I have to take more classes than I'm used to at home and you have a limited number of absences after which you auto-fail the course! So no more sleeping in just cause I don't wanna go to class.
Monday I started at 8.30 in the morning and didn't finish until 10pm (Thankfully I had two breaks of 1 1/2 hours but that was it for the whole day).
I am now taking 7 courses - I was originally taking 6, had a brief moment of joy when the exeter website said we only needed 4, only to then be crushed when they decided 6 was better. Anyways, when I went to change one of my courses that was too hard, I somehow ended up agreeing to keep it and take on another easier course as a back-up?! Very unlike me, can't imagine it will last! Everything had to be finalised last week as after that you could only drop courses not add them. My problem has been that Exeter has to approve all my module choices, and I'm not allowed to do anything which overlaps - so no economics and no maths at all. Finance ones are debatable it seems! And they were not the quickest at replying, which wasn't helped by the time difference meaning there was only like a 3 hour window each day to communicate! So I ended up with 7 courses, 5 of which are in spanish! Originally only 3 were going to be but one changed to spanish when i moved the time it was to fit it into my timetable and the other was changed to spanish but no-one told me. So I turned up to 'Capital and Money Markets' expecting it to be in english only for it to be in very rapid spanish! (I'm still not even sure if I'm allowed to take this course as apparently it's too similar to one I already did - even though it's predominantly on the Mexican financial system?!)
So I have almost all my lessons on mon / thurs, with my extra one on weds. Meaning on mon I have every class except the extra one - hence the insanely long day! The first lesson of everything was pretty tough. Let me take you through my day:
8.30 - 10: Business Law and Intellectual Property (Spanish); teacher speaks really quickly, oh and also all the classes here are really small, so the profs learn all your names and then pick on you! Wasn't overly keen on the whole circle time introducing yourself as no-one can pronounce my name, it is now simply kris or kristen at best, they don't like the 'ir'.
10-11.30: Mexican Culture (Spanish); much more relaxed as it's all foreign students and there are no parcial exams *. Plus he gave us the lesson off on thursday as he was busy :)
*The system here is actually nicer in terms of exams as you have 3 parcial exams each semester and then one final one, so it means you're not trying to cram a years worth of stuff into a 3 hour exam! England take note!
11.30-1: I have time enough to nip home or catch-up on whatever homework I almost certainly haven't done!
1-2.30: Advanced Spanish (Spanish, claro!); woop made it into the advanced class, it's pretty small as there are only 5 of us, and the range of ability is quite wide as some moved themselves into the class as found others too easy and the levels in between didnt work with their timetable! So far is pretty boring though, we've spent 3 lessons on Simple vs Compound sentences?! Useful .... I think not. Although on thurs we only had a 45min class as her computer broke down so that was it - no back-up!
2.30-4: My second break of the day with just enough time to go home, have some lunch, again catch-up on work and then head back to Tec for my awesome evening of classes! woo
4-5.30: Intermediate Accounting (English, finally): This one's quite an easy class as the teacher speaks incredibly slowly and it's all quite simple (so far), to the extent that the german girl in the class thought she must have missed something as it was too easy! I also like this class as he started by telling us that no-one fails his class :) My kinda subject! (The pass rate here is 70% - hoping that's easier to obtain than in england considering that's a 1st back home!!)
5.30-7: Capital and Money Markets (Spanish - was supposed to be english): This is by far the worst and hardest class I have. The prof speaks so quickly and moves all the slides on before I've even had a chance to read them! Plus in the last class the mexican guy I was sitting next to told me his friend hated the course so much he actually changed his degree! Doesn't bode well. I'm gonna try and stick it out though as having a sound knowledge of the mexican financial system plus the vocab would be useful. I've got one module extra aswell so I'm ok if it doesn't end well!
7-10 (Yep I'm still in class): Financial Statement Analysis (Spanish - again was supposed to be in english): Had an awful first lesson as I didn't know any of the right vocab, I could understand it in context but couldn't think of the words on the spot. That combined with my failure to know to know the date of Mexico's Independence Day meant I was treated somewhat like a child for the remainder of the lesson. Most of it was stuff I already knew, though was too afraid to volunteer my information after 2 hours of being belittled. This week was a marked improvement, even though I hadn't achieved my goal of memorising all the accounting vocab, the cash flow exercises were pretty easy so me and my partner got extra points for the pop-quiz by finishing first
So that's mondays, thursdays are the same minus the last lesson, so I get to finish at 7. Then weds is 4-7 something called Group Dynamics, think maybe a bit of a joke as last week apparently they just played games for 3 hours?! Will see as have this later today. Could do with an easier course though!
The facilities on campus are pretty amazing, they have a massive american football field, tennis courts, basketball courts(indoor / outdoor) and a 50m swimming pool. All are free to use, the downside is you have to sign up for activities and between sports and cultural activities (anything from drama to cooking / martial arts) you are only allowed 4 of which the gym counts as 1. So i'm doing gym, tennis twice a week, crossfit (kinda like circuits) and drum lessons (finally got to give it a go after previously settling for the trumpet as the 2nd loudest instrument I could think of). There were so many options it was quite hard to only choose 4, but the benefit of being here 1 year is I can always try different ones next semester :)
So the first week of classes went by in a bit of a blur. Classes all mon/thurs, activities during the day and went to party at one of the other exchange student houses on tues - they have a really nice house aswell with a pool table and a small pool they bought for the garden, we're thinking we should do the same!
Then we left on Friday morning at 6.30am to get the bus to the beach for the weekend. Of course I had been convinced that it would be a good idea to go out to the 'Tequila Party' the night before. They crammed more people than possible onto a coach it was a 40min trip to the club. (I can't even begin to describe how many people were stuffed into the coach seats / aisles.) I was not a fan of this as I sometimes get a bit of motion sickness and the combination of terrible driving, having to stand up and neon flashing lights for 40 mins was not the best start to the night! Not to mention all the french people were singing songs I couldn't understand for the entire trip, seriously it was like a never ending supply! On arrival though all the girls got given a free 350ml bottle of tequila. Not the greatest fan of tequila and definitely not a believer of 'it grows on you' cause believe me, it hasn't! But I do love me some free stuff :) Anyways didn't get home till around 4, so had a quick power nap before getting up again to go catch the bus. I had been emptying the memory card for my GoPro before we went out on the computer and managed to forget to put it back in the camera. Meaning I had my cool camera with all it's accessories and no way of using it all weekend! Bummer!
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