My Hand Is Green... Does That Mean It Is Jealous Of The Rest Of Me?

Well boys and girls I finally got my cast off. And even though I still cannot bend my pinky and have to keep it buddy-taped (not to mention that my hand is a mixture of purple and green), I am still extremely happy that it is gone! It also means that I can type again, thus I now feel compelled to write about all that has happened during the imprisonment of my poor, innocent hand.

To start off the list I turned 19. Now let me say this: Spaniards know their cake. I have eaten many cakes in my day and this cake-while fairly small-was by far the best cake I have ever eaten in my life. The only real downside was I had a hellacious headache when I got home from school, which would not have been a problem except my bed was covered in balloons and presents when I got home so I had to clear my bed of obstructions before napping. But speaking of presents, I was gifted rather heavily by my host parents. They gave me a shirt, a couple books, and a jacket. That may not seem like a ton but clothing is extremely expensive over here with a regular T-shirt costing about 30€. Thus the jacket-which is a Calvin Klein jacket and about 8 points more preppy than I would normally wear but it is really nice-probably cost around 300€. To be honest I do not really like to wear it because I am terrified that I am going to ruin it in some way...

School is rocking... or at least as much as school can. I got invited on a weekend trip to Salamanca yesterday, and even though I can not go because of Rotary rules and all that it was still nice to get invited! I also passed my geografia test! This might not sound like much of an accomplishment but I should explain the difference between American and Spanish schools.

In American schools, if you go to class, do the homework, and study, you will pass no matter who you are. (There are exceptions to this of course.) Thus we focus more on how much you pass by. We have an honor roll and give out awards for good grades. There are students who make it through all of high school with a 4.0 but score under 30 on the ACT. In Spanish schools, grades do not matter so long as you pass. Of course it is also infinitely harder to get a passing grade and there is NO ONE who ever gets a 10 (the equivalent of an A), even they over-achievers who live for studying and would normally get a 36 on the ACT. A passing grade is a 5, thus anything better than a 5 is something to rejoice about. Well I just so happened to get a 5.6 on my geografia test and I am most definitely rejoicing!

Other classes are coming along somewhat too. I got a 2.1 on my math test which is quite bad, but half of my class did worse than that and no one in school who has this class was able to pass it. I blame the teacher, she it terrible.

Speaking of teachers, my teacher of lengua castellana LOVES saying "Eh?" She says it so much that we started counting the number of times she says it in one period. The two days we have counted she said it 169 times one day and 175 times the next. This is in a 50 minute period so she was saying "Eh" an average of once every 17.75 seconds and once every 17.14 seconds respectively. Some of you may frown and say tsk tsk that I am passing my time doing such pointless activities instead of "utilizing" my time. But one must realize that in order to count all the times she says "eh" I have to actually pay attention to her the whole class, which is an improvement.

Thanksgiving was... well... thankful. I rather love the way the Spaniards celebrate Thanksgiving, which is to say, they do not. They live more from the perspective that if you are thankful all year round you should not need a special day. We Americans tend to sometimes use Thanksgiving as an excuse to not be thankful for the other 364 days of the year (365 during a leap year). However Rotary rejoices in holidays likes Thanksgiving therefore there was a turkey dinner for all the exchange students and their families in the Madrid area. The turkey was OK, but lacked pie.

In the last two weeks there was also another Rotary Excursion which-although I do not want to whine-was quite boring. We went to Soria which is about 255 km away so it took almost 3 hours to get there. When we got there we went to a church/museum that was interesting, but nothing fantastic. Then we went to lunch which was quite tasty, and from there got on the bus for an hour bus ride to a little pueblo to see a Roman arch. Then we went home. Do not get me wrong. Everything was interesting, but considering that we were gone for 12 hours and spent 6 of it on the bus it felt kind of like a waste of time. I also forgot the memory card for my camera on the coffee table so I have no pictures. Boo.

That is far from all I have done these past few weeks, but you all will have to content yourselves with that because my brain is tired today. GOOD DAY!

Also for those of you who dont have a Facebook or just did not see it. If you want a postcard send me a message on Facebook (or if you do not have Facebook send me an E-mail). Might want to include WHY you of all people deserve a postcard as well as an ADDRESS to send it to!