Super Super Senior

After my family left, I had to start yet another year of high school, making it my third time as a senior. Since my old class graduated, I had to join a new class with new people. It was nice though that the teachers already knew me and that there were three other exchange students in my class: Kelsey from the USA, Flavia from Brazil, and Tjarko from Germany. Regardless, school was still boring.


Exchange students



We had Spanish classes on Thursdays and Fridays. Those on Thursday were with a male teacher with whom we would just look at dictionaries and write little stories. Those classes on Friday were with a female teacher with whom we would just read aloud stories and talk about them.

One teacher who I don't think I'll ever forget is Richard Clavijo. He taught my class economy and geoeconomic problems. He was always so critical with the homework and the projects of the students (luckily with the exchange students he wasn't as harsh). In his class if we the exchange students did the work, he gave us smiley faces next to our names because we don't really have grades. He would always come in to the class and shout about the rows of desks saying they're crooked. He would also ALWAYS say "o-ey-ee" (at least 5 times a class) whenever something embarrassing or awkward happened. That actually became pretty funny and now Flavia, Alexis (an exchange student from Switzerland who was in another class but still had Richard as a teacher), and I say it sooo often.


Richard

Once in Clavijo's class the students were having an organized debate up front. I was near the back with Flavia and my classmate, Jean, who was in front of me, asked me to hand me his backback which was behind me. I leaned back in the chair (plastic, might I add) and left all my weight on one leg, causing that leg to break off. So I was on the floor, the debate was stopped, and everyone was looking at me. I got up and gave a little wave and Richard says "o-ey-ee" while everyone was laughing. How embarrassing.


The broken chair and me

In English class, we had a teacher from Ireland. He had a strong accent and would always mention how Americans use so much slang and so many idioms. He didn't speak any Spanish when he came, but he's learning it now. In his class (the most difficult English class) I mainly just read and occasionally chimed in if he asked me a question. He would only speak English to the students and seemed to continously nagging the students to speak English back. It seemed like a pretty tough class to control because they all just talked so much and didn't like to do work.


English teacher from Ireland

Thursday was my last day at Pacifico. In the morning there were only exams so Richard booted Flavia and me from the class, and we went to the cafe bar place to watch the World Cup with Andres, my buddy from the bar.


Doing the Texan cowboy pose with Andres; Andres wants to go to Texas and be a cowboy so he can say "You lookin' at me?" like in the Western movies.

When we went back to class, we just took a million photos. The next class was with Richard so he made everyone go to the front of the class and said a goodbye message to me. I am going to miss the crazy experiences that I've had in that school.



Johnny's brother and sister!