here's a funny story...

...4 of my 8 classes this week were cancelled, and 2 of them were 3-hr. long classes...mannnnn chile. I don't even know what I do with my time...it feels like my days are full of stuff, but then at night i'm like, "what have i done today?" But it's okay; I spend a lot of time with my family, well, mom and sister, just talking about random things, so at least I'm using my spanish...my friend Kam and I were talking yesterday and she pretty much summed up how I feel down here...pseudo what she said: there is just a constant sense of tranquility and relaxation, without feeling the need to go out and DO a bijillion different things...the lifestyle down here just promotes that kind of perspective, i think, and it's a nice feeling to have...for the most part.
I started volunteering at a public school about a week or so ago; I'm volunteering through the program Ingles Abre Puertas, or "English opens doors." Basically what I do is work with an English teacher once a week during english class and essentially lead the lesson; the goal is for the kids to just get used to talking in English more, feel more confident about it, and obviously having a 'native' english speaker helps them out...the teacher i work with speaks good English, but she still has her moments where what she says is just...weird. The 'kids' are 16-17 yrs. old, and they're all suuuuper nice, funny, friendly, and speak surprisingly good English! At the beginning they were shy and didn't want to open up or ask questions, but as each class progresses it gets better and we have a fun time doing silly speaking activities...it's even helping my spanish because they ask what a word is, like last time they had to choose fruits and veggies for the activity, and i learned alot of vocab words then, and sometimes before and after class i'll talk with the kids...(i love it b/c each time they compliment my spanish! yesssss! i think that's my favorite thing to hear down here!) So anyway, I really like it, but it's too bad I just recently started it (the company who organizes it took like a month to get it together...arghh), because i only have 2 months left! omg!!!
Here's another funny story: some friends and I--Maddie, Jeff, and Jen--ran in a 10k last weekend in Valparaiso, really just doing it for fun, and mainly to get a t-shirt that says 'valparaiso medio-maraton' on it (ballllller)...so anyway, the weather that morning was kinda nasty (cold and pseudo-misty and cloudy and cold!), so we show up, try and warm up inside the building they were using, and then went out to the start line...Earlier when we showed up some men were unloading a big cannon (yes, you read that correctly...a CANNON) from a truck and we were just joking around that they were going to use that to start the race...well, as it turns out, we were right, but we didnt realize we were right until the ground shook and my ears started ringing after they shot it off...OMG i freaked out! We were all expecting a simple gun to go off, but nooooo! So anyway, we run the race, finish, and wait around afterward (during which time we met a crazy cool girl who's studying abroad in Santiago and had come down with some friends to run the race...funny how meeting another gringo wherever you go immediately turns into an instant friendship, if only for 2 hrs)... There was the half marathon still going on so we had to wait for the awards ceremony until that race finished, so we went over to a store nearby in attempts to warm up...when we get back, we're approaching the stage where they had apparently already started the awards ceremony, and we hear Maddie's name being called, and being told repeatedly to come up to the stage! We were all kind of surprised, but anyway, Maddie runs up there because she got first place in our division, and she got a medal and a trophy! it was crazy! Then they call my name, and i'm like, whattt? (jen finished in front of me, so i thought there was a mistake...) and they give me 2nd place and a medal! and then in the following division they call Jen up to get her 3rd-place medal! (older division) This was sooo crazy! Apparently, we found out that running as a sport is really only what adults do down here! I think we were among the only people in our divisions running the race, and to add on to that we were all gringos, stealing the medals! It was great! And also, at runs in the states, as far as i'm concerned, you don't get trophies for winning...do you? well, i wouldnt know--there's no way i'd place in the States, which makes my medal seem so much cooler! hahahaha...my new prized possession... :)

Aside from that, life continues on...Jen and I are running regularly nearly everyday together, and I've noticed that I'm in such a better mood now! Man, I guess I just can't ever stop running...darn :) Today Jen and I went to Club Sporting, which is basically a huge horse track and place for horse races, with tons of soccer fields inside the track, and an old dirt track, which we went to...we started doing an 4x800 workout, but after our second 800 this stupid dog started bothering us and wouldn't leave us alone. When i say 'bothering us,' i mean, he was biting our shoes, wouldn't let go, was biting our shoe laces, undoing them, and 'nibbling' at our ankles, without actually biting us, but he would NOT leave us alone...it was really scary...we were pseudo-laughing about it, but at the same time on the verge of tears because we just didn't know what to do...and to make it worse, there was a runnign class from some school at the track, and they were just watching us and chuckling to themselves, as we're there, flipping out about nearly getting bitten by a stray dog...so we gave up with the workout and were on our way out, when the woman with the group came up to us and told us to run with rocks in our hands, and if the dog continues to pursue us, to throw rocks at it...we laughed but totally took her seriously and grabbed a few rocks...so then we decided to just try again at the workout, and actually even just pretending to throw a rock at the dog scared him, and he left us alone! Long story short, lesson of the day, i'm not running without rocks anymore. no rabies for me.