jensaysrarrr: May 2008

Thursday, May 08, 2008

[español=loco]

oh my goodness.
when i first started my spanish class this semester, i was actually excited.
i cant wait to hopefully be fluent in the language, not only because i live in texas where spanish is spoken nearly as much as english, but also because in many jobs being bilingual is a plus (and means higher pay).
when i was being advised when signing up for my classes this semester i asked my advisor if i should try and test into a higher level of spanish. i took spanish for 3 semesters in high school, my freshman year and half of my sophomore and am consistently amazed at how much i actually remember. my advisor told me not to, and that a refresher course is good for most people.

mistake #1.
i should have never taken 506.
the class takes attendance, and youre only allowed to miss 5 before your grade starts getting docked.
i BLEW through the class, never studied, and consistently made As on everything.
going to the class everyday was literally a waste of time.

and, i was also extremely annoyed that it was the class that required the most of my time, for no purpose. i had assignments nearly every night that were basically busy work. practice on things i knew by heart.
the book and student activities manual were awful, and this is a problem because it was written by the head of the spanish department at the university. the book uses this technique where it doesnt explain anything, and just tries to get you to figure it out by things such as reading passages with vocabulary no one could understand. had i not taken spanish in high school im confident i would have done awful in this class.
i figured out that the student activities manual was a joke after my first week of class when we learned numbers. part of the homework was a number series where there was a number omitted and you were to figure out the number and write it out in spanish. i dont skip things when i do homework. if i cant figure something out i will sit there and work on it until i can. one of these number sequences was IMPOSSIBLE. this isnt a math class, its spanish. i instant messaged my friend to try and get her help; she couldnt figure it out either. she proceeded to ask 6 of her friends including 2 engineering majors and a math major, none of whom could figure it out either.

the lab was another fiasco.
nothing we did in lab ever aligned with what we were doing in class and we had to have dialogs with each other about things like why the bus was late, when we didnt have the vocabulary to do so.

not only was the class awful, but the teacher was not much better.
she was consistently rude, unfair, and condescending.
she even quoted the godfather at one point in the class saying something along the lines of "never have i met people who treated me with such disrespect."

with all due respect, respect is a two-way street.

after struggling all semester with the fact that i was wasting my time, the department decided to get rid of spanish 507 which comes next in the language sequence if you take 506 first.
so, instead of taking 507 i am now forced to take spanish 508k which combines 506 and 507, meaning i will be forced to sit through a class that was already too easy again for half of my fall semester.

ugh.

obviously, my high school was doing something right, and the university is doing something wrong.

[randomramblings]

why is there absolutely nothing on daytime television?
i guess it would help if i had cable, but that just sounds like another bill to me.
i dont get the soap opera thing, at all. As if sitcoms werent cheesy enough. I think its ironic that people make fun of reality television when the alternate is something completely fabricated.

i've been having an argument with andrew lately about the value of reality television, specifically in "The Real World." And although we dont have cable, i watch it online. And strangely enough, although he can make fun, every time i start watching it andrew insists on watching it with me. hm. my argument for why i enjoy reality tv is that it helps you get to know yourself. when i watch the real world, i usually seem to pick one of the girls out that i most identify with and watch how she handles herself. i watch how everyone handles themselves and analyze whether or not they handled things well and what i think i would have done in their situation. also, you can identify traits that you think are admirable and not so admirable and perfect your personality based on how you want to be. while it may seem scripted at times, whether its scripted or not its interesting to watch and analyze the interactions of a group of very different people. one thing i dont get so much about "the real world" is the people who leave their boyfriends/girlfriends to go on the show. If someone asked me if i wanted to leave andrew for 6 months and film a reality show (or do anything for that matter) i doubt i would go. this season of the real world is particularly strange because all the cast-members are aspiring actors/singers/models which once again raises the question of authenticity. Reality tv seems as though its gained this reputation for being awful and cheesy and an overall waste of time, and with shows like rock of love, flavor of love, a shot at love its easy to see why. but mtv's formula for the real world has stuck around longer than any of these shows will because of their strength in keeping the show real. i would venture to say that the real world is one of the few if not the only reality tv show that is 98% real life caught on camera. even shows like big brother, which seems to be the closest thing to the real world, seem to lose their credibility with the contest aspect of the game, and the fact that contestants cant leave the confines of the house.

i'm finally done with the semester, which is such a good feeling.
my spanish grade is going to be awesome. apparently 5 hours of an A does wonders for your GPA, so im really excited to see how that works out. Ugh my spanish class is a whole other subject i could rant about, in fact, maybe i will soon in another post. im stressing about my schedule for next year. it doesnt look like i'm going to have too much time to work, which also stresses me out because being broke is no fun. not to mention the credit cards i'd really like to get paid off, but when you barely make enough money to live off of, its hard to start paying off debt. thank god for my parents paying my rent, because there is no way i could make enough money for all that on my own and be a full time student. i dont know how people do it.

hopefully this university thing will pay off and i'll have an awesome job in the future.
b/c if it doesnt, im going to be really upset that i wasted so much time and money on it.

[peace]