I Swear I'm a Student Too... Sometimes!

So pretty much all of my posts have been about traveling, partying, and fun. And while that is a large part of my semester here, I do actually attend class *shock*

My school is an open air campus, so it is really pretty (when the weather is nice!)

I’m taking 5 classes here and I really like them! This semester has been a great break from memos, cases, debits/credits, and random marketing classes that everyone falls asleep in. These are my classes:


Spanish Conversation: In this class, we practice speaking with presentations and conversations in class. We learn a lot through these discussions, such as that friends with benefits is "amigo con el derecho de roze" in Spanish and why people don’t smile on the streets (they either think you are crazy or that you are flirting with them). We also have conversation partners. These are Spanish students studying English. We spend half the class speaking in Spanish and the other half speaking in English. In my group, there is one other American student and 3 Spanish girls. They are really nice and it’s cool to talk to them and hear about their lives, etc. For our project, we are supposed to ask them questions about a cultural topic, then do a presentation in class. We chose to talk about Spanish/Basque traditions, dances, and music. I’ll have to let you know how our presentation turns out because we spend most of our time NOT talking about this topic lol. For the Spanish students’ project, they have to interview the American students and decide who is "the most international student." It’s a pretty strange topic and could potentially be damaging to someone’s self-esteem... But we’ll see what happens!

Spanish Grammar: Pretty self-explanatory... But the great part about this class is that we learn Spanish sayings and other fun expressions. For example, when a person has rolls on their stomach (aka muffin top), that is "tener michelines" like the Michelin Man lol

Culture, Politics, and Society in Contemporary Spain: This is a culture class about Spain from 1975 until now. We talk about a lot of different subjects: climate, population issues, Spanish traditions, politics, film, education, etc. It’s a really interesting class too. I’m learning more about Spanish culture in this one semester than I have learned in my many years of studying Spainsh!

Practicum: Now this is the really fun class. The class is supposed to teach us how to use Spanish in everyday contexts/situations. We meet twice a week: on Mondays we have theater and on Wednesdays we do cooking! We play games in the theater class and at the end of the program, we will be performing a short play for the rest of the students in the program. It will be my Spanish acting debut! I’m really enjoying the cooking part of the class too. We go to a txoko three times during the semester. The txoko is a place where traditionally Spanish men go to cook and eat together. We also go on small field trips for wine tastings and to try pintxos, the Basque version of tapas. I will definitely be bringing back some good recipes :)

That is Javi, the guy helping us cook, on the right

Europe in the World: This is the one class I have that is a little closer to business for me. This class is about the European Union, the role in plays in European politics, etc. I had to take it to finish my Spanish minor and I was worried that it would be deathly boring, but I actually like it! The whole class is basically just discussion and it is really stretching me to discuss politics in Spanish! I barely know how to talk about those things in English… The teacher helps us with our Spanish though and is pretty funny.

The teachers are great too. I have the same teacher for every class except Europe in the World and the theater part of Practicum. The teachers also take us on our excursions on the weekends, so we really get to know them. All I know is, these classes are too fun and interesting to be true. I’m actually enjoying going to class!

Is this real life?