Bureacracy

I have so many compliments to give the schools and my experience in Chile. The students are so sweet. The teachers are so patient and take on very large loads. The administrators are very helpful and attentive. I have a lot of positive things to say. However, I am deeply frustrated by the bureaucracy here. Bureaucracy that has the teachers paying attention to the sacred black books rather than the students. Let me explain: each class has a black book that has attendance and a page for each student to mark behavioral comments. If a teacher marks anything incorrectly, apparently he/she will be fined an absurd amount by the government. However, they are expected to use pen and to mark it correctly the first time. My observation is that this leads to LARGE amounts of class time spent writing in these sacred books rather than teaching. What can a teacher do? It's not their fault and they do the best they can, but this system frustrates me so much. How can they give the students their best and how can the students receive the best when so much time is spent on such folly.

Funny

I just told Nina this and I need to post it. It's the type of funny thing that occurs from mixing languages...

The national liqueur in Chile is Pisco. It is mixed into Pisco Sour, Pisco Mango (my Favorite) and the utterly hilarious Pisscola.

Living without the internet

Even though I now have it! I have learned to:

-read a book
-prewrite emails
-use the telephone
-download any and everything I want to read when I do have it
-draw from time to time
-focus on learning things without wikipedia at my fingertips (although I did download the chile page)

Si se puede. (It can be done)

I feel like a child when I don't understand, or when I'm marveling at new things. I feel like a teenager when I am hanging with the host family, and an adult when teaching. It's a weird mix.

Colegio

• Todos le encantan el mono. El es famoso. Es un juego que tengo para varias juegos. 
• Perdi mi voz
• Todos las clases tienen a lo menos 30 estudiantes
• Tengo clases favoritas que son muy simpaticas
• Algunas hablan ingles buenisima, otras no pueden decir "My name is" Vamos a aprender
• Los Andes es un ciudad super chiquito. Siempre estoy en los mismos lugares donde hay alumnos. Pero muchas veces eso era linda. Todos son muy simpaticas.
• Yo hablo mucho de mi perro grande que se llama Queso, y mi favorito color: orange