Variables and Vittles

I wasn't planning on updating until this weekend, but I think small, frequent posts are easier to digest than huge, infrequent ones. Also, I might as well update in my free time, which I may not have much of in the future, as it turns out.

I'm starting to get used to life abroad, at least to the extent that staying in a private house at the edge of Santiago with six other college students can be considered being "abroad." On Sunday, we went to Jumbo and, using money from a communal pot to which we each contributed $40,000 CLP (~$70 USD), bought what we considered to be enough groceries to last us a week. That night, we frustratingly discovered that another trip for at least as many groceries was in order. I really don't like going to Jumbo; it's enormous, crowded, and disorienting, not to mention pretty far away by foot. Live and learn, I suppose.

Dinner on Sunday night was pasta and wine. It turns out that three of us (including me) don't drink, but water is just as good in my humble opinion.

Dinner on Monday night was a personal creation of mine: chicken stew and dumplings. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture until we were nearly done.

Dinner on Tuesday night was instant pizza. Don't laugh, cooking from scratch is a lot more exhausting than you'd think.

We really like bread.

Fortunately, we don't have to make lunch on weekdays, since we eat at the observatory in a room called the "casino," which is sort of like a cafeteria but smaller and more like a regular dining room. Also, despite our initial grand plans for pancake and omelet breakfasts, mornings have devolved into cereal, fruits, and occasionally toast. It's hard to be motivated at 8:30 am.

In terms of academics, we have class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Lecture goes from 9:30 am to 11:00 am, then we get a brief coffee break before a T.A. review session from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm. Lunch goes from 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm, after which we have a bit of free time, and we end the day with lab from 2:30 pm to 4:50 pm. It sort of feels like high school all over again, especially because of the early start, but at least I enjoy the material (for the most part). The one complaint I do have is that the information we've covered so far (e.g. distance scales, stellar parallax, and Newton's Laws) has been pretty basic, and mostly review from previous physics and astro classes. I suppose that's what I get for enrolling in a class numbered in the 200s after taking 300- and 400-level courses, but hopefully the material will pick up soon. In any case, the observing and data analysis are still completely new, so I'm willing to deal with a boring curriculum if I get to learn useful skills.

Main classroom building at the observatory.

One of the many telescopes at our disposal.

Celestial sphere diagrams or random circles and lines? I'm not quite sure.

Madeline and Denise in perfectly matching clothes. I like to think that it was unintentional.

Bijan working in our private room. They spoil us Yalies.

Not a particularly flattering photo of Santiago, but at least you know that I'm not in the middle of the boondocks.

Victor on a random children's swing that we found at the observatory.

The bus from the observatory back home can get pretty crowded.

A screenshot of our current project (creating a light curve for the variable star EH Librae). I'm going to be pretty darn good at Linux by the end of six weeks.

Possibly the best part of the day is being able to play with a random litter of puppies that a man at the observatory takes care of. They're mutts, and while I don't particularly enjoy being barked at by the unusually high number of stray mutts on the streets of Santiago, these puppies have not yet developed their aggresive instincts. And you know I'm a sucker for cute animals.

Aww look at those eyes.

"Play with me!"

One last point of interest. It appears that I either remember much more Spanish from high school than I expected, or have improved dramatically in the past four days, because I can follow most of the conversations that I hear between native speakers without consulting a dictionary or translator. Granted, my speaking is probably worse than a four-year-old's, but at least I know that I won't die if I get lost in the streets of the city one of these days. Yay?

Next update after our adventures this weekend, probably.