Somehow, another month has slipped by without a blog post. So, I've decided to talk about something I really haven't talked about so far: school. That's probably because up until now, I'd been going kind of sporadically, missing days here and there and then a couple weeks of travel. But now I'm on my 11th consecutive day of school after getting back from vacation which is, if you can believe it, the most consecutive days I've been to school so far. So, school goes from 7-1ish, which usually ends up being more like 12:45, for some reason. We're supposed to have ten classes a day, but between teachers not showing up and numerous free hours, which the students convince the teachers to have, we only end up having six or seven. My school is called Vicente Hurtado. Its a k-12 school, but there's only one class of each grade, so it's still pretty small. It's a private school, so we wear uniforms! But they're actually not that bad. We wear jeans and off-white polos that have the school logo (the thing on the right) on them. On Wednesdays and Fridays, when we have gym class, we get to wear our super fly green sweatpants with the polos. If you've never rocked green sweatpants and a polo, try it out sometime. It's loads of fun. As for the physical school itself, it's basically a walled-in block:
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| The school from the outside |
There are two strips of buildings on either side of a soccer/basketball court, and then a barren wasteland (which I think in theory is like a field for the children to frolic in) at the end of that. Other than that there are a few little shelter things where we sometimes have English class (because we split into two groups, and half the time we stay in the classroom, half the time we leave), a playground, a snack bar, and the bathrooms.
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| The soccer/basketball court, and one strip of classrooms |
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| A bit of the barren wasteland (with a child frolicking in it) the playground, and one of the shelter things. You can also see some of the lovely paintings on the inside of the wall |
Outside of the walled-in area, across the street, is the office. One thing about school that confused me for a while was the way the grades were named. The first confusing thing is that kindergarten is called primero (which means first), first grade is segundo (second), and so on.That goes all the way up to ninth grade (or decimo). Then, the second confusing thing happens. Suddenly tenth grade is called cuarto (fourth), eleventh is quinto (fifth), and twelfth is sexto (sixth). I have no idea why. The third confusing thing that happens is that occasionally cuarto is called primero de bachillerato (which I think is kind of like high school, even though it's not separated), quinto is called segundo de bachillerato and sexto is called trecera de bachillerato, which honestly makes more sense, but it's also a lot less common. So, while it can still be kind of confusing, I just remember that whenever someone says cuarto or primero de bachillerato, that's me. Speaking of my class, here's a picture of my classroom:
And here is a picture of the lovely gentlemen of my class:
Unfortunately I do not have a picture of the rest of us, but I think you can probably survive without it. All in all, there are, I think, 25 of us. We have almost every class together, other than the ones we split into groups for. For example, on Tuesdays half of us have chem lab and half of us have technical drawing, and then on Friday it's in reverse. That last example was also a really great example of how we have kind of obscure classes (such as chem lab, technical drawing, programming, etc...) but don't have other normal classes (like history). One semi-notable thing about classes is that in math or physics or something where the teacher or a student is doing a problem on the board, nobody really pays attention. Then, when they're done, there's a little break so everyone can copy it down. I seem to forget that on a daily basis, because I'll be taking notes as the teacher is going along, like I'm used to doing in the States, and then class will stop for 10+ minutes and too late I'll remember how it's done here and have nothing to do. Also, I can't imagine that the other students can learn so well that way. Another interesting thing about school is that we have recess! This is the time when students roam freely, soccer games are played, and the snack bar is open. About the snack bar. It's actually kind of terrifying, becasue when recess starts, a mob forms around the snack bar. Everyone is shouting what they want, shoving handfuls of money through the barred windows. I always tell myself that I will get the courage up to shout what I want, but before I do, either one of my friends asks what I want and shouts it for me, or the people working at the snack bar ask me directly what I want. However! The most exciting thing about school is that it ends in the beginning of January for break, and doesn't start again until April! Also in the beginning of January, I'll switch host families, though I don't know where to. Anyway, that's all for now. Chao!
