End of Exams & the Start of Vacation

Well, exam scores came in this week. I got a 9.69 (aka 1 wrong) on my International Negotiation & Conflict Resolution exam, and a 9.25 (aka 2 wrong) on my Marketing exam, and a 6.5 on my Finance exam - what happened there was that I had the right answers, just not quite the way the professor wanted them... so a lot of half-credit on individual questions meant my score went down quite a bit. Oh well, next time I'll just memorize the slides instead of trying to learn the content like other students did. I spent the rest of the day in Puerta Jerez enjoying the sunshine and reading for mi clase horible. And that night a group of girls from my program and I made a spontaneous trip to La Carboneria for a Flamenco show.

Tuesday was a day full of classes. Lots of learning as usual. And it was Julie's BIRTHDAY!!! Sadly, I wasn't with her to celebrate BUT I did sing "Cumpleaños Feliz" in her honor to her Facebook page :) On Tuesday night I went for a run by the river with Sarah and then Kjavascript:void(0)endra FINALLY came back from visiting her boyfriend in Oxford so we caught up and talked all about our weekends.

On Wednesday I had my Marketing class and then went on a tour with a called "Conocer la Semana Santa" - Know/become familiar with Semana Santa. It was fantastic and got me all excited and ready for Semana Santa. (I would have a ton to write about this but I'm hoping to apply all of my freshly gained knowledge during the actual Semana Santa and therefore am going to save it all until I write about Semana Santa itself)! After "Conocer la Semana Santa" I had to race from CIEE in el centro all the way back to FCEYE (a good 25 minute walk) in order to go to my International Marketing Seminario - aka a presentation with a worksheet that we had to complete with some poor Sevilliano students that we forced to be there for part of their grade. Afterwards we had a social at the cafeteria across the street. Sadly my Spanish partners didn't want to deal with me anymore so I made Antonio (one of our wonderful CIEE program directors) and one our the year-long students speak Spanish with me, and in Antonio's case promise to teach me how to Salsa. (I'll be sure to keep you all posted on if/when this happens and how it all plays out!)

Now normally, I dread Thursdays. Not quite as much as Tuesdays since after Thursday I'm usually guaranteed a weekend to recover, but I dread them nonetheless. However, this Thursday brought quite a pleasant surprise. I woke up with an extremely strong craving for Perkins. Now, this is a bit odd considering I'm really not a breakfast person... I think it was more of a craving for coffee. American coffee. A true, bottomless-cup-of-coffee. When class started I still hadn't had any coffee so I casually mentioned it to my professor. About halfway through class she decided we may as well wrap things up (since half of the class was gone for a visit with our program to Morocco - don't worry, I'm going in April!) and we walked across the street to the Coffee Corner. It was awesome. We have two students from Morocco in our class who came with, along with the professor, and about 8 of us CIEE students all crammed into a booth with a small table and four chairs at the end of it. Sadly, I had to run after a quick cup of cafe con leche to go to mi clase horible (where the professor just happens to be the husband of the professor I had coffee with - I'm going to refer to them as Gloria & Antonio). So, clase horible begins - and as I hit the first hour mark I silently pray that God will help me plow through the next hour of class and help me to understand everything that is being said around me (since the day before at the seminario I found out (from the year-long student who just so happens to be taking the same class as my clase horible only at a different time and with the same prof) that all of the Sevilliano students spend most of the class making fun of me) and all of a sudden, people start packing things up and the professor says we can leave. What?! TWO half classes? So, since class was over I decided that I should take the opportunity to go talk to my professor, ask a few questions to clarify some vocab that I didn't understand, and set a date for my final exam since the scheduled date isn't until the end of July. Well, next thing I know I've been in his office for over a hour, I was given a delicious caramel from the town where his wife grew up (My plan is to get even more of these the next time I visit one of their office's) and a pretty little daisy.

After that, my 10-day weekend officially began! My Friday and Saturday were pretty much the same. I played Monopoly with mi hermanita española, took a nap, walked around Sevilla, attempted to shop for new Semana Santa clothes with all the Sevillianos but got annoyed with the crowds and gave up. (Sidenote: last night, well walking through the crowds to watch los Pasos with Juanma, he spent a good half hour mocking me because when someone would bump into me I would say some sort of phrase equivalent to "Excuse Me" or "Pardon Me"... He then had his little tirade that I shouldn't be apologizing for something that wasn't my fault since I wasn't the one that was bumping into people (except for when I bumped into him after trying to avoid bumping into other people, but as well as no, that's one of the hazards of being at intercambio.) That turned into a discussion about how I'm "too nice" and Thank God we ran into someone he knew so we were able to change topics.) Anyways, the weekend was great - very relaxing and a wonderful time of preparation for the great festivities of Semana Santa!

Now it's already Martes Santo, and I have TONS of stories to share about Semana Santa BUT they're all going into a different post! Get your eyes ready, and for those of you who need them, your reading glasses on! It's going to be a long one :) AND, If I can continue to have success (like the awesome photos I've been attempting to upload to previous blog posts) with technological components and the internet you just MAY be able to see a VIDEO of part of a Paso! (If not, I'll give you a Youtube link!)