La Jac Goes to South America.: I just do and don´t want to come home, that´s all.

"Your own Revlon red nails mesmerize you. Their corresponding digits are busy transferring your chicken scratch to the computer screen. You are numb and this is fascinating. Yep, there they go. You watch as they mindlessly carry your thoughts--no plagiarism here--from that weird, Chilean graph paper to this poor, over-worked machine. And with the same cadence as always. Click-clickety, clickety, clickety-clack. Pause. Click-clickety, clickety, clickety-clack. Hey, wait. Fingers don´t even have minds. They just have bones and tendons and... it's official. You. Are. Tired." --My Life, circa last night.

So, the newest is that the students are all on strike. They would prefer free education, so... they've taken over the campus. Like, it´s blocked off and they´re literally camping out in the buildings, no staff allowed. I'm not exactly sure how this is supposed to fix things, exactly, but this whole situation is sort of convenient/sort of bad.

I'll start with the good. Classes are cancelled indefinitely. Conveniently, this is finals week, which means I now have more of a chance to study. In fact, I thought I had to turn in a giant research paper today but just found out that it´s now due Monday, thanks to the strike. I am grateful. And after staying up amidst piles of books and research articles, drinking instant coffee all the live long night, I will tell you one thing: reading research in English feels just like laying my head down on a big, comfy, coherent pillow. Although, regurgitating it in Spanish at 4 in the morning feels kind of like... well, I think that first verb already explained it nicely. Anyway, so now I have a little time left to finish that up.

But now, the bad news: as long as the university is taken ("en toma" in Spanish) by the students, there will be no final exams. No final exams = no final grades = no credit if I have to return to the good ol' US of A before the strike's over. Sometimes these things last months, I've been told. So... there´s that. However, my non-Chilean classes march on as if nothing were going on, so I know at least a 1/3 of my classes will be good for something.

Admittedly, these last couple of weeks haven´t been the highlight of the semester. This is partially due to living closed up with my homework and partly due to the weirdness that is my emotions. I just do and don´t want to come home, that´s all.

For the remainder of my time I just keep on learning, though. Things I learned this week:

1) the precise at which moment it becomes wiser to close your umbrella than to risk losing it to the wind.
2) that in Chilean Spanish, the teachers "take" the tests. I could never figure out why we said that the students "gave" them but now that I understand the give and take relationship, it´s all starting to make sense...
3) that my host dad likes floral prints; my host mom prefers solids
4) that fingernail polish remover doesn't bleach bedspreads, but it can make the whole house smell really bad.
5) that "betarragas" are beets, not rutabagas.
and finally,
6) how to make the clothes dryer work.

I can’t stand to think about leaving yet, much less write about it. So back to the cave with me, but I just needed a homework break. Ánimo... here comes the weekend!