6ix before 7even.

School is the hardest part of all this. In great contrast to the leisure and calm of the rest of this experience, my school work is exceedingly difficult. Not only is it just a lot of work, but it is emotionally draining. At school, I am completely different from everyone else, and in Ibarra that seems to be hardly acceptable. When I smile, the world smiles with me... But when I laugh, the world laughs at me. Just last Friday after getting only two hours of sleep the previous night, I had a soccer game. We tied 2 to 2, but afterwards my shirt was super dirty, and my math teacher made fun of me for it. After I made the excuse that I played soccer in it, he started ridiculing my pants, saying they were like mechanics pants. I try to think though that he is making fun somewhat out of respect. The day before that in math class the teacher made some sort of a code, where we would pick a number from 1-60, and then show the teacher only corresponding letters to our number, after which he would tell us what number we had picked. Once this started, I quickly started to graph all of the numbers and their corresponding letters. I soon found one exception to his code, as 1 and 5 both had the same code of letters. So I went up in front of the class and said my combination, to which he answered 5. I looked at him and said "or 1!" He smiled, and all the class started clapping.
So maybe, my math teacher thinks we can kid each other now. I certainly hope that is the case, and not simply that he is mad at me for exposing a mistake of his in his code.
I really was tired that day too, because the night before I had talked with and played music on the piano with and ate pizza with and did not (because we are not allowed to) drink wine with three wonderful musicians who I had met at a concert. They played Cuban jazz sort of music, and there was a girl who was a beautiful singer, a wonderful violinist, and a remarkable guitarist. I talked to them after the concert, and we went out to pizza together with a few other of their friends. We talked until about 11, and then it was discovered that I wrote classical music, and played a tiny bit of piano. The violinist got super excited, and whisked me off to his house, where he had a wonderful piano. We played and talked until 2. Despite how tired I was the next day, i was happy.

Fiths

In school day before yesterday I got a 19/20 on my English test. Despite how happy I was with the score, all my friends seemed entirely unimpressed, to the point that they laughed at me. I told them that English is very difficult, and they said "yes, but it´s your language! I would get a 20 in Spanish!" "Yes", I replied, "but what would you get in English!?" Nobody was amused.
Kennith (the other American exchange student) and I are finding the environment very stressful. When one of Kennith´s friend´s phones went off in class, he started coughing uncontrollably to try to cover the noise from the teacher. When the teacher asked him sarcastically what was wrong, he put a dumb look on his face and responded "no entiendo" (I don´t understand). Kennith of course speaks Spanish quite well, and the teachers response was "well do you understand leave class?"
When Kennith and I have these situations in which we are sent out of class, or not allowed in because we are wearing the wrong uniform, we usually sit outside and read. I have been reading "one hundred years of solitude", which I so far love very much. It helps me get my mind off the problems I experience, as does writing blog entries.