Monday, March 17

Today I had to go back to school and back to reality. It was pretty hard getting up early, but going to school and seeing my friends again made it all worth it. This new school year has made it really clear to me that I actually do have great friends here in Chile. I have real friends who I love and want to talk to, and now school is no longer a chore where I have to work to understand Spanish and think of things to say to people, it’s a pleasure to be with friends and share stories and laugh. Everyone came up to me and asked me how I had enjoyed the North, and it was nice that so many people had remembered where I was going and noticed that I was back.

I had my first day of PD4, which for me is history, and PE, also history, and I realized that I am already really far behind on the material in school even though we’ve only been in classes like 2 weeks. I also still have a really bad cough, and I was coughing so much in first period that I had to raise my hand in the middle of class and ask to go to the bathroom to drink water. Then, while I was in the bathroom I realized that I had no idea if this new teacher was one of the scary ones where you had to knock on the door before reentering the classroom or not. I was really scared to go back to class because I didn’t know if he would yell at me for coming in without permission, but I just braved it and walked in quickly and he didn’t say anything. After school, I walked over to Instituto O’Higgins to meet up with Katie H and Louis. It was Louis’s first day of school, and Katie and I hadn’t seen each other in a really long time, so we had plenty to talk about. We walked around the center in the burning heat for a really long time, and then we went into the mall and got natural fruit flavored yoghurt and sat and talked. Katie and I had so much to catch up on. I told her all about the north trip, she told me about school and her plans for when her parents come to visit, and we talked about the family changes that were coming down the pipe. Around 5:30, Katie had to go back to school because her mom was picking her up, and then Louis and I walked back to his house. We chilled in his room for a little while, and then we went out to eat dinner with his family. His mom and sister and really funny and super nice. It was weird to hear Louis interact with them (well he didn’t interact really) because he speaks absolutely no Spanish and understands very little. They talk to him in English, which worries me a lot because if they continue to do that he’s never going to improve. After dinner, Louis and I watched a movie, and then his parents drove me home around 8. At home, I took a shower, talked to my parents and grandparents for a while, and then went to sleep early to try to get my cough to disappear faster.