Health & Fitness
My first week of school
There is a girl in my class that is from Argentina but moved to Canada and now moved back! She speaks english so well, without an accent or anything! She translates everything for me, she has been sooo helpful.
Posted by Erin Jacobsen at 11:59 AM No comments: Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookI really like my classmates here. Our whole class is so close because we spend all day together, there isn't any groups everyone gets along. The girls are so welcoming, on the first day they all talked to me and introduced me to everyone! I had no reason to be nervous! I felt like I fit in perfectly on my first day! The girls have already invited me to go to movies and go out with them! Because we are seniors, starting in October there are parties every night of the week. Like on school nights people still go out till 5 AM!!!! Our class will all go out together in our uniforms and come to school the next day running on no sleep!! I have not done that yet..... I don't even know if I could! On my first day I was so nervous!! I mean I don't know spanish that well and I didn't know anyone but it all went perfectly! Everyone kind of looked at me with big eyes like "oh there is the new american girl!!" but it was funny to see everyone looking at me, I'm a week and 2 days into school and nothing has changed. All of my teachers were very nice and understanding, most of them were surprised I even came to school! Most of my teachers told me I could just sleep in class because I won't know whats going on. Also the school year here ends in the last week of November so the year is almost done!! In November the senior have a "prom" but you don't wear long dresses and it is not run by the school, all of your classmates pile in money to rent a party "house" and to get a band or 2 to play. The party "house" it like one big building, there is an upstairs "VIP" area and a downstairs, all the girls get together and pick a theme and decorate the building. Before the dance,which is on a weekday, we all get together with our families and eat a big dinner. Then around 12pm our families leave and all of our friends from other schools come and we have our party until its time to go to school! It sounds really crazy but thats completely normal for here.
Posted by Erin Jacobsen at 11:59 AM No comments: Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook
MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2013
You treat teachers more like friends, that I think is the biggest difference between school in the US and school here. San Luis is a private Catholic school, your average day starts at 7:30 AM but you can be a little late and ends at 1PM on most days. On Wednesdays school ends around 2 for my class because we have an extra religion class. On Friday, girls in the last 2 years of school have gym from 1-4 but it takes about 30 minutes to get to the field and we eat for an hour or so. We take a "school bus" which is more like public transportation bus with plastic seats to San Luis hockey and rugby club, we use the fields for gym class. For the most part you sit around and talk in the bleachers and if you want you can go play hockey or volleyball but most girls just sit around and talk. On an average day you start by walking into class and greeting almost everyone with a kiss on the cheek then you walk outside and stand in your class row while people bring up the flag to the national anthem of Argentina. Then you walk back to class, you have a little bit of time to talk and mess around. Here when teachers aren't in the room the guys go crazy, they start like yelling and "play" fighting with each other and lift of chairs and desks and even other people. If the teacher sees any of that happening they don't do anything, sometimes they just laugh. When the teacher walks in everyone stands up behind their desk and says "Buenos dias" and sits down, then the teacher or a classmate reads a prayer and you start class. Normally you have 5 classes a day, you stay in the same class all day and teachers move rooms. Each class is 1 hour long and you have a 10 minutes break every hour besides the first hour. During the break you go to the Kiosko inside the school and buy food, go to the bathroom or talk to friends. At San Luis you get around 20 absences a year... that is a lot compared to the US, but sense school is not taken as serious here you can just skip school if you're too tired or not go to gym. The classes I have to take are: math, chemistry, literature, english(which is funny), biology, philosophy, religion class, physics, econ and an environment class. You alternate classes each day so you don't have have same classes everyday. Although I have no idea what the teachers are saying most of the time they are very nice to me. I copy down my friends notes and try to translate as much as I can in my head but for the most part I work in a spanish work book. The best part is not having to take tests because I don't understand anything yet, most teachers just tell me to sleep.
Posted by Erin Jacobsen at 2:44 PM No comments: Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2013
I have just completed my first week of school at San Luis! San Luis is in the middle of the city and looks a lot smaller than it actually is. San Luis is a private school, most people here go to private school if you can afford it because the public schools here are not very nice. All education here is free unless you go to a private school. My school is all made of brick and cement like everywhere else, its 3 stories tall, it has a huge court yard in the middle and a Kiosko to buy food. Your average class room has around 25 seats and you have your own small desk, a metal chair that screeches when it gets pushed back on the floor, a chalk board, 2 big windows, ceiling lights you use only if necessary and a medium sized teacher desk. Here you stay in the same class with the same classmates all day, so you become very close with them. The only time you get out of the class room is to go to the computer lab, the biology room or recess. You get a 10 minuet recess at the end of every 1 hour class, during recess you buy snacks from the Kiosko and run around and talk to friends. School is 7:30-1:00 so you go home for lunch. Also San Luis has all grades K-12 in at at the same time, so you are around younger kids during recess.
Posted by Erin Jacobsen at 2:54 PM No comments: Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook
