First day of Class (no really, I had school today)

Knowing something logically is very different from knowing something intuitively, personally, emotionally.  For example, I knew (logically) that going to live in another country, even for a relatively short period of time, would be difficult.  However, I did not know (emotionally) that going to live in a different country would be difficult.  Even in as metropolitan of a city of Santiago, it seriously feels like I just moved out of mom and dad’s house for the first time and am learning how to live on my own.  Again.  And that sucks.  On top of that, with the start of my IDELT course today, part of me also feels like a terrified freshman on his first day at the university.  Here again, logic diverges from emotion: I know I can do this, having done it before and in far worse circumstances…but can I really do this?  I emotionally digress.

The BridgeChile language institute is a very nice place; albeit small, but welcoming, clean, and equipped with every amenity that a lonely, yuppy trainee-teacher could want (and for those who want to grammar-Nazi me and point out the improperly used semi-colon I used while training to teach proper English grammar can shove it really far up there).  The group of people with whom I will spend 40 hours a week for the next four weeks consists of four people, including myself, plus our trainer.  Ordinarily, I would be very excited for a small class size like this…except that they are all women.  Yes, four weeks in a small room with five women every day and all day.  I can almost feel the eggshells crunching underneath my shoes.  Realistically, though, each of the other three students is in the exact same position that I am in:  Far away from home, brand new to city, and about to be under far more stress that we currently are.  For this reason, I expect we will become fast friends by the end of our course.  Assuming I am still alive by the end of the course.

Despite all of these minor (yet damned frustrating) trials, I often find myself hazily thinking that I almost can’t believe how amazing this whole deal is.  My dad will share the sentiment, fondly I hope, about living the urban life.  I live in a beautiful home in a safe neighborhood that is within walking distance to the Metro 1 line (Santiago’s equivalent to Boston’s T) into downtown, within walking distance to the grocery store, to the shopping mall, to everything.  I commute for 30 minutes in the morning and evening, and never once on this commute do I sit down, unless there happens to be a free seat in that subway car.  I found a bodybuilding gym that’s 4 blocks from the institute and immediately off the Metro.  For a boy who grew up in a city that is made up entirely of suburb and no actual “city” to speak of, this is something that I thought only existed on How I Met Your Mother.  Finally seeing for myself that it is real has inspired me in a way that nothing else has:  if I’m willing to be afraid and try challenging myself, maybe these dreams that I’ve had since starting college could be reality. 

One dream has already started to become a reality since coming here.  My Spanish is becoming second nature, something that I just do without giving much thought to it.  Oh sure, there are still plenty of times where I hit a wall and have to stop entirely to just focus silently on the message that I’m trying to send.  But in daily retrospect, I am distinguishing continually less between my conversations in English and my conversations in Spanish.  It’s all just talking. 

So these are my thoughts and current events.  Having postponed homework to bring you all this, I should actually start challenging myself and stop the talk.  Stay tuned.               

The First Day in Class

I have tried several times to write a subsequent post in this blog, playing with various emotions and descriptions of things which I couldn’t possibly understand before actually doing it.  I failed to finish any of these attempts (Pop-Pop would be disappointed in me for this).  I think, now, that I failed because I had not just flown 6,000 miles to the other side of the world, 6,000 miles away from everyone I know, by myself, with nothing but what I could fit in a few suitcases.  This I have now done, and I am ready to finish a blog post.  It distracts me from the alienation.  As you may have guessed, I made it to Santiago.

First thing is first.  I have heard that goodbyes are tough, but I had no idea just how tough saying goodbye would be.  It was a physical, deeply painful wound that is still tender and will take a very long time to heal.  I don’t want to talk about it more than I have to. 

Between driving to Denver and arriving at the house where I will spend the next five weeks, I was in transit for just over 25 hours (I still haven’t slept since yesterday morning, so my proof-reading may be poor tonight).  Surprisingly, it wasn’t so terrible.  In Minneapolis, I spent a few hours playing around on the complimentary iPad supplied at every lounge seat in the terminal while the bartender kept bringing me vodka tonics until I was dizzy.  There are worse ways to travel.  On the flight from Atlanta to Santiago, I watched several brand new movies and ate airplane food while trying to find a semi-amicable compromise between the sleeping pills and the painfully uncomfortable economy seat.

My warm reception in the house of my host, a quintilingual (that’s five, folks) interpreter by the name of Andres, helped to recuperate me from the long travels and separation anxiety.  This is where things start getting to be pretty cool.  I am currently sharing the house with an ethno-botanic alternative therapist (this is best translation I have), an Egyptian language student and fearless feminist from Cairo who has agreed to teach me Arabic, and a philosophy major from Chicago who, from what I can tell, just likes to travel.  I also met up with an old friend of the Pfisterer family, whose kindness and willingness to help will be the difference between a successful, positive experience, and 7 months of counting the days until I can go home.  I spent several hours in her home, getting to know her family, and this recuperated me even further.    

Tomorrow I will go out and spending time familiarizing myself with the city, the metro stations, where my school is, where the malls are, and hopefully buy a functioning cell-phone.  First, I need sleep.  Stay tuned: pictures are to come.