Yo Tan Poco

Yo tan poco means ¨me neither¨ and I don´t understand why.

Hola!
Short update:

It´s Sunday and I´m at mi abuelita´s house yet again. Sunday is serious family-visiting day here. Everyone comes to la abuelita´s house for lunch and to hang out... There are too many people here right now!

Yesterday my papá´s whole family (including my immediate family and me!) took a bus to go visit his sister. She´s a nun in the city of Los Andes and yesterday was her 25th anniversary in... nunnery? It was a four hour drive there and back... The whole family rented a big bus and left San Fernando at about 7 AM. There was a big fiesta at the nunnery and the adjacent school in celebration. We all attended mass at a small church on the grounds where Tía gave a speech and everyone cried... It was very sweet. On the way back, at night, it snowed! Only about 2 hours south of my house. It was -5ºC. Ouch.

A little bit about school... It´s completely different here and I don´t think I´ve explained it yet. First of all, there are three levels. Basico (elem. and middle school, approximately), Medio (high school but two years later) and Alto, or university. I´m in 3º Medio which is the equivalent of Junior year in hs... However, the kids here go to school for two years longer than we do in the states, the result of which is there are a lot of (what look like to me) college-age kids at mi colegio.
In the schools, there can be different classes within the grades, I´m in 3ºC of A, B, C, and D. Each class has its own room and the teachers circulate between classrooms and grades. We have a ten minute break between each class and an hour and a half for lunch. Besides the structural differences, though, everything is wildly new.
The students don´t listen to the teachers at all, and in one class (one hour), it´s possibly for nothing to get done at all. Tests are routinely pushed up a week or two, my classmates text and make phone calls in class, and there´s almost no homework. Despite this, they often call the teachers Tío or Tía and everyone is on very good terms. It´s like being in elementary school again.
--On a side note, I recieved my first grade here! It was on a math test (they´re learning trigonometry) and I got a 6.3 out of 7. which is very good! 4 here is passing and 7 is nearly impossible. Yay for math!

What else? I´m getting used to the @ and ? being in different places on the keyboard...
I´ve been to two fiestas, one more harmless than the other but both wildly fun...
I´m helping some classmates prepare for a big English debate that´s coming up... Also still learning the Cueca and guitar...
I have a little crush on a Chilean boy... (It doesn´t hurt that they all have crushes on the gringa!)

No mucho más!
Everything´s still going great! It´s still freezing here but still beautiful - I still love the Andes more than anything...
I still don´t feel homesick (I can feel mom wincing...)

Anyhow, chao, cuidate!
Emily Emilia Marie Brown