My Classes

I really lucked out in the classes I am taking. My advisor told me that I would get credit for either level so I decided to take the intermediate classes for two reasons. One, easier classes give me more time to explore Valencia and two, I really wanted to take the culture class that is only offered in the intermediate level. Once I got here I found out that I ended up with the best schedule because of it. I have classes Monday through Thursday from 9am to 2pm. Whereas the advanced classes have a whacked schedule. Today, my roommate started class at 9am but she won't get done until 6pm. She has the same number of classes and credits as me but they divvy them up in a crazy way so she ends up with awkward breaks in between her classes. And they aren't even long enough to go anywhere. 

Grammar Class:

My grammar professor is a nut. He's hilarious, but definitely a little different. Our first day he went on a mini rant about how smoking is good for your health but the government doesn't want us to know this because they want to have a heavy tax on tobacco products. If people knew that it was actually good for your lungs, they wouldn't accept such a high tax. Then, when he went on a smoke break and found out that one of the students smoke, he congratulated her. He also hates the beach so he likes to show us disgusting videos and photos of what the sun does to your skin. We tried to turn the tables on him and YouTubed a video about smoking but he just said that it was nonsense. On the first day, he broke down the different area of the city and wrote on the board where the best bars are in each area. Anytime we ask him what he did the day before, he answers with I drank beer so I'm guessing he knows the best spots. 

The class isn't very difficult yet. The first week I felt like I learned absolutely nothing but it's starting to pick up. I think that he knows that no one really wants to come to class, it's just the price we pay in order to come here, because we are always playing games. Pictionary with spanish words, dominoes with conjugations and dating show style questions and answers. I don't learn anything about spanish grammar from these games but they are a good way to pass the time. He has finally started breaking the classes into periods of grammar exercises with games that relate afterwords so we'll see how it goes. 

Culture Class:

This class is a little more difficult. Mostly because she expects us to get through the same amount of information she teaches in four months during the year. We had to buy a book for this class that consists of nothing more than 300 power point slides on everything from prehistoric art (cave art) to roman music. This wouldn't be a problem if I could actually read the print but it's shrunk so far down that it's almost impossible. However, she doesn't really like sticking us in a class room so we have a field trip every week. The very first day of classes we all file in, expecting to listen to a lecture of Spanish history and instead we all left class and hopped on the metro to go to a museum. Now true, it was a museum of the history of Valencia but given the choice between five hours in a class room or five hours in a museum, I'll take the museum! It's been a long time since I've been in a school that had field trips but I'm remembering why I loved them so much. Last Friday, we took a train to a city outside of Valencia and hiked a mountain to see Roman Ruins! She teaches in Spanish (obviously) but since she knows English she is always translating what she just said. I think I would like it better if she just stuck with Spanish because I usually understand what she says and hearing everything twice just makes me tired. 

One interesting thing about my classes is that I have started to write my notes in spanish. Okay, more like spanglish but hey, that's still impressive to me. I was looking at my notes from last week and they all looked like this . . . Otro paises son mejores que España porque hay too many old people aqui. The sad thing is, this doesn't even look weird to me anymore. What's worse is when I can't even write a word in Spanish or English. I tried to write the word dictionary the other day and it came out a weird crossbreed of both.

English - Dictionary

Spanish - Diccionario 

Britttany - Diccionary

Easy to fix in a word like dictionary but when half of my words end up jumbled, I'm concerned. 

Apparently, during the last week, both my english and my spanish has been getting worse. Four or five days after I got here, I received the most exciting complement of my life. I was eating lunch with my host parents and they were telling me how they had noticed how much my spanish was improving each day. Then when they found out that I was only in the intermediate classes they were astounded and told me that they had assumed I was in the advanced classes because I could talk so well. I felt like a rock star until my ability to speak completely left me. Since then, I only understand half of what they are saying and can only respond with a sí or no. I don't know what happened but I don't like it!!!