2 down 3 to go plus prueba..

awoke at like 4am mentally packing my bags to discover i have too many books too many coats too many shoooooes!!!
the other side of my brain figured out how to finish all my schoolwork in time to leave the fuckin country...

jesusmaryandjoseph...

while i had high hopes of doing the paper i still owe cristian from last week this week that will be impossible with a prueba an essay and a take home final for frickin conflicto...

well i kicked some rayuela essay ass yestie, today i toasted the 3pregunta takehome final, just need to throw in some biblios and im coooooool...

so that tom i can focus on not flunking my prueba...

i mean that conflicto whatev is not the greatest shit i ever wrote but fuckitall..its got words on gotdam paper. it talks about the crap he said to talk about, i think i deserve a fuckin nobel prize fer getting this far....

head down and go.

lesh wants everbody to go out of town this weekend (last one) but i dunno with a paper due monday and two more that have to be done by wed to give me just one day to finish packing...

did rearrange my shit a lil and get rid of some clothes, and even a few books....jeez i hate this whole minimalist fit it all in two bags bullshit!!! but whatcha gonna do? leave behind vargas llosa, thats what im doin..not the short stories those were cool, the fuckin novels, i got not even a clue what teh hell was goin on in em anyway...plus the books that ive reread enough times that its literally painful even the contemplation of doing so again and/or the cover is fucked up or i can get another copy or it wasnt her best novel or whatev...

cost me dearly. that book reduction. i did it last year too, had to cut down and cut away so much stuff, get small and portable

its nice in a j way, "letting go of the past" "simplifying" or whatever...

but i tell you what, i let go of some stuff last year when i left town that i still think to mself damnit ra!!! shoulda kept those pants!!! and i have had to let go of some stuff today that i was like man i know someday ima wear this...i just havent yet...

that kinda tough love is cool but man when i get back ima fuckin accumulate some shit like a good consumer yanqui capitalist beyotch that i am...

oh and i have this plan where ima wear my heaviest clothes on the long long long plane ride and arrive sweating my balls off and im going to pass off the biggest bag i can as a purse along with my carryon...thats right cause carryon is one thing plus a laptop or a purse and i tell you what...............................................
and. today i listened to the Damn!WhereMyRachAt? vol 1 on the way to school and it was goooooood...

ciaosies

the big australian shout out

So Cait the Aussie just left on vaca and it started bringing home to me the notion of leaving people i really do love like this one...by the time shes back i will be gone and shes here for another semester yet. i dunno we just became close fast and now i feel like one of my best friends is gone. shes been putting up with my being a very homesick negative and whinging(aussie or brit for whining) whore for quite a while now so its time i said thanks..

so out of missing her and just wanting to give props i will now list my favorites of the phrases i learned from the australians in no particular order

budgie smugglers
refers to speedoes, a budgie is a bird

mate
buddy, they really do say it just not all cocodrillo dundee style

hang a piss
take a leak

barely touched the sides
usually reffering to a beer that hardly began to quench ones thirst for beer...

heaps
personal fave it means lots as in oh yeah i spent heaps of time with her right before she left..

Tim Tams
plus this isnt a phrase its a cookie, well they call it a biscuit i think of it more as a fudgy cookie wafery thing, whatever the hell it is its fuckin good.

MISS YOU GROTTY AUSSIE FREAK!!!

despedida drama

so last week i learned exactly how chile says ciao. basically it fucks you real hard and doesnt cuddle afterward. was pretty pissed last week when i found out that my last quiz in my conflicto class got a 4 out of 7 even though i studied my ass off and was able to list all the shit said in the reading but basically couldnt cite the authors since the quiz covered over 20 articles...so now in order to not fail i need to rock the final project and the final project which is due this fri coming up is huge, just got deets on it
but first the paper with jen, then make up oral exam to make up for how bad i did last test in my other narrativa then conflicto on fri plus i got a final quiz for my lit theory plus the paper i missed for lit theory where he has put a bunch of new shit online that is not in the syllabus which i now have to search my ass off for in english but mostly im not finding anything which means i gotta somehow comprehend lit theory not just in spanish but translated into spanish then my final paper in my 2nd narrativa class is due monday the 3rd plus the final project in that class is due the fuckin 7th which is the day i leave.

so then, literally every single chilean classmate who i thought i was cool with flaked on my despedida, then so did the turbo who said he was coming and bringing some of his friends that i really wanted to see before leaving and i was like ok well thats fucking typical, he was like yeah i have to throw a birthday party for my friend...i thought to myself that i had literally made not even a single connection here thats strong enough to temp these folks into saying goodbye. i dunno it pissed me off i was like wow ive lived here for a year and this whole place has just walked by without doing more than staring at my strange hair or undressing me with thier eyes or trying to get into my pants or just ignoring all the stupid gringo shit i say or laughing at me but cant even get out to drink a fuckin beer...

so then the actual night of the despedida, i get this call from nacho1 who is like yeah i got yer invite and i cant make it but i wanna see you and say goodbye. you need to understand that we havent talked since the big drama...so anyway he came over and we talked. it felt good like closure or like maybe im not insane that i still think abt him or that hes still important to me. anyway it was good but definitely unexpected and threw me for a loop. we went for a walk and talked and then i headed back to the party...

few early birds arriving as i got back so im being rushed in and out the shower then ash is calling me i make a last minute wardrobe change my clothes attacking me i text her need consult she runs down says those pants are fine i say are they piratical enough i look fat in the other ones and she says yeah its good hurry and goes back up then i break another nail the bell starts ringing my hair isnt working fuckin adrian arrives and says you dont look like a pirate or like jack sparrow (hence the name-fucking adrian indicated this uncanny ability to say the wrongest possible thing like the time he walked in and nearly destroyed an outfit the ash and i had worked on for a month by saying she looked like she was going to the prom in a molly ringwald film) anyway i told him to fuck off ash started calling i worked on the hair and finally got upstairs

ok so flash fwd to the swiftly downed drink and the insanity of the pirate cowboy dance off which we won with the help of some fancy footwork by little jen and some serious shakin of the pirates booty by yrs truly...throat getting dry from growling arrrgh and drunkety drunk one of the monkey bros, daniel the cutie comes up and asks me if im single i go yeah are you he says yes and then says i wanted to do this for a while and the next thing i know hes kissing me, so this is a fuzzy confused drunken spanish moment where im like daniel is kissing me and then im like daniel is cute and then ash is like yo ra turbos here and sure enough there he is, so i go to say hi and he asks me if i have something for him to use to look more piratical and im like yeah so i take him downstairs and find him a bandanna and then the next thing i know hes kissing me and were sitting on my bed and im like woah how did that happen someone knocks on the door and its his friend so i slip past them both and upstairs...

he comes back up more drunken dancing ensues people start trying to fuck up my mix and the party starts winding down, i dont know when everyone left but they did and im left with a drunken turbo a confused k and the ash is having loud drama with nick i go up to turn the music off and discover rhea rolling around on the floor in the attic/closet where we stashed the compu and i laugh cause its so cramped and cold and dirty and then i turn the music down and switch the mix to something more appropriate then head back down say goodbye to k and im alone with ash and the turbo who is comforting her bc nick took off

later on she said man you were blasted usually id be like nicks being a jerk and yer all ill kill him my damn self! this time i was like hey youll work it out in the morning you love each other no big deal partly cause ive learned that i can be of no help in these sorta sitches and partly cause i just didnt feel like dealing

so of course the frickin turbo stayed and of course we hooked up and jesus mary and joseph that should be illegal, i even tried to avoid him again by going to take a shower knocked on leos door and was like leo help but he was passed out drunk...in the morning i said why did you abandon me and he said i was asleep and what was i gonna do and i said i dunno maybe you woulda said dont do it...

basically said the same thing to the ash and she said hey man i didnt make you do shit i just told you to talk to him and you were the one who said you wanted to talk to him and say goodbye and i was like yeah i just wanted to talk to him not sleep with his loudly snoring skinny self...

then i was like whatev it coulda been worse and i spose thats how chile say goodbye...lotta drunken drama and a mini replay of all the main conflicts, or at least thats what i thought as i curled into my bed with the t glancing at the exact spot where nacho had been mere hours before and changing the subject mentally...

now the aussie is leaving tom on vaca and i have a bajillion assignments so i will be packing or studying until i leave. fuckin ciao po.

down the drain/2wks 1day

tired. adrenaline drained. spent the evening studying with k the aussie for our big narrativa quiz, open book whichever one you want so we went over backward and fwd inside out my personal fave as well as the only one i actually read in this section, el infarto del alma....

stayed up too late studying slept fitfully in unfamiliar bed then up too early to get to class on time for a change of pace only to discover to our dismay that while all the rest of the questions treated general themes from the book the pregunta abt our book wanted us to apply a specific critical analysis neither of us had read....

we were forced to choose another book and write a general and bullshit essay...

then we got on the metro. destroyed by lack of sleep but wired on caffiene. chick insisted we neednt combinar with linea roja at baquedano and instead we combinared with the yellow line me going where are we going and she its a surprise, i was like im so tired i might die and she was like perfect...

dragged me to the cemetary which was luminous and beautiful and so different from recoleta in ba, bigger in some parts smaller in others, this sort of art of accumulation where the smaller modest tombs stacked upon each other in walls with several levels, little shelves crowded with plastic flowers and hello kitty stickers and holy water and real flowers and balloons reading happy fathers day and further in the bigger fancier masoleums surrounded by statues and tiny gardens and we saw a baby in a carriage and waited for a while for the mama to appear only to realize she was a worker there up above on the balcony keeping an eye out and i shouted up are you the mama and she said yes and i laughed and said id been worried because i didnt see her up there and we walked around and the light fell more gently than usual leaving deep shadows and softer ones and illuminating grey stone and marble and black and white and statue and path alike....

then we left and got back on the metro headed back to providencia, she asked me if i wanted to watch the game with the aussie crew and i said id come have a beer but then i got smashed into an aussie laden irish pub called flannerys or hoolihans or something the point being that they were broadcasting the game in english, i was unable to leave until the game ended and paranoid that somehow they all knew i wasnt an aussie at all...sleepy and adreneline fading i watched the little men run across the big green space chasing the little ball. noted that at intervals everyone got really excited about a save or a block or a goal or a red card or a yellow card or something. they won though and even i thought it was cool how in like the last minute the aussies scored a goal and won the game. by this point i was half asleep and ready to go, looking for the bathroom somebody stopped me by the bar and i blurted out "im not australian" but they wanted to know the final score...

then home where i got an email from cristian who is my supercute teacher for whom i missed a paper and now have to work my ass off doing it plus studying for the final which i may well flunk since it covers like 6 authors of whom ive got like 3 in english cause i barely catchai the english when its all this intense theory but whatev. i dont care anymore. just gonna put my head down and go. three papers two tests and im oughty 5000.

whatup world
2weeks 1day

well i fucked that one up...

so i thought i was all cool and shit right?
the paro was over and i kinda knew basically what i had to do in order to safely leave this country, meaning all my final papers and projects and whatnot...plus the planning of a grand despedida, plus a cash advance from j and my bro cause once again surprise surprise...im brokety broke..

well...

i thought i had it all. i thought i knew what was up. then other people in my house started studying till all hours in the living room next to my room waking me up all hours of the night, my tired of chile and wanna go home plus the gotdam fuckin cold increased as did my stress level re final projects papers tests ect.

so.

i butchered my hair just antes to the big pirate/cowboy despedida (i wanted a pirate party ash wanted a cowboy and thus was born the pirata/vaquero californiana canadiana despedida)

then.

my biggest nightmare came true. im not kidding i swear i have always feared this would happen, and especially here in chile and especially in the class where i am the only gringo...

i walked in monday to see people laying papers on profes desk and i thought, ohmigod what is that, we had an assignment? oh fuckfuckfuck...cause see we have been off the map for days, we left the syllabus behind practically immediately...first of all our prof was actually not around the first month of class, the syllabus says we would have four written quizes and we had completed one, which i opted out of because i was given the choice of writing a paper instead which i did. then there was the flesh eating virus which caused me to miss a week of class followed by the paro...

so we came back and i waited for some sign of what was next how would we make up for lost time what was the deal ect. i had also lost my password so didnt check the web although i coulda gone to the comp lab and not had to sign in...whatev.

the point is that there was a paper i knew nothing about, and instead of talking to my teacher immediately i tried to get in touch with my chilean buddy from that class who i saw today and who was nice enough to tell me that yes there was a paper due last monday. so i emailed my prof who is a genuinely nice guy and im sure will take pity on me and maybe tell me wether my final prueba will be wednesday or friday cause i quedared pretty un claro on that point as well...

and then my lazy ass will get to work...big paper on rayuela due wed, take home final for conflicto, group paper for narrativa but thank god monday is ferriado..so no school..

then i also, this is before the worst gringo moment ever had me leaving school literally in tears, decided that i had comitted a grave error in cutting my hair befor the pirate party because i am going to be the queen of the pirates and modelled on jonny depp of course in fact i think i will introduce myself as jack sparrow all night long and when its time for the big pirate cowboy showdown danceoff

...well the point is that a pirate needs more hair and not less...

granted my time would have been better spent thinking about fuckin rayuela (again) instead i hit a fabric store and got some lovely fabrics that combine perfectly with my pirate costume, because the turbo is coming plus all the cute little chilean friends i love plus nick and all the ridics; big and little...anyway the point is this:
everyone including me appreciated the shape and style of the new hair, before that it was just kinda shapeless and now it looks healthier and thicker and more even all over HOWEVER its pretty fuckin short. and while one could see an ex a little thicker around the middle from doing no yoga and sleeping a lot while waiting to leave the cold cold country you dare not venture out in...

one could not possibly see the old friends and ex both slightly heavier and with much shorter hair....and especially not as queen of the pirates with a rather unpiratical haircut...jeez i wonder sometimes what i was thinking...

but it all worked out in the end, i have this crazy pale goldy colored brocade and silky fabric worked in braids in combo with a bronzy silky business...its fuckin hot and matches my costume perfectly...

thats right, chile may be freezing my ass off and possibly fucking my gpa for the duration and destroying my chance at grad school and thus all my future plans and dreams but i will be damned if i will put up with all this bullshit with bad hair!

fraggle en pleno crisis

maybe ive just been sleeping too much, perhaps the student strike lasted too long...whatever it is i have been way too bored for way too long...found myself wakeful and in the grip of absurd nervous sensations at 3am attacking my hair with nail scissors..everyone else has just plain crisis, i go for existential/hair crisis...

the result was such that, while i certainly continued cutting after having accomplished the abolishment of those blond tips which were becoming ratty and discolored going too far.. i did not go quite so far as to require me to shave my head which is usually where i end up having little sense of moderation...

however i have gone down that road several times and have promised myself to never again go through the obnoxiousness that is literally a year of bad hair when growing out and simultaneously dreading very short hair..

so i messaged ash and the aussie saying have cut hair maybe too much need consult. while the aussie said shave it, hell ill do it for ya ash was right there saying put down scissors dont touch it till i see...

in any case it ended up not so terrible, the final result is at least one thing i wanted which is a change, something different and a bit of levelling, not where its all the same length rather where its all equally random in being not the same length...i had somehow managed to rip apart one side and not the other last semester during finals leaving the two sides of my head very different...so now i have a dread bob, in fact if you want you can even call me dreadbob....

lil jen says shes never seen one before, short dread having folks being the in the process of dreading and generally lacking the new look i have of i cut my hair this way and then most of the established dread folks just dont cut they stuff and now after a slight panic of if i fucked this up im starting all over i think i know why...

but then again im stoked that its changed and i like the new look and the lightness of it and the fact that i can wash my hair as often as i like cause it no longer takes forever to dry...

my clusters are fucked

so i just started checking out the class sched for fall since i have to figure out pretty soon what i wanna take and how fast im trying to get out of sfstate...
the thing is that i can get out in a semester if i take a bunch of classes and they offer absolutely everything i need and i dont get fucked on any of my transfers from chile...

but i was thinking about trying to add a minor and just finishing up in two semesters, and then i thought about changing my clusterwhateverthing...its like an upper division ge where you choose a cluster and take three classes that are like related or whatever...

k so i had been signed up for this cross cultural studies in art and lit crap thing which sounded cool and relevant at first but i took one class listed under it and it sucked bigtime..as a nexa class it was supposed to be a good combination of science and humanities. well as far as i can tell so far there is no such thing. it made vague generalities like the worse of the humanities and contained way too much boring shit to be memorized like the worst of the sciences...it was actually the worst of both worlds in combination...

the rest of the classes listed under that cluster are not nec nexa but have similarly well meaning vague names and descrips like word thought image and promise the same crappy class experience of vague bullshit plus a little bit of pretentious academic self referential crap...

so i decided to change clusters. my first thought was to get the hell out of humanities since i already have a hum major..im in the process of taking my first polisci class and i love it, fits well with my ambition to stop being a bleeding heart liberal and start being as informed and intelligent and capable of analysis as amy goodman...

thats correct thats my fuckin goal. i just dont want to sound like one of those bitter burned out activists who regards everything negatively but with little information...yall know who i mean, the person always out at rallies and shit, bitching and moaning about the current atrocities but with little creative energy towards action or possibilities or solutions

nor do i wish to (no offense kermel) pull a kermit by which i mean activist turned regular dude who having swallowed some serious bullsshit of the extreme left for a long time without questioning some seriosly false info and boycotted damn near everybody and everything for years, now feels the need to be more moderate and question the extremes of tactics/dialogue/information that comes from the left. you know the idiots im talking about, they dont believe anything that sounds like it has a position, which means they equally disbelieve foxnews and kpfa and thus accept as probable only that heard on bbc whose position is often obscured by the combination of british accents and the notion of being outside of it...whatever it is...(although i do wanna give a shout out to the bbc as here i have cnn en esp or bbc for worldnews and they have hooked me up)

anyway when i looked at that cluster, the global peace studies bit it looked like it also consisted of some vague boring classes...god i hate vague boring classes. give me precision for fucks sakes!!!

so i am holding off the decision until i find out more abt transferring stuff from here and wether i decide to go for the minor in jewish studies which would be cool as fuck...and then i might just take the jewish experience cluster and double count the classes for the minor, smart huh?

yeah i know some of you are like what a minute what, minor in jewish studies? yeah but thats just those of you who forget how much i loved loved loved the jewish lit class i took bef i left town...and that it was that teacher who talked me into grad school and suggested a minor in jewish studies...i was like man im trying to graduate someday but check it out yall,

im on the scenic route/ ten year plan right? well by my calculations if i take two more semesters i will graduate after not 10 but 9 years in school!!! huh!!! ahead of fuckin time people!!! anyway ive been thinking about it since and i think im gonna do it...(although it did surprise me to figure out the number of undergrad years i have clocked, between three jcs and sfstate 8years all told and thats just fuckin insane...but thats why i need to go straight for the doctorate upon actual gradiation yknow...i mean i wont live forever i needta getta fucking move on...)

in other news today i officially have ONE MONTH!!!!! left in chile...ONE MONTH!!!!!!
homeward bound baby!!!!
ciao chile im fuckin outty mcouterson...catcahi?

top 25 things i love most about Jeremy Rhoades

slow sleepy sundays
his girly giggle
those bright blue eyes
his poetry
gossip

the fact that he can keep a plant alive
mimosas and waffles for sunday brunch
that he is one of the most genuine people i know
his ability to find the sacred anywhere
the obvious delight he takes in himself
his silly sense of humor
his lil potbelly

the way he dragged me to see Karma Moffet play tibetan bells not once but twice
the manner in which he coaxes manifestation saying now what would that look like
the way he stands slightly leaned back all hands on hips
the way he dances all knees and elbows and big bounce
that he can meditate anytime anywhere

the way he enjoys the things he enjoys, indulgently, gleefully
his evil dark side which generally involves chasing me around with a slide whistle
the way he snuggles up to me at night

his ability to cry
his sleepy stillness
the way he plays tinkerbell to my peter pan
that his eyelashes are prettier than mine

the way he loves me

Are we there yet???

im bored.

the first few days were great. i ran out immediately to take pics of escolares manifestando, theyre just so cute in their little uniforms and all the accessories that no doubt spring from years of wearing the same fuckin uniform as everybody else...

there are cute little 80s escolares with big hair and brightly colored legwarmers
cute little chilean goth escolares with black nail polish or dyed hair or dark lipstick
goth/punk escolares with a mix of the 80s tribute hair accessories plus loads of piercings
punk escolares with loads of piercings plus the ubiquitious black hoodie, tattered and patched preferably
and then theres just yer average everyday escolare.
they just are adorable, many of them smoke, i know its not cool to smoke and probably less cool if yer like 12 but its so fuckin badass all those little girls with thier dark matching sweaters and shoes and eyeliner and little guys with thier crooked ties...they just look so cute even puffing away at cigarretes in the frosty morning air right outside of school...

so youd think itd be easy to find a fuckin crowd of hundreds of em right?
well on the day my school officially went on paro i recd in the mail a new music mix from j which i immediately plugged into my discman and off i went camera in hand searching for crowds of jumping singing chanting escolares...picked up k the aussie and headed downtown, not much luck..hit the biblioteca nacional, u de chile, then the moneda where we found a modestly sized crowd and then headed home figuring they must have calmed down...

later a friend who lives near plaza italia told me it was a madhouse with mustard gas and firehoses and that she could hardly breathe when she went outside, go figured i had headed downtown and they had all been over at plaza italia..as i saw on the news that same night...

so the next day i thought well ill just head toward plaza italia and get some of the schools on the way...striking had degenerated slightly from the shouting and chanting of even a day before to a bunch of kids hanging out in front of closed schools blaring reggaeton smoking making out chatting and dancing, but i got a few decent pics...when i got to plaza italia it was pretty empty and i was getting tired so i stopped in on the monkeys to say hi. turns out the big march happened in front of la moneda that day..

.my roomies were like why dont you turn on the news first before you go and i said well i just didnt think itd be tough to encontrar a big ass group of striking students....

but what do i know.
well they rejected the offer negotiated from the gov and called for another natl day of strike today but i suspect in the end they will take whats on the table since negotiations have officially ended and many of the concerns have been addressed and i dont know about everyone else but im bored as fuck. actually ready to go back to school. how do you like that?