First Day of School!

I think I may have mentioned something about going to get my uniform in my last update? Well that's what we did Tuesday! I also got my visa verified (I don't think that's the right word) at the Chilean equivalent of the FBI. There we met a very nice mormon boy from Minnesota. He was helping his Nicaraguan friend with his visa so we chatted for a while and he's volunteering in Tierra Amarilla teaching people (yes, I had to ask, about God). Apparently he has already been in chile for 6 months so his Spanish is much better than mine, but I thought I heard an American accent. After we got my paper saying my visa was verified (I remembered the word) we went to a kind of city office where people register births, deaths wedding etc. and applied for my carnet or ID card. There we ran into mormon boy again and after talking about Chile for a while, he started to tell me about... his religion! That's about when they called my number to go apply for my carnet so we politely excused ourselves. After that I got taken to an AFS meeting conducted in rapid-fire Spanish. I thought that was a reality check... until I started school. Speaking of school, after lunch, we went back to Copiapò to hunt down my uniform. We started at a little uniform shop where I bought my skirt, two yellow polo shirts that I'm allowed to wear to school when I go back after lunch, and my PE jacket. Then we moved on to another small shop in town where we bought two white shirts and two pairs of grey socks. Next we bought shoes, little black mary janes (ok, I haven't owned a pair of those since the fifth grade I kind of would have preffered to keep it that way), then we went on a wild goose chase to find a blue polar. We went to store after store asking for one and the answer was always: no, but try.... It turned out that Javiera, one of the volunteers at our orientation who also happened to go to my school, had a polar, a vest and a tie I could borrow. So that was it, no more stalling! We went to speak to the director of the colegio and he told me that I would start the next day in segundo medio D! That's tenth grade for those of you who are as confused as I was. So last night I got all of my stuff together and set my alarm for 6:40. Just my luck. It didn't go off. I woke up a couple of minutes after 7, so I didn't have any extra time to worry. I'm not going to lie, I was nervous, but not as much as I would have expected.
So when we got to school it was a couple of minutes before 8 and school started at 8:10. I followed a friend of my tia's around for a little while like a lost puppy dog (pay attention, you're going to see a theme here) before she waylaid a kid that was apparently in my curso and told him to take me to class. He became my mentor for the day and he presented me to the class, then we sat down. Chilean kids are shockingly unruly in class! We had religion first and I didn't understand much of what the teacher was saying, but she gave us an assignment which I also didn't understand. That's OK because Fabio, the guy that was showing me around, spent a good half an hour to an hour picking my brain on the subject of American music. For those of you who know me, you can imagine how this conversation went.
"Do you listen to Justin Bieber" *starts singing song involving the words hey baby*
"No" *shakes head*
"Miley Cyrus?"
"Nope"
"Then Britney Spears?"
*Snorts* "No"
So the conclusion I've come to is that I simply don't like music very much. I mean yes, I listen to it, but always distractedly. I don't get really into music like so many people seem to. OK, moving on, let's discuss... music class!
Between classes, we apparently have a ten or fifteen minute break during which I followed Fabio around (lost puppy dog theme again) and was introduced to people. It was kind of fun, but I don't think I remember a single name. After that dventure was music class. For this, we moved to another room with a bunch of guitars and drums. I think I copied down song lyrics in my notebook (ok, so I think they were song lyrics, I know I copied them down). Kids were playing drums and guitar and it was kind of awesome, if a bit loud. I even got a drum lesson at the end of class! It was really cool, but I don't think I have that kind of coordination. Then we had another break and stood around talking to people (ok, stood around in my case) before going in for Qimica class. It was exciting because I actually understood this teacher! However, chemistry is another story. I copied it all down in my handy dandy notebook (a cool AFS one none the less) and listened to people talk to eachother and at me for a while. Somehow Fabio became my unnoficial translator and people have to talk to me through him even though he generally just repeats what they said in Spanish. It's kind of funny, but a bit limiting. Did I mention that somebody actually put a tack on his chair when he went to get up? He sat on it. I'd been under the mistaken impression that that kind of thing only happened in movies. Apparently Fabio is muy rico as in plata, something that a few people pointed out. I found it a bit strange, but maybe it's a cultural thing. That would explain the iphone with which my musical inquisition was conducted and his snazzy green watch. Yes, when I say green, I mean lime green. I'm more than a little jealous. So at 1:00 when Qimica finished, we left to go home for the day and I practically bolted to the car. I felt much better after eating lunch and helping to make bread, but my first day was a bit challenging. I spent most of my day feeling like an overgrown baby. I feel really tall next to these tiny Chilean girls! And on second thought, I speak neither un pocito nor un poco Español (it seems that whenever I say un poco someone chimes in with pocito and vice versa). The other kids were all very nice, but they speak really quickly and it's very hard to understand them. I think I'm going to have a really good time here, but these first few weeks are going to be tough. Let me end my novella here by saying that my host family gets back tonight! I should meet them after school tomorrow! I'm a bit nervous, but very excited!!!!