Off to class I go

These last couple of days have been brimming with class-going and other business, and the rest of the week (except, happily, for Friday) promises to be the same. Monday morning I skipped--sadly not literally...not yet, anyway--off to physical therapy for some good, old-fashioned ultrasound, hydrotherapy, icing, incision-massaging, and exercising. The therapists are all very nice--and the reception ladies like to fawn all over me and drown me in tiny cups of filtered water (half from the cold tap, half from the hot tap, because it's not good for me to have water that cold)--but it's still really frustrating to hear them telling me that I basically can't do anything, and won't be able to do anything for several more months. I got to work with a Thera-band, though.

In the afternoon, I went to a series of three hour-and-a-half history classes: monográfico de america latina y chile, historia contemporánea de america latina, and historia nacional de america latina. The first two are with basically the same group of kids, and I they seem really fun and nice. The contemporary and national history classes are with the same professor, and also have the same TA/student-helper who actually sat down with me and explained everything I was confused about and what I needed to do. Very helpful. The professor's also really nice and welcoming, but he had the unfortunate quality (for me, anyway) of believing it would be fun to call on the single extranjera to answer questions about political system of the United States, and namely that of Puerto Rico. Thank god I took Con Law. And I seem to have sort of made a friend--or perhaps friends plural? There are various people, who's names and faces I may or may not remember the next time I see them (I didn't do to well yesterday with remember those I'd already met), promising to help me obtain the necessary photocopies (you don't buy books in Chile; you happily disregard copyrights and run off literally thousands of pages of reading every week), to let me join their study/special project groups, to work with me on the novel we have to read, even to take me home for onces to meet their family. It was all very overwhelming, but in perhaps the best way possible. I still don't know, however, if the 130 pages of textbook reading I got from the facultad secretary for the national history class is supposed to be completed for our test in two weeks, or for tomorrow. Time will tell, I suppose. I finished the day with a stop at the gym, some dinner, and then several hours of slowly ploughing through my reading. All in all, it was very productive.

After the gym this morning, I decided to give myself a break and not go to a class that I'd been thinking about visiting. Instead, I spent a large amount of time trying to track down my reading for my contemporary history class, and then another large amount of time trying to find a way to reserve the necessary book without being in the university system. Once that was done, though, I headed to Valpo for yet more administrative navigating. I'm now officially registered for my measely two classes at la Católica (my COPA-run Spanish class and my 2 credit Latin American poetry class), and in the process of petitioning to be able to take three classes at UV instead of the usual two. Grammar class was fairly boring, though we did get to watch a sweet commercial of hot women and old ladies making cat-calls at construction workers. Afterward, I had my map quiz in my sociology class, which surprisingly involved having to free-hand the entire region on a sheet of notebook paper. It's funny how different continent can look when you have to draw it yourself. So I still haven't quite decided which three of my four UV classes I'll end up taking, but for the time being I'm content to remain in my little existence of indecision, attending various classes, skipping others, and being invited to onces by random Chileans.