Again with a lot of internet problems this blog is about the week of the 16th to the 22nd. Monday morning, the 16th, came with more exams, but luckily the schedule was changed a bit because it is near the end of school. For this reason, kids will come to school for the exams in the morning and then leave during the recreo, so the teachers changed the exams to the afternoon so the kids will have to stay the whole time. Monday's exams were Biology and Physics which are not too difficult, but are really annoying at times because of the amount of information you have to know. Biology was about the systems of the human body which is not to bad, but there is a lot of information in each system. Physics was all about mirrors and the different types of mirrors like concave and convex spherical mirrors and their different rules of reflection. Also, on Monday, I turned in my 30 page project to my Language teacher which she was overjoyed that I was able to do, and it gave me a huge relief to know that I had finished that.
Tuesday was Language, Literature, and Persona. This day I do not like, because it is a lot of memorization. Mainly the problem is Literature and again we had to memorize two time lines. Luckily we did not finish the other time line in class or we ould of had to memorize three. I memorized the time lines for the entire night before, which is the main reason that I did not study for the other tests which fortunately were not to difficult. Language was all about different types of words like pronoun, verb, adjective, and conjunction type things and then we had to know where to put accents on different words.
Wednesday was our last official day of school even though we had another day more. A lot of kids did not come on wednesday, but it was an official day. We just played games that I brought from the US in the morning. Left Center Right and cards were the most popular (yes they do have cards here, but they did not know a lot of the games that I had played before). After the first two hours, I went to the back of the room with Sol (a girl in my class) and Miguel (a boy in my class) to practice for the singing competition. Sol and I were going to sing Feliz Navidad and Miguel would play the guitar. We ran through it a couple of times and then we had to all go outside for recreo which only lasted about 15 minutes because then we had the singing competition and the rewards from the competitions in english. I am guessing that they did not count me in the competitions because it was unfair because I did not win anything. The prizes were English Dictionaries, which would have been nice, but it will benefit the other kids more. The teacher did gift Claudi and I a hat and scarf for participating in the different events with the other kids.
After the rewards, we had the singing competition. There were only two groups including us that were going to sing which was really sad seeing that there was supposed to be a group from each class. The first kid from the third year sang Jingle Bells in english and Rudolf in Spanish. If you have not heard Rudolf in Spanish you have to listen to it. Even if you do not understand it, the tune is really different and to me, I like it better than in english. After him, Sol and I sang our song. I do not know if you guys have heard of Feliz Navidad, but there are two parts, the first part is in Spanish and the second is in English, and then they repeat it. Sol sang the part in Spanish and then I sang in English. When I came in, all the girls started cheering which really helped the nervousness I had. Then when we repeated it, we sang together.
After the singing, we all had this little ceremony for the kids in the 5th year. We all circled around them and then some kids spoke words of encouragement and everyone ater cookies and drank soda. Then the director let us all leave school early at 12 so we went home which really helped because I was able to change and get ready for Lucía's graduation ceremony which afterwards I would be going directly to a Christmas dinner for AFS. The ceremony included a speech and the introduction of all the kids with their candles and then a special call to each kid to receive their diplomas. It was kind of exciting, but it was nice to see my sister graduating. I was basically the designated photographer for my family during the ceremony because the video camera ended up not having a cassette so they did not capture any films of the event.
After the ceremony I went to buy my gift for secret Santa that I needed to bring to the Christmas dinner that evening. Then after that we went to the suit shop to look at suits I could rent for the Fiesta de Promoción on Saturday for my sister which I was required to go to because I was her pareja or date. After finding a good suit, I left for the restaurant. I arrived first, and I sat for about 20 minutes until another person showed up in Peruvian time. Peruvian time is what they call the time in Peru because people are always late. I do not particularly like that especially for events that have a start time, but it is what it is. We all ordered food, which I ate Pollo a la Brasa. After we all finished eating and talking, we took turns giving our gifts to our designated persons for secret santa. This was really enjoyable because everyone would take turns saying stuff about their person and people would try to guess who their person was. After this we all took a group photo and then left for our respective homes.
Thursday we did not have school which functioned as a rest day. On Friday, I had a Clausura, which I think is something like a closing ceremony for the year. We all went to school at 9 and sat and listened to the directors talking and then sang songs and at the end we all received our grades for the year. Unfortunately, my name was not on the official list and I had to wait until the next Monday, Christmas Eve, to go to the school and get my notes. After the Clausura, Lucía and I went to the costume shop to rent my costume for the following day. Friday afternoon, I did not do much but put clothing in bags for the whole afternoon and evening. We only needed to bring about 10 kilos of clothing to give to the poor kids on Saturday morning, but I received about 30 kilos from all the kids at school, so I had to put each item in an individual bag with the age and gender of the person that could wear it. This took the whole night and I fell asleep at around 10:30.
Saturday morning, I left for the park with my sisters and niece at around 9. We arrived with our four giant bags of clothing and then Lucía and I went to the costume shop to pick up our costume while Angela and Kris waited with the bags. When we returned, Marcus and Jenca had shown up and then shortly after Sofie and her sister showed up. We loaded up the car and then Yenthe showed up with her two brothers to go. It was really tight because we had 10 people in a 14 person combis and each person’s amount of clothing and costumes for a 2 hour drive. Once we arrived we unloaded the clothing and then began to dance with all the kids that were showing up. Dancing in costumes is not the easiest thing especially when you are Santa and have big fake shoes over the real ones. This, along with the rain made it not so pleasant especially since it gets really hot inside a big Santa head. After dancing for about an hour and not being able to see much in my costume, we started to give out the clothing and hot chocolate to all the kids. This was the saddest part. There were about 100 kids looking for clothing not to count the mothers who wanted clothing for their kids. All the kids were wearing aged clothing and their faces and hands were really dirty. We tried to give clothing to everyone, but we did not have enough to give to all of them, especially the teenage boys. We had a lot of clothing for girls, but older boys we were lacking. Kids came up to us and asked if we can give them clothing and toys and mothers and fathers were asking for clothing for the youngsters at home.
We left at around 3 to arrive home at 5 and I ran home from the bus stop because I had to get home and change for the Fiesta de Promoción. It turns out that I arrived home in good time because Lucía was still at the hairdressers getting her hair and makeup done. I ate and then put on my suit which actually looked really amazing. When Lucía arrived home with Kris and Papá, they all changed and then Lucía and I left with Angela and Kris at around 7. We ended up sitting down for about a half hour before they called all the couples to go up the second floor to get ready to start the ceremony. The ceremony started with them calling each kid down one at a time with their date and then they walked across the dance floor and stood in a line until all 100 and some kids were called. This took forever and your legs start to ache from standing up. Then they reads some words which seems more like some books, and then they give each person a small glass of wine and they talk some more and then we are instructed to drink the wine and then dance with your partner. After about two minutes of dancing the fathers of mothers of the students of the promoción come in to dance with them. After dancing, you can continue dancing or go talk with friends and stuff. I ended up going with my family and talking with my cousins and aunts and uncles. This continues for a while and then they open up the disco Tec where there is music about 10 times louder and all the kids are smoking cigarettes and marihuana and drinking beer. I did not go into this place very often only when my sister wanted to go in to dance. I did not like this place very much. The same thing continued and I would socialize with teachers and family until about 2 in the morning when Lucía wanted to go home because her feet were aching. In actuality, I wanted to stay longer with Papá and Charleys and the uncles, but Kris was tired and Mamá wanted to go home. Angela stayed with the now drunk Papá and Charleys to take them home. After the long day, I wanted to sleep but was not really tired. I ended up thinking until about 3 or 4 in the morning and then I fell asleep.
Sunday, the 23rd, I slept in and did not do much. The only thing I ate was a bowl of cereal and Chicken at around 10:00 at night. There was a lot on my mind that day that I do not feel at ease to right about because it involves some personal issues with the family (and no, my family is amazing, I do not want to change families).
This week was really long and this blog is really long, but if you want to read it all you can. It is what I did the whole week.
Tuesday was Language, Literature, and Persona. This day I do not like, because it is a lot of memorization. Mainly the problem is Literature and again we had to memorize two time lines. Luckily we did not finish the other time line in class or we ould of had to memorize three. I memorized the time lines for the entire night before, which is the main reason that I did not study for the other tests which fortunately were not to difficult. Language was all about different types of words like pronoun, verb, adjective, and conjunction type things and then we had to know where to put accents on different words.
Wednesday was our last official day of school even though we had another day more. A lot of kids did not come on wednesday, but it was an official day. We just played games that I brought from the US in the morning. Left Center Right and cards were the most popular (yes they do have cards here, but they did not know a lot of the games that I had played before). After the first two hours, I went to the back of the room with Sol (a girl in my class) and Miguel (a boy in my class) to practice for the singing competition. Sol and I were going to sing Feliz Navidad and Miguel would play the guitar. We ran through it a couple of times and then we had to all go outside for recreo which only lasted about 15 minutes because then we had the singing competition and the rewards from the competitions in english. I am guessing that they did not count me in the competitions because it was unfair because I did not win anything. The prizes were English Dictionaries, which would have been nice, but it will benefit the other kids more. The teacher did gift Claudi and I a hat and scarf for participating in the different events with the other kids.
After the rewards, we had the singing competition. There were only two groups including us that were going to sing which was really sad seeing that there was supposed to be a group from each class. The first kid from the third year sang Jingle Bells in english and Rudolf in Spanish. If you have not heard Rudolf in Spanish you have to listen to it. Even if you do not understand it, the tune is really different and to me, I like it better than in english. After him, Sol and I sang our song. I do not know if you guys have heard of Feliz Navidad, but there are two parts, the first part is in Spanish and the second is in English, and then they repeat it. Sol sang the part in Spanish and then I sang in English. When I came in, all the girls started cheering which really helped the nervousness I had. Then when we repeated it, we sang together.
After the singing, we all had this little ceremony for the kids in the 5th year. We all circled around them and then some kids spoke words of encouragement and everyone ater cookies and drank soda. Then the director let us all leave school early at 12 so we went home which really helped because I was able to change and get ready for Lucía's graduation ceremony which afterwards I would be going directly to a Christmas dinner for AFS. The ceremony included a speech and the introduction of all the kids with their candles and then a special call to each kid to receive their diplomas. It was kind of exciting, but it was nice to see my sister graduating. I was basically the designated photographer for my family during the ceremony because the video camera ended up not having a cassette so they did not capture any films of the event.
After the ceremony I went to buy my gift for secret Santa that I needed to bring to the Christmas dinner that evening. Then after that we went to the suit shop to look at suits I could rent for the Fiesta de Promoción on Saturday for my sister which I was required to go to because I was her pareja or date. After finding a good suit, I left for the restaurant. I arrived first, and I sat for about 20 minutes until another person showed up in Peruvian time. Peruvian time is what they call the time in Peru because people are always late. I do not particularly like that especially for events that have a start time, but it is what it is. We all ordered food, which I ate Pollo a la Brasa. After we all finished eating and talking, we took turns giving our gifts to our designated persons for secret santa. This was really enjoyable because everyone would take turns saying stuff about their person and people would try to guess who their person was. After this we all took a group photo and then left for our respective homes.
Thursday we did not have school which functioned as a rest day. On Friday, I had a Clausura, which I think is something like a closing ceremony for the year. We all went to school at 9 and sat and listened to the directors talking and then sang songs and at the end we all received our grades for the year. Unfortunately, my name was not on the official list and I had to wait until the next Monday, Christmas Eve, to go to the school and get my notes. After the Clausura, Lucía and I went to the costume shop to rent my costume for the following day. Friday afternoon, I did not do much but put clothing in bags for the whole afternoon and evening. We only needed to bring about 10 kilos of clothing to give to the poor kids on Saturday morning, but I received about 30 kilos from all the kids at school, so I had to put each item in an individual bag with the age and gender of the person that could wear it. This took the whole night and I fell asleep at around 10:30.
Saturday morning, I left for the park with my sisters and niece at around 9. We arrived with our four giant bags of clothing and then Lucía and I went to the costume shop to pick up our costume while Angela and Kris waited with the bags. When we returned, Marcus and Jenca had shown up and then shortly after Sofie and her sister showed up. We loaded up the car and then Yenthe showed up with her two brothers to go. It was really tight because we had 10 people in a 14 person combis and each person’s amount of clothing and costumes for a 2 hour drive. Once we arrived we unloaded the clothing and then began to dance with all the kids that were showing up. Dancing in costumes is not the easiest thing especially when you are Santa and have big fake shoes over the real ones. This, along with the rain made it not so pleasant especially since it gets really hot inside a big Santa head. After dancing for about an hour and not being able to see much in my costume, we started to give out the clothing and hot chocolate to all the kids. This was the saddest part. There were about 100 kids looking for clothing not to count the mothers who wanted clothing for their kids. All the kids were wearing aged clothing and their faces and hands were really dirty. We tried to give clothing to everyone, but we did not have enough to give to all of them, especially the teenage boys. We had a lot of clothing for girls, but older boys we were lacking. Kids came up to us and asked if we can give them clothing and toys and mothers and fathers were asking for clothing for the youngsters at home.
We left at around 3 to arrive home at 5 and I ran home from the bus stop because I had to get home and change for the Fiesta de Promoción. It turns out that I arrived home in good time because Lucía was still at the hairdressers getting her hair and makeup done. I ate and then put on my suit which actually looked really amazing. When Lucía arrived home with Kris and Papá, they all changed and then Lucía and I left with Angela and Kris at around 7. We ended up sitting down for about a half hour before they called all the couples to go up the second floor to get ready to start the ceremony. The ceremony started with them calling each kid down one at a time with their date and then they walked across the dance floor and stood in a line until all 100 and some kids were called. This took forever and your legs start to ache from standing up. Then they reads some words which seems more like some books, and then they give each person a small glass of wine and they talk some more and then we are instructed to drink the wine and then dance with your partner. After about two minutes of dancing the fathers of mothers of the students of the promoción come in to dance with them. After dancing, you can continue dancing or go talk with friends and stuff. I ended up going with my family and talking with my cousins and aunts and uncles. This continues for a while and then they open up the disco Tec where there is music about 10 times louder and all the kids are smoking cigarettes and marihuana and drinking beer. I did not go into this place very often only when my sister wanted to go in to dance. I did not like this place very much. The same thing continued and I would socialize with teachers and family until about 2 in the morning when Lucía wanted to go home because her feet were aching. In actuality, I wanted to stay longer with Papá and Charleys and the uncles, but Kris was tired and Mamá wanted to go home. Angela stayed with the now drunk Papá and Charleys to take them home. After the long day, I wanted to sleep but was not really tired. I ended up thinking until about 3 or 4 in the morning and then I fell asleep.
Sunday, the 23rd, I slept in and did not do much. The only thing I ate was a bowl of cereal and Chicken at around 10:00 at night. There was a lot on my mind that day that I do not feel at ease to right about because it involves some personal issues with the family (and no, my family is amazing, I do not want to change families).
This week was really long and this blog is really long, but if you want to read it all you can. It is what I did the whole week.
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