A Chilean Adventure

Everything in Chile has this really steep learning curve. When you have to do something for the first time, it’s always really terrifying at first, but there are a lot of small victories along the way that make you feel really good in the end. Today, our victory was figuring out the campus library.

One really nice thing about UACH is that we don’t have to buy books for any classes. They still use textbooks, scientific articles, and other reference material, but all of it is available in the campus library and you either check it out for a limited amount of time or just photocopy the pages you need to read.

Sounds simple, but it’s easier said than done. We were really nervous to do our first homework assignment for our milk processing class, so we waited until the day before to start it. We went into the library and tried to use the card catalogue, but there were big hoards of people and we felt like we were taking way too long and we weren’t really sure how we were actually supposed to get the books we needed.

We sheepishly went to our professor’s office and she assured us that the books were in the library and that if we asked one of the workers they’d help us with everything. We went back and it the whole building seemed like it had cleared out a lot from our first time being there (I think we were there between classes the first time). There was a very nice gentleman that explained how to use the card catalogue and on which floors the books or other reference materials could be found. Once we got the call number of the book we needed, we went downstairs and a different gentleman took us right to the shelf where all the dairy processing books are located.

As I started writing this entry, I wasn’t sure if the experience was actually “blog-worthy.” I don’t know if I can really express how much of a victory this really was for us. It seems very silly, but everyone takes for granted of all of those silly things in the U.S. It’s blog-worthy.