Another week of classes

Two hour classes on plate tectonics (la téctonia de las placas, if you were wondering) drive me out of my mind. Especially when the professor is a little old guy with a monotone voice who doesn't seem to follor any sort of lesson plan. He keeps making mysterious references to the Heaven's Gate cult and mumbling about how "they might have known what they were doing...mumble mumble...magnetic forces...mumble mumble...one never knows...mumble mumble...aliens...mumble mumble."

On a happy note, my 3.5 hour literature class is cancelled this week, as is my 8 AM Thursday class. Now I have all Wednesday afternoon free, and I don't have to wake up early on Thursday, yay!

We're reading The Heights of Machu Picchu for my Globalization class before we visit Neruda's Isla Negra home on Thursday. I'm not one of those crazy poetry lovers by any stretch of the imagination, but let me just say that reading Neruda in Spanish is absolutely amazing! Here's the beginning...

Del aire al aire, como una red vacia/From air into air, like an empty net
iba yo entre las calles y la atmósfera/ I wandered between the streets and the atmosphere
llegando y despidiendo/arriving and saying goodbye
en el advenimiento del otoño la moneda extendida/in the coming of autumn and with its scattered coins
de las hojas/ of leaves
....
Días de fulgor vido en la intemperie/ Days of live shining in the storminess
de los cuerpos: aceros convertidos/ of bodies: sharp steel converted
al silencio del ácido/ to acidic silence. "

Isn't it beautiful?!

Despite some drama over the past week, things are pretty good. Its springtime. I have a new bright pink jacket (haha). Christian is learning to play the songs from the Amélie soundtrack on his harmonica. I get to talk to Dylan tonight. And my host mom bought manjar (dulce de leche) again... : D