Mid-Terms

If you're an MSU student, you're probably just getting into the swing of the semester, figuring out your classes and your teachers.

I, on the other hand, am taking mid-terms, or "examenes parciales" as they are called en español, and it is not enjoyable. Especially because the way most classes work here, the mid-term counts for 20-30% of your grade. I suppose it isn't too different from the way a lot of MSU classes work; there isn't a lot of graded homework, just a few papers, the mid-term, and the final. But, when everything is in Spanish, it seems a lot worse.

Also, the grading system here is not the same as in the United States. Instead of an A-F letter system, they use a 1-10 number system, with 1 being the absolute worst and 10 the absolute best. I'm pretty sure I need a 6 or higher to get credit for my classes, and thankfully they go on my transcript as "Pass" or "Fail" so I don't have to stress too much about my GPA getting lower because of a weird grade transfer.

Today marks my 3 month anniversary in Argentina. I have to say, although at times I wonder why I even try to speak Spanish, I have gotten far better at it over the past 3 months. It's hard to notice on a daily basis, but every week gets better and now I realize that I am taking classes in which only Spanish is spoken and I just took two midterms for two literature classes in which I only wrote in Spanish, and I'm feeling good about it. I didn't even bring my dictionary to the midterms, because looking up words wastes time and I know enough Spanish that I can communicate what I want to, and when I'm reading I can figure out what words mean from the context, instead of looking every third word up like I was at the beginning of the semester.

Basically, living in Argentina has been worth every minute!