Oh my! Its back to classes this week! On Sunday I had the realization that I've been in school since January w/ only 4 weeks off. Total! Including spring break! GAH! So needless to say I'm not super pumped that I'm back in school, but hey! I'm in Buenos Aires aren't I?!
Classes actually aren't so bad. My first class was at 10am, Political and Social Change in Latin America. The professor is very Fabio-like w/ the long hair and wearing an ascot! The class seemed interesting enough (if your ears could strain enough to hear our teachers whispered words) he takes a very historical approach to politics so I was a fan almost instantly. My second class on Monday was Argentine Economics. There are two professors for this class, one will teach on Mon. and the other on Wed. The Mon. teacher was very interesting and took me directly back to my Macro Econ Theory class. He seems really interesting but, the other teacher is pretty awful. I'm guessing she's and econ professor as well but she just has us go through these work sheets and then has us talk about them. But she doesn't really give us any substantial information or answer to the question.
My last class on Monday/Wed. is Argentine Cinema and its in Spanish. On the first day it seemed ok, I have some friends in this class as well so that will be good. On Wed. it was a bit more difficult. We had to read a portion of an article with a partner and then present to the class a synopsis of our section. I had a lot of difficulties with this but my partner helped me out a lot thankfully and the presentation was fine. But if I'm going to stay in this class I will have to prepare and read ahead so that I will know what's going on and will be able to speak in class. The majority of the grade in this class is from oral presentations. I think this class would really force me to improve my Spanish which is why I want to continue with it but, I have another week to decide.
My Tuesday/Thursday classes start at 4pm. That's right! Four in the afternoon!! It starts with my Spanish language class. I have a feeling it might be a little easy and I could maybe switch into the next level but we didn't really go over much the first day so I might know after today. Then I have The Latin American Role in a context of Economic Globalization. Its a pretty hard core class with a professor who is also a consulter for the World Bank and the UN. He is very critical of Argentina and very clearly told us that he thinks the Argentine people are where they are today because they didn't work for a better future. He's very much against populism and kinda give the impression that Argentina is just one big mess right now. Because this class is meant to be an upper level econ class he gave us a test to make sure all of the students have taken econ before and understand basic econ concepts. I think my past econ professors might have kicked me if they saw some of the things I couldn't remember but I don't think it will get me kicked out of the class. So needless to say I'm very excited for this class.
Other than school Brittany and I have been trying to find the right gym to join. We tried a yoga class on Monday and looked at some gyms last night. But we haven't decided where to go yet.
I don't have any classes on Friday so after I finish my visa paper work at 7:30am that day I'll have the rest of the day to explore. Then on Saturday I'm going on my first excursion to El Tigre, its a city on the Tigre river. It should be fun, apparently there are a bunch of markets and a boat ride on the river. Its only a day trip so we'll be back on Sunday to get ready for classes and perhaps do some more exploring.
That's all for now!
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