schoolschoolschool

We do a lot of school here, and I mean a lot. Nothing new for me, right? I should be happy about that considering my tendencies to take double the full-time load at Lawrence. But, surprise surprise, I am a little disappointed. After all, if I wanted to be in class or doing homework 24/7 I could have stayed at Lawrence!

Today was a frustrating and somewhat emotional day for some of us at CIMAS. Stress has been building over the past few days about the amount of time we spent in class and the amount of homework we have, and today was the day it all came out. We come to school at 8:30 Monday through Friday (I come an hour earlier to practice flute) and we don't get out until 4:00. Our classes are 1-3 hours long (usually about 2) and all but one of them are purely lecture. Then we get assigned an amount of reading homework where only about a quarter of it is possible to complete (believe me, if this nerd can't do all that homework, nobody can). We get one hour for a lunch break, otherwise it's class after class. Plus it's all in Spanish, so it's even more exhausting because we have to focus extra hard, only to understand half of it. We have been starting to feel a bit cheated, because the mission statement of the program is something about how most of the learning happens outside of class, but lately our entire lives have been in class. After nearly two weeks, I still don't know how to ride the city busses, nor have I been to more than two places other than CIMAS and my home without my entire class. We all just agreed that if we had wanted to be in class and doing homework all day, we wouldn't have studied abroad. 

After our first class today, three of my friends broke down crying and went to talk to the directors of the program about these issues. I don't think the class schedule will change much as a result, but afterwards the class was able to have a good conversation with our two main professors about how we could change class to make it more bearable. We all decided it would be best to have 5-minute breaks more often so we could breathe, and mix some discussion and small groups into the lectures. I am excited about these changes, because I do love learning, and I hate the feeling of not being able to pay attention during a whole 2+ hour lecture.

So far, my favorite class is the Spanish grammar one. We were split into two classes, and the smaller size is nice! Miraculously, I tested into the higher of the two classes. I still hold firmly to the fact that I am the worst at Spanish conversation though. I think there are six or seven of us in our class. This one is heavily discussion-based, which is the way I learn best and enjoy most!

After our discussion with our main professors, we tried to run the rest of that 3 1/2 hour class a little differently - with small groups so that we could reinforce the development models we learned, and then a summary + powerpoint of what we had learned. It went a lot better than before. I actually felt like there was a purpose the lecture was heading towards, rather than a random train of thought. Don't get me wrong, I really do like this professor. It is just so overwhelming to try to keep up for a whole lecture on this topic (international development) that I don't know much about, in a language I am mediocre at.

One of the topics we learned about in a previous class, which I surprisingly understood much of, was the topic of consumerism. He also assigned an interesting article to read! I really enjoyed talking about that because it is a topic I feel strongly about recently. After I went to Urbana12 in December (a student missions conference), and attended a seminar about living simply, I have been pretty attracted to the idea. I am slowly learning ways I can simplify within my own life (and I mean slowly), and the topic of our material culture has since been really interesting to me. This article basically talks about how the first-world thinks our insane consumerism should be the eventual goal of any developing country, therefore we push these countries to industrialize to the same unsustainable, unhealthy, unhappy point we are at. Meanwhile, there are indigenous pueblos here that recognize that life isn't about materialism, and they are fighting for the right to decide their own paths of development - paths that won't end up destroying the world we live in.

After class today, six of us went on day 2 of our crazy visa adventure. Basically, when we each received our passports in the mail this summer with our visas in them, there was a form included in the envelope. I looked at it, decided it didn't look important, and threw it away. Oops! Turns out, I need that form to register my visa (I guess just having a visa is not good enough). For various reasons, five other students also do not have that form. Yesterday we had to go to a different ministry of foreign affairs to petition for a new copy of that form, then today we had to go pick them up. Monday, we have to go to another building to register our visas, then hopefully Wednesday we will be done with this whole crazy process. All of this was confusing, but luckily we met an Ecuadorian in the ministry thing that spoke perfect English and could explain it all!

Icing on the cake: after going to the ministry today, I got my nose pierced! (sorry mom and dad). 

I hope you can see the ring... I though it would be a little weird if I put of a picture of just my nose (though some of my friends did get some just-nose pics haha)

Sorry for the lack of pictures in this post! There will be more next time, I promise! Tomorrow we are going to Mitad del Mundo (the equator... though I'm unsure if we're going to the tourist site only, or the real line). And Saturday, we have a "sports day," with teams of CIMAS staff, students, and host families! Also, tomorrow the youngest girl in the program turns 20, so we have a fun weekend ahead! Adios!