Second Day of the Semester

Yesterday was a very different day than Tuesday - my classes started early and got out early. And, I had all language classes, which made for an interesting day.

Introduction to Hispanic Literature was fine. I mean, it scares me a little bit, like News, because I know all the assessments are subjective... and there is quite a bit of work. I somehow felt that I was done with structured and graded literature analysis after high school, and then I realized that if I want a Spanish major I was very, very wrong about that. So, here we go again. I keep reminding myself that my experience in AP English has prepared me better than most students in the class. Also, the teacher seems way better than the one I had last Spring that nearly made me lose my affection for the Spanish language.

German was pretty good. I didn't know the class would be taught in German until I picked up the textbooks last week, actually, and now I find out that not only is the class taught in German, we cover some German grammatical concepts and stuff in there. The good news is that it is evidently at the right difficulty level for me, since my friend from Intermediate German II, Cori, is in the class with me. It's nice to start out with a friend. The class size is quite small, which is to be expected of the language class it is, but not really whatever it was I expected... a gentle lecture on German Christmas traditions? XD Actually I have no idea what I thought, but I have to admit this is much better for me right now, especially if I'm going to be studying in Germany. My first impression of the teacher is that I like him, but maybe not as much as Megan from last Spring. She was just awesome. Strangely I came away from the class with a strong feeling of motivation to start improving my German. I really need to beef up my vocabulary - I'm going to grab my store-bought vocabulary cards from the lake next time I go, and start using them religiously.

Catalan was awesome. I'm so excited to be in that class. The class size is surprisingly large considering that the first time the course was offered it had to be canceled for lack of interest. Here we are at take two, and not only is the room full, most of the people seem to have genuine reasons for being there. One guy is a super language geek and majoring in Spanish and French. I'm there more than anything to support the movement to advance a (any) minority language. One girl is there because her boyfriend is Catalan and his parents don't even speak English! She knows how important it is for him, and... well, how romantic, right? Another student is trying to get a grant to go to Barcelona and study the relationship between the Catalan language, politics, and football, of all things. So, this should be a good time. It's great to have Monica as a teacher again, she's one of my three favourite professors at MU. Teach Yourself Catalan is our textbooks. We're trying to get another one imported from Spain too, but just the idea makes me giggle. This morning we got an email saying to read pages 1-19 from teach yourself as homework tonight - I've never thought in terms of page numbers in Teach Yourself before... Another surprise? The course is going to be taught in Catalan. We're managing to follow it pretty well, and of course she's speaking slowly, and it's crucial that all of us have an unmentioned background in Spanish. She says it's to get us used to the sounds and feel of the language, that she knows that 3 hours a week of speaking mostly English won't get us good enough in time, that we're not expected to produce Catalan right away... which is hard, because when she asks us a question we're all super trained to reply in like form, and when our brains realize they can't do Catalan, they switch to Spanish, and she says that's worse than English... which makes sense both politically and linguistically, but try to tell my brain, or that of any other student, so.

Monica has big plans for Catalan at MU. She dreams of adding an intermediate class, maybe even a small advanced class, if there's interest. She has an idea of another teacher who could join her and supplement the department. This year we're having a Catalan Symposium here at MU! It's all very exciting, even if I'll graduate before it really comes to fruition and miss a lot of the intermediate stages while I'm abroad. I hope her plans all succeed - and it's an odd feeling knowing how much depends on this, the first class. The fact that so many people signed up is a very good start - now if we all work hard and do well, that can only help the program.