permanent markers and white boards don´t end well (martes, 27 junio)

Today was a little bit hard to pay attention during orientation since a lot of it was a repeat of what I´d learned during the TEFL course. To me, not much is worse than getting stuck sitting in a chair all day listening to people talk. Because of this, during the lesson planning part of the class, a friend I met here and I decided to start being the ´class clowns´just to make orientation bearable. For our presentation we had to pretend that we were teaching the class a speaking-based lesson, in which we taught them the song `Imagine`by the Beatles. One, it was an excuse to sing during orientation, and two, we got to do a ´fun´lesson instead of a boring one like everybody else. We wrote the words ´heaven, hell, die, kill,´ etc on the board (because they are in the song) and then acted them out. I got to be stabbed by Katie and fall on the floor dying. It was actually pretty funny and our class mostly paid attention! Once our lesson was over, we went to erase the board, only to realize that all of our vocab words had been written with a permanent black marker instead of a regular dry erase marker. The guy from the program apologized and admitted it was his fault for putting a permanent marker next to the board, and part of me felt bad because I couldn´t stop laughing. You know how sometimes you are the right combination of bored and tired that you think everything is funny? Well I was definitely at that point this afternoon.

After orientation got out, I met up with Elena, another volunteer, to go running. She is a marathon runner and we went on an hour and a half long run. Part of me felt bad because a few times I struggled to keep up with her (she´s actually finished a few marathons and I´m going to run my first one while in Chile), but she was really nice and encouraging. We ran up to Cerro San Cristobal. Fortunately it seems like my knee fully over that awful ACL injury I had in May. I realized that although I was frustrated with myself at first, it was really good to run with her because usually I go alone, and it is kind of nice having a better runner with you to push you further. It made me kind of miss running with Jess back home a few summers ago. It took most of the time running today for me to start feeling that runner´s high feeling. Unfortunately, I didn´t start feeling ´into it´until we were almost back at the hostel. I suppose this is a good thing...it used to take me 2 miles before I could settle in and feel like that, but we probably went 8 today. This must mean my endurance is improving. I love running in Santiago because all of it is so new and interesting to see. There´s a fun sort of aspect to running in places where you don´t quite know where you´re going because it makes the time pass way faster.

Back at the hostel I took an extremely long shower and then sat down to read some of `The House of Spirits`by Isabel Allende. I love reading but haven´t had much time to just sit and read while here, but that´s okay because I can read anytime, and I´m only here in Santiago for this week plus a few days. I ate some fresh fruit which was left over from lunch. After dinner I met up with Les, Sebastian, and Diego (who works at the hostel) for a little bit outside because it was actually warm enough to sit out on the back patio for a while. Then Sebastian and I went to this sushi restaurant in Barrio Brasil (the same place where we´d all gone the night before for wine and pisco sours de maracuya). I ordered vegan sushi, which was incredible. I´d never tried sushi before, and I loved it. Here they put avocados and corn in it, which was interesting because I´m pretty sure ´normal´sushi does not put those ingredients in it.

By the way, according to our EOD insurance plans, it seems like everything is considered an `extreme sport,`including long distance running. At least most of the things I want to do (skiing, surfing, paragliding, rock climbing, kayaking) usually include a basic insurance when you sign up for it. I´m going to try surfing, paragliding, and rock climbing in Iquique, and hope to try skiing here in Santiago. Life is short and I might as well try new things and live on the edge while I´m here.

Anyway, I´ll write more later. Buenas noches:)

written by

Sara Florecita on July 27, 2010 from Santiago, Chile

from the travel blog: año de dos inviernos (Chile 2010)

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