To start withhh! Pictures:

This picture is not pretty but it´s kind of like meaningful.. like coming home, I guess? :D

Wow, it has been awhile since my last blog entry, mostly because there honestly hasn´t been anything going on besides school. But at least I can talk about that for a little bit. School has been good, mostly becayse it´s a lot better now that I speak Spanish and can hold friendships longer, and also because now I´m allowed to do pretty much as much as I want so I can tgo to parties with my peers, or to the park after school, which doesn´t sound like much but school so much more bearable having friends. Just last week we had exams which were surprisingly EASY even Spanish, and even though I didn´t study in one class I passed in everything and even beat a few of my classmates. Oh yeah, and I´m in the 12th grade here. That says something about the education in Panamá. Besides school, all I really do is come home, eat, change, do chores, sometimes use internet, go to the gym for about two hours, come home, eat, shower, and sleep. On the weekends we usually go to Panamá city to the movies, shopping or something different than just being in the house all week.

There´s really not much I can write about right now because I´m pretty much just chill in the house most of the time. I´m just now starting to miss home more and more because of how close my return is. I´m also REALLY dreading leaving some very close friends, who I now consider my family. It´s a very difficult time in my life having to leave people that I care about and maybe never getting the chance to see them again. I know that I´ll do my best to return though. I love Panamá SO MUCH. I´m so grateful for where I am in the world and all the support my friends and family have given me. I´m so happy to see you all in 33 days!

Yes, I´m counting! :)

Ok, the more detailed amazing blog. Here it comes! :D

I've decided to make categories, there's kind of a bunch of things to talk about. School, family, trips, and little things..

School; better than last year. Knowing more spanish helps TREMENDOUSLY! Not only understanding the classes but also being able to communicate with my classmates and make new friends, which is sort of the point of an exchange year, right? ALSO, now that I've lived in Chepo for about six months I've had time to establish my life here in Panama. Having relations and knowing families is so helpful when meeting new people, it's so much easy for them to accept you if you know their family and friends a lot of the time. Even though most of the time I don't think I'm really learning much in school, at least I feel like I'm excercing my brain.

My family situation, it's complicated... OK, so when I changed families about a month ago I was temporarily staying in the house of our AFS volunteer, Sylvia. Sylvia is the host mom of my friend Stephan from Switzerland. When the family that I was meant to go to decided not to have an exchange student, Sylvia thought that since there are only four or so months more, I could just stay with her for the remainder of my year. So now, I live with Sylvia and Stephan. Stephan and I share a small room, which I'll show in the picture below after the blog. It's really nice having a roomate sometimes that actually understands me more than a Panamanian, and he's my best friend, so that helps! :) My family is so good, we always have chores to do, which I don't mind at all, it's normal, and our privacy is completely understood, which is REFRESHING. There are so many people which live in my house now, which is nice, there's always somebody home which I can hangout with, but if I want my privacy I just go in my room and close the door.

I haven't really gone on many trips, but so far I've been to a few places; Boquete, Cerro punta, mostly all in Chiriqui, Gorgona beach, Las Olas beach, Casco Viejo in Panama City, mostly all in Panama city, Chepo (obviously, I live here), Portabello in Colon and that's about all. Hopefully I'll put on a map below and you'll be able to find the places I've been! I'm going to Chiriqui again tonight which is really exciting, it might be my favorite place in Panama. When I used to live in Chiriqui it was normal, but now going back I wonder why I didn't enjoy it more.

WHAT ELSE?? I have no idea, I feel like they're definitely more things but at the moment me olvido/I forget. Oh! Stephan and I cooked a super panamanian dinner tonight. We had rice, chicken with tomatoe sauce, and fried bananas. One other little thing; I've learned how to dance Bachata, Meringue, Soca, Salsa, and Passa Passa. Look 'em up. :)

Ok, bye for now!

Ok, the more detailed amazing blog. Here it comes! :D

I've decided to make categories, there's kind of a bunch of things to talk about. School, family, trips, and little things..

School; better than last year. Knowing more spanish helps TREMENDOUSLY! Not only understanding the classes but also being able to communicate with my classmates and make new friends, which is sort of the point of an exchange year, right? ALSO, now that I've lived in Chepo for about six months I've had time to establish my life here in Panama. Having relations and knowing families is so helpful when meeting new people, it's so much easy for them to accept you if you know their family and friends a lot of the time. Even though most of the time I don't think I'm really learning much in school, at least I feel like I'm excercing my brain.

My family situation, it's complicated... OK, so when I changed families about a month ago I was temporarily staying in the house of our AFS volunteer, Sylvia. Sylvia is the host mom of my friend Stephan from Switzerland. When the family that I was meant to go to decided not to have an exchange student, Sylvia thought that since there are only four or so months more, I could just stay with her for the remainder of my year. So now, I live with Sylvia and Stephan. Stephan and I share a small room, which I'll show in the picture below after the blog. It's really nice having a roomate sometimes that actually understands me more than a Panamanian, and he's my best friend, so that helps! :) My family is so good, we always have chores to do, which I don't mind at all, it's normal, and our privacy is completely understood, which is REFRESHING. There are so many people which live in my house now, which is nice, there's always somebody home which I can hangout with, but if I want my privacy I just go in my room and close the door.

I haven't really gone on many trips, but so far I've been to a few places; Boquete, Cerro punta, mostly all in Chiriqui, Gorgona beach, Las Olas beach, Casco Viejo in Panama City, mostly all in Panama city, Chepo (obviously, I live here), Portabello in Colon and that's about all. Hopefully I'll put on a map below and you'll be able to find the places I've been! I'm going to Chiriqui again tonight which is really exciting, it might be my favorite place in Panama. When I used to live in Chiriqui it was normal, but now going back I wonder why I didn't enjoy it more.

WHAT ELSE?? I have no idea, I feel like they're definitely more things but at the moment me olvido/I forget. Oh! Stephan and I cooked a super panamanian dinner tonight. We had rice, chicken with tomatoe sauce, and fried bananas. One other little thing; I've learned how to dance Bachata, Meringue, Soca, Salsa, and Passa Passa. Look 'em up. :)

Ok, bye for now!

Hey, been a while, I know. This is like the third time I've been on for about a month. But things have going really well! School has started, and I ended up in senior year in the morning, which is nice. I can go to school in the morning until 12, come back and go to the gym, visit friends, or go to the river. My friends and I recently went to Chiriqui for the fair. SO NICE! I have pictures, I just need to upload them from my computer. Flowers, fresh mountain air, strawberries with cream, parties into the morning, and absolutely no sleep. :D

Unfortunately I had to go to school on the Monday after which was upsetting, but I got to sleep after school. I'm so happy now that I can finally understand everything in class, and even wh! n we have to take notes I mostly understand, it just takes me longer to understand some longer words.

Sorry for such a short post, I'm in the store of a friend right now using his laptop to update this real fast and it's almost ten! I've gotta get home before the police start picking people up. ;P

Oh! Something cool! A singing contest for children was recently held for the whole country and my niece WON! He won a few nights ago and right now they're having a party for him. Everyone is so proud of him! Ok, I have to go now, but I'll try and get another one up soon!

Al Fin! Finally!

Lina, Stephan, Rose, me, and my sister Ambar. ^
My sister Alba and her son, Iker. ^
My cousin Lina and I! ^
And my two nieces! ^

Hey! I'm sitting in my bed writing this blog waiting for internet so that I can post it, and just hoping that it will copy and paste this time. I've been having a really great time lately, without really even doing anything actually. Last sunday my family and I went to Santiago (a town sort of in the middle of the country) with the rest of AFS for a family day. Fourteen hours in a Diablo Rojo for about six hours at a pool, but I had a lot of fun because I got to see all my friends and eat fruits all day! A few really good friends of mine left the day after so it was also sort of a good bye for them. My family and I got home at around ten, and my oldest sister was having a party (she didn't tell mom and dad) which ended up in a lot of family drama, as well as a bunch of nonsense with my cousins, which unfortunately I don't want to talk about on here. The next morning my sister and I just did chores and cleaned the house up from the party. I don't ever want to wash dishes again. Rose has been coming over lately a lot, and yesterday we took a little bike tour around the town. I was on the pegs for the better part of the ride... We thought we were going to die, and we actually crashed a few times. Nothing else has really happened around here, but somehow I'm not completely bored out of my mind, instead I'm very happy. It's really crazy to me to think that maybe a month ago I was thinking about coming home and not enjoying myself at all, It's completely turned around and I don't think I ever want to go home.

Future plans! I'm going to my first quincenera, I have no idea if I spelled that right, plus my keyboard doesn't make the squiggly thing over the 'n'.

ANYWAY, I'm really excited, everyone says they're really fun. I'll take lots of pictures! Which reminds me why I haven't uploaded any pictures, It takes a freakin' lifetime to upload them. I tried the other day, and after three hours of waiting for five pictures to upload, it told me that I should try again. Sorry people, unless I find a way to make it go faster, not happening. I think that's it for now, I'm gonna go check and see if there's internet and then watch some telenovelas! I'm getting hooked as I can now understand mostly all of it. Even though I can understand conversationally, and speak, TV is completely different. Plus they have different accents and words because most of them are from Mexico or Colombia. Ok, bye!! Alrighty, so it didn't let me just copy and paste the blog, fantastic. So I just googled how to copy and paste it and it says that I can if I download google chrome. So while that's downloading I'm sitting here with my cousin looking at a magazine. Just to tell you guys!

Google chrome rocks so far, copy and paste totally worked, and it's really fast. I'm gonna try and upload some pictures. Love it! Yay!

Ok, soooo. We've missed a lot. Christmas and New Years are both pretty big things to talk about so it's gonna take me awhile to get this blog actually published, being the huge procrastinator I am. I love it. Christmas was extremely fun, I was with my family the whole day and night and it was just wonderful. It was very different than christmas in the U.S., we did so much more! We ate so much food, and opened presents at midnight, fireworks, and went to friends houses to wish them a Merry Christmas and deliver presents. We ended up staying up until 6:30 in the morning, dancing with friends, drinking of course, and talking until the sun came up. It was honestly the best christmas I've ever had, no offense to any of my family...

New Years! This was also extremely fun, and since then we've actually been having parties almost every night.. It was almost the same as christmas minus the gifts, and we were more with everyone rather than just a small party. The parties since then have been mild, but really great, mostly with just family, and a few with friends, but sometimes they're better with family, it's more personal and they're just different somehow. I've been starting to have the best time in, Panama so far.. My spanish is getter much better and I've been making really good friends, I feel like I got through the hard part, and since I did, I realized what I was doing wrong and I fixed it somehow.

Oh, last night we also had a going away party for one of the exchange students who will be going away next week. Her name is Rose, and she's from Cleveland, Ohio! We're going to really miss her. :(

This blog is probably the most weird, scatterbrained blog yet. I really am not able to think right now. My cousin is watching every move I make as I write, and they're watching movies in the living room.. I'm just pretty distracted, but I'll try and get a better one up soon. With pictures! Finally.

That's honestly all I could think off as I wrote, I'll try and have a more planned blog next time! See you guys later! Loveeee, Raven