First Week of Class and Adjustment to the Spanish University System

September 30th

I didn't have class until the late afternoon at 5:30pm as my other class during the day had been canceled.  I went back to the UC study center to turn in my new schedule of classes.  Hopefully they are correct.

I had a class called Teoría del Estado, dealing with the idea and physical construction of a state.  The professor was really good and was interested in hearing my perspective about the United States as we will all have to give a presentation describing part of the structure of the government in our country.

Here in Spain, the professors don't hand out syllabi or the description of the class.  All of the information about the class is in the "fotocopiadora" or print center where the students must pay a minimal fee to receive the class materials.  It seems like a tedious system but I assume that it saves paper.

At the end of the day, I had been to all of my classes.  I'm debating sticking with 5 or taking the minimum of 4.  Spanish is going to make any class difficult, and one part of me thinks that the more exposure I have to the language, the more I will improve overall.  Even with 5 classes I still have one day off and ample breaks in my schedule so although I would be taking more hours of class than at UCSD, my schedule itself is much better.  At the same time, I don't want to kill myself with class and want to enjoy the entire experience of being abroad.  All of my classes should transfer (I hope) so I won't have to worry about scrambling to graduate the following year (If anything, I'll be a little ahead).  I don't have to make a decision right away as I can drop my classes up until December.  I'll stick with five for the first few weeks and then decide from there.

That night, Antonio made a fantastic meal for our apartment.  We want to trade off cooking dinner when we have a chance.  I definitely need to improve on my cooking as all of my roommates are amazing chefs.  Hopefully I learned something through osmosis as everyone in my family is an excellent cook.  I can make some pretty good pasta.  After dinner we played card games and then went to bed.  I have a great apartment and am living with cool people.