saturday:
birthday party for sabrina, one of thad's friends. met some folks. everyone spoke spanish, even the americans, of which there were only about five or six. memorable: sara, the gorgeous brazilian economics major; unnamed couple who seemed to take an uncanny liking to me, sonya, scripps high girl who told me "i'd love to have a deep conversation but i really have to pee," (said conversation consisting of her saying that she can't write poetry anymore, but that she's a really good writer. later we talked about her parents divorce and her estrangement from her father in a discotheque while reggaeton played, (no incongruity felt)); cristobal, i just like his name; chelsea, a cute girl from denver who bragged that coors was brewed in her home town but then denied, when i questioned her, that she was boasting--but merely asserting a fact. there was also a spanish girl i spoke to for a while whose name i can't remember. it felt strange and good to have conversations in spanish. nothing especially interesting happened at the party or after. thad helped direct the taxi driver home because he wanted to stay out dancing. (i overheard him relate to a friend that a girl said he "had the moves but not the rhythm.) stumbled to bed and played about an hour and a half of drunk chess. the shame.
sunday:
woke up groggy, ate what i have learned is the customary breakfast: cheese (or ham) sandwich with lemonade, milk (which i have the option of warming and adding sugar and coffee to), and a fruit. went for a long walk after to try to work up an apetite for lunch. a fairly determined walk. didn't notice much. besides the police academy--massive building with a giant lawn in front secured by perimeter of gates, security booths, cameras, etc. managed to get lost. the street i walked out on was called something different on the sign when i came back. asked a man called nano (host dad), and then asked a man carrying a humongous bottle of coke how to get back. was fairly sweaty when i returned. lunch with mom, dad, thad, claudio (middle son, 25), and his polola, who i didn't introduce myself to and who didn't introduce herself to me and with whom my only contact was furtive glances, as she was kinda cute. lunch time conversation went far over my head, but seemed pretty lively. everyone was onto the meat and rice dish by the time i got back, but i still had to get through the apetizer, some kind of eggy, lettucey dish served with tomatoes and tuna. yuck factor off the charts. drank about a pint of lemonade trying to wash it down, then switched strategies and ate it with bread until gloria noticed and said i could stop whenever i wanted, and i said i wanted.
thad took me to a giant hill overlooking the city. we exchanged facts about our lives and made conversation. saw some couples making out in public, which i've been told is a chilean thing (as most young people live with their parents until marriage, and therefore don't have many places where they can be physically intimate--but i'm not sure if what i'm seeing surpasses the kinds of things that normally go on in parks anywhere). after the big hill we went looking for la moneda, which is the former presidential palace which pinochet bombed during the coup and where allende shot himself in the head with a machine gun and which has since been rebuilt and is very nice to look at. stray dogs everywhere. they know how to cross the streets, waiting for the signal to turn and then going. that also might have been a joke that nano told me though. thad and i ran into some of his recent chilean friends on the way back, and they invited us to watch soccer with them. after we found a bar with a sufficiently big screen, we settled in. we ordered a couple beers and some kind of delicious dish that's french fries and cut up pieces of steak with a fried egg on top. holy crap what a good combination. chile won the match, which resulted in lots of honking and hugging and the go chile chant. during the game i made conversation with fernando, aka the chilean ryan hitchcock, and i think we got on pretty well. the chileans i've met seem pretty cool, and different from americans in a way i can't put my finger on. anyway, he promised to find me pot and introduce me to his amigas. que bueno!
monday:
orientation, fairly boring. nano took me to school. it's very easy. just a bus and a subway ride. the other kids seem pretty solid, enough of them at least. the big, loud awkward group of us (a portion thereof) ate hotdogs for lunch, which is kind of a chilean speciality. mine had avocado on it, and was minorly delicious. went to a bar afterward, made more chit chat with fellows, secured my opinion of a couple more. more orientation upon return, though the carabinero (policeman) who was supposed to talk about various ways we might get scammed never showed because of some kind of emergency. talk about mixed up priorities. on a related note, yesterday was the anniversary for commemorating young people killed by the police, and the state department issued a strongly worded warning not to go to the centro for fear of riots, bombs, and other violence. nothing happened while thad and i were there but i guess a few policemen were injured in shootings. i asked nano what kinds of people protested and his answer was "drug addicts and hippies." i'd like to get a better understanding of his and the family's politics, but i feel like that might be a difficult subject to broach.
anyway, this post is exceeding all boundaries of taste and brevity. me voy.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Hyper-kinetic
Empanadas for lunch. Cheese and olive filling. Surprisingly tasty. "People think Chileans eat like Mexicans," said my host father, Reinaldo, at dinner that night (salad, tortellini with ricotta cheese and ham, some kind of egg with the yolk seasoned and put back). What followed was a list of things Chileans did eat: pasta, potatoes, rice, fish, "maize," chimed Rodrigo, the youngest son, fetching something canned and mysterious from the pantry. This prompted a discussion I couldn't follow, presumably regarding the inclusability of maize on the list of things Chileans eat.
At lunch, (potatoes, in addition the empanadas; also some kind of lettucey casserole I forced down) while trying to tell my host mom, Gloria, that I'm absent-minded, I apparently communicated that I'm "hyper-kinetic" (or however that word translates in Spanish). She provided this phrase. The english translation of what I said in Spanish was that "my mind goes to all different parts." Gloria said that she too is hyper-kinetic, as is the boyfriend of her eldest daughter, Alejandra. I didn't have the energy or the vocabulary to contradict her. Now I'm worried that I will reveal myself by sitting through a movie, or failing to fidget during some protracted period of sitting. When she brought it up again at dinner I said "un poco", and it might have just been my imagination, but some inner light in her seemed to go dark.
Also, because, according to Gloria, drinking the native tap water will give me diahrrhea, I have my own special lemonade (their lunch and dinner-time beverage), which she makes from some kind purified water and that I get to serve myself from a measuring cup into a little glass. So far today, I have drunk 1 and 1/2 pints of lemonade, as I steel myself for Santiago's water. I can already feel my inner lemon lighting up.
To catch up: after an extremely easy flight, I arrive in Chile today. Waiting for the flight, sipping my $7.50 rum and coke (almost worth it), the husband of an elder couple pointed to my ticket and pointed out that in addition to sharing a vicinity waiting for the plane, we would also be sitting next to each other. I made healthy middle-class conversation with them, in anticipation of further conversation on board the plane, but it turned out they were across the aisle from me, and I sat next to a youngish Chilean woman who offered me gum to counter the pressure change in my ears when we took off. I spoke Spanish to her, apparently communicating that I "liked the taste of the pressure change" but she only talked to me in English, and soon I was in my book, and then in my earbuds, and then in a surprisingly restful sleep, probably thanks to the ambien (and my genius tactic of draping the blanket over my head, like a Halloween ghost).
Probably the most interesting thing that happened on board the plane was learning the word pareidolia, which is the psychological phenomenon of finding patterns in random sounds or images. I was listening to a podcast called the Skeptoid, and a skeptical man named Brian Dunning informed me that a very small group of people believe that the unconscious mind reveals itself through speech--you just have to listen to what someone's saying backward to hear it. The example provided was someone talking about energy, or something like that, and when played backward he appeared to be saying "I want to comfort you." Paredoilia explains all kinds of interesting things, like why it sounds like Jim Morrison is saying he's satan when you play that one song backwards, and why people are always seeing the Virgin Mary in tacos and the like. Insert joke about my own unacknowledged pareidolia here.
At the house, I share a door-like object with a 27 year old Alabamaniac (soon to be my Alabamainman), named Thad, or Thaddeus. It's not entirely clear which is his real name and which is the name our host parents call him by, because it's easier. For now, I'll go with Thad. Thad goes to the Catholic University here. He is still an undergraduate because he took five years off from school to work at his family's 3rd generation car washing business. I think I gathered from our (spanish-only-enforced) dinner table conversation that he himself has built car washes. He said he quit because of all the familial in-fighting, which sounds fascinating, and kind of like the makings for a really great TV show (Suds?), and which I'll have to ask him about some time. According to Thad he's made friends with a number of Dutch and Germans and some other Europeans with whom he converses in English, as his Spanish isn't that great. He invited me to go to a party with him, which I am ever so excited for. Also, he--specifically his superior-to-the-shit-adapter -from-Radioshack-that-provided-me-with-fifteen-seconds-of-power-before-winking-out-adapter--is the reason that I have power for my computer.
Go Thad!
At lunch, (potatoes, in addition the empanadas; also some kind of lettucey casserole I forced down) while trying to tell my host mom, Gloria, that I'm absent-minded, I apparently communicated that I'm "hyper-kinetic" (or however that word translates in Spanish). She provided this phrase. The english translation of what I said in Spanish was that "my mind goes to all different parts." Gloria said that she too is hyper-kinetic, as is the boyfriend of her eldest daughter, Alejandra. I didn't have the energy or the vocabulary to contradict her. Now I'm worried that I will reveal myself by sitting through a movie, or failing to fidget during some protracted period of sitting. When she brought it up again at dinner I said "un poco", and it might have just been my imagination, but some inner light in her seemed to go dark.
Also, because, according to Gloria, drinking the native tap water will give me diahrrhea, I have my own special lemonade (their lunch and dinner-time beverage), which she makes from some kind purified water and that I get to serve myself from a measuring cup into a little glass. So far today, I have drunk 1 and 1/2 pints of lemonade, as I steel myself for Santiago's water. I can already feel my inner lemon lighting up.
To catch up: after an extremely easy flight, I arrive in Chile today. Waiting for the flight, sipping my $7.50 rum and coke (almost worth it), the husband of an elder couple pointed to my ticket and pointed out that in addition to sharing a vicinity waiting for the plane, we would also be sitting next to each other. I made healthy middle-class conversation with them, in anticipation of further conversation on board the plane, but it turned out they were across the aisle from me, and I sat next to a youngish Chilean woman who offered me gum to counter the pressure change in my ears when we took off. I spoke Spanish to her, apparently communicating that I "liked the taste of the pressure change" but she only talked to me in English, and soon I was in my book, and then in my earbuds, and then in a surprisingly restful sleep, probably thanks to the ambien (and my genius tactic of draping the blanket over my head, like a Halloween ghost).
Probably the most interesting thing that happened on board the plane was learning the word pareidolia, which is the psychological phenomenon of finding patterns in random sounds or images. I was listening to a podcast called the Skeptoid, and a skeptical man named Brian Dunning informed me that a very small group of people believe that the unconscious mind reveals itself through speech--you just have to listen to what someone's saying backward to hear it. The example provided was someone talking about energy, or something like that, and when played backward he appeared to be saying "I want to comfort you." Paredoilia explains all kinds of interesting things, like why it sounds like Jim Morrison is saying he's satan when you play that one song backwards, and why people are always seeing the Virgin Mary in tacos and the like. Insert joke about my own unacknowledged pareidolia here.
At the house, I share a door-like object with a 27 year old Alabamaniac (soon to be my Alabamainman), named Thad, or Thaddeus. It's not entirely clear which is his real name and which is the name our host parents call him by, because it's easier. For now, I'll go with Thad. Thad goes to the Catholic University here. He is still an undergraduate because he took five years off from school to work at his family's 3rd generation car washing business. I think I gathered from our (spanish-only-enforced) dinner table conversation that he himself has built car washes. He said he quit because of all the familial in-fighting, which sounds fascinating, and kind of like the makings for a really great TV show (Suds?), and which I'll have to ask him about some time. According to Thad he's made friends with a number of Dutch and Germans and some other Europeans with whom he converses in English, as his Spanish isn't that great. He invited me to go to a party with him, which I am ever so excited for. Also, he--specifically his superior-to-the-shit-adapter -from-Radioshack-that-provided-me-with-fifteen-seconds-of-power-before-winking-out-adapter--is the reason that I have power for my computer.
Go Thad!
Friday, March 27, 2009
Airport ghetto
This morning I lost another 10 or so games in a row on FICS, the free internet chess server, bringing my current streak to something around 25 losses in a row, and my rating perilously close to 1300, which is only an arbitrary number, but feels, to me, like a devastating invalidation of everything I hold dear. A couple times, after an especially frustrating loss--a near-guaranteed victory that I managed to steer into defeat or a loss on time when the win was assured--I actually cursed at the screen, a kind of agonized groan-yell-rapid exhalation of breath through gritted teeth. I am a varied swearer in daily life, but in chess, my chosen sound is "fuck." More like FUCK, or, for full typographic verisimilitude, FUUUUUCK, usually while gripping some morsel of hair. I am up for a conversation as to whether this should best be seen as a venting or a stoking; I can see the argument for either. Occasionally I have yell-cussed loud enough to be heard by people not in my immediate vicinity. I imagine the two girls who lived next door to me in the co-op might know my shameful secret. If I were reasonable, the act of swearing at my computer would be some kind of light-bulb moment, where I took a good long look at myself (maybe in the mirror, maybe just metaphorically), and asked whether I really felt this was a good way to spend my time. But I play on. And now, I can see, in some hazy future, the moment when I can conduct this sad scene without the slightest twinge of self-consciousness. May I find the strength to stay my obscenely clicking finger.
I'm excursed, officially voyaging. At check-in, the big, red suitcase my dad had fatalistically wished goodbye for good from the both of us weighed in at 53 pounds, and I had to take out my medicine kit to get it on the plane. At security, all the attendant liquids I'd stowed in the medicine kit illuminated the watchful eyes of the screeners, and my sly attempts at ingratiation got me nowhere with the man who unpacked them. In an attempt to show my "coolness" with the process, and distance myself from the irate masses I said "You must piss a lot of people off." He said he did, but that the government had made a law, and that the terrorist has no face, and so he has to treat everyone the same, which is fair. "The terrorists are doing bad things with liquids," he said. I asked what security did with everything confiscated and he told me they throw them away. So long toothpaste. So long moisturizing cream. I hope you're moisturizing the angels in heaven now.
My battery is slowly draining, something I think my dad made me overly paranoid about--as though I'll find myself device-less and terminally bored with something like 20 hours of travel left to go and all my ambien metabolizing futilely in my system. Before I opened my computer I looked around for an outlet for awhile, but all the available outlets were being used. One outlet even had a surge protector attached to it, nearly filled up. (I'm exaggerating, it was half filled). After some searching, I found one, and an open chair near it, but after about a minute I was interrupted by a man carrying fast food. He told me I had to move, the outlet was his. Staging my own Larry David moment was tempting, but I just unplugged, gave him a knowing, ambiguous smile that I meant to communicate something like "I know you don't actually deserve this, but I will regardless move on," and moved on. Only 2 hours 47 minutes left, horror!
Having exhausted the frivolous events of my morning and early after noon, I should probably stop now. I am excited to read and sleep my way through many flying hours, and awake, reasonably rested in a new country.
I'm excursed, officially voyaging. At check-in, the big, red suitcase my dad had fatalistically wished goodbye for good from the both of us weighed in at 53 pounds, and I had to take out my medicine kit to get it on the plane. At security, all the attendant liquids I'd stowed in the medicine kit illuminated the watchful eyes of the screeners, and my sly attempts at ingratiation got me nowhere with the man who unpacked them. In an attempt to show my "coolness" with the process, and distance myself from the irate masses I said "You must piss a lot of people off." He said he did, but that the government had made a law, and that the terrorist has no face, and so he has to treat everyone the same, which is fair. "The terrorists are doing bad things with liquids," he said. I asked what security did with everything confiscated and he told me they throw them away. So long toothpaste. So long moisturizing cream. I hope you're moisturizing the angels in heaven now.
My battery is slowly draining, something I think my dad made me overly paranoid about--as though I'll find myself device-less and terminally bored with something like 20 hours of travel left to go and all my ambien metabolizing futilely in my system. Before I opened my computer I looked around for an outlet for awhile, but all the available outlets were being used. One outlet even had a surge protector attached to it, nearly filled up. (I'm exaggerating, it was half filled). After some searching, I found one, and an open chair near it, but after about a minute I was interrupted by a man carrying fast food. He told me I had to move, the outlet was his. Staging my own Larry David moment was tempting, but I just unplugged, gave him a knowing, ambiguous smile that I meant to communicate something like "I know you don't actually deserve this, but I will regardless move on," and moved on. Only 2 hours 47 minutes left, horror!
Having exhausted the frivolous events of my morning and early after noon, I should probably stop now. I am excited to read and sleep my way through many flying hours, and awake, reasonably rested in a new country.
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