Ok, so I figured yesterday marked the first entire month I have been on my exchange in Lima, I should kind of update.
So this week I´m really sorry to say I found myself in some trouble. Let me tell you now, make sure you thouroughly know ALL the rules before you get into your designated country. I found myself in a meeting with the heads of Rotary here in Lima pleading a case to keep my exchange after a lot of trouble I got into. I never thought I would have to do something like that...especially not my first 4 weeks. I want to apologize to my club back in Wenatchee for the mistakes I made based on poor judgement. This certainly wasn´t my intention to disrespect or set a poor example as a Rotary exchange student. When and if this is fixed (I´ll find out soon what will happen) I will try and make up for the mistakes I made here. Again, I´m so sorry. I still really hope I can be the exchange student you think I can be.
Anyways I seem to be understanding more of what´s being said and knowing a little more of what to say. so it´s improving. I think I´m irritating Lucas and Mariah a bit. My spanish is very poor and they only want to speak Spanish nowadays (duuuuh!) but when they try to speak to me, it´s verrrrryyyyy difficult to understand the vocabulary and I end up speaking English. So I just try not to talk as much as I can so I don´t end up speaking English. I know how important it is and if I knew more I´d speak it but right now it´s so hard. I´m feeling kind of alone for the past week or so. I can´t talk to anyone about it because no one wants to hear english but it´s all I can do right now unless some french speaker wants to here my lament. Sometimes I find myself asking why I ever agreed to come here. And trust me..I´m not the only one wondering that about me now either.. =(
But I knew it wasn´t going to be easy and I´m sure I´m not leaving now. If I can help it. I´m going to do what I can to learn all of this even if it means flying solo in everything for a while.
Today was the 38th aniversary of my school Colegio Santa Rosa de Lima and we had a day of ¨deportes¨or sports. It was pretty fun. We all for jerseys and since I was put into the 4th secondary my jersey is that of the Barcelona soccer team. Other grades got other countries like ,Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru and etc..
Tomorrow is a big celebration for the school (yes, it is on a Saturday) I was asked to sing for the event and Jetze and Sonja managed to get a music professor to come in and accomapny me on the piano. The song will be Ï´m beginning to see the light¨ by Duke Ellington. He changed the key on me to make it higher and I believe it sounds really good. He seemed to like my voice with the dramatic throwing his hands up in the air saying, "Perfecto!!" after I sang my song and continuing to play other songs that I sang along to. This made me really happy =)
Mariah and I were asked by Jetze to put together a country dance (how stereotypical) to perform at the celebration tomorrow too. So us, with Lucas got a small group of about 8 of our classmates to participate and the dance is pretty cool. It´s a really fun line dance in the mix of the electric slide and the cowboy strut to the song "Good Time" by Alan Jackson haha...country songs...but everyone caught on soo fast surprisingly and it looks really good. And we also have to make a plato typico de los EEUU...so we´re making rice crispy treats...or Lucas and Mariah are; and we ALSO have to present a poster of the culture, polictics, and geography of the US too.
MUCHAS COSAS!
Friday, August 28, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Drop and give me 20!! Entiendes??
Whew talk about lost in translation today. Apparently behavior in the classroom in Peru is a little different than in the States; even in P.E.,..who knew? ;D
Well it started off in PE where Lucas threw something to the other exchange student, Mariah. Well my "Prof" thought Lucas was disrespecting her so he made him do all these jumping jacks in front of the class. I thought it was funny over the cultural misreading and I..well laughed at him...well then Prof called me out after doing that! Problem is, when a teacher is trying to regain authority over some lesson teaching speech, but the student can't understand a word they're saying...problems happen.
Apparently he thought I was being disrespectful to Lucas when we were just joking around like we always do. However, i was sure at all what he was trying to say to me so he calls me to the front of my class (which by the wasy THEY all understand what he's saying to me..I had no idea) So he told me (as I was too late to find out) that he was telling ME to do jumping jacks as a consequence, and then to apologize to Lucas..but in a demanding way of "APOLOGIZE! IN ENGLISH!!" but I didn't understand. Then Lucas whispered to me in efforts of helping me cut this embarrassing lecture as short as possible, something along the lines of, "apparently you offended me.. he wants you to say sorry" I was so confused. I ended up just repeating, "no, no" (as in No entiendo!-I don't understand you!) in hopes it would remind him that gringa no habla español.
Needless to say, it didn't.
He thought I was just defying him, so he calls me up again and starts yelling, "I'm the teacher, you are the student. You are to show me respect." Unfortunaelty that was all I could pick out from his little esteem-boosting shpeel.
I wonder how proud of himself he felt after giving me such a "meaningful" speech even though he know I had no frikken idea what he was saying.
Anyways, I think my Spanish is improving.
During my CTA class today (it's like science..) I was able to pretty much understand everything I was reading in the textbook..of course..it was all about sex, vasectomies, and contraception...
(yeah, My first speech ever in my new school and I'm to describe what a vasectomy is..)
And does anyone else find it wierd that the only things I was able to understand most that was in Spanish was all about Sex Ed.?? And that I can tell you the word for a castrated male in Spanish (castrado) but I can't remember how to fully conjugate the Spanish verb of "to say" into the present tense yet?
The girls in my reading group certainly got a kick out of it.
oh yeah..I love Discotecas. Insane night..maybe not blog-worthy ;D
Well it started off in PE where Lucas threw something to the other exchange student, Mariah. Well my "Prof" thought Lucas was disrespecting her so he made him do all these jumping jacks in front of the class. I thought it was funny over the cultural misreading and I..well laughed at him...well then Prof called me out after doing that! Problem is, when a teacher is trying to regain authority over some lesson teaching speech, but the student can't understand a word they're saying...problems happen.
Apparently he thought I was being disrespectful to Lucas when we were just joking around like we always do. However, i was sure at all what he was trying to say to me so he calls me to the front of my class (which by the wasy THEY all understand what he's saying to me..I had no idea) So he told me (as I was too late to find out) that he was telling ME to do jumping jacks as a consequence, and then to apologize to Lucas..but in a demanding way of "APOLOGIZE! IN ENGLISH!!" but I didn't understand. Then Lucas whispered to me in efforts of helping me cut this embarrassing lecture as short as possible, something along the lines of, "apparently you offended me.. he wants you to say sorry" I was so confused. I ended up just repeating, "no, no" (as in No entiendo!-I don't understand you!) in hopes it would remind him that gringa no habla español.
Needless to say, it didn't.
He thought I was just defying him, so he calls me up again and starts yelling, "I'm the teacher, you are the student. You are to show me respect." Unfortunaelty that was all I could pick out from his little esteem-boosting shpeel.
I wonder how proud of himself he felt after giving me such a "meaningful" speech even though he know I had no frikken idea what he was saying.
Anyways, I think my Spanish is improving.
During my CTA class today (it's like science..) I was able to pretty much understand everything I was reading in the textbook..of course..it was all about sex, vasectomies, and contraception...
(yeah, My first speech ever in my new school and I'm to describe what a vasectomy is..)
And does anyone else find it wierd that the only things I was able to understand most that was in Spanish was all about Sex Ed.?? And that I can tell you the word for a castrated male in Spanish (castrado) but I can't remember how to fully conjugate the Spanish verb of "to say" into the present tense yet?
The girls in my reading group certainly got a kick out of it.
oh yeah..I love Discotecas. Insane night..maybe not blog-worthy ;D
Friday, August 14, 2009
Mi Colegio de Lima
Ok, so I feel like I should update once more on wha's been happening this week. It's been a little while. For one, this week I started school at Colegio Santa Rosa de Lima. We start at around 8am and then on some days we end at 2:30pm and others it's 3:10pm.
The school requires the students to wear (on mon.,wed., fri) that includes a blue and black skirt, dark blue knee socks, black dress shoes, white dress tee with the school symbol, with a blue sweater vest over and then a cotton blazer over that. On Tues. and Thursdays we wear our phys. ed. uniform that resembles a dark blue track suit with yellow stripes going down the sides with a yellow school symbol on the top with either a white or yellow school polo underneath (I managed to wear my yellow Inca Cola tee shirt under mine today!)
This is such an interesting experience going to school here! For the first time in my life I'm the exchange student! This is something 've always wanted to know what it's like. And I'll tell you, it's difficult! Wow you can't really imagine it until it happens to you. It's such a learning experience! First of all, my English still sucks so it's pretty funny to watch myself try to explain things or just stared balnk faced at the rapidly lecturing teachers. The teachers are all very helpful so far and my classmates are really nice.
This all makes me confident of just how much easier learning Spanish and becoming fluent is going to be when I'm emersed into the school and acidemic setting like this.
I had a pretty rough day yesterday. I felt just more out of place than usual yesterday. I felt frustrated with my classes for not understanding, and for my teachers for pretty much patronizing me all day. Then no one was talking to me because they all wanted to talk with Lucas. Haha, I can hardly blame them tho! His spanish is very good and he's always fun to talk to no matter what language it is. But it just wasn't my day to feel optomistic. And it was a moment where I just felt really alone and realized I really cannot communicate with my peers right now and it makes me feel really restricted. But Lucas and his host mom did a really good job at cheering me up by taking me all over Lima, like to the Plaza Mayor (where the president lives) and to see massive and exquisite cathedrals and it was incredible! .
Muchas Gracias a Lucas y Rosa!!
However, it got a lot better today. I was able to find it easier to talk to people and my classes went a lot smoother.
I've also managed to add a few new interesting items to my cultural menu...this includes Chicken Blood Sandwiches and slow cooked-cow tongue.
The Chicken's blood I knew I was trying; I didn't want to, but I was up for the cultural experience (grosssss) and the cow tongue wasn't revealed until after I ate it...I wondered why my beef had little bumps on the "skin." Gross to think about, and somehow I knew I was eating some other unusual animal past but denied it until it was too late haha, but it's all worth it for stories =P
The school requires the students to wear (on mon.,wed., fri) that includes a blue and black skirt, dark blue knee socks, black dress shoes, white dress tee with the school symbol, with a blue sweater vest over and then a cotton blazer over that. On Tues. and Thursdays we wear our phys. ed. uniform that resembles a dark blue track suit with yellow stripes going down the sides with a yellow school symbol on the top with either a white or yellow school polo underneath (I managed to wear my yellow Inca Cola tee shirt under mine today!)
This is such an interesting experience going to school here! For the first time in my life I'm the exchange student! This is something 've always wanted to know what it's like. And I'll tell you, it's difficult! Wow you can't really imagine it until it happens to you. It's such a learning experience! First of all, my English still sucks so it's pretty funny to watch myself try to explain things or just stared balnk faced at the rapidly lecturing teachers. The teachers are all very helpful so far and my classmates are really nice.
This all makes me confident of just how much easier learning Spanish and becoming fluent is going to be when I'm emersed into the school and acidemic setting like this.
I had a pretty rough day yesterday. I felt just more out of place than usual yesterday. I felt frustrated with my classes for not understanding, and for my teachers for pretty much patronizing me all day. Then no one was talking to me because they all wanted to talk with Lucas. Haha, I can hardly blame them tho! His spanish is very good and he's always fun to talk to no matter what language it is. But it just wasn't my day to feel optomistic. And it was a moment where I just felt really alone and realized I really cannot communicate with my peers right now and it makes me feel really restricted. But Lucas and his host mom did a really good job at cheering me up by taking me all over Lima, like to the Plaza Mayor (where the president lives) and to see massive and exquisite cathedrals and it was incredible! .
Muchas Gracias a Lucas y Rosa!!
However, it got a lot better today. I was able to find it easier to talk to people and my classes went a lot smoother.
I've also managed to add a few new interesting items to my cultural menu...this includes Chicken Blood Sandwiches and slow cooked-cow tongue.
The Chicken's blood I knew I was trying; I didn't want to, but I was up for the cultural experience (grosssss) and the cow tongue wasn't revealed until after I ate it...I wondered why my beef had little bumps on the "skin." Gross to think about, and somehow I knew I was eating some other unusual animal past but denied it until it was too late haha, but it's all worth it for stories =P
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Maldito idioma barreras
Langauge barriers suck.
Like a lot.
My host sister is the only one in my family who can speak English.
But she gets in trouble for speaking it with me, but honestly what good does it do if everyone speaks Spanish to me and I for the most part, don't understand a word?
The other intercambistas won't really talk to me because they think I don't care about being here because I can't speak Spanish, or I didn't take classes like THEY all did.
They don't know how hard I worked in French. But they don't see that, they just see someone who can't speak it.
I got asked yesterday how long I studied Spanish in school, and I said, i thought I'd be going to Europe first, so I studied French, and then she said, "are you serious? why did you even come to Peru? That's kinda stupid."
It's not like I came here expecting them to speak French and English to me! I just didn't get the chance to study for three or four years like they all did.I know how dumb I look with the blank expression on my face everytime they try to speak to me.
I'm trying, and it's my first week, I'm assured I'll learn more, but this adjustment period is difficult.
I have to give a presentation tonight..in Spanish.
FAIL. (but let's still see how that goes)
I sing and play piano for my host club on Thursday night, at least singing is one thing I can do right, here. =)
Like a lot.
My host sister is the only one in my family who can speak English.
But she gets in trouble for speaking it with me, but honestly what good does it do if everyone speaks Spanish to me and I for the most part, don't understand a word?
The other intercambistas won't really talk to me because they think I don't care about being here because I can't speak Spanish, or I didn't take classes like THEY all did.
They don't know how hard I worked in French. But they don't see that, they just see someone who can't speak it.
I got asked yesterday how long I studied Spanish in school, and I said, i thought I'd be going to Europe first, so I studied French, and then she said, "are you serious? why did you even come to Peru? That's kinda stupid."
It's not like I came here expecting them to speak French and English to me! I just didn't get the chance to study for three or four years like they all did.I know how dumb I look with the blank expression on my face everytime they try to speak to me.
I'm trying, and it's my first week, I'm assured I'll learn more, but this adjustment period is difficult.
I have to give a presentation tonight..in Spanish.
FAIL. (but let's still see how that goes)
I sing and play piano for my host club on Thursday night, at least singing is one thing I can do right, here. =)
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