A joke. Calm down Mom and Dad ;) Right now I'm usually in my History of Arte class learning about Roman architecture, and jealously listening to my fellow compañeros discuss all the places in Europe they've been to see some of these thousand year old creations. JAJAJA, yeah, way jealous. But their faces mirror mine when I talk about being able to go the the Disney Parks for the day Saturday and it's no big deal, or the fact that I can drive a car, by myself, legally, and I'm only 17. Being a teenager in the Orlando area, we take those things for granted, just as a weekend trip to Rome here is. Things are just on a bigger scale here. Anyway, since we're sort of already there, lets talk about school.
Much to everyone's surprise, probably mine most of all, I LOVE my school here! I absolutely love it. I've heard a lot of exchange students talk about hating school, or don't even talk about it at all because they skip it so often, but unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), my school is one of six in my town, and it's the best. The top acedemics (I feel like I spelled that wrong...irony?), the most well behaved students (OH LORD I CANNOT EVEN BELIEVE THAT SOME OF THE PEOPLE AT MY INSTITUTE IN FLORIDA, AND THE STUDENTS HERE ARE THE SAME AGE.), and the top number of students choose to continue their education after 16, and keep on continuing until their 18. In most of Europe (I'm pretty sure), when you turn 16 you can either drop school and start working...or whatever, OR continue education for the last two years (equivalents of 11th and 12th grade, but SO much harder). Here, I'm in 2º
Bachillerato, the equivalent of 12th grade. It's the final year of school here, and it's quite difficult, even if you do speak Spanish ;) Education here is much more enforced than in the US, and it's quite different as well.
My school is only Here, there are two options to choose from the last two years of school, Humanities, or Sciences. Obviously I chose Humanities, since there is no way in the world (GET IT) that you could find me taking physics, biology, or chemistry in English unless absolutely necessary, let alone in Castilian Spanish. JAJAJA, no. In the Humanities direction, I have ten classes, but we go to different ones every day. Below, you'll find a quick run down of my schedule, and later I'll post a picture. It's craziness!
Monday: Valencian Language, Literature, English Grammar, History of Philosophy, Economics, History of Arte, and History of Spain.
Tuesday: Mathematics, English Grammar, History of Arte, History of Philosophy, Tutoria (like homeroom), English Oral, Literature.
Wednesday: Economics, English Oral, Mathematics, Valencian Language, History of Arte, History of Spain.
Thursday: Mathematics, Literature , English Oral, English Grammar, Valencian Language, and Economics.
Friday: History of Arte, Mathematics, English Oral, History of Philosophy, History of Spain, and Economics.
That's the schedule I received at the beginning of the year, but it's been altered a bit to fit in a few more hours of Math classes, since that's the only one I need credit for, as well as Spanish classes. As of right now, I have about 8 hours of Spanish classes a week, but of course, all of my classes are taught in Spanish anyway, so I'm learning quite fast. Torrevieja, my city here, is a really popular tourist town for people from mostly the UK, and Sweden, so there a actually a lot of people at my school who don't speak Spanish, but there aren't very many who want to learn...I have around 8 to 10 classmates for my Castellano classes, but only one other girl is with me in all of them, since we're the newest ones here. She's 12 years old and from Russia, so it's an interesting class. Though I always happen to look younger than my age, I always seem to be the oldest! The other students are two more from Russia (15 years, and 13 years), two from Morroco (two 11 year olds), two from China (two 15 year olds), and one guy from a country in South Africa, which I'm pretty sure is Angola, but he also speaks Arabic, and a bit of French. With the exception of the 12 year old girl from Russia, all of those students have been in Spain/Torrevieja for at least 3 years, going all the way back to six years, and they don't speak Spanish! It seems very few of them want to learn, but I suppose it's different when you're forced to move to a new country, and you still have your family there to talk with in your first language. Obviously, I want to learn, and I love my Spanish classes! I've also just learned that even with only 700 students in my school, there are 49 nationalities! Russia, Sweden, the UK, Germany, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Morroco, China, Norway, Peru, a whole mess of countries in Africa...etc...AND I AM THE ONLY AMERICAN! I couldn't believe it when I heard it, but it's absolutely true....¿que guay, no?
Well, moving on. If you're still here reading all of this, six rounds of applause. That's very brave of you. I meant to warn ya'll (I love being able to use that when I write, since I obviously can't use it when I speak...), that this would be a long journal, but I suppose you've figured that out by now. Good on ya. Moving on to family.
**This is a little blurb I wrote approximately.... a long time ago. My writing/thinking skills (which my parents claim I have, thanks Maaaam and Daaad :) are definitely not at this level of intellegence right now**
Esentially, you become a daugter, a sister, a friend, a cousin, a grandchild, etc. You become a part of their lives, just as they have become a huge part of yours. You experience a whole hord of emotions and events with them. Excitement, frustration, fear, and a overwhelming friendship that cannot be attained through any other way but living with them. Everyday is a new adventure, but you cannot garuntee that it will be a good one, or even an exciting one. Granted, the look on my host parents face when they see the look on my face after pronouncing a new word correctly, or using all the correct tenses in a frase the right way is quite humorous. But this exchange year is more than that. Everyday you won't be 1.taking day trips to La Sagrada Familia, 2.making weekend plans for visiting Paris (BUT I DO HAVE A FIVE DAY CLASS TRIP TO FLORENCE ITALY!!!!1! JFKLDJAFAJ) or 3.taking a nice swim in the Mediterranean whenever...unless of course 1. You live in Barcelona, 2. You live in Pamplona 3. You live along the Mediterranean Coast, like me....¿que suerte, eh? More or less, you're living a normal family life. You have doctors appointments, soccer games (SO MANY SOCCER GAMES), band practices, and chores around the house to be completed. And I adore it.
Hmmmm, what else?! I suppose I could talk about RYE in Spain, but that won't take very long. Basically, it barely exists. En fin.
Just kidding, sorta. Well, the third weekend of September we had our inbound orientation. I don't know if I'm biased, lucky, or a bit of both, my I really feel like nothing compares to the Florida Orientations. Spain of course, is a bit different, as there are about 130 exchange students here this year, and approximately 124 of them are from the United States or Canada......woo diversity? ;) At this point, we have one trip planned for June or July around the south of Spain, and a day or two in Portugal, but I'm not sure if I'll be going on that one, since the towns we have planned to visit are only about two hours away from mine, and I have plans to go with my host family during the year. I'll admit, a bit of a dissappointment, but you live with what you get. I'm trying to look at it as an opportunity to travel a bit more by myself around the country, but I won't lie that more Rotary events would be nice.
Finally, after two months and two days of waiting, the other exchange student in Torrevieja arrived last night! We all headed to the airport at 11ish, as her flight was supposed to arrive at midnight....yeah, I'm EXHAUSTED. My host family, counselor, and next host family only had to wait about half an hour until Zlata was here! She's 17 years old from Russia, and will hopefully be in Second Bach. with me. Her first host family is my second, just as my first is her second. And they live down the street and up the next one in the same neighborhood, so we'll be so close the whole year! Finally! I ended up being a translator for her last night (she speaks a little English. No I wasn't speaking Russian...), which was aboslutely the coolest feeling in the world. Speaking in English one moment, and in Castellano the next! She's friendly, but we were both very tired, so we'll be seeing more of each other this weekend (and of course, the rest of our exchange year!).
Well, the bell is about to toll for me to head to my first of three hours of Language classes! Like I said, I really enjoy them, but they can be a tad more difficult when you've only had four hours of sleep, and spent your first waking hour writing like a maniac in English. Oh, the things I do for you all....and my memories later on!
I'll post more pictures later! I'm using the dinosaur age computers right now in my school library, which obviously don't hold my photos!
Hasta hora,
Nícole
Random graffiti in Cartagena that I think is fabulous.
A day in Alicante!
Halloween. Not a huge deal here, but more of a good excuse to get out of the house :)
TORREVIEJA<3
Zlata, Ofelia and I! Ofelia is my second host mom, and Zlata's first.
Castellano 2nd hour! Yeunis (Angola), Shuang Shuang (China), Aida (Russia), Me, and Alex (Russia).
Finalized schedule! The blocks you can barely make out are generally my English/Valencian classes, during which I go to the library. Recreo is a 20 minute "first lunch" break.
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