First Few Weeks of School

My first day of school was August 20th, at allegedly one of the best private schools in Tepic, called Cristóbal Colón. Every school here has a uniform, which makes choosing outfits pretty easy in the morning! This school has about 500 students, which makes it easier to get to know people. It's a beautiful school, the only rooms inside are the offices and classrooms, which have windows lining every wall. The rest consists of multiple courtyards, an outdoors cafeteria, and various sports fields. Quite a change from the jailhouse-style, windowless building I spent high school in! The perks of living in a tropical country, I suppose.

Modeling my new uniform!

The structure of school here is a bit different. High school is called Preparatoria, and there are 3 grades;  Primero, Segundo, and Tercero. In your final year, the students divide into classes with a specific focus. There is Physica, Humanidades, Biologia, and then a few more I forget. I entered into Tercero (the final grade), the Biologia class in the hopes that it will stop my brain from deteriorating before university. As far as the schedule goes, you start at 8 and have seven 45 minute classes with two twenty minute breaks and one ten every day. You end at 2:00. The entire day you stay in the same class with the same people (it's the professors that move), with the exception of English where you move to a class dependent on your level. On Thursdays, you have 8 classes, and start at 7 (Huzzah). Gone are the days when I woke up at 8:30 and squeaked into school a bit after 9:00, borderline tardy. As my mum drives me and also my three younger siblings to school in a different place, we leave the house at 7:20 most days. School here is also extremely religious, and there is a prayer every single class. It's still taking a bit of getting used to.

The school's "hallway". There are classes lining each side, two levels (motel style) . (For those of you from my old high school, Scarlett, you can appreciate the difference between this and the mosh pit that we called the back hallway)

On the 20th, I was originally only supposed to go in that day to talk to the director, but when asked if I wanted to start that same day I thought heck, why not? So there I was, all conspicuous in my bright pink dress and Birkenstocks amongst all these very dark skinned uniform-clad youths. I stood out like, well, a white kid in pink in a sea of green and black uniforms. (So, I guess it's not really a surprise many people knew who I was by the end of the day, despite me being sure that I'd never met them before).  The school coordinator introduced me to the class, I sat down with a borrowed pencil and notepad and then resigned myself to being awfully confused for the next few months. I should also mention I didn't know what any of the classes were, any of the teachers, the schedule, nothing. I quickly realized that the class I'd just dropped into was calculus, however, and my first thought was You have got to be kidding me. Again?! Noooooo. After spending hours slaving over Calculus last semester of high school, I wasn't too keen on repeating it. (However, I now realize this is actually a good thing, 1) it'll keep it fresh in my brain for university and 2) It's one of the only classes where I can sort of participate, not a huge language barrier when dealing with limits and calculations).

Anyways, not long after I entered the class, the bell rang and everyone started filing out. I didn't know what to do. I knew no one and had no schedule. However, this group of girls stopped at my desk and explained the schedule as we walked to the cafeteria. They were very curious about where I was from, whether I liked Mexico and much more. That break there was this huge group crowded around me, so many students came and introduced themselves (I promptly forgot their names), asking me about Canada, and trying to ask me about my interests, (albeit in rapid-fire spanish so that was a bit of a tricky subject to pursue) . These two girls came and identified themselves as past exchange students and said they were there for me if I needed anything, which was so nice. Also, a surprising amount of people told me they had been to Canada or the States for language courses, ranging from two months to an entire year! Everyone was so welcoming, and I kept getting all these random questions, your average stereotypes, the harsh weather, mountains, what Canadians were like... I even got asked why there were so many Asians in Canada! Throughout the entire day, I was like an incredibly awkward celebrity. In the classes I doodled and tried to understand, it was pretty boring. At the end of the day I walked down the stairs and out to the parking lot. So many people said hi to me, stopped to talk briefly, and as I waited the group of girls from my class asked me to come to dinner with them the following afternoon! Also, strangely throughout the day various boys came up to me and confirmed that I spoke French. They somehow already knew... I don't know how. Overall, I was so overwhelmed with how nice and welcoming everyone was! It was amazing, can't wait to get to know people better.

While no great piece of art, this beaut passed the time for four classes. I'd call it a success, it did it's purpose.

Look at this mess of a chemistry question.
 Translating oral spanish to written is not my strength, it would appear.

I'm now in my third week of school, and I still don't understand much of the classes. I can do most of Quimica- we are learning Gas laws that I learned two years ago- and Calculo. While I can do the chemistry questions, the teacher has an unfortunate habit of reading out the questions for us to copy down, which means I have to pester some poor kid after so I can copy off him and write down the words I missed/misspelt (most of them). Orientacion profecional is actually great, it's just presentations about various medical professions which is very helpful.  As for Historia, Geografia, Religion, Computacion (Computer programming- by far the most boring and pointless of all my classes), and Statistica, I haven't the foggiest idea of what goes in in those classes. Biologia is again at the level I studied two years ago, but obviously I don't know the words in Spanish. I do what I can as far as notes and problems go, but most of the time I give up on following the class and either make an elaborate collection of doodles or write french essays/ journal entries (yeah, that's how seriously bored I am). Psicologia is also a great class, filled with powerpoint presentations that make it easy to follow along (seeing the words written out really helps me understand). The best part, however, is the 15 minute meditation session that the maestro starts with every class. I don't know what the recording is saying, but it's nice to have an excuse to close your eyes. I've only actually fallen asleep once.

4 days out of 5, I have English class. Despite having to come in an hour earlier on Thursday to go to English first period, I can't hate it. It's too fun. Ironically, I was placed into Intermediate. The Advanced class is apparently full, but I don't mind. I would hope that, with English being my native language and all, any English class here would be dead easy. It will be the one class out of all that I actually get outstanding marks in. So, I have some good chats with my classmates, fill out parts of their workbooks for them (is that cheating?), and read the long sections of writing in the book when the teacher asks me too. I have a lovely british accent, apparently. Some fun times. Also, my projects in English have gone from writing deep, analytical essays about a theme in Shakespeare's plays to presenting a PowerPoint presentation about my favorite artists, and why I like one of their songs the best.

We slaved over this project, it was terribly difficult. Quite a bit of analysis went into it.

I wrote a Historia test on World War I (I think) last Friday for kicks. I actually got most of the fill in the blanks right! Cheers for having such a fantastic Social Studies teacher through high school that you adequately remember random names and countries and alliances, enough that you can figure out the answers in a different language! The written part I didn't have a chance, so I drew a lovely striped fat cat in the space. Maybe I'll get creative marks?
UPDATE: I somehow got everything right in the first two parts. (In the second part you were supposed to correct the statements, and I left it blank as I had no idea, but I guess they were all correct. Meaning I inadvertently got it correct.) I actually got a good mark, and people were mystified as to how someone with only a basic grasp on Spanish could get a better test result than them. In the third part, seeing as how I substituted a written essay for a terrible cat drawing, I think the teacher took pity on me and didn't dock marks. So, a 2 on the test (the best is a 2.5). Not bad!

Anyways, school is an interesting, very different experience! Often boring due to the language barrier, but I'm hoping for a quick learning curve.

Thanks for reading!
Wendy

One very un-artistically drawn cat