Monday, November 27, 2017

Misc. Thoughts




In the past week the reality of my two Universidad de Sevilla classes has hit me: in less than a month I will be taking two finals, each covering all of the material from the entire course, and each worth my entire grade for the semester. This means that literally anything covered in the term is fair game for the test, and in my Psychology class, the test will consist of 50 true/false questions, and incorrect answers count as a grade reduction. In my Biology class, the final exam is accompanied by a lab exam in which I will be asked to identify the parts of various microscopic plant tissues. While this might sound like a very doable task, it's currently feeling like a monstrosity and I genuinely am crossing my fingers that I will be able to pull off a passing grade.

So I've spent the week studying. A lot. And will just keep right on studying for the next month. I haven't studied so far in advance for a test since I took the ACT in 2013. I imagine that this might be what it feels like to prepare for the MCAT?

This post is just a series of random thoughts and observations from the last while in Sevilla.

- Christmas is here. The entire city center has been decorated with massive light displays. Unfortunately they won't be turned on until December 8, almost two weeks from now. All of the Christmas sweets are also appearing. And Jingle Bells was playing in a coffee shop the other day.

- Black Friday is also here, and I hated it. The streets were so clogged with people that I couldn't bike or even walk my bike. I ended up just standing in the middle of the pedestrian shopping street, immobile. So many people. In the US I do my Black Friday shopping exclusively on the internet.

- The weather finally turned cool a few weeks ago! Mornings are chilly, and afternoons are in the 70s. It's nice. My runs are so much more doable.

- Our program took us to an Irish pub for an American Thanksgiving dinner. It was very Irish, and I was a little underwhelmed. My host family, though, prepared a special holiday meal for me, in honor of Thanksgiving (jumbo shrimp, very fancy jamón, cheese, crackers, sparkling wine) and it was so very kind.

- I've been eating even more pork, and learning even more about ham than I mentioned in my last post. Imagine a some sort of roasted cut of pork, stuffed with ham, accompanied by delicious mushrooms sprinkled with ham bits. And broccoli salad with ham. And also roasted trout stuffed with ham. It's a new way of life!

- I now have people who I talk to regularly in both of my university classes, which is very exciting. In my psychology class my friends are the two boys from my presentation group. Our presentations last week went swimmingly. Even better, I think I made a really funny joke because the two of them were laughing with me (and usually they're laughing at me)!

- I moved host families several weeks ago and this one's a riot and I love them. Yesterday I sat on the floor and played Playmobile with the 6-year-old before I remembered that I had to study.

- I officially have a favorite ice cream place. It's called Bolas.

- This morning I needed to buy soap and suddenly realized that I had no idea where in the city I might find that. Most stores here are not like stores at home (Target!) in the sense that you can't go to one place and pick up grapes, toilet paper, sunglasses, and nail polish all in one go (consumerism at its most convenient.) That wasn't an issue for me until today, when I couldn't imagine what kind of store might carry soap. Lucky for me, my friends are good at shopping and directed me to the supermarket.

- I've been doing quite a bit of traveling: Italy, Belgium (ate almost exclusively fries, chocolate, beer, and waffles), Morocco, and this weekend Barcelona. This girl loves to travel, and also loves Sevilla; some days feeling conflicted.

I can't believe that I have less than a month left in this city.

No comments:

Post a Comment