Weeks 16 & 17 - "Nearing the End of the Semester"
The big news of week 16 and 17 is that I took my third Environmental Engineering exam and we finished our project, made another new friend, Christian took me to a play, and we had another great couple of weekends with Axel, Cristián, and Joel which I refer to as “the guys” from now on for short.

In chronological order, first we finished our project for my Environmental Engineering class, which even included pulling an all nighter the day before it was due.  So that confirms that pulling all nighters isnīt just part of  US culture and neither is procrastinating.  The project turned out to be more of a research project than a hands on project so I never got to get more contact with the people that live in the campamento besides our original visit there.  However, I do think that our research was rather complete and our solution feasible and well thought out.  I was proud of our final project, I feel that I contributed  to it, and that I learned from it not only about Environmental Engineering but about problem solving in general.  It was a lot of fun getting together with them to work on it.  For me it was a good experience to practice my Spanish and witness how a group of soon to be female Chilean engineers work together to solve a problem and complete a project.  Just like in the US if the group consists of four there are two that work a lot and two that work a little.  It is interesting to see that many of the group dynamics are human nature not cultural (in my opinion at least comparing Chile and the US.)  The major difference that I did observe was that our group consisted of all women which would hardly ever happen in one of my classes in the US because they rarely let us pick our own groups because they want to foster our ability to work with people that we donīt know and the opposite sex and besides that we probably spent more time socializing while working than would normally occur in the US (which I enjoyed.)   They also spent a lot of time making sure that the wording, the organization, the paper as a whole was as perfect as possible which I hesitate to call a Chilean characteristic because I am the same way.   I have a lot of pride in my work, which usually signifies that I spend more time on it that is actually necessary,  but they possibly out did me by a bit in both respects (pride and more time spent then necessary.)

I think that my third exam went even better than my second.  There was less questions than on the first two so I had time to work on all of them.  Of the five I really felt good about my answers for four of them.  I studied a few hours everyday for a week before the exam so even if I didnīt do well I am not going to feel bad about it, because I know that I prepared up to the best of my ability.  However, I feel that I did well.  I canīt wait to get the exam back, for the first time I am looking forward to seeing what I got.

I made another friend recently.  I knew that this was going to happen, that I would start making friends as soon as it was getting really close to time for me to return to the US, because it takes about that long (5-6months )to make friends in a new place.  Not only that I am going to be leaving just when I start to feel a little bit comfortable with the language.  Anyway, so my advice is if you`re going to study abroad in a foreign country to learn a second language stay for a year.  Unfortunately I canīt because they just donīt have the classes I need here to make it a productive semester and I am already to old to still be in college.   Yeah well now that I got that out back to my new friend.   My new friend`s name is Pedro, and I met him in the Engineering Study Hall.   Being the obvious gringa that I am he asked me if I would be willing to meet with him to chat so he could practice his English.  He worked in Vermont for three months and want to get his masters in the US.  So I told him that I would be more than happy to help him with his English in exchange for help with my Spanish.  Since then we have met a few times all of which went very well.  He is very nice and friendly and did a great job of helping me fix up a three page report that I had to write on a fieldtrip that we took to a Sanitary Landfill in my Environmental Engineering class (which I forgot to mention earlier, the fieldtrip itself was cool for the idea of taking us to see what we learned and so-so for the fact that there really isnīt much to see at a Sanitary Landfill, because most of it is all underground obviously.)  Back to Pedro again, he says that he is going to introduce me to some of his friends, because he thinks that I havenīt met enough people, which I agree.  Also he is some how involved in the organization of some volunteer jobs which are scheduled for over winter break (Chileīs winter-July) in the south of Chile on the island of Chiloe.  This interest me for two reasons first because I want to see Chiloe (although I am not counting on getting to see much of it through this of course) and second because really life in Chile (besides having to speak in Spanish) is not that
drastically different for me than my life in the US.  This is a ten day submersive experience with the people of poor rural Chile which according to my Spanish course book is 35% of the Chilean population (income less than $200 a month.)  I am quite certain that these people have something to teach me about living and I am about 90% sure that I will be going on this trip which consists of going down there and helping them build houses (mediaguas-less than a house really but it has a roof.)  Also, the student that I talked to that studied in Chile the semester before me went on one of these trips and recommended that I do it.

The last two weekends we spent going out with the guys and having a great time each time just as has become normal now.  One night they took us to one of their favorite dance clubs name Luxor.  Which of course, was in the shape of pyramid like every place that is named Luxor.  It was very cool inside though.  The dance floor was beneath the pyramid ceiling which had projection movies playing on the four sides, the dance floor was big with lights, smoke, and lasers.  The basement had a bar and a ton of Egyptian styled sofas and chairs, and  from the balcony, which also full of sofas, you could watch the dance floor.  The place itself was cool, but they played a little bit too much tecno.  Then the following Friday my friend Christian (from my volleyball class) invited me to go to a play with him.  I tease Christian that he needs to be my cultural guide of Santiago because he is a literature major, so that is why he invited me.  I invited Heather, Amy, and the guys (of which Joel decided to go.)  I was able to understand for the most part what was going on, but didnīt get most of the jokes.  I thought that some of the acting was rather good, and overall enjoyed the experience.   It was especially nice to get to hang out with Christian again, which doesnīt happen very often because it requires him to postpone his commute home for the weekend.  Then afterwards we all got to together with  Axel and the other Cristián (notice that Christian-volleyball and Cristián-one of the guys are two different people.)  We hung out at Axelīs dadīs gallery (who is an artist) for awhile, where I showed off my website, and then Axel took us on a drive to a pretty spot above the city where we could see a beautiful panorama of the lights of Santiago (unfortunately I didnīt have my camera with me.)  The last significant event was another barbecue at Melindaīs house where since Zack was off hiking in the mountains Axel treated us to what I imagine is the Chilean style of barbecuing although I didnīt see my Chilean family using any of his techniques at any of our barbecues.  The most note worthy were:  getting the fire going by using a hair dryer on it and wrapping the sausages in newspaper before grilling them.  Heather and I both took pictures.  We had a great time making fun of him, but in the end the food was good and all of us are still here to talk about it, so he didnīt poison us.
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