Mr. Estufa

I woke up early today to go on a tour of la Universidad de Valparaíso, the other university we can take classes at, and was ecstatic to see the sun bursting through my curtains. I found my way to the Plaza de Viña, which is right across the river from me, and found a nice shaft of sunlight that had managed to make its way between the soaring palm trees and tall buildings, and had landed conveniently on a bench in the middle of the plaza. Pepe, our academic advisor, was standing across the plaza on the steps of the Teatro Municipal, but the sun hadn´t made it over there yet, so I waited until everyone else had arrived to go over there. We went by van to various academic departments which are spread out all over the city (just like la Católica, the other university we take classes at), and had a short orientation complete with a 9-minute video about Chile as a tourist destination. This seemed slightly off topic, but afterward the gave us tea and chocolates, so I didn´t complain. There were also a few students from the university who showed us around, two of whom are leaving for a year in Mexico next week. We chatted about Mexico, my ankle, chocolate, and ER, and I was sad that they were leaving because it was great to feel like I was making friends. But I´ve definitely decided that I want to take courses at the Universidad de Valparaíso; they don't get nearly as many international students as la Católica, so it seems like much more of an independent environment--more immersion. Plus, I can walk to both the history and the sociology buildings (I've already become too cheap to take the bus whenever it's possible to avoid it).

This afternoon there was an activities fair at la Católica, which actually wasn´t that exciting, but someone was walking around handing out chocolate-covered something filled with dulce de leche, so again I didn´t complain too much. Tonight there´s a university party being organized by our student advisors--we're to meet outside Viña´s only McDonald's at 10...awesome. My other brother's supposed to come home today, so I'm pretty psyched about that (this also meant that Pauli had to go back to Santiago, which makes me fairly happy as well--she's nice and all, but never shuts up). I also inquired about joining the YMCA, which apparently has good student rates, so that's quite cool.

Oh, one other thing of interest: last night I almost lit myself on fire. So there I was, huddled in front of my favorite estufa, changing the channels on the vcr, when the sleeve of my sweatshirt unwittingly lingered too long, and too close to, the heat panels. When I looked down, my Carleton blue was smoking. For a second there, I was more perplexed than anything else. Then I realized that if indeed I was on fire, I wasn't going to be able to wrestle myself out of my sweatshirt in time to save myself from being burned. At this point it was more disconcerting than perplexing. So I decided to just hit myself, having remembered scenes from tv and movies, and probably some kind of fire-safety class in elementary school (which probably included something about not getting too close to space heaters), about smothering fire to make it go away. This seemed to work after awhile, and I carefully inched away from Mr. estufa. Not too faraway, mind you, but further than I had been previously. My sweatshirt had a nice campy smell for most of the night.

Singed or not, me gusta la chile.