version 2

I found myself just now trying to write about Chilean politics, because I spent all day either talking about them in Spanish class (Chile's relationships with its neighbors, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina, and why they are so strained) or reading about Chile's ever-growing number of free-trade agreements and the effects that they are having/will have on Chilean economy but also on Chilean culture. Those are very interesting subjects to me but my knowledge of them is very thin and I really have no set opinions on either case. I have preconceived notions (i.e. NAFTA is bad and the WTO is bad and the Washington Consensus is bad so ALCA must be bad too) without really knowing why, and I'd kind of like to figure out what's really going on before I start spouting off about them. Then I read Hullabaloo and specifically tristero's really interesting post about "christianists" and their role in American politics, and that got me fired up, but I don't really know anything new or exciting about that either (link to Hullabaloo is under "Places you should go because I like them"). So I'm going to modify my earlier post about writing more about politics and say this: I will start writing more about politics as soon as I have some sense of what I'm talking about and actually have something to say about them. Also, I think I might find myself just rambling about this situation or that sometimes, because I imagine that most people who read this don't know a whole lot about Bolivia's claim to sovereign sea access or things like that.

In the meantime, I'm going to start reading a lot more than I have been, and talking to my host family, too, because they're a source of differently-informed opinions that I haven't really gone out of my way to tap yet. Also, I'm going to run tomorrow, I've resolved. I am very excited about it. And now, I'm going to go to sleep.