midterm wasn't so bad

A little harder than I expected, I guess, but not horrible. I did spring a moderately bad bloody nose in the middle, which was irritating. I still finished in plenty of time (as did everyone else, Mom and Dad) and then wrote up my proposal for the research paper I have to write for Chile chilenos class. I've decided to write about the free trade agreements Chile has signed in the past few years (with Mexico, the US and China) and the ones it's thinking about signing, and whether all this new commercial openness is good for the country or not, on economic and cultural levels. I'm not exactly happy about it, but I'm a lot more comfortable writing about that than Nicanor Parra or Pablo Neruda and I'll definitely learn a lot in the process. I've decided that as soon as I get my hair cut (hopefully in the next couple of days, as soon as I find a place) I'm going to shave. Then I'll be all nice and clean. I like the beard but it's time for it to go. Also I've let it get really long and I definitely don't like it like this. I'll take pictures along the way--I'm thinking I'll trim it back to how it was for most of the last year, then maybe shave some stripes into it or something, then shave it all the way off. We'll see. In any event, Chile chilenos class was about the same as usual today, boring and repetitive with some interesting observations thrown in. Rosie pointed out after class that our professor, Corea, is pretty sexist, not in a misogynistic way but in the sense that he is very comfortable with thinking of men and women in their traditional roles, that is, the "women are mothers, men are sons" dynamic that predominates in Chile. According to him, this is a macho society but not a masculine one; women dominate the home and family, which are much more important here than in the States. He proposed today that this results from the conquistadors' practice of raping and then abandoning Mapuche women hundreds of years ago: Left with no adult male in the family, the children grew up without a masculine role model and learned to see mothers as dominant in all things. But the women were sexist against themselves, so their children grew up admiring men and masculinity but relying on their mothers. I'm not really sure what to make of all that, but I have found that to be true about family dynamics: Francisco and David are totally dependent on Luz María but speak of their father, when they do at all, with some degree of reverence, even Francisco. I'm not sure their father abandoned them, but Luz María certainly isn't on good terms with him and the brothers only see him every so often.

Anyhow, I'm up way past when I meant to go to bed. Let me conclude by saying that on facebook, Michael Steele is WAYYYY ahead in the Senate race. And the only people on facebook (I guess it's more open now, but still, the vast majority) are young people. He's that far ahead with people MY AGE?!??!?! FUCK!!!! I'm going to register to vote absentee right now. Anyone who still supports Bush et al. at this point is utterly beyond me. I used to be able to see how people could find him worth follwing with the right combination of willful blindness and already-wrong political beliefs, or maybe just a belief that he was somehow a "good Christian," but now I just can't. What is the matter with America? We have gone so far astray... And on that rather disheartening note, I'm going to register and go to bed. 'Night.

p.s. Do you ever write something and then look back over what you've written and completely forget writing a phrase or sentence, or even why you might have written it? That just happened to me. It was weird.