Escuela y Rotary (9/19/2010)
I have a lot to catch up on…
School
School is actually really pretty good. I have only had two days so far and I was really upset since I didn’t understand everything, but I just spent the last hour recopying my notes into another notebook and now I understand a lot more. (My brother corrected my spelling on a lot of it too so that’s amazing.)
The first day was just for an hour and was only to confirm your classes, find your room, and meet your tutor. Mine is my math teacher and I’m pretty sure her name is Susanna. (Everyone calls their teachers by the first name and all the kids in my class already have heard of the teachers and some already know them.)
The second day was for much longer, but still mostly intro. Some classes started right away with teaching and taking notes. The first day I had met three girls so I sat with them and they are all really nice. I so far have one friend for sure and then the rest are all really nice to me, so I’m pretty sure we’re friends but at the same time I can’t understand what they’re all saying all the time so we’ll see haha. Either way, everyone I meet is all excited when I tell them I live in between New York and Philly… probably since every day I see at least 6 shirts that say New York and tonnss more that are written in English.
Funny story time-
The first day of Psicologia, the professor started a discussion about the botellon, a habit of kids in Spain. It’s when a bunch of kids get together to drink alcohol (most of the time mixed with Coke) outside and listen to music. My teacher, knowing I’m not fluent in Spanish, asked me if first off, whether I was understanding what everyone said. Yes, I actually did understand so I when I answered yes, he asked me what my thoughts were:
Professor: So what do you think?
Leigh: Well I’m not really sure, we have the same thing in the United States.
Professor: But what do you think about it?
Leigh: I don’t really know, a lot of kids are into it, it’s really popular.
Professor: So you’re saying that kids in America drink before age 21?
Leigh: Yes..
and everyone laughs haha. I’m not sure if they took it to mean that I drink… which was not at all what I was implying, since the conversation in the class was about whether it not what they do it normal, good, or just a bad habit getting worse. But either way, I spoke in class so it’s a success.
Smoking. Everyone smokes. EVERYONE. Smokes. I probably have only seen three people who aren’t smoking after every break we have. They all have to hide it too because you officially aren’t allowed to smoke on the campus, but everyone does anyway.
Changing Classrooms. You don’t. You stay in the same room all day and the teacher changes. Most of the teachers have already offered to help me and most speak English so if I’m really lost I can get out, but for now I’m just gonna have Alberto (my brother) help me until he gets sick of it :]
Dressing. It’s different for everyone. Some girls look really… well ghetto. Some look really well put together, and some look like Americans. The professors wear whatever they want, usually jeans and a tee shirt.
Rotary. We had our first (and possibly only) meeting this past weekend. It was pretty fun but for some reason I felt really negative the whole time I was there. Probably because the whole time everyone was speaking English. I don’t know… I came to Spain to meet Spanish people and learn Spanish, not hang out with 70 Americans and 3 Canadians, which is the general break up of our exchange students. But the orientation was nice. We got a lottt more pins, got a banner of Spain, a tee shirt for Rotary, and learned some about Spain in general and Spanish families. It’s fine. I’d rather talk to the exchange students from my district in the USA. I was uber prepared for everything here so this orientation was going over things that I was already prepped for at home. We also had long times when we had nothing to do. (6 hours..) So people got kind of bored. In general though it’s nice knowing people all over Spain, so if I have a problem or want help, there are people close who can… but I’m gonna ask my family first.
Spanish. I’m GETTING BETTER! It’s so so so awesome :] But I really need to stop writing in English and go tell my brother that the song he’s playing on piano is really pretty.
Tiempo para practicar y comida! Hasta luego !
Besos, Leigh
