Wait, I have to do schoolwork too?

Hello again, faithful readers. To begin with, thank you to everyone who checked in with me over the last couple of days after hearing about the earthquake off the Chilean coast. I'm totally fine--the earthquake's epicenter was off the coast of Iquique (ee-KEY-kay), a city about 930 miles north of Santiago, so we didn't feel anything here. Chile is really seismically active (you'll remember hearing about the super destructive earthquake in 2010), but the result is that there are super strict building codes and orderly preparations for earthquakes. There was a feel-able earthquake (around 6.0) on one of my first days here, but I'm somewhat disappointed to say I completely slept through it. Yeah, I'm a rather heavy sleeper. Anyways, that's all to say that there's a good chance there'll be another feel-able earthquake like that while I'm here, but the risk is significantly lowered by good planning and preparation here.

On that note, I'm in even better position, as since writing last I've moved into a studio apartment in a new building near Palacio de la Moneda. Mine is a studio apartment with a bathroom and a kitchenette that I've been using the heck out of. I'm thinking about making a t-shirt that says "Ask me about my borracho beans". Yeah, they were really good. However, this was challenged by the fact that I have the patience of four year old, so the beans took about three times as long as normal because I kept taking the cover off the pan to stir them. I'm learning.

This is La Moneda on September 11, 1973, when Augusto Pinochet, Chile's Defense Chief, staged a coup d'etat (golpe de estado in Spanish) against Socialist President Salvador Allende. Allende killed himself during this attack and Pinochet led the country until 1990.

Here's a view of the present-day Palacio de la Moneda from the south (the previous image is from the north I think). Chile's President Michelle Bachelet works, but does not live, in this building.

But as I subtly hinted in the title, the apartment hasn't been the only change in the past couple of weeks. This week I turned in a group essay and took a mid-term test based on around 400 pages of reading (don't worry, I didn't read all of that). To be clear, I've had readings since Day 1 of class, I just couldn't get around to doing them. But by the time I moved to this apartment reality had started to set in. The lowest moment probably came in my lit class when the professor assigned the group essay, in which we were supposed to use of the two assigned novels and one of the two theoretical texts to talk about Latin American cities, all in 2-4 double spaced pages. Upon hearing this, though, I started to hyperventilate. My thoughts were:
1. Oh this is gonna be really hard. I should've started reading for this class before now.
2. Shit, who'd want to be my partner. I'm stupid!
3. This is awful, I'm a lost cause.
4. I'm dropping this class, I'm stupid and can't write in Spanish.

After hitting rock bottom things started getting better. I made eye contact with a Chilean girl from the class who seemed to be having a somewhat less intense version of my freakout. I managed to read the entire novel over the course of that weekend, and we worked together to turn in a rather decent essay on Tuesday. An even bigger test came today. In my 20th Century Latin American History course we were assigned a book and six articles and given a month to get through them. Dearest readers, I'm proud to say I got through about 75% of the readings, which I estimate to be much more than my fellow classmates. And when the test came today, I didn't cry. I sat down and wrote out the answers in somewhat broken Spanish, but all the same that felt pretty good. I've got basically a test per week for the next couple of weeks, but I think that should be fine. I'm finally getting into a studying routine and am in the wonderful post-test, pre-receiving grades period where I feel very confident right now.

I've signed up for a rock climbing class in the campus gym, which has been really fun and incredibly exhausting. Rock climbing requires strength precisely in the areas I'm weakest, so I've been humbled and sore this week. Looking ahead, I've bought plane tickets to the Atacama Desert in northern Chile for Easter weekend. Atacama is by some accounts the driest place on the planet (there are spots where rain hasn't been seen in the time since records began around 90 years ago), creating some cool geographical formations and making it one of the best spots for star gazing. I'm really psyched for that trip.

Photo cred: Lisa and Alan, from the blog "There and Back Again." This was easily their coolest shot.

That's basically it for me right now. As always, thanks for reading and keeping up with me.