We're in!

So my team made it into the tournament. We were in a bracket of 7 teams and the tournament will be between the top two teams from each bracket. So in total there were 84 teams in Quito. This tournament is between 24 teams. If we had lost our game we wouldn't have had any more games this year. We actually tied the game. Which meant that in the next game a school had to win, so that the team that they were playing against wouldn't get the right amount of points.
We really had bad luck in the game, we ended up tying because of two fouls in the goal box, two PK's which they finished, so it was bad, bad luck. The thing that I didn't write about was how crazy my team is.
After the game on tuesday, one of the players on the team fought with a kid on the other team, he beat him up pretty good, when the team left the parking lot in a car they threw water bottles at us. This kid who fought before picked up one of the water bottles and went running after them, they stopped at a red light and began to get out of the car. About 7 kids from our team went running after Carlos... the kid who is ready to fight at an instant. There were probably about 8 kids on their side. We were lined up on the street, the two teams facing off. I grabbed Carlos and told him to chill out and started walking away with him cussing his head off at the other team.
We ended up not fighting but this is one huge difference between Ecaudor and the states, at least in Ashland, our first reaction isn't always to fight. Teenagers here have embodied the flight or fight syndrom perfectly... I have seen tons of fights here. My team mates wil fight others on my team over stupid things, it is really wild. There is actually some kids who go to the nearest park after school and fight. No one here can believe that I've never fought. For example one kid told me that he has fought 30 times this year! This is an extreme example but the teenage boys are ready to fight anyone and everyone.

Stuff

So I actually thought that there wasn't a mail service here... but there is... so late in coming here is my address for the good ol' snail mail.

Av. Ilalo, Calle Rio Paztasa y Rio Corrientes, Conjunto La Viña, Casa #6
Quito- San Rafael, Valle de los Chillos
Ecuador

So, I know that it works, my brother has been sending my family stuff from Germay, so I have Confidance in the mail system. So ya... sorry about not getting this out sooner but better late than never (you wouldn't believe how many times I hear this expression from my sister...)
So... I'm still doing a good job being lazy. But, whats new, I got a whopping 40% on my last math test. I have a boilogy quiz on carbohidrates and lipids. Oh, I'm going to learn how to do blood tests. In ecuador they are really big on the poop, pee, and blood tests. There is actually a Clinical Laboratory in my school. So I had to collect smaples of everything and had it all tested. So in biology we are going to learn how to take blood and then run it through a bunch of machines to sample it... and then later maybe with poop and pee! weee, anyways we practiced last week with oranges and syringes that we bought in a drug store (can you even buy syringes?), I'm a little scared actually, but it is becuase I'm going to have to be taking the blood from my sister... were partners... and, well, this is a little sticky... I'm afraid of the concequences.
I have a soccer game tomorrow, we are in the tournament, we won our last game and we had just enough points to enter the tournament. So here we go, I'm stoked, I played well but I don't have goal painted on my forehead like my coach says that I need. I just am always looking for passes first, I missed a great opportunity for a goal.
I was practicing Capoeira on friday with my teacher, his brother and another crazy kid named pancho, who is insane... well all of them are. They throw down the flips ike nothing and are frustrated at times becase their backflip 360°'s aren't perfect and stuff like that... anyways I just was working on backflips... I have some real confidance problems, with reason, the bother of my teacher practically killed me. The short of it is that I fell prety good on my head. I did such a good job of taking care of my body... but whatever, I'm a walking wreck.
My house is all decorated! We have a fiber optic tree... seriously. I bought a tie with my sister for my dad and I'm still short presents for the rest of my family. My mom is in another one of the houses in our apartment, the 9 days before christmas all of the neighbors are meeting in different houses to do a celebration for the birth of Jesus.
Ok there was a nice short update, big thanks to all those who are reading and especially commenting! thanks everyone!

Soccer

So tommorow I have a soccer game, if we lose we will be out of the running, period, tommorow will be our last chance. My teams record is bad, we have lost 2 or 3 times and tied once. Our problem is really stamina, we just don't play strong the whole game. I hope that we win and am excited, I really don't want to lose, not really for me but for my friends and coach. The last game he walked away after the game and didn't say anything to the team, he was pissed. I'll continue this post tomorrow with the results.

So we Won!!!! 2-1 finally, we recieved a very tense pep talk before the game from the coach and a kid who is on the teams dad. I am glad that my dad was never this serious about winning. Anyways, I didn't play which was a bummer... but I was chearing and screaming with the other 11 players on the sideline. The rules here only permit 4 substitutions, so it is definatly difficult to play. Claudio didn't play either. The score was 0-0 after the first half, but we scored once, they returned it, to tie it up. And in the last five minutes one of our players had a perfect shot which put us in the lead and finally... to win a game! So we will keep on going! we can't lose another game or we will be out of the championship, the pressure is on and I think that the team is finally ready to win.
I want to share a funny story, I have never seen anything like this in a soccer game at this level. One of our players took a player on the other team out. As he was on the ground clutching his leg another player on my team expertly pegged him with the ball... It really was comical, the kid falls, he's down for 3 seconds and gets hit with a soccer ball. The ref gave him a yellow and play went on, right after their free kick the wistle was blown again, and another yellow was diched out... to the same player. I didn't see it but when I asked what he did he just said "I punched him," so I'm not quite sure what he did, but his attitude was well whatever. It was jsut a little weird.

Not So Swell

So I wanted to wait just to be sure but... my Ipod was stolen on Tuesday. I put it in my backpack during my soccer practice, and put my backpack on the bleachers. When I got back someone had stolen my Ipod. I've put up notices around my school offering a reward, but I probably won't get it back. I'm definatly hopeful, the thing is that Ipods here are worth $400 USD so it definatly makes it a worthwhile item to steal. I'm not sad about the Ipod but all of my music... definatly is a bummer. It isn't the only incedent either, today a bunch of kids in 3rd year(Freshmen) had there cellphones stolen from their backpacks in the classroom. I just never thought that I had to guard my things in school...
Today is Thanksgiving so I'm just going to say thanks to everyone who is reading my blog. Thanks to my family and friends and thanks to this amazing expirience. I hope that with these few words everyone understands that I'm really so blessed anbd completely thankful. Life is good, I have all the things I need and more. I'm living an expirience of a lifetime and soaking it up!
These past two weeks weren't that interesting as far as school goes. Besides my Ipod being stolen... Last week my team lost the soccer game. But 3-4, so it wasn't horrible. And I played for about 20 minutes, it turns out that my shoes are horrible, I bought shoes for grass, not hard packed dirt. All of the highschool games are played at "The Hole" and whover governs the interschool play has decided to eliminate matenance and scrape off the grass... I miss NMP. I got my sweats for soccer today and they are super nice, but excesively hot, there like flanel. I'm going to roast, It is never cld enough to wear both the top and bottom.
Today all of the kids in BI, my special program wen't to the one of the cities sports centers to cheer on our basketball team. We won but the no one from the other teams school shoed up so all of our yelling was pretty pointless. I did learn that I have a lasting impression on the 4th year BI. There are a bunch of kids on the soccer team from that class, there are 4 of them who are good friends and they remind me of the mini four. But I would just start yelling and cheering and jumping around and they would just clear out... I'm only like twice their weight... But they are fun and I ended up spending most of the game talking with them.

Ecuador...

It's late and I've not posted in a while and I've also decided to start writing with paragraphs, it must be really confusing at times. Life is good, I have a soccer game tomorrow with a team that beat the team that we tied 5-0... I'm just a little scared. I also sprained my big toe in Capoiera yesterday. But if I get to play I'll go full out for sure.
Tonight I was watching the news with my family. I want to share with everyone my confidence in Ecuadorians... through this! So at about 4:00 this morning a couple of pickups were carrying $1 million USD. I think it was four pickups to be excact... They were traveling to another city. A bunch of robbers attacked the caravan to steal the money. But in the fighting they blew up the truck with the money and all of it was incinerated... So I was of course laughing my head off with my family telling them that this is the reason that I don't have a ton of confidence in the Ecuadorians. Another thing, today my class has decided to raffle an Ipod to get money for our year end trip to Esmereldas, we're going there to help out the people... community service. And tody we recieved the raffle tickets... everyone recieved 30, and the raffle is in 6 days. We have six days to sell them all, I think that I've picked up some of Tilly's vending tricks becuase I managed to sell all but two... and they are promised to two people. I'm going to sell my friends tomorrow. But the raffle tickets say AIPUT... aiput... seriously, like how can you misspell Ipod... it is only like everywhere, TV, Billboards, and people have them too, but less than in the US. Chau buenas noches tierra!
Ok I recieved a couple of negative comments about this post, I would like to say that it is easy to find these kinds of things the world over. If you find this objectable than please move on to my other posts or send me some helpful criticism! (Thanks Ian and Dad!) But you have to understand... the truck exploding with $1 million is pretty funny and wanted to share it. AIPUT, look I was selling these tickets all day and was getting laughed at as I was explaining what AIPUT meant on their tickets and people were seriously wondering if we were vending an Ipod or not. None of my writing is mean't to be mean... only I want to throw in some comic relive every once in a while. And a forwarning you may find more of this kind of stuff in my blog. There is just some really funny stuff that happens to me!

Senorita de Deportes y Desfile! and Sunday

Ok so the weekend before last was pretty crazy... During the week there was a competition for the Senorita de deportes, it was interesting becuase every class picked a girl to represent and then there was a competition. The day of the competition every class had a list of ten people who were going to enter the theater and support their Senorita de Deportes. I was on the list but Adam wasn't and we were only allowed ten. So when a kid from another class came and asked for our ten people to leave the room, I quickly told him to count off eleven and to let Adam through too. Once we had left the class the general inspector was waitting at the door counting how many were entering from each class, somehow Adam with his blonde hair passed without a problem... once in we were herded up to the balcony with all of the other seniors and juniors... the actual show was pretty boring. Seriously... like 80% of the girls said for their interests: I like to dance and listen to music... every single one... anyways our class was out at the first cut and I don't know which class actually won. But on saturday I was the gentleman for the parade. There was some confusion and Claudio, the exchange student from switzerland was the gentleman too. Adam and Nick were the mascots! Our class is really boring if I hadn't explained that before, we got these shirts for this and the internal sports championship but they are the worst of all that I saw. I ripped the neck as I put it on my head, probably about half the class did the same. Things here are faked all the time our shirts have a Nike symbol but they aren't Nike obviously. Other classes had real Addidas and Kappa shirts, we just got shafted by the bad planning of our class, there were also numerous errors in our shirts. I recieved 111 not 11. Anyways I didn't have to wear mine becuase I was in my monday uniform. We walked around the track with Adam and Nick dancing in a Pooh and Tigger costume. But all of the other classes had skits or dances planned and did these in fron of the judges, but we just walked on by, without a song or an idea... my class is lame. But anyways it was cool to see what the other classes had done! After the parade, everyone went back to the school yard where some classes were selling food... and beer! 1 liter of pilsner, the national drink for one dollar! I saw a kid who rides my bus, he's 12, drinking a beer! This place is crazy! I asked nick If I could return the costume for him becuase I wanted to wear it! Adam and I put the costumes on... which I quickly learned are horribly uncomfortable and hot! We went down to the center of the school yard and danced to the music trying to get people to dance... but we failed horribly! So we left and went to Los Shyris, one of the main streets in Quito and decided that we were going to go native and dance in the steets for money. It was an expiriment and an expirience that we both wanted to do! So we asked another kid from our school if he could guard our backpacks and take photos! He agreed and we hit the streets, we did it for only 10 minutes, about 7 stoplights, we ran out into the street durin the red lights, danced for about 20 seconds, did handstands and cartwheels and the ran to the cars and asked for money in the 10 seconds that we had left. I think we made like $2.50! It was really a fun expirience, after we were done we gave the money to the kid who was taking the photos and walked to the store where Adam and Nick had rented the costume and returned them! Definatly a good day. Sunday was interesting, I went to Parque de La Carolina, which is alongside Los Shyris. My sister and I left our house and headed there, there wasn't anyone practicing Capoiera so we decided to put up my slackline. Finally two other people showed up, a little kid and his family and another adult. We were all beginners and so we just kinda messed around. I practiced some flips and can now do a sideflip! Adam showed up and at about the same time my sister left because she felt a little sick. Adam and I worked on backflips, helping eachother out and handstands. He went to go and skate and we met up later. I met two new people in the park, one was an ex-practicioner of Capoiera. He is really cool and I got his number, right now he focuses more on the music and he dances Samba. The other person I met was a girl who was interested in Slacklining and Capoiera. She watched for a little bit and then practiced a little with us. My slackline became an attraction I didn't expect. A bunch of kids and adults who juggle, ride unicycles and do other things in the streets for money. They all wanted to try the slackline, Adam and I were amazed, the kids seemed very adult like, I guess when your working in the streets for money you grow up fast. They moved in a gang but were completely disorganized, it was crazy trying to get them to take turns on the slackline! These people are very interesting, there is a whole subculture, they dress in brightly colored patched cloths, have oddly cut and dyed hair, I assume this is to attract attention in the streets. I have seen some of the same poeple a couple of other times. I guess that around the park is there turf. They are all really nice and they remind me of hippies, they would fit right in at Country Fair for sure! It was a fun day! When I left there were about 30 people practicing and showing off on and along side my slackline! How cool, I'm definatly going to try and pick up some of their juggling skills!

Looong school update! and more¡

Two weeks ago I had a real interesting expirience. On Thursday my inspecter came into the room and told us that we were going to a science fair in Conocoto. Conocoto is south of Quito, and north of where I live. It is situated on the edge of the valley. So the two classes hopped into two school busses and headed south. The school busses here are like charter busses in the U.S. All of the busses here really are better than what is found in the states... the only problem is that they can be uncomfortable becuase of my size. It was a military school, I'm not really sure what the difference is except that their summer break is from december to february. This is becuase all of the military schools in ecuador need to be on the same time. On the coast the schools are opposite of here... so all of the military schools are the same. Anyways, there school was more spread out with bunker like buildings. Adam and I were ushered into one of the rooms where there was about four ore five tables set up with science expirements. These really weren't what you would expect from a bunch of high schoolers. There were some really wild expirements, distilling alcohol, making wine, smoke machines, some really wierd thing with kidney stones... anyways it was really crazy, I sampled the alcohol and everything, one group had me mix an acid with my bare hands exposed. Essentially it was way better than any science fair in the U.S. plus there was tons of food, we ate granola cookies, cake and some other weird stuff. Anyways... the funniest thing was that we started being followed by groups of girls. We were aked to have our photos taken a few times and the floodgates were opened. There were girls trying to sneakly take photos with their cell phones, others would wait and ask for photos. THe whole thing was crazy, at first it was amusing, I've definatly had girls ask for my photos before but it became ridiculous. We were probably the main attraction, the thing was... the majority of the girls were from schools run by nuns, these schools are probably deathly boring because the dress code is really strict and they are only one gender. These schools also never take exchange students... all these factors kinda explain why they were like locusts... Adam and I ran at a couple of moments. After Adam and I were stuffed and had probably about a hundred photos taken we boarded the bus to head back to school. This is when some of my readers are going to cringe but I'll explain before I begin my stoy... So my school is crazy, the general inspecter does nothing but yell at me... take of your hat!, whay are you out of the classroom?, tuck in your shirt!, etc. Then I have to deal with my classes inspector. I don't know if this was clear but my program has four different classes. I'nm in a special program which is an International program. So, I have one inspector for four classes, everyone calls her la bruja, which is the witch. She is new to the school and seems to make it clear that under her watch we will be the best students the school has ever seen. So I am completely shut down, Adam says that we're a little army. So when the bus stopped becasue the police wanted to check our bus drivers papers, I asked if we could leave and buy pizza, we were right next to a place called la zona. This pizzeria is amazing, the pizza is only sold by the slice but... it is $1 for a pizza that literally is two handed, they back big square pizzas and your getting 1/8 of the pizza. But of course she said no. I had the bright idea to learn how to jump out of a bus window... really quite stupid! But I did, it is quite easy to do smoothly... but it is up to you to figure it out. I walked to the window of where she was sitting and tapped on the window and smiled! Well as you can imagine she was rightly pissed, and so was the bus driver when he found out that I jumped out of his bus. He told me that I had damaged the bus. I argued but to no avail. So when we got back to school I was told that tommorow I would need to remove the mark of my shoe. I was also going to need to talk to my parents, I had called my mom figuring that it would be best if she heard it from me first. She actually didn't care, and later told me about what my siblings have done in the past. When I showed up the next morning the bus driver was like whatever you didn't do anything... go back to class. I guess he was having a bad day after he spent 20 minutes talking with the police... Bueno, Another thing is that I now leave school everyday at 1:40, it has all worked out. The bad thing is that I'm not being graded in some classes and in others I'm getting really poor grades. The cool thing is that I've got more time to do new stuff. I'm taking dance lessons, latin rythms to be excact. I love Salsa, it is really fun and I'm learning how to dance for real! But Samba is the crazyest dance ever... it really doesn't mak any sense, I told my teacher that and she told me to teach the class. I lead the class in a movement but everyone just laughed at me :). I am also taking break dancing once a week. I think that Adam will start taking this class with me tomorrow. I have only done one week of classes but I'm dead tired and everything is great, yesterday for example finished school, had soccer practice, Capoiera, and then dance class! I am really tired but I'm loving it! As far as Soccer goes... I had a game today, we tied 3-3. My team is good but out of shape. We held them at 3-1 for the first 65 minutes or so, they scored two goals in 15 minutes, we have 80 minute games. It is really interesting, I don't have great skills, but I know how to play. All that time I spent with Chris and my dad taught me how to play... but two years without playing is a long time. In this league there are only four substitutions per game. I was actually the second person to be subbed but it was in the last minte of the game, literally. I never touched the ball. But I have uniform that is mine! it says Alexander and I'm number 9. The shorts are really small, the whole team recieved the same size. Mine are like higher than my compresion shorts... it is a little sad. The games here are really interesting, all the games will be held in this one place, which has a dirt feild, I bought shoes for grass... so this is a little anoying. My coach is really good, he is young but used to play pro when he was 15, but he continued with his studies and then became a coach. He has a soccer school for kids and coaches another pro team. He kinda reminds me of Eric, but he has a very different style of coaching. Hopefully I'll play more the next game... I just need to learn to play with my team. I lso need to work on my shot, becuase I'll be playing forward!

A couple of incompletes...

I never finished writing about the Capoiera show... everything went smoothly. I completed my routine without errors and watched some really amazing stuff. All of the different teachers in Quito had a show, and so I was able to watch some really great stuff. There are some people in this world that are practically inhuman... and I want to be the same. There were groups of kids who were like 7 doing some really crazy handstand stuff, a twelve year old who could do crazy flips... it was really just a shock! After all of the shows were finished there was the part in which the beginers recieved there first rope. In Capoiera there are circles in which you fight in... but it isn't really fighting becuase you never really want to hurt the other person except when it is a really high level. For the first rope you fight with a teacher, and when they get an opportunity they will put you on the ground. And then you recieve your rope. I have to say that I was nervous... before was the kids and watching them recieve there ropes was really cool. Some of them were really amazing. I ended up being last to fight... I'm not really sure how but they skipped over me and I fought last. I ended up holding my own and the teacher I was fighting with never was able to find an opportunity to take out my legs. He stopped, and it just kinda ended, I was bummed becuase I was really wanting to see one of these guys put me down. And then as I went to recieve my belt they were short one and I didn't get it... aand I still haven't gotten it... but it isn't that important. For the second rope it was an open circle, which is normal, just enter when you want to, that was pretty cool, I got to see my sister fight. She did really well and at the end all of the people recieved there ropes. After it had ended, the guy from Brazil told me that I did really well... so that was cool! The whole thing was really amazing... the live music and the vibe of the whole thhing was amazing. I saw some of the crazyest things I've ever seen a person do in my life... I am really inspired to get good! I just need to practice lots! The second thing was the party of my school that was a couple of weeks ago... it was horrible. The cops showed up and told everyone under 18 had to leave... But it was a school party, the kids doing it rented the place and obviously there were going to be a bunch of people under 18. I had honestly thought that the cops do almost nothing here, but really they bust school parties. Of course they sell alcohol there but, they do in every other place. So anyways, it was a bust. I didn't have much money so we went to a cheap disco and danced for a couple of hours. I got my money back, but it was a real bummer. I had a great mask and everything...
Bueno, so I have got two fotos of the Capoiera show... the one with me on the far right is after everyone recieved there ropes... but I didn't get mine. The guy on my right is another kid who practices with me. And on his right is my instructor Kury!
The other photo is of my sister after she finished her thingy. She is the one smiling and looking at the camera...

School update

I just finished reading my first book in Spanish, I read Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal. It was really cool, it took three weeks but I was actually reading and understanding in Spanish! Also I just changed a bunch of things around. Before I had 13 classes but I just dropped five off them, it is much more manageable. I actually don't know what to do with my free time. I dropped Sociologia, Psicologia, Monografia, Recreacion and G4. So I don't have classes on Saturday, and I get out at 1:40 every day except monday, when I leave at 4. I am really happy! I think that I am going to start taking breakdancing on fridays, and on mondays, wendesday, and friday salsa! Life should become a lot more fun for me, before it was really just school. I have eight classes and CAS the community service class (the class is every monday). My classes now are: historia, ingles, español, biologia, sistemas ambientales, economia, matematicas and one other but I'm not going to sit hear trying to work through this brain fart... oh I remembered, TOK, it is Filosofia kinda but there is a Philosophy class... but it is cool. I really am going to do nothing in history, it seriously is horrible. But the other classes I am taking for real. History is perfect for sleeping because it is always in the morning and the teacher just talks and talks. But other than that school is normal... I spend my breaks running around bothering people and playing hackysack... Tonight there is a school party at a disco and it is a masked party... I am pretty stoked. To be totally honest I actually brought my countryfair mask and horns. Just before I left my mom thought it would be a good idea and it was!

School Elections and Orgulloso

So my school just had the elections for school president. It was very different than the elections at school in Ashland. It was four days of locura (crazyness!). Each day a new group would get the bleachers. But everyday was just a ton of noise. During our breaks kids would be out there waving banners, dressed in the colors of the group, screaming like mad, and spray painting peoples heads. But it was real spray paint. I avoided it as best as I could but when the stuff is everywhere it is kinda hard. Also there were times when people had flares... real freaking flares! The kind you see on the road when there is an accident. Anyways the point seemed to be which ever group made the most noise attracted the most people. I ended up satisfying myslef by running around with Adam, we would steal the banners and run through the other groups. We just kinda caused a bigger ruckus wherever we were. Anyways this kinda leads into the pride of the people here. Ecuadorians seem to be very prideful of there country, president, soccer teams, etc. This presented itself during the school elections when everyone had a list as they were called and would try and put stickers on every square centimeter of your body. It is just a trait not found as much in the USA. We are much more reserved in that aspect. For example, when there is a soccer game with Ecuador and another country there is an atmosphere of anticipation, the whole city is quiet. Also when a goal is scored all of the cars, since the had the radio tuned to the game, start honking there horns. Another example is Jefferson Perez. Kudos to you if you know who he is... he won the silver medal in the olympics. In the 20km walking. The whole country put up banners and was extatic that an Ecuadorian won a medal! I still see posters that say: Thank you Jefferson Perez... except in spanish... jeje. There is just a greater unity in the people.. the USA is huge, especially in comparison to Ecuador. Oregon is 88% the size of Ecuador. So, anyways I'm not really sure where I'm going with this so I'm just going to shut up with this post.

¿¿Crazy Days??

So these last two days have been a little out of the norm, first off, yesterday I had a math quiz which absolutely sucked. But I started swimming with Adam, who is a really good swimmer, I swam a Kilometer and it almost killed me. Hopefully with the altitude and swimming, when I return I'll be able to hold my breath for a couple of hours. It is absolutely exhausting but well worth it, since I need to stay in shape.
Today was what was really crazy, first I got my math test back which was a wopping 50%! ya way to go me! I am kinda bummed but the next one I'll do better. Then I had a biology test which was a complete let down... one word really does change the meaning of a question... I'll know how I did tommorrow. During class I realized that I was wearing my sisters pants... Oh, thats why they were small... duh. Today we wear a sweatsuit so it wasn't completely fatal. Getting up at 5:30 really takes its toll on the brains abilities to function... During the exam I fell off my stool, it is a lab so there are metal stools, I was skooting forward... the stool went forward, and I went backwards... My poor teacher. Anyways biology literally almost killed me. I really don't want to end up like the stuffed monkeys all over the lab... Alex Landt, a good student... but better specimen.. Than during break when I was playing soccer I lost my cellphone. I looked all over for it and never found it. I asked a friend to call my number and it was turned off. Then we went to the office and there was my cell! Essentially that was everything that was crazy, I also swam another kilometer and am off to Capioera right now! Chao

My First Three Weeks of School

Well I've survived my first three weeks, right now I kinda should be doing my homework but I'm kinda lazy and felt like writing in my blog. In Ecuador all the kids are in the same class and the teachers change classes. It means that the teachers have the majority of the material in their heads. I like everyone in my class. There is also another exchange student who is really cool, he is from Massachusetts. I am experty seated exactly opposite, and as far away from the teachers desk and the front of the room. The kids here are very studious, my program is for the elite of the elite. All the kids are very intelligent and get very good grades. I like my teachers, my biology teacher is really nice, he told me that if I ever had problems that I can always talk with him. I have a few good friends, Polo, Paul, Alejandro, and Abi. They have always been helpful and are the people other than my sister that I spend time with. Polo, is a little bit crazy and nerdy so we get along great. He is really smart but never pays any atention in class. He sleeps through about a third of the classes in the day. Also he is very daring, he will joke with the teachers and make fun of the inspectors. Paul is nice, active guy who seems to have opinions about everything. Alejandro is really funny to pass time with because all the time girls come up to him and want to talk and say hi. He is essentially a ladies man, but only in the good ways. He is quiet, intelligent and kind. Abi is my sisters best friend, she is really nice, she will always explain things for me and really has helped me a ton. Everyone in my classes are really nice and helpful, as a whole. All is well, I am grateful that I have my sister in my class, otherwise homework would be much harder. My comprehension is improving each day also. My school is very crazy in my opinion. For example, all of the kids need to stand in a line acording to class and listen to the general inspecter speak, at the same time the inspectors patrol the rows and get kids for bad behavior or errors in the uniform. Everyone sings the national anthem and the school song. The best students kiss the flag... it is really different. The school band is handheld xilophones and drums, it is really bad sounding in my opinion, the suits that they wear are worse. But they all march and they seem to know what there doing. One day they played badly and so all the kids had to run a lap around the track. The stragglers who were the youngest kids had to squat down and jump up and down. It was kinda pitiful, I'm really glad I'm not in the band. But everything is good, I can tie a tie and stand up when the teachers enter the room... no detentions yet. In reality I don't think my school has any punishment, everyone pretty much obeys.

School... Um.... Is Swell? Part 1

Ok, so for now I have given up writing my expiriences in order, hopefully I'll get to all of my other things, trust me when I say life is a blur here.
My first week of school was horribly challenging. I just want to say that when I signed up for foreign exchange it was for a cultural expirience, not acedemic. But I deffinatly recieved an acedemic challenge. My high school is the best in Ecuador and one of the best in South America. It is really hard, My school begins at 7:00 and ends at 3:30 every day. In the past year at Ashland High I took a 4th period out because I couldn't stand being in school for that long. Note: When Alexa learned that she would have to be going to school on Saturday I joked and said that Ecuador would be better. Well the irony is that she doesn't have to go to school on Saturday and I do... from 8:30 until 10:30. Pretty Swell!
I guess that my feelings about all this are, whatever, everything is awesome. I didn't want an acedemic challenge but I sure as heck got one. I'll take this opportunity to learn as much as I can!
I am in some international program that is all around the world, the problem is that I can't pronounce it and thus when I tried to write it a few seconds ago it wasn't really a word. Essentially my program is really difficult. The good news is that I am in all the same classes exept for one with my sister Johanna. So here is a list of my classes:

1. Historia- World History but I haven't had it yet.
2.Biologia- Biology, I like the teacher and in the first class there was a dead monkey in a plastic bag... I was kinda weirded out.
3. Sistemas Ambientales- Natural Systems? I think but right now we are learning about cells. The only class I don't have with my sister, it is really small too, 5 peaple and 2 are exchange students.
4. Economia- Economics, it is microeconomics, the teacher seems pretty cool, he joked with the class and included everyone.
5. CAS- Community Service, I need 150 hours of community service and some how this is a class, but I haven't had it.
6. Matimaticas- Math, deffinatly difficult since I hate math. But right now I at least kind of understand the material.
7. Ingles- English, it is a very high level and I have actually gotten quite a few questions wrong. The teacher isn't the best, his english is basic and he doesn't seem to know what he is doing parts of the time.
8. TOK- Philosophy, my first homework was in this class, I had to write ¿Que es Conocimiento? What is knowledge, I copied Wikipedia... hey, when you can't even understand what your writing copying from Wikipedia is allowed.
9. Lenguaje- Literally language, but Spanish, everyone else has to read a novel but the teacher said that me and Adam, the other exchange student, can start with kids stories... Thank you! Otherwise I would have died, I also like the teacher. To be totally honest she kinda reminds me of Jan Christensen. Who is pretty wild.
10. Psicologia- Phsycology, it is a really small class and I'm interested in the subject. I think 7 students.
11. Monografia- A project... I don't really know anything else.
12. Sociologia- Sociology, another small class. I am intersted it it too so it all works out, I think 6 students.
13. Recreation- P.E.
14. My class on saturday, I believe another project...

Some classes are for longer periods of time than others, I am still trying to figure it all out...