Yo

Heya,

So never did actually talk about my teaching experiances here, which have been as follows:

First, let me say that I do enjoy it. Its fun, its something I am decently enough good enough(as in I speak English and enjoy talking to groups of people?) Is that whats involved? Well, not shy to get up in front of class of chileans. Anywho...

I teach all sorts of grades, but I try to go with the 8th graders as much as possible. The younger grades are kinda babies, literally, and while adorable and all that jazz, not really that interesting. So yeah, there are 36 8th graders in one room. Its nuts! I have never understood until then why there are carpets in all schools I have ever been in. It is SO much louder with tiles! On top of that, there is a central courtyard, in which all seven floors of the school face into, which is always noisy. (there are kindergarteners on the bottom floor in a sort of playground area) The windows to our classroom as for some reason generally open. Its a noisy place.

What I usually do: Not as much as the title "teacher" implies. The profesora that is there does the leading of the class, and me and my fellow gringo Catherine, help with pronunciation, spelling and such like that. For example today, the students had to write down what liberty meant to them(why is it that all basic language classes ask extremely vast questions?) and Catherine and I went around helping them generally translate what they wrote(in spanish to english, obviously). It was pretty cool, got to do a lot of hands on translatin! Which was actually pretty tough, but cool in the end. So yeah, I am more like a teacher's assitant, or a student teacher, which is probably expected since I have no previous teaching experience. So yup, pretty sweet. Also, about half of the girls in the class have a crush of sorts on me, and half of the boys have a crush on Catherine. Kinda amusing.

The weather of here is kinda crazy in that its not crazy. Its supposed to be winter in here, and while it feels cold, its really only 55ish. Its actually a pretty good temperature, as its generally "sweatshirt weather" for most of the days. And there hasn't been any real rain yet. People keep talking about it, saying its coming. I'm waiting.

A conclusion to Patagonia! At long last, finally coming up with the end of the trip. The second to last day, we decided to take an 8 hour hike from our campsite to Glacier grey. The weather was terrible, pouring the entire day. Pouring hard. If we stopped for water for more than two minutes, we would start to get chilled. As my dad would say, "You gotta keep movin!" (Not a direct quote, just a supposed quote) So we got to the halfway point, a rather large hosteleria, resturant, and campsite. It was getting late, and we all know how miserable setting up tents in the cold, rain, AND the dark is, so we headed out pretty quickly. A little too quickly. You see, an hour an a half later, I studied the map a little more intensely than I did two hours back, and realized we were going in the wrong direction. Like, completely opposite. I won't go into defending the mistake we made, we were rushed and tired, and got an unintentional view of the torres. Now, after walking for a half hour back to the hosteleria in silent anger, we managed to put a good spin on the event, and by the time we got back to the hosteleria in a net gain of spirits. Our groups was a bastion of making the best of the situations.

A side note: I've come to find the saying "Every moment is what you make of it" to be entirely true. Some of the places I've been have been really interesting, some have been not so much- but all of them have been fun. Its just a matter of shaping your world! Its fantastic.

Anywho, so we get back, soaked, a little bummed about not seeing the glacier and such, and find this kitchen typea shack in the middle of the campground that was semi warm(hella lot warmer than the rainy outside). Over the course of the night, we cooked and ate there, made a bunch of friends from all over the world. Everyone was soaked, and everyone found the floor of the shack lookin pretty darn exciting. Long story short, there was like a two hour disagree/argument with the staff there ending with the following argeement: The women in the group were allowed to come into the hosteleria and spend the night for free(which costs about 45$, which is ridiculously expensive for chile. Or for college students.) and the guys had to camp outside in the rain. So, around 12 something, I set up my tent in the windy cold(the rain had luckily stopped) and slept outside. It wasn't so bad actually, I had the tent to myself since tim was staying in the hosteleria.

The next morning, we woke up early, and hiking to a mirador and saw the glacier, snapped some fotos you guys probably saw, and then headed back to the hosteleria, and to Puerta Natales.

Stayed in Hostel Nancy for the night in Puerto Natales, I had the most delicious beer I've ever tasted after finally taking a shower and relaxing. Twas great. For price comparison hostel nancy cost 5,000 chilean pesos, which is around 8 dollars.

The next day, spent some time in puerto natales, took the bus to puerto arenas, flight to santiago, bus to vina. Got in around 2-3 in the morning, exhausted! It was a great trip, fo sho.

-Brian

Spanish saying: "Me da rabia!"