3
A Day In The Life
Posted by Miz B
on
Friday, October 08, 2010
Since I apearently couldn't think of anything better to do with my time than this yesterday, I thought I might as well post it. I realized I talk a lot about my home life, but I almost completely ignore my time at school. Since this is where I am from 6:40am to about 2:00pm 5 days a week, I thought you could use a view. Here is a relatively regular Thursday:
6:54 - Welcome to Hell
School starts before the sun comes up.
7:05 - Morning Muster
The girl in the foreground with the blue ribbon in her hair is Lulu. She's in my class.
Every morning, the entire school meets in the courtyard for somthing I affectionately refer to as 'morning muster', and might be less kindly refered to as 'lineup' or 'roll call'. Basically, everyone lines up, supposedly with their ties on and shirts tucked in (or at least on right-ways-round), and states the school motto, followed by a short 'mentally stimulating' exercise, usually something like waving your thumbs in a counter-clockwise circle 8 times or something (this week it was repeatedly squeezing the bridge of your nose with alternating hands). Mondays are more strenuous (and longer), as they perform the flag march (I'm sure it's on Youtube somewhere), and sing the -very long- national anthem. It's basically an annoying but kind way to force everyone to get to school at an ungodly hour of the morning without seeming unreasonable.
7:12 - Geographía
Everyone's a little blurry (you have to take pictures fast here, look to bottom of post for reason), but here is everybody right-to-left (please excuse name mispellings): Naohmi, Monica, Oscar (sorry he's so blurry), Amihrany, Alma, Patrick, and Daniel (notably missing is Gustavo, who usually sits in front of me. He wasn't in class this day).
First class of the day is Geography (which also doubles as geology and earth sciences). Since the test was the next day, the professor just supervised the class and answered questions while everyone talked or worked on other projects. I listened for a while and then turned on Creedence on my ipod and went back to translating my linguistics textbook.
8:08 - Historía
The one on the desk is Patrick...
History doesn't interest some people (right to left, top bench first: Oscar, Karen, Saiid, Joao, Edgar, Arnoud, Daniel -the one in the backround in light blue is the teacher)
Recent history is next. There was some issue with the projector...
8:58 - Computadoras
Everyone worked for about 45 minutes, and than the building lost power, automatically wiping the computers and deleting everyones work. Welcome to Mexican technology.
9:44 - How To Eat
A perfect time to avoid the line.
Usually the food is pretty good, but not so much today...
The activity affectionately refered to as 'lunch' here is usually a 3-4 step process which can last anywere from 8am to 1pm. Since there are only 2 cafeteria workers, all the food is made by hand at the time of ordering, and the entire school eats at the same time, it's very beneficial to duck out of class early to get your food on time. To get for your food, first you have to go to the school shop, fight to the front of the line (and I do mean that literally in some cases), and buy little plastic tickets. Than you get in another line at the cafeteria and trade in the tickets for food. It takes forever, and it used to really annoy me until I realized it's kind of a similar system to Parkland, except no one keeps hitting you with their backpacks, and the food is a lot cheaper, and generally better and more plentiful.
9:52 - Francés
(right to left: Professor, Edgar, Monica, Karla)
Seriously, nothing better than not being able to understand what's going on in two languages. I only stay in this class because the professor is trilingual, very funny, and swears more creatively and more often than anyone I know.
10:36 - 'Lunch'
Some people catch up on their beauty sleep... (pictured: Marelyn)
Others catch up on their schoolwork. (pictured: Amihrany)
Since everone has (usually) eaten by lunchtime, there are other things to do. Some people sit in the cafeteria and talk, or play soccer or basketball. I was tired this day, so I ended up in homeroom working on my textbook translations.
10:56 - Probabilidad y Estadistica
Pictured, right to left: Lulu, Amihrany, Maestra, Alma, Naohmi.
This is probably my least favorite class. I don't even understand this stuff in English. I usually ignore it, and work on another online math program back at the house.
11:33 - Mundo Contemporanea
Pictured, right to left: Jose Luis, Christian (in red), Oscar, Monica.
This translates basically as 'contemporary world'.It's kind of a mish-mash of recent history, art appreciation, and philosophy.
12:12 - Sociología
Pictured, right to left: Jose Luis, Oscar, Saiid, Cristian, Pamela (in front of Amihrany)
Next is sociology, another class that I have a lot of trouble understanding. The teacher is currently focusing on schools of philosophic thought in the 1800-1900's. I don't know why. But he didn't show up this day, so we threw the basketball at each other until we got bored and went back upstairs.
12:32 - Antropología
Right to left: Christian, Pamela(?), Saiid, Jose Luis, Monica, Amihrany, Oscar.
Easily my favorite class, and the only one where I even tried to submit a midterm exam. I got almost everything wrong. I knew the answers to all the questions, but I'm not very good at translating the meaning of whole,complicated sentances yet, just the words. It was fun anyway.
1:32 - Teoría de la Communication
Right to left: Oscar's elbow, Maestra, Amihrany, Monica, Pamela.
This class is Theory of Communication. The textbook is actually very interesting, but I have never really seen the professor do more than tell the students off for talking to loud and assign odd homework assignments.
2:01 - Homeward Bound
The exit gate at the back of the school.
Amihrany has her own car, so she can go home when she likes.
The whole school makes it out eventually.
School officially ends at 2pm, although most people don't make it to the gates until about 2:10, and everyone's lucky to make it home by 2:30.
Other Notes:
For those interested, here are my fellow partners in crime, Arnoud and Joao:
And this is what happens in Mexico when you're too slow taking a picture (and why all
my pictures were so blurry):
Special thanks to Arnoud and Cristian for the demonstration.
And that's pretty much a normal day. Today (Friday) is a little different, obviously, but not much. Yesterday was hot and sunny, today it rained all morning and remains overcast. It feels like spring in the pacific northwest. We also have 3 hours of computer class on Friday mornings, which is how I had time to write this. Now if you will excuse me, Saiid found the Muppets performing Bohemian Rhapsody on Youtube, and I'm gonna go watch. ¡Viva Mexicó!
6:54 - Welcome to Hell
School starts before the sun comes up.
7:05 - Morning Muster
The girl in the foreground with the blue ribbon in her hair is Lulu. She's in my class.
Every morning, the entire school meets in the courtyard for somthing I affectionately refer to as 'morning muster', and might be less kindly refered to as 'lineup' or 'roll call'. Basically, everyone lines up, supposedly with their ties on and shirts tucked in (or at least on right-ways-round), and states the school motto, followed by a short 'mentally stimulating' exercise, usually something like waving your thumbs in a counter-clockwise circle 8 times or something (this week it was repeatedly squeezing the bridge of your nose with alternating hands). Mondays are more strenuous (and longer), as they perform the flag march (I'm sure it's on Youtube somewhere), and sing the -very long- national anthem. It's basically an annoying but kind way to force everyone to get to school at an ungodly hour of the morning without seeming unreasonable.
7:12 - Geographía
Everyone's a little blurry (you have to take pictures fast here, look to bottom of post for reason), but here is everybody right-to-left (please excuse name mispellings): Naohmi, Monica, Oscar (sorry he's so blurry), Amihrany, Alma, Patrick, and Daniel (notably missing is Gustavo, who usually sits in front of me. He wasn't in class this day).
First class of the day is Geography (which also doubles as geology and earth sciences). Since the test was the next day, the professor just supervised the class and answered questions while everyone talked or worked on other projects. I listened for a while and then turned on Creedence on my ipod and went back to translating my linguistics textbook.
8:08 - Historía
The one on the desk is Patrick...
History doesn't interest some people (right to left, top bench first: Oscar, Karen, Saiid, Joao, Edgar, Arnoud, Daniel -the one in the backround in light blue is the teacher)
Recent history is next. There was some issue with the projector...
8:58 - Computadoras
Everyone worked for about 45 minutes, and than the building lost power, automatically wiping the computers and deleting everyones work. Welcome to Mexican technology.
9:44 - How To Eat
A perfect time to avoid the line.
Usually the food is pretty good, but not so much today...
The activity affectionately refered to as 'lunch' here is usually a 3-4 step process which can last anywere from 8am to 1pm. Since there are only 2 cafeteria workers, all the food is made by hand at the time of ordering, and the entire school eats at the same time, it's very beneficial to duck out of class early to get your food on time. To get for your food, first you have to go to the school shop, fight to the front of the line (and I do mean that literally in some cases), and buy little plastic tickets. Than you get in another line at the cafeteria and trade in the tickets for food. It takes forever, and it used to really annoy me until I realized it's kind of a similar system to Parkland, except no one keeps hitting you with their backpacks, and the food is a lot cheaper, and generally better and more plentiful.
9:52 - Francés
(right to left: Professor, Edgar, Monica, Karla)
Seriously, nothing better than not being able to understand what's going on in two languages. I only stay in this class because the professor is trilingual, very funny, and swears more creatively and more often than anyone I know.
10:36 - 'Lunch'
Some people catch up on their beauty sleep... (pictured: Marelyn)
Others catch up on their schoolwork. (pictured: Amihrany)
Since everone has (usually) eaten by lunchtime, there are other things to do. Some people sit in the cafeteria and talk, or play soccer or basketball. I was tired this day, so I ended up in homeroom working on my textbook translations.
10:56 - Probabilidad y Estadistica
Pictured, right to left: Lulu, Amihrany, Maestra, Alma, Naohmi.
This is probably my least favorite class. I don't even understand this stuff in English. I usually ignore it, and work on another online math program back at the house.
11:33 - Mundo Contemporanea
Pictured, right to left: Jose Luis, Christian (in red), Oscar, Monica.
This translates basically as 'contemporary world'.It's kind of a mish-mash of recent history, art appreciation, and philosophy.
12:12 - Sociología
Pictured, right to left: Jose Luis, Oscar, Saiid, Cristian, Pamela (in front of Amihrany)
Next is sociology, another class that I have a lot of trouble understanding. The teacher is currently focusing on schools of philosophic thought in the 1800-1900's. I don't know why. But he didn't show up this day, so we threw the basketball at each other until we got bored and went back upstairs.
12:32 - Antropología
Right to left: Christian, Pamela(?), Saiid, Jose Luis, Monica, Amihrany, Oscar.
Easily my favorite class, and the only one where I even tried to submit a midterm exam. I got almost everything wrong. I knew the answers to all the questions, but I'm not very good at translating the meaning of whole,complicated sentances yet, just the words. It was fun anyway.
1:32 - Teoría de la Communication
Right to left: Oscar's elbow, Maestra, Amihrany, Monica, Pamela.
This class is Theory of Communication. The textbook is actually very interesting, but I have never really seen the professor do more than tell the students off for talking to loud and assign odd homework assignments.
2:01 - Homeward Bound
The exit gate at the back of the school.
Amihrany has her own car, so she can go home when she likes.
The whole school makes it out eventually.
School officially ends at 2pm, although most people don't make it to the gates until about 2:10, and everyone's lucky to make it home by 2:30.
Other Notes:
For those interested, here are my fellow partners in crime, Arnoud and Joao:
And this is what happens in Mexico when you're too slow taking a picture (and why all
my pictures were so blurry):
Special thanks to Arnoud and Cristian for the demonstration.
And that's pretty much a normal day. Today (Friday) is a little different, obviously, but not much. Yesterday was hot and sunny, today it rained all morning and remains overcast. It feels like spring in the pacific northwest. We also have 3 hours of computer class on Friday mornings, which is how I had time to write this. Now if you will excuse me, Saiid found the Muppets performing Bohemian Rhapsody on Youtube, and I'm gonna go watch. ¡Viva Mexicó!
