February 1, 2010

Well, I started up my second week of classes today. I'm really realizing that my history and art classes are going to take some serious extra effort on my part. History has never been a favorite of mine, and now it's taught in Spanish, so I have to pay extra attention! All of my classes are taught in Spanish though. I can tell that it is slightly becoming easier to understand other people. I can understand my professors and other students pretty well, but my senora is very difficult to understand. She kind of slurs her words together, so I don't understand her half the time, but I'm working on it. It's getting better as I expand my vocabulary, and continue practicing conversation. Today I also had my first "Accion Solidaria" which is a service class. Every tuesday, starting tomorrow, I'm going to a nursing home from 6-8 pm to do service work. I'm really nervous because everyone is only going to be speaking Spanish, and I will be helping care for these people. If I don't understand them, it could be a problem, but I guess it will be some very good/forceful practice for me! For lunch today we had a plate full of spinach. Now, I was open to trying it, because I have tried everything my senora has given me, but his seriously looked nasty! Carrie likes Spinach, and she even said it looked bad! It looked like a pile of grass and mud that was run over by a tractor and mixed together on a plate. The texture was just terrible. I could actually handle the taste, but it was difficult to look at it, and still want to eat it! Oh well, we finished it with a little help from the bread on the table :) Anyways, tonight I started taking Flamenco dance lessons. It was only 50 euros for 8 sessions that are 1 1/2 hours each. It was really fun, and we started learning the basic steps. I'm already looking forward to maybe purchasing a flamenco dress at the end just for fun! Other than that, I didn't do too much tonight, just homework. My senora did serve us pizza again for dinner! Yeah for American food!

Verse for the day: Psalm 102: 25-27 "long ago you created the earth, and with your own hands you made the heavens. They will disappear, but you will remain; they will all wear out like clothes. You will discard them like clothes, and they will vanish. But you are always the same, and your life never ends."