Dónde esta mi mente?

Here I am in smoggy Santiago, three weeks after the gran aventura... and it's been weird being back. Everything is vaguely familiar yet very different at the same time, given that five of my best mates have left and I'm starting afresh in more than one sense. Ah well, I guess I can take some comfort in the fact that the sun is still shining while the UK sounds like it's turned into the equivalent of a walk-in freezer - moohaha.

My new house is fantasticoco, although the high cool quotient of my new housemates has left me feeling like the clumsy, bumbling gringo that I am. One night during the first week, we all shared a bottle of wine on the patio - with boyfriends included. So there I was, Schmoo and six Chilenos all talking 100 words per minute about random TV celebrities... suffice to say I got just a wee bit lost after three months of talking very little espaneesh. Rrrrita the fierce feline has also made her presence known - on my first night here she attacked my arm! Apparently, losing her leg "calmed her down" quite a bit - I shudder to think how bonkers she must have been beforehand.

Da new job is only twenty minutes walk away, and so far has consisted of marking tests, giving a few interviews and teaching a class of teenagers - not exactly the most responsive bunch in the world, as you might imagine. Good good news though: after a 5-month delay - this is Sarf America after all - my old uni finally paid me. I'm a millionaire (okay, maybe not by UK standards but still)! This joyous day coincided with festivities to welcome new first years, so I had the chance to see some old faces and have a few drinkskis in between signing for cheques. Naturally, psycho-stalker girl appeared out of nowhere and wouldn't leave my side - uh oh.

That same day, after a tedious meeting for work to mark the start of the semester, we headed out to a bar, then another one, then a third, ending up at a random flat party where I proceeded to display my werewolf arm hair and dance very badly. I was meant to be in work at 9am the next day - guess what? I didn't make it. Thankfully, my boss didn't seem to mind too much - she was too busy with interviews and the like so ph-ph-ph-phhhew!