Monday, April 27, 2009

My Emo Phase

I am disappointed in myself for having practically abandoned my blog. However, I feel that as of late I have nothing very positive or humorous to write. Instead, I seem to be going through an emo phase, and I would rather not indulge myself in broadcasting my sorrows to the public. Those things tend to come back and bite you in the ass. Or worse yet, when you get bored and decide to read back over past posts, you come across an embarrassing post moaning and groaning about how much your life sucks when it really doesn´t, and you kick yourself for having divulged that information to the free world. I would compare the feeling to the one I get whenever I look back on the Buff Bagot from 7th grade. When I was about 14, I went through the emo stage. I wore ¨punk¨ type shit, like spiked necklaces and arm warmers and Avril Lavigne ties and every other supremely embarrassing accessory you could possibly think of. When I look back on those times, I cringe with... I don´t know what it is I cringe with, but I would compare it to fingernails on a chalkboard. What´s funny about the 7th grade Buff Bagot was that she had nothing to be emo about other than having gone to a Catholic elementary school and being forced to go to confession every month. Other than that, I was middle class Whitey McWhitealot who attended mass every Saturday night and got good grades. What a hard knock life. At least nowadays when I am going through an emo phase I don´t dress like Avril Lavigne. I just mope a little and that´s about it. Nothing wrong with a little moping, right? Let me be mopey, damnit. And I´m sorry if my blog has lost some of its luster, but I am going through a not-so-funny phase. It´ll be back soon, I promise.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

I Was Going to Write about Cats Sooner or Later...

It would be nice to be in the company of a cat right now. Street dogs just aren't the same since I'm not supposed to touch them, and Blacky (the neighbor cat) is very moody and ignores me a lot. Sometimes just having a silent companion does wonders for my mentality. Cats are so unassuming and undemanding (well, unless it's DeeDee when she gets needy, but she's retarded, so that's different). They lay next to you and purr and make you feel loved (well, except Marie, who growls and slaps you if you move while she is laying on you).

I also like dogs, and since I've been in Chile I
've grown to like them more. My host sister's boyfriend has a little dog named Twister who comes over a lot and makes really sad faces so that I'll give him table scraps. Facundo's dogs are really cute too, especially Juana, who lays on her back on my lap.

But dogs just aren't the same as cats. You have to earn a cat's love. And since cats are so moody, when they express happiness it is extra rewarding. Every time I go back to Kansas, each of my cats has her particular way of expressing excitement at my return. The first to appear is always Mokie, who rolls around on the floor and makes little chirps of delight. Then Carmela, who slinks into the room, tail twitching (she's a very twitchy cat), and waits for me to pick her up and carry her over my shoulder. I also have to make her do her trick: falling to the floor on command. Then comes Bessie, the neurotic one, who also throws herself to the floor and rolls like crazy. Then, later on after all the other cats have greeted me, she sits on my lap and neurotically plays with my pant strings. She also likes to carry highlighters around, sit on top of them, and meow obsessively (I really don't know why she does that). Then comes Baby, the deaf princess, who stands at a distance and stares at me without moving. She always stays at a distance, but if I leave the room she follows me wherever I go. Marie and DeeDee never come to greet me. Marie is always outside and DeeDee is too retarded. Poor thing.

I always think it's weird when people tell me they don't like cats. I guess they just don't have the patience to understand a cat. There are some unpleasant cats, but I think that's just because they were not brought up in a nurturing environment in which they could develop a personality. That may sound like bullshit, but I think every one of my cats has something special and interesting about them, and I can't imagine anyone not liking them. Except, of course, Marie, the psycho one who slaps you if you get too close to her face. But cat slaps don't really hurt.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

It's Just You and Me, Blog

I know, three blog entries in one day. I blame it on the fact that I haven't left my host house in three days. I mean, Jesus, I haven't breathed fresh air since Friday afternoon. I've got some serious cabin fever but nevertheless can't seem to bring myself to go outside.

These past few days I have entertained myself with documentaries, movies, chocolate, sleep, and econ reading (that part wasn't so entertaining). Today I watched Volver, a movie by Almodovar, so far the best one I've seen (and trust me, I've seen a lot). Surprisingly, this one didn't have any transvestites. Maybe that's why I liked it so much. Don't get me wrong, I don't discriminate against transvestites. But the transvestite motif really does get old after awhile, even if Gael Garcia Bernal does make one gorgeous woman. Lately I have been hoarding movies from the movie collection at the Stanford center, most of which are shitty Chilean movies. I must say, Chile makes some damn shitty movies. I am taking a Chilean film class this quarter, and the movies just pretty much suck. What a waste of 3 credit hours.

I mean, let me be brutally honest here. Chile kinda sucks in general. I have yet to discover anything distinctly "Chilean" here, besides the complete butchery of the Spanish language and Pisco sour. Have Europe and the US sent so many gringos here that it has lost all its Chile-neity? The fact that I am here is a testament to my country's monopolization of Chile (or at least Santiago). I am contributing to the destruction of Chilean culture. I am one of the millions of agents of US hegemony tainting the world's diversity. Shit. But I am digressing.

But let me qualify my harsh statements about Chile. By no means am I saying that the US is superior to Chile, because I totally disagree. It's the US' fault that Chile has been so inundated with American culture. I am sure that what is now an unremarkable metropolis crawling with American food chains was once a distinctly Chilean city. Or maybe a distinctly Euro-wannabe city, as I have read it was back in the old days. But, as far as I have noticed, Chile is far more globally integrated than, say, Argentina, or even Russia and Ukraine and Estonia and Finland and Turkey. I guess I am arguing, then, against global integration. Shit, I don't know. All I am saying is that when I walk the streets of Santiago I feel like I am walking the streets of any large city in the US, except I hear Spanish instead of English. Oh, and except that there are wild dogs here.

I don't mean to blame Chile for my hermit-like behavior during the last few days. But frankly, Santiago doesn't offer anything interesting or distinct enough to draw me out of my house. Poor Chileans. I am being such a bitch. I think I am just grumpy because I haven't stepped foot outside all weekend.

Nationalist in Denial

Reading back over some of my observations about Argentina and Chile, I sound like such a nationalist in denial.

Nietzsche Would Be Disappointed In Me

I am going through another phase of self doubt, this one more acute than others for some reason. I think some of it has to do with my decision to stay in Santiago, which I am unsure whether I should regret. This quarter feels stagnant and I am experiencing an uncomfortable inertia. Of course I am learning things in my classes, but outside of class I am not growing or changing. At the beginning of the quarter one of the new students asked me what I planned on doing this quarter that I didn't do last quarter, and I was at a loss for words. What am I doing this quarter? Shouldn't I be volunteering at a homeless shelter, or teaching English, or founding an NGO, trying to prove to the world that I am worthy of my title as a Stanford student?

All of my summer plans have fallen through, as I have already iterated in past blog entries. But with time the weight of rejection is not getting lighter; it is getting heavier. Everyday it's the same question: How am I going to get into grad school if I have nothing impressive to offer on my resume? And if I don't go to grad school, what business would ever hire me? What kind of business could I even apply to with a degree in international relations? Now that my years of piddling around in college studying obscure theoretical topics are winding down, what tangible credentials do I have to show to my future graduate professors, or my future employers? While my Stanford peers are doing clinical research, or interning at prestigious firms, or getting involved in student groups, what am I doing? Dicking around in South America with nothing to show for it? I will grant it to myself that I am studious and do all of my work. But in the end, who is going to notice that?

Also, for the first time in maybe 10 months I am genuinely starting to miss my friends at Stanford. I haven't seen Elise since last June, and a lot of my other old friends have probably forgotten me and moved on. When I come back to Stanford, will I even be able to reintegrate? Will I regret having studied abroad for a year?

I am terrified. I feel that I am at a standstill and I don't know what to do about it.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Argentinians Love Road Blocks

Last weekend I went to Argentina to visit Facundo's family, which involved 16 hours on a bus (thank you, sleeping pills, for getting me through that eternal bus ride). And, just as I was only half an hour away from Zapala (Facundo's home town), the bus was held up by a road block made up of car tires. My first thought, as is often my first thought in many situations, was "WTF?". A group of Argentinians with makeshift tents on the side of the road had rolled out a bunch of tires in two straight lines across the road, making it so that no vehicles could pass through. Now, that really pissed me off. First of all, I had been on a bus for the last 15.5 hours, and I was damn ready to get off that bus. Second of all, the Argentinians in charge of that little bitch of a road block were sitting around on their tires, chatting, enjoying themselves as traffic started to build on both sides of their tire blockade. Third, nobody seemed the least bit offended by the road block. In fact, everybody got out of the bus and started to smoke, and chat, and hang out. I appeared to be the only pissed off passenger on that bus.

Once people started deboarding the bus, I heatedly paced back and forth for a few minutes, wondering what I should do. I'd be damned if I was going to sit there and take it while those assholes prevented me from arriving in Zapala on time for Facundo's parents to pick me up. So I approached the bus driver and asked him what the road block was for and when it would be over. He told me that the road block had been going on all week and that the protesters were unemployed people who wanted the government to increase unemployment handouts. The road block would open up at 7:00 PM and we would be able to pass through after that. Well, that's fine and dandy, but at that point it was only 3:30 in the afternoon and I was not going to wait another 3.5 hours. So I asked the bus driver if it would be possible for me to walk around the road block and continue to Zapala on my own. He said yes and allowed me to get my luggage out of the bus. At that point I was seriously considering walking the rest of the way. The only problem was that Zapala was still 20 kilometers away. Lugging my bags for 20 kilometers would have been a bitch, but I figured maybe I could hitch hike the rest of the way there.

I got lucky. A bus coming in the opposite direction stopped at the road block, let off a group of people, and those people crossed the road block to my side so that they could board another bus and continue on their way. The drivers of the bus on the other side allowed me to cross over and get on their bus, because they were turning around to go back to Zapala. So while all the rest of the suckers on my original bus waited around for another 3.5 ho
urs, I hopped on another bus and arrived in Zapala soon after. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

After that episode I kept asking myself why Argentinians are so complacent about all the protesting. Apparently protesters set up road blocks all the time demanding various concessions from the government, like salary increases. Last year the entire farming community got pissed off at the government and blocked all access into the cities, leaving people without dairy products and meat. The day I left Zapala to come back to Chile, there was another road block, making my bus a few hours late. Why doesn't anybody get fed up with it?


Apparently there are a number of explanations, one of them being that the road blocks are effective. Protesters almost always get what they want from the government, in exchange for votes of course. Populism at its finest. Another reason is that there is really not much that can be done to stop the protesters. A few years ago the police were sent to quell an uprising in a city in Neuquen, and a police officer accidentally shot and killed a teacher. So after that the police force stopped intervening. Now people just sit around patiently while protesters disrupt traffic and make the entire population suffer for their demands. I don't know, it just doesn't make much sense to me. Of course, I don't support police intervention either, because it always turns violent. But I feel like Argentina is in some embryonic stage of development, because obviously something is wrong with the government if people have to take to creating road blocks all the time to get what they want. One c
ould argue that it is healthy for people to fight for their rights, but it seems to me that more diplomatic means could be used to solve these issues, or at least means that don't involve making the entire population suffer.

It makes me wonder why I don't see demonstrations like that in the US, or even in Chile for that matter. If I decided to set up a road block in Kansas, what would people do? I know they would definitely not be complacent about it. They would raise hell. But what would the police do? And what is different about our government that makes it so that people don't
need to take to the streets? It seems like there is always some public manifestation going on in Argentina. Last summer when I was staying with Facundo in Cordoba, I was awoken every morning by loud protesting outside of the window. People burned stuff, honked horns, and chanted every morning without fail. And of course, that time they were also protesting about wages. It's as if Argentinians just discovered the concept of the protest and are milking it for all it's worth. In my opinion, it's bizarre. But in the opinion of Argentinians I know, it's just everyday stuff, and they don't pay it any attention.

But then again, this is also a country that had almost constant military coups from the 1930s on. What a weird country.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Fried Chicken: A New Platonic Form

I am surprised at how strikingly different Chile and Argentina are, given that they are neighbors. I guess it was a little stupid of me to assume that all Latin American countries are generally the same, because they're really not. I especially started realizing this when Facundo got here and pointed out all the differences between Chile and his country. Of course, his observations are pretty discriminatory against Chile, and he often loudly imitates Chileans when we are in the metro surrounded by them.

The most striking difference has been the high level of capitalism in Chile as contrasted with Argentina. In Chile you can find a wide array of American food chains: Dunkin' Donuts, McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Applebee's, Pizza Hut, Subway (most of which I have eaten at during my time here. I'm sorry, okay?). In Argentina, you can only find McDonalds and Burger King. In Chile you can find almost any American import you want. In Argentina you can't find basic things we take for granted like peanut butter, maple syrup, Skittles, Ramen Noodles. It's always an adventure when Facundo and I go to the super market. He gets so excited when he sees stuff like Skittles and Ramen Noodles, because in Argentina he has only come into contact with things like that through me, when I bring him stuff from the US. After the 2001 economic crisis in Argentina, the country closed its borders to a lot of US imports, so most of the American products previously available to Argentinians disappeared. So the last time Facundo tasted fried chicken and maple syrup was eight years ago.


It's been really entertaining to watch Facundo fall in love with capitalism since we've been together and especially since he moved to Santiago. I'll never forget the euphoric look on his face each time he has tried a new American food: first it was Nerds, then Sour Skittles, maple syrup, Reese's peanut butter cups (he is particularly in love with those), Cherry Coke, marshmallow Peeps, burritos, pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut, and finally, today, Kentucky Fried Chicken.

For eight years Facundo has lusted after fried chicken. Once, back in 2001, he ate some fried chicken from a Wal Mart in Argentina, and he has been enamored ever since. He idealizes it to the point where it has become something like one of Plato's Forms. So today, when we decided to go to KFC to have some fried chicken, he got so excited that he could hardly contain himself while we waited in line. We ordered a great big Chicken Box, which contained 3 chicken thighs, 8 nuggets, and 5 chicken strips. I have never seen Facundo rip into food so aggressively or eat so much of it in one sitting. Surprisingly, I think the fried chicken surpassed his expectations. At one point, with his hands covered in chicken grease and a huge smile on his face, Facundo said to me, "Thank you so much, you don't know what this means to me." HAHAHAHAHA.

I really wish I would have brought my camera to take a picture of Facundo's nirvana-like chicken experience. But it'll have to do for now to put up a picture of a bucket of chicken.

I have a feeling we will spend many an afternoon at the KFC in Santiago.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

I Ate Raw Meat for Dinner


Last night Facundo dragged me to what seems like the millionth all-latino birthday party I´ve been to with him. Not that I don´t like birthday parties. It´s just that when you get anymore than five latinos together, they start slurring their speech like crazy. It´s like Facundo completely switches languages when he talks to other latinos, because I am suddenly unable to understand what he or anyone else is saying. Alcohol would have helped in this situation, but I wasn´t in the mood to drink, so I had to soberly endure pretending I understood what was going on and inserting a polite laugh in all the right places. To make matters worse, the party attendees were primarily Chileans, which made understanding the conversations doubly more difficult. I still struggle with comprehending Chilean slang, and even Facundo told me he was having trouble following what was going on because of it. As soon as he told me this, I resigned myself to remaining silent, because if my Spanish speaking boyfriend can´t even understand his own language, I am beyond help.

The party would have been as unmemorable as all the other latino parties I have been to were it not for the crudo that the host served for dinner. Crudo is a special Chilean ¨delicacy¨ that, if you didn´t know what it was, you might want to try, just because Chileans absolutely rave about it. But as soon as you realize that crudo is actually ground up raw beef with lemon, salt, and cilantro, you are somewhat sickened. I grew up being taught that raw meat is a food for dogs and that it is not safe because it may contain e-coli and other scary shit like that. But apparently the Chileans didn´t get that memo, because they love that shit.

I first heard of crudo when I was in Valdivia in February. Down there crudo (also known as Tartaro, which is a version of crudo containing raw eggs) is extremely popular, and it is a ritual of sorts for groups of men to get together and eat piles and piles of crudo on toast and drink beer. I first witnessed this at a German bar called Kuntsmann in Puerto Varas. A bunch of raunchy dudes were sitting at a table next to us, drinking lots of beer and talking loudly and eating this messy raw hamburger meat with onions and eggs in it. It looked
so nasty. In my opinion, this was man going back to his state of nature: eating raw, bloody meat like pigs. I swore to myself I would never try that disgusting-looking dish.

However, last night I was virtually forced to try it. At first I refused to eat it on principle, but after awhile my hunger really started to get to me. That and Facundo was sitting next to me wolfing it down and going on and on about how delicious it was. So finally I reluctantly spread a little bit of crudo onto a piece of toast and prayed that the meat didn´t contain e-coli.

And, of course, the crudo was delicious.

It didn´t taste so much like raw meat because the lemon and cilantro flavors dominated. Supposedly the lemon in crudo does the job of ¨cooking¨ the meat so that it is safe to eat. As an added bonus, the meat didn´t look very raw, either. It was sort of brown, so I didn´t feel so repulsed. But really, the crudo was quite good. I think I would eat it again, but definitely not with raw eggs in it. This particular crudo didn´t contain raw eggs, fortunately. I would never have tried it otherwise. Raw meat is bad enough, but with raw eggs mixed in it´s just too much.

The picture I´ve attached is actually Tartaro, the crudo that contains raw eggs. The meat in this picture is much redder than the meat I had last night, and looks a lot more disgusting. But it stays pretty true to the essence of crudo.

So in conclusion, I´ve officially eaten raw meat. And liked it.