Hola, another Sunday, another blog post. I've spent the day thus far fighting with Facebook because my Barcelona photo album malfunctions :(. I think it's because it's too big, so I want to move photos into other albums, and there's a feature that supposedly lets you do this, but it happens to be part of what my album won't do. So I've had to re-upload and caption and tag the photos I want to move, and then I lose all the comments :(. Sad. Anyways, I sent a problem report to Facebook, but I'm not particularly hopeful that they'll fix it. If you haven't been able to see my photos very well, I'm sorry and I'm quite sad about it. Hopefully I'll be able to fix it somehow. Now, about my week, because that's why we're all here, right?
On Monday, CIEE had a visitor from the University of Minnesota. Her name is Julia and she is the director of undergraduate studies for the College of Design. She was here to kind of evaluate the program and she wanted to meet with us to see if we had any suggestions or problems or anything like that. I think I've mentioned before, there's a pretty large group of students from the U, a little under a third of the architecture and design program. So we all met with her during lunch and that was fine, it was a really nice day out and we sat outside. I don't like Julia, however, after having met her for the first time that day. We had a bit of an altercation when she came into our studio class later that day to give us surprise critiques at our desks. I was just sitting at my desk, working on my floorplan, jammin' to some Mumford and Sons happy as can be, when she comes over. I was completely unprepared and didn't know what to show her since I was a little intimidated and had more than half a semester's work that's hard to condense when you're talking to someone who knows nothing about your project. So I just explained the floor plan I was working on and she immediately came at me with aggressive, antagonistic, verging on sarcastic questions. After about a minute of that I was already a bit shaken, and then (still having seen only a floor plan and nothing else) she says to me "Well, to be honest, I just don't think you're very skilled as a designer". Verbatim. I won't repeat the words going at her in my head at this moment, since I know a lot of family members read this blog ;), but needless to say, I didn't listen much to the rest of her critique. I was a bit distracted seeing as she had hit my Achilles' heel in attacking my design skills and my confidence in them and it had a sort of unraveling effect, leading me to question my career choices and my future in general.
While this was all going on in my head, she babbled on about convents or something or other and I just wanted her to shut up and leave. Finally she did and I held it together until a really genuinely caring and nice friend of mine asked how it had went. Then I cried and was embarrassed and felt bad for making him feel awkward, so I hurried out of studio because class was over. It was a relatively traumatic day and I'm sure I overreacted but I was just so embarrassed and offended, and she really had hit a sore spot, that I couldn't really think rationally. Now that I've gotten over the initial shock, I know that she was being unprofessional, that that was not constructive criticism in any way, it wasn't even criticism of my project, it was of me, as if she had some vendetta to settle against me. But I've realized she had nothing to base that on after looking at just a floor plan for less than a few minutes and that basically she's a malicious woman and there's no reason I should take her seriously. A few friends have said I should take it up with the U, since it was so uncalled for, but I don't really know how to, especially without just coming off as whiny. Anyways, I suppose I had some other classes that day, but they were pretty uneventful compared to that.
The next morning I slept in, still nursing my wounds a little, and then went to studio to work. Who did I see there but none other than Julia herself, and she had the nerve to smile and cheerily say "Hi, how are you?" as if nothing had happened and then continue to compliment my desktop background and ask if I took the photo...Seriously?! What is wrong with this woman?! By this point, I was more angry than upset, and that just made me a lot angrier. Luckily, that was her last day here and then she was off to terrorize the poor students on the Rome program. Class that day was silly and pointless. We were supposed to spend it researching for our upcoming paper, but the wifi was down in the whole CIEE building, so we went to a nearby library instead, where the wifi was so slow it may as well have not worked. I got my midterm back and was a little disappointed (darn Spanish grading system..), but hopefully I'll be able to raise my grade a little with the paper and the final. It's kind of infuriating sometimes because only the U and like one other school is making their students take their classes here for a grade that transfers back. Everyone else's will transfer back as pass/fail, so they can slack off a lot more since all they have to do is pass. I don't want my classes to transfer back as pass/fail because I feel like a whole semester of that looks bad, but I just wish it were consistent and everyone had to do it one way or another because I know for a fact that I work a lot harder than the people whose grades here don't matter. I guess that just means I'll have more to be proud of, right? I mean I know I'm studying abroad right now, but I'd still feel so lazy if I didn't try my hardest and just slacked off for a whole semester.
Sorry Monday and Tuesday were so whiny, but that's really how they were, and then on Wednesday we made our whining official. Magda (our program director) wanted to talk to the U of M students since there's always such a large, consistent group of us on their program about what we thought could be done differently. I think she also kind of wanted to know what we'd said to Julia (which was actually only good things) because she had been so nervous and on edge the whole time she had visited. She bribed us with sandwiches and we got to sit outside on a secret little staff patio. It was nice, we got to tell her our concerns about our grades, since we were all having that issue, especially with our classes in Spanish. In my case and a few others, we are taking advanced Spanish and we're taking an elective in Spanish that could be in English, so we're challenging ourselves with our courses. Because of this, obviously we aren't doing as well as we would if we were in intermediate Spanish or the English section of the elective. We all know it would be better for our GPAs to take the easier classes, especially with the tough grading system, and so we almost feel like we're being penalized for trying to improve our Spanish. She told us to talk to our Spanish teacher and let her know the situation and (she's the teacher of the elective) didn't understand why we hadn't just talked to her about it earlier. I thought that was strange, maybe because I'm used to such a huge school like the U where you're sort of on your own (which I don't mind), but I had just figured if I was having a problem, it was my problem and I just had to try harder. But it was a successful meeting because she agreed to give us a review session in English for our elective before the final (the language barrier makes it harder to understand and think about the topics really deeply and the essay tests ask you to do just that) and I think that'll be really helpful. We also mentioned how there just wasn't much information available to us before choosing the program and that maybe some recruiting/advertising would be helpful and that overall there's just a bit of a communication breakdown between CIEE and the U sometimes. So it won't affect us much, but hopefully we helped some future students.
As far as the rest of Wednesday goes, we had an on site class for said Spanish elective, so it went longer than usual and I was yet again unable to go volunteer at the school, but I'm hopeful that I'll be able to go this week (I'm not going to wear my gloves, though). I talked with my studio professor about what had happened with Julia because she had heard that her visit had been rough at best, overall. Thankfully, she's on my side. She said that she thought Julia was being unprofessional and that she actually really liked my project, so I'm happy about that. I like my project too. I think it took Julia bashing me for me to realize how much I actually am proud of my work. That night I went with some friends to one of the residencias (student apartments) where some other girls in the program live and we hung out for awhile in this weird spare room that's like in a parking garage. That's just where the residencia people go, I guess, (their rooms are tiny) when it's too early by Spanish standards to go out. There were a lot of people there who we didn't know who were the type of people (all Americans) I would generally avoid at all costs, back in the States. There were frat-type boys, all wearing different variations of the same outfit, and girls wearing hardly anything (my friend Sandra and I played fashion police ;) and that made it entertaining). I didn't mind that we didn't stay long. After we left we went to a nightclub called Sutton, the first one I have ever been to. It was a really nice-looking place, not some like dirty club. We had all dressed nicely because they won't let you in in sneakers. They played pretty good music, so dancing was fun, and we met some more of our friends there. It was really crowded though and I don't think I heard a single word of Spanish, it was all Americans. Now, this wouldn't be a problem on it's own, but like I said, it was the type of Americans who I avoid in America, so I would like to also avoid them here also. In true Spanish style, we got back at 4 am (which, okay, if I'm being completely honest, is actually relatively modest in the eyes of a Spaniard).
The reason I agreed to come out on a Wednesday was because Thursday we didn't have class until 4, so I got to sleep in :). It was supposed to go from 4 to 7 but we were just giving presentations on what our papers were going to be about and it didn't take long, so we got done a little after 6. Then Cara, Joe (another U of M student) and I decided to go shopping. Cara and I need clothes we can wear in the warm weather in Morocco and still not offend anyone, (Did I mention in a previous blog I'm going to Morocco over Spring Break? I am, and also southern Spain. More on that as it gets closer) and Joe just likes shopping, but I can't really shop seriously carrying my computer-filled backpack, so I didn't look hard enough to get anything. Then we decided to get dinner and Joe took us to this awesome Mexican restaurant (so much better and more autthentic than the one I've mentioned in previous blogs) that he knew of. Cara had to leave then to go home and work on studio, but Joe and I were going to the intercambio later, so we hung around. As we were finishing, another girl from the program walked in with her family, who was visiting her, so that was a funny coincidence. But that's not all, as we were getting ready to leave, another girl from our program comes in with a friend of hers! Apparently it's a popular place among CIEE students. Then we headed over towards where the intercambio was, back towards school, but we got distracted by gelato along the way (I got a cone with chocolate and cinnamon) and decided to stop and eat it in front of the cathedral. So my life's pretty cool ;). We got the the intercambio a bit late (on time by Spanish standards!), but there weren't many others there. The ratio of Spanish to American students wasn't quite so overwhelmingly American this time. We were at a nice bar with pool tables in the back, so we played pool. I am terrible. There were two tables that we were playing at and one was people who actually knew a thing or two about pool, and the other was the table I was at, with other people who hadn't played pool in years, if ever. In the time it took the other table to play like three games, we played one. And that was with Nando, our assistant program director, coming over to help two different times (sinking two balls for my team the first time, and two for the other team the second time)! But it was fun, and I was good and actually spoke Spanish! I underestimated the time it would take me to get to the metro and had to hurry to get there before it closed at midnight, but I made it :).
After Spanish on Friday morning, I went with two other girls, Sandra and Vanessa, back up to Montjuic. We tried to take a cable car there that goes over the sea, but it's under construction. It was supposed to only last three weeks in January, but it still going on...*cough* so Spanish *cough*. But a lady helped us get there by bus and funicular instead. We got to about the middle of the mountain and then walked the rest of the way up to the castle, which they hadn't seen yet. I had seen it already, but it's a castle. I'm not about to complain about going to a castle. After the castle, we went to the Botanical Gardens, which was huge. It was pretty and quiet and it was nice to be out of the city for a little while, even though not many flowers and things were blooming at this time. Also, I got sunburned. Whoops. After we were done on the mountain, we went to catch the metro in Plaza Espanya, but I got distracted by the big bull ring-turned-shopping mall that I had seen like one of our first days here and hadn't been in yet. I didn't have my backpack or computer this time, so I was able to find two new shirts :), and it was when I was trying those on that I looked in the mirror and noticed the sunburn. Oh well. It's still there, but getting better. I don't know what I was thinking, but it literally hadn't even crossed my mind and I was completely shocked when I noticed it. Silly Megan. Guess it's time to buy some sunscreen. Anyways, the mall is pretty average, but it's cool that it used to be a bull ring and the coolest part is to go up to the roof terrace area. There were lots of cool restaurants there that would be fun to go to and there were pretty views of the city. After that I came back and watched my sunburn develop...
Yesterday was Saturday (duh) and Cara and I decided to go for a hike up Mt. Tibidabo, which is like right behind our neighborhood. We had gone once with our program when they took us for the calcotada, if you remember that, and it's so pretty and so close that we thought that would be a nice thing to do on a Saturday morning. It's really more of a hike to just get there than it is once you're on the mountain, because the trails are cut at a really low incline, so it's kind of funny. We hiked up and then Cara ran down and I kept going to try to get to the church at the top because it looks so pretty and it's all lit up every night. I made it up to a little mountain village called Vallvidrera, which was really cute, but not where the church is. I couldn't figure out how to get to it and after I exhausted my options, I decided to just head back and try another day. But it's okay, because it was a really nice day and I got to be outside and get some exercise in the pretty scenery. I looked it up when I got home (which I obviously should've done before I left but I thought the trail just went all the way up) and I could've gotten there from Vallvidrera if I had just known to get on a bus. Oh well, now I know and like I said, it's super close, so I will get there :).
For the main part of the day then I just worked on homework and also managed to send in applications for 3 internships :). They're very clearly ranked, too. One I really want and it's a paid position at an architectural firm in St. Paul, I think I meet their qualifications too. I was really nervous to send that one in. Another is also paid but it's at a landscape design company, so I'm not quite as qualified, but I'd be happy to take it and learn. The third is at a solar energy company and would involve making 3D models on the computer, which I like to do, but it's not paid. But it's only like 10 hours a week, so I would be getting experience while still not spending too much of my time at a job where I don't make money. Even though it's my least favorite of the three, I'd still gladly take it, if they want me. I probably won't hear back for awhile so I guess for now I'll just keep looking and applying everywhere I can.
Then last night Cara convinced me to come out with everyone for St. Patrick's Day, which isn't really recognized in Spain, so we were going to go to Irish pubs. However, I was gone for about 2 hours and was not inside a building for more than 5 minutes. First we got to the metro stop where we were meeting our group. This involved waiting for three different groups of people to come meet us where we were waiting and took at least half an hour. After that we were late and trying to meet up with another group of friends but finding the bar they were at took at least another half hour. We finally found them after walking up and down one block of La Rambla three times and getting harassed all the way by promoters and such (it's a super touristy area). We found them and I thought we were all going to go somewhere together, but when I turned around, Cara and my group were gone and I was with the other group. There was confusion, etc. Someone got a hold of Cara and told me where they were so they took me back to that bar to look for them, but they weren't there. I tried to call her and a few others in my group but they didn't answer. The other group was going to some fancy nightclub and I didn't wanna go (nor would they have probably let me in in my jeans and Nikes) so I said screw it and texted Cara to tell her I was just going back home (never got an answer to that either, but oh well). I wasn't upset about not getting to go anywhere because honestly I hadn't wanted to go out in the first place and I don't drink so I just go to hang out with my friends, but I was annoyed that I had wasted my time and a little sad that my group had abandoned me. However, I do like to be optimistic and because of all this I happened to still be awake and on Skype at 1 am and got to Skype with my parents and little brother :).
So really, everything happens for a reason.
Hasta luego.
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