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Published: December 4th 2009
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Beautiful colors
Rows of buildings at the UPO. I haven’t talked much about my school, but I think it’s time to dedicate a blog entry to the sometimes ridiculous things that go on. I cannot, of course, generalize about all Spanish universities; I’m just telling you about this one: La Universidad de Pablo de Olavide, fondly referred to as “La UPO.” According to Wikipedia, it was founded in 1997, making it the newest public university in Spain. I seem to remember hearing more about the history of it in the whirlwind of my first week here, but that’s all gone now. The only thing I could possibly tell you would be that I’m fairly certain it was actually built earlier than 1997 and used for some other purpose, something about Franco was thrown in there (still a very recent part of Spanish history), and la de da doo fiddle de dee, the buildings are about as ugly as they can be. See photo.
After the first few weeks of class, they started changing up the buildings on us. We would get weekly emails from the department of foreign studies saying “They tell us this is the last time, but these are the classroom changes this week.” Instead of
Building 24
The path through the trees to class. being in one generic classroom in building 10, my class would be moved to another equally generic classroom in building 14. Maybe the desks were different, or there were tables, or whatever, but I honestly cannot fathom why this all was necessary. It started because the Spanish students started class and therefore needed classrooms (apparently this wasn’t worked out ahead of time…) and apparently needed very specific rooms? I try not to think about it too much, because then I start to criticize.
The buildings aren’t really even set up in a logical manner. Somewhat… but I don’t really understand why building 10 is across from 13 (I think that’s how it is) rather than, say, 11 or 9. To explain this further, in case you care, the main section of campus is formed by two rows of buildings, connected by a hallway above, with odd numbers on one side and even numbers on the other. It culminates with building 17, where the main offices are as well as the Copisteria, which I’ll get to in a second.
One day I had to find building 24, which I assumed would be near the library, which was building 25. After a bit of searching, I decided to ask someone, who directed me “to the end of the parking lot and down a little pathway to the right through the trees.” Uh. Ok. Following his instructions, I ended up at a group of apparently more recently built buildings, but didn’t see 24 anywhere. Standing in front of building 29, I asked someone sitting on a bench if he could kindly direct me. He pointed to building 29. “No,” I politely responded, “That’s 29. I’m looking for building 24.” “Yea, it’s 29, but it’s also building 24.” HA! Of course it is. That makes all the sense in the world. Later I found out that the back way is actually located across from the library, so all hope is not lost.
One day I checked a book out from the library, just to do it (It was The Alchemist in Spanish, when I was really on a Paulo Coelho high). I didn’t actually ended up reading it, and then I forgot about it, so then when I finally turned it back in it was a few days late. “Do I have to pay something?” I asked the librarian before leaving, and she looked at me oddly. “No. You just can’t check out another book for a week.” Right. Good thing I didn’t need to check anything out any time soon. Now I have three things out for end-of-semester projects, and I get a text message reminder every single day reminding me when they’re due. Hard to forget anymore.
Next order of business: Do you have a printer? I would like to take this opportunity to tell you to not take it for granted. Seriously. I’m going to be treating mine with a whole lot of TLC when I get back to school, because printing here is a cultural experience all in its own. At the beginning of the semester I bought a copy card so I could print in the library, then I lost it, and now it hardly seems worth it, so I go to the “Copisteria” and print for 5 Euro cents a page. Easy enough, except… it’s generally packed full of people, and there is no semblance of a line. Sometimes they use the number system, but even then people just buddy up with their friends as they come in and things take twice as long. I’m pretty sure my record for waiting was thirty minutes, just to print two pages off my USB drive. And if you’re not assertive, you can just forget about printing at all. Copisteria, I hate you! I will not miss you!
With all the complaining I’ve been doing during this blog, it probably sounds like things are horrible, but then I have to remember that it’s 10:30 on a Friday morning, I’m still in my PJ’s, and the only plans I have for the day are to go study at a coffee shop with Connie (and, of course, go out tonight). It will be slightly difficult re-adjusting to the whole 5 days of class thing, not to mention that next semester I will be reading Spanish literature every hour of every day, and not frolicking about in discotecas and planning my next trip (which, by the way, is to Gibraltar and Tarifa. It’s gonna happen.) My classes are fairly tame, for the most part, except now because it’s the end of the semester so I have at least one paper or project plus a test for each of them. But I’m day one of a five day weekend, so it should be pretty manageable.
I miss you all, but will see you soon. Two weeks.
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