Begin real life?

So real life has kind of started to begin here which I rapidly realized has an upside and a downside. On the one hand it is nice to have things to do every day and incredibly liberating to be at the beginning of everything when I have no obligations and can try a million different things I have never tried before. Like Judo (more on that later). On the other hand however, and I suppose this is probably pretty obvious, I can't do whatever I want to do whenever I want to do it. Or at least, three of seven days a week I can't. Lol. Really the number of obligations I have here in comparison to at home is kind of a joke so I can't complain at all about having things to do although I've become quite a fan of the slower, more relaxed, Chilean way of life. Anyway, classes started last week although all last week and all this week I have the opportunity to float through different classes and try them out to see what I actually want to take. I tried out some different things but I think I settled on a Sociology class called Formación y Desarollo de la Cultura Lationamericana (Formation and Development of Latinamerican Culture) and a Geography class, Geografía de Chile (Geography of Chile) in addition to the mandatory class which I have to take for EAP which is Política y Cultura de Chile (Politics and Culture of Chile). Each of these classes I have two days a week, Tuesday and Thursday, in addition to rock climbing which I just signed up for today. For my sociology class I also have a semi-mandatory TA session on Friday afternoons. Apart from that however, my life is pretty free and breezy. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings I have soccer class which is fun since I'm not the only one who is awful. Playing sports throughout your childhood isn't as engraved in the culture for girls here as it is in the US so there aren't very many girls who are particularly athletic or good at sports. Of course they've been watching soccer their entire lives so they know the rules a bit better and maybe have a better grasp of the theory but I can hold my own. It's funny though because there are two other extranjeras (foreigners) in my class, a girl from SF State and a girl from New Zealand, who have played soccer all their lives and are really good so everybody knows them as the good extranjeras and me as the other extranjera. Oh well. In addition to soccer I also tried out a Judo class although I may not end up taking it for various reasons. The class was interesting though. The first day we just practiced the footwork for throwing people for and hour and a half. We didn't get around to actually practicing on people yet but the course requires everyone to advance to the level of a yellow belt in order to pass the class so I think that will definitely play a part sometime.

Beyond class it looks like I may be playing volleyball too (big surprise I know). I tried out originally with the university team which was a lot of fun but I realized it wouldn't work since the practice time conflicted with my mandatory EAP class. I was bumming on not being able to play since the girls on the team were really nice and they weren't all that good so I could definitely keep up without too much effort so I decided to ditch Judo for a Volleyball class one day instead. The professor of the Volleyball class though, happened to be the coach for one of the teams that plays in the national league and ended up inviting me to play for them so I played with them for the first time last night. They are much better than the university team and have some girls that are incredibly athletic but its not out of my league and it is a lot of fun. Season doesn't start till September though so I don't really know how the competitions and all work or if we will have to travel a lot. I guess I'll see when it comes.

In addition to volleyball I also started an intership today although I don't know if it will work out because of scheduling. I had the opportunity to work with an organization called CONVIHDA. The name is a play on "con vida" aka "with life" and "VIH" aka "HIV". Its an AIDS/HIV organization that does a number of things, among them education, social work, therapy, exams, and treatment. I'm not actually sure what they don't do concerning AIDS beyond medical research or something. Anyway, if I stay with it, I will be doing a number of things including working in a clinic for a couple hours each week in addition to various activites such as visiting hospitals and educating people and things. Tonight I was on clinic duty which was really interesting although it wasn't really what one's mind first jumps to at the idea of an aids clinic. Basically people just came to pick up there pills and then hung out for a while at this sort of group therapy/social/movie and a meal event that they have every week. I just basically got an earfull of everything that had to do with treatment and AIDS and the organization and the clinic project. It was really interesting though although kind of sad. The majority of the people I was told were HIV positive and yet at least half were high school students younger than me. I guess thats how the whole theme of AIDS/HIV will probably be though. I'd like to learn more though and the people were really nice so I hope I can figure out a way to work it around my classes because right now the only clinic days I have class conflicts with.

In other news, I found an apartment! I had a long internal (and sometimes external) debate about if I wanted to stay with my host family or not and whether I wanted to live in a residencial which is basically a big international house or in an apartment and then if an apartment what types of people I would want to live with and where. I found an apartment though which is pretty nice, right in the center of the city where its super convenient to get to pretty much everything yet on a sort of nice residencial street so its not too busy. I am planning on moving out this Monday and I will be living with a Chilean girl named Miriam and a French girl named Fanny. Both are students. Fanny is actually a econ student at my same university and Miriam works in addition to going to school. They seem really nice though and the apartment is really nice so I am excited. I have definitely come to like where I live now though and like my host family so I will miss them for sure but hopefully I can stop by every now and then to say hi or convince my host brother to come visit me. I am looking forward to the independence though. And to cooking mexican food probably every night for dinner since I have been having major withdrawls for the past month and a half. Mexican food in Chile is lacking. They don't like flavor here.

"My name is Sarah and I'm feeling strong, grrrrr"-Lindsey