Hi all, 12 years later (Part 1)

Hi to my readers and my future self, 

It's been 12 years since my last post. Way too long and it feels all too familiar, like riding a bike. I feel like this blog is so cool, so the plan is to try and pick up where I left off. Disclaimer: I may not be as funny as I used to be, but who knows? Maybe something fun comes out of it.

In Chile we say "Hola po olvidona". I feel like this is originally from a YouTube video, I have no idea, but people say it to call out someone who has not done something they used to for a long time. A not so good translation would be: "Forgetful much?" Anyways, this is me calling myself out for not writing anymore.

I'm 28, going on 29. Oof. Let me go over an update of what has been up since 2014. That's around when I got back from Spain.

2015: Last year of school in Santiago. That year I sort of consolidated my real friends that were going to last up to adulthood, and let go friends that wouldn't. I took the PSU test to get into college. I got into where I wanted to (I was going for Computer Science at PUC)! Spoiler: my carreer didn't go exactly as planned. We'll get to that. I broke up with my highschool boyfriend (he is currently married with a baby), we got back together in

2016. I started college in San Joaquín (at the middle of the year he broke up with me and that was that). I actually started in the summer with some calculus and algebra introductory courses for kids who didn't learn these things in school. That's where I actually met my current friends. Crazy I've known them for so long. So this friend from school got in with me and she was more of an introvert than I was in school, but she got into college with a mission: she was going to be an extrovert. Oh and also like sort of slutty. Good for her. We got into these classes together and when we got there she had already made plans for lunch with some of the class in a Facebook group. I would never. And I'm forever grateful. We had lunch with them every day those 2 weeks. We had some after-class get-togethers as well. I was added to the class WhatsApp group that got bigger and bigger (because everyone needed friends). By the time class started in march the group was full (I think the limit back then was like 150 people?). Come march my friends didn't talk in that group and I lost touch with them. It was a lonely first semester.

I went to San Joaquín in a "turno" that year. Carpool. Facebook was still a thing back then and turns out 2 kids from my year lived in my building! What are the odds. We carpooled for the first 2 years of school I think. Oh, the summer before school my brother had nose surgery, my cousin Pedro came to visit (while I was at summer camp) and they picked out my first car. It was a white Chery, very tiny. It looked like a marshmallow. It had no bluetooth nor aux input so I made a pendrive with songs that always played in the same order. It was like having one very long song that played every day from where I left off the day before. Like an audio book.

I was terrible at school. I remember that year I felt so smart when I got in because I was so good at school, that I didn't study for my tests and failed 3/5 of my courses. Big punch in the gut to my ego. I also attribute it to not really having a group of friends. I made a girl friend group that was in my Desafíos (first year project/innovation type class) and they were cool but most were not my vibe. A lot of partying every day of the week. 

The second semester, since I failed everything mostly, 2 things happened:

1. I found a bunch of my summer friends had failed too and were in my repeat classes.
2. I didn't meet the requirements for normal 2nd semester courses, so I had to take an elective.

The elective was in the faculty of education, towards the front of the campus. This is only relevant, because the class was right before lunch time. Walking back to engineering after my first class that semester, I found my summer friends! Turns out they always sat in some tables that were on the outside of engineering and were on my way from this class. I literally saw them all sitting together and my first thought was "they hate me and made a new group without me". I walked by and they were like "why don't you have lunch with us anymore?". And I was like "I didn't know you had lunch here, I never heard from you again". That's when we all realized I had been left out of the new WhatsApp group they made because the other one was full of random people. Flash forward and by the end of that year I

• Had lunch with them every day and learned to play Carecaca, a card game.
• Met my best guy friend J and my best girl friend G. They had entered the group while I was not around.
• Went to the engineering gala and danced all night with A, who I had a crush on at the time but he finally just became a really good friend especially in the first years of college. Today we are still great friends but not as close as before.
• Went to A's house in the south of Chile that summer for 10 days and had some of the best experiences ever. I tell the stories that happened one night there as my "wildest" stories. Can't say I have a LOT of those, and that's OK I think.

Also, my grandpa on my mom's side was diagnosed with cancer this year (if I remember correctly). We went to visit in Brasil at the end of the year.

2017: My mom crashed her car. She was OK but got worried of what would happen if I crashed the marshmallow. I got a new car and I LOVED IT. It was a Hyundai Grand i10, dark greyish blue. He was perfect and was my bestie till last year. Failed some more courses. 

Also, this year I went back to singing. I was part of the battle of the bands the second semester and it was a disaster. It was like 20 people on stage and sooo chaotic. But it was fun to be a part of it.

2018: This year was the ombligo, a weekend-long party to celebrate the half of the carreer (spoiler, this was not the half of mine). It was fun and that weekend was another of my "wild side" moments. My friends could not believe. This is all I will say, no regrets. Very fun memories.

This year I was introduced to IDI: the major in design and innovation engineering. I ended up chosing it over computer science. It was the best decision I ever made. G also picked it and we got much closer as we did some classes together (not all of them, because she didn't fail any the first years). This was the last year I failed any classes, but I was scared of this the rest of my carreer so I mostly took 4 class semesters for the rest of my years at school. 

Also, this year I started with some computer science courses. I discarded the major but did the minor and loved it. I formed my carreer to be half design and half tech and that has been awesome. I remember I had a Windows computer and in my first software class someone said I had to have a Macbook if I wanted to program because in Windows you had to either patition to have Linux or install a virtual machine and this was so overwhelming to me that I had a panic attack and asked my parents if I could have a Macbook. I have never gone back to Windows and am very thankful (though I feel I should've handled that better).

This year me and J took over the battle of the bands. He was (and still is) a bit snobby when it comes to music, and he decided (dictated) that we were doing exclusively The Lion King songs for the 10 minutes we had on stage. He ended up convincing me and the rest. IT WAS A FREAKING MASTERPIECE. We had a sax and base and a great drummer and we killed it. We practiced so much and we even had theatrical interventions, costumes... this was amazing. I feel like J had post-partum depression after birthing this musical. Literally. We got second place (unfairly) but we felt like the kings. 

I have been going on for a while, so I'll make a part 2, for those still engaged in my story (I am).

Love, Debbie.