The vida mia: Asignaturas = Classes

Today is a lazy day. I mean I guess it can’t count as the first, as there have been a couple occasions when I practically slept all day, waking up to eat basically. However, I’m not sleeping (at least not yet), and I don’t feel like doing anything. My host mom, Gloria, watches a lot of TV, and today is the first day I actually feel like loafing on the couch and watching it with her. Of course I’m not doing that, because I’m writing this J

I had no class today. Ok, technically I did, but I didn’t go. This week was orientation week – I know, another orientation week. Feels like real life is never going to start! The first two weeks of class took place at an international school called, K2. Don’t ask me why. That was the class picture I put up in an older posting, and there we basically reviewed Spanish grammar. I think it was a warm-up for everyone to get in Spanish mode.

This week we actually had classes at the university. These classes are especially put together for our program though - still taught by the Spanish professors, but only offered to the UW students. I think these classes have more structure than typical Spanish classes, probably for a couple reasons. One, because we’re getting UW credits, so they want the workload to be comparable. And Two, because apparently it is very American of us to freak out about our grades, and everyone wants to know exactly what they’re going to get: hw, tests, projects, grading scales and rubrics. I’m telling you, people need to lighten up and go with the flow like Hispanics J

So this week, all of us had go to all the classes, even though we’re only going to pick several of them. That was the orientation. And I was supposed to finish the week and go to a geography class today, but I already know I’m not taking Geo, so I didn’t go 0:)

I’m actually very excited about my classes. I’m taking Civilizacion, which is kind of like a current events class on Spain with a little history, politics, and geography to give us the context. I’m also taking Spain and the European Union, which is kind of self-explanatory. History of, creation of, function of, countries in it, current politics, etc.

I’m already super interested, and a little put to shame because I’m so clueless. I need to do some research about the whole Euro deal. I understand that some countries, well Britain, didn’t want to join because the lb is worth more than the Euro, but I don’t understand HOW exactly it works for countries to just switch currency. Or HOW a country, like Greece, can be bankrupt ( or almost, idk) and still be functioning. How does a country get to that point? And why exactly that brings down the value of the Euro… I need to find out. So many questions. The concept of money is so confusing to me. I definitely couldn’t be a business major. I don’t understand who decides how much a certain currency is worth. And it’s worth what? Gold, right? So why doesn’t the whole world just operate on the same currency? Ugh.

Anyway, if anyone can even remotely enlighten me, please leave me a comment!

I’m also taking Literatura y Cine (lit. and film). Nothing too special. We’ll be reading lit. and analyzing films. Done.

When the normal classes start up at the UCA (U of Cadiz), I’ll be taking a Cervantes class and either a History of Andalucía of a Spanish dialects class. Both of those will be with the regular Spanish students, not the program. Not everyone takes 5 classes, and not everyone takes UCA classes. Only the smartest of peeps do ;)