el primer dia de las clases

So, even though I seemed pretty confident after our practice run to school yesterday, I still managed to screw it up. I planned to meet Jen, Allie, and AJ, who live with Concha a few blocks away by our Metro station. I actually had a bad dream that they didn't come in time and I had to go by myself the first day, and that dream almost came true. I got there at about 8:45ish (we planned to meet at 8:50). Classes start at 9:30 and it does take a while to get to school from where we live because we have to take line 1 for about five stops before switching onto line 5 and going another two. Then we have a short walk from our stop to school. Anyways, I was hoping to get on the metro at 8:50, but they didn't get to our stop until 9:03ish, which would have been fine if we knew exactly where we were going. We went the right way on the metro and everything, but we walked in the wrong direction on that street that our school is on. A long way down too, before we realized it. And I felt bad because I was kind of leading the pact since I did a practice run yesterday. We turned around and powerwalked it to school. Needless to say, we were late to the first class. By 30 minutes!! eek. We figured that the teachers would understand though, since it is kind of complicated and scary to learn the Madrid Metro system and be on time for the very first day. We walked up to our floor and the program director, Maria, said it was fine. She was like 'tranquilas primera' which means calm down before going into class. We were all flustered, not to mention very sweaty.

My first class was International Media, or "Comunicacion Internacional." Jen and I walked in and the professor (his name is Ignacio Blanco) looked kind of mad, but I think he understood, and I know that some other students were pretty late too. He was calling roll and asked us how many semesters of Spanish we have all taken. The class is in Spanish! I think a lot of people were surprised by this because we didn't have any prior knowledge about this and it's an upper division Communication class. I feel bad for some of the students because some have only had 1 or 2 semesters of Spanish. I can't imagine! I took 4 years of it in high school and 4 semesters (including 2 upper divisions) in college, and I still often feel stupid trying to speak properly here. But I personally don't have a problem that it's in Spanish and I think that it won't be too bad since he has to make sure the less advanced students understand. And I think it will be good for everyone and everyone will improve greatly. The first article that we have to read in our book/reader is in Spanish! But I think most of the book is in English.

Then I had a long break before my next class, so I just hung out around school talking to some other students. I went with a couple friends to eat lunch at a restaurant. It was a very interesting, new experience for me. 3 of us ordered coke, and the other a beer. I learned when the bill came that coke is more expensive than beer at restaurants here! I couldn't get over it. The price of coke (in a kind of small glass bottle) was 3 Euro!! that's $4.50 in American dollars! The food was also a new experience. We got 3 dishes that we shared- Croquetas were potatoes/ham/cheese inside small balls of fried bread. Not sure what the other two were called but one was rice, beans, and ground beef in a shape that looked like sushi, and the other was chorizo (sausage) and french fries. I honestly wasn't too fond of them, but I need to try new things and be open while I'm here, and who knows? maybe over time I will acquire a taste for some of it. But the price.. I paid a total of 10 Euro ($15 in American dollars) for that lunch, which is pretty expensive. And, I enjoy my senora's food a lot more! So I don't plan on eating lunch out like that every day, but maybe once in a while. I asked Concha if I bought some things like peanut butter to make lunches, I could keep some things in the fridge/pantry and she was so nice about it! She understands that it's way cheaper to do that and emphasizes that we need to be comfortable since we'll be here for almost 4 months. My friend Britanny takes a lunch to school every day and saves a LOT of money by doing so. So I hope to make it to a market/shopping center soon to get some food.

My second class of the day was "The Problem of God," or "El Problema de Dios," an upper division religion class that will fill the USD requirement for 1 or the 3 religion classes we have to take that needs to be upper division. The professor, Cathy Bingman, is really cool. She's actually from America and has been living in Spain for about 11 years now. We talked a lot about the cultural differences we have noticed so far with our experiences in Spain. Like how in America, we are more focused on money and often use the phrase 'time is money.' Here in Spain it is much more relaxed and the concept of time is different. College is really cheap so lots of students take their time getting their bachelor's degrees... maybe 5 or 6 years. The cost of houses/apartments/flats are very high but salaries are very low! She was saying how doctors only make like 40,000 Euro after having lots of experience (which is about $60,000 in the states). I realized this yesterday when I was talking to Cristina about pharmacy. At home, pharmacists make about $90,000 a year starting out! My mom has encouraged my brother Jeff to be a pharmacist and even though he's only 15, he is pretty set on it. I feel like a lot of it is because he sees the big salary in the future, not necessarily because he is actually interested in pharmacy/chemistry. I could be wrong, but I brought this up generally in class. Here, the job you take up is usually something you really want to do since salaries are pretty low for everything. I was saying how in the states, I feel like a lot of people don't always do what they really would like to do because it might not pay much. I'm hoping this doesn't happen to me with my future career, but it's what I have been thinking about a lot lately. Anyways, I think that class is going to be good and very interesting.

My third class of the day was Advanced Spanish for Business, or "Espanol de Negocios." There were only about 5 USD students in the class, and the rest SMU students. I think this is going to be my most challenging class, but practical I think. We had to choose a country to do a presentation on, and I chose the Philippines. (Mom, I know you would have liked me to choose Poland :), but a guy that was called before me already chose it). I am somewhat familiar with Filipino culture because I have a lot of Filipino friends from home, and I think it will be cool to learn more about the country.

So in conclusion, I think my classes are going to be good for the most part. Advanced Spanish is kind of intimidating, but will hopefully be useful for me in the future. Since International Media is going to be in Spanish, I realized that 4 out of 5 classes are in Spanish! And I think I will be able to handle them.. (for the most part). This is a big accomplishment for me, because in the second semester of freshman year when I took 4th semester Spanish I was really intimidated. I had a lot of trouble understanding what was being said since the class was all in Spanish. Since then my listening skills have improved dramatically, but I still need a lot of work on my speaking skills. :)

By the way, Concha made one of the best desserts I have ever tasted today! (And I have tasted A LOT of desserts in my day). Rachel and I were so grateful to have some when we got home from school at about 6:45pm. It was like banana bread/coffee cake with chocolate chips in it. Sooooo good. Maybe I can get the recipe from her so I can make it at home...