I'm listening to "the way you make me feel" my Michael Jackson. if you want to join in!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPjfMSn4f6c
So. American University has been particularly unhelpful. It's been a really rough week and I'm going to vent a little. I came to Madrid with about 7 or 8 classes in mind that I could possibly take at ICADE (five max). The grading system works differently then in the states which means while the courses are probably about the same difficulty, we'll be graded harder. And the Spanish grade will not reflect the grade transferred to AU. To put it simply, if I was to get a 7 out of 10 in a class, that's considered a really good grade here. Hardly anyone ever gets a 10 out of 10 because a 10 would indicate you know more than the teacher does. So an A here would be comparable to a B+ or an A- I suppose. Unfortunately, when AU sees the 7, they will consider it a C.
Elena, who I've mentioned before and works with AU at the Mosaic institution offered to let D and myself take a class at Mosaic to sort of "cushion" our GPA while here, since they grade on the American scale. We were told this Wednesday that because we are directly enrolled into ICADE, we are not allowed to take a class through American University - Mosaic. Even though we'd already been to two classes.
This wouldn't be so bad if there is system with my major where I'm supposed to be taking a total of 4 classes in Spanish, at least 2 of which have to be business classes. This meant I had to drop the Spanish class I was taking at Mosaic and enroll myself in another Spanish class at ICADE, where there are almost NO cultural or history classes. The university mainly has business classes since there's no "general education" requirements of the students. I've e-mailed my advisers (yes plural) at American in DC but evidently they have Thursdays and Fridays off. Clearly I need to be an adviser in the future because they keep such convenient hours.
So right now here are my classes.
Operations Management (English)
Sistemas de Información de Marketing
Habilidades Directivas
Recursos Humanos
Historia Cóntemporanea de Español (literally all about Franquismo as far as I can tell)
The way I feel? Stressed. And I don't generally show how stressed I am until I start biting my nails. My nails are pretty stubby at this point.
Sorry to bum you all out! So on a lighter note we went to Plaza de España tonight to see the Argentine in Madrid exposition, which included a lot of food clothing and accessories for sale, as well as wine tasting and cultural stuff like art and dancing (although we missed the dancing by an hour). I got a tasty alfajore and tried some wine. Anddddd I finally got the bag I've been looking for. My mom is going to yell at me and say "i told you so" but whatever. Basically everyone in Spain carries these little brown and black bags that go over your shoulder and across your chest and hang at your hip. Mine is very very nice.
Also!! While walking around this place, this guy that was giving out free samples of some sort of sunflower seed goes "¿Ecuatoriana?" which was awesome if only half right, especially since I don't think I look that very Ecuadorian. He then proceeded to guess my friend J's ethnicity too but failed at D's thinking she was Chilean. 2/3 isn't bad though.
My whole family in general tells me I look more Spanish than Ecuadorian or Mexican, but that's not really what I've noticed either. The Spanish here actually brown haired and sometimes blonde and almost everyone has blue, green or hazel eyes. Then again Madrid is a little north so I'll update later on how the people I've encountered look. Although skin paleness wise, I may be lighter (of courseeee).
Next weekend a group of us are going to Valencia! Promising in pictures and a good time no doubt.
GG
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