Hello everyone,
As you can see from my lack of post this weekend, this past week have been really intense. Even though I am a native Spanish speaker, some of my classes still require a lot of work put into them. I am always tempted to just wing it and go and explore Madrid, but I know better and this weekend I spent most of my time writing papers and studying for exams that are coming up next week. So if you'll allow me, I'm going to vent and tell you all about my boring weekend.
I usually start homework and papers on Saturday, but since I had such a load of things to do I decided to start on Friday. That meant that mean while some of my friends were on a weekend trip to places such as Rome, Italy, or Lisbon, Portugal, I was stuck here in my room reading. Friday was kind of slow, to be honest. I have to read a ~500 page memoir of borderline personality disorder and write a 3 page paper on it. I'm on page 401, to be exact, and the report is due next week, so I should be fine. Nonetheless, it does not make it less stressful knowing that I still have work to do.
In any case, after my arduos reading for Psychology, I started my other reading: Religion. It is kind of a history book, but with amazing facts about the culture of Spain and how the three Abrahamic religions were able to co-exist from the 8th-15th century. That book needs to be read by the first week of April, so I'm taking things slow with it and enjoying the reading.
Friday afternoon was spent researching for a Spanish Culture class, in which I have to write a paper and give a presentation on it. My theme is "La familia y la casa española". It's an interesting topic because in this way not only do I get to experience living with a family, but I also do some research on why things are certain way. I was done for the day after this, and took some time to relax by watching Spaniard politics.
In case you do not know about the political issues of Spain, let me give you a summary of what's going on: Spain has basically no government right now. It has a "gobierno en funciones" in the mean time they try and form a real government. This sounds worse than it really is. The thing is that citizens voted last December and there was not a clear absolute majority on who the next president would be. So now, things in the Spanish Parliament are heating up, with four candidates wanting to create a government.
What I was watching Friday afternoon was the "debate de investidura", in which Pedro Sanchez was trying to get elected by the congressmen and congresswomen of the Parliament. The outcome: he did not win. And now, they have a 40 day period in which the four parties must form alliances and form some kind of government. If this does not happen, for any crazy reason, a general election would be call in early June. For me, all of this is new, and it is not the way in which elections and presidents get elected in the US.
Back to my homework. On Saturday I gather all of my research from the day before and started writing my Culture paper. It took me like 2-3 hours to finish it, thanks to the fact I'm native. I honestly do not know how other people manage to do it. But then again, I also managed to do it when I moved from Mexico to NY. After my paper was done, I started on my power-point presentation. It was relatively easy since I already had all of the information I needed to do it. Those two things took most of my afternoon and by the time I was done, I went to sleep.
Sunday-Funday, as I like to call it, was not fun at all. My roommate went to El Escorial, just in the outskirts of the city, while I was here again, this time studying. In a not-so-funny coincidence my Art class and my Culture class have the same date for finals, and they are going to cover everything we learned since the beginning of the trimester. I spent all morning and afternoon studying for both of them, and finished up with some more reading for Religion and Psychology.
Today, Monday, has also been kind of crazy. I left for school at 9am, came back at 3pm, ate lunch, and then left once again at 4:30pm for Cáritas Madrid. I did not have time to study or do any homework, as I predicted since Friday, and now here I am awake at 1 in the morning because, for some reason, I cannot fall asleep. If you ask me I think it's because of stress and the fact that tomorrow is going to be a busy day too. The good thing is that tomorrow I'll be attending a Real Madrid match, so that should be interesting.
I just want to thank you anyone who has made it this far into my little rant about school for your continuous support and reading. :)
-Paulina Ochoa - F.
As you can see from my lack of post this weekend, this past week have been really intense. Even though I am a native Spanish speaker, some of my classes still require a lot of work put into them. I am always tempted to just wing it and go and explore Madrid, but I know better and this weekend I spent most of my time writing papers and studying for exams that are coming up next week. So if you'll allow me, I'm going to vent and tell you all about my boring weekend.
I usually start homework and papers on Saturday, but since I had such a load of things to do I decided to start on Friday. That meant that mean while some of my friends were on a weekend trip to places such as Rome, Italy, or Lisbon, Portugal, I was stuck here in my room reading. Friday was kind of slow, to be honest. I have to read a ~500 page memoir of borderline personality disorder and write a 3 page paper on it. I'm on page 401, to be exact, and the report is due next week, so I should be fine. Nonetheless, it does not make it less stressful knowing that I still have work to do.
In any case, after my arduos reading for Psychology, I started my other reading: Religion. It is kind of a history book, but with amazing facts about the culture of Spain and how the three Abrahamic religions were able to co-exist from the 8th-15th century. That book needs to be read by the first week of April, so I'm taking things slow with it and enjoying the reading.
Friday afternoon was spent researching for a Spanish Culture class, in which I have to write a paper and give a presentation on it. My theme is "La familia y la casa española". It's an interesting topic because in this way not only do I get to experience living with a family, but I also do some research on why things are certain way. I was done for the day after this, and took some time to relax by watching Spaniard politics.
In case you do not know about the political issues of Spain, let me give you a summary of what's going on: Spain has basically no government right now. It has a "gobierno en funciones" in the mean time they try and form a real government. This sounds worse than it really is. The thing is that citizens voted last December and there was not a clear absolute majority on who the next president would be. So now, things in the Spanish Parliament are heating up, with four candidates wanting to create a government.
What I was watching Friday afternoon was the "debate de investidura", in which Pedro Sanchez was trying to get elected by the congressmen and congresswomen of the Parliament. The outcome: he did not win. And now, they have a 40 day period in which the four parties must form alliances and form some kind of government. If this does not happen, for any crazy reason, a general election would be call in early June. For me, all of this is new, and it is not the way in which elections and presidents get elected in the US.
Back to my homework. On Saturday I gather all of my research from the day before and started writing my Culture paper. It took me like 2-3 hours to finish it, thanks to the fact I'm native. I honestly do not know how other people manage to do it. But then again, I also managed to do it when I moved from Mexico to NY. After my paper was done, I started on my power-point presentation. It was relatively easy since I already had all of the information I needed to do it. Those two things took most of my afternoon and by the time I was done, I went to sleep.
Sunday-Funday, as I like to call it, was not fun at all. My roommate went to El Escorial, just in the outskirts of the city, while I was here again, this time studying. In a not-so-funny coincidence my Art class and my Culture class have the same date for finals, and they are going to cover everything we learned since the beginning of the trimester. I spent all morning and afternoon studying for both of them, and finished up with some more reading for Religion and Psychology.
Today, Monday, has also been kind of crazy. I left for school at 9am, came back at 3pm, ate lunch, and then left once again at 4:30pm for Cáritas Madrid. I did not have time to study or do any homework, as I predicted since Friday, and now here I am awake at 1 in the morning because, for some reason, I cannot fall asleep. If you ask me I think it's because of stress and the fact that tomorrow is going to be a busy day too. The good thing is that tomorrow I'll be attending a Real Madrid match, so that should be interesting.
I just want to thank you anyone who has made it this far into my little rant about school for your continuous support and reading. :)
-Paulina Ochoa - F.
ReplyDeleteIt certainly seems you have a full calendar; classes, reading, studying, and working with Caritas Madrid. Just think of all the stories to tell when you return home.... and take the summer to recover. :) :)