May Flowers? Nope.

oh blogging, what a wonderful procrastination strategy you are. hello everyone, here we are in the middle of may where there are no may flowers, but the beginning of a very cold winter. well, not THAT cold, but for a california girl with central heating and a nice fluffy comforter in the winter time its pretty cold. I've just been crusin' through this semester number 2. Doing lots of normal stuff, tests, studying, assignments. I just took my midterms which I'm still waiting to get the grades on. I definitely did better then on my midterms last semester but we'll see just how great those grades come out. I actually did get my first "7" on a quiz last week which was really exciting for me!! (A 7 is basically an A+ in confusing Chilean grade terms) I'm still loving my swim class and have that 3 times a week which is great. The best part is that the pool is covered by this huge circus tarp type thingy which means that its not freezing when i get out of the pool. Its actually really warm in there.

My oil painting class is still going really well and now I've started working on this mountain scene of the kings river and the forest in the background. It is really challenging, but I enjoy going there and forgeting about everything and getting lost in my painting for a few hours.

I've also still been enjoying my internship at the high school with the English classes. I still go 3 times a week and even if they don't have anything in specific for me to do its good for me just being there and observing the classes and also talking to the girls. But for the most part I help with the assignments or with projects and usually take a group of girls outside to just practice conversing in English. Its definitely really challenging especially when they are all on different levels, but its good.

Let's see, a couple weekends ago was a three day weekend and I went to Valparaiso again which is the famous port city an hour and a half from Santiago. It has a very unique style and when you are walking in the hills you just get this warm, happy, content feeling which is really nice. It was good to get out of Santiago for the weekend. The next weekend I went Rock Climbing in Cajon del Maipo with a few friends. I had never been REAL rock climbing before, and it was extremely hard but really fun. The people that we went with go practice in a gym 3 times a week so I've been trying to go to some of those. But yeah, that was really random, but it ended up to be a great day. My arms were extremely sore after though.  Last weekend I went to a Fernando Milagros concert who is a Chilean band that I actually first saw that the Lollapalooza music festival at the beginning of this semester.  I really like them and it was a great concert.

So yeah, thats about all that's been going on. The closer I get to coming home the more excited I am. I can't wait to see my family and friends and sleep in my own bed. It's been a long time coming but I've learned so much from my language skills, to life in general, to being on my own and the struggles/ empowerment that I feel after having completing something so difficult, to the Chilean culture, and people, and history as well as all the things I've learned in my classes. Even though my grades haven't been great, I feel like I've learned so much and really taken some meaningful classes. I love learning and seeing and this experience has just been so incredible. I feel so lucky and so happy with the decisions I've made.

me wandering the streets of santiago (thats the plastic bag i carry my materials for painting in, i feel like the bag lady every time i carry it)

rock climbing group

fernando milagros concert (we had the best seats in the house)