Rant and Rave

My personal Rant and Rave 

While in college I was a member of the Delta Delta Delta Sorority
Triangle Triangle Triangle

As you know any good sorority girl needs a release every now and then. Sometimes we'd find ourselves on a Thursday night being a little less than shall we say wholesome. Being good sister’s it was important to share these unruly nights with others. Retelling these tales had to be done with a certain fines intro Rant and Rave

Every Monday night Delta’s near and far would travel to our weekly meetings. Here we would practice our sacred rituals including Rant and Rave. Two buckets would be passed around one labeled Rave which was a way to thank, congratulate each other find good works. Then there's the second bucket labeled Rant which I imagine you get the idea

for my Rave bucket

Jesus. I find that imagining him lying beside me at night is sometimes the only way I can sleep. Thanks for helping me catch some shut-eye big guy.
Frainds. I am not only living and experiencing a Chilean life but I am learning about different cultures from all over the world thanks to the new people I am meeting daily. Here’s a shout out to China, Australia, Canada, Chile, and the America’s

my Rant bucket

Fumar.  Seriously, get that smelling, staining, gross fog away from me. My host mother smokes in the house and there is nothing worse than getting out of the shower and walking through a cloud of smoke. Along with trying to eat, dance, conversate, read or just basically be alive in a city that hasn’t gotten the heads up that smoking gives you cancer and the importance of a Smoking and Non-Smoking Sections.

La Comida. There's not really an explanation necessary except that it's just plain bad

hungry?!?

The phrase I'm not hungry doesn't exist in South America

"just quit eatting Merrette, it's not a big deal the food will be there later and if it isn't... let's be honest it's not going to kill you"

this ladies and gentlemen is my mantra for breakfast, lunch, onces and dinner. Unfortunately, it has yet to actually work. My pants are still fitting, but I'm getting nervous, estoy nerviosa. I would really hate for my mom to pick me up in Charlotte, North Carolina in December and not recognize her once semi-attractive daughter. What's ironic is this is some of the worst food I've ever eaten.

News flash, when you're bored, sad, happy, home-sick or tipsy food is splendid regardless if it's just white bread with marmalda y mantiquila

 When you don't speak the common language I have found the best way to avoid talking at the dinner table, around town, in the hallways at school well, you get the idea is to keep your mouth full

because it's impolite to talk when you have something in your mouth. Well, thankgoodness for my momma raisin' me with some manners.

Depending how you look at it

Santiago

The bridge we walked over everyday from EOD training to Hostel International

Wait, what happened to Fall?

It’s Saturday and it’s cold and windy… shocker. But, at least it isn’t snowing or raining. These are huge steps towards getting me out the door and into the heart of the city… well, the mall but regardless it’s out of the house. I love Saturdays. I think this is mostly due to the fact for the last five years almost every Saturday during the months of Fall (my absolute favorite time of year) I would be setting up shop outside of the Williams Brice Stadium grounds in order to reel in a victory for my Gamecocks…

we may have had a few loses intermingled in those victories.

I thought I was mentally prepared to miss my favorite time or year, Gamecock Football and Halloween… news flash I AM NOT. I have been obsessively youtubing, reading statistic (that I usually would have no interest in) and creating PowerPoint Presentations for my students using Football Season in South Carolina Photos to teach the phrase There Are, They Are, He is and She is:

Me: Students, how many people are in this picture

Picture- Me and the Divas holding a Carolina Flag/Towel after we stomped Clemson last year

Students: 7

Me: In a complete sentence students.

Students: 7

Me: Completos sentence

Students: a little more hesitant… 7 Miss (pronounced me-is)

Furiously scribbling on the board the word Sentence
Me: In a full sentence

Students: They are 7 seven girls

Pointing at the phrase There are and mouthing the words
Me: Not there are but…

Students: There are 7 girls Miss!

Jumping up and down
Me: Great job!

Me: What colors are they wearing?

Students: There are wearing red and black.

A slight pause on my behalf (I am re-grouping)
Me: Not there are

Student’s: They are wearing red and black

It’s all I can do to not hug each one of them right there on the spot.
I follow up these pictures with, Mi Universidad, football, and Go Gamecocks.
They seriously look afraid, as if these new words have entered the room and are threatening to beat them up. I usually try to avoid “the stricken face” as much as possible, which is impossible, but they need to understand the importance Gamecock Football in the United States

... haha.

I love you soooo much

Who doesn't love a good quote every now and again...

Since having been in Chile I have been trying to embrace the local cuisine, culture, people, education system... etc, etc, etc. Well I have been fiercely sidestepping Chilean authors. I think this is very subliminal due to the fact that I am beginning to resent Chilean Spanish and my inability to understand it. Well, I am fighting my unconscious desire to read American authors (but I did check out Faulkner's As I Lye Dying yesterday from the American corner at the University library... I'm notta cold turkey kinda gal) and have started to dabble in the local written language. Pablo Neruda won the Nobel Peace Prize in the 70's, so he seemed like a good start.

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way.”
-Pablo Neruda

“We are guilty of many errors and many faults but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer 'Tomorrow.' His name is 'Today”
-Gabriela Mistral

The books that help you most are those which make you think that most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.”
- Pablo naruda

“Don't cry when the sun is gone, because the tears won't let you see the stars”
-Violeta parra

"August keeps crying and she don't know why"

I have learned a lot about myself in the last few weeks, it’s as though the person that I’ve become over the last 23 years has been painted into a picture for me to analyze, scrutinize and memorize. I am learning how I think along with how much I love: lying in bed, writing, drinking coffee, watching movies, meeting new people, having long discussions about the inner workings of the human heart, and how food and music satisfy my soul. That I am deeply in love with: chocolate, natural beauty, running, and the idea that there is something so much greater than me. Simplicity I have found is not boring; it’s actually the thread that stitches our lives together. There’s a beauty in the unseen seems that line our lives. I believe it's God’s way of reminding us that without him we would never be whole, that we could never have been constructed. Our lives would merely be patches of cloth in a heap, there would be no beginning or even worse… no end.

i love you

Fast Times at Liceo Experimental

High school in English is hard, well high school in Spanish is much harder. But, I must say the same teenage nuances seem to find their way into the lives of my 7th-12th graders… boy/girl friends, awkward body parts, incessant need to be speaking out of turn, the ability to know everything; and those are the good kids. Ha, I’m just kidding… well kind of. The kids have all these troublesome teenage woes, but they aren’t that bad. In-fact I am quite enjoying my first experience as a high school English teacher, well except for the not speaking their language part. My classroom is usually filled with laughter, either the kids are laughing at my Spanish speaking inability or the crazy motions, drawings and words I am using to give them directions or basically just teach them English. If you’ve had the chance to see the pictures I posted of my classroom, take notice of the one of my white board. At the end of each class period before I erase my board I take about a minute just to look over what I’ve been writing for the last 45 or
1 ½. Usually, it makes me laugh and question exactly what the kids may or may have not learned during our lesson. Fortunately, my students are very helpful with my Spanish… on occasion I will offend someone or say something very inappropriate unknowingly , which they then have to explain to me … usually it makes them quite nervous. But, I feel the more time we spend together the less awkward it will become for them to tell me to always put the accent above my n in anos.

I’ll explain this… anos can mean two different things which is determined by the accent that goes above the n. The anos with the accent means years… Tiene viente y tres anos (with an accent) … the anos without the accent means buttholes, which is the one I wrote on the board. Again NEWS-TO-ME, my students kind of blushed on this mishap. But we got through it and I have a feeling I’ll never make that mistake again.

I love having my own classroom. It feels like quite the accomplishment; since for the last five years I have been trying to navigate my career and life destination at USC.

My co-teachers are exceptionally nice people, even for Chileans. I have four of these God-Sent personas. One of whom came by room today just to drop off a jar of peanut butter and lemon granola bars. She told me she was in UniMarc (like a Walmart) and thought of me. She made my day, by the end of school this afternoon I realized I had peanut butter smeared from the top of my elbow to my hand. Quite the feat, but when you don’t have lunch spooning out peanut butter with your fingers in-between classes seems like a splendid idea. My student’s took a great interest in my peanut butter and misunderstood that it was a gift for me and not them. You can imagine their little faces when I had to unscrew the lid and show them where’d I’d been eating the doughy substance with my fingers.

Well, to sum up: I love my kids. They rock. I love my co-teachers, much like their students they also rock.

My Spanish is slow but coming along. I am not using grammatically correct sentences but usually able to make my point or explain what I am doing. Yes, I spend most of my conversational time with people having to make an explanation for something I just said or did. Chilean people are very curious and awfully nosey. The other teachers, janitors, students and a few visitors walk by room and just stop to stare in the door. Depending on my mood is how I react to these guests. Usually, I don’t mind being treated like a zoo animal but on occasion I get a bit annoyed.

I love you.