Leaving on a jet plane...

or at least a tour bus...

I'm about to walk out the door for my trip!!! yay!!! I'm nervous and excited...but more excited :) I'll be unavailable for the next two weeks....so there will be no more posts until I return...but when I do return, expect some great photos (fingers crossed) and some interesting stories about the desert, peru, and bolivia...YAY!!!

I'm Not Superwoman...

When did I decide that I needed to do everything while I'm here??? or even when I'm at home for that matter... I'm only one person. I'm ridiculous to think that I could possibly even attempt to go everywhere in this country and see everything there is to see. Even if I had the money, I don't have the time. I'm taking classes here as well. What in the world was I thinking?!?!?!

I now officially dub myself a fool...


time to make breakfast.

Just Some Random Musings...

Today's class showed me yet another way in which our culture is completely different from that here...respect and discipline. Now I'm not trying to be presumptuous or anything here, but as far as schooling goes, students here have far less discipline than back home. Well, maybe it's not discipline, maybe it's respect for their teachers, or maybe it's self-motivation, or maybe it's something all together different, but the fact of the matter is that students don't show up to class on time. I arrived to class at 9 this morning and waited about 15 minutes for the professor to show up. Yes...the professor was even late, although in all fairness, she's always there at quarter after, so at least she's consistent. But then, we both waited around until 10 for another student to show up. There are only about 8 students in the class, but it took until 12 for all of them to slowly trickle in --and let me mention that the class finishes at about 1. And then to top it off, it took another hour or so for everyone to display their works (we had our first critique today), smoke a few cigarettes, and then wander back into the classroom. And to top it off, the critique we had was not even close to those we have back home. Again...I'm not trying to sound high and mighty or anything, but the students didn't seem to be interested in each others' works in the least. They don't seem to be interested in helping each other and discussing their work in the same way that I'm used to. I'm used to everyone from home standing beside eachother giving opinions and advice and criticism, but here, the only peer critiques have consisted of "It's good" or "I like it," phrases that are forbidden in critiques back at home.

This having been said, I seem to being a lot of slef-exploration and development. I suppose that's what I came here for, so in a way, I'm succeeding down here. I guess I just didn't expect to be doing that in classes as well. I expected to come here, take classes, learn from my professors --much like at home-- and then spend my free time doing the self-exploration end of things. I didn't think I would be doing all of my work in class on my own. Maybe the language barrier has something to do with it, but I've definitely been doing more self-developed and self-explored works along with teaching myself how to use oil paints and mix proper skin colors for different complextion and other similar things that one would expect to learn from a professor. In a way, this is refreshing, becuase I'm learning that I can teach myself, something I've never been to sure I could do. My critique today was on my first piece completed without the support or input of peers or professors like I get at home. yay me...

To Crear or To Create...


Wow...so to start, this is the first time I´ve posted from a computer here in Chile (I usually use my own laptop or else Marks), and it´s so strange to have everything in spanish. I´m rather used to the language now, but it´s still weird to see familiar web pages appear unfamiliar.

As I said, I´ve really been getting better with the language here. I spent this past weekend in Viña del Mar, a city on the beach about an hour and a half´s bus journey away. It´s still pretty cold here in Santiago, but you´d be surprised what only an hour and half´s journey north can do for the temperature ..I spent saturday on the beach in a tank top and jeans rolled up to my knees, watching a few adventurous people dive into the freezing ocean...(doesn´t that sound weird that north is warmer???) I, myself, ran in as far as possible, and I suppose I tempted the Gods a bit too much, because a wave came and soaked my entire back side... I then spent the next hour plastered face down in the sand waiting to dry :) I wish I could post pictures, but yet again, my laptop is still not hooked up to the internet. The beach was gorgeous, with an amazing sunset which I enjoyed from the top of a rock with a few friends. We basked in the warm glow of the orange and pink sky until we looked down to find that the tide was slowly coming in and we needed to make our way back to the road if we hoped to do so without swimming.

Apart from the gorgeous beach, I also somehow managed to volunteer myself and a friend into attmepting to play rugby with some girls one day this week. I´m leaving for the dessert on thursday, but if there´s time, I might be experiencing the fascination of rugby first hand...gulp. Thankfully the girls didn´t appear particularly large, but still...mom...I´ll warn you if I´m going :) haha I also did some merengue dancing this weekend. The clubs in Viña apparently play much more salsa music than in Santiago, and I was able to attempt to dance with a few of the locals. I have to say that I didn´t stand out nearly as much as I did when I used to attempt to dance back in Ann Arbor...so I suppose I learned something.

As I said earlier, I´m going to the desert on thursday. The next month or so are going to be pretty crazy (not that the past month hasn´t). I´m leaving for San Pedro, the desert to the north, on Thursday night, and will be spending about a week there. After that, I´m headed to Bolivia and Peru for the next week. The day after I return home (from about a 30 hour bus journey...fyi) my parents are flying in at 7:30 am for about 10 days. Needless to say, I´m going to be fully occupied for quite a while. Part of me is loving it, and yet there is still a part of me that wishes I had just a bit more time to sit down and do nothing but draw or paint. But then my other half argues back that I might never get the chance to come here again, and off I go once more...

Self-motivation...I need some

I went to sleep last night with every intention of having a highly productive day today. I began the lengthy task of washing my clothes, tied up some loose ends with my money situation, began my self-portrait, began finalizing plans for two major trips, and then went to sleep early, knowing I have a lot to complete today.

As I'm sure you can guess, I woke up, and was disappointed to find that I had lost all sense of motivation. I crawled out of bed at ten to find my clothes from the previous day dry, yet crunchy. The dryer at my apartment doesn't actually dry much other than underwear and socks --and even that is a stretch-- so I hung all of my clothes outside to dry yesterday and brought them in right before heading to sleep. This morning I was pleased to find them dry, however they had that "I was dried naturally" cruncy feeling --not my favorite, yet I'm trying to learn to love it --they were dried without using electricity after all...that should be a good thing. I can't help but think of how spoiled I am to be disappointed that my jeans are crunchy...

So after having folded yesterday's laundry, I began a load for today which I believe is still running...I think I'll go check...

Yep...still running. Let it be known that my clothes are still being washed after almost two hours. What a ridiculous difference from the half an hour wash time from back home. Anyway, I put in my laundry and walked back through the kitchen to find a mound of dishes from last night's dinner still in the sink. I reached deep down, found a bit of motivation, rolled up my sleeves, and got to work. After washing the dishes, I went through and cleaned out the fridge and a few more drawers --There are so many drawers and random cooking utensils in our kitchen that we washed the majority and then have been taking it day by day cleaning out the rest. I then made myself some toast, and curled up with Mark's laptop to check my mail.

I suppose this sounds all good and productive, but what I really need to be doing is going to the centro to look for objects to use in my collage. I have an entire collage to complete before tuesday along with a self-portrait to complete before monday. I don't know what it is about this country, whether it's the people, or the environment, or the weather --which is currently rather gloomy (I'm choosing to attribute a great deal of my lackluster mood to this), but I can't seem to get motivated to do my homework and go to class. I suppose I'm used to waking up and looking out my window to see a school building as a reminder that I have class and should be doing homework. But here, my university is half an hour away, and I don't have any real reminder other than myself that I should be getting to work. I'm more excited to be planning my trip to the desert or to Bolivia than I am to be doing my homework. Don't get me wrong, I still love painting and drawing and I have mini projects floating through my brain constantly, but it just seems such a shame to be doing assigned projects when I'm in a new and fascinating environment. I feel as though I just want to run around and take it all in and react to it on my own time rather than being forced to create art on a schedule --I don't create on a schedule, and this fact seems amplified here.

Well now that I've gone on and on about how I need to get off my butt, I'm going to go do it. It's time to fight back against the gloom of the day and go collect things from the city...wish me luck...

I once again, am overdue for a posting and will now commence with a particularly lengthy entry. However this time, I don't have any pictures to post. I moved into an apartment on friday, and only one of our computers is hooked up to the internet --and in case you hadn't guessed, it's not mine. So for the time being, I am unable to post pictures. But I have had a very eventful weekend to share.

First, I went to La Parva for a "foreign kids" ski trip. And after attempting to ski on my last trip to the mountains, I decided to snowboard this time. Let me now take this time to put all of the rumors to rest...I found snowboarding to be no more difficult than skiing. I actually would really like to continue snowboarding when I return home.

Yesterday in class, I also used oil paints for the first time. I found them rather frustrating. I rather enjoy the quick drying characteristic of acrylic, and oils are definitely lacking in this department. I discovered for the first time just how many mistakes I actually make when I paint because for the first time, I was unable to simply paint over them. The model now has one leg that has a slight green tint to it, one with a more sienna tint, and then the rest of her has a slight pinkish tint. I really don't know what I'm going to end up doing when I return to class next week and have to finish it off...

I spoke with the grad student who is helping teach the class (that's right...we had a conversation. Granted I didn't understand a few parts of what he said, but I pretended to in order to make the conversation go a bit smoother...haha) and he uses acrylic as well. He said that it just takes some getting used to, particularly the smell. Which in all honesty, I don't know if I'm just immune, or I simply don't realize it, but I hardly smelled anything at all while other students were horrifically bothered by it. I suppose I should consider it a good thing.

Well...I'm actually not feeling up to writing much more, so I think that you've been spared another short novel. Maybe I'll feel more up to the task later...we shall see. Hopefully I'll be able to post pictures soon so everyone can see me in my snowboarding glory...hahahaa