This trimester's slowly finishing off with "examenes" and a fairly large essay-type project for "Gizarte" (History, Ciencias Sociales, whatever you'd like to call it). I've had the luck of not actually having too many tests as 3 of my classes are electives and I was put in Plastika, Teknologia and Informatika (Art, Technology and woodworking, and Informatika is basically learning how to do things on the computer) in which I have tests but they're not your average pen and paper tests so I don't really consider them tests. Apart from those three I've been put in a separate classroom with an individual teacher for Euskara (without tests or pressure, so that I can learn at my pace), and in English, well, it seems fairly useless to mention that I don't need to take the tests to prove how well I know the language (I read books and write small essays about them instead of doing the classwork). Apart from those 5 classes I have tests coming up in history, math and lengua (spanish). The first 3 went pretty well, so I'm hoping that with enough studying and with my better language skills I'll be able to better or at least maintain the grades I've been getting.
Aside from school, I, myself, have been doing pretty well. The length of my time here is starting to take a little weight and I've been noticing it more, but I'd like to think the dreary weather is also bringing the mood down a little. The sky has been consistently grey for the past week and today in the morning it started raining so much I began to wonder how I would manage to play my soccer game later on with the field so wet (which, by the way, we won 2-1). It actually began to hail in the morning, which was a bit surprising but also kind of entertaining to watch the little ice balls falling on our balcony.
Also, yesterday, after watching my sister play her soccer game, my father, sister and I went to France (30 minute drive, more or less) to a town called St Jean de Luz. It's a very beautiful town and I actually managed to take some really nice pictures, which, hopefully, I'll upload later. We took a walk down the beach for a little bit (going to the beach but not going to swim or tan was always something I wanted to do) and afterward drove back home. On the way back my host father showed me a bunker where the French soldiers shot cannonballs out at the boats in the water in World War II, which was quite interesting. St Jean de Luz is also part of the Basque Country, which was pretty cool because I got to see the difference between País Vasco and Pays basque.
All's well with the family, I feel right at home with them (doing my part in the household, of course) and with my friends too. I feel like I fit in pretty well with all of them. I'm starting to find my place among my peers a little more and noticing more the interactions and relationships between them. I would say pretty certainly that I haven't encountered any problems I haven't been able to overcome, and aside from the daily ups and downs that occur no matter where you go, I am, as always, content.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Winter's Arriving
The rain's starting to come down hard and often here, but I suppose all the nature here doesn't come from nothing. Every now and then a nice, sunny day comes along to brighten our spirits.
I've been busier than usual the past couple weekends and weeks so I haven't had a chance to upload any pictures or write anything, but I managed to find a little time. Everything's been going well, as usual. Of course, I've gotten a lot better at speaking, but I still have trouble with the grammar, but little by little that too is becoming more natural to me.
The weeks have been going by pretty quickly lately, but I'm not too worried. I can say pretty comfortably that I've settled in to the daily routines here and I'm starting to get used to the whole lifestyle. I think I've adjusted pretty comfortably. I've begun to understand a little bit of Basque every now and then so I'm pretty content with that too.
Yesterday I had a pretty long conversation with my host dad about music, soccer, growing up and other things, and today I had a really nice conversation with a friend of mine. It's become easier to express some of my deeper thoughts and ideas which makes me really happy, as in the beginning I was really only able to answer questions and talk about basic things.
I have a lot of homework to do and not that much left to say, which is also one of the reasons I haven't written in a while. I'll try to make more of an effort to keep the blog updated, however. Adios por ahora.
I've been busier than usual the past couple weekends and weeks so I haven't had a chance to upload any pictures or write anything, but I managed to find a little time. Everything's been going well, as usual. Of course, I've gotten a lot better at speaking, but I still have trouble with the grammar, but little by little that too is becoming more natural to me.
The weeks have been going by pretty quickly lately, but I'm not too worried. I can say pretty comfortably that I've settled in to the daily routines here and I'm starting to get used to the whole lifestyle. I think I've adjusted pretty comfortably. I've begun to understand a little bit of Basque every now and then so I'm pretty content with that too.
Yesterday I had a pretty long conversation with my host dad about music, soccer, growing up and other things, and today I had a really nice conversation with a friend of mine. It's become easier to express some of my deeper thoughts and ideas which makes me really happy, as in the beginning I was really only able to answer questions and talk about basic things.
I have a lot of homework to do and not that much left to say, which is also one of the reasons I haven't written in a while. I'll try to make more of an effort to keep the blog updated, however. Adios por ahora.
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