First Week of School!!!
Syllabus week is never that glamorous so I will just give my first reactions of my classes.
Art history of Madrid: Yeah, I know. Not your typical Erik Hoaglund kind of class. My art skills are quite lame and primitive, but I needed an art elective and I thought a history class would be interesting and would save me the embarrassment of having to draw. All jokes aside, I really enjoy this class and it might be the class that I am most excited about going to every week. The teacher is really nice and passionate about artwork and the history of Spain in general. I have also found it to be super interesting in getting to learn about Spain's history and how the power in Spain has transferred quite often. First you had the Romans, and then the fall of the Roman empire led to Visigoths claiming their stake in Spain. Then you had the Arabs who were on their mission to bring and spread Islam, and then finally the Christians retook all of Spain after 8 centuries. Pretty interesting stuff in my opinion. Also, I had to laugh on the first day because she showed an example of a famous abstract painting by Picasso and called me out and asked the stereotypical art question. "What do you think of this picture?" All I could muster was "interesting" because the painting was all over the place as only Picasso could. So my art knowledge was already being put to the test. Theresa is also in this class which is fantastic cherry on top of an already sweet class.
Cross Cultural Psych: Probably the class that I have the least amount of strong emotions towards. I really love Pscyh, so I really find any psych class to be interesting just in its own right. The teacher is really nice, but her presentations lack a certain pizzazz which tends to make class seem a tad long. John is also in this class which is a huge plus. Always nice to have friends in classes.But yeah it should be a good class and should definitely learn a lot, but nothing super interesting or exciting to report as of yet.
Introduction to Global Health: This class though. Wow this class has already been a crazy adventure. First of all, after switching my major to public health last winter, this was officially my first class in public health ever. So I was ready to get rolling. Ready for anything. Just wanted to get my public health life started! Well I walk into class and what do I see… about 10 girls. Yup. Erik and the ladies as per usual in my life. I have just grown to expect that I will most likely be surrounded by women regardless of whatever I'm doing. Just a truth of life. Haha no complaints. Anyway, I sat down next to a girl named Melissa and got chatting with her for a bit before class and I learned that she was from Uganda. World is a pretty small place. Crazy. Well the teacher finally arrived and we went through introductions and everyone was surprised when they heard the deep voice say "here". Yup thats me. The dude. haha As the teacher got talking about the class, I soon realized this was gonna be a super interesting class, but also super intense. The teacher was really into transformative learning and having us lead discussions for the whole class and figuring out the readings on our own. All about being able to adapt and think on your toes in this ever changing. I thought this was an Intro class? Sure didn't feel like. We were gonna be jumping in to the deep end. No floaties. I was a little nervous, but hey always up for a challenge. BUT, all that being said, thats not even the crazy part. I came back the second time for class, and half the class was gone!!! What?!?!? Never have I experienced that. Now there was only 5 people left including me. The whole dynamic of the class changed. I was so surprised. Guess everyone else got scared off. Their loss. I'm still super pumped for this class and eager to learn!
World History: I have had such a mixed bag with my history experience. I have had the best of the best experiences with APUSH and Panderson and then have had history 111 at SLU which was just dull and dry lectures. Definitely interesting, don't get me wrong, just not presented in the most exciting way. So I was going in hoping for the first experience and I was not disappointed. While he's no PAnderson, he is definitely much closer to him on the spectrum of history teachers. He is this crazy guy named Kevin from Scotland and find him to be a lot of fun. He came in and gave us this quirky questionnaire that asked questions like, if you could go meet anyone in history, what would you ask him? What would you want written on your gravestone? Just weird, fun stuff like that. To top it all off he called me Erik the Viking the first time he called on me. He understands the k. Good man. So that made me happy too. Also, Theresa was able to transfer into this class too so I get to enjoy his awesomeness with her. Woohoo!!!
Last but not least, Public Health and Social Justice is my last class. This class is unique because it only meets one time a week, but… unfortunately that one meeting is three hours long which can get to be a bit much. But this was my second public health class so I was again bringing a positive mindset. Class is only eight people, but I have Micah friends as well as friends from my global health class so I was just fine. The teacher is a bit strange and has a pretty good accent so he isn't always the easiest to understand, but he seems to be fun enough. The format of the class is that he gives a pretty lengthy reading for the week and then we come in on Thursday and give student led presentations on the readings and topic of the week. The first class was pretty bizarre because it took us what seemed like an hour to figure out how to divide 12 weeks into 8 students. So that was pretty ridiculous so the teacher dynamic and the fact that it is a thursday evening class should make for some fun times. All I know is that the first reading was incredible. It was all about community and how true community is achieved. I thought it was incredible. More readings like that please.
So yeah thats the classes. Not too shabby. And no Orgo in sight. Thank goodness.
I'll finish this post with random thoughts and happening of the first week in Madrid.
I craved lemonade. I don't know why. I don't even drink that much lemonade when I'm home. Just nothing sounded better than a cold refreshing lemonade.
The sweat life was real. Temperatures were touching triple digits and I could barely walk outside without starting to perspire.
I have grown to appreciate water here more than I ever have in my life before. I get so dehydrated here so fast. One of my first purchases here was a water bottle at the super cool 7 floor shopping mall close to our house where the whole 7th floor is sports gear. Such a valuable purchase.
Lots of bball was played. John and I played basically every night of the first week. That court close to our home is super sweet. We even got to play with locals a few nights and got to talk with them afterwards so that was fun and they didn't tease us too much about our lack of Spanish.
Dinner with the host family has been pretty hit or miss. First couple nights were great. Meat, rice, potatoes. But then one night of the week, we just got a giant bowl of beans in broth… uhhhh that was a rough dinner lol
Had my first sips of Sangria. Pretty tasty
SO MUCH BREAD. Bread everywhere. It is fantastic.
My lunch has consisted of getting a loaf of bread, pack of gouda cheese, some pepporoni, apple, and a powered from the local supermarket named super sol. It is simple, cheap, and delicious.
And lastly Thursday night we ventured out in search of gelato with our friends Amanda and Gretchen for a great end of the school week treat. I finally got my lemon fix when I got my lemon gelato. YUMMMMMMM soooo gooddddddd
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