Mikkel In Argentina

My Final Post

2010-02-02T12:26:00.000-08:00

So, as you may have noticed, I haven't posted anything for quite some time! However, here is the summation of my experience, in the form of a letter.

It is often said that a picture is worth 1000 words, but I prefer to think that an experience is worth more than words -- more than any number of words. To be an exchange student is an experience of a lifetime, they tell me; but, I tell them that to be an exchange student is a lifetime of an experience. While I only stayed in Argentina for a duration of five months, the five month experience will be forever present.

From the exchange, I gained a family, memories, friends -- a separate life -- completely apart from that of the U.S. Some may ask: "Was it easy?" no; "Was it fun?" not always; but, "Was it worth it?" it was worth every single moment. It teaches you about more than simply a language. It teaches you about life in every meaning of the word; it teaches of maturity, acceptance, diversity, personal worth -- what it is to live in a just and decent world.

It was during my experience that it occurred to me the following: the purpose of life is to learn how to live. And the way to learn is by living -- by experiencing experiences. It is in this way that I thank all of you for your support. I thank you for helping me to learn how to live -- for helping me to live. With your help I was able to have an experience unique to me that will forever make me, me, and unique in my own special way.

I was once told that the sky is the limit. This isn't true. The sky is the limit only if you let it be. The sky is the limit, but only for those who don't fly past it.

~Mikkel Christensen

A Day in the Life of Mikkel!

2009-12-01T07:03:00.000-08:00

It begins with the sound of my mom's voice waking us up anywhere between 6:20 and 6:40. Then I go to the bathroom to change and do all of my morning things. My brother changes in the bedroom (we share a room). Then, I walk to the other end of the house, and I eat breakfast. Sometimes I eat cereal. Other times, I eat a peanut butter sandwich. Yes, they do have peanut butter here, but only in 1 single store in all of Comodoro Rivadavia which has along the lines of 200,000 people. At 7:15, we leave for school.

We get to school at 7:30. Can you guess what time school starts? Yep, you guessed it, 7:30. We usually get into the school AS the bell is ringing, so we have to run up 3 flights of stairs to the top in order to get into the lines. Now, a teacher tells us what to think for the next 10 minutes (on average), so I just twiddle my thumbs and think about the coming 12 hours of school. Afterwards, we go to the classroom and begin the school day. We have 2 breaks in the morning school session. I don't remember the times off hand, so we have 2. Anyway, they last about 10 minutes and, you just basically go and grab a snack or talk or play cards for 10 minutes.

At 11:50, pretty much everyone goes home to eat. You quickly run out to the bus stop and hope that they aren't too late. It takes me about 40 minutes to an hour to get from school to my house. I get home, take off my suit, put on my gym clothes, eat, and then leave for workshop and gym at about 1 or 1:10. We get at school again just in time for workshop which starts at 2. Then we have another 10 minute session in which we are in single file lines listening to what some guy thinks. After, we go on to begin workshop. We have workshop for 3 hours and do all kinds of things. Afterwards, we have an hour break before gym, so most people play soccer for an hour.

Gym starts at 6, and we start right away with whatever activity we are doing for the day. Finally, at 7, we go home. Sometimes my mom picks us up, but for the most part, we take the bus home.

I finally get home at 8'ish. From there, I watch tv, sleep, eat, shower, go to bed, and wake up the next day.

Thoughts.

2009-12-01T06:39:00.001-08:00

In a school, the objective is to insight a yearning to learn, correct? The objective is to teach the students: how to learn; how to think; how to act; how to problem solve. Just today I was told that in the school in which I attended for the duration of my exchange one teacher managed to fail 28 students out of a class of 30. How is this possible while still achieving the above goals? Clearly, atleast one objective is not being met, if not more. This teacher was then applauded by his colleagues for his class being so difficult (thus good??) that almost not a single student was able to pass it. That's what we want, right? For 94% of a class to fail, that's what we want, right? We want people to be involved in their schooling experience, so we make them fail because that will make them more excited to go to school and learn, right? There is something flawed here. This is not a school.

The other day, a student was being tested on a series of topics. This test involved a person being brought to the chalkboard and in a section of the chalkboard, they had to say all that they could about a given topic. The student in question didn't know much, that's for sure. So, the teacher began asking questions that he had not asked a single one of the other 34 people in our class. The student, let's call him John, John had no idea because, like we said, he didn't know much. The teacher then proceeded to give him a 0 out of 3.33 because the questions that he asked were not answered. But in reality, the questions were unnecessarily difficult. Not a single one of the other 34 people had been asked the same level of questions on this topic, and they were given decent or good grades. John then proceeded to say that he deserved at least a 1 because the information that he presented sufficed to earn a 1. John began to explain his case using more information about the given theme, but there were people talking; so, the teacher then asked for silence. But, he did so in a way that was most inappropriate. He said something along the lines of this, "Quiet down, I think John might actually have something to say." He said it with a tone that lends to disbelief and mockery. The teacher was then surprised when John called him a son of a bitch for his snotty remark.

How can we have teachers that fail 94% of a class? How can we have teachers that expect all of the world's respect, yet fail to give even the slightest amount of respect back in return?

Don't ask me, I'm only a kid, but something seems amiss. Don't ask me, I'm only a kid, but something needs to be done. Don't ask me, I'm only a kid, but somethings can only be solved by asking the kids.

Week ?

2009-11-25T11:03:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed, but I haven't posted anything for a number of weeks. The deal is this: I understand pretty much everything that people say. The routines are now memorized. Now, it basically amounts to living my normal life but in Spanish.

School ends this week, so I'm very excited because I can't stand my school. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all of my time now that I have more than a handful of hours out of school during the week.

I think I'll play a bunch of piano. I got permission to go to the art school and play whenever I want as long as the pianos aren't needed.

Link

2009-11-12T16:50:00.000-08:00

While I realize that these photos lack the waterfalls that everyone is hoping for, I only had about 20 minutes to upload. Tomorrow and in the following days, I will continue to add more photos.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikkel_christensen92/

Until next time,

Chau!

Trip to the North!!

2009-11-12T14:11:00.000-08:00

For those of you who don't know, I went with about 30 other exchange students to the North. We went to three cities: Jujuy, Salta, and Iguazu.

To start with, I live in the South. About as far south as you can get. So, these three cities are in the very north of the country. As you can imagine, Argentina being very long, it took a VERY long time to get there -- 40 hours in a bus to be exact. The bus was pretty much what you would expect -- boring. To top of the extreme levels of boredom, the drivers have no idea how to regulate temperature, so the bus (this time) was extremely hot. It was about 80-85 degrees at all times with very limited airflow.

The actual trip finally began the next day after we arrived. It began with 12 hours of driving from Resistencia, Chaco to Jujuy. We were right on the downtown strip, so most of the people went and explored the city. It is a little bit smaller than Comodoro, having only one street of shops downtown. We later went for a tour of the city. Being small, we didn't visit many things other than churches here. We saw the first national flag of Argentina, and the state house that it is currently in.

The next day, we went to several small villages in the mountains surrounding Jujuy. They really gave an insight to the distinct culture of the north from the south. The terrain was gorgeous, so I proceeded to take a ton of photos. There was one mountain called "Siete Colores" or seven colors because of the seven different colors that are visible in the mountain side.

The next day we went to Salta. Salta is a huge and thriving city. We went up a chairlift type thing to get to the top of a very large hill, and we were able to get a bird's-eye-view of the entire city. I forgot to mention; being that these places are in the north, it is very hot. The day that we arrived in the north, it was 42°C with humidity. Casi nos morimos todos, estoy bromando. Salta had this huge plaza that is something like 2 or 3 square blocks. It was very cool. At night, tons of people flock toward the plaza where there are public music displays and other cultural events.

Iguazu was by far the coolest. Las Cataratas de Iguazu, las llaman. They are absolutely huge! They span for expansive distances in length as well as height. At one point we were on a catwalk above and to the side of one part of the falls, and depending on the wind, you could be instantly soaked by the massive amounts of water being sprayed off by the falls. I won't say anymore about this place; I'll let you see it for yourself later.

I'm working on making a Flikr page where I will put a bunch of photos. I expect to have it made and with photos within a short period of time, so I will post a link here on my blog.

Until later, CHAU!

Week 9 Continuation

2009-10-26T15:05:00.000-07:00

We went to this other school earlier this week. It was a public art school, so they had theater, music, drawing, and dancing, and other things I'm sure. We went there to check out the piano situation. Anyway, the public schools, here, all have a fence around the school to help prevent damage and grafiti which is rampant. The school was pretty much normal. It had classrooms that are basically the same as the rooms in the states.

A little bit of culture here...

Saturday was super busy for me. I woke up at 12 ish, ate, took a shower, and left for soccer at 2 30 with an uncle. Soccer started at 3 and lasted until 4, so I got home at about 4 30. Now, I had an invitation from the art school to come play piano at 4, but time isn't the same as it is in the states. The start at 4, here, means that people will start to show up at 4 30, and it will actually begin at 5 ish. When we finally got there at 5 ish, the teacher was just walking in the door.

Sunday was futbol day. Here in Argentina you are one of two things: River or Boca. River Platte and Boca Juniors are the two predominating futbol clubs in Argentina. Their rivalry is country wide, and everyone participates. It makes the Vikings-Packers rivalry look like a McDonald's toy. The game was at 4 15, so they had pre-game coverage for an hour or two before covering the records of the two teams against each other. Whenever one team would score, all of the fans for that team would begin yelling, pounding on walls, slamming doors, and doing whatever they could to ensure that everyone knew who they supported. Whichever team wins, it's fans are then able to go downtown and celebrate the victory. If you aren't a fan of the winning team, don't go downtown for your own safety. The police are on high alert whenever there is a Boca-River game. After the first half, the police had to begin patrolling because people begin to celebrate prematurely if their team is winning. Unfortunately, the game ended in a tie, so this means that there will be no celebrations downtown.

We went to a musical event later at night at the art school. The group had 3 people, two guitar type instruments and one cello. They played all sorts of music from Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia. It was overall pretty good even though I couldn't understand the words.

Week 9

2009-10-26T09:04:00.000-07:00

Okay more to come later, but before I forget, a joke!

One day, someone invented this machine... and this machine captures thieves. So, they put this machine in Europe, and in 1 week, every thief was caught. Then, they put it in the US, and in 5 days, every thief was caught. Now, they put it in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and in 20 minutes, somebody had stolen it.

Credited to: Fofo

Week 8

2009-10-19T09:31:00.000-07:00

Do you have male and female teachers? Are your teachers nuns? -- I have both male and female teachers; however, they are not nuns. While the school is catholic and they preach bible sentiment, they are not nuns.

What is your favorite food? -- Empanadas. They are basically tacos with stuff inside. It appears to me that there are 2, and only 2, types of empanadas -- Jamon y Queso (cheese and ham) or Carne (beef). Both are equally delicious. They usually put onions and other little bits of vegetables inside.

Have you had mate? -- Yes. Mate, for those of you who don't know, is a drink. It is a drink much alike tea. The leaves are called Yerba. What happens is they place a bunch of the Yerba leaves inside a gourd and pour water on top of the leaves. They then place a bombilla (a special straw) with a spooned end inside the mixture of leaves and water (the straw is basically like one of the straws for a slushy except with some sort of filtering device). The water is very hot, but in the north, the water is cold.

Week 7

2009-10-15T14:29:00.001-07:00

Three things first: 1) It is late because we had monday off, and I was sick for a few days.
2) Happy Birthdays ABOUND!!! While a little bit early, I can't be sure that I will be able to get on in the next few days. SO, Happy Birthday Dad! Happy Birthday Britta! Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!
3) Sorry to the people who have left comments! It wasn't until today that I realized people had fought through the mess of trouble in order to comment. I recieve no email or notification when you comment, so I will check my posts from now on. Thanks!

During school, we have something like 2 "periods". The first period, is classroom learning. The second period is workshop and gym. Between the two periods, we have 2 hours to go home and eat which is what most everyone does. Between workshop and gym, you have 1 hour. Most of the time, we just play soccer. Most people our age don't have cars, so you can't really leave or do anything in these gaps. In fact, I don't know a single person with a car my age.

We had a party the other day for the students. Why? Because it was students day -- a national holiday! We had hot chocolate and cake and talked to other classmates and teachers for a while. Note that the party was during the school day!

We went to an helado shop, and I got "cooquies" and chocolate with dulce de leche. Dulce de leche is basically caramel, but it isn't as thick. Needless to say, this helado confection was delicious.

We went to an asado this week, but this time, it was on a weekday. We showed up at about 9 or 9 30 and stayed until about 1. We left earlier than everyone else because we had Heber and Alexis and me who had school the next day.

We went to Dolavon this weekend. It is 387 odd km's away, so it takes about 4 hours to drive there with the occasional slow semi. The road is straight, flat, and without scenery. It's basically like driving in a flatter Nebraska... without farms. In order to get to Dolavon, you have to drive by the town of Rawson which is the capital of Chubut, the "state" that I live in down here. All 4 hours of the drive is spent on a 2-lane 2-way road. So, you are driving 60-70 MPH only feet away from a car driving the same speed, the opposite direction.

We went and explored some historical sites at a nearby town. The town was settled by the Welsh and has many Welsh aspects like tea-houses. Liliana, Heber, and I went to one. You get tea, small segments of cake, and bread with some jelly and butter. Princess Diana went to one of the tea houses here.

We went to a different asado. At this one and the other asado, they cooked the food in a different way. In all of the previous asados, they cooked the meat in either a stove, or a grill (basically the same grill that we use in the states). They placed pigs on stakes, and places these stakes with one end on the ground and the other leaning against the wall of the very large stove. In this way, the pig was placed at an angle, hovering over the fire. The pig was cooked on one side, but Ruben said something along the lines of the pig being its own insulation. When the one side is being cooked, the heat continues to rise through the pig, and the bones on the other side keep the heat in. This is what I think, anyway.

Week 6

2009-10-05T15:53:00.000-07:00

Recently, I compiled a list of burning questions from my avid fans, and it is in this week that I shall answer them!

What's the traffic like? Trafic is crazy. For the most part, they don't follow speed limits. Streets marked as a 1-way 2 lane road are made into a 1 way 3 or 4 lane road. However, stoplights do seem to be followed for the most part. There are many uncontrolled intersections as well. Almost all intersections are uncontrolled, and there appears to be some sort of rule to who stops and who goes. But, as of yet, I am unable to discover it.

What do you do after school? Depends. Mon/Tues: I go home because it's already 7 by the time I'm done with Gym. Wed: I have a C++ class with classmates. After, sometimes I go to classmates houses or do something with other people. Thurs: I usually just go home. Fri: All sorts of things. I go to the centre with friends. We go to asados. We go to parties.

Do you have to do your laundry? Simple -- no.

How far from the ocean are you? I'm not really sure because there is a large complex of industrial buildings between me and the ocean. The only good beaches are about a 10-15 minute drive from my house, though.

Have you done any interesting sightseeing? Kind of. The terrain around here is barren. As opposed to MN where everything is green, and there are trees everywhere; here, there is brown, ground bushes, enough trees to count on 1 hand. We went to a "nearby" town a weekend or 2 ago, Sarmiento. It was the same as here, and the terrain on the way was basically a brown Nebraska.

Wind. This place has more wind than I have ever seen. Almost everyday there is a ton of wind. With the wind comes all of the dry, brown, dirt.

When it doesn't rain, and there isn't a ton of wind, days are nice with warm temperatures.

This concludes my week of random facts. If your question was not answered in this session, please feel free to try again next week. Simply send me an email at Dudefootbal9@hotmail.com , and I will do my best to answer you questions in the next week. Be aware that my time is in high demand, and as such, I may not be able to respond in the first week. But do not despair! In due time, your questions will be answered.

Week 5

2009-09-28T08:33:00.000-07:00

Okay, not much happened this week, so the description will be brief.

People show up randomly at other people's houses. Most of the days this week, a random relative of the family showed up in the afternoon and stayed to chat for a while. It appears that they just happen to be in the neighborhood, so they decide to stop by for a visit.

On Thursday, the English teacher was gone. So, we had 2 hours free to do whatever. I played tic-tac-toe for about 5 minutes because I didn't lose. That is, I didn't lose until they made me go second. I finally came to the proven conclusion that it is impossible to win tic-tac-toe if you go second. Atleast, it is impossible if the person who goes first knows how to play.

I played soccer in an adult-indoor league the other day. It was with an uncle. I scored something along the line of 5 goals and got invited back the next time they are missing one. That went well.

Heber's b-day was just like any other 3 year old b-day -- tons of sweets, toys, games -- you name it. The party itself was at a game place with the big blow-up bouncy things.

Like I said, not much happened.

Week 4

2009-09-22T16:20:00.000-07:00

To start with, this week is late because we had a day off from school (a national holiday, Children's Day).

We had our first test in English this week. The teacher didn't even give me the test; instead, she had me give a review, in Spanish, of a book that I read, in Spanish. Also, I took my first test. The grading scales are interesting. To begin with, they are entirely subjective. Second, they decrease rapidly. If you miss one objective, the points decrease by half (from 2 to 1, 3 to 1.5). I wrote the test in Spanish, so I don't know either of the following: Can the teacher read my Spanish? And, are my responses anywhere even close to the answers?

We went to a classmate's birthday party on Saturday. As predictable, there was smoking, drinking, dancing, music, video games, T.V., boys, girls. I'll leave you to decide which of these I partook in. Well, I'll give one away. I experienced my first Argentino dance. I had no idea what I was doing, but I made it quite clear that I had no idea what I was doing before we started. So, the dad of the classmate turned out to be quite the comedian, and he showed me what not to do and what to do. He was pretty funny when I could understand him. And, I had some of the other guys show me what to do. People here don't seem to be able to understand that I have trouble understanding them with music. I have trouble understanding people without music, so how can music help the situation? I'll never know.

We went to the cousin's house with the video games again, but this time, I played board games. We played Uno, but they played with some very strange rules. I just played and didn't think about it. We tried to play Scrabble, but obviously, it was in Spanish. This went horrendously for 2 reasons. 1) They didn't know how to play, so they put pieces wherever they wanted. 2) I don't know that many words. I don't really know simple words like rod, axe, bar, or other short random words.

Monday, we went to Sarmiento which is a town about 2 hours away from Comodoro Rivadavia. Remember, that we had Monday off from school. So, in Sarmiento we met up with another exchange student from Italy. He speaks english pretty well, and we are at about the same point in Spanish (each of us knowing different things). So, we talked in English for quite a while. The Italiano came with us to several places in the city, and we had a pretty good time. We learned a little about the history of Patagonia/Chubut.

Week 3

2009-09-14T09:40:00.000-07:00

It appears that every Sunday is occupied by some sort of family activity. This Sunday, we went to a campground type place and made hamburgers and other meats. Then, we went out for helado, but I couldn´t understand the types of helado. So, I just got vanilla and chocolate.

We went to a Basketball game which was fun; but the most lasting effect on me was the fact that Futbol is everywhere. When the ball was on the ground, the players would do some sort of Futbol technique to pick up the ball.

The other day, there was some sort of march/protest (I´m not sure, and Alexis wasn´t co-operating), so the streets in downtown C.R. were bad. The bus couldn´t get to where we were, so we had to walk a mile or two uphill to find another bus.

In English, the teacher had me read some examples for the guys to comprehend, and they said that I sounded like the tapes that they listen to. Later that day, the teacher had me help grade students in their oral exam. It was terrible because I sat there and had to give peers a grade. In the US everybody would, jokingly, give everybody else either 10´s or 1´s, but here, I´m just getting into the groove and trying to make friends, so she makes me give out grades. (>.>)

On Friday, we worked on some school project, and after, we went to Alexis´cousin´s house and played some video games. We played a Tennis game on the Wii, and I went undefeated. After the tremendous humiliation, we played a racing game on the Wii. I went undefeated.

After the video games, we left for the Quinceñara. We had to dress up, but I don´t have anything nicer than my street clothes other than my school uniform. Anyway, we went, and I talked to several Argentinos for most of the time as well as Niklas, Var, and Lorenzo (the last 3 being other exchange students). The b-day girl was in a black dress with high heels and she was the last person to arrive. It was a whole ceremony where she walked up the stairs with photos and everything. She went through a whole speech thanking people, and she gave each person at the party a little picture key-chain with her picture on one side and the Argentine/German flags on the other. The party ended at about 3-ish and started at about 9 30 or 10.

Week Two

2009-09-07T15:50:00.000-07:00

Understanding people is still difficult, but it is definitely getting better as I am able to understand Liliana on an increasingly regular basis. We watched a movie in my Culture class, and it had subtitles in spanish which I was able to read and comprehend entirely.

We ate loads of delicious things. We had ravioli, a chicken-steak thing (and mashed potatoes), and some jell-o. We also ate some not so delicious things. I ate this vegetable torta. It is basically a big quesadilla but with vegetables inside. It was not my favorite, nor is it Alexis´. We ate some fish that tasted just like fish, so I didn´t like that. Oh yeah, we went to the house of one of Alexis´ aunts and uncles, and we ate these empanadas. They are basically tacos that are completely closed and filled with meat and cheese. At another asado that I went to last Sunday, I ate salchichas which are delicious sausages.

There was a large show at a local building that we went to. It had loads of cool music, dancing, acrobatics, and singing. The music was mostly some form of hip hop or reggaeton. They had a dance group perform traditional Argentine dances. Their clothes ranged from a simple suit )male) with a red dress (female) to a Gaucho, with the characteristic leather chaps, hat, and black vest (male), with a plain white dress. There was a boy (14 years old) who danced a traditional Argentine dance. He wore much the same outfit as the Gaucho dancers, and his dance involved the quick movement of his feet almost like tap dance except without the tapping noise. He was barefoot and his movements made a whisking noise on the ground. The dances themselves are difficult to explain. One of the dances involved the women standing in the background while the males (in their Gaucho outfits) did a tap dance type thing with large boots that shook the floor. A different one involved the use of two handkerchiefs (one for each person), and it was a single man and woman duo. They used the handkerchiefs to whisk about the other person. The majority of the dance involved the contact between the handkerchiefs and the other person. Not until the near end did the two dancers actually touch the other person. When the live music started (a rapper), the people went crazy. The premade aisles were extended by 4 or 5 rows of chairs as the people created a mosh pit. And no, cameras weren´t allowed, so I couldn´t get any pictures.

Asado

2009-09-01T09:08:00.000-07:00

We went to an Asado (a traditional Argentine cook-out like a Barbeque) on Sunday (seven days from when I got there) at a felow policeman´s house. I got some pictures, so eventually I´ll get them posted, or when I get back. But they cook meat inside a grill type thing. This one was a large stone oven not unlike a fireplace. All types of meat are eaten. I may have eaten intestine, but I don´t know. I couldn´t ask for fear or seeing it again. For all intensive purposes, everything was beef, even though it looked nothing like beef, and it was a tube of stuff with lumps. Anyway, besides what it may or may not have been, the food was delicious. Ahh, the we were supposed to leave at 8:30 to go to the Asado, so we left at 9 and showed up early because of the Argentine constant for being late. The Argentine people don´t have the sense of time that American´s have. If you are invited to a party at 8, then you plan to show up at 8:30 or 9. I guess the co-worker was quite a comedian. I felt pretty stupid when everyone was laughing, and I was sitting there twiddling my thumbs.

Alexis and I went to a friends house on Friday night for a party of sorts. We went to the store and got some pizza and pop. At 12 am ish, we went to the local hybrid-basketball-soccer-court/field (it was a basketball court with both soccer nets and basketball hoops), and we played soccer until 4 am. Then, we went back and tried to watch a movie but only got halfway through before we went to bed. At the party, Alexis asked me what they should fix or do better at the Cifuentes house, and I said "Nada." with a thumbs-up. I guess this can be misconstrued here as saying something along the lines of "nothing is good" or "everything is terrible", so the guys got a few laughs out of that one.

I played piano one day. The next day I played again, but this time I had an audience. About half of the class came and listened to me play. I´m not sure, but I might be playing a part in an upcoming school play.

We played chess, too. I beat Alexis and Alexis´ two cousins who were over. I beat one of the cousins so badly. She took 3 pawns, and I could have won with her taking 0; but, I was stupid and screwed up, so it took a lot longer. With Alexis, I pulled a beast manuever. I left my rook open for his queen in my corner, so he took it. I then trapped his rook and his queen in my corner using my opposite rook, a bishop, and 1 pawn. I used the same rook to protect my queen as I went in for the checkmate.

First Week 2.0

2009-09-01T08:55:00.000-07:00

The first few days were really difficult for several reasons: 1) I was constantly deathly tired; 2) I couldn´t understand a word anyone said; 3) I didn´t know the schedule; 4) Any number of things that I can´t think of right now.

Classes: This is a bit interesting. So, teachers change classes instead of students, but there is still a 10-ish minute break between each period called ´Recreo´ or a recess/recreation. They have a block schedule that includes: Energy, Machines, Workshop, Castellano, English, Math, Gym, and Culture; although, there may be more... I might just not even know we have them. You probably guessed it, this is a technical school. I strongly dislike ´tech´-stuff. Tech. Ed. in seventh grade was terrible. We had to do a scale drawing of this car from different perspectives, and Ben and I failed completely at it. Well, I had to do the same thing except, this time, it was a drawing of some huge machine. Well, it took me two hours to do it -- the first time. The second time I drew it (because the first one sucked) it took me another two hours, but it passed inspection; and, I heard about the drawing at home from Liliana because the teacher said it was "...mejor que los compañeros" better than the classmates. Math is what we did last year, so that wsa easy once I remembered what I was doing. Also, I´m doing something with Statistics. Some project is due on thurs/friday, but I need to finish translating the instructions before I will know what. For Castellano, because I would have no hope of doing what they are, I get to translate a story. It´s five pages long, but it takes about an hour per paragraph. I´m two pages in, and I have an entire page of definitions.

First Week-ish

2009-09-01T08:31:00.000-07:00

Well, the orientation was what we all expected: a lot of boring talking with spurts of interesting conversations with other Students. I found two other people from Minnesota which was kind of cool. I also found several students from Denmark, and I found out how to say my name in "Danish"... it sounds like Smeagul (or however you spell it) from LotR except without the "s", so "meagle".

Anyway, so we stayed there until Sunday at which time we went to the airport and sat around for several hours. Finally we got there. We drove through the center of Comodoro Rivadavia (pronounced riva-DA-via) and drove by my school.

So, the first night here went well. The temperature is comparable to fall except for the days where wind gusts are incredible. They have wind here that I have never felt in the states. I found out that if you go in the bathroom for any reason (contacts, toothbrush, comb hair), close the door. On the radio stations, there is a lot of american music. Also, there is one aspect of pure win: Boston Legal in english with spanish subtitles. Futbol is everywhere. Instead of one game every month in the US, there is atleast one game going at all times of the day. Often times, there are three going at once, on consecutive channels, no less.

Test

2009-08-08T11:27:00.001-07:00

Not gone yet! If you see this, then you are in the right place!