Monday, April 5, 2010

school

So, i haven't done so well at keeping up with everything, so we're going to do a post or two of review before i move on to Machu Picchu. First off, school/classes. I can literally sum up this part of my life in one word: lost.

I feel about as lost as an eskimo in the amazon. As international students, we didn't register for courses until the 22nd of March. If any of you remember, my semester did indeed start the 15th of March. Yes, i was also confused. The first week, we were able to attend whatever classes we liked in order to see what the class was like and if we wanted to take it for the whole semester. I was awfully glad for this week later, because i found out that the lit course i had gotten approved at GCC included almost 30 pages of writing, two exams, and one 30 minute presentation during the semester. Bottom line, i can't do that.

I also dropped the math class that i had wanted to take. This one didn't seem hard at all, so i was sort of sad i was dropping it. The problem was that there is a mandatory practica session every Saturday. I'm not taking classes on Saturdays, especially since that would mean missing all of the excursions with ISA. So, after a week of being lost completely, i am registered in two history courses and one religion class. Two of which will transfer to GCC, the other history is just an elective. 12 credits is technically still a full student and there is enough reading already, trust me.

The next problem that arises is that i needed four classes to transfer to GCC in order to finish both the English and the Spanish major. Yeah, obviously we have a problem. It looks like Spanish is winning out over the English, so i will graduate with a Spanish major and minors in both Bible and English.

Three weeks in right now and i can honestly say that i am still just as lost as before. I'm beginning to think that studying in Spanish isn't quite as easy as i had hoped. To top off the classes, there are no textbooks. Haha, yeah, ridiculous. Instead, they have lecturas... and a million photocopiers on campus. Basically, you have to go to the one fotocopier with the right paper and pay to get a copy made. Peruvians, to put it nicely, don't understand the concept of a line. It shows up everywhere! School, traffic... pathetic. My "oh you go ahead..." attitude doesn't work here. You either force your way in, or you wait for hours, or you don't get your assignment. Those are the only three options. I don't have time for option 2 and option 3 isn't really an option... so i push my way through and make everyone mad because i get up there and am like, "uh, i need something for this class with this prof... i think it's by this author". jaja oh well. It's quite an experience. :)

1 comment:

  1. Sounds just great! Maybe it is a good thing you switched classes. You will survive. Remember you only need a pass not an A. Love Mom

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