Well, it turns out that about an hour after my last blog last sunday, I fell ill. I had a fever and my stomach was upset, so I ended up sleeping all day sunday. My family was really helpful, and brought me soup and water. Luckily I had brought some Iboprofen with me to Peru, so that helped relieve my fever a bit. After waking up on Monday at around 9:00 I was feeling much better, but I was still a bit queezy. I got up and joined my family for breakfast and then layed down again until lunch. After lunch, I was beginning to feel myself again and was able to join the family in their activities before school started the next day.
The last week of school was alot different. Four times during the year, the school has a week f exams where for all your major classes you have a big test. There are three tests a day, and the last period of the day is normal. This schedule is nice, because I do not get as much homework, but it means that I have to study every single night for three different classes.
On Tuesday, I started out with Language, Literature, and Persona. For Literature, I had to memorize two timelines with the characteristics, representatives, and classes of each time period, which, between the two, there were 15 time periods. Because of this, I spent most of monday night and Tuesday morning memorizing for Literature and decided to just wing Language, which after all, it could not be much different than the verb, adverb, and adjective rules in the US, or so I thought. Language turned out to be really difficult, because I had to right a whole bunch of sentences using different aspects of grammar. I basically just tried to use the english grammar and then translate it into spanish. Literature had two parts, which I did not know about, so I think I got a pretty good grade on the time line, but I knew only one or two of the questions from the first part. For Persona, it was basically a bunch of questions about your future and what you need to do to plan for the future, so it was basically all common knowlege, like you need to have goals, and know what you need to do to accomplish those goals, and then what you want the outcome to be.
On Wednesday, we had Civics, History, and Godgraphy. Civics was kind of difficult because I had to know the all of the basic human rights, like the right to live and the right to a job and the right to a residence. Unfortunately I was not in the school to learn all of those, so I did not know I had to study them and basically I used my bilingual dictionary to help translate the definitions and then come up with an educated guess of what the human right could be. Also, there was not a word box, so I am pretty sure that some of them are close but the wording was wrong, Like for the one I put the right to have an opinion, but I think the corect answer is the right to freedom of speech. For History, I thought I was going to do pretty well because all we had learned was about the second world war and the cold war and the conflicts in Asia. Unfortunately the whole second side was about the Indians in Peru and I did not know any of it. Fortunately it was all true or false, and I could just guess on all of the problems. Geography was I thought easy, but it turned out that I did not read the instructions well and missed out on about 10 points, which out of 20 is a lot.
Thursday was probably the hardest day up to that point because it was Arithmetic and Trigonometry. For Arithmetic, I did not study because I spent all my time memorizing the formulas for Trig, and it turns out that I did pretty well on the Arithmetic test anyway, but that is just what I think and I have not gotten it back yet. For trig, I though I was going to cry on the test. I fortunately knew all the formulas, but had written some of them wrong. Aparrently + or - is not the same as - or +. After the formulas part, I knew nothing. It was all just tan, sin, csc, and stuff that I did not know how to do. I basically just plugged in the formulas and rewrote the problems and just hoped for a lot of luck. Also, we had a earthquake or fire drill. We all had to run to a side of the room when the alarm wrang and then we all ran out the door and got into circles in the recreation area outside the building. It was really funny, because the people on the fifth floor had actually planned this little demonstation and a couple people put bandages on their heads and arms and then got carried down in a stretcher by these other kids. It was kind of cheesy, but it was comical.
Friday was the easiest day I thought. We had Algebra and Geometry. Algebra turned out to be more difficult than I thought and I ended up leaving a couple blank. Geometry on the other hand made me feel smart. I knew all the problems and put and answer down for all of them. The only problem that I think I might have gotten wrong was just a stupid mistake.
On Saturday, in the morning I went back to teach the third graders English, but this time the real teacher was not there, so I was stuck reviewing the insects, animals, fruits, clothing, vegetables, and sports with the kids alone. Despite the fact that I was a little nervous because I did not really know what they had been learning or were supposed to be taught, it was fun. Later in the afternoon, Lucía and I went into town to get a flag for a reunion on sunday. I needed to get a US flag to show or something. I really don't know what it is for. After, we went out as a family to visit my dad's brother. He was really nice, but I was tired, and slept the whole way home. This morning we woke up early to start making an appetizer for the AFS event today, so I was pretty busy earlier. Also, my famiily is makin cerviche right now. It is a dish with raw fish and lemon, so I don't know if I will like it or not. I am excited to try it though.
The last week of school was alot different. Four times during the year, the school has a week f exams where for all your major classes you have a big test. There are three tests a day, and the last period of the day is normal. This schedule is nice, because I do not get as much homework, but it means that I have to study every single night for three different classes.
On Tuesday, I started out with Language, Literature, and Persona. For Literature, I had to memorize two timelines with the characteristics, representatives, and classes of each time period, which, between the two, there were 15 time periods. Because of this, I spent most of monday night and Tuesday morning memorizing for Literature and decided to just wing Language, which after all, it could not be much different than the verb, adverb, and adjective rules in the US, or so I thought. Language turned out to be really difficult, because I had to right a whole bunch of sentences using different aspects of grammar. I basically just tried to use the english grammar and then translate it into spanish. Literature had two parts, which I did not know about, so I think I got a pretty good grade on the time line, but I knew only one or two of the questions from the first part. For Persona, it was basically a bunch of questions about your future and what you need to do to plan for the future, so it was basically all common knowlege, like you need to have goals, and know what you need to do to accomplish those goals, and then what you want the outcome to be.
On Wednesday, we had Civics, History, and Godgraphy. Civics was kind of difficult because I had to know the all of the basic human rights, like the right to live and the right to a job and the right to a residence. Unfortunately I was not in the school to learn all of those, so I did not know I had to study them and basically I used my bilingual dictionary to help translate the definitions and then come up with an educated guess of what the human right could be. Also, there was not a word box, so I am pretty sure that some of them are close but the wording was wrong, Like for the one I put the right to have an opinion, but I think the corect answer is the right to freedom of speech. For History, I thought I was going to do pretty well because all we had learned was about the second world war and the cold war and the conflicts in Asia. Unfortunately the whole second side was about the Indians in Peru and I did not know any of it. Fortunately it was all true or false, and I could just guess on all of the problems. Geography was I thought easy, but it turned out that I did not read the instructions well and missed out on about 10 points, which out of 20 is a lot.
Thursday was probably the hardest day up to that point because it was Arithmetic and Trigonometry. For Arithmetic, I did not study because I spent all my time memorizing the formulas for Trig, and it turns out that I did pretty well on the Arithmetic test anyway, but that is just what I think and I have not gotten it back yet. For trig, I though I was going to cry on the test. I fortunately knew all the formulas, but had written some of them wrong. Aparrently + or - is not the same as - or +. After the formulas part, I knew nothing. It was all just tan, sin, csc, and stuff that I did not know how to do. I basically just plugged in the formulas and rewrote the problems and just hoped for a lot of luck. Also, we had a earthquake or fire drill. We all had to run to a side of the room when the alarm wrang and then we all ran out the door and got into circles in the recreation area outside the building. It was really funny, because the people on the fifth floor had actually planned this little demonstation and a couple people put bandages on their heads and arms and then got carried down in a stretcher by these other kids. It was kind of cheesy, but it was comical.
Friday was the easiest day I thought. We had Algebra and Geometry. Algebra turned out to be more difficult than I thought and I ended up leaving a couple blank. Geometry on the other hand made me feel smart. I knew all the problems and put and answer down for all of them. The only problem that I think I might have gotten wrong was just a stupid mistake.
On Saturday, in the morning I went back to teach the third graders English, but this time the real teacher was not there, so I was stuck reviewing the insects, animals, fruits, clothing, vegetables, and sports with the kids alone. Despite the fact that I was a little nervous because I did not really know what they had been learning or were supposed to be taught, it was fun. Later in the afternoon, Lucía and I went into town to get a flag for a reunion on sunday. I needed to get a US flag to show or something. I really don't know what it is for. After, we went out as a family to visit my dad's brother. He was really nice, but I was tired, and slept the whole way home. This morning we woke up early to start making an appetizer for the AFS event today, so I was pretty busy earlier. Also, my famiily is makin cerviche right now. It is a dish with raw fish and lemon, so I don't know if I will like it or not. I am excited to try it though.
Wow! School sound hard! Keep up the good work at trying to understand, study and achieve! I spoke to two AFS returnees that had a hard time getting school credits because early on they didn't insist on getting grades like everyone else in their class. Instead they were considered "guests" and the school didn't keep record of grades or even require them to complete class work. You clearly are a not in that track! Way to go Cameron!
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