AAAHHHHH!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, now that I´ve gotten that out of my system, I AM DONE WITH MIDTERMS!!! I know this doesn´t sound very exciting to any of you, but four large exams in a 25 hour time span on spanish literature, history, and grammar make you want to kill yourself. So, sorry I haven´t written in a few days. I took my last exam this morning at 10, and I can honestly tell you I might not have passed it. It was for Literatura del Siglo Oro and there were only two questions on it. One was about a passage that she pulled from the first book we read in the class and we had to reflect on it and compare it to the rest of the book. I think I might have done fine on that question. The second question, however, asked us to point out the picaresca themes in one of Miguel de Cervantes Novelas Ejemplares... but that is quite impossible because Cervantes hated novelas picarescas... he created a new genre with his short novelas... So, I just wrote anything about the book that I could and pointed out all the ways that it was not a picaresca novel. Blah...

Right, I only have to keep C´s or above to get the credit at school. At first I thought that would be no problem whatsoever, but now I´m hoping that I get at least a 5.66 on each of the exams I took, which is the lowest I can get to have a C. I won´t even begin to talk about the History exam yesterday, it was brutal. However, I will tell you about how rude my history professor was to those of us that finished the final first!! I was the third or fourth person done with my final (which was, again, another essay one). We had the option of answering one very large question about one of the reinados of Spain, or five smaller questions about random facts from the different kings. Since I only felt really comfortable with three of the five smaller questions, I decided to go with the big essay. In writing essays here, they just give you a blank sheet of computer paper and you write. I started my writing on the sheet with the questions that he gave us to save paper (I know, Manchester has drilled it into me), and the questions only took up the first two or three inches of the paper. My handwriting can probably compare to single spaced size 12 font, maybe 13. So I wrote all I could remember about los Reyes Católicos and filled the rest of the front of the sheet. I was just about done when one of my friends finished and walked up to turn in her exam. My professor immediately began to ask her if she was sure she was done because her essay was very short and she didn´t take very much time. She just said sure and walked out of the room. The same thing happened for the next girl that finished. So I reread my essay, added a few more lines of summary, and decided I wasn´t going to think of anything else (even though I knew I had forgotten some stuff) by just staring at my paper longer. So I got up and turned in my essay. Little did I know that the other two filled the front of an entirely blank sheet of paper, not just the front of the paper with the questions, so he started in immediately telling me that I probably didn´t get everything in because my essay was much too short. He kept talking until I walked all the way to the back of the room and had my hand on the door for about two minutes. Finally I just told him that´s all I had and walked out of the room, but AH!! I guess it just makes me angry because I´ve been taking exams for a long enough time in my life that I know myself, and I know just staring at the paper doesn´t help me come up with anything else. Of course I missed some things, but I know that I covered a lot of the important points in my essay, and my handwriting is much smaller than a lot of people´s , so he really couldn´t judge my essay´s length against the length of others without first taking into account the line spacing and font size. I miss computers.

Okay, so that turned out to be a much longer explanation than I´m sure any of you cared about, but welcome to my rantings. Umm, besides that, I had a talk with the directer of BCA today and told her I wasn´t going to work with the immigrant children this semester because it was too frustrating. The last three times I´ve gone the directors won´t listen to me and just try to throw me and the others in with the kids to teach them English, when they won´t give us any time to prepare lessons to teach them English. So, I may work one on one with one of the kids next semester, but seeing as there are only 5 weeks left of this semester, I´m just going to take a break and focus on my classes.

Oh, about January and my traveling, here is the update. Stacey, unfortunately, may not be able to come anymore because it is so expensive to travel to Europe from Korea. So, I am seriously considering the cruise. One of my friends here really wants to go on the cruise with me, but she doesn´t know if her ticket has already been changed to come back too late from home. The cruise leaves January 5th, and it goes to Italy, Turkey, Greece, Egypt... Ahh, so exciting!! If, however, my friend can´t go with me, I´m considering doing the cruise by myself. And, if that doesn´t happen, then I will be traveling around Europe on my own for the month. I don´t really mind the idea of traveling by myself, but my dad much prefers the idea of me being with someone on a cruise. So, if any of you will be in Europe during January, let me know and maybe I´ll be able to come visit! Remember, I have from December 14th until February 4th off!! I really need to make a decision about it this week, so as soon as I do make my decision and start making my plans, I´ll let you know.

Okay, so this is probably long enough for today. One more day of classes and then it´s weekend again!!! I am really beginning to enjoy this four days of class, three day weekend schedule. Hopefully next semester I don´t have any University courses on Fridays to mess that up.. I´ll definitely take that into consideration in the next few weeks while I´m picking classes. Alright, hope all is well at home..