So week…6? Gosh time flies, am I right?!
Last week was so great =) it was the week after the trip to mexico city, so as you can imagine, we were all pretty tired, but we had to return to our classes! You know, sometimes I would like a day off from classes. There are so many free days in May that we don’t get off of school like the rest of the kids. Haha I understand it’s an intensive program, but wow. It’s intense. Spanish 24/7 is a lot sometimes. I speak it at home with my family. I speak it at school with my teachers. I speak it with strangers. It’s like we can’t get a break…I really relish the few times that I get to speak English with my friends. Sometimes you just need that to stay sane. I mean honestly. My Spanish is totally improving though. Like my vocab and everything is going great. I’m working really hard on the verbs. There are a lot of ones that I’m having problems with, but I’m trying to get them down. I mean, I’m doing great in the classes and ‘learning’ the verbs, but applying them to my actual speech is where the problem is. I’m not sure the context where it’s appropriate, etc. I’ve decided, though, that I’m definitely going to be enrolling in Spanish 300-level for fall term. I need to; I need to continue this and try to be ‘fluent’. Right now conversations are ok. Sometimes I need stuff repeated several times, and sometimes I cheat and tell strangers who say weird things to me that I don’t speak Spanish, but I guess it’s going to be important in my life to know more than just conversational Spanish. I’ll try, and see where it takes me!
Ok, let’s get back to the week =p Monday was pretty rough cuz we were all tired, but it was nice too because we didn’t have classes in the regular school, we had them in our other ‘back-up’ school because it was a holiday. (May 6, the day after Cinco de Mayo, they take off school, I guess. O, by the way, cinco de mayo here? Yea, not the same party that we have back home =p just want you all to know that. Haha they don’t do anything for it because it’s actually only a holiday for Puebla, a small state who won independence in Mexico. So there is your new information for life!) so we all went to this other school, I like it a lot better because it’s closer to home and there are more things around it because it’s nearer the center. Our first class, grammar, went by like usual and then in our oral class we watched a movie! =) we watched basically the equivalent of romeo and Juliet, but for mexico. It was interesting. We had subtitles on, so we could actually understand what was going on. Let me tell you, the ending sucked. Haha, but what can you do, right? I was just happy we didn’t have normal classes. Head needs a break sometimes. And after! Some girlfriends and I went to this amazing restaurant and got food and just hung out for a little while. That was fun for sure. Some of the restaurants here are just super chill and delicious.
Tuesday it was back to the grind at the normal school. We go to the tech college here where the engineers study. So, because it’s a mostly science school, there are definitely more men than women here. You get used to hearing a zoo outside of the window, I guess =p
Wedneday, Thursday and Friday were the norm. wake up, walk to school, sit through classes, get home, take a nap, eat ‘lunch’, do homework, use the O SO LIMITED internet, and then bed. =p my routine, it’s great. Haha I wouldn’t call life boring, I would call it super relaxing. I have no idea how I’ll survive back home without my daily nap. Here, if for some reason I can’t take my nap, like we’re doing something, I totally feel it. Haha I’ll need some readjustment time back home that’s for sure!
Wednesday I did have an oral exam. Yikes! It’s the second oral test we’ve had, but this one was in groups, and we had to give a presentation for 20 minutes minimum and 70% of our grade depended on the group part, not the individual part. It was kind of scary. My group, thankfully I like all the girls in my group, talked about music in mexico. It actually went SUPER good. I’m so proud of the girls and how hard they worked and how well we all did together. Other presentations we about the trip we took to mexico city and the differences in routine from back home and here. They were all really good. I feel like we’re learning a lot.
Thursday I actually got a few hours to myself just wandering around the center. I went shopping a little bit, but the main reason was to visit a museum for extra credit. I had to visit this museum, write about the location and exhibits and interview one of the employees. Eazy-peazy, right? Well, actually, for probably the first time ever, what was supposed to happen, actually DID happen! Haha it was fun. I’m definitely an independent person, and I love walking around alone and exploring by myself sometimes and not being responsible for other people. So it was really refreshing to do. And then after exploring around for a bit, I went back home to my house, ate dinner, and then went out with my friend to the market to buy flowers for mother’s day for our host moms. There was a birthday party for one of the people in our group that night with a piñata, but we didn’t really feel like going so we just walked around. I bought some flowers for the next morning to give to my host mom, and we just sat around after the market.
Then the following day, Friday, I had a presentation with another boy for 20 minutes. It’s like all of the hard things were all packed into one week. Our presentation was about superstitions in mexico. I honestly think we did a good job. We don’t know the grade yet, but I have confidence. Later that day, to celebrate mother’s day, my host mom’s entire family went out to a nice seafood restaurant. i kid you not, we got there around 2:30-3, and we didn’t leave until about 6. Talk about a lot of family time. It didn’t really bother me, I was just bored mostly. =p Once we got back home I got ready and then that night me and my best gal here, Rebekkah, went to our favorite bar/hang out and saw our local friends. It was fun! it’s always fun there =D I invited our friends to the Saturday excursion, but they couldn’t because they worked until about 4 in the morning. Crazy!!!
Saturday was so much fun! 8 of us and Luis, our ‘guide who goes with us everywhere is one of the most awesome people ever!, went to a waterpark in Tequisyapan. It’s a little city about an hour away from here. We met around 9 to go, but because of busses and things, we didn’t actually end up getting there til about 11;30 or so. then we took a pit stop to go to the tsore abd buy some food and drinks to take into the park with us. It was really fun! I got ‘tan’ and bruised on the slides =p we went home about 5 and arrived at about 7 ish. I would say it was a Saturday well spent.
Now I’m on week 7, but I’ll write more about that later 😉 lots has happened this week! Stay tuned!
we all gathered around danald duck at the water park!
some of my girlfriends and me having super fun!
we ran into the highway, and took a picture in the middle like stupid people.
luis and me!
