Lists and Normalcy and a Rant too

Fourth blog post in less then ten hours...
How annnoooyyyyinnng, sorry.
But, I can't sleep with the light on, so let me just crank out another blog post.
Today was another typical Saturday.

Typical Saturday
#1. Wake up missing typical Saturdays in America
#2. Wake up again and take a shower
#3. Eat a delicious and slightly larger than usual breakfast
#4. Head to beautiful Vigo for sister's three-hour French classes
#5. Tomar café and have deep and profound conversations with host mother
#6. Have an English conversation with host Uncle Paco
#7. Recollect Iria
#8. Go out to lunch with la mujer de Paco, Iria, and host mother
#9. Go to favorite store Stradivarius with sister
#10. Return to Porriño and live normal Porriño life.

I like that I have found a normal.
You know, that's all foreign exchange students are looking for.
Normalcy.
My host mother worries that I am bored sometimes because Iria has to study a lot.
I would love to see Santiago and the beautiful places in Spain, and I will indeed get the opportunity while I am here, but I like living normal life too.

Normal life things that I like:
Going to school
Eating lunch with my family
Talking with my host uncle and his girlfriend about the distinctions in our language and culture and hearing his English adventures
Learning about Spanish culture from my mother
Listening to my sister's favorite bands
Studying Greek
Drinking coffee and conversing in Spanish with my friends after school
Shopping with my sister
Making new friends, old or young
People-watching
Visiting other families here


I need to take more pictures here.
I'm going to make an album on my phone just for Spain and start taking pictures of every little detail so I can cry about it at home.
Seriously though.
And, my friend Adrián taught me how to take a panoramic picture with my iPhone camera.


I took my Greek test yesterday......
Everything was great, except for the freaking plural articles. UGHHHH I totally did the declinations and single articles perfectly, why do articles even exist?
Plato, can you even answer this question?
He's Greek and he can't even do it.
Hopeless mysteries of life.
Speaking of school, I'd like to rant about something else tonight.
Olivia has this problem too, with her family.
Our families have a really hard time saying anything good about the schools in America. I try not to get offended, but guys....I'm smart too.
Any of you people in my APUSH class last year who stayed up into the early morning hours at "night" and those of you who woke up at 4am to finish homework would want to scowl at the upturned-noses too, I assure you.
We have to start preparing for college our freshman year.
Freshman. Year.
If you want to do something delicious (?) with your life, you've got to get good grades, a scholarship to a great school, maintain an above-average GPA, and score high on the ACT and SAT.
Hopeless
Here, people get into the best, most highly respected universities here in Spain by maintaining a C.
 What?!
I keep hearing "oh but there's more opportunity in America"
Where?
What?
Who????
I assure you, we have to work our butts off to get a little piece of that "opportunity" you're talking about.
And there are a lot of genius people who pop out of American education.
We aren't dumb.
There are some seriously uninformed people there, but there are also some seriously sheltered people here as well.
This is my place to let out all my steam, and all I'm asking for is a little respect and a little less "my life is soooo much harder than yours will ever be".