Pruebas

I had two quiz things today but as I missed the covering of the material for filisofy, I only had to do the half that I was here for, and the lenguage test on don Quijote covered much less for me - I only had to read and summarize two chapters while everyone else had to read 14 and answer specific and somewhat obscure questions. Other than tests such as these first ones for which I missed the teaching and those that require the reading of books written in old castilian, I will be able to keep up with most of what everyone else had to do, and though the first bio test was almost impossible, I am hoping it will get better too as I missed the teaching of some material. 
In terms of weather, though we got one good day on monday signalling the coming of spring, the last two days have been depressing and rainy. Hopefully it gets better soon, because not even getting driven to school is worth having to put up with this weather.

Colegio. Three weeks in.

By now I almost know the schedule, but it is so weird and random that I sometimes have to guess. Not that it matters too much. I have math in one form or other (math electivo or comun) almost every day, but physics comunes once a week, on Friday so we haven't really had it yet because of a presentation the first week and a holiday last week. So far my impressions: three classes will be quite easy for me, one pretty easy, three rather hard and two pretty much not graded.
Those easiest classes would be math e+c, English e+c, and physics e+c. Math is stuff I covered three years ago and is super boring and (my opinion) not that well taught. English goes in this group for obvious reasons, and since it isn't even at a level where I will learn Spanish, it will also be boring. Physics will at least interest me if only for the new vocabulary, but also to relearn what I forgot after my cram for the SAT, but judging by the classes so far and the test I just got a 7 (100%) on, it should be easy.
Next level includes chem. Since I had Mr. Fox (for anyone unfamiliar he is an abysmal teacher) I may not have learned quite what I was supposed to but I think that I know enough to make the class relatively easy. It is the BSing for why that will be slightly more difficult.
History and filosofy will be okay, I think, and I think I get special grading. My group for a group project we did gave a presentation today on the Punic wars and although I said the least and worst (not surprisingly at all), I think I still got a good grade. Filosofy is weird and we just started a unit on sexuality and individual. It was kind of odd that one student asked (translated for your convenience) "is homosexuality an illness or preference?" and got the difinitive response of "preference/choice. There is no person that is born gay." while I certainly respect opinions, I don't when they are presented as facts. Oh well I think I will get past the (by CA standards) old fashioned beliefs and that class shouldn't be too bad.
In the hard category will be bio because my one year of bio is not what we are learning. Having missed thae learning part, I think I will do quite badly on the test tomorrow, not to mention all the new special vocabulary I will have to learn. Luckily, that doesn't matter.
Both of my teachers of lenguage (spelling mixed english/spanish) have told me that I am graded specially (or pretty much not at all), so those classes will be easy but not boring as I will learn a lot of Spanish, I suppose.
Not that any of the grades matter because they aren't sent back to the US (even if they were, they wouldn't know what to do with a 6,3). The other day I was feeling quite sick of school when I reminded myself of that, and now it isn't nearly so bad, almost like a game. Still not a big fan of the uniform, but what can you do?
Chico is in the centro de alumnos, the student government thing at our school, so I have gone with him to the after school meetings. We were going to go to an all Chile centro de alumnos thing at a school near Concepción this weekend, but I'm not quite sure if it's been cancelled. At any rate the centro (only 5 students or so) has been planning the aniversario, which strikes me as kind of like homecoming week. There is a king and queen and lots of competitions. I don't completely get it, but I am already excited anyhow.
It is good to have a friend that drives because Chelo (marcelo) can save us some money and time getting home for lunch and today he gave five of us a ride to the small mall thing after school and we ate ice cream. He had a Nissan truck when I first got here, but I think that broke down so now he has a fiat car thing with two seats up front and a covered truck bed thing in back, which is where we ride mostly.

Flaites and fighting

After another day of school that lasted till 5, Chico and I left for home along with a few other guys. We made it a couple hundred yards when Xico warned me to make sure my cell phone or something was safe. I was wondering why when from behind us approach the kind of person called fleites here, 4 or 5 of them. One of them approaches Chico and says something like "WTF do you think you're doing, fag?" it looks like it could turn into a fight, though the other Conce guys with us are trying to break it up, saying "¡¡tranquilo!!" and it almost seems like nothing would happen when a different fleite, a small one that had been behind the one that was mainly in Chico's face, runs forward and punches Chico in the face. Since they were speaking quickly with plenty of slang and stuff, I must have missed something because the little fleite's attack was completely unanticipated. Chico is pushed backwards and at least the two fleites are punching him, and I realize it is time to do something. I am slow to come to that conclusion and to reach them, because now a white truck stops and the fleites vanish. Chico asks that I don't tell our parents or abuelita, because abuelita would worry too much. He has the slightest cut lip, but other than that seems unhurt. Chico doesn't know what got the fleites all reiled up and The next day I was informed by a classmate that something like that never has happened before. So that is the first actual fleite experience I had, before I had just been warned to avoid them and that they steal stuff a lot. They apparently have their way of dressing but I am not yet quite certain what defines that.

The first day of Colegio

Today was the first day of school and I woke up right away when the first alarm went of at 6:58. That won't last; I always start out that way and end up pressing snooze 3 times. Anyhow, Seba and I got ready for school, breakfast and stuff, and then had time to spare because my host dad was to drive us, something unusual as he is normally in Santiago all week but today most schools have off. At any rate we got to school with time to spare and waited for the first class, P.E. today.
We wear a different uniform for P.E. than for regular class days, and that is what we're all wearing today, blue pants with a yellow stripe, grey shirt and blue and grey sweatshirt. We run around the gym for a while and then do some dribbling drills around some cones with a football (yeah that is a soccerball for you unitedstatesians). I am really bad because I haven't tried to play football for years. For that reason I choose to go shower when given the choice of a game or that, and about half chose the same, it seems. That means that I have a while while we wait for those who chose to play finish playing and shower. Next is English. I have a feeling that I won't have too much trouble in that class.
In English everyone asks me questions as a quiz type thing with a grade for asking questions no matter what they are. I get "do you have a girlfriend?" twice from the girls in the class and then again from Diego and "do you have a boyfriend" from another guy. They get points for asking the questions and they get to be funny. Otherwise, most of the questions are "do you like...?" kind of questions.
We stay in the same room with most of the same people for most of the classes, and the teachers come to us. Not all of the classes are with all the same people bacause everyone chooses an electivo of either matemático, biología, or lenguaje and each takes extra of certain classes. As it will be the easiest, I chose matemático which includes extra of math, English and physics. So my electivo math class is next.
As always we all stand until the profe greets us and tells us to take a seat. He goes over distance and midpoint formulas, informs us that there is a quiz the following Monday and gives us a study guide. This is geometry stuff that I learned in eighth grade, so it isn't too hard if only I knew what the longitud de gravedad or something is. Luckily the profe helps me out with a little drawing that makes it quite clear.
Lunch time so we head for home. Normally we might walk a short way then catch the micro to get closer to home, but one of our classmates drives and gives us a lift to someplace nearer home. We get home and eat lunch, always the largest meal of the day, and mom (how am I supposed to refer to her in this blog?) tells us she'll give us a lift back, again unusual as she normally needs to get back to school too.
Now is PSU lenguaje, which is our language class that prepares us, or everyone else, for the PSU test that determines something about what college you get into and has a lot of different subjects in it as near as I can tell. We take notes from the board and the profe's dictation, and I get most of it but need to glance at Chico's page for a couple of words. We then have a class that is actually just a talk with the boss-teacher Carolina and back to PSU lenguaje for more of the same. The talk with la Caro was interesting to listen to, mainly discussing grades and how they should try harder, then going over who can help in each class. My classmates volunteer me for English (surprise) and for math and I accept although I think that it will be quite hard trying I teach in Spanish.
That was school, and now it is after 5 (Monday is one of the later days, I think, and Friday is only until lunch) and we walk in a large group away from school saying "ciao" to people as the group shrinks and everyone heads home.