Classes and such

I just finished up my second week of classes (hooray for no Friday classes in Spain!!!). 

I have the same Spanish professor as last semester, which is great because he's awesome! I've gotten emails from pretty much everybody from the program last semester asking how Emilio is and saying how much they miss him. I can't even count the number of times he's ranted about how much he hates Julio Iglesias and FC Barcelona. I'm also taking a gender class. It's been kind of boring so far, but it looks like we're going to get into more interesting topics in the coming weeks (I just don't care about Ancient Greek goddesses that much...). The biggest project we have is a big research paper, which has to include at least 10 interviews with Spaniards of various ages. I know lots of 20 something Spaniards, but I'm not sure how I'm supposed to suddenly make friends with the Salamanca elders... awkward! 

I'm taking two classes at the University of Salamanca, Economic Development in Latin America and Contemporary Social Structure. Both of them will be very difficult - I have a 20 minute presentation at the end of the semester for Economics and lots of writing assignments for soc. It's really embarrassing participating in class discussions because I either say something relevant but grammatically incorrect, or I focus on grammar and say something really stupid. At least there are other foreigners in the class - I hang out mostly with two 

I start my teaching internship next week! I'll be helping teach English at a local elementary school 6 hours a week. We'll see how this goes... I guess it all depends on whether or not the kids are well behaved or not. Also, I'm really not looking forward to waking up for 8:30 classes. I've literally slept in until 10 every day since I've been here. If you want to look at the cute pictures of the kids, go to http://www.sagradafamiliasiervas.es/galeria.asp

Other than classes, nothing too terribly exciting has happened - just lots of coffee and tapas with friends. This weekend I'm hoping to go to Ávila, a town relatively close to Salamanca. I don't know if we have the motivation to figure it all out, though. It might get put off a few weeks...

We've been eating midday meal a little earlier this semester, so instead watching the news, the Spanish equivalent of Entertainment Tonight. I'm all up to date on Spanish celebrity gossip. Shakira is dating Spanish soccer player Gerald Pique, causing much excitement. Also, Eva Longoria is dating Penelope Cruz's brother. I don't think anyone actually knows what his name is - he's literally referred to as "el hermano de Penelope Cruz." And, of course, everyone is still madly in love with Spanish power couple Penelope and Javier Bardem. However, lots of people are offended that they had their baby in the United States so that it would have American rather than Spanish citizenship. 

Also, someone pointed out to me how much Prime Minister Zapatero reminded them of Mr. Bean. Apparently lots of people think so, but I found so many pictures like this when I did a Google Image search. The picture doesn't quite capture it - you need to see Zapatero's awkward mannerisms to really get it...

¡Hasta luego!