Spotted: Greek Row Encounters

1) Spotted: 3 students walking. One (in the middle) drunker than the others. Arms around the 2 lesser drunks, holding on for dear drunk life, so that he/she (let's be real, she) don't fall to the ground and have their too short dress expose anything their grandma would not want to see. 

2) Spotted: 3 students walking. One (in the middle) drunker than the others. Arms around clutching for support. Drunkey in the middle almost falls down several times. 2 "friends" have to catch her.

3) Spotted: 10 freshman, walking in a group together. Most likely floormates, still in the process of adquiring friendship. Girls, constantly checking and re-checking their hair, as well as pushing the side bangs more to the side to give that "Hey I'm casual but also sexy hair flip." Boys in the group walking together, talking about who drank the most beer the weekend before. Entire group, although they put in a valiant effort to look like chill college students, has that overly eager, "I can't believe I'm finally away from mom and dad and can finally do anything I want!" look on their faces.

4) Spotted: 2 sorority girls, one looking upset and almost crying (probably drunk), the other one consoling her (also probably drunk). Most likely talking about drunk hookup with [insert frat boy's name] and how it was horrible that he didn't call her. Other girl must likely doesn't give a shit about her, but due to sorority pledges of "friendship, unity, sisterhood, and solidarity", feels obliged to "help" her. 

5) Spotted: Group of 3. Obligatory drunk person in the middle. You know the deal.

6) Spotted: Guy and girl, flirting and semi-making out on the street. Most likely will end up in drunk hookup. Guy will probably not call. (See #4).

7) Spotted: Drunk guys in a car driving through whilst saying slightly inappropriate things to the girls passing by.

8) Spotted: Group of 3. Same deal. What is up with these groups of 3 deal??

9) Spotted: Nerdy girl eating shit on a bike in the middle of the crosswalk on Channing Circle. Probably a freshman.

10) Sadly, nerdy girl was actually ME a few weeks ago. 

Chile and the U.S.: An Overly Simplistic Comparison

Here are some of the things I have noticed here in the U.S. now that I am an obnoxious study abroad snob and claim to know the world because I lived for a handful of months in the upper middle class section of Santiago:

1) Gringos are more distracted than Chileans: Last week, I was sitting in lecture for my Media Studies class (comprising about 50 people), and the girl next to me texted the WHOLE TWO HOURS of lecture!! The most annoying part is that her phone was on vibrate so for the WHOLE TWO HOURS I felt like there was a hive of bees next to my ear. Also, gringos try to multi-task much more. It's not uncommon to be having lunch with friends and have at least one friend be texting as they are talking, or to be texting while someone else is talking, and thus, not participating in the present conversation. I find this annoying. In Chile, this was a very uncommon thing to do. The sad thing is, I'm starting to pick it up again, and hope to reverse this bad habit. Why I feel here that I can't wait another half hour to text (so I don't disrupt bonding time with my friend) I have no idea. No idea.

2) Cars actually stop for pedestrians: One of the first things I noticed in Chile was that cars would go at the speed of light down every road possible, and that unless there was a green light for you the pedestrian, you were not safe. They wouldn't even stop for you at designated crosswalks (the one without lights). Even with the green light, you were pushing it. Traffic would also change directions on some major streets later on in the day, which made crossing the street safely a bit more challenging. Here, you can be 10 feet away from the crosswalk, and the car will make a complete stop and (for the most part) patiently wait for you. Ironically, I feel even more nervous with their over-cautiousness here. Probably because I am still in survival mode/extreme distrust of drivers thing that I developed while in Chile that has carried over here.

3) People are on time: WHAT?!?? I'm still trying to re-adjust myself to this concept. In Chile, 1:00 really meant 1:30, and bastantes veces, later than that. Often, when I thought I was late to class, the teacher showed up later than me (and sometimes didn't even show up). So I got used to taking my time and being tranquila about getting somewhere because, really, how "late" could I be?? Ooohhhhh that shit don't fly here. You're 15 minutes late to meet a friend, you are met with an evil glare and/or a mini-interrogation session ("What took you so long?" "Why were you late?" etc). Now I have always been someone that has tended to run on the late side, but now it's even worse. Even with the 10 minute grace period at Berkeley (where classes don't start until 10 minutes after the hour), I still manage to show up late. Which is bad, because whereas my friends are probably grading me on my friendship, at least it doesn't show up on my transcript. Apparently grades in your actual classes do. 

4) People talk over each other much more here: In Chile, conversations were much more tranquilo: I talked, the other person listened, they talked, I listened, and the cycle continued. When I got back, I was so overwhelmed with multiple voices talking at once, someone interrupting me in the middle of my story to tell a story that was related to mine ("That reminds me of the time..."), and voices getting progressively louder to try to grab the story spotlight. Granted, I'm a talker, so it's not like I never do this. But I try my best to grant people their moments. And in Chile, it was just way more calm and relaxing talking to people. It felt like more of a conversation as opposed to a talking competition. Luckily, a lot of my close friends here aren't like this, but it's still very apparent in day-to-day life how group conversation dynamics operate. 

More to add later.....  

Berkeley Superpowers

Last week, in the first discussion section of the semester for my American Studies class, the GSI (Graduate Student Instructor) went around the classroom and asked everyone (as an ice breaker) what superpower they could have, if they could have any superpower in the world. 3 out of the 25 students in the class, despite the plethora of options - such as shape-shifting, flying, immortality, mind-reading, etc - DESPITE all of these options, said:

"My superpower would be to feel less tired on less sleep so I can study more and do more things in the day." 

Yep, welcome back to Berkeley. 

Pity Party of 1, Your Table is Now Ready

I'm back from Berkeley, and it just doesn't feel the same to me. I don't feel the same connection to the campus as I did before I went abroad. Everything feels just a little bit foreign, a little bit different, a little bit out of place.

I feel out of place.

I miss Chile a lot. I don't even have the words to describe the incredible experience I got to have abroad - because words will never be able to justify the intangible beauty that it was anyway - but I realized that the best semester I had at Berkeley was in fact, not at Berkeley, but rather in South America.

And now I am back, and the bubble has burst. I am back to midterms, to annoying, squeaky, and superficial sorority girls walking by, to massive budget cuts affecting the supposed world class education they claim to be giving to me. I am back to hyperbolic super-capitalism. I am back to all the problems I quasi-avoided while in Chile. I am back to trying to figure the fuck out what I want to do with my life (I have no idea).

I am back to familiarly unfamiliar surroundings.

And to add to that, I hurt the most important person to me in Chile, and I don't know if he will ever talk to me again. The thought of that is extremely saddening and terrifying to me.

Chile now almost feels like a dream, a distant country that a few weeks ago, didn't seem so far away; but now it feels like I just won't ever be able to reach it again.

Berkeley also feels like a dream as well, but in a different way. Sometimes it feels like it's a dream I just can't wait to wake up from. But I wake up, and it's still there. I am still there. I can't believe I am back here. I can't believe it's real.

I just hope that it will get better.

With that being said, excuse my italic-ridden, 100% purely emo post I have just written out. Sometimes you just need a melodramatic pity party from time to time. That, and some good chocolate would be nice.