joy joy joy

I'd say it's about time for another update, wouldn't you? This week brought some new challenges and an abundance of new lessons and joys, all of which I'll culminate for you on a stomach full of ribs, olive oil, fresh bread, roasted almonds, peaches, and coffee with milk.





We had our first few tests this week at school. Since I'm enrolled in the "Science" program, I have classes such as Biology, Chemistry, and Earth Sciences. The words and concepts are very similar to those in English... So it's fairly easy for me to follow along. For example, in Biology we're learning about Bioelements (bioelementos), including glucids (glucidos), lipids (lipidos), nucleic acids (acidos nucleicos), and proteins (proteinas). I worked my butt off in high school to understand these concepts and this year is proving to be a test as to how much I really retained. Since I've already graduated, my main priority for this year isn't studying and school, but rather learning Spanish. Turns out one of the greatest ways to learn a language is to work through it in textbooks and by taking all the notes the teacher puts up on the blackboard... So I'm studying while acheiving my goal of learning Spanish. It must be paying off, I'm recieving better grades than many of my classmates, which makes us all a little confused and leaves us laughing. Grading systems are a little confusing in Spain, I'm just starting to grasp them. In high school, the year is divided into trimesters. At the end of each trimester, there is an evaluation (literally, la evaluacion). That evaluation counts for 60% of your grade and is a summary of what you've learned the entire trimester. Within the trimester, you take two tests which account for 40%. Everything is graded out of 10 here and a 5 is considered a passing grade. The two tests are averaged at the end of the trimester. So, if you get a 4 on your first test, you need to get at least a 6 on the next test in order to pass that trimester, taking into account the evaluation. I got a 6.5 on my Biology test (the third best in my class), a 5.4 on my Chemistry test, and similar scores on my Philosophy and History tests. My teachers are very understanding about my grammar, because if they had been taking into account gramatical errors, I think I would have scored much lower :)



I'm still flourishing at school in terms of friends and conversation. My only frustration is that sometimes my friends want to improve their English, so they insist on speaking to me in English the whole day... But I don't worry too much about this because I can already see how much my Spanish has improved since I got here. All I can say is that I'm incredibly thankful for the people that reached out to me in school. They absolutely didn't have to, my language restrictions would have made it easy for them to just dismiss me, but they were kind anyways and now we can all laugh and speak conversationally throughout the day because of their patience and good hearts. I talk to new people each day and butt heads with my English teacher on a new concept every day. I never ever correct her, even though she's often incorrect but as soon as I falter in one area (such as the "formal" method of speech which we NEVER use) she's all over my case. I kindly told her the other day that she's a native Spanish speaker, just like I would never correct her on her Spanish I'd appreciate if she wouldn't correct me (the native English speaker) on my English. She's been leaving me alone a little more as of late. My friend Jesus always requests a Smackdown between us and tells me how much Laura (that's my English teacher) has "owned" me. Unfortunately, Jesus can't really pronounce owned so he says "own-head", which in itself makes me laugh. What a kooky crew we all are :)

Yesterday (Saturday, October 24) I went on an expedition to the mountains in Madrid. There are about 20 of us living in the Madrid area and the large marjority of us met and treked up to the highest peak in Madrid. I'm a little disoriented without the distinct changing of seasons, the trees are barely changing colors, and it's still a gorgeous 70 degrees most days. The mountain hike was difficult to say the least, I'm feeling it today but it was entirely satisfying to reach the top above the clouds laughing and completely content with the other exchange kids, all of us looking at the others realizing "We're in Spain. On top of a mountain. What more is there?" The well-being of exchange students is very much dependent on the weather. On days where it is sunny and decent outside, you can always find something to do, the skies are clear-- go take a walk, sit in the park and draw, meet up with a friend for a McFlurry. Earlier this week we had our first bout of nasty weather, overcast skies and drizzling rain, capitalized by cold. Those days were hard for me, I tasted boredom and felt the guilt of being on my computer just a little too much. But I got through those days and appreicate them all the more now. Talking to former exchange students is incredibly helpful, I love hearing stories and encouraging words never get old. We all go for different reasons and we all end up coming away with different lessons learned, but we share a bond of adventure and uncertainty. We all identify with the other in some special way. It doesn't matter how many preparation meetings you attend, how many "tips" you recieve, or any amount of past experience is shared, there are some things about being an exchange student that are just plain hard. But it's weekends and days like mine on the mountain that make you put every bit of the difficulties in perspective and love what you have and love the time you have left and the time that has passed. There are too many things to count that I'm looking forward to, if these months are supposed to be the "hard" ones, I can't wait to see how high I'm going to get the chance to fly. I love Spain and everything it's teaching me. A part of me never wants to leave and I love that, but a part of me is excited to go home, which I also love, because it's an affirmation of how much I appreciate what I have to go home to. But not yet, folks... I have a whole lot of living yet to do in this gorgeous country, and I intend to embrace if fully.

Besos, Sami