My 50th Post

Well, this is my 50th post, and today marks the end of the first half of my study abroad. My fall break starts tomorrow (or on Monday, depending on how you look at it). Today is my 54th day out of the 111 that I'll be here. I know these numbers because I have this sweet Excel program that I've been using to budget my money. One of the formulas requires a count of days, hence my knowledge.

Anyway, goodness, I suppose this would be a good time to reflect back. I don't know if I'm too good at that though. Well, I guess I've adapted fairly well to the Spanish way of living. The milk, eh, isn't the best, but not bad. I get hungry at 8:30 now instead of 6, which means I only have a half hour of starvation left until dinner. I've also learned that I'll eat pretty much anything. Well, minus that langosta. *shudders*

The smoke doesn't bother me as much. During those first weeks, it seemed like there was cigarette smoke everywhere. However, I must honestly say, I've noticed that they smoke slightly, slightly, less than my first impression.

Fraternities are not that big at Santa Clara (although a lot of sorority girls and frat guys from SCU are here in BCN) so it was interesting for me to see frats boys from other schools. Personally, they are pretty funny to me. But again, less than 5% of SCU kids are a part of the Greek life. So anyway, that's another thing, although not Spanish, that I've been exposed to.

Deoderant is actually pretty darn important and useful.

Hmm... What else? I've just flat out learned a lot more about this city and of Spain. I also know where a lot of things are. I can get around pretty good in Barcelona. I also speak more Spanish. I guess you could file that under the "duh" column, but I'm impressing myself a little.

Okay, it's a little hard to think of these things on the spot. Regardless, things have definitely changed since that first, crazy day.

Going off that excellent lead in, I have had a crazy 24 hours. Not a whole lot of sleep. I woke up early to talk to my family (which was awesome!) and then studied some more before my first midterm. It was my religion/history/art class. I basically had to write an essay on how I would describe Islamic art to people in the United States (or the West) who don't know anything other than what they see on TV. As you can see, it was pretty open ended, but I think I did well.

I also think I rocked my Spanish quiz. However, I just can't seem to do well on the small compositions we have each week. I got a 8.5 and my friend got a 9.5. He had 6 small errors and I had only 1! You are also graded on content and difficulty, but I saw no big difference between our two papers. Err. I gotta step it up. Oh, also, at the bottom of the page, she wrote, "bien Talon." Um, that's the name of the only black kid in our class.

As I was studying before my Management Across Borders class, I ran across something in the reading that I found funny. It was saying that in some countries, like the United States, if there's a conflict, things are solved in court. In other countries, such as Japan, you work it out through relationships, etc. Here are some interesting stats that was there.

Lawyers per capita (100,000)

• US - 279
• UK - 114
• Germany - 79
• France - 29
• Japan - 11

Anyway, I took that test, and it was long with a lot of writing, but I think I did well. With all of that done, I'm free! Now I just have to get ready for my big trip. Boy, I'm excited! Should be great. This will probably be my last post until Nov. 3, but I might get Internet connection at one of my hostels. If I do, I might post something quick. Regardless, I wish you all a great week and a Happy Halloween! I'll leave you with this picture of me as of my 50th day (I hate taking pictures... haha).

And Happy Birthday Mom!!