Students joined with faculty in calls for increased pay and fiscal accountability. A solidary march was held on San Miguel Avenue as the faculty union maintains its position of occupancy on the street in close proximity to the UC Maule campus.
Marchers travel the campus this afternoon chanting, ¨Sí se puede¨ remeniscent of the 2008 Barack Obama campaign slogan of ¨Yes We Can¨ which ushered into the United States its first African American President.
Luke 6:38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.
Computer Love
Soooooo my laptop just literally se murió (died) this afternoon after having a great lunch with my longtime mentor and committee member Anne Bliss. She had just arrived to Chile after having to deal with the craziness from the Colorado flooding and being in New Zealand for a while as well.
I sat down at my laptop to do some work than all of a sudden… black screen. I didn´t panic because I knew I had backed-up all of my research data in Dropbox and had just last night sent Dr. Sandmann our article revision (that copy is safe in UGAmail) so I was good. Everything else from my computer I had backed-up to my external hard drive at home in Athens, prior to leaving for Chile.
But then, all of a sudden I realized… ¨Dang! I don´t have a computer for the next two weeks!!¨ My Chilean friends immediately sprang into action. Graciela consulted with Director Ricardo Chacón and they immediately provided me with a loaner laptop to finish out my last two weeks; José diligently tried to reboot what we had finally come to accept as a fatally injured machine; and Veronica contacted a friend in IT who is going to help me recover my remaining files and transfer them to the 16GB flash drive I had the presence of mind to bring with me to Chile.
The biggest challenge today was for me to learn all of the different positioning of the telcas (laptop keys) and finding the @ symbol that I so took for granted in the past. Many of the keys like the shift key, apostrophes, *, required I go on a search mission to find them. It is however very cool that the keyboard has an actual Ññ key. 🙂 The other challenge for me was that everything on this laptop is in Spanish language and that really helped me to appreciate the value of image memes. Because what word (or letter) I don´t readily know, I at least remembered its symbol and position in the Microsoft program(s) enough to figure it out. Also, I originally learned to type on an electric IBM typewriter and by most accounts I am a pretty fast typist. However, all I can do is laugh and hit the backspace button because cognitively the keys aren´t where my brain remembers them to be. Lol
Dr. Anne Bliss and I with the sun in our faces. She was smart to wear sunglasses.
Therefore, not having my old laptop might slowdown my blogging over the next couple weeks (though not likely ha ha). Purchasing a new laptop was on the top of my agenda when I got back to the states in early December. In the interim, I have yet again had another wonderful experience reflective of the love and support I´ve received here from my Chilean hosts. The words tranquila and cálmate have become a regular parts of my new vocabulary and lifestyle. I am so excited about returning here for the next year to be with my new friends, make others, and also being able to hang out with my ¨new roadie¨ Dr. Bliss. Hopefully, she´ll be able to come up for some air as already everybody is trying to track her down for help with their manuscripts now that they know she´s back in country.
Thank you Lord for watching over and blessing me yet again. I am sincerely grateful for everything you´ve provided for me. 🙂
I was the guest lecturer for Professor Patrick Matzler’s class at the Universidad Católica del Maule. His students from the English Language and Intercultural Communication class today asked great question about international scholarship. Fue una experiencia buenisíma!! I also paid tribute to Micheal Jackson with my white footies and black shoes in this picture. Ha ha! 🙂
Profesor Patrick Matzler is originally from Sweden and has been an academic in Chile for several years now. His wife is Chilean which brought him to the country. He has also been of great assistance to me with my focus group interviews and dissertation research data collections so I was more than happy to meet with his students.
I promised the students that this blog post would be in both English and Spanish. Therefore, I’ll have to write it out first and translate to Spanish for posting. They asked great questions as we shared in rich discussions.
Verción Español
Hoy día yo tenía un tiempo bueno con los estudiantes de la clase Idiomas Inglés y Comunicación Intercultural. La asignación de los estudiantes fue entrevistar a mí e también escuchar a qué yo tenía compartir sobre ser una erudita visitando de un otro país.
Preguntas incluían deportes, (el nombre de LeBron James nos hablábamos muchas veces), educación con fines de lucro privado en Chile, UGA, mi vida en Ohio y Georgia, colegio atlética y comó jugadores son pagaban, educación International y carreras, CTIM, comida, adaptación cultural, el elección presidencial, y mucho más. Todo el mundo parecía muy atento a mi hablando e yo espero que ellos puedan usar la información yo daba completar sus investigación proyecto de clase.
De nuevo, una gracias especial a Profesor Matzler por me permitía visitar con suyo estudiantes.
English Version:
Today I had a great time speaking with students from the English Language and Intercultural Communications class. Their assignment was to interview me and listen to what I had to share about being a study abroad visiting scholar.
Questions ranged from sports (the name of LeBron James came up several times), private for-profit education in Chile, UGA, my life in Ohio and Georgia, college athletes and how players are paid, International Education and careers, STEM, food, cultural adjustment, to the recent Presidential elections and much more. Everyone seemed very attentive and interested in what I had to say and I certain hope that they will be able to use what I shared with them to complete their class research Project.
Again, special thanks to Professor Matzler for allowing me to visit with his students.
The Chilean Chronicles Blog (The US Return Extended Version) 