Classes

So far my classes seem like they’re going to be ok. I am taking Contemporary Politics and Society of Mexico and History of Mexico. They both seem like they are going to be very interesting. I am apparently one of very few people interested in these topics since my Politics class has 6 people in it and my history class has only 4 students enrolled. I am not exactly sure why so few students are enrolled in the courses…but I think it’ll probably be more beneficial in the long run. We will be able to participate more in class and get more individualized and personalized courses. On the other hand, it also means that the professors will notice me…which I’m not sure is a good thing. I am feeling very unsure of my Spanish since I’ve been here. I feel rather awkward when I speak and although I know that I (at least normally) get my point across…I know that I am making a lot of errors in regards to conjugations and gender agreement. It’s just so hard to think about these things when you are also trying to think about which words to use, what order to use them, how they are supposed to be pronounced, and every single other little aspect of what constitutes forming a sentence. I feel like I get all flustered and tongue tied when I am trying to talk a lot of the time. I know that I am not the worst speaker out of our group…but there are definitely kids who speak way, way, way better than me. Hopefully, I really will come out of this speaking better Spanish than when I went in. I know that I will probably never be “fluent” in Spanish and tha I’ll never sound like a native speaker…but I really hope that I come out of this significantly improved. Otherwise, I’m not sure what the point of all of this was.

Anyways, back to the topic at hand…classes. We’ll start with my politics class. I think that this is going to be the harder of my two courses. We have to write 2 five page responses and an 8 page final paper as well as do a 20 minute exposition on one of our lectures. That’s an awful lot of work for only 8 weeks’ worth of classes. However, it is a topic that I am genuinely interested in. Politics in Mexico are an interesting thing. We are covering contemporary politics, so everything from the mid to late 1930s until the present. This seems like a fantastic idea and like it will help a lot to understand relations between the US and Mexico as well as current issues such as immigration. Hopefully the knowledge gained will be worth the work…if nothing else it will force me to work hard while I’m here and stay focused on things other than being homesick and how utterly out of place I feel both in terms of being in Mexico and how out of place I am in the group of American students…I’m really just not a typical American student. I don’t want to go out drinking or dancing at the bars. In fact I hate drinking and I feel utterly embarrassed when “dancing” (in quotations because what I am capable of doing hardly counts as dancing, lol). I’m hoping to drown myself in my work to forget about how awkward I am…haha.

My other class is History of Mexico. I think that this class should be all around interesting. It is covering an extensive length of time and will move at a rather rapid pace.  We have significantly less homework in that class. Only one final paper of around 7 pages and one presentation on the same topic as our final paper. It seems much better than the politics class and I think that I like the professor better. He’s very passionate about his area of expertise. The only complaint that I have is that he’s hard to hear. He talks very softly and has a low voice. Other than that, I think that History will be my preferred class.

Here are some photos that took of the courtyard outside of our classrooms. It’s the place where we hang out between classes.