So given that my real classes end this week, I should say my thoughts on each of them. I say real classes because after this week we just have two weeks of the seven of us from Seattle U learning culture and literature for 2(?) hours a day. And whether or not we are graded is uncertain. Anyway, here are my thoughts.
Language: This is by far my favorite class. It is two hours from 9 to 11 or so. My professor is awesome. She's super chill. I'm not exactly certain whether or not she has ever come to class on time. She understands that we are college students. She has noted our "tiredness" on at least one occasion. She wants to have fun as much as we do and we have managed to do so while moving pretty quickly through the material. Her favorite things to say are "no pasa nada" (which I take to mean don't worry but I'm not entirely sure) and "don't worry, be happy" in English. Bobby McFerrin's memory lives on in Spain. (Though a quick Wikipedia search shows me that he is still alive. Whoops!) Belén is one of my favorite professors so far in college.
More than that, I just find it interesting to learn about the grammar and such of the language and learn more words. I came hear to better learn how to speak Spanish so obvs this will be more interesting to me. And even though a lot of it is review, it's still interesting to learn the intricacies of the languages and some smaller things I didn't learn before. I still have trouble with things I had trouble with before, like when to use which word for "to be" (ser and estar) and which word for "for" to use (por or para). But overall I feel a lot more confident with my Spanish than when I got here which is most important.
Culture: This class is also taught by Belén so it's a double dose of awesome. I wouldn't say it's as useful but it is pretty interesting to learn about the geography (who knew I'd be interested in geography?!), food and other customs of the country. A lot of days we just watched YouTube videos of bull fighting or Flamenco dancing and I'd be lying if I said I didn't doze off every once and awhile (ed. note: "once and awhile" means "day" in this case) but still there are a lot of interesting things to learn. I actually know some about Franco and the Spanish Civil War, which I didn't really before. And the next 3(?) days we get to watch a Spanish movie, either the Spanish version of the Hangover or a pretty decent looking drama called "Celda 211" which Wikipedia calls a "prison film". I managed to absorb the things in this class that interested me (fun fact: the prime minister of Spain is named Jose Zapatero, which translates to Joseph Shoemaker. This is how my mind works.) I have no idea what the next two weeks of culture class will be but hopefully it's as enjoyable/relaxed as the last six.
Literature: The hour of the day that I dread the most. I was already less than keen on the class because I don't really like literature because reading is gross. Add to that that I'm not necessarily fluent in Spanish and I was quite scared going into it. Then I went to class. While I am able to understand her better now, the first day of class was really terrifying. Our professor, who has the ever-so-flattering name of Balbi, sounded like an auctioneer getting many bids on a hot item on my first day. Every day i go to class I just feel like I am being talked at for an hour. Some days it is literally just her reading a handout she gives us and adding her own commentary/repeating the same thing we already understand in many different ways. I would probably understand her better if I focused all my energy on listening to her but I have trouble focusing in English literature classes where comprehending what the professor/teacher is saying isn't a problem. Add to that a professor who is strangely strict on absences (weird that the foreign exchange students leave on Fridays for school sanctioned excursions) and noise (she has repeatedly gotten upset at us for rustling papers, though it's mainly because we get 2 or 3 handouts a day if I'm being conservative).
So I'm not too hot about literature. I can understand what we're reading if I have Google translate out and am able to read it at my own pace but reading at Balbi-pace is not that. It seems like a lot of it is the same BS-ing of an English literature class and regurgitating what Balbi says about the works. This includes saying something along the lines of poor people don't have feelings or psychology because they are only worried about survival, which what? It's easy enough to do and I'm getting decent grades but it's just not enjoyable at all and such a change from my first three hours of the day. I figured that the professors would be understanding of our lack of fluency but I feel like I'm going to be made feel like an idiot, in the bad way, whenever I say something in her class, either because it doesn't go with her correct answer of what the interpretation is or because I am sometimes not very eloquent with the words in Spanish. My language professor makes fun of my accent but she does it in a joking way and it makes me laugh. When Balbi does it I can almost feel the disdain in her tone. Perhaps all of this is just altered by my initial first impression of him but everyone seems to hate the class that I've talked to so probably not. When she talks to us about non-literary things it's not so bad so who knows.
Anyway there's what my actual studying is like. My normal classes come to an end on Friday and I get to be in special Seattle University culture and literature classes for the last two weeks of the program to get enough credit-hours. Hopefully lit is more good with a new professor and Balbi is an aberration.
