This whole research thing

This personal research thing in such a short period of time is quite something. I don't really know how to approach it, but I am doing my best. Which, usually means that I spend most of my day reading whatever I can get my hands on (in English or Spanish) that has anything to do with the political participation of women in Chile. I have now found two Oxy professors in the bibliographies of my secondary research, Jaquette and Heldman. It's nice to know that I have such awesome people around me at Oxy that care about a subject I currently have so much passion for.

Scheduling things in this time frame is one of the largest challenges, especially because I am trying to talk to some very busy women. Obviously, they are busy with very interesting things, which is why I want to interview them. Still, I feel lucky to have any contact with them. I visited Humanas for the first time today (it is not easy to find) and talked with the women who basically runs the political participation project. She invited me to an event on Thursday and we are going to have a more-formal interview in the near future.

I have hope and I am so excited to be literally studying what I want all day every day, but at the same time it is sort of intense. Mostly, it is just far out of my comfort zone, but that is a good thing. And this research is a large part of the reason that I choose this program.

It helps a lot that my Santiago host family is really wonderful. I just finished a conversation with my host mom about women in politics and it was really interesting to hear her perspective. I told her about Michelle Bachman and how sad it is that she is the type of women we have trying to get to the top levels of government. Apparently my host mom's father was a mayor for a while and her mom and sister have both run for political positions as well. In the 70s, she was very active in MIR, the leftist revolutionary movement that worked to bring about the "proletariat of the workers." I can't believe these are the things I get to hear about on a daily basis. It's like living in a library.

Night night!