I am in something called ESO, although I forget what it stands for. its for ages 12-16. there are 4 grades within ESO. im in the 4th grade. within those 4 grades there are different groups. for my grade there's A, B, C, an D. each of these groups has different classes. I don't remember what I chose, but I ended up being in B. So after ESO theres something called bachillerato. there are 2 grades in this, but I don't know how it's split further. but both ESO and bachillerato are in the same building.
so anyway, I went up to look at the papers and found my name and it said E4B. I had no idea what this meant. so im just like riiiiight, E4B. so at that point people were starting to go inside, so I was kindof just following the crowd and ended up going to the top floor. the doors had signs on them like 4 de la ESO C on them, but since at that point I didn't know what group I was in, I didn't know which to look for. so I found a teacher and basically said I had no idea what I was doing. so he said what grade are you in, and I said 4, and he asked what group and I said no idea, but by my name was E4B. so he was like oooooh then youre in group B. although I don't know for sure, I think it stood for ESO grade 4 group B. but im not sure if the E is ESO. anyway, he told me where the room was and I went in and sat down. there were about 30 green desks and chairs, and one bigger desk in the front. also, the teachers use chalkboards here, not whiteboards, which is pretty sweet. anyway, when everyone had arrived there were about 23 people or so. so we started out by the teacher writing out the schedule for 4B on the board. here, we don't have the same classes everyday. they're very mixed up, like I have math 3 times a week and history 3 times but they're not at the same time each day. Im not sure why they do this, but its kinda nice to have something different everyday. also, the teachers switch rooms most of the time, unless its the time for our optional classes; for example, I could choose French or technology, so since I chose French, I have to switch rooms because technology is in our main classroom. so first we had fisica y quimica, physics and chemistry. since it was the first day the teacher just explained what would be in the class, not that I understood that much anyway. but then we had recreo, which is basically a 25 minute break where people go outside and hang out and eat food, since we don't eat lunch at school. since I didn't know anyone, I just sat alone. which kinda stunk, but I was really tired and didn't want to go up to a group of people I didn't know. so after that was done we went back to the room and had lengua castellana; Spanish. the teacher put some stuff up on the board, I think the word patrimonio, but I've noticed a ton of people have terrible handwriting here so its hard to read, and he was seeing if people knew what it meant. it was almost like a grammar lesson, but also vocabulary, but I didn't understand a lot of it so im not exactly sure. then we had our optativas (optionals or whatever), but no teacher came in with the list of what classes we had all chosen, so we sat around for like 10 minutes then we all wandered out to the secretary and someone came out with the list and told us. I had chosen literatura universal, so I had to go to a different room. this other guy also had it so I just followed him. basically the whole day I was just watching people and doing what they did, if you haven't noticed. so we got to the room late, and sat down, and I have no idea what the teacher said at all, but I would assume about the books we would read or something. school gets out at 220, but the teacher let us out early, so that was the first day. the walk home was hot, but its still super nice. by that time I was super hungry so I got home and ate lunch with ana; leftover salad and chicken. yum. also to explain why this post is called cole (co-lay) its because we call school colegio, like college, but college is Universidad, so the nickname for school is cole.
so that night I had my first rotary meeting at 9. my mom drove me to hotel pozuelo, where alex, his father, another guy, and his daughter were standing outside. so I got out and joined them, and my mom left. I had known alex from the orientation day, but no one else. so more people kept showing up, and eventually we went in and down a floor into this room with a long table and like 20 plates of food. wow. it looked awesome. alex, Mercedes (she's 14 and wants to go to the US next year), and I sat down at one end of the table, and the adults everywhere else. there were 18 of us, I think. anyway, we started eating and I tried a ton of new stuff. there was this pumpkin soup thing in a glass that was really weird, salmon, a special ham (which alex told me is the poptarts of spain, lol), this mushroom and fish salad (which is super weird, there's no lettuce, only this really thin and long fish and icky little mushrooms), Spanish cheese, some kind of tapa with bread, ham and onions, salad, this odd potato cake thing, and my favorite part; the bread. bread here is just fantastic. also there was this dessert table with a chocolate cake thing and a vanilla cake thing, but they weren't really that sweet, but it was good, and also fruit. so the meal was great, but overall the meeting was really boring, especially since I didn't understand anything. in the beginning, the 3 of us kids gave little presentations of what we were there for, lol. mine was really short because I had to do it in Spanish and I didn't know exactly what to say, but it worked out. alex talked a little about his experience in the US, and Mercedes said why she wanted to go to the US. but then after all the adults were arguing, I mean talking, about what to do with money, as alex told me. he was very amused the whole time. apparently it was quite funny, but I really had no idea. so then after 2 and a half hours, we finally got up to leave. I had met my counselor, Javier, and he gave me a ride home, after figuring out exactly where I lived, lol, I knew my address, but his gps was being weird. he's the guy I go to if I have any problems with my family or something. so yeah, I got home and went to bed because I had school the next day, and I was exhausted.
so this morning I had to be at school at 830, so I got up and got ready and left at about 805. I got to school and went in, same as yesterday, but today we had different classes. I had lengua castellana, historia, tecnologia (where I was actually supposed to be in French, so I missed the first class of French, but whatevs), recreo (where I sat alone again, but I wont be tomorrow!), ingles (yay English, I gave a little presentation and now everyone knows im a foreigner), educacion fisica (where I didn't understand anything but apparently we have to bring in clothes for gym) and tutoria, which we have once a week, and this guy, our tutor, makes sure all our classes are going well, and stuff like that. then school ended and as I was walking I saw laura (previously spelled lora but obviously I have hearing and spelling problems) and we walked home together and made plans for tomorrow. so yeah, school. fun. kinda.
also, I found this picture of my host father when he was younger and he looks like the guy from Up! lol its awesome
so now he has white hair, but seriously its exactly alike
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