Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Last month, my halfway mark hit. It's scary to think my year's already on the decline. I know at the end it will feel like the shortest year of my life, but then again, I feel like I say that every year...

It's crazy how quickly and dramatically your mindset changes just in a few days. Every month was "Wow it's been a month already?" "It's alright I still have 9." "Two months now?" "8 long months to go."

Those checkpoints were easy to reach. Halfway through was a "Holy shit!" moment.

With that, I reflected a lot on the first half of the year, and thought about what I wanted for the second half, and my exchange got a little bit of a makeover.

Changes in School
After Christmas, I hit a really bad low point in school. I pretty much went through a period of time where I didn't do anything really, and I hated school. I didn't pay attention, take notes, do the activities...nothing. I basically just played games and did a lot of reading (I'm reading the Harry Potter books in Spanish). There were only 3 or 4 classes out of 9 that I actually kept up with (my favorites). I'm slowly getting out of this rut, and the past two weeks of school things have improved a lot. The only thing now though is, is that I don't know what my report card for this trimester is going to look like, given that I've had to study a few months worth of material in less than a week or two for the tests. My last tests are on Monday, so we'll see how this all turns out.

Changes in After School Activities
Before, I didn't really have a consistent after school activity. I was going twice a week to free Spanish classes to help me along a little bit, but those ended with the New Year. And now, in about a week, I went from doing nothing, to my weeks being completely full.

1) I joined a gym with a friend, and we've been going at least 3 days a week together.
2) Once a week for each I go to a math class and a history/literature class because those three are my hardest classes. It's been helping a lot since it's basically one-on-one help.
3) Starting next week, I'm going to start giving the same type of classes of English to elementary schoolers. I'm really excited to start this, and I think it should be fun.

Changes in Scenery
I have officially signed up to go on el viaje del fin de curso (the end of the year trip) which is a tradition here for the kids in my grade. In June, right after school gets out, I'll be going with some of my friends and classmates for 8 days to Prague, Bratislava, and Budapest.

Changes in Departure Date
Originally my departure date with AFS was July 1st. But now, I've decided that I'm not going to go home with the program, but that I'm going to end my program here and stay a little longer. When all of the other Americans go to the airport to fly home to the States, I'll instead just hop over to Portugal, and stay in Lisbon with Rita and her family for the better part of July. Now I won't be going home until July 25th.

Changes in Appearance
Last month I got my ear pierced. I pierced my tragus, which is the flap that you usually use to close your ears. Rita keeps telling me that with that, and some of the clothes I've bought, that I'm "turning into such a Spanish boy!" Maybe I am. But that wouldn't be so bad.

Changes in Dreams
I've never really remembered my dreams very often. It actually used to be a really rare thing for me, but lately, I don't know what happened, but I've been remembering them almost every night. The coolest thing, is that they're almost always in Spanish now, and I think that's actually one of my favorite things. It's the coolest feeling waking up, and realizing that I was dreaming in Spanish. As far as the language goes, it's amazing how far I've come. I understand almost everything now, and can say pretty much everything that I want to. I'm still not fluent, and there's still a lot to learn, but I'm getting there, poco a poco.

I think that with all of this, my exchange has changed for the better, and I'm excited for what's still to come. May part two be even better than the first.