Thursday, May 7, 2015

Schenanigans

this is an old pic- and unrelated to this post but my blog has been lacking photos...and I still am not done going through mine...
So today we got our grades for Ceramics class. It went a little something like this...we all set our ceramic plate pieces that we have been working on the whole semester (remember that we had to make clay at the beginning- so at this point I had made and painted 5 plates) on the table in front of us and then the professor (old man with missing teeth- i noticed that one today...) and the TA (overly peppy assistant who is always drinking coffee and eating some sort of cookie- no joke, once she told us she would teach us but first she had to go buy a cookie) walked around with a nice little official grade book and evaluated everyone's work. Now this may sound all scary and formal and all but let's be real- this is an art class. And we all know that artists are mostly chill. Thank goodness that sentiment carried over when it came to my grade because I don't know what I would do if I had to come back to Tulane with a failing grade in Intro to Ceramics...
The profe (so much more fun to say than professor- sometimes I even hear chileans address them this way!) walks over, takes a look at my work and says something along the lines of what the TA had told me last week. Not bad. "Too much color on this one" (apparently this isn't a painting class and therefore if you use too much color it subtracts from the beauty of the ceramic piece- this was roughly translated from spanish so I could be entirely off track) "This one would be great if you don't look at this part" (she then proceeds to cover 60% of the plate) "and this one, well, if you were an art student I would have to give you a 3" alright. Good thing he then proceeded to ask me if I was an art student and I responded with a shorten summary of how I am a pre-med student. While this is irrelevant to the story- it is always difficult to explain to people the fact that I am in a university and I will be going to med school after, because here they go directly into med school after high school. That's right- your doctor here could potentially be 25. Oye. 
Back to the story- the long and the short of is it that out of my 5 plates they said they kinda sorta liked one of them and therefore I could receive the gringo grade of 6.0 which about the equivalent of a B+ I think. All I know is that it is passing and coincidentally it was also the exact same number that the TA had written next to every single other student they had evaluated. Classic. Perhaps in art we are all equals(:
In other news today I had my first class at U Chile in over a month. And while I  felt slightly overwhelmed at the fact that I now have 14 hours of class a week instead of 11, I managed to get my things together and carry on. Even if it meant sitting through class during dinner time- what a drag.
In my indoor cycling class I was forced to interact with my fellow Chileans and thus I promptly looked for an approachable looking face- this only took about oh maybe 45 seconds (these girls are intimidating!)- luckily by this time the kid still didn't have a partner. Maybe it was because the first thing he said to me when I walked up to him was "ARE YOU A FOREIGN STUDENT?" yay for Chilean social skills- always forward and never considerate. Luckily for him, he had gorgeous blue eyes and it wasn't the first time I had been asked that blatantly obvious question. We chatted for a bit but then the conversation ended when I exhausted all of my go-to spanish questions like "where are you from," "what are you studying" and so forth. The thing is after you ask those and then answer a multitude of questions about how you like Chile and how long you've been here....I just can't think of much else that I could respond to with my spanish vocabulary. Okay that's a lie but really, when you try to explain complicated things in spanish the conversation just becomes broken and awkward. 
Maybe that's why Mama and Camila never invite me to their early morning breakfast chats over a nice little tray of fresh food that Mama brings up to the bedroom every morning. Yuup. hold the phone, because I have a little something to say about this royal treatment and the step sister that just happens to live one room over. (cough- ME!). While I totally understand that I am just one of the MANY (I think I'm number 13, going on 14) host students that this family will have. In fact, we come so frequently that there will only be a week- seven days people- in between when I leave and the next one arrives. However, this fact doesn't make me feel less jealous to see Camila get the true mother-daughter treatment. I feel slightly jipped and would love to have a fresh tray of toast with avocado or scrambled eggs brought up to my room when I have to wake up at 6:45 two days a week. They just sit in Mama's room with their hot tea, nice breakfast and chat while I'm in the bathroom (literally less than a foot away) brushing my teeth and trying to see through my squinty eyes (the bathroom light is so bright!) so that I can put on some makeup and get outta that place. And so I ignore the delicious aroma of freshly toasted bread, forget the fact that the families receive 500 dollars a month to feed us and truck along down the stairs to grab my lunch. What's that there on the stovetop for Camila? Her freshly made lunch! Mama has stopped asking me recently if I even need a lunch anymore- yet she wakes up at the crack of dawn to make Camila new food (no leftovers for Princess) and half the time Camila "forgets" her lunch (I'm pretty sure she much prefers to buy lunch). All things considered, this day in particular does not make a strong arguing point for me because she had made Camila a lunch of boiled corn, a frozen hamburger patty (obviously that she cooked it, but the adjective 'frozen' may give you some insight as to what these lovely pieces of meat taste like...mmm fat) and some mayo. Alright Alright, I'll shut my mouth and put some pasta with meat sauce in my own darn tupperware...
One last thought- something I actually meant to include in my Valpo/ViƱa recap is the interesting fact that our ceviche contained a seemingly new and exotic type of seafood. After trying it and then googling it when I got home I found out that it was actually just a sea scallop, but the reason it looked so exotic is because in other countries (the US just likes to do things their way- cough, metric system, cough annoying) when you shuck sea scallops you leave the roe attached to the white part that we all know and love. Now this was not the best thing I've ever ate but it was interesting to try and the article I found via google says that it's the part of the scallop that is rich in Omega 3's (yay for health). 
exotic no?
Well that's all for now- I'm off to take a lukewarm and semi-enjoyable shower. The hot water here is no longer hot, and I'm really hoping it doesn't get worse than this when it gets colder...

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