joy of joys

ULTIMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE!!!!!!!!!!!! I've got some people to buy flowers for now. Isa, for being a saint when I absolutely fucked up my schedule and working everything out. Luz María, for being a saint in general. And now Katie Howe, for finally introducing me, via some guy she met at some thing, to Santiago ultimate. She doesn't even play, but she wrote down the info and gave it to me on Wednesday. I went to the website, found out there'd be a game Thursday and the email of the president, emailed him asking if it'd be all right if I showed up. He said, yeah, come on down. So yesterday, I went to class in San Joaquin. It was boring but not horribly so, and at the end we watched an extremely powerful clip from an early Soviet propaganda film and a long clip from J. Stuart Blackton's 1909 "Life of Napoleon" that was also very interesting. This class could end up being really cool. Fingers crossed. Then I went to Rosie's and had once with her host mom and sister, who just got back from Brazil on Wednesday. That was nice, if a little awkward. Poor Rosie, she basically has to meet her host family all over again because they've been gone for 2 weeks. Oh well. Anyhow, at 7:25 I left for the Club Deportivo de la Católica, which is in Las Condes, near the station where I switch from my line to Line 1 every day. After a few minutes of being lost, I found it, and the sight of flying discs from afar, under bright lights, filled me with a happiness that I cannot begin to describe. I really missed frisbee. I practically sprinted down the little driveway leading past the tennis courts and indoor arena to the frisbee field, introduced myself to the first person I saw and asked for Tom Smith (the president of the club). Lucien, the guy I met, pointed me the right way, and Tom said, "Just go get changed, we'll figure out which team you're on in a minute." I went over to the little bleachers, put on my cleats and took off my pants and was assigned to the dark team.

We played for an hour and a half, I'd say 17 or 18 people total, which was perfect. The field is pretty nice, and the players are generally very good and athletic. The quality of the game wasn't that great because it was disorganized and also misted/drizzled the whole time (that was fun, I was wearing my glasses). But whatever, I was just overjoyed to have found a place to play. They run what they call a "tournament," which is really just two teams playing each other over 14 weeks. It'll cost me 35,000 pesos, but I can't think of a better way to spend 70 bucks. They had four teams last semester, and will expand to that again if they get 24 (4 teams of 6...savage in the extreme). But whatever, I just want to make cuts and throw and lay out. A quick note: I am pathetically out of shape, and the air in this city doesn't help. But the game yesterday galvanized me to get off my (not) fat butt and start running and doing daily 15s and GOD I'm just so happy to be playing ultimate again. There's a game on Sunday somewhere outside the city at an American high school up near the cordillera, where the air will be clear and the field is apparently great. Joyous day. My shins hurt like crap. I don't care.

In other news, after the game about 10 of us went out for beer and dinner to a bar in between the field and the station. I had a decent schop grande (half a liter of draft beer) and split a salmon/roast vegetable/salad plate with Chris, who's a financial analyst for MetLife and has lived down here for a couple of years. And the Colo Colo vs. Huatchipati game was in the 70th minute or so when we got there, and the bar was packed with Colo Colo fans. I have been forbidden to pull for them, but it was hard not to get caught up in the raucous cheering and explosions of emotion every time there was a hard foul and then particularly when Colo Colo scored the winning goal on a PK in the 78th minute. The place went crazy. CHI CHI CHI LE LE LE!!! I've got to pick a team soon. I think I'll probably just end up with la U by default, but I'm resisting that as long as I can while I look for a more original team to support. After that I joined up with Elan, Emma, Tim Becker and Alex and three Chilean friends of Elan's, Pancho, Sebastian and Felipe. They were all cool guys and Elan got all his drinks for free because he'd made friends with the bartender last week and got some other people's drinks paid for, too. I split a cab with Pancho, who lives in Las Condes. I'm into this whole splitting cabs deal, it saves so much money. Anyhow this morning I woke up at 11:30 and I have done nothing at all. It's time to make lunch. Bye for now.