Tuesday, December 15, 2009

¡POR FIN!

So it´s December 15th, ya It has been awhile. Finally I have no more tests for a month, which means I will be more bored than usual. I have learned a lot in the last month. In the past month I have become able to understand everything people say, and if I say what, it is because I wasn´t paying attention or for some external variable other than I just don´t understand. I have learned that the things that bug me about my family are more or less brought on by the culture and I just have to get used to that. Last weekend was another AFS weekend. None of the girls could come so it was a man weekend......which I have not had since I left the US. Like we seriously talked about Lord of the Rings for 5 straight hours.....epic. Last weekend we had a picnic and a some AFS families came who have kids abroad or have hosted before. One family was a mother from Chicago, father from Spain, with a daughter in New York (with AFS), and an 11ish year old daughter who will study abroad later and is fluent in English and Spanish. The second family hosted and exchange student last year from Thailand (we talked (the parents and I) and turns out their exchange student acted EXACTLY the same has Now (my exchange student from Thailand I had last year). Anyway the father was a man who was born in California, raised in Austria (he calls himself Austrian) and when he speaks english has an American accent (which is very rare here since the majority of the teachers have british accents like my english teacher (who is spanish)). The mother was Austrian, but also knew English, and their daughters were 8 and 7. Their daughters are fluent in Spanish, German, and English. I thought that was cool that they were so young and knew so many languages. The parent said ya it will be useful for them when they are older but they don´t have a ´´mother language´´ I do and it´s just like a sanctuary for me when I can listen to english for awhile. I have also figured that you should never not go and talk to someone cause you don´t think you have something in common, because you do.....you both have the same language, culture, and grew up off of pokémon. I say the pokémon thing because that is global, the Germans know it, the Austrians know it, the Spanish know it, the Russians know it, the Danish know it, the Finnish know it, the Texans know it. Everyone knows it. Here is a thing I know from being a high school student, there are some people who can´t read very good, and some people who fail classes, Also this is for the one person who asked me, ´´Where is that?´´ When I said, ´´I´m going to Spain for a year.´´. ARE YOU KIDDING ME! You people need to do some thinking about yourselves and your future. Failing US school is like a tightrope walker who falls off the sidewalk. It shouldn´t happen. Im passing classes in a foreign language, I can read better in this foreign language, than some americans can reading english. Foreigners come to the US and get A´s in our classes when they can´t understand anything while our own english speakers gets C´s and D´s. On the contrary we are lucky school is so easy since our high school is pretty much only for making and maintaining a social life. Here you go home after school, eat lunch and study till about 9 o´clock at night. Oh and learn another language people! Almost everyone in Spain understands english, they won´t speak it to save their lives but they understand it. Ane people from other countries know english, for example I rode the bus home from Sevilla next to a Belgian girl...she knew English. Just some thoughts for you all to think about. Next Tuesday officially starts Christmas vacation, and knowing the Spanish there will be some fun times headed my way, so unless I find something incredibly interesting to write Feliz Navidad, and Happy New Year.

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