Colegio

Colegio (school) started this week. I've been the new girl at school before. Back then, I got lost a bunch, repeatedly arrived late for class, couldn't find my locker/had a broken locker that didn't shut, forgot every single person I met, and went right to sleep as soon as I got home. But that was nothing compared to going to a school in a foreign country where not only did I not know how things worked but I couldn't understand when it was explained to me. Only, thank god, this time all my classmates were extremely helpful and aware of the fact that I didn't have a clue. Well, all might be a bit of an exaggeration. There were still a few teenage boys trying to convince me that some swear word or another was actually a polite way to greet someone. And there were the people who introduced themselves with an adjective instead of a name, like "soy rico" which loosely translates into I'm hot. But I either realized what was going or the girls I was with told me every time so it was all good fun.

This is how school works:
There are 1,000ish students going to my school from Kinder (Kindergarten) to 4 Medio (12th Grade). The school has two stories and two gyms. Each grade has two (I think... there might be some with more) cursos, or "class" of students. You stay with your curso from Kinder to 4 Medio. Each curso has a Profesor Jefe who is the teacher who takes care of everyone in that curso and, when you reach 2,3, and 4 Medio helps you plan for graduation and class trip and such. Until 3 Medio, all your classes are with your curso. In 3 Medio, you choose Humanista or Cientifica track and have three classes in that track that are different from your normal, curso classes. (I chose Humanista because Cientifica included a bio class and the kids here took bio last year so they're just continuing it while I know nothing about bio. Also, Humanista means an extra English class. And I like the elective Lenguaje teacher which makes that impossible class bearable. Also, I am a humanities type of person.) Nearly all the girls who I hang out with chose Humanista.

My classes: Educacion Fisica- Gym
                   PD Lenguaje- Spanish literature class for the Humanities track
                   Languaje- Spanish literature class
                   Filosofia- Philosophy
                   Historia- History
                   Religion- Religion
                   Matematicas- Math
                   PREU Matematicas- Math preparation for the PREU test (like SAT or ACT in US)
                   Ingles- English
                   PREU Lenguaje- Spanish literature preparation for the PREU test
                   PD Historia- History for the Humanities track
                   Biologia- Biology
                   Musica- Music (theory and playing and rhythms/listening stuff)
                   C. Curso- the time when the curso gets together with the Profesora Jefe to talk about our class
My uniform:

From left to right: Cony, Nacho, Carlos, and me on the first day of school. Cony is wearing the sweatshirt, skirt, tights and shoes. Nacho and Carlos are wearing the shirt, pants, and shoes. I am wearing the shirt, skirt, tights and shoes. You can wear either the shirt or the sweatshirt, it doesn't matter. Girls can only wear pants during the winter when it's cold. There are also sweatpants, but those are only for gym class (which is unfortunate since they're much more comfy than the skirt and tights). 

Wednesday: First day of school. We only had school from 8 until 1 because it was the first day (being an exchange student, I didn't realize that we weren't going back to school after lunch until my host mom told me to change into regular clothes so I could come to the grocery store with her). The first class wasn't actually a class. It was the school making sure that everyone who was supposed to be in the curso was there and the Profesora Jefe talking to us about this year. We had to fill out a form with our information (I realized that I have no idea what my address is, why my parents phone numbers are, etc. Carlos basically filled it out for me). Then we spent the rest of the time talking (talking in class is a big thing here. Also, formal respect of teachers does not happen here the way it does in the US. Everyone calls the teachers tio and tia (uncle and aunt) and they have to call for attention every two seconds. A normal class here would be considered really rowdy and loud in my school in the US.). There aren't many girls in my curso and they basically split up into two groups. The other exchange student and I were automatically included in one of the groups because one of those girls is Aim's host sister and they are all friends with Carlos. Aim and I had already spent time hanging out with all the girls in the group. Having friends is especially important here because during class everyone moves the desks into clusters and if you're not clustered with your friends you're the only one whose desk is still in the proper place. Second class was Humanities English. The teacher just moved here and she'd never met any of the students in the class except the exchange students. (I mentioned before- she speaks English really well and studied in the US for awhile). She introduced herself and announced this class would be all about communication (easy peasy). We started the unit "the world of teenagers" by using our prior years of classes (or fluency) to introduce ourselves. You know, the standard "My name is Sarah. I am 27. I like to shop. My favorite color is purple." We started out introducing ourselves to a small group of people then each group had to elect one person to introduce themselves to the class. My group, of course, elected me. All the other people presenting themselves used their notebooks. Apparently it's really hard for people here to say fifteen. I spent at least half an hour repeating "fifteen" over and over again so they could copy me. They kept saying fixteen (except for the one guy who said he was fifty. I tried really hard not to laugh.) After break, we were supposed to have chemistry class and instead had a high school meeting/welcome thing in one of the gymnasiums. A whole bunch of stuff happened and a bunch of different people said things. Everyone stood up and sang the national anthem (oops, don't know that) and the pastor (it's Catholic, so he's not a pastor but I can't remember the word right now) led prayers. The principal told us the rules: arrive on time, dress properly, no pololo-ing (pololo is the word for boyfriend which is also used as a verb to mean something like participating in couple-y behavior). At the end, Aim and I got to walk up in front of everyone and stand there while they talked about us. (I didn't catch what they said because it was all over the microphone system and there was enough static that it would be hard for me to understand in English let alone in Spanish. Although, I know that they told the students to take care of us because I only spoke a little Spanish and Aim spoke none and we had never gone to school in Chile before.) After that we went back to Chemistry and played two first-day games. One was "Me Pika". You say "Me llamo Christina y me pika el dedo" (my name is christina and my finger itches, you use your own name and whatever body part hasn't already been said) and then the person to your left itches the body part you said. It goes around the room without repeating any body part. The next one was a way of telling people about our summer vacations (yeah, didn't have that since it's winter in the US right now). We made two circles, girls on the inside in a small circle and guys on the outside in a big circle, and walked in opposite directions. When the Prof. called out stop, we turned to the person across from us and talked about our summer vacations. It's hard enough to understand everything in the first place, but in a room where its so loud you can nearly feel the vibrations in the floor, it's nearly impossible. At one, I went home with my siblings, ate a delicious lunch, and slept for a solid four hours.

Thursday: A normal school day. I understand the majority of PD Lenguaje because it was about communication and she wrote nearly everything on the board while she explained it. On the other hand, the only thing I got out of Biologia is that this is going to be very difficult. It was a class just for reviewing the material from last year. The only thing I reviewed was my ability to copy other people's notes. Historia was another story. I understood small parts of it, but it is very, very difficult to focus on an hour and a half history lecture when you only understand one out of every couple sentences. Basically, a long history lecture is one of the more boring things in the world (in my opinion) and that's only multiplied by a million when the words coming out of the professor's mouth might as well be nonsense sounds. On Wednesdays and Thursdays there isn't enough time to go home for lunch so you can either buy the actually passable cafeteria food (the cafeteria is tiny. A thousand students and its only slightly bigger than a normal classroom) or you can bring your own food. My little brother gets out of school at the same time we have lunch (he's in first grade at the same school) so my mom brings us freshly cooked food. After lunch, we have Lenguaje. All I have to say is the best grade I can possibly get in that class will be a 4 (lowest possible passing grade, out of 7). I already have an essay to read in the next two weeks for PD Lenguaje and we were assigned another essay for regular Lenguaje for the same time frame. She said that this was a very difficult essay to read and most of the class would struggle with it. That's gonna be fun. Oh well. I'll learn a lot. 

Friday: Another normal day of school. Whoever designed the schedule for my school wisely recognized that nothing gets accomplished on Friday afternoons so I have three classes in the morning and school ends at one o'clock. I have PD Historia, Musica, and C. Curso. I understood a surprisingly large amount of Historia and Musica. C. Curso was just electing president and deciding what fundraisers to do and the like. In the late evening, I went with Carlos and a bunch of our classmates to one girl's house. We made pizza (here, making pizza means putting tomato sauce, cheese, oregano, and ham on a flat, round piece of bread and heating it. Muy rico), played futbol and other games, sang karaoke. 

Saturday: All the exchange students in my town had a get together. We ate a delicious breakfast filled with sweets (cookies, brownies, some sort of pastry with manjar in the middle, and cake) and then went to the campo para hacer canopy (zipline). It ended up being too windy to do anything, 100 km/h winds, so we might be going back tomorrow. 

    Dion from Denmark, Max from AFS, Jan from Denmark, Carlos from AFS (not my brother), me, Prisci from AFS, Aim from Thailand

Note about time zones: Chile was previously two hours ahead of the USA (8 in the US, 10 in Chile). Today US jumped an hour ahead on daylight savings for springtime and Chile jumped an hour back on daylight savings for fall time. So, for the rest of my stay, the time in Chile and the time in the US are the same. 

Second note: I may have been lying about this. I'm not sure. The Internet says that the official time has not changed and will only change in April but all the electronic devices (phones, computers, etc) have moved an hour ahead. Everyone is confused.