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.