Leather

Today was another warm day. I'm really digging Chile's winters. I'm not digging Claudio Rivero's Social and Political Themes of Chile class though.

Third day in a row of showing up late. If he shows up late the next two days as well, I'm not going to class anymore. I've lost all respect for him. What kind of professor tells his foreign exchange students that they shouldn't say "ok" anymore when it's a bad habit? What kind of professor tells his students not to move their hands anymore when talking? What kind of professor says "You mess up masculine and feminine words all the time"? No crap, we're here to learn and improve our Spanish, not for you to change how we communicate. Very frustrating, but que puedes hacer?

Carlos was out again, but we were told he does not have Swine Flu, just a bad cold. We read some of the confusing story, then we got to watch a very entertaining movie. I'm really excited to finish it tomorrow. Unfortunately, we were given an assignment to go observe a street in either downtown Viña or Valparaíso to see how it's been affected by American culture. Not too hard except that we have a powerpoint presentation to give on it on Friday. Since we had a workshop after class today, it meant that we really only have tomorrow after class to do it. Perfect. My partner Erin and I are heading to San Martin Avenue tomorrow after class, then I'll probably head to her house so we can put the powerpoint together. I like one day presentations. Not.

The leather workshop was really neat. When we arrived, we first practiced pounding the designs we wanted to make onto scrap pieces of leather. In order to do this, we took a hammer and hit metal nails or railroad spikes with the designs on the other end of them. Then we were handed a round piece of leather to make a keychain and a long piece of leather to make a bracelet. I didn't really know what I was going to do, but I just went for it and ended up really liking my designs. Next step was to pick out a kind of stain we wanted to use and then stain it ourselves. I went for a lighter brown color and after getting a button-snap added and the keychain hooked on, I was good to go. (I uploaded photos on facebook from the day)

In the back of the shop was the family's home. It was really cool and chill, and a nice lady with a crazy mohawk and a little two year-old son prepared us an once. I had some really good cookies, complete with honey and two types of jams, and some green tea. I love onces (though I am growing tired of my own familiy's onces since they always only consist of bread).

After everyone finished up, we hopped in the van and went back to the campus. I then headed home on a micro and had another once with my family. After eating, I went to my room to hang relax for a bit. Right now, I'm enjoying watching a stand-up comedian named John Pinette courtesy of my friend David. If you enjoy stand-up comedy, I recommend him. He's pretty great.

Fun fact: My cell phone finally died last night after three and a half weeks of use. I put my cell phone on airplane mode the first day I got here, and only turned it on at nights to use it as an alarm clock, then turned it off the next morning. At this rate, the one charge I did yesterday will be more than enough to get me home. Awesome.

That's about it from me for today. I need sleep. Enjoy summer mis amigos, chao.