I'M DONE WITH SCHOOL!!!!!

I finally finished with my classes today! I had two speaking exams, and both of them went really well, so now I'm done!!! I can't believe that it's almost over :( Tonight is our goodbye dinner with our group and all of our host moms--probably the last time we're all going to see each other. Most of the group leaves tomorrow, and they're all going to travel around various parts of South America. Next Wednesday I get to go to Easter Island...my flight leaves at 7 am and I have to catch a bus to Santiago at 4 in the morning. But, I get to go to Easter Island so who am I to complain? It's supposed to be almost like Hawaii, except for it has a lot of ancient statues called Moai from like hundreds of years ago. I can't believe I have to go home in like 2 and a half weeks! I'm not ready yet! It's going to be so sad saying goodbye to everyone I've met down here. I hate saying goodbye to people! Especially since I know I'll probably never see most of them ever again. Luckily, I think Felipe, my little brother, is going to study in Minneapolis in three years, so I hope I'll get to see him again. Well, I have to go get ready for the saddest dinner of my life that I'm going to have tonight, and then our last night out as a group, but I'll try and report back later! Chau!

No te preocupes, I'm still here

Alright, so I FINALLY got to go back to school last Thursday, after three weeks of them saying that we MIGHT have class. And now all of my professors are trying to cram three weeks of missed classes into one week of finals. Next week I have to give three oral exams and one presentation, and one debate--all in Spanish, I'm pretty excited :( And for my DANCE class, once again this is confusing, I have to play a drum and some other instrument that I don't know what it's called, while the other people in my group dance to my beat. Good luck guys, cuz I have no rhythm whatsoever. But my friend Daní from that class asked if I would rather play an instrument or dance to this really confusing dance that I never get, so I told him I would rather play the instrument. Then he asked if I was good at playing the drums. I guess we'll see, won't we? Ha. Anyways, today I get to go to the travel agent and buy my tickets for Easter Island--whooo hoo!! I'm sooooo excited for that!!! I'm going sometime in July--we keep changing our minds on the date. But I'm officially done with school next Thursday, so I'll have plenty of free time left to travel. The goodbyes have already started--Taylor was the first to leave today. It's pretty sad to think that I'll have to say goodbye to EVERYBODY in just three weeks. On one hand, I'm really excited to go back home and have everything back to normal again, but on the other hand I'm really going to miss it here. I'm going to miss not being able to look out the window and see the ocean everyday, and not being able to see all of the people that I've met since I've been here. Plus saying goodbye to my host family is going to be pure torture. But I'm really excited to going back to eating normal food that does not contain mayonaise, tomatoes, avocado, or any type of fruit. I miss my junkfood and restaurants! Plus I just realized the other day that I haven't chewed gum in like four months---I miss it! I officially got rehired at Cub, so I'm going back there about a week after I get home--sad, but I actually miss that place too. But I know I'm going to be a mess on the 15th and 16th. I have to fly to Dallas and I get there at 6 in the morning on the 16th. From there, I have to go through customs, by myself I might add, and then fly to Minneapolis and arrive there at like 10 or 11 am on the 16th. And I'll be all emotional with the sad/excited/tired/happy feelings that I'll more than likely cry over every little thing. But anyways, I'm definitely enjoying my last few weeks here and doing every possible thing that I can before I have to go home. But the countdown is in the 20's now--scary!!! Chau!

...and now we're en toma...

Alright, so yesterday a bunch of chilean students were saying that the paro was going to end because Bachelet (the president) had made some sort of deal with the students and such. Well, I got a message this morning saying that the students had taken over our two main buildings at the university, so now we're in toma. I'm not exactly sure what that means for us since I've been staying away from the school lately, but at other universities when they went into toma, the students would riot and rush the school, and they'd go into all of the classrooms and throw the desks and chairs up against all the doors and windows and block the whole building so no one can get in. And I heard from some people that the students are trapping themselves inside of the building and not letting anyone past them. So, for all of the exchange students that are here, we still have to have some of our classes, so now they have us basically sneaking in to the back of one of the main buildings and we have to fit our whole class into a classroom that's the size of a closet. It kinda reminds me of Nazi Germany, and I sort of feel like a Jewish student trying to get an education...But anyways, last night I was sitting in my room talking on the phone, and all of a sudden there was a huge explosion outside of my apartment building and all of the power went out. Turns out that a tree branch had some how struck the power box that was on the power lines, and so it short circuited and it basically blew up. So my host family and I sat in the living room and told the stories of our lives while it was pouring rain outside. Finally after about 2 hours, the power came back on for about ten minutes, and then another huge explosion happened, this time even bigger than before, and we lost power again. Then some dudes came and clipped a bunch of tree branches off and everything was ok again. And THEN at about 3 or 4 this morning, there was a huge fire in the building across the street from me, and the flames were shooting up and there was smoke everywhere and sirens blaring and all these people were on the street freaking out. And I know it may sound like I'm being dramatic, but I prefer the term descriptive...just telling you what I saw. So anyways, that's all the excitement that's happened today. I'll let you know more later...and I HOPE I'll be back in school soon--we'll see :) Chau!

Chile está en paro

Well, at least I can say that Chile is never boring. Right now we're in paro, which means that all of the students in Chile right now are on strike and refuse to go to school. Sounds pretty good, but it's screwing everything up for me and it's a little scary at the same time. All of the students are having violent riots all over the country--mainly in Santiago--and they're going around breaking into stores and stealing all of the merchandise--and by the way, I have no idea how any of this is going to solve the problem. Meanwhile, the carabineros (the beloved Chilean police again) are going around beating the students and bystanders with clubs and shields. And there are these trucks that always travel in twos--one of them sprays people with a fire hose while the other one gasses them--and they're going around trying to calm the crowd. So far, more than a thousand people have been detained, and they've shipped some of them off to Uruguay for some reason. It reminds me of a warzone right now, especially watching the news. Last night they showed a bunch of people that had been stabbed with knives and then people threw huge rocks at them and they were all bloody and gross. And a lot of the schools now are in toma, which means that the students basically took over the school and won't let anybody in, and they blocked all the doors and gates with chairs and desks and hung protest banners all around the outside. So yeah, I think I'm about ready to come back home now... So, I haven't been in school for the past two weeks, which has been nice but at the same time it's frustrating because I wanted to travel all during July when we were supposed to be out of school, but now we have to use that time to make up all the classtime we're missing, and I may not get to go now. But if all goes well, I'll be in Easter Island either next weekend or the first week in July. Anyways, just thought I'd keep you all informed on the latest news from Chile. If you want to know more, I'm sure you can probably see us on TV somewhere :) Chau!