I am now writing another blog for the week of the 25th till the 2nd of December. So this week was a bit special, but not during school. School on Monday commenced with the usual reciting of the pledges and singing of the anthems. It is getting really annoying, but I am glad that it is only one day a week. I spent most of the day catching up on work that I missed from the week before. Literature class was special, because the teacher was not there. Unfortunately his mom was not doing well, health wise, and he went to be with her. Instead, the teacher of Lenguage came to our classroom to monitor us. She made us answer questions in the book about different famous spanish works, and then we had to memorize a poem. I was the only one who was able to memorize it during the class time. She was pretty happy.
Tuesday was nothing new, and Wednesday was the first of three days that we had more competitions in English. After school, at 4, we had a different aspect of English. Wednesday was Reading. This day was the easiest. We read a paper and answered 7 simple questions. Well, at least for me it was easy. After the competition on Wednesday, I went immediately to an AFS meeting. We just discussed all of the upcoming events with Christmas and such. Apparently, on the 22nd, we are going to deliver clothing to a poor town, and each person needs to bring like 10 kilos of clothing. In order to do this, Claudi and I decided to make an announcement at our school to help us. Also, we are all going to go in a costume of a character from Christmas, like Santa, Mrs. Clause, an Elf, Rudolf, the Grinch, Mary, or an Angel. I am not going to tell you who I am going to be because it will be a surprise.
Thursday was Writing. We went in the room and had to write either a conversation, an essay, or a poem. I think I was the only person to write a poem, but with rhyming and all, I can understand the difficulty. On Friday, in the morning, Claudi and I announced that we need clothing to donate to poor kids in front of the whole school. It was a bit nerve wracking, but we did it. After school, we had the competition for Listening and Spelling. First, for the Listening we had to Listen to 30 small conversations and then a question and then mark the write picture that answers the question. After that, we had spelling, which for me was the hardest and most annoying. I finally realize what the downfall of learning a language in the classroom can be. The teacher is a native spanish speaker, so he is teaching the kids in a spanish way. The pronounciations of the words was totally demolished, and it took all I had not to scream or beg the teacher to help. For example, the word swum was pronounced like swoom, and hidden was pronounced like hi-den, and meant, was like meent. It was quite annoying, and I left half the words blank.These were all opcional activities, and none were mandetory. Also, on Wednesday, I received my grade on the second exam for placement in the coming year. I was 32nd place this time. Which is a big increase from 95th the last time.
Saturday, we had another soccer game, but this time, I swear the team was all 17 and 18 year olds because they were huge, but we played strong and only lost 4-0. Afterwards, I went to the park to wait for my parents to come and pick me up. While waiting, I got bombarded with a group of teenage girls who all wanted photos with me. During this, my family showed up, and Kris saw me with the girls and once they all left, she ran up to me and hit me and said that I was bad. I take it she was jealous. After that, I got my first haircut in Peru. It actually turned out really nice, and i got some compliments from the girls at school. That night, I kind of just relaxed because the next day was an event with AFS.
Sunday, was the tour with AFS, which started out in a way that was quite scary. At 9 we were supposed to meet at Cruz del Sur, the bus station. When I showed up, I was the third person, but Yenthe and Shirley showed up soon after. We had gotten a message that Yenca and Marcus were not coming, but we were positive that Claudi was coming. We waiting for about a half hour and then we decided to call his grandmother. She said that he was in the Parque Constitucional, so Yenthe and Laura went to get him. Unfortunately he was not there, so we called Laura's sister thinking he was at her house looking for everybody. We found out that he was not there either, so then we all started to worry. We ended up calling a couple more people and then decided to walk to the Park again. On our way, we ran into Claudi's uncle and he said that Claudi is waiting on the corner in the park. He was there and after we all joined up again, we found out that Claudi had left for Laura's house about 2 minutes before Yenthe and Laura showed up for the park, then Claudi showed up at Laura's house about 10 minutes after we called, and Laura's sister did not call us to tell us that. After that little mishap, we went to the store of Yenthe's mother. We all got Panetón, which is a sweet bread like cake thing that comes in different flavors, and sizes. It is really popular in Peru, especially around Christmas time.
After loading up on food, we got onto a bus to Jauja, now about 2 hours late. which was our first location that we went to. This bus was big, but the seats do not provide much leg room. In fact none of the public transportation provides enough leg room for someone with long legs like me. So after riding in this bus for an hour, my legs really hurt. Once in Jauja, we took a taxi to the Laguna de Paca. This Lagoon is a big tourist destination in Junín. It is also really dangerous and has many stories. One story states that there is a town underneath the lagoon with Mermaids and such. Also, there are lots of dead bodies in the lagoon because of the dangerous currents and the ground underneath the lagoon is like quicksand.
After getting on a boat for a tour of the lagoon, we returned in Mototaxi (basically a motorcycle that has two wheels in the back and a big box around the whole thing to seat people) to Jauja where we took a bus back to a restaurant to eat lunch. The restaurant was between Concpetion Mountain and Jauja. The food was really good. I ate Chicharron de Trucha again, which is Trucha (a fish) cut up into small pieces and then fried like chicken fingers, but not as crispy. After we all ate, we got into a combis to go to conception, but I told everyone about the ice cream factory with really good fresh ice cream, and we ended up going there first.
At the base of conception mountain, we bargained with a taxi driver to take us up the mountain for a good price. Unfortunately, that good price also meant that 7 people were sitting in 4 seats, so it was really tight, and I (being the smallest, but the second tallest behind Claudi) ended up laying halfway between the front and the back of the car with my stomach scrunched between the two front seats. Not the most comfortably situation to drive up a mountain, but it worked out. At the top, we all ate Panetón and drank Inca-Cola, and took photos of everyone in different letters of the sign. After Conception, we drove back down the mountain, the same way as before, and took a big bus back to Huancayo, which conveniently passed by most of our houses so we could get off and walk the rest. When I arrived at around 7:30, I ate and we more or less finished the decorating for Christmas. I then fell asleep pretty quickly.
There are a couple TV shows that are popular here, and are not in the states. One is called ¡Yo Soy!, which means I am! Basically the idea is sort of like X-factor in the US, but the goal is to sound and look like the singer of the song you are singing. For example, if someone comes on and they are singing a Shakira song, they have to look more or less like Shakira and sound as close to her voice as possible. Then the judges decide if the person is going to move on, and once they have like 8 or 10 people, they start eliminating them once every week, and the last week, they decide who wins the money. It is kind of interesting, and a lot of people are singing songs in English, too.
Tuesday was nothing new, and Wednesday was the first of three days that we had more competitions in English. After school, at 4, we had a different aspect of English. Wednesday was Reading. This day was the easiest. We read a paper and answered 7 simple questions. Well, at least for me it was easy. After the competition on Wednesday, I went immediately to an AFS meeting. We just discussed all of the upcoming events with Christmas and such. Apparently, on the 22nd, we are going to deliver clothing to a poor town, and each person needs to bring like 10 kilos of clothing. In order to do this, Claudi and I decided to make an announcement at our school to help us. Also, we are all going to go in a costume of a character from Christmas, like Santa, Mrs. Clause, an Elf, Rudolf, the Grinch, Mary, or an Angel. I am not going to tell you who I am going to be because it will be a surprise.
Thursday was Writing. We went in the room and had to write either a conversation, an essay, or a poem. I think I was the only person to write a poem, but with rhyming and all, I can understand the difficulty. On Friday, in the morning, Claudi and I announced that we need clothing to donate to poor kids in front of the whole school. It was a bit nerve wracking, but we did it. After school, we had the competition for Listening and Spelling. First, for the Listening we had to Listen to 30 small conversations and then a question and then mark the write picture that answers the question. After that, we had spelling, which for me was the hardest and most annoying. I finally realize what the downfall of learning a language in the classroom can be. The teacher is a native spanish speaker, so he is teaching the kids in a spanish way. The pronounciations of the words was totally demolished, and it took all I had not to scream or beg the teacher to help. For example, the word swum was pronounced like swoom, and hidden was pronounced like hi-den, and meant, was like meent. It was quite annoying, and I left half the words blank.These were all opcional activities, and none were mandetory. Also, on Wednesday, I received my grade on the second exam for placement in the coming year. I was 32nd place this time. Which is a big increase from 95th the last time.
Saturday, we had another soccer game, but this time, I swear the team was all 17 and 18 year olds because they were huge, but we played strong and only lost 4-0. Afterwards, I went to the park to wait for my parents to come and pick me up. While waiting, I got bombarded with a group of teenage girls who all wanted photos with me. During this, my family showed up, and Kris saw me with the girls and once they all left, she ran up to me and hit me and said that I was bad. I take it she was jealous. After that, I got my first haircut in Peru. It actually turned out really nice, and i got some compliments from the girls at school. That night, I kind of just relaxed because the next day was an event with AFS.
Sunday, was the tour with AFS, which started out in a way that was quite scary. At 9 we were supposed to meet at Cruz del Sur, the bus station. When I showed up, I was the third person, but Yenthe and Shirley showed up soon after. We had gotten a message that Yenca and Marcus were not coming, but we were positive that Claudi was coming. We waiting for about a half hour and then we decided to call his grandmother. She said that he was in the Parque Constitucional, so Yenthe and Laura went to get him. Unfortunately he was not there, so we called Laura's sister thinking he was at her house looking for everybody. We found out that he was not there either, so then we all started to worry. We ended up calling a couple more people and then decided to walk to the Park again. On our way, we ran into Claudi's uncle and he said that Claudi is waiting on the corner in the park. He was there and after we all joined up again, we found out that Claudi had left for Laura's house about 2 minutes before Yenthe and Laura showed up for the park, then Claudi showed up at Laura's house about 10 minutes after we called, and Laura's sister did not call us to tell us that. After that little mishap, we went to the store of Yenthe's mother. We all got Panetón, which is a sweet bread like cake thing that comes in different flavors, and sizes. It is really popular in Peru, especially around Christmas time.
After loading up on food, we got onto a bus to Jauja, now about 2 hours late. which was our first location that we went to. This bus was big, but the seats do not provide much leg room. In fact none of the public transportation provides enough leg room for someone with long legs like me. So after riding in this bus for an hour, my legs really hurt. Once in Jauja, we took a taxi to the Laguna de Paca. This Lagoon is a big tourist destination in Junín. It is also really dangerous and has many stories. One story states that there is a town underneath the lagoon with Mermaids and such. Also, there are lots of dead bodies in the lagoon because of the dangerous currents and the ground underneath the lagoon is like quicksand.
After getting on a boat for a tour of the lagoon, we returned in Mototaxi (basically a motorcycle that has two wheels in the back and a big box around the whole thing to seat people) to Jauja where we took a bus back to a restaurant to eat lunch. The restaurant was between Concpetion Mountain and Jauja. The food was really good. I ate Chicharron de Trucha again, which is Trucha (a fish) cut up into small pieces and then fried like chicken fingers, but not as crispy. After we all ate, we got into a combis to go to conception, but I told everyone about the ice cream factory with really good fresh ice cream, and we ended up going there first.
At the base of conception mountain, we bargained with a taxi driver to take us up the mountain for a good price. Unfortunately, that good price also meant that 7 people were sitting in 4 seats, so it was really tight, and I (being the smallest, but the second tallest behind Claudi) ended up laying halfway between the front and the back of the car with my stomach scrunched between the two front seats. Not the most comfortably situation to drive up a mountain, but it worked out. At the top, we all ate Panetón and drank Inca-Cola, and took photos of everyone in different letters of the sign. After Conception, we drove back down the mountain, the same way as before, and took a big bus back to Huancayo, which conveniently passed by most of our houses so we could get off and walk the rest. When I arrived at around 7:30, I ate and we more or less finished the decorating for Christmas. I then fell asleep pretty quickly.
There are a couple TV shows that are popular here, and are not in the states. One is called ¡Yo Soy!, which means I am! Basically the idea is sort of like X-factor in the US, but the goal is to sound and look like the singer of the song you are singing. For example, if someone comes on and they are singing a Shakira song, they have to look more or less like Shakira and sound as close to her voice as possible. Then the judges decide if the person is going to move on, and once they have like 8 or 10 people, they start eliminating them once every week, and the last week, they decide who wins the money. It is kind of interesting, and a lot of people are singing songs in English, too.
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