Oh, IES Students...

Hello all.

I had my presentation today in management. I think it went well. I'm not really sure what he is looking for, but I shall see. In related news, I got my religion paper back and got a 90/100 on it, which is an A here. Yea! And all I basically have left to do, besides finals, is write a 12-15 page paper in art and do a presentation on it, as well as a 4-5 minute Spanish presentation. That will be on football.

I think I've talked about the students here a little bit, but I think I should share a bit more. Overall, there's a great deal of hatred towards IES, the program that we're all in over here. People just really hate IES for all kinds of reasons. Me? I don't hate IES. I like this program, except for the fact that the computer lab is kinda terrible. The Internet is down so often and the printers don't work very well. Annoying, but not really a reasons to hate IES, which some people do. Part of me blame this on the fact that IES Barcelona seems to attract the rich (white) kids. It seems to me that most kids view this as a 4 month vacation, rather than a chance to study, experience, and learn (well, and have fun too, of course).

I could give many examples, but my favorite is this girl in my Spanish class who makes me laugh quite often. She, like many students here, doesn't have her grades transfer, so her effort is, um... how do I say this? Lacking. We're suppose to always talk in Spanish, but she constantly asks questions in English. Her favorite question (she's asked it at least 3 different times) is how many days we can skip class before it affects our grade. My favorite moment happened yesterday. We had to turn in a draft of what our Spanish presentation will be. She wrote it in English. When I informed her that, um, I am pretty sure it is suppose to be in Spanish, she was astonished. Haha. Oh goodness.

Ah, and there are also some bad feelings towards those of us who go to SCU. You see, about 1/5 of the 350 students here is from Santa Clara, so we're everywhere. We didn't send the cream of the crop to Barcelona, either.

Hmm... I hope this post doesn't have a negative tone to it. Merely pointing out some curious, sometimes funny (and yes, sometimes annoying) observations. I'm very happy that I came to Barcelona (which, to remind my audience, was basically my only option to study abroad in beginner Spanish, especially for how late I looked into study abroad). The city and culture has been very interesting to learn about. My classes are great (I'm a nerd) and the nightlife here is apparently second only to Madrid (although we have Kike, the club promoter that gets us into places for free. Hmm... that's probably because the rich IES kids buy those expensive club drinks). I've also had some great opportunities to see other places in Europe. I'm really lucky and fortunate, and this has just been great. I'll be a little sad to go, but happy to be home.

P.S. I realize that would probably be a great way to end this post, but I gotta say, I'm happy with Nebraska's choice for a new head coach. I think Bo Pelini will be great. Go Big Red!