Hey all,
Sorry it's been a while, but I thought I would sit down and write today about what has been going on in the past month --starting with my experience so far in gymnasium (high school). This won't be a very long post, and i'm afraid there won't be many pictures, but I still thought I would share.
*just an image taken from the web as I don't have many I've personally taken
I started school on the seventeenth of August, and it has been going pretty great. I am in some great classes with some really great people. Here in Sweden when kids get into gymnasium they choose a line to follow, and I was placed into samhällskunskap (social sciences), and I have really enjoyed it. I don't really know how to describe my classes to i'll just break my schedule down day by day:
- Monday/Måndag: Svenska 2, Matematik, och Franksa
- Tuesday/Tisdag: Idrott och hälsa (P.E.), Samhällskunskap 2, och Internationella relationer
- Wednesday/Onsdag: Matematik, Mentortid, och Geografi
- Thursday/Torsdag: Naturkunskap (natural sciences)
- Friday/Fredag: Samhällskunskap 2 och Sociologi
All classes except for Geografi are in Swedish, and the school I go to has something very unique: most classes are 2h45m. That can be pretty hard, espiecally when it can be just lectures, but it's also very nice because then I only have most classes once a week. But other than that, i'm really enjoying all of my classes.
*another photo from the web of the inside of my school
However, the social aspect of school has been nothing short of great! I feel very lucky as my specific school (VRG Jarlaplan) is known for being extremely social --very unlike the Swedish norms-- and so I've been making a ton of friends. I mostly hang out with one group of girls specifically, but some days I hang out with other people as well, and it's always been so much fun. I really love meeting all of these new people and creating new relationships with them. I've been having a really great time. But going back to the other group of girls who I hang out with the most, I have actually have hung out with them outside of school! They are all so cool and sweet, and I was so excited when they asked me to join them for a movie and dinner/hang out after as they always say having friends outside of school in Sweden is one of the hardest things to do for exchange students. It was a fantastic night, and they've also asked me to hang out after school since.
One other thing that is well known about my school is its fashion, or should I say, how fashionable everyone there is. There is something called "Stockholm Stil" (Stockholm Style), and my school is the absolute epitome of it. I definitely need to step up my game! However, my friends want to take me out shopping and "Jarlafy" me (when people come to that school and adapt to the style), so I'm really looking forward to that.
Other than that there isn't a ton of news about my school, but I've genuinely been enjoying it. I've taken two exams (in Swedish), and I constantly have to be reminding myself that i'm here to learn the language and have fun, not to be the top of my class. But I've actually not been doing too bad academically, and one kid even told me how impressed he was that I've been keeping up and i'm not even fluent --as he claims that he can barely keep up and Swedish is his first language.
Well, that's all for now!
Bekah
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