Classes Update

Sorry that I've been so bad about updating for the past week! I'm going to try to update more frequently with shorter posts and see how that works out.

For now, I figured I would update you all on how classes are going - yes, I know, I still have to go to classes when abroad.

My UBA classes are moving right along and we're coming up on our first midterms (yikes - in class essays in Spanish?). Now that we're moving along with the material I'm starting to notice the overwhelming factor. The readings are piling up and my lack of background knowledge is become much more apparent. But this week I also started my tutoring sessions - we get 10, 2-hour sessions with a tutor for as many classes as we want through our program. Essentially, the tutor goes over any readings you want and clears up any background information that we're lacking. Now that I've started meeting with them I'm feeling a lot better about my classes!

UBA is just as entertaining as always - you never know what you're going to get on a given day. I've started showing up to class 10 minutes late regularly, and I'm often one of the first students there. This makes a 2 hour class so much more bearable when it starts so late! The other day we had the added delay of an argument between my professor and two students who came into class to present for their group. I'm not sure I've explained this, but periodically throughout classes small groups of students will stop in for 5 minutes to talk about some issue their involved with and pass out flyers - always a nice breather from lectures. These two students were talking about their proposal for changes to the Political Science major, and since my professor was one of the first students enrolled in the major (it wasn't added to the University until 1983!) she had a lot of opinions on the subject and appeared to disagree with the students, from what I could gather, that is.

Also, there are some sort of student elections coming up next week, so the Facultad (what they call the school building) is even more plastered in posters (I still wish I could discreetly take a photo of it all to show you guys - its incredible) and even more students barge into classes. I've been meaning to ask my sister about how the elections work, but it seems that whichever group of students lead their student government has a large amount of say in the actual structure of the majors and the branch of the University in general.

In my Argentine History recitation section I also have the added bonus of being the only exchange student - and everyone in the class is well aware of this fact. Since its a history class, the United States tends to come up every once in awhile, and my professor always nods to me and asks for my input. Meanwhile the whole class turns their heads to look at me. In one class she even described our Civil War and made sure after each sentence that I agreed with her evaluation. Its actually really interesting to hear US history told from an Argentine perspective.

Then I have my literature class through my program which counts as my Spanish language class. Its a class of about 6 kids and our professor is an adorably sweet old man. He only ever assigns us about 10 pages of reading, so its a really easy class and we talk a lot about Argentine history (good addition to my other history class!).

My service learning class isn't really much of a class - only an hour and a half a week, and mostly a check-in to see how our projects are going. Don't worry, I'll have another post about that!

Overall, its nice to have rhythm with classes going and feel like I know what to do at the University. The other students and professors are all really nice and my comprehension of lectures is improving so much.