A quick entry...

Well, Im off to San Pedro for the long weekend, but thought Id make a quick entry. The other night I turned around after my buddy Cameron got in a taxi and low and behold I fell into a manhole. You would figure someone would at least put a warning cone somewhere around a hole without a manhole cover. But I guess its really not that important. It brings to mind a quote by the legendary Confucius. Confucius say,

Where there is no manhole cover, watch out fo hole, man.

Bidump, bump. Anyways, for all those worried, I survived unscathed to go out another day.

Other than that, its time for vacation, with my long hours of hard work and all behind me.

I forgot...

Well its nice to know someone is interested enough in my blog to post a comment, so I thought maybe I would write a little update.

Things are going well here. The frantic first month is over and I´m getting accustomed to my school. The kids are little monsters (I guess its retribution for my teenage monster years). For example, its school policy not to allow students to go to the bathroom without approval by the office. So I had this 8th grader today, who just to spite me wrote marker all over her mouth so I would have to let her go to the bathroom. It backfired when I NARCed on her, but I figured that was the kind of thing an infant does. I never thought I would become a disciplinarian, but I´m surprising myself with my ruthless draconian classroom demeanor. In general, the kids still like me, but I think I´m working on the right mixture of fear vs. fun.

Other than that, things are pretty relaxed here. I´m done by one o´clock every day and usually take a ciesta, then go down to the beach for ping pong, basketball or swimming. Ah if only life in the states was this laid back. I still haven´t surfed yet, but hope to in the near future.

This weekend I´m going to San Pedro de Atacama which is about 3 hours from Antofagasta, because we have Monday and Tuesday off for a Federal holiday. I can´t wait to see the famous Valley of the Moon, the flamingo reserve, and the salt flats there. Should be good wholesome fun.

Also, I´m teaching guitar lessons (At least 6th graders don´t know how bad I really am)and basketball to some of the kids at my school on Saturdays, which can be a bit of a struggle after Friday nights but worth every minute.

Today, I played basketball with my house brother (Who´s 10 years old)and my friend Lisa (Who really has no basketball skills). So we played 3 on 3 with these Chilenos, and I´ve never seen three grown men be more satisfied with beating on a child, a woman and an old man with a gut. But, I did show some flashes of the skills that made me legendary on the mean streets of the A-D-A.

Last night I went to a cafe with my house sister and we spoke in Spanish for like four hours. I was pretty proud of myself, but I´m sure my sentences sounded more like ¨Me go beach, ha ha very funny. Sippo Sippo.¨ I guess my new nickname in my family is TJito (It sounds more like TGito) and my house mother has pretty much adopted me as her own.

Last weekend, I also used my increasingly complex and in depth knowledge of the Spanish language at my friend´s family´s party, which was really fun. I talked some smack about my ping pong skills, which I´m going to put on exhibition on Thursday and generally had a swell time.

Let´s see, other than that, I still think Homer Simpson speaking in Spanish is funny and Casado con Hijos (Married with Children) is growing on me. I´m sure I´m forgetting mucho stories, but I´ll try to get back in the swing of writing in this blog and hopefully include these stories soon.

Alright, I think I have the final lowdown on the phone number.

OK, my Papa finally got through to me using these numbers

011-56-9-82909541.

If you use a 10-10 number dial

10-10-834-011-56-9-82909541.

A quick shout out...

to the Michigan State Hockey team for trouncing BC and Maine in the frozen four. Go Sparty.

A quick message concerning my telephone number-

I think you can call me by dialing the following numbers on a telephone:(This is a machine that transfers sound waves from one location to another over a cable designed to carry these signals. You can change the destination based on a series of numbers which are placed on the terminal end of the telephone. For more information please consult http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone.)

011-056-9-829-095-41

I think this should work. If not, pray that the gods will rain down fire so you can send a smoke signal my way.

Well I´ve done it again...

I failed the bar again. Nuf said.

My First Day of School...

Well, not much happened this weekend. I pretty much laid low in Antofagasta. It was nice to sit on the beach, play some ping pong and hang out with my house family. I finally got a little time to decompress after all the craziness of the first three weeks. I ate Chilean Chinese food which contains no fried food or preservatives and went to an asada (a Chilean barbecue) at my buddy Cameron´s house parents house. Since we had Friday off, a bunch of us gringos went to a discotheque on Thursday. Me and my buddy Elliott took the bus to the disco and found it a little odd that most of the people on the bus were probably going to be our students. (Well, Elliott´s anyways, because he is teaching high school and I am teaching middle school).

Once we got there, I felt a little out of my element, because even though I am one of the world´s greatest dancers, I know very little about the subtleties of Chilean dancing. Anyways, the lights went out for over an hour and we were ready to leave, when magically (OK I think they intentionally turned the lights off, so I really find no magic in the lights turning back on) the party started anew and continued until 6. Needless to say, my geriatric persona wasn´t able to hang with the young energetic pups from our program.

Anyways, today was my first day of school. The school is pretty close to my house and seems like it should be fun. My house mother rode the bus with methis morning to make sure I made it safe and sound. I felt like I was going to the first day of kindergarten again. The bus was running late this morning, so I was about 5 minutes late to school and I had no idea I would be displayed to the entire school upon arrival. I said a few profound words (Something like "ich ben ein Chileno", but I can´t really remember {Citation Omitted [I´f you want a citation tough luck because I´m not in law school anymore and frankly I don´t really want to cite anything I don´t have to]) Moving on, I guess I´m getting to the age where I have no idea what it is like to have the energy of a 5th grader, because it is certainly manic. I thought the kids would tear me apart.

After my eloquent but tastefully concise soliloquy, I was guided to my profesora´s classroom. I guess I was a little shocked by what I saw. Kids, running all around saying swear words in English and basically partaking in tomfoolery and ballyhoo. Sylvia, my teacher is really old, so I´ll cut her some slack, but she can´t control the kids at all. I basically had to teach the class for her and try my best to keep the kids from killing each other. But I´m not going to complain, because as of right now I have about 17 hours of actual class time a week, so I´m living on easy street. Plus, the kids seemed to respond to my dominating, deep Barry White like voice. We´ll see. I´ve got my ace up my sleeve; (Drum roll please) American Pop Culture. On that note peace.

So I have this host family...

They´re very nice. (I guess my Borat accent doesn´t come through very well over the computer). Anyways, everything is great. I have my own bathroom, a TV and DVD player in my room and privacy for the first time in three weeks. I have a wonderful house mother (Ana), her 20 something years old daughter (Anna Maria or Anita) who´s engaged and works for my program, a 15 year old daughter who seems to be quite the overachiever (Carla) and a 10 year old son (Javier) who plays tennis and dances to ¨Thriller¨ with me (Someone may actually think I´m cool for the first time. I´m sure it won´t last long).

I also met the teacher I am going to be working with. Her name is Sylvia and she is a sweet older lady, but very traditional. The good news is that I have no class on Thursday as of now and two hours in the middle of the day on Friday to lesson plan for the next week. Basically I´m going to be working about 20 hours plus extra curriculars. Maybe I will have time to write the great American novel and surf.

I found a surf shop close to my house that will rent a board and wet suit for about 10 dollars a day, so I´m going to give it a try and hopefully join the professional surf tour shortly after.

I have also been trying to sort out what I would like to do for my breaks. In July I´ve been thinking about doing a couple of weeks in Patagonia with an Aussie buddy from the program who´s teaching down in Patagonia. He´s been an adventure guide for years, which is reassuring since it would be the middle of winter when we went. Anyways, who knows what will happen. I´ve also been thinking I will most likely do Macchu Picchu and Lake Titikaka if possible over the week of September 18th, which would also be the best time for anyone interested to come visit.

Also, I´m going to try and get pictures up, but I need to get a camera cord since I left all my stupid computer stuff at home. Anyways, Ciao.

First impressions of Antofagasta

So the rumors I heard appear to be false. Antofagasta seems to be a very modern city with every amenity you could want and its right along the ocean. The dogs haven´t seemed bad so far and I haven´t felt any itching so I think I´m alright. The water seems unusually warm to me and I´m really getting excited to learn how to surf. (I guess Lake Michigan makes me a little thick skinned) There is so much more around here than I thought. There is a flamingo sanctuary a couple of hours inland from here, the valley of the moon which looks ridiculous, the largest salt flats in the world and so many things I haven´t even learned about yet. They also have a bad futbol team that plays all of the good Chilean teams, so I can catch a game for a couple of bucks and see such great Chilean stars as Aruglea, Baruglea, Avocado, and Oregano.

I also found out that I am teaching fewer grades so my actual class time will be less than other teachers, but I´ll have to suffer through extra times playing basketball and dodgeball, etc. with the kids to make up the hours. Í´m getting a little nervous about the teaching thing, but I bought a guitar the other day, so I can entertain them with my superior guitar playing skills (If you haven´t heard me, think Stevie Ray Vaughn, Muddy Waters, Django Rheinhart, Trey, Paris Hilton, and David Hasselhoff all rolled into one¨{and yes I hear Paris plays a mean guitar}.

So I found out some info about my house family. Evidently, I am going to live with a family of four, up on the hill behind the city, but very close to the central city. They´ve said the cage I´ll be in is very comfortable and they´ll feed me scraps from they´re table. (I was just thinking how nice that is of them). All kidding aside (I´ve always wanted to say that) I´m really excited to meat (I actually just mistyped meet, but decided this spelling is probably appropriate) the family I am going to be living with for the next 8 months.

Also, I bought a cell phone, so anyone who wants to take the hit and call me from the states is more than welcome. I don´t get charged for incoming calls so call and we can partake in witty reparte on your dime for hours. To call from the states, you dial 056 + 055 + 82909541. If you´re calling from within Chile, just dial the last part.

And sorry I haven´t been sending individual e-mails. I just don´t have much time to send them, so my blog is my communication.