yu-en-me ´a man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher, .. he who goes from country to country guided by blind impulses of curiosity is .. a vagabond.´ - oliver goldsmith

i would now be starting Act II. my last groupmail would´ve been the transition between Act I (traipsing through argentina) and this second act (setting up ´life´ in santiago, chile). in the 2 weeks that i´ve been in santiago, i´ve been doing boring ´settling down´ things, such as: - translating my resume into spanish to go job-hunting; - transferring all my belongings (yeah, all of the 3 t-shirts, 2 pants, and a couple of books) from my backpack to a normal wardrobe; - getting accustomed to living in an apartment with steph (o! the luxury of a fixed address and phone number!) all those ´boring´ things i enjoyed, but what excites/excited me more are the following activities: - enrolling in a TEFL (teaching english as a foreign language) course so that i can finally have something formal on paper to complement my teaching experiences; - starting karate lessons because even though mr miyagi passed on a few years ago, he still lives on in my heart (plus i reckon i´d make a better new-karate-kid than hilary swank ever was) - resuming german, but this time self-taught from books, since the course is too expensive after karate lessons - resuming homely activities like cooking, knitting, and cleaning. (it sounds strange i know, but cleaning in a house is so much more fulfilling than simply turning your tent inside-out and shaking the fluff out.) of course, the reason why i´m spending a few months here in the first place, is because i wanted to work with Un Techo Para Chile (the organisation helping people living in slums), and in a couple of weeks´ time, i´ll be hopefully going on a weekend away helping with construction work. i´ll keep you posted on how it goes. i wish i could give a succinct summary of the differences so far between Chile and Argentina, but i can´t. the lifestyle, people, ways of interaction, .. everything seems relatively similar on the surface, but scratch a little and i realise it´s not. and of course, i´m living Chile with different objectives, plans, and in a very distinct manner compared to how i was exploring Argentina. it *is* interesting though, that the police here go around on motorbikes a lot more than in Argentina (where they were either on foot, or in cop-mobiles). but the truly startling thing i noticed was that policeMEN have bikes, and policeWOMEN have scooters. i´m going to refrain from spluttering indignantly here, but i´m sure you get my meaning. after reading Bill Bryson´s ´A Walk in the Woods´ about the 2500+ mile long Appalachians Trail, i´m feeling inspired. anyone who wants to join me to do sections of it in a couple of years time, please email your interest now. hurry, places are limited. i had a surreal interaction recently with a geriatric fella, hard-of-hearing, and definitely hard-of-understanding-the-concept-of-someone-not-speaking-spanish-as-their-mother-tongue. he started talking to me about how sympathetic he was towards me and my people after the tragedies of hiroshima/nagasaki. ´yeah, it´s terrible´, i agreed, ´but i´m chinese, not japanese´. ´really?´ he asked suspiciously (as if i would lie about this). then after a reflective pause, ´so why don´t you like the japanese?´ ´um.. i don´t NOT like them. i´m just not one.´ he harrumphed with considerable discontent, and didn´t talk to me anymore. i know i mentioned the mangling of my name in the last email, but it´s evolved further; a german girl who heard people calling me Juana adapted the name to something more germanic, and called me Joana. one of *her* friends heard her, and now has me in his phonebook as Johana. pretty soon, someone´s going to shorten it to Jo, and someone else is going assume it´s short for Josephine. ..a rose by any other name, right? missing you all muchly, Mary-Lou