As most of you know, this year I changed schools. Before I was going to Industrial, a public technical school, but this year our schedule changed to the night classes, until 9:30pm. And 9:30pm classes would be awful, not to mention having night classes in one of the more dangerous neighborhoods. So, I was changed to la Ribera, a private school 11 blocks from my house.
Now, most exchange students say that apart from the first five minutes after getting off the bus at the start of their exchange, the first day in school is the most nervous feeling anyone has. So imagine not having to go through that once, but twice. Awesome.
One difference with my old school is that this school starts at 7:30am and ends at 1:30pm (though this week and the following, at 12:30pm), which means it is a six hour school day, not three. Which also means waking up at 6, not 10. I like the uniform better, though. At Industrial, just wearing the shirt would probably have covered just as much skin as putting the skirt on over, but the skirt at la Ribera actually is close to St. J dresscode standards. The downside is that the new uniform cost 840 pesos, plus the shoes, which rounds out to a good 1000 pesos ($160).
I got to school at 7:15, and when I entered, I asked one of the women in the office where I needed to go. She kind of just pointed me down a hall, and after wandering about with a scared little deer in the headlights look on my face for about five minutes a student asked me where I needed to go and helped me find the classroom. When I entered, there were already about eight students waiting, and as I took a chair off a desk to sit, one of them warned me that I shouldn´t sit there... when I asked why, he said "ahi se sienta la mala" or "the mean girl sits there." So I changed seats. It turns out that in my class there are two other kids from the swim team and one other exchange student from Italy, so I already had a couple friends. After about five minutes the bell rang to go downstairs for formation, where each grade lines up and they raise the flags and blah blah blah. Then the director started to talk, and she called me out in front of the whole school to introduce myself. Which was awesome.
Class started with economy, then technology, with the same professor. I have never in my life had either of those classes so although I understood the Spanish, the actual content was confusing. Afterwards was Geography, and finally Chemistry. In each class we did a "diagnostic", questions about the subject to judge what point we were at. We also had two blocks of recess, about ten minutes each, to buy snacks or go to the bathroom.
There were a ton of differences with this school. It is much cleaner, without writing on the walls. The desks work and the students are pretty well kept. Everyone I had talked to before said that private school students aren´t very respectful and are noisy and whatnot but I found that they were actually much better behaved than those in my previous school. They were also a lot more sociable, very willing to chat and offer help. Hopefully it will all stay that way.
Other news: today is my six month birthday in Formosa. It actually is way more than halfway, because the program isn´t a full year, it´s actually about ten and a half months. So there are about 140 days left, or a little over four months. We haven´t received our travel information yet, but AFS made a change. Now they won´t have orientation in Buenos Aires or Miami, we will spend a night in the bus from FSA to BA, pass the day in BA, take a plane that night, and arrive in Miami the next day, and from there go home. I don´t like that change, I liked the orientation and think that another meeting with all the exchange students will provide a nice close to the exchange. But anyway, that´s still a ways away.
As far as swimming goes, the pool at Don Bosco is officially closed for the season. We have weekend practice in a 50m indoor pool, and weekdays we are free. My friends and I are looking into getting one lane to ourselves three days a week to train in the afternoons, because we have an important meet coming up in late March. Apart from that I am working up to going for a run. One morning I actually set my alarm for 5am to go run, seeing as the early morning and late nights are the only times physically possible to go running because of the heat, but I woke up, wondered what in the world I was thinking the night before, and went back to sleep. But one day. It will happen.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Open water swim
Today was my first international open water swim! I went with my team for a swim in the Paraguay River, which is between 300 and 500 meters wide in this area and separates Argentina and Paraguay. The swim wasn´t a competition, it was organized by one of the Formosa teams to give swimmers a chance to experience open water. My coach, always trying to be helpful, explained to me that I didn´t have to be worried about swimming in the rivers, there aren´t any crocodiles.... because the piranhas already ate them. There actually are piranhas, but apparently they don´t do anything to swimmers while they´re moving. Though I have to say, the number of dead piranhas I saw on the bank before swimming didn´t help much.
The race started at 8am, or supposedly started at 8am. We actually got in the water around 11am. There were two swims, an 800 meter swim and a 1800 meter swim. I originally was going to do the 1800m swim, but in the end did both. Two of the kids from the team signed up for the 800 needed someone to accompany them and help them out, so I went with them. And wow, do I love river currents. I just floated alongside them as they swam, and in the end it took about 15 minutes. There were only two minor problems. One was that every swimmer needed a noodle attached to them by a rope in case of emergency. And the two kids swam close to eachother so they got tangled. The other part was that near the end of the race there is a very strong current, and the kids didn´t believe me when I told them we had to aim wayyyyy to the other side of the finish line. So the girl was pushed a lot by the current and I ended up towing her in. Apart from that, everything was great, I never even had to put my goggles on.
It was really cool to get to do an open water swim in Argentina, and that it was technically in international waters. It definitely wasn´t the super organized Kingdom Swim (never thought I would be calling it super organized), but it pulled together. For example, there was no count of how many swimmers entered the water. Even if I didn´t have the permission slip, I could have just jumped right in. There were a ton of safetly boats, kayaks, and jetskis, along with lifeguards swimming in the water and the obnoxious noodles we had to have. We had a lot of fun. Anybody who has been to an open water swim with me knows that I usually am just a bucketfull of sunshine, happiness, and all good things in the world before a swim, but today that was actually true. All the swimmers entered smiling and left smiling, which was great.
Other news: the new exchange students arrived in FSA yesterday! Boys from Japan and Thailand and girls from Iceland and Austria. We all went to the terminal to meet them, and wow, I hope my face didn´t look that scared when I got off the bus. I was impressed by the Japanese boy, who got off and immediately tried out his Spanish (hola, mucho gusto, hace calor, etc etc). Later that night, we all went to the birthday party of the Iceland girl´s host sister, and I got a nice chance to talk to the Japanese boy Ruka and the girl from Iceland, Salome. It is really weird to be the older exchange students. It really makes me realize that there is very little left, less than 5 months. Woah.
The race started at 8am, or supposedly started at 8am. We actually got in the water around 11am. There were two swims, an 800 meter swim and a 1800 meter swim. I originally was going to do the 1800m swim, but in the end did both. Two of the kids from the team signed up for the 800 needed someone to accompany them and help them out, so I went with them. And wow, do I love river currents. I just floated alongside them as they swam, and in the end it took about 15 minutes. There were only two minor problems. One was that every swimmer needed a noodle attached to them by a rope in case of emergency. And the two kids swam close to eachother so they got tangled. The other part was that near the end of the race there is a very strong current, and the kids didn´t believe me when I told them we had to aim wayyyyy to the other side of the finish line. So the girl was pushed a lot by the current and I ended up towing her in. Apart from that, everything was great, I never even had to put my goggles on.
After that we went to the start of the next race, in which a couple other kids from my team were competeing. We weren´t many, because a lot of parents didn´t give the kids permission. That race started around noon, and I was strongly tempted to give in to the peer pressure from the other kids on the team and just hang on to the noodle and go for a float down the river. But, my competitive side took over and I swam. It went by quickly, the current definitely makes a difference. At the end, I totally couldn´t see the finish line and everyone was yelling at me to go the other way.... but anyway... I don´t know how much time it took, because when I finished we all started looking for the other kids that competed. When they finally came in, it was obvious that they had a lot of trouble crossing the current to get to the bank. Two swimmers from the team actually swam out to help the last girl. But everything turned out well and nobody had major issues. I think overall I came in 4th out of all the swimmers.
It was really cool to get to do an open water swim in Argentina, and that it was technically in international waters. It definitely wasn´t the super organized Kingdom Swim (never thought I would be calling it super organized), but it pulled together. For example, there was no count of how many swimmers entered the water. Even if I didn´t have the permission slip, I could have just jumped right in. There were a ton of safetly boats, kayaks, and jetskis, along with lifeguards swimming in the water and the obnoxious noodles we had to have. We had a lot of fun. Anybody who has been to an open water swim with me knows that I usually am just a bucketfull of sunshine, happiness, and all good things in the world before a swim, but today that was actually true. All the swimmers entered smiling and left smiling, which was great.
Other news: the new exchange students arrived in FSA yesterday! Boys from Japan and Thailand and girls from Iceland and Austria. We all went to the terminal to meet them, and wow, I hope my face didn´t look that scared when I got off the bus. I was impressed by the Japanese boy, who got off and immediately tried out his Spanish (hola, mucho gusto, hace calor, etc etc). Later that night, we all went to the birthday party of the Iceland girl´s host sister, and I got a nice chance to talk to the Japanese boy Ruka and the girl from Iceland, Salome. It is really weird to be the older exchange students. It really makes me realize that there is very little left, less than 5 months. Woah.Monday, February 18, 2013
Random Differences Part 2
-After almost 6 months, I realized I have never seen a smoke detector.
-Nobody wears helmets when they ride bikes.
-While driving through the city, my friends marvel why the police don´t pull over a motorcyclist for not wearing a helmet... I marvel why they don´t pull us over, because we are 11 kids sitting in the bed of a truck.
-My twelve year old cousin can go to the corner and buy beer. I was honestly shocked when I saw him walk through the front door with four liters of beer in his arms.
-My house has mango, lemon, guava, and grapefruit trees.
-There are a ton of stray dogs here. In the US if I saw a dog walking alone down the street, I would take it in and look for its owner. Here, they are just something normal. And honestly, some of them are pretty picky with their food. One night I was eating empanadas with friends and a skinny little dog came over to beg for food, so we gave it a piece of bread. And the dog just stared at it. Guess it never heard of beggars can´t be choosers.
-Wood flooring is almost obsolete. It´s all tiling and linoleum. I actually can´t think of any wood flooring that I have seen here.
-Motorcycles (well, they say motorcycles but they are really just mopeds or something like that) are very common here. It makes sense, because everything is nearby and the roads are flat and there is no snow or ice.
-The voting age is 18 and is more or less obligatory, though at 16 it is optional to vote. 18 is also the drving age, though 16 for motorcycles.
-There is no spicy food. The occasional semi-spicy sausage. But in Formosa at the least, there is very little spicy food.
-Nobody wears helmets when they ride bikes.
-While driving through the city, my friends marvel why the police don´t pull over a motorcyclist for not wearing a helmet... I marvel why they don´t pull us over, because we are 11 kids sitting in the bed of a truck.
-My twelve year old cousin can go to the corner and buy beer. I was honestly shocked when I saw him walk through the front door with four liters of beer in his arms.
-My house has mango, lemon, guava, and grapefruit trees.
-There are a ton of stray dogs here. In the US if I saw a dog walking alone down the street, I would take it in and look for its owner. Here, they are just something normal. And honestly, some of them are pretty picky with their food. One night I was eating empanadas with friends and a skinny little dog came over to beg for food, so we gave it a piece of bread. And the dog just stared at it. Guess it never heard of beggars can´t be choosers.
-Wood flooring is almost obsolete. It´s all tiling and linoleum. I actually can´t think of any wood flooring that I have seen here.
-Motorcycles (well, they say motorcycles but they are really just mopeds or something like that) are very common here. It makes sense, because everything is nearby and the roads are flat and there is no snow or ice.
-The voting age is 18 and is more or less obligatory, though at 16 it is optional to vote. 18 is also the drving age, though 16 for motorcycles.
-There is no spicy food. The occasional semi-spicy sausage. But in Formosa at the least, there is very little spicy food.
Swim meet with the Focas!
The long awaited swim meet finally arrived! This weekend, my team competed in a swim club about 15 minutes away via car in Club Vialidad. There were about 8 teams, each team bringing between ten and a hundred swimmers. Las Focas (the seals), which is my team, took 32 swimmers to compete. In my age group, the available events were fifty meters in each stroke, and a freestyle relay. I competed in the five event.
The meet started on Saturday morning with a little parade at 7:30am. Which meant that I got a total of two hours of sleep the night before, which was entirely not my fault. I´ll explain that later. Anyway, the parade was just a little display of each team. The Focas definitely had the most team spirit, all with matching shirts, group cheers, and a very loud snare drum that was great for about the first hour of the meet, but realllllly annoying after ten hours of sitting on a bench.
Warm ups started at 8:00am, with our team of 32 swimmers plus another team of about 12 swimmers all in one lane. And as any swimmer knows, 44 swimmers in one lane is a disaster. Especially when there is little knowledge of the amazing "circle swimming" or the general custom of not diving into a pool when there are fifteen people right below you. So I got to do a total of 200 meters with no flip turns and no dives.
My first event was the 50 free. It went well, except for the fact that I almost slipped off the block, which was super inclined and slippery. I wasn´t the only one, though. Pretty much every person slipped a bit as they stepped up. My flip turn was pretty bad, there were no lines on the bottom of the pool to show where the wall was and so I didn´t realize I actually was at the wall until about my head was about .2 seconds away from being cracked open. But it all ended well and I got first, hitting the wall about 3 seconds before the next girl. The 50 meter breaststroke was pretty uneventful as breaststroke typically is for me, but suprisingly enough I was able to get third, probably for the first and last time in my swimming career. Those were my only events on Saturday. I was actually in the bullpen for my 50 back, but it was getting dark so they cut the competition at the event before, number 111. I was 112. So I was pretty annoyed seeing as I was super ready for my backstroke and I didn´t want to be first in the morning. But oh well. Then they started giving out the medals, and I swear, that is the slowest awards process I have ever seen. It took an hour and a half just to get through freestyle awards, and we didn´t even get to the breaststroke. Ah, and lunch that day the team bought empanadas and we went to the Aguara Club (a hockey and rugby club about two blocks away where I played hockey before that team kinda just stopped practicing) for lunch, water balloon fights, and card games. When I got home that night, I went to sleep at 9pm, the first time all summer vacation that I went to sleep before 2am.
The next morning we were back in the pool at 8am. I was the first person in the pool for warmups because I really wanted a chance to practice a backstroke flipturn because I hadn´t had an opportunity to count my strokes from the flags since last season. Right off the bat was the 50m backstroke, and I must say, I crushed it. I know my time wasn´t the best but I finished a good half pool in front of the others. Later was the 50m butterfly, and that was my first time competing in a butterfly event since the 25y fly when I was 8. I took first in that too, though I was really tired at the finish. After that was the freestyle relay. For the relays here, all the teams are mixed, so it has to be boys and girls. I was on a team with the three fastest guys. In the relay, we had to compete against the "promocionales", which is a higher level than us. It´s kind of hard to explain, but teams compete either at the school level or promotional level. The promotionals are faster and the officials are more strict about disqualifying. So everyone on the team, being supportive as usual, told us that we were going to lose by a full pool length and everyone was going to laugh. But in the end, we ended up getting third by a finger length, beating two other promotional teams and getting a medal. It seems like that was the first time any of our relay teams has placed in a race in a couple years (seeing as we always compete against the higher level) and so when the last swimmer touched the wall we all jumped in the water and cheered and got yelled at by the official and didn´t really care. After that we had the whole awards ceremony, which lasted for hours. Our team did really well, in every event we competed in, we medaled. Of course, we should be competing as a promotional team, and I think we will for the next meet, which means that we will probably get knocked off our high horse. But it was a lot of fun even though we finished exhausted and sunburnt and hungry. But today we don´t have practice, so we can rest a bit.
Other news: today I should get registered for Italian. That should be two days a week. Valentine´s Day was super romantic here, I went with a couple friends to Señor Panchos (aka Mr. Hotdogs) which is obvioulsy a classy, candlelit, cozy restaurant ideal for couples on Valentine´s Day. Friday night I went to a concert to see the band Agapornis, which is a group that copies known songs but changes them to have a cumbia style. See the link below. And the concert started at 10pm, so, being an American as usual, I figured a concert that starts at ten ends before midnight, I get home, sleep a solid six or seven hours, and then head to the meet. But apparently it doesn´t work that way. A concert that starts at ten means that the opening group arrives at eleven, then three other groups play until 2 in the morning, then the announcer stalls for about a half hour, then the actual band arrives at 3, plays for a half hour, and goes. And then I had to walk a half hour to get home, I had to get my swim bag ready, and, at the god awful hour of 4:15am finally go to sleep. On top of it all, every group that played before Agapornis played Agapornis songs, which meant that after four hours of that, when Agapornis finally arrived, everybody was sick of those songs and just wanted to go home. But no way that my friends and I were going to leave after paying a whole five bucks for the concert. We did have fun though, kind of in that sense of "oh my gosh, remember that miserable night that we waited four and a half hours on a cement bench for that band to arrive?" type of have fun. Apart from that, there´s not much news. The exchange students come in about five days! And school starts next week.... bleh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSsIbOUoUv8
Here is the link to one of Agapornis´s songs, I think this is the only one in English. But as you can see, they take popular songs and make them more like cumbia.
Ah, and I forgot. Last week, around 8:30pm, I was minding my own business and making my normal trek home from the pool. Imagine me, the sweet little American, totally inoccent and trusting and whatnot. Anyway, I was on my way home when all of a sudden there was a big splash of water in front of me. And I heard laughter. And then a splash behind me, and next to me, and in front of me, and all around. And I realized that I was under a water balloon attack. Now, it isn´t uncommon to be walking down the street and have people talk to you or yell at you or whatever, but a water balloon attack? In six months nothing like that had happened. But like everybody says, if someone is harrassing you just keep walking and don´t pay attention. So I just continued on my way, water balloons coming from all sides. After about a block, I thought they had stopped, and I looked around and saw nobody. And I continued. Until three balloons hit me simultaneously on the head, back, and legs. And at that point I turned around, saw three guys about 13 or 14 years old, and I used some choice words in English. And they got kind of confused and ran off. I finally arrived home, and after dinner I mentioned what happened to my aunt, and she broke down laughing, and explained to me that the water balloons are a tradition of Carnival. Carnival is a festival that is a few days long, though I still don´t really get what it is besides an excuse to just have parties. But anyway, for the next few days I took a different road to go to the pool, and after that took my normal route. Until a couple days ago when they got me again with the ballons on the way to the pool. And I was soaked by the time I arrived there. And everyone laughed and laughed and laughed. Now, thankfully, Carnival is over so I can go to the pool in peace.
The meet started on Saturday morning with a little parade at 7:30am. Which meant that I got a total of two hours of sleep the night before, which was entirely not my fault. I´ll explain that later. Anyway, the parade was just a little display of each team. The Focas definitely had the most team spirit, all with matching shirts, group cheers, and a very loud snare drum that was great for about the first hour of the meet, but realllllly annoying after ten hours of sitting on a bench.
Warm ups started at 8:00am, with our team of 32 swimmers plus another team of about 12 swimmers all in one lane. And as any swimmer knows, 44 swimmers in one lane is a disaster. Especially when there is little knowledge of the amazing "circle swimming" or the general custom of not diving into a pool when there are fifteen people right below you. So I got to do a total of 200 meters with no flip turns and no dives.
My first event was the 50 free. It went well, except for the fact that I almost slipped off the block, which was super inclined and slippery. I wasn´t the only one, though. Pretty much every person slipped a bit as they stepped up. My flip turn was pretty bad, there were no lines on the bottom of the pool to show where the wall was and so I didn´t realize I actually was at the wall until about my head was about .2 seconds away from being cracked open. But it all ended well and I got first, hitting the wall about 3 seconds before the next girl. The 50 meter breaststroke was pretty uneventful as breaststroke typically is for me, but suprisingly enough I was able to get third, probably for the first and last time in my swimming career. Those were my only events on Saturday. I was actually in the bullpen for my 50 back, but it was getting dark so they cut the competition at the event before, number 111. I was 112. So I was pretty annoyed seeing as I was super ready for my backstroke and I didn´t want to be first in the morning. But oh well. Then they started giving out the medals, and I swear, that is the slowest awards process I have ever seen. It took an hour and a half just to get through freestyle awards, and we didn´t even get to the breaststroke. Ah, and lunch that day the team bought empanadas and we went to the Aguara Club (a hockey and rugby club about two blocks away where I played hockey before that team kinda just stopped practicing) for lunch, water balloon fights, and card games. When I got home that night, I went to sleep at 9pm, the first time all summer vacation that I went to sleep before 2am.
The next morning we were back in the pool at 8am. I was the first person in the pool for warmups because I really wanted a chance to practice a backstroke flipturn because I hadn´t had an opportunity to count my strokes from the flags since last season. Right off the bat was the 50m backstroke, and I must say, I crushed it. I know my time wasn´t the best but I finished a good half pool in front of the others. Later was the 50m butterfly, and that was my first time competing in a butterfly event since the 25y fly when I was 8. I took first in that too, though I was really tired at the finish. After that was the freestyle relay. For the relays here, all the teams are mixed, so it has to be boys and girls. I was on a team with the three fastest guys. In the relay, we had to compete against the "promocionales", which is a higher level than us. It´s kind of hard to explain, but teams compete either at the school level or promotional level. The promotionals are faster and the officials are more strict about disqualifying. So everyone on the team, being supportive as usual, told us that we were going to lose by a full pool length and everyone was going to laugh. But in the end, we ended up getting third by a finger length, beating two other promotional teams and getting a medal. It seems like that was the first time any of our relay teams has placed in a race in a couple years (seeing as we always compete against the higher level) and so when the last swimmer touched the wall we all jumped in the water and cheered and got yelled at by the official and didn´t really care. After that we had the whole awards ceremony, which lasted for hours. Our team did really well, in every event we competed in, we medaled. Of course, we should be competing as a promotional team, and I think we will for the next meet, which means that we will probably get knocked off our high horse. But it was a lot of fun even though we finished exhausted and sunburnt and hungry. But today we don´t have practice, so we can rest a bit.
Other news: today I should get registered for Italian. That should be two days a week. Valentine´s Day was super romantic here, I went with a couple friends to Señor Panchos (aka Mr. Hotdogs) which is obvioulsy a classy, candlelit, cozy restaurant ideal for couples on Valentine´s Day. Friday night I went to a concert to see the band Agapornis, which is a group that copies known songs but changes them to have a cumbia style. See the link below. And the concert started at 10pm, so, being an American as usual, I figured a concert that starts at ten ends before midnight, I get home, sleep a solid six or seven hours, and then head to the meet. But apparently it doesn´t work that way. A concert that starts at ten means that the opening group arrives at eleven, then three other groups play until 2 in the morning, then the announcer stalls for about a half hour, then the actual band arrives at 3, plays for a half hour, and goes. And then I had to walk a half hour to get home, I had to get my swim bag ready, and, at the god awful hour of 4:15am finally go to sleep. On top of it all, every group that played before Agapornis played Agapornis songs, which meant that after four hours of that, when Agapornis finally arrived, everybody was sick of those songs and just wanted to go home. But no way that my friends and I were going to leave after paying a whole five bucks for the concert. We did have fun though, kind of in that sense of "oh my gosh, remember that miserable night that we waited four and a half hours on a cement bench for that band to arrive?" type of have fun. Apart from that, there´s not much news. The exchange students come in about five days! And school starts next week.... bleh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSsIbOUoUv8
Here is the link to one of Agapornis´s songs, I think this is the only one in English. But as you can see, they take popular songs and make them more like cumbia.
Ah, and I forgot. Last week, around 8:30pm, I was minding my own business and making my normal trek home from the pool. Imagine me, the sweet little American, totally inoccent and trusting and whatnot. Anyway, I was on my way home when all of a sudden there was a big splash of water in front of me. And I heard laughter. And then a splash behind me, and next to me, and in front of me, and all around. And I realized that I was under a water balloon attack. Now, it isn´t uncommon to be walking down the street and have people talk to you or yell at you or whatever, but a water balloon attack? In six months nothing like that had happened. But like everybody says, if someone is harrassing you just keep walking and don´t pay attention. So I just continued on my way, water balloons coming from all sides. After about a block, I thought they had stopped, and I looked around and saw nobody. And I continued. Until three balloons hit me simultaneously on the head, back, and legs. And at that point I turned around, saw three guys about 13 or 14 years old, and I used some choice words in English. And they got kind of confused and ran off. I finally arrived home, and after dinner I mentioned what happened to my aunt, and she broke down laughing, and explained to me that the water balloons are a tradition of Carnival. Carnival is a festival that is a few days long, though I still don´t really get what it is besides an excuse to just have parties. But anyway, for the next few days I took a different road to go to the pool, and after that took my normal route. Until a couple days ago when they got me again with the ballons on the way to the pool. And I was soaked by the time I arrived there. And everyone laughed and laughed and laughed. Now, thankfully, Carnival is over so I can go to the pool in peace.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)