Buckle Down Time: Class

I officially started classes last week and completely started classes this week. What do I mean? I started my classes from my program last week but this week I started my class with españoles as well as my internship. Not only did I start everything...but I also changed homestays (more on that later). So how do I feel now that I have a full course load and my first internship???

Here is my schedule:
Monday:      10:30-12:30 Sales Merchandising (with spanish students)
                     1:00-3:00    Cervantes: Estudio de Quijote (a literature class
Tuesday:        9:00-10:30   International Marketing
                    11:00-6:00    Internship (with an hour for lunch)
Wednesday: 10:30-12:30  Sales Merchandising
                     1:00- 3:00    Cervantes
                     3:00-4:35     Intership classroom component
Thursday:       See Tuesday
Friday:           NO CLASS!!!

As you can see I have a pretty nice load this semester. Compared to last semester it's really difficult. All of my classes are in Spanish and there's actually work to do. Plus the internship is more of a time committment. None of this is bad but it's a difficult adjustment because last semester was like a vacation.

The highlights:
Antonio Navarro: He's the professor of both Sales Merchandising and International Marketing. I think I'm going to like both of these classes. In marketing we basically watch commercials and see powerpoints of the info. In Merchandising there's also powerpoints and the highlight is that he starts about 15 minutes late and will probably let us out early too. On Wednesday, he let us out 30 minutes early and started 15 minutes late. I have no problem with this. Between the 2 classes I see him everyday and he seems to be a good professor. He teaches lecture style but he also asks for light participation but it's not really required and he answers all the questions he asks himself. I have to listen really carefully though because he tells his jokes without a smile so I need to pay attention to figure out why people are laughing. He's kind of strict but he's also seems to be a really nice guy.

Internship: I'll probably dedicate a complete post to this but here's what I know so far. My tutor/supervisor is really nice. She smiles alot and understands that everything is really new. There's not a whole lot of work to be done. So far I'm making powerpoint presentations, IN ENGLISH, to recruit american students. The company teaches spanish to non-spanish students. So far I am not improving my spanish that much except for the fact that powerpoint is in Spanish. But it's a relaxed, small office and I think the internship itself will be pretty easy. But I'm not sure that this will be what I hoped for as far as improving my spanish. But then again, I've only been there 2 days.

No class on Fridays: This is self explanatory. Most people travel on the weekends, atleast some weekends. I don't know what I'll be doing when I'm not traveling but it's always nice to have a perpetual 3 day weekend.

The classes are challenging both academically and linguistically. Everything is still new so I'm still really excited. I have to prepare a group presentation everyweek for marketing as well as write a 600 word diary for my internship every week so I'm sure the excitement will start to wane soon.



   

Mis Clases!

Below you will find my schedule for this semester:

Lunes
9-11 Prehispanic and Viceregal Peru
1:30-3:30 Advanced  Spanish Composition and Conversation

Martes
10-1 Peruvian Social Reality

Miercoles
9-10 Prehispanic and Viceregal Peru
11:15-12:45 Living and Learning (Optional)
1:30-3:30 Advanced Spanish Composition and Conversation

Jueves
9-12 Latin American and Peruvian Cinema

I thought I would wait until after the first week of classes to form any opinions....I think this semester is going to be pretty good. All of my classes aretaught by Peruvian professors, in english, except the spanish class. I'm excited to learn more about this ancient culture. I'm most excited about the social reality class. Who wouldn't be when the class is split into titles like "cultural diversity in Peru," "race and ethnicity," "poverty, marginalization, and social discrepancies," "national identity and self-image," and "gender in Peru." Of course all of my professors speak perfect english. One even sounds completely void of an accent until he says something spanish.

And I know what you're thinking: what were you doing for those first 2 weeks? Well, I'll tell you. The first 2 weeks of the program are actually an 'intensive' session. Classes at the university didn't start til this week so we had 2 weeks of spanish classes from 9-4:15 everyday. Yes, it was a very long time. No, I did not learn enough for that much class time. The intensive session wasn't intense so much as more of a review and orientation into culture and general spanish. Yeah...