Technical Difficulties

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Well I've finished my first week of classes. It wasn't too bad, but I'm going to have a busy semester. I think I'll like most of my professors. The professor for my Spanish Civilization and Culture class is a little hard to understand though. His voice just doesn't carry, and since the only left handed desk is at the back of the room, I'm just going to have to strain my ears. It's difficult too because he doesn't use a powerpoint; he just talks the whole time and I have to take notes from what he says. I've never had to do this before, and it is extremely hard, especially being in another language. I've always had a textbook or a powerpoint to guide my notes. I'm a little nervous for my POE class because it's all speaking and writing, not my two strong points in Spanish. For class, we sit in a circle and whoever has a topic, we discuss it for an hour and a half. This is difficult for me because sometimes, I don't have anything to say on the topic, and I'm not a person to just ramble off her thoughts in class. So I get penalized for not speaking. And for the writing aspect, we have to write something every week, exchange it with a classmate, and make corrections. Now I know how to edit papers, but when it's in Spanish, I have no clue. I was never really taught how to write well in Spanish, so how can I possibly tell someone else how to write in Spanish? I guess with practice I'll get better at it.

We had another Intercambio on Thursday, this time to a Teteria. Teterias are little Arab style tea houses around the Albaycin area of Granada. My group met Fatima and we found a cute little teteria and had tea. We were there for about two hours having a lively discussion about Spanish accents, football players, and the best place for Fatima to visit when she comes to the US. Of course I put in a good word for Iowa, but I think other areas won out like California and New York.

It was a very relaxing weekend, but now I need to get into school mode. I haven´t gotten into the habit of doing my homework right away yet, and I´m suffering for it. I´ll have to be up a little later tonight to finish it all. Or maybe I´ll just do it tomorrow; I do have until 6:30pm to do it...

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