Bigger is Better is BadBadBad

I made a huge mistake today. I knew I should have avoided it; I knew it was going to be trouble. That’s why you always go with your instincts, right?

The lesson I was teaching at Universidad Católica tonight was about comparitive adjectives. (e.g. This article is *longer* than that one. I need this shirt in a *bigger* size. It’s *more expensive* to live here. etc.) I thought I would be clever and think of some idioms using comparative adjectives (The grass is *greener* on the other side.) to share, and then have students coin some of their own idioms—just for fun.

Some common idioms in English: Sooner or later. For better or worse. Better than ever. Great, great, and great. Bigger is better. Not great. Very NOT great.

When I came to that one, there was a chuckle, then a giggle, then bursts of laughter. It was entertaining from my vantage point, where I could see a number of faces flush into shades of red. But I’m sure mine was equally as red. *Redder*. Classic learning experience.

What about houses?!? Are bigger houses better than smaller ones? Portion sizes!! Are bigger portions bigger than smaller ones? Nuh-uh. They wouldn’t stop laughing. [Sigh.]

Always go with your instincts, and avoid using “bigger is better” as an example for anything.

Moving right along, we jumped into new vocabulary: boxers, briefs, panties. Fantastic.

Is this unit almost over??? Let’s take a midterm or something.

Not much to report

I’ve been remiss in my bloggerings, haven’t I? Perdón. But, really, there’s not much to report.

I’m on the verge of finishing a book, so that’s exciting. I don’t remember the last time I finished a book… That’s a blatant lie. I finished A Good Man is Hard to Find, a compilation of short stories by Flannery O’Connor, within the past six months. That’s a fantastic compilation. Short stories are good for people of short attention spans. I’ve been spending my time on the metro/bus reading La aventura de Miguel Littín clandestino en Chile. It’s a book by Gabriel García Márquez about Miguel Littín (a real bloke) who was exiled from Chile and returned incognito to film a documentary about the realities of Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile. It all takes place in Santiago, and I often find myself on the very same streets that Márquez is writing about. Anyways—I’m just about to finish, and just in time to hand off the book to a friend as a birthday gift. Perfect.

I plan to move closer to my work in one month. (Hooray!) Although it’s quite enjoyable to spend two (sometimes four) hours reading every day, um, it’s incredibly impractical. I saw an apartment this weekend and it seems too good to be true—but, the thing is, it is true. A friend of a friend lived in this apartment for two years, and he’s moving out in a month. (The best part is definitely the pool on the roof. I can’t live without certain necessities. Oh! And equally necessary—there is a sushi restaurant in the same building.) Perfect.

Hm. What else? Día feriado on Thursday! No work! No class! I have no idea why! But nobody works, which works for me. (Día feriado=day at the hot springs in the mountains.) Perfect.

C’est tout.

I can’t wait to move. Can’t wait. Can’t wait. Can’t wait.

Just to prove my point.

Today:

Someone told me all about how he usually takes the bus to the hospital, but the bus never came today, so he had to take the metro. And could I tell him when we got to Baquedano? (Certainly, not a problem.)

And later, someone asked me where the Escuela Antarctica-Chilena is. How'm I supposed to know? (Actually, I did. It's a little bit further up, on the left.)

I must look like I belong here.

I do what I can to be unapproachable. I'm not kidding. I skip showers, engross myself in books, laugh sardonically from time to time --whatever I can do to look busy, deep in thought, or completely uninterested.

People TALK to me. Constantly. I mean, it's not bad; I'm not REALLY complaining. It's nice, in a way, because, if they didn't talk to me, I could go for very very long stretches without any human interaction. But I can't quite figure it out. I go to great lengths to look completely indifferent to anything you might say, and still--People ask me for directions, every day. People ask me why the subway is closed. People ask me if I like theatre, and can I come to their play?

It's no hassle, really. I appreciate the chance to practice my Spanish, and it's just nice to discover that the people I generally stare at blankly are actual, real people, who speak and ask questions.

Moral of the story: You don't always get what you want; you get what you need.

Qué Raro

Today I had a class with just a couple women at their office downtown. The lesson we began was talking about hypothetical situations. For example, “If I were rich, I would buy lots of things.” As an introduction to the new chapter, there were six priorities which the students were supposed to rank from 1 to 6. In no particular order: Happiness. Family. Friends. Wealth. Career. Physical appearance.

What are your priorities?

Student 1 (middle-aged, mother of three, doesn’t have to work but does anyways):
1. Family
2. Wealth
3. Happiness
4. Physical appearance
5. Career
6. Friends

Interesting. Okay. Next?

Student 2 (young, in love, at the start of her career):
1. Happiness
2. Wealth
3. Career
4. Physical appearance
5. Family
6. Friends

Hmmm. Very interesting. Okay…

So, how do I put this? Wealth is very important to you, then. [In Chile, this surprises me.]

Student 1: Well, without wealth, it would be very hard to be happy. With wealth, everything is good!

Oh. … Oh?? [To student 2—and you agree???]

Student 2: Yes! If I were sick, it would be very difficult to be happy.

I see. And you would have to be wealthy to pay for prescriptions, doctor visits, etc. Okay.

[Ah-ha! moment]

Student 2: Uh…What is wealth?

Cha-Ching!

Students 1 & 2: [Mortified, doubling over in laughter]

Health & Wealth. Whoever came up with such similar sounding words? English is so confusing.

I just wonder sometimes

Why do I still live in Vitacura?
When I have to stay downtown all day, am I a prisoner of Santiago, or a freedman of Vitacura?
Is it even healthy to learn English at 8am?
How does wearing an ironed shirt change anything?
Am I already getting tired of city life?
Is Santiago the ‘real Chile’ because one third of the population lives here?
Or is the campo the ‘real Chile’ because it’s what I expected to find in a South American country?
If I change my course, is that a lot like giving up?
Will I ever finish anything?

Completely Unoriginal

Are you familiar with Jack Handey? This is from an article in the New Yorker entitled , "How things even out", by Jack Handey

"Maybe you find a nice flat pebble on a riverbank, and when you pick it up and throw it it skips across the water several times. But then the next pebble you can't even pry loose because, what is this, glue mud? You notice an ant drifting away on a leaf in the water. Then you look up to see your aunt drifting away in a rowboat.
Eventually, I believe, everything evens out. Long ago, an asteroid hit out planet and killed our dinosaurs. But, in the future, maybe we'll go to another planet and kill their dinosaurs.
... Still don't believe that things even out? Try this simple test: flip a coin, over and over again, calling out "Heads!" or "Tails!" after each flip. Half the time people will ask you to please stop."

I'm trying to find a way to incorporate this into a lesson plan. Hmmmm.....

It’s been a strange night.

The day was good—I was ticking pesky “to-do’s” off my list all day long. It was blissful. When I finished my last class at 7:30 this evening, I went down to the metro (subway) station for a quick (one-hour-long) trip home to trade off my computer and text books for dancing shoes, o algo así. I was planning on turning right back around and heading downtown to meet a couple friends a little later.

But then

The metro was PACKED. After my classes end, I usually putz around downtown until rush-hour starts to fizzle. But, facing a bit of a time-constraint tonight, I decided I’d have to cram myself onto the metro with everyone (and I do mean EVERYONE) else.

I couldn’t do it. A train came, and I watched it go. And then another. And another. And as I watched a metro attendant straining to make the doors of the train shut after shoving a woman and her protruding backpack onto the train, I decided to head above-ground to find a bus that would take me in the general direction I needed to go. – Things are still reasonable, thus far, no? Traffic, that’s all.

But then

I wandered up and down the block for a minute, observing where buses were going and trying to synthesize a mental map of Transantiago*. Concluding that I would need to go “up” the city and not “down,” I crossed the street to catch a bus in the other direction. This is a very big street—it may even be two streets, I don’t really know. There’s a median, of sorts, in the middle. Well, it’s more of a park. You can really only cross one section of the street at a time. So many details.

This area that I work in—it’s the center of both the city and the country. With the equivalent of the White House just down the street, there are always sundry officers and guards around. And since it was rush hour, there were a number of carabineros directing traffic, a few others standing around, and a couple more pushing a car—hood and trunk wide open, lights off. The entire family, it seemed, plus two police officers were pushing this out-of-service vehicle to some better place. When you find yourself in the middle of a very busy intersection, I imagine that’s a complicated task.

But things are starting to get strange. (i.e. Broken-down car, I can understand. No lights on in the dark, I can imagine a reasonable excuse. But the hood and trunk wide open? In the middle of dense traffic? I don’t know about that.)

I’m in the middle of the street now—on the median/in the park. There was a lazy officer there, just relaxing while his comrades were busying themselves with silly tasks, like pushing cars to safety. Knowing that I sometimes get turned around, and consequently picturing myself ending up in Maipú, or some other still mythical place, I took it upon myself to verify my understanding of the layout of Santiago with this kind, but lazy, police officer.

Providencia está en esta dirección, no?

I was, generally, right.

Sí…pero…adónde quiere ir?

But, where specifically—

And then the crashing/crunching of metal, stopping of traffic, turning of eyes, gaping of mouths. MotoBoy down!

The lazy officer, being otherwise detained, left off giving me directions. I stood, still gaping, for a minute. I tried to convince myself that what had happened, hadn’t happened—that it was a cart of replaceable goods that somehow got pushed into the street, and not a mangled motorcyclist. But when I saw someone pick up a helmet off the ground….they don’t sell helmets from those carts. Traffic in the street hesitantly took a collective breath. For just a moment, the intersection cleared.

Immediately, the dogs took to the streets. They went nuts. It was as if they had planned out (not well, I must say) their coup d’etat at Moneda, saw their chance, and rallied together to topple the Chilean masquerade of order. From all (eight) corners of the intersection, dogs came running. A few looky-loos trotted over to see what all the commotion was about, but they soon caught up with their devious cohorts, distracting me from the mournful scene where the MotoBoy still lay, a small heap in a snarl of traffic. By this time, there was a throng of dogs—I’m not joking; I lost count at fifteen—running in a circle around the very confused intersection. They ran up and down the streets where cars were not, ending up in the grassy park-like median.

I don’t know what their next step was. Poor planners, these canines, you see?

Wanting to get home, or at least somewhere else, I began wandering down the opposite bus mall, searching for any bus that I could possibly make work. Found one. Got on.

In the ten minutes between the crash/crunch and my passing the scene of the accident on the bus, nothing changed. Police directed traffic around what I can only guess was the very broken body of a motorcyclist. Traffic is so bad in Santiago that emergency vehicles don’t get anywhere fast. We passed an ambulence three or four blocks up the street. I imagine it took them another several minutes to reach the intersection. Ironically, an ambulence, “rushing” to see about some other matter of life, passed by the MotoBoy just moments after the accident happened.

Although preoccupied with thoughts about the obvious underdog in this story, I was glad to have a seat on a very empty bus, heading AWAY from the metro, the moto, and the mythical land of Maipú. Of course the bus driver was madly road-rageous, and of course I almost fell out of my seat a number of times. Of course there was never a car, bus, or pedestrian that he didn’t honk at. Of course he swerved that huge bus around taxis. Of course he rear ended the bus ahead of us. Duh.

God damn! They don’t joke around in Santiago.

I decided not to go out after all.




* There are far too many buses to do that with any accuracy. I don’t know what The Decemberists are talking about in that song “On the Bus Mall”…but, if you try to picture a “bus mall” in your head—you would probably come up with something strikingly similar to Avenida Bernardo O’Higgins at rush-hour in Santiago.

When you wish upon a foreign star

I was standing outside tonight, looking up at these southern stars, and I thought—I’m in CHILE.

Contemplating where in the world I am, I suddenly became overwhelmed by the gravitational pull of it all.

I have always been born in the spring; but Chileanally, I was born in the fall.

For something so simple, this is BIZarre to my psyche.

Culture Shock

I haven't been too culturally shocked. It's different here. Obviously. But what really gets me is when I hear people speaking English. It stops me mid-sentence. I was walking down the street with a friend yesterday, talking about I don't even know what, when we suddenly realized that our conversation had broken off somewhere, and we were both far more interested in listening to two women discussing some British TV program. Programme, I suppose. Even (especially?) when I'm speaking English, I just become mesmerized when I encounter intelligible speech in passing. It's especially strange for me when I hear someone talking about the election, or The Bachelor, or shopping at Trader Joe's. Who invited Joe to Santiago?....
I was equally drawn in by a can of Safeway brand hot chocolate yesterday. I almost splurged and bought it, but geez! So expensive! The cost of living (i.e. rent and food) is pretty cheap here. But when it comes to any sort of imports (e.g. hot chocolate from Safeway, iPods, books)--I can't get over how expensive (and poor-quality) everything is.

In negotiations all this week and next.

My findings so far:

2K pesos on Tuesday buys me ugly flowers on Friday
but
3K pesos for a sushi roll is a worthwhile investment

Every night in a row is too many nights in a row
but
“I want to be alone” is homophonous with “I am unwell”

Open eyes are unconventionally honest
and
What was normal may have been strange all along

People are people anywhere
but
These people are these people, and they are here and we are now

Time spent on the Metro is well-spent negotiating “Vertical”



Still up for debate:

“Friendship”
Is there some sort of verbal GPS to help me locate “no mas,” “que cosa,” and “po”?
When do they come out with the puppies?

so i'm reading this book...

called Eimi (pronounced "a-Me", he says), by E. E. Cummings.

Have you read E. E. Cummings? I remember a poem of his that we read in high school. I hated it. Absolutely despised him for writing it. It was completely nonsensical.

And now, as it turns out, I think his style is quite brilliant. The book, Eimi, is stylistically very "E. E. Cummings," (google his poem called "the
sky was"). He is wholly unconventional and often refuses to make (inherent) sense. And I LOVE it.

This book is about Kemminkz\Peesahtel\Hoodozhnik\E. E. Cumming's trip through Soviet Russia in 1931, where he finds a "subhuman communist superstate,where men are shadows & women are nonmen." Fascinating. I think it appeals to me largely because it is the diary of a (fellow) traveller--a haphazardly attempt at analyzing the ways of being, foreignly. Of course, there's also the appeal of deciphering Englench* and pseudoRussian tidbits.

He opens this edition with a complete summary, day by day, page by page, of the events that will transpire in the book. This way:

June 1

hop down from upper shelf---chocolate with Gentle---his story:3 armies,misery & pogroms(268-269) but now all's well;yet he's depressed(269). 2 GPUs board chattering train---total terror & absolute silence:passengers & baggage searched---cops vanish(270). Kiev:untaxi to hotel(271)---a chair floors me---(272). Sweet air---I stroll---oldmen on hilltop. Marvellous starry churches---here the lone star of socialism dies---I attend a service(273). Magnificent sunset. I go to bed dinnerless.

This book is like an entire novel written in prose-like poetry. I'm excited. Enthralled, even.

I'm not saying I'm going to finish it or anything.


*like Spanglish, but with the -ench one instead

*********

As I'm writing this, I am listening to a catchy song that I've listened to a few times, but never really LISTENED to, if you know what I mean. As I'm half-listening to the lyrics, I hear: Santa Lucia, Barrio Bellavista, San Cristobal, across the Mapocho, La Moneda,La Casa Neruda.....this song is about Santiago! ...The city smothered in the smog, the snippy snap at wild dogs... I love those dogs! I like this place.

On book lists

My classes are starting to pick up now. I'm teaching 5 different classes in 8 sessions each week. It's nice to finally be working again, but it only amounts to about 15 hours a week. I spend an equal amount of time preparing lessons, but, still, 30 hours a week leaves me with quite a bit of free time. I'm not really complaining.

I just remembered that I could use this free time to do a LOT of reading that I've been "meaning to do "...mmmm...probably since high school. Like that assignment to read Grapes of Wrath and write an essay about it--I wonder if Ms. Petrograph, or whatever her name was, would accept my essay still. Better late than never? Probably not.

I sit down and compile reading lists , with some frequency, if you want to know the truth. But I never seem to read anything on them. Or I'll start one book, and then become completely entranced with another--a rogue book that didn't even make it onto the list. I don't know. Maybe I feel like I'm some sort of renegade reader, refusing to be bound by the confines of a silly to-do list. Who even came up with this list, anyways!?

And really, why make such a list in the first place? It's only because I think books X, Y, and Z will make me a better person somehow. Like I'm missing out on something that everybody else is in on. As if the quality of my character were balanced precariously on my reading, and actually comprehending, Memoria de mis Putas Tristes by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. (No offense to the friend who recommended that book to me. I will read that one. And I will like it.)

But what of it if I fail to follow through with my promise to read all these books for the betterment of this poor literary delinquent? Then what? I can't even stand to think about the person I'll be if I don't get through half these books I've jotted down by the time I'm thirty.

I'm certainly not saying that I'm against reading, or against striving to be a better person. And you can safely bet that I will continue making these empty promises to books all over the world. I just felt like it was time to come clean. So now you know.

What's that saying? A word in the head is better than two in the book?

Well, Color Me Chilean. (No, don't.)

All along I've been thinking that I have to become a Chilean in order for this trip to be worth while. I'm realizing that 1) that's not gonna happen, and 2) that really doesn't need to happen. Thank God.

I'm always reminded how 'other' I am when people refer to me (affectionately?) as 'Gringa.' I always thought "gringo" had more of a negative connotation, but they certainly don't hesitate to refer to any of us expats as gringos (and to our faces! Perhaps it is just the squareness of America that causes my surprise? I don't know.) Chileans also don't hesitate to openly call their friends "Gordito" ("Little Fatty") and more offensive varieties of nicknames that my PC Filter is rejecting right now. They're just more memorable names, I suppose. And when everyone and their mother, and their mother's mother, is named Fransisca Maria, or Maria Fransisca, I suppose "Gordita" only makes sense. In any case, the point is, they all know I'm gringa.

This evening, I was talking with Jeff and Aki Stevenson (the couple who helped me make all of my arrangements here in Santiago) and Jeff reminded me that it's really okay that I don't fully participate in everything that is Chilean. My cultural upbringing never prepared me to live this way. I value concise and timely communication--that's not bad. I don't find a tremendous amount of appeal in flaunting one's more personal emotions--that's just a personal preference for keeping the insides in, ("vaultoneerism"). I also prefer to work as efficiently as possible and spend more free time at home, or not at home, but definitely not at work. I struggle to understand this mentality that the work day should run from 8 or 9am to 7 or 8pm. Go home! You family-oriented people! Go home!

I should confess--I do relish every chance I have to show up a little bit late and act like it's nothing. I'm just saying, if I don't want to live with my mother until I'm thirty--I'm not going to worry too much about it. I'm thankful for the chance to be immersed in a different culture. It's fun. But when I come to this cultural interface, it's more hobby, less legally binding.

Something that makes me say, "Huh."

Escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience.

My tribute to Mitch Hedberg.

Sure. Makes sense.

I went out for sushi with some friends tonight. It was heavenly! I haven't had the chance to consume wasabi with such vigor in ... ages. I miss it.

The place we went to is new--only about a month old--and they don't have their liquor license yet. So when we ordered wine--no luck. Cerveza? Only non-alcoholic beer. But, our waiter told us, they do serve pisco sours.

Pisco sour is, in essence, the national drink of Chile. It's like, say, ice water, in the States. Very common. I would never go out to a restaurant and ASK if they serve pisco. They do. Trust me. (Pisco is a particular type of liquor made in... the north, I think? Argentines say it's originally from Argentina. Chileans beg to differ.)

My question is this: How is it that this sushi place can serve hard alcohol, but not beer or wine??

Well, I've survived my first week of teaching. And I'm still excited about the rest of the year! It's really fun when students get into an activity. It's equally as painful when they don't, but, I suppose that's the "experience" part of experience. On Monday, with my class of three business women at Codelco (which is a huge mining corporation, and probably one of the companies that brings the most revenue into Chile) we read "Phenomenal Woman" by Maya Angelou and spent the entire hour and a half digesting it. It was fantastic!! So much fun. The best part was that, by comparison, I am GREAT at reading poetry. But then today we spent the same hour and a half talking about subject and object relative clauses, and that wasn't so much fun. I don't know why not.

Having work to fill my time is good. It's getting to the point where I feel like I'm actually living here--and not just a tourist with no money. I'm gathering ideas for places to travel to in the next weeks and months. I can't stand the thought of living in South America for a year without seeing South America, you know?

I'll still stay out of Venezuela and Colombia for a while.

I have heard that there is a vibrant underground arts scene in Santiago. That's definitely first on my list of places to explore. On my way to a class tonight, I was walking with one of the administrators from the Institute. (He had to come along to talk our way out of trouble for standing up these students last week. Oops.) He is in a band, and they have a show next week. There's nothing like amateur music to make a city feel like home.

Feel free to come visit anytime. :) If you give me at least another month to explore, I'll promise to show you around.

Things to Avoid

1. Getting the giggles while riding solo on the bus.*

2. Riding the bus between the hours of 7:00-10:00, 11:00-13:00, 17:00-21:00, M-F.

3. Speaking in English on the Metro.**

4. Expecting any semblance of organization in the workplace.***

5. Wearing impractical shoes.

6. Expecting that the internet connection will work when I want it to.

7. Empanadas con pino.

8. Expecting advanced notice.****

9. Touching the photocopiers around the Institute and/or requesting to make too many copies.*****

*In the middle of raging traffic, of course everybody is honking like crazy. Somebody tooted the horn twice, and the bus responded with a toooot tooooot! And I thought to myself
Car: "Come ON!"
Bus: "Iiii KNOW!!"
And then, I couldn't help but repeat the dialogue in my head over and over. Fantastic way of attracting attention.

**I met a British guy on the bus who is also an English teacher at another institute in Santiago. He kept talking very softly and I was so irritated, because the bus is very loud. When we got on the metro, he looked at me, leaned over, and said, "We'll have to whisper so as not to attract attention with our English." ... Heaven forbid we be foreigners.

***Including that which would foster timely payment.

****That's okay. I don't enjoy giving it, anyway. I think I may have a planning disorder.

*****Chileans are very concerned about saving paper. ...nothing else, though.