A beautiful day

I'm broadcasting from my comfy apartment! We have wifi now, and as Steve said "Whoo Hoo!" Not that going down to the building lobby was bad at all. This is simply more convenient, and installation was just in time for me to facetime with my sister tonight, which is nice.

Today was our third day of school (both for Joel and me). My first class on Wednesday starts at 11:45, so I walked Joel and his bags of supplies to school. Everything is up hill in the morning- We go up Von Schroeder, a short street, with a VERY steep bit at the end, which terminates in a set of stairs. Next is Agua Santa, a gradual, but decided hill. A tiny respite is had on Merced Oriente, the street where St. Paul's is located. But wait, the school is built into a hill, and the student stairs are terribly steep (4 flights). Are we there yet? Nope, next comes 3 flights of stairs to get to Joel's classroom. I went home and recovered with a cup of tea before I went to work. For a flat-lander like me, this is quite an adventure! Can't wait to go to Valparaíso this weekend, and tackle some REAL hills!

Here's Joel in his new uniform. He came out of his room on Monday (the first day of school) and announced "Even my underwear is gray."  My boy has a sense of style!

I had a nice class this morning, although I think I scared my poor students with the activity I did. I'd had them read a newspaper article last night, and when they came to class I asked them to write the answers to some questions about the article, without looking at it. Some were really worried when they couldn't do this-I did not intend to create anxiety, but this first part of my activity produced some. We went on to discussion in pairs, looking at each other's writing, and yes, referring back to the article. So everyone was happy in the end.

Back in the office, I settled in to prepare for my children's literature class, which was to start at 3:40. This class is an elective, and meets once a week, so today was the first time we were to meet. A little before 2, I got a call from school with Joel saying school was over, and he needed to be picked up, but dad wasn't answering his phone. We'd been told by my friend Paul Quick, who was a Fulbrighter here last year (and who's son went to the same school) that they never could figure out when school ended, and it seemed to change daily. Yesterday I'd gone to the office to ask when school would be out. I was told classes ended at 1:35, then lunch was over at about 2:20. Steve showed up at 2:15, and then waited until 3:45 before the students were dismissed. Seems like for some reason they had a double math class in the afternoon. So, we figured they must be having some extra classes this week, before the afternoon electives started. Wrong. Today, no lunch, and the kids got out at 1:30...

Anyway everything worked out fine. I'd dropped everything, and ran out to catch a colectivo (shared cab)  back down the hill so I could get Joel. Luckily, when I called Steve one last time, he answered. He hadn't recognized the phone number (names aren't displayed on our phones), so he didn't answer.

This has been a long post, so I'll have to tell you another time what happened with my first children's lit class!

St. Paul School

Yesterday, the three of us had an interview with the head of the senior division at St. Paul school. First we filled out some paperwork, then joined the very warm, kindly Señor Eduardo Del Pino de la Fuente (the best name yet here!). In Spanish cultures, the first last name comes from the father, and is the name used to address the person. Thus, Sr. Del Pino, not Sr. de la Fuente. Anyway, we had a nice discussion about what Joel likes to do, if he spoke any Spanish, how he behaves in class. On the way home, we saw a dog poking its head out of the top of a big gate-it reminded me of the gate-keeper in the Wizard of Oz:

Then we went out to lunch to celebrate Joel's successful acceptance to school by eating our first completos, which are Chilean hot dogs. The have a lot of stuff on them. Ours were Italianos, so named for the colors of the Italian flag. They came with tomato (red), avocado (green), and mayo (white). We declined the white, because it is made with several teaspoonfuls of mayonnaise.

 Snoozing dogs.

Orientation for new students was today. It was supposed to be for the students only, but we noticed other parents trailing along, so we followed the tour. Steve took some unobtrusive pictures with his phone.
The gym:

One of the buildings:

A classroom:

The school is built on a hill, and also has several levels so you have some great views:

The large assembly room, or 'salon.'

There are a lot of open spaces between the different buildings, one of which was the art patio:

To sum things up, we had a busy day. In addition to the orientation in the afternoon, I went up to my campus in the morning for the first time (more about this later), then signed the lease, which involved going with the property manager to a notary with my passport. 

PUCV classes start on Monday, and I'm still not very clear what I'm supposed to do in my advanced English class! Plus, I found out that my Children's lit class meets one day a week, rather than two. This will change some of what I was planning to do...