Wednesday, July 9

Today Mariana and I woke up late and we had to hurry to get ready for school. We still arrived on time, and we brought all the cookies we had made yesterday. Within 20 minutes, all 300 cookies were gone. I was glad to be able to have made some typical American food for my classmates one last time before I leave. I had also brought cards that I had written for all my teachers and my friends, and I passed them out, saying goodbye to the teachers and telling my friends not to read the cards until Sunday when I leave. The teachers’ cards were postcards from California, and the friends’ cards were pictures that I had printed out of us together and written on the back of. I also passed my Chilean flag around all day so that people could sign it. We spent the whole day working on things for the alianza. Then after lunch we all went to the gym to watch the presentation of the queen. The whole school was there divided into three parts of the gym for yellow (C), red (B), and grey (A, my team). The kids in the stand were cheering and yelling for their team.

The "mascot" of the yellow alianza

All the seniors were super stressed out making last minute preparations for the performance. When it was our turn, Chichi and I stood up on desks at one end of the gym floor (the stage) and held the banner. It was great because we got a front row seat of the performance. All of the performances were really good, complete with costumes, makeup, music, smoke effects, and elaborate scenery. Our class went away really happy because ours was definitely the best.

The "sexy dwarves" of our alianza

We stayed after school until 6 practicing barras and putting the finishing touches on the recycled outfits. I went home at 6 because I had to finish a jacket I was in charge of making out of pens. I was feeling a little pressure to get it done and pack up my suitcase and everything, and I think Lilian noticed because she brought me once up in my room to eat while I glued millions of pens onto a trash bag to make a suit vest. I finally finished the vest and finished writing goodbye letters to my family around 11, and by that time I was so tired that I just fell into bed.