Classes!

Because I know some of you out there doubt that I actually go to school, here's what I'm taking this semester, in order of when they occur during the week:

DANZA ARABE -> BELLY DANCING at La Universidad de Chile: Just what it sounds like. We're 3 weeks in and already my abs feel a tiny bit stronger and the moves are starting to stick in my head. Last week I bought one of those wraps (called a cadérin in Spanish) and now I need to find some music to practice to.

ETHNOLINGUÌSTICA -> ETHNOLINGUISTICS at La Universidad de Chile: Ethnolinguistics is a field that is comprised by a crossing of linguistics, ethnography and social anthropology. We talk a lot about what all those things mean and how they come together, but the subject roughly boils down to studying different cultures and aiming to understand them and draw comparasions using language as data. It's a small, upper level course (me and 4 other students), so it's my most difficult, but I do really like it.

DIBUJO I -> DRAWING I at La Universidad Católica: Also what it sounds like. We've been working on various incarnations of drawing straight lines, and finally are moving onto shapes. It's not exactly what I thought the focus would be, but I am getting a solid base in drawing. Since the Chilean school system is much more restricted here, everyone else in my class is going onto 4 years of art and so it makes sense to start with such a fundamental base.

COMUNICACIÓN ORAL Y NO VERBAL -> ORAL BUT NOT VERBAL COMMUNICATION at La Universidad Católica: I had no idea what this would be when I signed up for it, but it's basically public speaking with a streak of acting thrown in. So far we've been videotaped making impromptu speeches (not fun to watch later), presented scenes acting as famous Chileans, and learned to speak while holding one end of a cork in between our teeth. Needless to say, it's a really fun and relaxed course and since I don't mind making a fool of myself, I really enjoy it.

PAISAJE CULTURAL Y URBANO SANTIAGO -> THE CULTURAL AND URBAN HISTORY OF SANTIAGO at La Universidad de Chile: One of the few courses here offered as general electives to students of various disciplines, this class looks at the history of Santiago and its present problems from an urban planning perspective. Since it started later than my other courses, we've only met once, but it should be interesting. The one problem is that one of the professors teaching it has the voice of a Muppet, which is awfully distracting.

And just to be perfectly clear, all these courses are courses in top Chilean universities, taken with Chilean students and taught completely in Spanish. In most of my courses, I'm the only foreign exchange student. This usually makes it tougher, but not impossible, to understand what's going on, but most importantly I'm obviously learning a LOT of Spanish this way.