Study Break: A Few Thoughts.

I feel like I've been in school for way longer than a week and a half. As much as I moan about how challenging it is, it is sort of fascinating how much personal and intellectual growth goes on in such a short period of time here. A brief panorama of recent experiences:

-I'm taking a lot of economics this semester, 3 of 6 classes. It's a bit much sometimes, especially Microeconomics, mostly because I disagree with its point of view so much, ie the idea that we can somehow chart happiness by looking at consumption. What a horrible place a world that simplistic would be! But I love the economics course I'm taking on cities in the developing world, even though it is pretty challenging. At least my newly acquired doing-work-in-Spanish skills have been coming in handy as I'm doing a policy memo on housing conditions in Lima, Perú. I also love my class on Translation which has turned out to be both more challenging and artistic than I expected. As much as I was not looking forward to taking ANOTHER class on globalization, the history based one I'm taking with Peter Winn, Tufts in Chile advisor, has provided an interesting new angle, attempting to look at things from a non-Western centric viewpoint. Lastly, I'm taking a course with the "Experimental College" on Crisis Mapping, a newly emerging field at the intersection of humanitarianism and technology. I still haven't adjusted to the idea that I'm supposed to be doing work any second that I am not eating or attending the occasional party, but I imagine I'll come around after another week.

-Friday was the annual Winter Bash, a revelrous event involving college students pretending to be classy by going to a hotel in Boston to dance in fine frocks. It mostly turned into a nostalgia fest since I made pisco sours and then kept playing Chilean music at the small party we had beforehand, but it was still quite enjoyable.

-I met 2 random strangers at my favoritest cafe in the whole world, True Grounds, and we just all ended up talking about the random things we had in common and then we went out to dinner at a Mexican place together and I ate cactus. An exercise in breaking away from our socially enforced fear of the unknown and embracing the serendipitious.

-On Sunday, my housemates dubbed me "hippie Martha Stewart" after I made homemade fig and strawberry spread and scones for a goodbye brunch for my friend Maddie who is going abroad to China :( Other than the jail time, it is sort of an accurate depiction at present.

-I've been trying to make it to Buddhist Sangha weekly, which has been great, because it is an oasis of calm in my crazy weeks and its nice to have a community to belong to, something that I never quite felt Catholicism provided. This has inspired me to try and do a few things:
-Smile. Simple yet revolutionary.
-Pick up trash.
-Be more open to stories and sharing.

I think Chilean me is still hanging on, even if she has a lot more on her plate. Hopefully my recent "let's talk about our feelings" phase won't stand in the way of my formation in the soulless international relations and economics tradition XD