I apologize for my long absence. I blame twitter.
In all seriousness, I’ve been so happy and distracted by my life in Chile as of late that I have been completely negligent of any kind of blog/journal upkeep. May was a very full month: I gave midterms, my Mom came to visit and I turned 24. I’ve been keeping busy with school and tutoring.
Mom’s trip was great. The weather was agreeable for most of the trip and everyone was amazed by her Spanish skills. Of course. We stayed in a hotel in Providencia and she got to sit in on my classes at Duoc.
The birthday weekend was a blast. About 16 of the World Teachers reconvened in Santiago last weekend to celebrate the birthdays Deepak, Alex and myself. Our friends Laura and Sidi threw us a barbecue and we went out dancing until the wee small hours of the morning. It was a great birthday, not to mention the fact that the 31st, my actual birthday was the most beautiful day I have yet seen in Santiago. (It rained for a couple of days and the smog cleared to reveal exactly how majestic the mountains really are under clear blue skies.)
Unfortunately I caught some kind of flu a couple of days after, which then turned into pneumonia. All of the professors at my school were convinced that it was the swine flu and treated me like a leper. There have been two cases diagnosed at Duoc, so I guess they had good reason, but I still found it kind of annoying. Especially since it wasn’t H1N1 (like I said) and it was only pneumonia. Which, is technically a serious respiratory infection. As such, I have spent the last ten days on bed rest which seems completely unnecessary to me, but I am not a medical professional. I am really excited to go back to work tomorrow, I’ve missed my students like crazy.
When the doctor told me that I had pneumonia and would have to go on antibiotics I had a very typical Radford response. I said, “Okay Great.” Because I thought that if I was on antibiotics, since I felt fine I could go back to work on Monday. Unfortunately this was not the case. He told me that I would have to stay at home, not because I was infectious, but because I needed to recover. “But I feel fine” I insisted. “My lung only hurts when I cough, I’ll be fine once I’m on antibiotics.”
No Go.
It was off to bed with me for ten days. I have accomplished nothing in this time. Well, I guess that’s not true. I was invited to an Asado (Chilean Barbecue) last week at my friend Carolina’s house the day after I was diagnosed. I threw caution to the wind and decided to attend. Most of the other professors there were from the Math department and were native Chileans, so I felt really special to have been included. I’m glad that I’m making new friends, it has made all of the difference and is making it easier for me to think of staying for another year.
In other news I have discovered the brilliance of the electric blanket. I also bought a new coat, finished the book “Absurdistan” and bought a bunch of new music on iTunes. (I can highly recommend Trouble by Ray Lamontagne, Sunny Side Up by Paolo Nutini and Matinee by Jack Penate)
This coming week, I have to double up on classes to make up for the time that I missed this week. It’ll definitely be a challenge, but even if I double my classes, I’m still working a 36 hour work week, so I really can’t complain.
My friend Dave was nice enough to cover 2 of my classes this week. (The only Profe at Duoc to do so.) Most people had conflicting schedules and so couldn’t do anything, but I’m pretty sure that most just didn’t want to take another class. I guess that’s fine, but it just makes me think. Professors here are always complaining about how lazy their students are, but how can they really complain if they are just as ‘unmotivated’.
This “pneumonia” also made me realize how lucky I am to have a job that I love. My first thoughts upon learning that I had to go on house arrest were “but I have to teach, what about my students”. I was horrified to think that I had to miss classes for a week. If having to skip work for a week is the biggest problem in my life at this moment, I’d have to say that I am a pretty lucky person.
Still no luck with the “Hunky Mechanic” who we now know is named Cristian, but maybe my absence for the last week will make him realize that he likes me and misses seeing my face every day . . .
Probably not.
Yesterday I decided that I wanted to bake cookies and was shocked to discover that there are NO cookie sheets for sale in Chile. I spent an hour in the store trying to gather together the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies, but couldn’t find baking soda or chocolate chips or a cookie sheet, which led to a bit of improvising on my part, but overall, it went well and the cookies were delicious. (At least I think they were since my host family devoured the dozen that I made them in about 3 minutes.) Today I’m going to try my hand at oatmeal raisin. Just like my dad likes. (Happy Father’s Day to el Jefe)
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