWAYS learn something new. Her class has probably been the most important and the most beneficial to me here in Chile. We typically turn in a paper a week for her, unless she has a different assignment planned. Our papers have been over discrimination, the Chilean economy, political division in the country, los Mapuches, tourism and nature, the Golpe de Estado on September 11 1973 where Allende was overthrown and either murdered or committed suicide with a rifle given to him by Fidel Castro (depending on your political affiliation), and all the articles we have to read for them come from one binder. We had to prepare for a debate over a proposal for maximum income one week, and last week we all made presentations about something "culturally significant" to Chile. Other students did Chilean wine, pancito (the staple of the Chilean diet) and the stray dogs that roam the city streets. I chose to do mine over Pisco, the liquor made from grapes. I explained the process of fermentation and distillation, and I gave information behind the famous feud between Peru and Chile over the right to nationally claim and produce Pisco. And the entire class is in spanish; all four of them are, actually.
I don't know what else to say about this class; its a grammar class so I learn a lot, but its not terribly exciting.Historia:
My other IFSA class meets from 10:00-11:30 every Tuesday and Thursday. Carmen Gloria is our professor, and again we only have about six or seven students. She has this ridiculously long slideshow that we use almost every day. I think its over 200 slides, so we get a little further on it each class. Carmen Gloria knows everything about everything. Our classes are very comprehensive, and even though it is a Chilean history course, we talk a lot about other countries' influences. We only have three papers the entire semester, and we get to choose what topics we want to write about. For my first essay I discussed the War of the Pacific, how it affected Chile and her economy as well as how the country would be different if she had lost the war and if there had been no war at all. My second was over ISI (import substitution industrialization) and what led to its sucess and eventual failure. I don't know why I keep writing about economics, but I've done well on the essays so I'm not really going to question how I get good grades writing on the one subject I ever fell asleep in during high school. The third essay I will probably want to write about Allende and Pinochet since we've finally gotten to Chile's most recent history.
Again, I don't really know what I can add here...I think I might have worn myself out on that Drawing class.
Poesia:
Following Historia, Poesia begins at 12:00 and ends at 1:30 every Tuesday and Thursday. Although I am taking this course through Universidad de Chile, there are no Chileans enrolled in it. It is strictly a gringo class. However, since it is not through my program I have been able to meet students from other programs who are also in Chile for the semester. There is one other girl from my program in it with me, which was crucial my first day of class because after history I realized that I had no idea where this class was located. Not well thought out on my part, but as it turned out Megana mentioned that she was leaving the IFSA office for poetry. We discovered that it was the same class, and she said that she knew how to get there. So we walked to the metro, I followed her when she exited to street level, and she led me successfully to the correct campus. I have a tendency to not know where I am going a lot of the time, especially with the bus system. Metro is easier, but I never use the buses unless I am in a group. As long as someone else knows where we are going I just tag along. And as I type this, I get the feeling that I might be living a modern version of a nursery rhyme.
Megana had a little lamb,
Whose fleece was white as snow.
And everywhere that Megana went
The lamb was sure to go.
It followed her to school one day,
Which was against the rules.
It made the children laugh and play,
To see a lamb at school.
Ok, obviously it isn't perfect. I could have modernized more of it but I didn't know how to update the laughing children section while keeping with the lamb idea.
But back to class. It is over the works of Pablo Neruda and Gabriella Mstral, the two famous Chilean poets. We spent the first 3/4 of the class talking about Neruda, and if you ever met our professor, you would know why. I'm pretty positive that she isn't married, and I'm pretty positive that its because she subconsciously holds any man to the worship-worthy standards of Pablo. She is probably in her 50's and there are days when all we do is go around the room reading his poems while she interprets them and highlights important stanzas. To her, every poem is passionate, strong, intense... I don't know what she would have done with herself had Neruda never gotten into poetry.
Every Thursday we are supposed to bring in an original poem to read at the end of class. We have some pretty good poets in the class, but most people end up writing about Santiago. My first few were decent enough poems, but then one Thursday I wasn't really feeling the prose-poetry I had been writing and decided to spice things up a bit. I went with some haikus. Needless to say, she wasn't familiar with the Japanese form of writing, and the inherent humor of fitting complete thoughts into a 5-7-5 syllable format seemed to be lost on her. Here I have, roughly, translated them for you.
"Las Torres" The Towers (of Torres del Paine Nacional Park)
Camino largo,
Que cansada, me duele,
Valió la pena.Long trail,
So worn out, it hurts me,
It was worth the pain."Comida del Camping" Camping food
Palta, pancito,
Pesado para traer,
Mmm, tengo hambre.
Avocado, bread,
So heavy to carry,
Mmm, I'm hungry.
So haikus were officially off my list of options, but after reading some of Neruda's Odes, like Ode to the Cat or Ode to the Sea, I decided that an ode was most likely a very acceptable form of poetry. But before you read it, I should explain that when one rides the metro in Santiago, one hears every stop announced over the loud speakers. And at stations where you can connect to another line, you would hear something like this, "Tobalaba Station: place of connection with line four," but obviously in Spanish. And on this particular Thursday, someone had read a poem about the Metro System, ending their work with such a line. So when it came my turn to read, I was slightly inspired to change the format up a little, and add it to the end of my own poem, since I was on such a silly roll anyhow...
"Oda a Nescafé"
Me encanta hacer Nescafé,
Me encanta encender la cocina con el fósforo.
Me gusta poner el café y el azúcar
En la taza amarilla,
Dos cucharas y tres cucharas respectivamente.
Me gusta verter el agua caliente de la caldera,
Y me encanta el sonido del agua
Cuando llena la taza.
Me hace sonreír verter la leche de la caja.
Y me gusta revolverlos todos juntos
Y sentir que el azúcar se disuelve
Cada vez con la vuelta la cuchara.
Tal vez hago dos tazas,
Solo para tener la oportunidad de hacerlo de nuevo,
Pero no puedo siempre terminarlo.
Cada vez
queda un poco diferente el café,
Más azúcar, menos leche…
Pero siempre está delicioso.
Es rico, es Nescafé.
Estación Nescafé: lugar de combinación con delicioso.
I love to make Nescafé,
I love lighting the stove with the match,
I like putting the (instant) coffee and sugar
In the yellow mug,
Two spoons and three spoons, respectively.
I like pouring the hot water from the kettle.
And I love the sound the water makes
As it fills the mug.
It makes me smile to pour in the milk from the box.
And I like mixing it all together,
And feeling the sugar dissolve
With each turn of my spoon.
Sometimes I make two cups,
Just to have to opportunity to do it all over again.
Even if I can’t always finish it.
Each time, my coffee is a little different,
More sugar, less milk,
But it is always delicious.
It is rich. It is Nescafe.
Nescafe Station: Place of connection with Delicious.
And that is my week. I have only two to three weeks left before this semester is over, and then two weeks later Jade and Kimberly are going to arrive. Between that I will try to get some skiing in and maybe one more trip, but I'll have to see how the funds are holding up by then. Sorry it took so long to get this post up, but as you can see, it was not a short one. I appreciate your patience, and even more, your attention. And as you can now see, I do requests, so if there is some other subject you think I am leaving out, let me know.
Paz y amor.
-Caitlin.
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