First Day of School

I had my first day of school today. I have to admit that I was little nervous about the whole thing, but everything was fine.
Mama took me and we met up with the other exchange students in my program. Then we were ushered onto the basketball court and into lines according to our class. The whole thing felt very military-esque, especially when the principal shouted "AAAAAATENTION!" into the microphone and everyone stood up strait, heads forward, arms at their sides. We sang the Ecuadorian national anthem and then some song about the school, obviously neither of which I knew. Then we stood through two of the most longwinded speeches I have ever been forced to listen to. I didnt understand most of it, but I was able to pick out the occasional, "Colegio Benalcazar (the name of the school) is the best school in the country blah blah blah" out of the monotone words drifting throught the warm air.
Claudio and I had no idea what class we were in so we just went with some girls who told us to follow them. We went to the wrong class at first but someone told us so we went and found another class to sit in, the people there didn't seem to mind so we stayed there.
First class was physics, the teacher was a short old, man who proceeded to tell us that we needed to buy 5 physics in order to get the most out of the course....yeah right. He spent most of the period telling us about how hard the final exam was, but that doesn't worry me becuase the students take that at the end of next year.
After physics we had a break, the courtyard went from being empty to being a sea of blue jackets and grey pants. There are "bars" one the schoool grounds that sell food drinks ice cream. Its nice, there are no State of Mass. Health Regualtions here so they can sell whatever they want haha.
Back in class, some teachers came in and gave a course selection sheet, I chose a shedule with a philosphy course and ecology. I really had no idea which clases were good so "eeny meeny miny mo" was as good as any way of picking courses.
Ecology was good, I knew most of the terms because for the most part they were the same as the English ones, just with "a" or "o" added on the end.
School ended early, 12:30, which was nice. Fernando met me and took th ebus home with me. I am really starting o like the buses here. You can quite literally go anywhere in the city for 25 cents, even better, if you are in a uniform, it only costs 12 cents.
After lunch Mama was telling me how lots of people here have siestas after lunch, so I decided would try it. I was asleep all afternoon. Thinking is spanish is sooo tiring.

I got some pictures to upload to Flickr. Here is the URL:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30226544@N02/