The Semester Begins in Buenos Aires

It's probably time for me to write a post that makes it sound like I'm doing what I came here to do...study! Semester classes began last Monday at the Universidad de Belgrano, where I'm studying. I am taking four, all taught in Spanish. They have a cool program here specifically for international students in which you can take classes taught in either English or Spanish, but I of course opted for all classes in Spanish for the added challenge...because I'm here to learn Spanish, right?

The classes I am taking are:

Argentine Literature

Latin American Literature

Argentine Cultural Studies

Español Avanzado A (Advanced Spanish A)

I'm an English and Spanish Teaching major, so two literature classes in a semester is nothing new to me. However, I am notorious for not allowing myself enough time to read the assigned readings in my literature classes, and now all of the assigned readings are in Spanish, meaning it takes me waaaay more time to read them. And ideally, I should read them at least three times to understand them well. This is a slight problem, because I don't want to spend all of my day reading, and then there's other reading in Spanish to be done for my Culture class (which is no joke, the professor is quite scholarly and has high expectations of us). My actual Spanish language class is definitely the easiest for me, which I suppose makes sense, since I am faced with a much higher level of Spanish every day than is taught in my Spanish class (which slightly bothers me, but there's nothing I can do about it really). For a sample of what I'm reading right now, click here (luckily I'm only reading an excerpt of this, but still...).

Long story short, I have approximately four hours to read about 10 pages of Spanish literature and I am instead writing this blog.

Which brings me to my next point, my schedule. The schedule here is every Bozemanite's wildest dream. Classes (for my program) are offered Monday-Thursday from 1:00-7:00 p.m. Each class is an hour and a half long. Hence, this is my schedule:

Monday & Wednesday 4:00-7:00

Tuesday & Thursday 2:30-5:30

Conveniently, every weekend is a three day weekend and I have the majority of Monday free. Most buses out of town leave in the evening, so when I want to travel for the weekend I can leave Thursday night, arrive at my destination Friday morning, catch a return bus Sunday night, and be back with time to spare before class. Amazing! Too bad my bank account isn't on this travel schedule.

So, study abroad in Buenos Aires is no joke, but there's no doubt that being immersed in so much Spanish and reading so much Spanish literature is going to work wonders on my level of Spanish!

Until next time...keep enjoying summer in the USA! If you're there, that is...