Instituto

So school is probably the biggest change. But first, a little exposition.

In a small town of New England, school is the center of each teenager´s universe. The teenagers go to school, and on average of each day, do .5 tests, .7 quizzes, 5.6 worsheets, .13 projects, take 9.8 pages of notes, consume 0 calories during lunch because they need that time to finish their 3.2 hours of homework, attend 1.2 club functions, do 3.6 hours of class work, and get assigned .92 papers. Then the teenagers do their 2.2 hours of extra curiculative activities at school, then go to a friend´s house to do .17 more progress on a partner project, then go home to do 3.1 hours of homework, and sleep 4.5 hours after passing out in front of the computer trying to have a laughable excuse of a social life through Facebook.

And I thought this was for the betterment of our education...

Here in Spain, it´s so different and so much better.

I wake up at 7:30. !!!. That´s usually when school starts for me. And I get home at 2:30, with only 5 hours of school. And each day consists of 6 classes (with no actual schedualing system...I have history more than any other class, and gym less than any) and a deceant sized recreo. Then I go home to have lunch, and start my deberes. Which takes me all of 10 minutes. 2 problems for math and an open ended question in Econ...

I´ve actually gotten the medically reccomended amount of sleep every night here. I thought 8-9 hours was a myth, but it´s real! AND YOU CAN EVEN TAKE A SIESTA ONCE YOU GET HOME.

So those are the good things. Now onto the bad changes.

Everything is lecture style. 50 minute monolouges with I and my German exchange student friend Sibyl desperately flipping through our respective dictionaries. If you want to ask an involved question, well, oh well.

And the schools themselves are tiny. There are five schools to manage all the kids, but each is very small. And the facilities that I have become accustomed to I have realized are very VERY generous.
Imagine an American school. Now subtract the three gyms. Now the library. Now the science labratories. Now the photography dark room. Now all the computers. Now the music wing. Now the sports fields. Now the commons area. Now the cafeteria.
That´s bassically a Spanish high school. Litterally, just classes. All extracurruclatives are through private institutions that cost mucho dinero.

Overall though, school is still the center of my universe. Now it´s just a well rested universe.