2+ weeks!

2+ weeks and still goin strong! I am such a hauss. Man these two weeks have been rrrreeaaaallllyyyyy long and rly short at the same time.

It's safe to say that school is the most challenging thing I've ever done in my entire life. I think even if I understood the Catalonian language I would still struggle in school. I'm pretty confident they're ahead of the U.S. in academics. They take a very mathematical approach to everything. Nearly every class involved equations, formulas, power, work, energy, etc. It's ridiculous! My calculator is gonna die by the end of the first trimester! (haha sounded like pregnancy but whatevs) Yes, you heard me right. Trimester. School here is on a trimester schedule and you have exams at the end of each one, and some classes have exams in the middle of each one too. Do not fret, these exams are not lie the ones you're used to. (The 150 question ones, I mean.) Apparently these ones are fairly long, but are only about 10 questions or so. They just involve a lot of writing. My first exam is tomorrow, in CMCO (or modern science) and then Thursday and Friday I have one exam each day. I don't think I'm going to do very well considering how much of the total information I wasn't here to learn, but I've been studying my ass off and at this point I think any MORE studying would do more harm than good.

My school scheduling is very different from what I'm used to. It's a mix between the schedule of Moeller and MND (A day B day) and Ursuline's and X's ("block scheduling"). It was hard to get used to, but I've almost got it down now. The school is small in size so it's not hard to navigate. Also, everyone has a certain "itinerary" so when you choose your schedule you pretty much have every class with the same people (give or take 3 or 4 kids)

I find it difficult to NOT be busy while here. I want to have time to relax and maybe take a nap or just go outside and shoot some basketball, but it's hard to say no when my host parents or host brother or friends ask me to come with them somewhere because.....well I'm on an exchange and I want to do and see as many different kinds of things as possible! Eventually, though I'm definitely going to take a day to do nothing and just sleep all day. That will be the day!:)

The language is very, very, very difficult. I haven't really bothered to learn any Catalan yet, I just learn the words that stick with me when I learn it in Spanish. For example, I ask what something is called, and my friends tell me the name in spanish and then in Catalan. I will remember the spanish no matter what, but I will only remember the Catalan word if it's similar or easy. Most Catalan words are just shorter sounding versions of all the Spanish words, but others are VERY different. The spelling and pronunciations are oh so different as well!

To be honest, I think the toughest thing on this exchange so far has been a tie between two things. NUMBER ONE, saying the word "no" and NUMBER TWO keeping up with Youtube. Hahahaha not even kidding.

(and for you people thinking "well i thought he said the language was tough?" WELL DUHHHHH IT'S A NEW FREAKIN LANGUAGE. Rosetta Stone ain't got squat on actually living in a culture surrounded by people speaking gibberish! Of course it's tough as balls. I thought that was easily understood!)

If many of you don't know, I've got the most insane addiction for the youtube, and I love to watch videos, make videos, and critique videos, too! I now have 2 Youtube accounts:

RichExchange67 and Dreadlord67

The latter which I have had for the longest time, and I put every video I record on it. Although...it's hard to come up with new video ideas while over here in Catalonia...but I've been doing some brain storming and I've interested some of my friends here to do a video or two with me. So hopefully more videos will be around soon!

The first one, Richexchange67, as most of you know, is the account I made for this trip. I upload videos there pretty often, and it's a good way to hear or see something a little extra you won't get the chance for on the blog. If you didn't know about the youtube channel before, you do now. Go subscribe to the exchange channel for an e-mail with each new upload:)

Thank you all for reading so much! I hope I talk to you all soon! (It's fun to see what happens in America, and especially Badin, while I'm not there:D ) I've got some cool video ideas planned for the exchange youtube, so keep your eyes peeled!!! Adios!!


TL;DR...school is tough as balls. language is tough as balls. youtube is the bee's knees. check out my channel. Mushy love crap.