Monday, April 29, 2013
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Hey guys, like I mentioned in my last post, I have been really busy. So I'll make a quick post here to let you all know what I have been up to.
In terms of school. It's still impossible. I had a test in math and in technology this week. My math test was two hours and 5 questions. The first one being a word problem, which even the kids in my class didn't understand. One of my friends, during the test raised his hand and proclaimed that it was impossible, to which I responded "y tu entiendes espanol" (and you understand spanish) lol. Everyone, including the teacher thought this was funny, but I was being serious. My tech test, referred to as Tico, was a bit frustrating. It was about computer hardware and I felt pretty comfortable with it. But being in spanish sometimes some of the questions are a little difficult to decipher. HOWEVER, one of the questions was "Where is the external hard drive located?" In spanish obviously. The answers were A) inside B) outside C) inside and outside. Needless to say apparently the EXTERNAL hard drive goes inside the computer here in Spain. I tried talking to my teacher about it but got nowhere. But at least he knows I'm trying haha. Another questions was "What do you look for when buying a tablet or smart phone?" A) Processor Speed B)Memory C) Battery life. Apparently in Spain only the battery life matters. More of an opinion questions, but with only one correct answer.
I can tell my Spanish is definitely getting better as I'm beginning to understand more than half of what people say to me. In school it's still pretty difficult because by the time I decipher one sentence the teacher says they are already 5 sentences in. Physics is going to be my hardest class by far I think.
My daily schedule: Every morning I wake up at 7:20 and then take a shower. As soon as my mom hears me get out of the shower she makes me breakfast. Every morning I have hot chocolate (milk not water, it makes a difference) and either a pastry or toast with jam, and sometimes churros <3. After I eat I go back to my room to make sure everything is ready for school and make my bed, brush my teeth and do my hair. We leave the house at about 8:00. It is about a 15 minute drive to my school. Most mornings there is some nice mornin dew and sometimes some intense fog. I get to school at 8:15-20 or so. My first class starts at 8:35. I have 6 classes everyday with "recreo" in the middle. Each class is about 50mins. Besides Dibujo and Tico all my classes are in the same room, the teacher comes to us. School ends at 2:30 and since my brother goes to school in Madrid and ends at the same time I have to wait until 3:00 to get picked up. Which is no big deal at all because I get to talk with my friends while I wait. Wednesdays I have 2 math classes, lucky me. So I take the bus home. As soon as we get home we prepare lunch, which is more like a dinner because it's a pretty big meal. You don't eat lunch at school, just something to hold you over. Some days I help cook and everyday for every meal my brother and I set the table. After lunch we clean up and depending on the day we either go to soccer practice or relax for a bit before studying.
Tuesdays and Thursdays I have soccer. My brother and I take the bus at 5 and then the metro and get there about 6:30, just on time for practice. We get home at about. Fridays and Saturdays, and Sundays sometimes, we usually go into Madrid to hang out with friends as well. Needless to say sometimes I never really know what my plans on or when I'm getting home.
I'm going to go through my pictures now and add any that seem interesting. Let me know if you have any questions and feel free to message me at any time.
Peace
In terms of school. It's still impossible. I had a test in math and in technology this week. My math test was two hours and 5 questions. The first one being a word problem, which even the kids in my class didn't understand. One of my friends, during the test raised his hand and proclaimed that it was impossible, to which I responded "y tu entiendes espanol" (and you understand spanish) lol. Everyone, including the teacher thought this was funny, but I was being serious. My tech test, referred to as Tico, was a bit frustrating. It was about computer hardware and I felt pretty comfortable with it. But being in spanish sometimes some of the questions are a little difficult to decipher. HOWEVER, one of the questions was "Where is the external hard drive located?" In spanish obviously. The answers were A) inside B) outside C) inside and outside. Needless to say apparently the EXTERNAL hard drive goes inside the computer here in Spain. I tried talking to my teacher about it but got nowhere. But at least he knows I'm trying haha. Another questions was "What do you look for when buying a tablet or smart phone?" A) Processor Speed B)Memory C) Battery life. Apparently in Spain only the battery life matters. More of an opinion questions, but with only one correct answer.
I can tell my Spanish is definitely getting better as I'm beginning to understand more than half of what people say to me. In school it's still pretty difficult because by the time I decipher one sentence the teacher says they are already 5 sentences in. Physics is going to be my hardest class by far I think.
My daily schedule: Every morning I wake up at 7:20 and then take a shower. As soon as my mom hears me get out of the shower she makes me breakfast. Every morning I have hot chocolate (milk not water, it makes a difference) and either a pastry or toast with jam, and sometimes churros <3. After I eat I go back to my room to make sure everything is ready for school and make my bed, brush my teeth and do my hair. We leave the house at about 8:00. It is about a 15 minute drive to my school. Most mornings there is some nice mornin dew and sometimes some intense fog. I get to school at 8:15-20 or so. My first class starts at 8:35. I have 6 classes everyday with "recreo" in the middle. Each class is about 50mins. Besides Dibujo and Tico all my classes are in the same room, the teacher comes to us. School ends at 2:30 and since my brother goes to school in Madrid and ends at the same time I have to wait until 3:00 to get picked up. Which is no big deal at all because I get to talk with my friends while I wait. Wednesdays I have 2 math classes, lucky me. So I take the bus home. As soon as we get home we prepare lunch, which is more like a dinner because it's a pretty big meal. You don't eat lunch at school, just something to hold you over. Some days I help cook and everyday for every meal my brother and I set the table. After lunch we clean up and depending on the day we either go to soccer practice or relax for a bit before studying.
Tuesdays and Thursdays I have soccer. My brother and I take the bus at 5 and then the metro and get there about 6:30, just on time for practice. We get home at about. Fridays and Saturdays, and Sundays sometimes, we usually go into Madrid to hang out with friends as well. Needless to say sometimes I never really know what my plans on or when I'm getting home.
I'm going to go through my pictures now and add any that seem interesting. Let me know if you have any questions and feel free to message me at any time.
Locker room for Atletico Madrid, nbd.
Sweet glass door to the locker room.
Conference room.
Ear from the bull.
Pictures from the museum of Atletico
Bull fight
Heading to the bull fight. Notice how everyone is wearing the same shirts. That's what they do during the fiestas to show what group they are in.
Raul
Peace
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Hey guys! Sorry it's been a little while since my last post. Saying I'm always busy would be an understatement. My only free time is at like midnight, and that's before I have to answer my mom's daily 9000 questions. A lot has happened since my last post, but I feel it would be literally impossible to list everything here.
School has started, and I wish it was over. I wasn't even on the list for the first day of school and I had no idea where to go. I went to the wrong room and someone had to help me find my actual room. This would have been really embarrassing but EVERYONE here is suuppper nice, so they laughed with me not at me. Saying school is impossible would be another understatement. Most of the kids in my classes failed last year so they have to take it again. This is a big confidence booster considering they know Spanish and I sit there like a deer in headlights during all my classes. English class is legit. The teacher asks me questions, whether or not I'm the most valuable resource is a different question. When I asked my teachers for help after class (in awful broken spanish) they asked if I was here (in Spain) to solely learn Spanish or pass the classes as well. When I answer both they laugh and say they will "try" to help me. Another boost of confidence. My math teacher talks faster than Busta Rhymes and I think we solved the equation for world peace in physics the other day.
But enough of the torture, let's talk about the good "stuff". I finally got my Phone. I brought over a iPhone 3G and unlocked it so that I could use a sim card from over here. For 20€ I get internet and calling, no too shabby if you ask me. Everyone uses "Whatsapp" here. Everyone. However, my texting in Spanish is like Google's translator. Awful.
I mentioned how everyone here was really nice before. I want to elaborate on that a little bit. Everyone is really nice here. haha. There is not a single mean person. Instead of "oh look at that foreign kid" it's "hey lets go be friends with the american" hahaha you get the point. If you make eye contact with someone it means you shake hands, or two kisses, and you talk. Everyone is friends with everyone. I didn't even stand along for more than 10 seconds on the first day of school before I made a bunch of friends.
I forgot to mention that somehow my original school got messed up somewhere and I wasn't actually enrolled. I had already made a bunch of friends at that school and was pretty upset that I would have to go to a different school where I knew no one. But it was that or change host families, and I DID NOT want to do that. I love my host family, I feel so at home with them.
Now the part that everyone likes, pictures!
Well hope you enjoyed that. If you made it through everything. I don't think it was that much though. Feel free to message me, comment, email whatever. I will try my best to respond when I am free. But as you can tell from my school work I have to study my butt off. If I'm not a super genius when I get back I did something wrong.
Seniors! \m/
School has started, and I wish it was over. I wasn't even on the list for the first day of school and I had no idea where to go. I went to the wrong room and someone had to help me find my actual room. This would have been really embarrassing but EVERYONE here is suuppper nice, so they laughed with me not at me. Saying school is impossible would be another understatement. Most of the kids in my classes failed last year so they have to take it again. This is a big confidence booster considering they know Spanish and I sit there like a deer in headlights during all my classes. English class is legit. The teacher asks me questions, whether or not I'm the most valuable resource is a different question. When I asked my teachers for help after class (in awful broken spanish) they asked if I was here (in Spain) to solely learn Spanish or pass the classes as well. When I answer both they laugh and say they will "try" to help me. Another boost of confidence. My math teacher talks faster than Busta Rhymes and I think we solved the equation for world peace in physics the other day.
But enough of the torture, let's talk about the good "stuff". I finally got my Phone. I brought over a iPhone 3G and unlocked it so that I could use a sim card from over here. For 20€ I get internet and calling, no too shabby if you ask me. Everyone uses "Whatsapp" here. Everyone. However, my texting in Spanish is like Google's translator. Awful.
I mentioned how everyone here was really nice before. I want to elaborate on that a little bit. Everyone is really nice here. haha. There is not a single mean person. Instead of "oh look at that foreign kid" it's "hey lets go be friends with the american" hahaha you get the point. If you make eye contact with someone it means you shake hands, or two kisses, and you talk. Everyone is friends with everyone. I didn't even stand along for more than 10 seconds on the first day of school before I made a bunch of friends.
I forgot to mention that somehow my original school got messed up somewhere and I wasn't actually enrolled. I had already made a bunch of friends at that school and was pretty upset that I would have to go to a different school where I knew no one. But it was that or change host families, and I DID NOT want to do that. I love my host family, I feel so at home with them.
Now the part that everyone likes, pictures!
It's in English on the bottom so I won't explain. It was beautiful inside but pictures were not allowed. However I did sneak a few on my iPhone :P
Me and my host mom (Paloma) in front of the Church
The church on the right is the original and the one on the left is a copy. They use the copy for actually masses, as you can tell there was one going on when the picture was taken
There is A LOT of graffiti around Madrid. This was awesome and realllyyyy good.
Another example of awesome graffiti.
Francesco de Goya. The one who painted the Church.
A rabbit someone drew. idk it was cool at the time.
VERY famous restaurant that we ate at. Apparently a lot of movies were/are filmed here
Want some wine?
My host father is a camera man for Antenna3 so I decided to shoot a documentary nbd.
Big amusement park.
Typical
My homework.
My class schedule
Neck stretches. Just some notes from class.
Thank goodness Martha was able to help explain all of this to me haha.
This is how you solve hunger in the world. It's all here.
The mall, all marble floors.
Well hope you enjoyed that. If you made it through everything. I don't think it was that much though. Feel free to message me, comment, email whatever. I will try my best to respond when I am free. But as you can tell from my school work I have to study my butt off. If I'm not a super genius when I get back I did something wrong.
Seniors! \m/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)