Now that school started the weeks are going by very quickly.
I failed my first Physics quiz (I know you are all so surprised.) I think that if I put more time and effort into studying for this class I could pass it, but it is not important enough to me right now for me to want to invest the necessary time. Therefore, I checked with both my universities and luckily neither has a minimum of how many credits I need to take here, so I have officially dropped the class (now you can all stop sending me emails telling me to drop my Physics class, and never say that I do not take your advice!) I will still need to take Physics in Madison of course, and it will not be fun there either! I am going to have two killer semesters when I get back to make up for all my slacking here. I already registered for the maximum number of credits for next semester.
Since I am not learning much in my Spanish class here, I decided to accept the offer of helping an owner of an internet cafe here (David) with his English in exchange for him helping me with my Spanish.. We meet just once a week on Mondays for 2 to 4 hours. David is from Peru so he is easier for me to understand than some Chileans and he often brings up interesting things to talk about so I usually get a fair amount of practice speaking Spanish in general along with the specific things that I ask him to help me with. We usually go out to eat and talk over dinner so it is very relaxing and enjoyable. In general, people here do not correct me when I speak incorrectly as long as they understand what I am trying to say, so it is good for me to have someone to talk to that I can offer something to in return. Since we are both trying to learn a new language, we are willing to take the patience to correct each other which I think is one of the best ways to learn because it is active and most similar to how you learn a language as a child. I hope that having a tutor will help me, because although I can get along, I am very far behind all of the other students here from the United States. This is mostly due to the fact that I think I am the only person here that is not a Spanish major, but it is embarrassing when people ask me why my friends can speak better Spanish than me.
This weekend was simple but fun. Friday I played pool with Heather, Sebastián, and a friend of Sebastián´s (Kevin.) We all play pool horribly so we had a good time together, but stopped after just one game. When I invited Sebastián I didn´t think that he would accept, so I was happy that he did. Unfortunately, in my eyes anyway, the conversation turned to politics and social problems of the US when we sat down to have a beer which killed the light hearted fun. Saturday I helped Melinda cook dinner for her Chilean family. Melinda made enough food to feed an army, but it was delicious. Her family vowed that from now on she is only allowed to prepare lunches, because Chileans are not accustomed to eating large dinners. I enjoyed helping her out and getting to know her family. They are a very animated friendly group of people. Then later that night we met up with Heather, her Chilean brother, and a group of his friends to go dancing. They were all very friendly and we had a good time dancing the night away as has become usual for me down here. Lastly Sunday we had a BBQ for my Chilean dad’s birthday. I invited Melinda over to celebrate with us, so she could meet more people and practice her Spanish. The food and the company was great