Who are the United States of America

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Ya this post is going to be deep and probably make little sense, so if that isn't your scene thanks for attempting and I will see you later.

I was thinking today a lot about who we are as Americans. It is a little clearer to me already, just being in Chile for a week or so. I think the name of our country is pretty funny; kind of a misnomer, like the Holy Roman Empire, which was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire. 

Ya I'll give you that we are states and that we are in the Americas, but we aren't that united. And really that is the most distinguishing aspect to the name. If we were just called the States of America it would be a pretty weak name. So it suffices to say that the united thing is pretty important. Yet when I look around the US, we seem pretty divided. Look at anything in the states and it is easy to see. Politics, race, economics, etc. In Chile there is more of a common motion, maybe forged out of the dictatorship imposed traumas of Pinochet. In Chile I have yet to feel the majority-minority complex that almost invades our lives in the US. People work and walk together, and no one needs to separate, even though Chile is a very diverse country. 

At any rate, the community is stronger here, as a nation, then the United States. Yet somehow, we in the United States seem more nationalistic. Whatever the reasons, the concept of a division is at the forefront of the American psyche. There is always an Us and Them. 

On an even more basic level, we don't trust each other. You don't trust me, and hell no, I don't trust you. Some of us are too busy conquering our little piece of the American dream that has been handed down to us to trust a neighbor whose needs might differ from ours. Others are just in a cave. And still others, like the MinnesOtans, are in islands of community, unaware of the chaos that surrounds them. I don't know. I said that this crap is hard to understand. It's the feeling of a nation.

On a completely unrelated note, classes are going pretty well. I have one teacher who has a bit of a complex, but hopefully she will be satisfied with repeating her soliloquies and leave us poor students alone. Pshhh. Trying to tell me what it means to be Californian. That's what happens when you were born in an ivory tower. I'm not saying she is stupid, cause I think she is a good teacher. But she definitely is of a bullshit type.

The only thing better than the classes is the fact that I get to take a siesta everyday. And my underwear gets ironed. Let me tell you, this is the life. I don't know what I was thinking living like a cockroach in the United States all these years. Ok, its true I kinda miss the states, but I'm not going to let that detract from my nice ironed underwear. Ok.

SO the phrase from this post is going to be "tomar once" which literally means to take 11. It is a way of saying you want to have a small, tea type, meal with some snacks and stuff. So instead of eating dinner at 9PM everyday, I told my host mother that 3/7 days I want to "tomar once" instead. Going with the living-the-life theme, here is a pretty picture of the ocean from the beach at Vina. Bueno.