Why, Yes, I Do Attend Class

23:43 Monday March 9, 2009
My House in Buenos Aires

Well, I was very excited to start my new class today, Sistemas Politicos Latinoamericanos Comparativos (Comparative Latin American Political Systems), which is taught completely in Spanish. I took a similar class in English in the United States last semester, so I’m really interested in seeing how the perspective differs down here from what I learned already. The class itself is made up of seven of my fellow Multisas and is also at the University of Belgrano. We will be attending class Monday through Thursday from 13:00 until 17:00 for the next three weeks, so it’s a really intensely taught course. We met one of our three professors (kind of confusing, I guess they each teach on different days despite the brevity of the class) and he started right off the bat going over a brief course overview for the whole day.

Today was the first day of classes for everyone (summer vacation just ended here) so there were a lot of porteños at the school and many little kids in school uniforms on the streets today. I can already tell the difference between summer and school time because the streets are noticeably more crowded with cars and people. While I was looking forward to the class, I was not quite expecting the workload- after class we had to go to the copy center to purchase the readings to complete for tomorrow and discovered it was 90 pages of reading. If you can imagine an extremely dry, wordy, Political Science Journal article…then in a completely different language…due tomorrow…well, that’s my homework. So, after class Corey and I sat in the park by my house to picnic and make a dent in the readings. Before classes, however, ten of us purchased our tickets for Iguazú Falls this weekend (and had another picnic lunch, of course). Woo hoo! I’m so ecstatic for that! Well, back to the readings as my bedtime story.

AN: Sorry if I put too many random details in my blog - since I don’t have time to also keep a journal, I slip in some memories for myself. By the way, I love getting comments and messages from you all, please keep them coming. Anything you want to hear more about? Suggestions? I’m all ears! I’m really working on being up to date with my entries, but with all the stuff I’ve been doing, can you really blame me? Don’t worry, I’ll keep them coming slowly but surely.

Besos, Coli