A bit of an update...

Well...so much for updating more frequently. I'm just doing so much stuff, and , factoring in my overall laziness (I think the Chileans are rubbing off on me), I haven't been able to record my experiences for all of my readers to enjoy. I hope the three of you are ok with that. Well, as you saw from my last post, I was about to start the most impossible essay of my life...well, I finished it and, I'm not gunna lie, I was pretty proud of myself. I brought it in to Viviana (one of our super nice program leaders) and had her check the Spanish which she found to be quite eloquently written...or more importantly, intelligibly written. Who knows if I got the concepts right but at least the professor will understand what I attempted to understand and then translated into slightly coherent thoughts...yep, now it's over so I don't have to go through that again until...well, actually, I think the next one's coming up pretty soon (note to self: figure out what I should be reading).
Another thing I've forgotten to mention, though it has come about rather recently, is my enrollment in the "Orquesta Juvenil de la Catolica" and my private violin lessons (orquesta, as you may have guessed, is orchestra...I know how to spell). The orchestra is really fun and the people are really nice (sometimes it's hard to find outgoing, nice chileans...which I'll elude to later). We've had three concerts so far and I'm starting to get more comfortable with the music...I still need to learn a pizzicato piece that they always play at the end of concerts even though it's not on the program and even though they don't get an encore...whatev, we're in Chile. My violin teacher, Elias Allendes (yea, like Salvador Allende but with an "s") is a pretty cool guy and knows his stuff. We're working on lots of technical stuff, which is what I need the most work on, and I try to find time to practice as much as I can...although this also is hard to do when someone in your family is usually sleeping at any given time of the day. I still haven't learned how to play a Cueca (Chile's national song style) on the guitar or the charango...but hopefully there'll be time for that (speaking of...time is really flying down here...I can't believe I'm half way done!)
The next item of importance, with respect to my experiences of the past month or so...is the weekend backpacking trip I took in the "Parque Nacional de La Campana"...a really cool park about 40 min. from Valparaiso that has a special type of palm tree only found in Chile...and it doesn't just have a few...there was a palm tree forest that we walked through that made me think I was in some sort of tropical island off the cost of...well...it just looked like it could be from a movie I saw once. We went with some Chileans (of the variety that actually partake in physical exertion once and a while) and they were also one of the cooler, chiller Chileans I've met (I totally didn't mean to make a pun there...chill was the most appropriate word). This brings me to an observation I've made, and has been supported through other people's observations as well (including Chileans). Chileans are lazy. When I asked my dad why Chileans didn't go backpacking or...for that matter...walking any sort of reasonable distance...he simply replied, "son flojos". Flojo = Perezozo = lazy. When the three Chileans we were hiking with told us how they were received by other Chileans when they talked about backpacking, for instance, called "locos" (crazy) I was further convinced of the ailment facing all of Chile...or at least the region I was in. One of the Chileans we were hiking with, Matthias, said the word weon (a vulgar word added to the end of sentences or to be used when talking to a friend) the most I've ever heard a Chilean say it. We got along with them quite well.
Ok...so the update was a bit longer than I had intended...so I'll leave you with this and tune in next time for my Argentinean adventure of last weekend.