catching up part 1

You may or may not have read the last post I wrote up here before I deleted it--turns out that information was top secret (I stink at keeping secrets, gotta work on that) and I wasn't supposed to tell anybody until it's confirmed. So, if you did see it, yay, don't tell anyone else and please don't tell my rotary counselor that you know, and if you didn't see it, I'll tell you ASAP.

Anyway. This is all the stuff that has happened recently that I haven't told you about because I have no time ever. I'll start from most recently and go back. Okay, Go.

I JUST BOUGHT MY TICKETS TO LOLLAPOLOOZA CHILE AND I'M SO SUPER PUMPED RIGHT NOW. Muchas, muchas gracias to the best parents in the world for the best birthday present ever. I'm gonna see the arctic monkeys (love, love love!!!!!) and mgmt and foo fighters and joan jett and ohmygoodness, I'm so happy in this moment.

Also, this weekend in Talca is this huge motorcross competition, it's like part 2 of the world championships and there's motoring people here from all over the world, and I'm not really interesting in that stuff at all, but I still think it's super cool that all this is HERE in Talca of all places. I really love Talca. Really. I'm gonna miss it.

School is starting to get, well, it's still incredibly boring, but I'm starting to get really close to my classmates and I understand a lot more so it's better. We have a new math teacher who actually expects me to do things, and unexpectedly I'm really appreciative of that. Right now, we are studying inequations, which are super easy for me, and my math teacher teaches them in a really complicated way, which I don't actually understand and I think most of the class doesn't either, but I can solve them all the way I know how, really quickly, and so the class all thinks I'm some sort of mathematical genius. Hahaha, if only. It's funny, actually, I usually get the same answer as my professor, but usually our formulas are completely different. It's strange. Also, now, even when I'm thinking in English, in my head I always say the math terms in Spanish like mas instead of plus, etcetera, because I haven't been using them in English recently but I have in Spanish. Interesting.

Tonight I'm going to this huge faria--fair--with my friends from school and I'm super excited about it. I don't really know what it will be like, but I'll tell you all about it tomorrow or something or at some point at least.

So, the north of Chile, was AHHH-MAZING. Like, incredibly. It was so gorgeous, and so unlike any place I've ever been to before. San Pedro de Atacama was beautiful, and while it was very touristy, I loved it because it looked exactly how I imagined Chile to look before arriving--old, adobe houses, and dusty dirt roads and everybody wearing bright handmade clothes with llamas on them, you know, stereotypical Chile--the exact opposite of Talca. It was so wonderful. Iquique was more modern and a huge city, but it was still unique. Unique Iquique. Haha. It had a gorgeous beach, and the really cool thing about the city, was that it was surrounded on three sides by this humongous dune. I'm not doing any justice by describing it, so here's some pictures that I totally just stole from the web since my camera broke the second day:

IQUIQUE

SAN PEDRO

SAN PEDRO

CRAZY HUGE SAND DUNE

What else? I got to see the Penguins of Humboldt (While in the freaking desert!!!!!!) and also got to see dolphins from like, 10 feet away. It was magical. I got spit on by a llama, and got to see them walk prance into a convenience store, steal a bag of chips, rip it open and eat the chips (american cut, of course) off the floor. 

LLAMA LOVE

I gotta go now. But more on the north trip and other things later.
Love Gracie

So That You Don't Think That I've Forgot About You

(AKA PLEASE DON'T FORGET ABOUT ME)   :)

I know I have a lot to tell you all about, and you've been waiting for awhile. The north trip, starting school, everything.

But a lot of crazy things have been going on at the moment--issues with my host family, getting into the rhythm and no-more-free-time-ness of the school year, figureing out how/when to take my SATs, making sure everything is set for my senior year and summer school when I return, making plans to see off Mayella who is returing to Holland, getting ready for my birthday in a little more than a week, and finding the money to go to a concert at the end of the month, and really, I MUST be forgetting something else. But, its been busy to say the least.

I'm not prepared to give you an actual post right now. So, I'll leave you with my first day of school pictures (which, yes, I took myself since there was no one else to do it for me) and you can busy yourself laughing at how terrible my uniform is while I un-busy myself.

Ugh. After this year is up, I might die if I ever see a red polo again.