Busy, Busy, Busy

Hola!
So,
A lot has happened since I last posted.

First, as I'm sure a few people know, the rest of my family came to visit me here in Jerez. From there we traveled to Malaga and Cadiz which was nice because I'd never been to Malaga and the beach in Cadiz is absolutely beautiful. I'm very excited to start spending all my weekends there before I leave, which by the way, is exactly two months from today! Of course, after I leave Jerez I'll be doing a little more traveling before I go back to the States but, to me, the day I leave Jerez is the day this year ends. I've never been more emotionally confused about anything in my entire life. I mean, on one hand, I can think about the fact that in just a little over eight weeks I'll be back home with my friends and family, in a place where I don't have to constantly think about what I want to say before I say it. On the other hand, I really have grown accustomed to my life here. Jerez is like a second home to me. The people here feel like my real friends and family, and I have a feeling that going back to speaking English all the time is going to end up boring me after a while. There's no challenge in it and I've come to learn that I need to be challenged or I will get extremely bored, extremely fast. Luckily I've signed myself for four AP classes next year which should be all the challenge I need for one year.

On a lighter note, I finally bought my flamenco dress last week! Feria is still more than two weeks away but I'm already super excited. People have been talking about this festival since literally the day that I got here. I'm not sure if I've talked about Feria before but if I haven't, it's basically like a bigger, longer, more amazing version of Clam Fest (for all the Yarmouth readers), for anyone outside of Yarmouth, picture the biggest fair you've ever been to and then double, maybe even triple it. The dress I bought is for the Sevillana dance that I've been learning. I don't have a picture of the exact dress yet but I'll put a picture of a slightly different one so you get the idea. The problem with the dress is, is that because I have broad swimmer shoulders instead of the typical tiny Spanish shoulders, the tailor has to make a lot of variations to the dress making it cost a fortune.. lucky me... (well, actually, lucky parents... heh heh)

I'm not looking forward to these next couple of weeks before Feria. Teachers, knowing nobody is going to school during Feria, have decided to assign a ton of homework and tests making me pretty stressed out. That, on top of my dance classes, on top of my new pact to go to the gym at least 3-4 times a week, on top of dress fittings, has me REALLY stressed out. The only reason I'm able to write this blog post is because I'd planned myself 20 minutes of nap time for today but decided that the time would be better used writing a blog post, considering how little I've been posting recently. Usually I do pretty well with stress but it's a lot harder when you have to add listening and speaking in another language on top of everything else. Basically, even though I just had one, I need a vacation.

In History, we've just started learning about World War II. Even though I already knew most of what was being taught, it was really interesting to hear what people had to say about it from a different country. Most people didn't even know what Pearl Harbor was, and had some pretty interesting opinions about the United States and their involvement. I can't explain everything because I still have trouble completely understanding what people are saying when they're not talking to me but, from what I understood, the general opinion of the class was that the United States had a very minimal affect on World War II. I guess when my classmates think of World War II, they generally just think of Germany and the Nazi's. Luckily, I have a really good History teacher here who is doing a pretty good job at enlightening my class just how complex that war actually was.

Anyways,

According to my pretty busy schedule, I now have to go the gym, then to a friends house to practice guitar (finally), and then back home for a nice fun three hours of homework.

Yayyy
Adioss

Cute, right?

Semana Santa in Jerez

So,
I'm sorry it has been almost been a month since I've posted but between exams, lack of internet, and Semana Santa, I've been really busy.


Starting from a few weeks ago, I finally finished my exams for the trimester. I won't go into my grades like I did last trimester but in short, I failed the same three classes as last time and my math grade improved by one whole point! Two points from passing! I've come to the conclusion that I'm just not going to pass math this year. Thankfully, I only need three years of math to graduate so as long as I study this summer, I should be fine for next year. As for the rest of my grades, the classes that I did pass were mostly the same as last trimester which while I was hoping to improve, at this point, I've sort of given up caring. As long as I pass, to me, that's all that really matters.


I'm currently on break for Semana Santa. I wanted to post earlier with more information about the holiday but, no matter how many people I asked, everyone kept telling me it was too hard to explain and that I just had to wait to see it for myself. Well, from what I've seen so far, Semana Santa has definitely lived up to its reputation. Basically, each day, hundreds of people gather to the central to see different “paso's” which are scenes depicting different events that Jesus went through in the time between his arrest and his death. There are also many "paso's" showing the Virgin Mary grieving over what has happened to her son. These scenes are sculptures carried all throughout the central as you'll see in the pictures below. In front of the sculptures are people wearing hooded costumes that I think are worn to grieve the death of Jesus, (don't quote me on that). I do know that they have absolutely nothing to do with the Ku Klux Klan except for the fact that the Ku Klux Klan may have gotten their costume inspiration from seeing the mourners in Semana Santa. At the end of each “paso” there is a huge marching band which plays intense, dramatic music. I've already heard all the music though considering they've been practicing right outside my house for months...... Behind the band, there is usually a huge group of people following the procession and chanting some sort of prayers. In the windows, there are people who sing traditional religious songs to the sculpture. I've only seen this once but, it was definitely nothing like any singing I've ever heard. It basically just sounded like a bunch of screaming but, I mean, everyone clapped at the end so I guess the screamings normal. Anyways, after I saw the first paso, I made it my mission to experience this holiday to the fullest. The majority of my friends have taken this week to do some traveling, but not me. I've gone out almost every day this week and so far, I've followed one of the processions for over two hours, participated in one of the religious chant things (even though I had no idea what it meant) and, was able to go inside the main cathedral of Jerez and watch as each paso “greeted God”. I was very lucky to be able to do this because only about 20 people out of thousands were able to get in. These next few days are I guess the most important days of Semana Santa and everyone's expected to get really dressed up. Unfortunately, all of my clothes are in the wash so, I don't know exactly how I'm going to do that. Oh well.

In other news, I've been taking my flamenco classes for almost a month now and I've already learned the first four parts! My teacher told me I was a natural which I just had to laugh at considering my previous dance experiences.... I apparently will be all set for Feria which is exciting. Now all I have to do is buy my dress which I still have yet to do..

Anyways,

It's 4:00 here which means I have to go start getting ready for this afternoon's processions.
Adiosss

 NOT the Ku Klux Klan

 Virgin Mary

Following one of the processions

These are only a few photos to give you the basic idea, I'll try and post more after Semana Santa is over