September 1-3, 2007

September 1, 2007

We had a school trip to Trieste (for the 1st years) today. We were briefed for the trip with a little Italian history and divided into groups that we would be with for our “scavenger hunt” of the city. There were nine in my group (including three Italians – which proved helpful!) and we named ourselves “mare moto” (tsunami)! The trip through Trieste involved finding things like statues of famous people, certain ice cream shops, churches and synagogues, and important landmarks. At the end we all met back up at this great church on a hill called San Giusto. It has great history (which the great World Arts and Cultures teacher Henry, told us about). It was a Roman Church under the Byzantine Empire at some point, and then was built over by other people (I think Muslims) and then by the Catholics…. It went something like that! But it was fascinating to listen to Henry talk about it all, I wish I was able to take his class(but full schedule, you know…).

Anyway, then we returned for mensa at the college and then went to the “Rumble in the Jungle”, the jungle-themed show and party that the Second Years put on as a welcome for the first years. The teachers were all there, as well as all the students and various people from Duino. The show was great, with various talent-show-like acts and short skits that made jokes about the college life, etc. It seemed weird to me to be being welcomed now, when we had been at school for such a long time… and then I realized that it had only been 7 days since my arrival in TRS!!!!!! It feels like it’s been months! Interesting sensation… Everyone here just feels like family, it’s hard to think that I’ve only known them for 7 days… some even less! Anyway, the show the second years did was amazing and I really nice for us. At the end, they had a slideshow of pictures they had taken our first week, it was touching. So that night we had a dance party in the residence Pala that was great. I ended up being DJ for it actually, because nobody else was getting much together and I organized some people, got some big speakers and the schools mixer and my laptop, and started playing music! I think everyone liked what I played too… I mixed Reggeton (latin American dance) with American hip-hop and European techno. I threw in some merengue too. I think it was a hit, and it was fun to be known a little more at school too! It’s really fun to see all the people dancing to all these kinds of music too. There are some amazing dancers (mostly African) but everyone likes different styles more and less, and we all dance to everything! I can’t describe how fun it is.



September 2, 2007

We had various school functions Sunday, Nicolas, my roommate, and I swam to Fore Beach from Porto again (2nd time for me) and the weather was nicer now. I’ve started to really like swimming in the sea, it’s a new thing for me, but it’s a great workout if you swim far, and it just makes me feel very alive to be out there in the open sea in (what is now) pretty cold water.
The weather has been a lot nice now (less hot) which seems to be very unusual for this time of year. It hasn’t been windy the last couple of days, but somewhat overcast and a very nice cool to be out and about in. Still, it makes it a little cold to swim, but we go all the same and it is great!
Sunday night, I went to bed pretty early because classes Started early Monday!


September 3, 2007

Today we had our first classes starting on a regular schedule! I had the first block free (which was great) so I didn’t have to be at class until 9:00. Our periods are 55 min. long and we have 5 min. in between. After the first three periods (at 11:00 or so) we have a 25 min. break before the last two classes.
So there are 5 periods a day - Starting at 8:00 and ending a little after 13:00.
Today I had Music and 9:00 followed by Economics. Then there was the short break, English and Math. Then Lunch…
Music was OK, we looked over the syllabus which basically says the three things we will be doing are: Musical analysis (listening and analyzing pieces), Solo performance, and composition. The later two sound great to me and the first one not as exciting, but I think it will be fun.
Then there was Econ with a teacher from Holland who is young, a cyclist and very nice. I’m excited for Econ. It sounds like we will do Micro and Macro economics (business/individual and national/global) this year and next year go into econ in respect to other things sort of. I really think I will like this course.
Math was a little slow…. I found out I placed high enough on the standard level placement test to be in Higher Level Math, but I didn’t have enough free higher level blocks, or the desire to take HL Math… but it was still kinda slow. I guess we have to start at the beginning so that everyone is on the same page.
English was also a little slow. I didn’t come out of it too excited, but I like the teacher and I think it will be interesting. We have 7 books on the syllabus this year.

Overall, I came out of my first day of classes a little discouraged because not much happened, but I’m going to believe for now that it’s just because it was the introductory day, and that it will get better as the year picks up.
Short amounts of time here seem so long… it’s very odd. I like it though! It’s like having more life..