Class = Stress

After a bit of a stressful week, I finally decided on my classes. Brown has a silly requirement (Brown? requirements?) that students who are abroad must take at least half of their classes at the local institution, but when I went to the regular classes, I found them very difficult to follow because the professors speak so quickly and with such strong accents. Anyway, after a several email exchange with the study abroad office, I was able to get other classes approved for this requirement and now I am all set. These are the four classes that I think I will be taking this semester: The image of Spain through the cinema; Spain and the European Union; Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the Middle Ages; and Literature and the City: the Case of Sevilla. They all sound pretty interesting and definitely different from the classes I normally take at Brown, so I am excited to learn about very different subjects. And they are, of course, all in Spanish, which is a challenge but theoretically will get easier as the semester moves forward. I am really enjoying having class in Spanish so far, it keeps me on my toes.

Hannah and I didn't really do much besides school last week to be honest, which is a bit of a drag, but I'm guessing that it might have been my most stressful week of the semester so I guess I can't really complain. School here is so different than in the US - for example, I asked my professor the other day when the exams were so that I could plan my travels and he said he didn't know yet. So oh well. In my classes in the US, the exams are mentioned on the first day, first thing. I asked my Senora about this and she was like yeah, that's pretty normal, things are really relaxed around here. And if you miss the exam, it's probably not a big deal. Haha.

Speaking of travel plans, I think I finalized mine, which is awesome! I am going to take 2 big trips: one with a couple friends to Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest, and another by myself to visit friends in Milan and Paris. Besides those, we are going to definitely make it to Portugal and hopefully to Madrid and Barcelona for weekends. I'm really excited about it, but a little disappointed that we probably won't be going to Morocco. There is a trip in 2 weekends through something called Discover Sevilla, but it is all filled up at this point and I'm not sure we are going to have enough people to create another bus. I mean, I guess it all works out because I think Morocco is on the UN's 'do not visit' list.

Hmm I'm trying to think of what else is new over here. I'm busy working on a list of places to apply for summer jobs, and I finally submitted an application to Health Career Connections last week. Now I'm just working on Summerbridge, and hopefully I'll be able to find a few more in the next couple of weeks.

My Spanish is still improving, little by little, although we haven't spoken as much Spanish lately as we did at the beginning of the trip. It's probably inevitable, but I still would like to try and speak it more. The other day, I was talking to my Senora about Gazpacho because she was saying she makes it a lot in the summer and I was trying to ask her if Spaniards put cilantro in their Gazpacho. Anyway, I didn't know the Spanish word for cilantro, so I was trying to explain it by describing it, but then I realized that all the food we use it for they probably don't have. So I was about to give up when Hannah said the word 'cilantro' with a Spanish accent, and Loli knew exactly what she was saying. I guess cilantro in English = cilantro in Spanish. I should try that more often, haha.

We watched Eurotrip in my European Union class in order to look at how Americans view Europeans and now I have to write a 2 page paper about it. I love school here.