Day 13, I think.

I'm sorry, my dearest readers. Please accept my sincerest apologies for not having written. I know it must have been heart-breakingly difficult to not read the paragraphs and paragraphs of dumb shit I have to say. To make it up to you, you all will receive not one, but THREE travel tips, aiight? Sound good? Okay, let's get started:

Travel Tip #6:
Don't decide that "to stop cursing" is your news years resolution the same year you leave the country to learn a new language.

So when was the last time I wrote? Saturday? Sunday, perhaps? I don't even know. But one significant event has taken place since the weekend: classes have officially started. (Side note real quick- I wish you all could appreciate how hard it is for me to write in English right now. Everything comes to me in Spanish first, so I have to think about every sentence and every word twice. And that's twice as much thinking.) Our first day of classes was Monday. For those of you just now joining us, our group of united states-ians was split up into two groups, according to level. They, of course, won't tell us which is the smart level, but I have the feeling they mixed us up. That is to say, the "smart" students aren't all in one class, and the "stupid" kids aren't in the other class. My hermana asked me if I was in the smart class, and I responded with, "Claro que si," which translates loosely to, "Duhhh."

So here is the structure of our arduous, hectic, demanding, strenuous, and a bunch of other sarcastically used words meaning "difficult" days: we arrive at school at 9:30am for our first class, which for my group is conversation, taught by Dr. Chandler (a teacher at UNCW) and our student teacher intern lady (yes that is her official job title), Sara. Then at 11:00, we take a 30 minute break. At 11:30, we return to class for advanced grammar, taught by dr. Gonzalo, who is a teacher here at UNICAN. The other group's schedule is backwards; they have grammar first and then conversation practice. At 1pm, we are done with classes for the day. We go home and eat lunch with our families, usually take a siesta, and then are free to do with the rest of our day as we please. Yes. Life here is rough.

Now, for my parents, I'll emphasize my pursuits inside the classroom. I am extremely relieved to be taking classes again. I hate to admit how boring of a person I fundamentally am, but I absolutely crave structure. I used to resent the fact that I thrived under a set schedule, but now I embrace it. Yeah, I'm also the loser that genuinely enjoys learning grammar rules while everyone else is falling asleep. I admit it proudly.

I wondered if there might be a strategy behind having a certain group take the conversation class first, and THEN the grammar class. It seemed to me a bit counter-intuitive. Bass-ackwards, if you will. Why would you practice speaking language before studying its grammar rules? And then I thought, of course! it must be because everyone in my group already knows said rules and therefore can move on straight to practice only to return to grammar later on to simply tweak a few verb conjugations here, correct a few adjective-noun agreements there. The other students, however must need to first learn the rules before they're able to practice them. Thusly, I MUST be in the "smart" group, follow my logic?

If you hadn't already noticed, I have a problem with over-thinking things.

No, I went back and forth in my head as to why/how we were split, what the method was behind us taking a certain class before another and the other after the first. It was one of those moments when I had to remind myself that I'm in spain. In Spain. Me. Stop worrying about the strategy of learning the language, because it's really simple: ignore why the professors are doing what they're doing, because for everyone, "stupid" group or "smart" group, the objective is to practice, so effing practice. And if you're wondering, yes, that is the pep talk I give myself in the mirror every morning.

('Nother side note- I had a prettier way of saying that, but my señora just came in and distracted me, resulting in my forgetting what I was going to say. So there it is. It's not beautiful, but there it is.)

Okay, so yeah, enough tangents. Seriously, I'm actually going to talk about classes in this paragraph. Really. Here goes. Our first class of the day, conversation with dr. Chandler, is nice first thing in the morning. We've been given a daily vocab list, which is usually a nice mix of a good review (because I SO already know most of the words) and a couple new words that aren't as arbitrary as the ones we were assigned back in high school. As in, words me might actually use in our daily conversations. For instance, the Spanish equivalent of "OMG," and how to say "cool," and "pedestrian crossing," and other such useful city-folk vocabulary. After we take our daily vocabulary quizzes or, pruebitas, literally "small quiz," we usually have a lengthy, slightly structured conversation. Our conversation topics are usually very English-teacher-trying-to-win-over-his-students, like, "describe your best experience since you've been in Spain," "what has been your worst/funniest misunderstanding so far?" and "what was your most surprising moment?" Yeah, what did I tell you? I still enjoy the class a lot, because I get to practice Spanish.

During the breaks, we usually (I throw the word 'usually' around as though we've been in class longer than 4 days...) find he other class and hang with them. We need some dose of sanity to prepare for the shit show we all know is coming. Dr. Gonzalo is crazy. Listen to me, people. Crazy with a capital C. So crazy, that I considered relocating to the back of the classroom from my comfort zone of front-and-center. If you've ever taken a class with me, you know that that is saying something. Front-and-center is my home. I will give him this though, every thing he says is so insane, there's no possible way we're ever going to forget it. For instance, there is a grammatical concept called the "impersonal a," which we spaniards put between a verb and the subject if the subject is a person or group of people. A lot of times it is mistaken for the preposition "to," which happens to be spelled the same way (a). Because of this (sometimes frustrating) mistake, Gonzalo calls it-loudly, I might add-"fucking A!" Hopefully that paints some kind of picture for you as to what kind of lectures Gonzalo gives.

And I use the term "lectures" loosely because he has us talk a lot of the time. His way of teaching is doing something, like poking me in the eye (yes that actually happened), and asking me to tell him what happened. "A mi me molestas," which is NOT what it sounds like. In Spanish, "molestar" is a false cognate. It means "to bother" (not to molest; just so we're clear). So I tell him, you're bothering me. Then he asks someone else, what happened? "A ella le molestas," you're bothering her. Then he does something else, like scare the piss out of the girl sitting next to me (again, actually happened), and ask her to tell him what happened, then ask someone else, and so the "lecture" goes.

As I'm only a sophomore in college, I've only taken classes from a tiny, Sherri-sized handful of teachers in my life. I think I was stuck in my comfort zone a little bit, because I knew what the teachers wanted me to say, and how little of it I could say and still get a decent participation grade. I got used to their teaching styles and was dreading branching out. But I have to admit that I think it's been beneficial for me, because already I now understand a few concepts that have evaded me for years. It's a whole new perspective on things and who knew that might help? Which reminds me:

Travel Tip #7:
Zoning out, even for a few seconds, in a class taught in another language costs you exponentially more than zoning out in a class taught in a language you actually understand. Pay attention.

Alright, I'll stop boring you with the academic stuff. Especially because I'm hardly finished, and this is already hellas long. So, a few of us stayed after class to finalize plans to go to Dublin for St. Patrick's day, and I was a little late coming home. The next day, Tuesday, I came home at the normal time, but it seemed early to my señora because she only had the previous day, when I was late, as a point of reference. When I got home, she asked, "Why are you so early? It must be because it's my birthday." Yes, it was my Spanish mother's birthday and I didn't even know it. I am the worst American daughter there is. Luckily, I hadn't given her my homestay gift yet, so when her kids and grand kids came over to celebrate, I had gifts of my own to add to the pile. Then we ate tapas and drank-wouldn't you know it?-soda! It's funny that in the US, we drink soda like water, and here they only break it out for parties. anyways, so I experienced my first Spanish birthday. Que guay!

So I've been making a conscious effort to talk more and more, especially to my señora who is, after all, feeding and housing me. (It's only polite, ya dig?) Today over la comida, which is lunch, we talked about eating habits here versus those in Spain. She told me I was skinny, that she had expected me to be bigger before she met me, and that I needed to eat more. It's as though they're afraid I'm going to lose weight while I'm here. There's something about keeping up appearances, like, if I left after three months skinnier than when I arrived, it would mean either that they were cruel and underfed me, or that they're poor and didn't have the resources to feed me properly. One of them social stigmas, I reckon.

So, as promised:

Travel Tip #8:
Clean your plate. Literally.

So that's it, folks. I hope that wasn't too painfully long, and if you actually made it this far, hey, now I know who my true friends are. I will try not to have such sparse updates. They may be fewer and farther between than every day, as things settle down and we all develop a routine, but to be fair to you, because i love you all so much, I will try and update things, you know, as they actually happen.

"El mundo es un libro, y aquellos que no viajan leen solo una pagina."