time is running out...

el 26 de junio, 2009
I just realized that I haven’t written anything in almost a week! Sorry about that – I have actually had a lot of work to do for class, since we had an oral exam yesterday, a written exam and a research paper due for la clase de cultura today. Have I mentioned the paper already?? I think I might have… anyway, we had to choose a topic regarding some aspect of Spanish culture, so I wrote about Pedro Almodóvar, one of the most internationally acclaimed directors de España.

The paper itself wasn’t very difficult to write; however, as you all know, I don’t have internet! The closest place to get it is a place called Café & Té, but for whatever reason the internet cuts off within an hour every time I’ve been there, so I usually end up walking all the way to the school (which sucks – it’s like a 30-minute walk, they have the worst connection ever, and Facebook almost never works at all) or I sit at the Café-Bar down the street from the CLM campus (where I have to order a drink or expensive food to use the internet, and then the camarero brings over free shots against my will!). All that said, I’m totally jealous of my classmates who lucked out by having internet, because I’m sure doing the research paper was much less complicated than it was for me. It took me ALL week to write a little more than 3 pages!
My oral exam yesterday with Jennifer, the professor who came with us from Mason, went pretty well although she asked some questions that I found it difficult to answer. All that I knew going into it was we had to do a 15-minute presentation about our experience, and I had expected it to be more formal, like a presentation that I’d have to prepare beforehand. It actually ended up being really informal; we basically just chatted the whole time and she asked about the experience, how the people and culture, etc. are different here than in the States, how we’ve changed and what we would change about the program. The hardest question for me to answer was about how I’ve changed since I got here – I really don’t think I have, except I have improved my wardrobe! Ja, I should have said that…

We had substitute teachers in our first two classes today, which is the last day before our exams on Monday. The first professor was a big guy that seemed kind of boring and by-the-book at first – but after we finished going over what the teacher had for us to do, he showed us funny videos on YouTube for the rest of the class! The one that I thought was best was called “One Semester of Spanish Love Song” and it is freakin’ hilarious!!! I’m definitely going to have a post a link to it when I can later. Then, we watched a movie in our next class, called «Otro lado de la cama» (The Other Side of the Bed) and that was pretty entertaining, too. It’s got a pretty complicated plot, but that’s only because all of the couples were cheating on each other! It had a lot of really funny moments though; I think all of us were laughing the entire two hours.

After the first two classes, we had our exam for culture class, and I think I did OK, but not great. There were 15 short answer questions and then an essay question, and I knew just about everything but there was one question that I didn’t know at all, one that I wasn’t too sure about, and one that I thought I got right and found out later that I didn’t. The exam counts for 50% of our grade for that class, but that class is only worth 15% of our Mason grade though, so I don’t think it will hurt too much. Hopefully, I’ll do well on the paper, which is worth 30% of the grade, to make up for it.

In a little bit, we’re supposed to meet up for our very last excursion to Fuentevaqueros, the place where García Lorca was born. I’m not really sure what we’re doing there, but I’m just glad it’s not that hot out today, in case we’ll be outdoors. Later tonight, we’re supposed to meet up as a group to go see a Flamenco show – finally!! I’m looking forward to that… and this weekend, we’ll probably go to the beach one more time, maybe for the day on Saturday or Sunday. Who knows if/when I’ll get another chance to go to the beach this summer – and if I do, I’m pretty sure it won’t be a Mediterranean beach, right? I mean, unless someone wants to sponsor another trip for me… eh? Any volunteers?

Yeah, I didn’t think so. Well, gotta run – off to Fuentevaqueros!

- LC