Post Uno: 1/6/2010

As you all may well know, I'm spending four months abroad in Chile with Molly. The prospect of such an adventure was far too exciting to pass up and so here I am -- living and learning in Santiago. It's all very new, very exciting, and ambiguously open.

So what am I going to do here? Molly is studying at Universidad Andres Bello starting Monday, leaving me with wide-open days to explore this (amazing) city, research trips to take around this (amazing) country and continent, and be a graduate student through it all. That's where this blog comes in.

I intend to further my study in anthropology down here by reading and applying my vast array of abstract concepts in cultural anthropology to real-world experiences that I have while down here. I'm really yet to do this in my 'academic career' (to get all pretentious on you) and so this blog will serve as not only a journal of events, but as a guide to Chile from a graduate student's perspective of how society and culture shape our lives. With a little luck, it will read like a script to Anthony Bourdain rather than Samantha Brown. I'll be starting with my hopes high and hopefully keep the jargon low.

For now, I'll leave with a thought that may gear you towards why I think anthropology, traveling, and living outside the familiar mean so much to me: without it, how could I ever hope to learn how to live in this ever-evolving, ever-complex social world we inhabit without generalizing all that I experience? With that question in mind, I hope to show why it is even important to do so.

And, oh yeah -- Holy shit! I'm in Chile!!!!