First Day of Classes

Oh hey, blog. Sorry for not writing in you for a couple of days. I have been a little busy and there has been little to report.

Today, Wednesday, January 9, was the first day of classes for me. It was not the beginning of the regular semester-long courses, but rather those which I am taking for the intensive month, so only for these first three weeks or so. The classes I am taking, beginning at 9am (early for me, because last semester I did not have anything before 11am) and ending at 1, so about four hours of Spanish per day, and then I come home to only Spanish, so writing and thinking in English is a bit difficult at the moment, so don't judge too critically my writing skills here.

At any rate, at 9am is my Spanish grammar and language class. In this class, we are going to cover the different verb tenses, and try to amplify our vocabulary, which is something that I think all American students of Spanish need the most of when it comes to language skills. This is a two hour class, ending around 11am, with a short five minute break halfway through. I am in the superior level of Spanish, in the highest group that one can be in. After I took my placement test, I was relieved to hear that I was considered among the most elite of the elite of those in my group. There are only four Americans in the group, one South Korean, and the rest are from Brazil (though different cities and even those from the same city do not seem to know each other). Their Spanish is very good, as one can imagine, but it is of the South American variety, so it seems that they are in basically the same boat that we are in when it comes to learning Castillian Spanish (which is surprisingly much different from the South American variety). Of the four American students, two are of Hispanic descent (one is Cuban and lives in Maine and is not part of our program, while the other lived in Colombia for eight years as a child and now lives in Virginia and is with my program as well). The other American is also from my program and goes to CU-Boulder, so I count myself lucky or consider myself somewhat talented at Spanish by being with these individuals. The course itself has not been too difficult yet, but it has only been one day, so we shall see what the future holds for this class. The class itself and the students taking the class seem to be pretty relaxed and cool.

After this class, I stay in the same classroom for my next subject: conversation and reaction. As the title indicates, it is all about improving our spoken Spanish skills and our ability to respond to different situations orally. For the first day, we do a really cool ice breaker, that was totally informal and that I do not think I had ever done in the States before. We were told to put or name on a piece of paper and then stick it on the wall. Then we were told to find someone we did not know and we had five minutes to talk with them and tell them our entire life story. After we knew everything about each other, we went to find their sheet on the wall, and then wrote in three minutes everything we could remember about them. Having completed this part of the process, the next step was to stick it back on the wall, and repeat the process again, but with a new student. When it was time to write about this new person, we were told to read everything that had already been written and then add some new information, and if there was nothing new to report, to invent something. Sticking it back their sheet back on the wall, we repeated the process one more time with another new student. The only difference this time was that we needed to read everything that had been written, write some more new things that we learned, then write our impression of this final person, and somewhere in the discussion, fabricate a lie about that person, but not an obvious lie, but rather a subtle, believable one. That took most of the hour, and we are apparently finishing it tomorrow.

After this class, we (others in my program) went to the next building, which was on the other side of the downtown area. We had some troubles arriving there, even though we had been there before and were told on our tour of Salamanca where this building was, but the issues arose only because we went a different way on our own. You know how it is: you can get there/do something with a guide but when that guide leaves you, it becomes much more difficult. At any rate, we reached the building and classroom where our last course of the day, Spanish culture, would take place. A man walked into the classroom and informed us that our teacher had had an accident or something before the class period, so she was not going to be here today, so he was covering it. He was really quite intimidating, but turned out to be a pretty funny and cool guy. He handed out two sheets that had situations explained and then questions about what to do in said situation. We discussed it and he told us everything the Spaniards would do in that situation, so the class period was a really good one, as he said (and most of the world probably can agree) that grammar and vocabulary mistakes can be forgiven, but those of culture cannot. These latter errors are more grave because if you break them, it as if you are refusing to enter into the culture completely, as if it is not good enough for you or something.

After my classes, I walked home and had some lunch. After lunch time, I got to Skype my girly girl, Liz, as it was siesta time for me and wakey-wakey for her. However, before we got to Skyping, the door to my room was closed as I was pantsless because of the impending siesta. However, I heard the phone ring, Rufi answer and speak something, then a knock came on my door. I was horrified, because I thought the phone call was for me and wondered how would be calling my house in Spain given the international calling rates and the fact that I pleaded with all that the phone only be used only in cases of absolute emergencies. I put some pants on and asked Rufi what she wanted, she handed me the phone saying it was her niece. I was really confused, said hello to the niece, and Rufi explained to me that her niece wanted to do an intercambios with me (which is where we both sit and talk first in one language and then in the other so that I can practice my Spanish and she can practice her English). I agreed to the idea of an intercambio so the niece, Sara, asked if eight o'clock tonight would work well for me to do the intercambio. Of course it would!

I did not end up taking a sleeping siesta, but rather just a relaxing one, as I had to go take another placement test at 5:30 for ISA. I did that, hung out with other ISA students after the test, asking them about homestays, the food, etc. Then I returned home to be in time for my intercambio. As is the Spanish way, Sara was a little bit late, but no matter, we began virtually as soon as she arrived. We sat and talked in Spanish for quite some time and she told me that she was impressed with how well I could speak it (again, this made my confidence soar!). Then came the time for her to speak in English. While speaking and Spanish, she told me that never in her entire education had she ever taken an oral exam in English. There were various reasons for this, but nonetheless she told me she was a little worried/scared at the thought of doing this. I told her not to worry. So we started. After about 45 minutes of talking both in Spanish and English (as I tended to ask her questions in Spanish and then have her answer them in English, supplementing difficult English words with their Spanish equivalents), it was time to eat. She sat with us and talked with Rufi, and then after dinner, we had another good half hour or so of intercambio. At the end of the intercambio, she asked me if I wanted to continue doing this with her, with my response being a very enthusiastic definitely, and so we planned our next time and place. While we were talking in Spanish, I told her that I sort of had a similar fear that she had, but only with Spanish. I have a huge fear of going up to strangers and talking in Spanish because I always think about what they are thinking and how they are critiquing me, which makes me over-think the language instead of just letting it come out. I said that it has been difficult so far for me to order things in bars and cafes because there often is not a menu from which I can choose what I want to eat and then place my order. It was for this reason that she suggested we meet just outside of a department store on Friday and then we could walk to a bar across the street and play billiards with her husband and some of her friends. So these are my plans on Friday, and I am super excited and Rufi was very happy that her niece is able to participate in this intercambios.