Sunshine Day

Today was extremely warm (for it being the middle of winter down here). It was about 60 degrees and sunny all day. It was like that yesterday and should be for a couple more days as well. I'm loving it, although it is a little depressing knowing that the highest it gets here is still colder than the low back home. Stupid 95 degree weather....

Yesterday was a pretty good day. First class was still bad, we spent about an hour trying to review stuff we didn't understand yet. I've found that he really is horrible at explaining stuff until he's absolutely exhausted a subject until I don't even care anymore. Then, he'll suddenly explain it in a very simple way and all of us are like "Ohhhhhh!!!" Why doesn't he just start out with simple and then go from there? Goodness...

Second class, Carlos didn't show up and we realized half the class was missing so we called one of the other students and she said he was sick but we'd still have our graffiti workshop later. Neat. Since we had about an hour and a half before then, David and I decided to hit up Jumbo (Wal-Mart of Chile) so he could buy some toothpaste and deodorant. I finally splurged and got myself some snacks. For two chocolate bars, a pack of coconut cookies, vanilla flavored wafer cookies (not to be confused with vanilla wafers), and a liter of Watt's peach juice, it cost all of about 2.200 pesos (that's $4). I love the value of the dollar here.

We headed to the computer lab for exchange students and entertained ourselves by checking out some awkward family photos. You should do the same if you'd like to laugh. Just make sure you click "older posts" at the bottom of each page to continue enjoying more photos. http://www.awkwardfamilyphotos.com Sadly, I think my family has more than a few that could qualify for this site.

At 3:40, we met up with the rest of the students for the graffiti workshop. This week, we got to watch Charquipunk and a friend of his actually paint in front of us. We hopped on the trolleybus for a few blocks, then met up with him and his friend and headed to a back side street with a nice wall along it. Right away, they got to work painting. I took lots of photos throughout the time and I'll upload them later tonight on facebook if you care to check them out. I purposefully tried taking photos from the same angle every so often so you can see how it unfolds step by step. The finished work was absolutely amazing, I have doubts on our abilities as a group of being able to create something as good next week when we're allowed to give it a shot. These artists are incredible, I was so impressed and in awe just watching them go at it. Within two hours or so, they had turned this blank dirty wall into a beautiful colorful picture. I think graffiti is one of the best things that has happened to Valparaíso.

Quick story: As soon as we arrived, there was a family at the end of the street who noticed us and turned on some music as the kids came to watch up closer. The same song ended up being played about five times, and it became kind of a joke for us to hear it come on randomly after being quiet for fifteen minutes. The kids seemed really cute and nice at first, but boy were we in for a surprise. There was what looked to be like a rarely driven pickup sitting along the street, and the oldest of the kids (about 12) proceeded to use a coat hanger to break into it. They played around in it for a while, until they pulled out a super ball and started bouncing it around. It eventually came our way and seeing as how we were twice their size, some of my classmates started to play keep-a-way with them. It never was mean or too hard for the kids to get it, and they always got it after two or three passes and then they'd run and go get it laughing the entire time. Well, the kids progressively got more aggressive until the younger of the two boys (no older than 7) punched my friend Andrew in the face. I was shocked. So the next time the ball came his way, he threw it down the street rather than tossing it to someone else. Bad news. The older boy then got this really freaky look on his face and just stared at him, pacing back and forth around him. It kind of creeped us all out. They eventually lost interest in us, and then noticed all of the paint cans on the ground and started touching them all. Charquipunk told them to leave them alone, so then they got rocks and started throwing them at the cans trying to knock them over. Again, he told them to knock it off and put them all in his bag. They then grabbed a paint brush and started painting a lightpost and other parts of the wall where he wasn't painting, and once again he had to tell them to knock it off. Luckily, he was just finishing up the last of his painting. I thought the fun was finally over, but as we were walking down a staircase to get to a lower street, I noticed sticks landing around us. I looked up, and sure enough the same little punks were up there throwing sticks and rocks at us. I am usually very patient with children, even when they misbehave and get more than a little annoying. But there's a point where bad parenting (in this case, lack of parenting entirely) is so unacceptable that even I lose my patience and respect for the kids. Luckily I didn't have to deal with them at all.

After heading home, I had my once and went to my room to work on some homework (second assignment I've had the entire time). I finished it, and then was able to talk with Alyssa for a long time. It was really nice, though I did end up staying awake way longer than I should have. Oh well, it was worth it. =)

Today, I woke up and was about ready to hop in the shower until I realized there wasn't any warm water. They have to ignite a pilot light anytime they want hot water, and I guess whoever had showered before me decided to shut it off rather than leave it on for me. Darn.

First class was bad again today. We asked him about our six page paper due the last week of class, and he initially said "Don't you remember what I said the first day of class? I told you all about it then." No, of course we don't remember every single little detail from the first day of class. If we knew, we wouldn't be asking you. We also asked about our oral quiz we'll be having, and if we could know what it will be like since the majority of us have never had an oral quiz before. He just told us that we have to come and take it, and it will be a surprise. Wow. I've lost all respect for this professor. He really doesn't help his case any when he comes in late every day, even though he holds kids after class to ask them why they showed up late just one day. Hypocrisy at it's finest. After wasting another hour talking about this (which once again could have been solved in ten minutes had he explained it in simple terms from the beginning), we finally started covering other material. I'm so stoked to be done with this class. I'm even more stoked to fill out an evaluation.

Carlos was out again today, so we had the head of the foreign exchange programs teaching instead. He said that two of the professors have the swine flu, and three more have the symptoms (Carlos being one of them), so he has to be out for seven days. Darn. Too bad my other professor doesn't hang out with Carlos more, otherwise he could be gone for a week as well. We attempted watching a movie, but the sound didn't work. Instead, we read through a story that not many of us understood. I can already tell this week is going to be a long one.

I came straight home afterwards with plans of taking a nap since I didn't get enough sleep last night, but I got distracted and am now growing very tired very quickly.

Oh, great news. Some friends here are putting together a skiing/snowboarding trip to one of the local mountains. It'll be about $125-140 depending on number of people going, and so I talked to my parents and they told me I should go ahead and do it since I probably will never again have the chance to snowboard in the Andes Mountains. I'm so stoked. I just hope I can find some suitable clothes before I go... The mountain we're going to has a beautiful lake right next to the lodge so wherever you are, you can see it. It's absolutely beautiful and I'm really excited for it.

I'm done writing today. I write too much I feel. Oh well, I don't care. Have a great night everyone, chao amigos.