Potpourri

Hey everyone!  I'm a little overdue on my weekly promise but don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you.

Busy week!  Last Saturday the 24th was a great day for relaxation.  There was lots of sun and it was quite warm so we invited the neighbors over and had an asado.  Here are our chefs!

And, of course, the meat.  I'm learning more and more about which meats and seasonings I prefer at asados.  This will be useful for when the Franske clan comes down for our asado on Christmas Eve.

Transportation from my host family's house in Chicureo down to Santiago can be a little tricky but I've stayed at the ChACE apartment in Las Condes at least one night every weekend since I've been in Chile.  The occasion last Saturday was the ND/USC game.  Ryan's host family lent us a projector so we went to the back yard and watched al fresco.

I was very much reminded of our time in the Duncan Hall "penthouse" at Notre Dame when we would have game watches in our room with our projector.  It was a great way to close out the Irish regular season.

But, of course, I'm sure you all know we won.  Which means Notre Dame will be playing in the BCS National Championship on January 7th!  I'll be on a mission trip from the 4th to the 11th so whether or not I'll get to see the game is a matter of internet connection but I'm crossing my fingers.

Alabama won the SEC championship against Georgia on Saturday the 1st which means it will be ND/Alabama for the big game.  This game is going to make MONEY.  Face value is $1600 a ticket.  I entered the student lottery for a friend.  Limit of 2 tickets, $350 a piece.  As the Minnesotans say, "oofda".  Or however else you want to spell it.

Something I've been planning for over a month, and have mentioned previously, is that Cirque du Soleil is currently in Santiago.  Every Cirque show I've seen has been fantastic and I couldn't miss the opportunity to attend in Chile!  A group of 13 of us went and it was fantastic.  If you ever have the opportunity so see a show I highly recommend it.  We were in the nosebleeds (partial vision) but everyone still had a great time.

Trying something new here...imbedding videos.  These were 3 of the favorite acts.  Enjoy!

As promised, my haircut!  It's so nice to feel lighter as the temperatures rise here.  Approaching 90 on a daily basis now (except for last week when it was cloudy and cool for a couple days).

It's still odd for me to think that the students have pretty much finished their academic year.  In December.  Weird.  Anyway, the school has been riddled with end-of-the-year parties and I'm invited to most.  I have to monitor my cake intake.  Side note: cake in Chile is not good.  Nobody's specific cake, just the style of the cake in general.  It's spongy and kind of tasteless.  I'm hoping to make Fr. Mark Thesing's chocolate sheet cake soon to show them what's up.

Also going on all of November was Mes de Maria, or month of Mary.  They take it very seriously here.  In the states our month devoted to Mary is May and I still don't know why they chose November here, but it was lovely.  They had a special prayer to Mary with student songs and presentations every morning.  What a great lead-in to Advent!

Thanks to my wonderful mom back in Minnesota I've had the ingredients for proper Puppy Chow in my room for a while now.  My host mother, Lorena, had her birthday on Friday the 30th so I decided it was time to make a batch.  I think Amelia would have been content to eat all the melted chocolate/peanut butter mixture by itself.

Still having trouble finding grocery size paper bags in South America.  So this time it was another gift bag.  The favorite (and most "raro," or strange) part for my host siblings was shaking the bag.  Best batch of puppy chow I've made thanks to the rice chex and semisweet Tollhouse chocolate chips.  Thanks mom!

We once again celebrated the Chilean tradition of birthdays at breakfast.  My puppy chow was accompanied by a delicious fruit torte and Lore was muy regalada (given many gifts) by all.  I took the liberty to make an "elf youself" of the family.  It was a hit.  By the way, that link will only work until the 1st of January but if anyone would like to download it for a dollar feel free.

And here's the birthday girl!  Thanks again to my host family for everything they've done to make me feel welcome in Chile.  They're fantastic!

Friday night we had family and friends over for sushi and good conversation.  I was beat and went to bed at midnight.





Speaking of being beat, things have picked up quickly at school.  The head of the English department, Alicia, is in Brazil with the 10th graders for a week and a half so I'm in charge of her classes and most importantly giving and grading the English finals for her classes.  This may seem like a big undertaking for someone that hasn't taught the classes all year but I'm thrilled to have purposeful work!  I've felt kind of like a useless lump at school for a while and it's nice to have some responsibility.

So.  Now that I've seen how some of the grading works, I have some issues with it.  This may get a bit mathy but try to stay with me.  Everything in Chile is on a scale of 7, with a 7 being 100% and a 1 being 0%.  4 and above is called an "azul" (blue) and below 4 is "rojo" (red).  Easy enough, right?  Just take the percentage and multiply by 7?  Not quite.  Having 1 as the lowest would make things a little trickier, but to make matters worse, a 4 is not 50%.  It's a fixed 60%.  This means that the grades from 1 to 4 follow a linear scale from 0% to 60% and 4 to 7 follow a different linear scale from 60% to 100%.  If I've lost you don't worry, it just means that there is more grade inflation above 60%.  Think of it this way: one point between 0 and 60 is worth less than a point between 60 and 100, so if  you're a good student it is easier for you to be great than it is for a failing student to pass.  Sneaky grade inflation.

I'll leave you with some irony.  They asked me to put together the English Department portion of the yearbook.  I've been here for 2 months and have the artistic flare of a cinder block.  I finished the captions and pictures on Friday.  More on this to come.  Happy December!