...more frustrations....

The good news is, it is getting a little easier to understand the professors.... even though some of them talk very quickly. Today my professor for Civil Law even called on me for a question, and miraculously I got it right. Of course as soon as I opened my mouth he asked (I'll translate)
--"You aren't from around here?"
--"No"
--"Where do you come from?"
--"United States" (I usually don't bother saying which state unless asked, since most people here are not familiar with U.S geography anyhow so it doesn't mean much to them.)
--"What state?"
--"Virginia"
--"ah, Tell me, why Virginia is called Virginia?"
--"That's a good question."
--"You don't know?"
-- "No"
--"Well I know! I know why Maryland is named as such too!"
--"Then you know more history about the United States than most Americans."
--"How do you not know?"
--"I thought world history was more interesting than U.S History"
--"Well, that's a good point. I can understand that. For Monday, find out why Virginia and Maryland are named what they are, and you can tell the class. It might not have anything to do with law, but it will be educational."
--"Ok, I'll find out."

People here seem to understand me well enough, but I can't hide the accent. The good news is though sometimes confuse my accent for a south-american, so I suppose that isn't so bad. I am sort of resisting the "ceceo" lisp that the people have around here, but every once in awhile I catch myself doing it anyway.

So, after class I went to talk to Paloma to ask about the magically disappearing translation class. She informs me that it is indeed only offered on the Milán campus. I asked where in Milán, and she had no idea. I asked how I could get there, she said to take a bus. I asked which bus, since there are atleast 5 different companies with busses waiting outside of various routes most of the time and I didn't have the faintest idea which one went where. She told me to talk to the international relations office to find out all this info, even though Paloma is supposed to be the one scheduling my classes. Grr. Since it was already 2:30pm and I had not eaten since 8am, I decided to go home for some lunch. Merche informed me that the international relations office closes at noon every day. Some help that is, I had class up until then!

Meanwhile, I decide to make a pass by the facultad de derecho again to pick up my syllabi. In lieu of distributing copies in class or online, apparently they print up little pamphlets here that you can just pick up at the departmental office. Okay, fair enough. So since I thought I had my classes more or less secured, I should go ahead and figure out what the hell is going on. I look over the pamphlets, and I see one that I recognize: International Organizations. I am probably going to drop it, but I thought I would take a look just in case. However, I did not see any other classes of mine. I ask the secretary if this is all of the classes available, and she tells me that if they are out of pamphets for my classes that I can go downstairs to the photocopy center and that they can make a copy of one for me.

So I make my way downstairs and find the photocopy center, and I ask the ladies down there for the classes I need. They stare at me blankly and tell me that those are all available upstairs with the secretary. "They sent me here, they said you had originals of all the pamphlets and that I could just get a copy from you." "No... we don't have those, they are all upstairs. We could make a copy of this one for you though (pointing the pamphlet I already had)" "... I already have this one." "Go back upstairs, we don't have them here." Ugh.

I go back upstairs, and tell them that they didn't have any. They in turn tell me once again, to go downstairs, I suppose assuming that I simply didn't understand. That is one frustrating thing I am running into: the admninistration hears an accent come out of my mouth and they assume that they are never in the wrong, it's just that I'm a silly foreigner who doesn't know anything. Getting very frustrated at this point, I tell them very slowly and clearly that they don't have any of the pamphlets, and that they had no idea what I was talking about. Finally one of the older secretaries, overhearing our conversation, comes over and tells me to write down the classes which are missing and that she would print up extra copies tomorrow. Mañana, mañana.

For one of the classes, the "Law and Film" class that I'd like to take, she said actually didn't have a syllabus printed up yet and that she was currently typing it up. Are you serious? 2 weeks into class and the syllabus isn't finished? She assured me that she would have them done by 1pm tomorrow. I intend to follow up on that. Why do I get the feeling I'll get another "mañana"?

So I decide to just make my way to Milán campus early and just try to find the class on my own. Pedro gave me a ride to campus because he was headed that way to pick up Merce from her cooking class in that area anyhow. I went into one of the buildings that seemed to still have people around, and found an information desk. Score! However, when I got there, I either caught the lady on a bad day or she just really hates foreigners.. or she hates her job, who knows. Either way, it wasn't pleasant. I asked her which classroom the class was in, and she told me that it is only offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays, despite what my paper from the international relations office tells me.

I ask her to please confirm what time the class was, since the rest of my information appeared to be faulty, and she just decided to keep repeating "TUESDAY AND THURSDAY!" louder and louder. I calmly explained that I understood this, but that I needed to know what time since my sheet was obviously wrong. Louder still, she starts yelling "TUESDAY AND THURSDAY ONLY" at me, and finally tells me to just go to the international relations office... you know, the one that is only open for a few hours in the prime time for classes on the other side of town. Ugh.

I gave up on her, because she was for whatever reason livid with me. I don't think it was my speech skills, because like I said, everyone else hasn't had an issue with it generally and I wasn't exactly trying to say anything difficult. I called Pedro to let him know that I wouldn't be in class and to just drop by after getting Merce and I would be waiting at the bus stop.

So tomorrow I'll go to the inernational relations office since I happen to not have class until 12:30 and try to finalize this. I would really like to take the translation class, since it is directly related to what I'd like to eventually do for a living, but I've already missed a class thanks to this insane system that seems to continually change. I'm not really thrilled to pay the 135 extra euros for it either, and money is getting tight already as I am looking at the price of textbooks. We'll see how it goes. I have a bad feeling that the class time will have changed by the time I get to the international relations office tomorrow and that it will have some horrendous conflict with my classes. I really hope not.

I am really starting to lose my patience with things around here. On top of that, I seem to have lost my corsair flash drive. I think I left it in the chemistry facultad the other night when I was taking an entrance exam for what I thought was a translation class. I hope they can use the same assessment test to place me, since I placed in the advanced class anyway. I really wish I had that jump drive though, it was my favorite. I asked people around the computer lab where I was hanging out but nobody had seen it, and there is no such thing as a lost and found.

Well I need a shower... the weather is cooling down a little with the rain, but it is still super humid and I sweat like crazy inside. Hopefully tomorrow something will be resolved. Tomorrow afternoon I am going to MediaMarkt withthe family, which appears to be like a Spanish BestBuy, so that should be fun. Their slogan on TV is "yo no soy tonto" (I'm not stupid) with this somewhat frightening guy in a military outfit and a wicked mustache who is way too excited about their low low prices.

Until next time..