Week 7

Hola a todos!
I´ve now been in Chile for almost 7 weeks.
Before coming to Chile I´d never....
*had a cellphone and texted regularly
*seen yogurt and milk sold in bags
*kissed my teachers hello
*greeted pretty much everyone with a kiss
*eaten so much avocado, manjar and ham
*worn a uniform to school
*been on the other side of the hemisphere
*straightened my hair so much
*heard reggeton everyday
I feel like there should be a ton of those, but I can´t think of any. I don´t know if that´s because my life here isn´t that different or because I´ve become accustomed to the changes. I´ve been waiting to have some kind of cultural revalation but so far I haven´t really. I was watching the movie Twilight though and there was this scene in which one of the characters tells her friends she´ll see them later and leaves without giving them a kiss or anything and I thought "how cold!" before remembering that in the US we don´t kiss everyone. I really like how affectionate people are here. It´s very friendly. I´m still not completely used to how physical students can be with teachers.
Let´s see..This week wasn´t the greatest. I was really missing my family, esp. my brothers and I just felt frusterated with everything, esp. the language. I really go through ups and downs, or mountains and valleys as Señor McDonnell calls them. Some days I feel really confident with everything, other days no. I ended up having a talk with my host mom and my oldest host sister and that really helped me to feel better and I feel much better now. I feel my Spanish improving though because I can know undertand my soap opera fairly well. I think Camilo is now officially with his secretary but his family´s really mad and his old girlfriend is back in the picture I think. Scandalous!
Oooh! Here´s something exciting! I CAN READ SPANISH! As in read, read. In my Language class we´re reading El Hombre en Busco de Sentido, which is written by a psychologist who was in the concentration camps. I think it´s called A Man in Search of Sense or something like that in English but I´m not sure. Anyways, he´s basically writing about the psychological impact of the camps on the prisoners and it´s really interesting. But it´s a real book, and I CAN READ IT! It´s tough and I keep my dictionary close beside me but it´s definitely a triumph. Can´t say the rest of my classes are going so well. Math completely baffles me, as well as Chemistry. I have a Math test tomorrow and I´m so lost. Oh well. This week was Easter, which I thought would be a big deal but it was very chill. I went to mass with my host dad and we had a family lunch. The Easter Bunny came to our house and left eggs for my little sisters, but they shared them with me. Last Thursday I went to help out at a soup kitchen. It´s for homeless men and a few of my classmates and I helped prepare food and serve it to the men. It was a cool experience. I actually went back with a few classmates again to help out on Sunday and one of the old guys there read us his poetry. Another one welcomed me to South America. I´d like to go back again. The men there are really nice.
I have to go because my sister needs the computer. Sorry it´s so short.

Hope everyone´s well!
Much love,
Sela