monday morning... glazed

STRESS is a very relative anomaly here in Chile, but this morning I woke up STRESSED (quickened pulse, achy head, and paranoid itchy) about four things: my profound laziness in correcting 100 quizzes, my empty canister of Nescafe instant coffee, my future, and my neglect of this blog as of recent. My Monday morning is probably going better than yours, but still, rude awakenings.

SOO I Bought some coffee and decided to tackle the blog before the quizzes, because I enjoy it more, and I do what I want.

I’ve been really busy enjoying myself and getting a killer tan (read: freckles, millions). Besides the obvious pursuit of happiness (friends, socializing, excessive food and drink, surfing everyday..), I’ve been trying to strike a balance (alone time, reading, painting, volunteering, reflection). It’s all going very well, the only problem is time is literally on fast-forward (not actually literally though, that would be CRAZY), and I don’t know how to slow it down. Ok, yah, I know, "time flies when you’re having fun", but I only have 2 months left here and I’m trying to get in some quality time and take some pictures or something before I leave.

Hmmm, well I think I’d like to “walk you through” a normal day here in Chile, keep reading if you want some intimate details of my teach-in-chile experience. I wake up with a smile on my face (ha!) around 8 in the morning, I  drink nescafe instant coffee and eat yogurt with granola, fruit (strawberries, YUM), and miel de palma, palm-tree honey. 

Then I usually go surfing, either down to quintay or up the coast to the quintero area. On the way home from surfing we always buy snacks, like empanadas or a really special bag of snack mix (so good, mostly because it doesn’t have pretzels in it, pretzels in snack mix or trail mix ruin EVERYTHING).

Then my day turns into a bit of a hot mess- reality kicks in, I realize I have to be at DUOC by 2, I have nothing planned, and I’m covered in salt and sand and smell like neoprene. I go through a small moral crisis, but then I pull myself together, take a shower, let my hair dry curly, and finagle a cute little powerpoint lesson plan.

I teach 3-4 classes in a row, each class 1.5 hours. I drink like 3 coffees, gratis, because I teach a lot better when I’ve got the diesel brown stuff whizzing through my veins. (PS: still waiting on crest white strips, hoping the damage i'm doing is not too permanent...) I leave DUOC around 8 pm, and ride the metro home. I listen to music on my ipod shuffle, and usually read a book or play Sudoku on my phone. Somedays I just stare out the window and just totally don’t even think about ANYTHING (or am I thinking about EVERYTHING?) 

I get back to Valpo and buy some goodies to make dinner with, unless I’m going to a friends house for dinner (read: friends, more dinner invitations!). I make stir fry a lot of nights because vegetables are stupid cheap: orange stir fry, thank me later. Ummm, so then I’m home, chilling, cooking, reading, interneting, facebooking, etc. Around 10 I might go out and meet some friends for a casual drink at Matiz. If I’m lucky my favorite bartender will be working and we'll ask him to play some whiz kalifa, or some tom jones, and he will. Come home, do some late-night interneting, and set my alarm to do it all again the next day. Same song and dance.

So there you have it. A normal day, take those multiply by 365.24, add the inherent challenges of living in a foreign country, learning the language, cultural jibbing and jabbing, and questioning the meaning of life, and you have my (almost) year here in chile. I hope that’s impressive, if not, I should take up some new hobbies or do more calculated risk-taking. 

off to the quizzes. happy monday. take it easy!