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.