First day of class

Well, I went to class today... and so the madness begins.

Since I couldn't sleep last night, I slept in until about 10am this morning. I had a bite to eat (some special K with strawberries and raspberries along with toast covered in delicious jellies and such), and out the door I went to try to make my way to campus... this time, without Merche's help.

I have a map, but it doesn't really help because most of the streets don't have street signs at all of the corners. I knew that I needed to cut across the hospital parking lot, but after that, I wasn't really sure where to go. I got the the correct campus easily enough, but the problem was that I didn't know where the building for "la facultad del derecho" was. After wandering around for about 15 minutes or so, I found my way to the facultad. However by this time I was exhausted and drenched in sweat, because it is so very humid and hot here right now... and yet, everyone is wearing long pants and sweaters. Jay, you would die here right now. I feel sticky all the time, and I'm wishing I had brought a more summery wardrobe. Everyone says it gets cold here, so I'm hoping it just happens soon.

Next, to find the room. I was looking for room 314, but the thing is, there are multiple buildings, and the number of the classroom only refers to which facultad, not to a particular building.... and the schedules don't tell you which building this number happens to be in.

In addition, the numbers don't correspond to any particular floor. Being 314, I had figured that it would be on the 3rd floor, right? So up the stairs I go, until I find that it just sort of stops on planta 1 (they start counting floors as you go up... like ground floor, then floor 1, 2, and so on. This still makes sense to me, so whatever.) It just seems that one building has rooms 100-200 or so, another 300-400, and so on. Again, there is no actual way to tell, as there are no signs to tell you this, nor are they in order... the buidling that has rooms 100-200 is not next door to the one with 300-400. There are little covered paths to go from one building to another, because supposedly it rains a lot here.

So finally I find room 314, and there are students hanging out in the hallways as it was about 10 min before class was supposed to start. The door to the classroom was locked, so I figured they were all just waiting for the professor to arrive to open it or whatever. However, about 2 min before class started, everyone goes into another classroom and I'm there alone wondering what the hell is going on. I go downstairs and find an information desk. Turns out, that information desk is for another department, and they send me next door to the law department. I go there, and they tell me that a) the class has changed rooms and b) today is thursday, the class takes place monday, tuesday, and wednesday. Whoops. I've completely lost track of time.

So I re-consult the schedule that Merche helped me make out, and I realize that the class for thursday, "derecho de servicios del red" (uh... I'm not really sure how to translate this to be honest, but basically it is talking about how the infrastructure for public services, communications, etc work and such) also started at 12:30, it now being about 12:45, but luckily having figured out the system, or rather, lackthereof as far as classrooms go, I ran over there and took a seat.

The professor was calling out the names on her list to see who was present and assigning each of them topics for their final project accordingly. Once she finished with the list, she asked if anyone was there who wasn't called, so I raised my hand and explained that I was an international student so I technically wasn't registered in the class yet. She asked me my name so that she could write it down, and as I said it, the entire class busted out in laughter and the professor was like "Whew!! You'll have to write that down, I can't spell THAT! Where the hell are you from?!" I had to laugh, I mean, I never thought of Sandy Hobson being all that strange. I told her that I would just write it down for her after class.

After class, I went to talk to the professor and she explained the grading system to me. Final exam, 50%, end of the year project, 50%. She assigned me "gas" as my final project topic, basically, to explain how the system works across the country. However, she suggested that instead of just talking about Spain that I draw a comparison of how it differs between Spain and the U.S. She told me to look into it, and that if there wasn't a lot of information available on it to tell her and we would figure out something else, but whatever... I can't imagine it would be all that difficult.

After class, I sat in the shade outside and decided to whip out the laptop to see about the internet connection there. There was a good signal, but unfortunately one has to configure something in order to use it... some sort of certificate to identify that you're in fact, a student. Paloma gave me this paper yesterday with the site I needed to go to in order to configure it. Since the internet here at the house is a bit flakey, I can't get to the site which has the instructions. THE IRONY... one has to go online to figure out how to get online.

I enrolled in this program called A-DUO, which is basically a thing done by the office of international relations where they pair up international students with a local student to help get oriented, figure out how things work, look for housing, or whatever else. The person that was paired up with me weeks ago never responded to my emails, so the international relations office assigned me to someone else, Adolfo, or "fito" as he is called. He emailed me withing an hour or so, and asked for my phone number so that we could get in touch. I emailed him back within a few minutes with the number, and about 5 minutes after that he called. I told him that I already had housing and such so everything was fine, but that we could meet up some other time if he wanted to talk about other things.

I got a text from him today saying he wanted to meet, but honestly I'm a little nervous about it. I emailed him back, but I didn't particularly feel like talking on the phone. I'm really tired, and I don't really want to go meet with some guy that I don't know, alone. So, I suggested that if he wanted to meet that we go to a local cafe or something, hang out with friends or something in public.. but since I don't know the city, that I'd leave up to him.

I still haven't heard back from Aurora, this other advisor of sosrts that Paloma told me to contact about selecting new classes. In any case, I plan to continue attending the classes I picked out and just see how it goes, and we'll go from there.

Class today was difficult to follow, because basically the professor just sat down at the desk and talked for an hour without any kind of visual aid or participation from class. There is a syllabus online, so I'll go check that out to see about getting a textbook or something. I suppose I could ask Fito about that.

I took some pictures on my way back from campus... I'll upload a few later so you can see what I'm dealing with. Getting to campus was a bit confusing for me, but getting back was a breeze... not because I knew the way, but because all I had to do was follow the huge cranes from the hotel being built next door. I suppose there is an advantage to living next door to heavy machinery, eh? I made a few detours to explore the area and what shops were around and such, but then made my way back to the house without problems.

When I came back for lunch, Pablo was already here drinkign his cocao (a kid's chocolate drink) and we hung out on the couch watching The Simpsons in Spanish. Flanders is really, really un-funny in Spanish. He doesn't say diddly! For shame! Homer is still pretty hilarious though, although the way the men in The Simpsons act confuses Pedro a bit... he said to me, "They're always so crude! Nobody acts like this!"and I replied, "You obviously don't know many Americans."

Last night I saw Overhaullin' in Spanish, which is also pretty funny... it is so funny how the shows here are pretty much all the same... that is, except for the gameshows. There is this really popular gameshow here, I can't remember the name of it, but it is very interesting. The gameshows are much more intelligent. Contestants have to answer questions about famous authors, paintings, history, etc. Honestly, I'm lost most of the time... not because of the language, but because my knowledge of history and literature is severely lacking. I guess it is just too smart for me, but the rest of my Spanish family love it.

Merche told me that not this weekend but next, we will probably have the house to ourselves because Pedro and Merce are going to Muros to buy veal. They have a vacation house of sorts over there (Muros is a town near the beach, close to the airport actually) and apparently there is this place that sells veal for one weekend only so you have to go there when they are ready and buy hundreds of kilos of the stuff to put in the freezer. They send a message out to everyone letting them know to prepare their freezers the week before so they will have sufficient space. Veal is another one of those things that I have never tried, but we'll see how it goes.

Well, that is about all for now.... I am going to try to get some photos loaded up to share with you all in a bit, and then I was thinking about just wandering around town for awhile to check out the scenary and the shops nearby.

Well, that is about all for now!