I got back to Buenos Aires on March 5th, a Saturday and had a nice long 4 day weekend where everyone I knew was out of town (as the following Monday and Tuesday were both holiday days) so I basically did nothing. On Wednesday I went into my program office and registered for classes and then started class the following Monday. Its all panned out so that I have a "practice making radio" class that meets for 4 hours a week at the public university, La Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA); "political and social theory 1" class at la UBA that meets for 6 hours a week; "history of art and culture in america and argentina" at USAL where I studied last semester; "Portuguese 1" at UBA (its an optional class that I paid $100 to take).
The radio class has been a joke so far, since the major switched buildings and we don't actually have a studio to record in. So for the two hours per week when we are supposed to be recording, we just chat about whatever randomly pops into our professor's head. The other two hours per week we get lectured to in funny anecdote form by a different professor. The political and social theory class is interesting but quite intense, we meet Monday morning at 9am for FOUR hours to have what would be equivalent to "discussion" in the United States, but its really just students reading off their summaries of what happened in the book we happen to be reading at the moment. We just finished reading "The Republic" by Plato (500 pages of 2500 year old Greek political philosophy in Spanish, people) for class today and are reading 1/3 of Aristotle's "Politic" for next Monday. The 4 hours drag on and on when it is just students who are unsure of what they are saying droning on and on - and today was the first class that we actually did an interactive activity. We got a list of questions that resemble our midterm that concern Plato and his theories. The other two hours of that class are actual lecture, that has some correlation with the discussion material, but we will only be tested on the discussion material so its really hard to make myself go Tuesday mornings as well at 9am. The Art History class is still up in the air because there are currently 12 or so Americans going to the class and only 5 foreigners are allowed to take each class at USAL to keep it fair for the students paying tuition and actually studying the subject, aka the Argentines. There is a lottery this week to find out if I am still in the class with the Precolombian art and the awesome laid back professor or if I'm in the Colombian art class with the hard ass professor. On the other hand, I am really excited for my Portuguese class because it starts tomorrow night!!!!!!
Promoting AIESEC and the Universidad Argentina de la Empresa (UADE)
Other than school I have been really involved in AIESEC since getting back from summer vacation. I joined the organizing committee for the weekend-long conference for the new members that are going to enter now that our recruitment period is ending. Also, I have been doing quite a bit to help out with the recruitment: going to universities to promote AIESEC, monitoring group interviews, performing individual interviews, etc. Also, the Argentine, Catalina that I was managing last semester got an internship in Budapest, Hungary with Nokia - so she is in the final stages of preparing to start working there May1st-ish. It's fun because I've got to design a lot of flyers for our conference and the toga party that we are going to throw there, so its work but its fun. Plus I LOVE LOVE LOVE all of the AIESEC people from Buenos Aires.
Hanging out with the OGX (Outgoing Exchange) team of AIESEC Buenos Aires
In La Plata with Matt at my friend from Oktoberfest's house.
I have been hanging out a lot with my Argentine friends that I made last semester when I was camping at Oktoberfest, from class, and just from around town. This semester I also decided that I was going to go on more dates with more people - and I've so far been on dates with 3 guys more my age than anyone else I'd met here last semester. They are 21, 21 and 22. I TURN 21 IN 30 DAYS!!!! START THE COUNT-DOWN, not that it really matters since I have been legally drinking for the past 11 months but anyway. I've been waiting for this morning for 20 years and 11 months and it's finally coming and I am happy to say I have Sean O'Connor and Matt Roelse, two good friends from Madison currently in Buenos Aires to celebrate with.
Matt and Sean have introduced me to some of their friends from their program (they are here with the Wisconsin Business School, not with IFSA-Butler). As you can see from the above photo, I took a sassy stance on making more American friends, especially the ones who do not or will not speak Spanish instead of English. Not to say I don't speak english with Matt and Sean, but that's different.
Host family wise the Blaksley/Echegaray clan are now officially like family. We quibble and joke and tell secrets. My host mom, Sara and I have had some really great times together, some of them involving her 14 year old grandson Salvador, as you will see...... We played for about a half of an hour with the hair from my hairbrush......
Anywhoo, I will try to keep you more updated in the near future.
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