I'm settling into life here--I have a hard time believing that tomorrow marks the two-week anniversary of my arrival in Santiago. Though each day seems to pass by very quickly, at the same time I feel like I have already been here for months.
We have a new (potential) apartmentmate from Germany named Stefanie. She arrived yesterday and is planning on staying here for a "trial period," but she says that she likes the apartment and is considering becoming a semi-permanent resident. Stefanie is very friendly, plus, it is nice to have someone else in the apartment closer to my own age (Stefanie is 32 and also taking classes at the university; she is in her final year of studies on her way to becoming a secondary school teacher). I felt kind of bad because Stefanie knew that I had to run some errands at the university this morning so she casually suggested that we go together but I didn't set my alarm this morning and woke up at the leisurely hour of 9:30. I was beginning my morning routine (sitting in my bathrobe contemplating life while I check the news/e-mail) when Stefanie came to my room completely dressed. She said "good morning" and then saw the state of my hair/wardrobe and exclaimed, "Oh, you are still in pajamas; I go to the university now." Though we hadn't exactly planned to go together, I'm becoming more and more conscious of my actions--partly because of orientation, partly because of my own experiences--that I am representing the U.S.: thus, when I sleep in late or say anything, I feel like people are judging the entire NATION.
Today graduate courses started--a fact which would have been nice to know more than an hour before classes began. I met with my advisor on Monday and he gave me the website where they post courses and told me to pick out a few and let him know what I was thinking about taking; as my luck would have it the website didn't work until late Tuesday and even then I couldn't find the graduate course listings (the website is in Galician and sometimes hard to navigate). Yesterday I visited the office of the history graduate studies coordinator and he gave me a booklet with course listings and syllabi--unfortunately, the book was written in Spanish and Galician (some of the months were given in Roman numerals, others in Spanish, others in Galician abbreviations); half of the information was one year old and the other half was current--so, between all of this, I had a hard time understanding the first day of class because the beginning of the booklet said September 25 while the syllabi listed the first day of class as sometime in October... Last night, I sent my professor an e-mail but, since he hadn't responded to my e-mail by 11 and classes started at 12, I decided to pay a visit to the history department secretary. Of course, she didn't know when courses started either and was asking her colleagues when my advisor came in to check his mailbox and told me that he had received my e-mail and was in the middle of writing a response---so, I left the office for my apartment. When I got home, his e-mail said that, yes, classes did start today--a helpful fact he could have mentioned when he ran into me in the history department--it would have taken two seconds to answer my questions! At any rate, I've missed one of my first classes but a) none of the classes are mandatory and b) I didn't get his message in time, so I didn't feel bad.
I did, however, get the memo in time to attend my course on "Nationalisms and National Identity in Contemporary Spain" this afternoon. The professor opened the class by asking how many students were from Galicia because if a majority of the class was from Galicia, he would conduct the course in Galician. Thankfully, two other students besides me were not from Galicia, so he decided that he would teach in Spanish... I thought that I would be taking a large course with at least 50 other students so that I could just slip in the back and pick up a few Spanish words here and there, but, as it happens, it is a graduate seminar with 9 other students that is half-lecture, half-discussion of the 5-bajillion pages we have to read. Today was all lecture, and, based on the lecture, I think that I will enjoy the course--and I am sure that having to read/skim a ton of Spanish will be beneficial (as will attempting to participate in a discussion). The atmosphere was pretty casual and all of the students wanted to talk to each other (and to me) but I was kind of afraid of talking with them because I'm not hip on the slang and I don't know the other professors so I can't gripe about how much work they are giving. I ran into a girl in the history department yesterday with a Euro-mullet (her name is Bea) who asked me where I was from because I had such a cute accent--as it happens, Bea is in my class. After the professor decided that we would be speaking Spanish in class, he had everyone call out their name so that he could write it down. Most people are pretty confused when I tell them my name because my first name is Spanish for "expensive" or "face" and my last name is German, but a student named Keiko with a Japanese name went before me so I figured that, like Keiko, I could just spell my name and things would be fine. When I said my name (and spelled it), the professor was still confused so he made me write it on the board, where it remained for half of class (at least everyone knows my name), but then he said, "oh, a German! SHOOLTZ! Great!" He was also kind of funny because he challenged one fellow who said that he was from Galicia because his last name "wasn't Galician" and commented on the region of Spain from which all of the native Spaniards' names came from (how he can tell someone's autonomous community of origin based on their last name, I have no clue, but then, again, I'm not Spanish).
Enough about class... The apartment is coming together; my furniture was delivered the other day and I now have an orange/red/pink habitat. Sally bought a microwave yesterday (and just in time; I've been craving popcorn all week)--so I regaled the apartment with microwave popcorn (popcorn isn't so big in Europe, but Sally and Stefanie seemed to like it) and "Thai chicken and rice" (not cooked in the microwave). Sidenote: it's really hard to find international food here, even in big supermarkets, but I found a packet of Thai sauce after much searching. It was the least I could do because, without asking, Sally has cooked meals for me all week. By the end of the month, Sally promises a dishwasher--but she (sadly) doesn't plan on buying a dryer. This would be fine, except for the awkwardness of hanging up my underwear--I still can't get comfortable with the idea of hanging up underwear for all in the apartment and neighboring buildings to see (it's kind of a reflection of my soul), so for the moment my desk chair has become my drying rack.
I've been hanging out with Kasia (Karen's apartmentmate) of late; on Monday we went to lunch together and she showed me a really cool park that used to be a cemetery hundreds of years ago (I may turn it into my homework spot as well); this evening we went out for wine and tapas with her Spanish boyfriend and I drank too much on an empty stomach so if this entry didn't make sense, my apologies.
