So, last week I decided that I was done shopping classes and I had my schedule organized. I am only taking three classes, but in American credit hours (which Tufts doesn’t actually use) I am taking 15 hours worth of class (aka 4 Tufts classes). What does suck is that I have to go to class every day of the week, which I haven’t had to do since freshman year….however, this is the first semester not having class before 9AM (but I have to leave the house at 8:40 to get to my 9 AM class so its about the same as usual). My schedule is kinda wacky: Monday and Tuesday mornings I have Anthropology at the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, which is a 45 minute walk away (or 10 minute bus ride). Wednesday and Thursday evenings (until 8 or 9 PM) I have 20th Century Argentine Literature at the same university. Then, Friday mornings I have Argentine Foreign Policy at the Universidad de Congreso, which is only 4 blocks from my house. I’m all signed up for my classes and everything, which is an amazing relief and weight lifted off my shoulders. Now, I have to start doing homework.
Next week I have an Anthro práctico due. A práctico can be any kind of homework assignment, like a paper, response to questions or some kind of analysis of an article. In this case, we had to read and article and respond to some questions. I did the whole thing last week, wrote about 5 pages in paragraph form. It wasn’t that hard. Today in class, the teacher told us that we have turn the práctico in with a group of no more than 9 and really we can just respond to the questions. I hadn’t been able to ask this teacher about the specifics of the práctico because he wasn’t there last week. Last week’s teacher had told me prácticos could be like mini-essays and we should cite the article and another article. So, I followed those instructions.
The problem is that these professors don’t actually talk to each other. The right hand is doing one this and the left hand hasn’t got a clue what that action is. We actually have three teachers for anthro, but I have yet to meet the third. Having three teachers is normal; I have four for Argentine Literature and two for Argentine Foreign Policy. They have this weird system where teachers teach in multiple universities and high schools and no one teaches an entire semester. My host “mom” (nearly genetically impossible, she’s 34) teaches communications at at least three high schools each semester. The students stay in the same classroom and the teachers run around the city. They have this whole system in place because some teachers (and students) go to morning classes and others go to afternoon/evening classes. Everyone in the city has 1/2PM-4/5PM off because those are the siesta hours. During that time, everyone goes home for lunch and some students are done with the day and some are just starting. Mariana (host mom) only really works 15-18 hours a week, which is enough to support herself and live in a house on the main street of the city. She works Monday and Friday afternoons and Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Wednesdays she has off. During her off time, she doesn’t really do much related to her job: I have seen her preparing lessons, but never really grading papers or anything.
So, back to the group work: I have only two weeks of classes and I have had to do a group práctico in every single one. In literature, we had to read an article (during class because Wednesday’s teacher told us to read it for the following week, but Thursday’s teacher had wanted us to read it for that week). Then we had to summarize the article and write the summary in a diagram/chart on a big piece of paper. I worked with 4 other women (2 of whom have teenage children). I almost killed one of them. We only had an hour to do this whole project and reading the article took a little while to begin with. We also had to leave the classroom because other groups were reading too loudly and pissing off my group. So we really had about 20 minutes to write the notes on the big paper. But, first we had to write everything out on a smaller piece of paper and argue about the order and very specific details of the contents of the notes. So, that took about 10 minutes and then this one woman couldn’t figure out if she wanted the poster to be horizontal or vertical. she decided on vertical and began writing in pencil, but had to flip the poster over because she didn’t like the way she wrote Argentine Literature on the first side (not that anyone could actually see the writing, because she had written it so lightly). So, now we have the teacher coming over every five minutes telling us to hurry up and everyone is standing around watching this woman write (and we still had to go over all the letters in marker). I finally picked up the marker and started going over her letters. I was standing at the top of the poster (it was on a table) and therefore, re-writing the letters upside down. These women were so impressed….the foreigner was managing to write in SPANISH from upside down….really it wasn’t that big of a deal: I was following her letters. Of course, we had absolutely no time to actually present the poster. We had also skipped our 10 minute break which pissed off all the students.
For every hour of class at the UNCuyo, a 10 minute break is built into the schedule. These students are very serious about that break. They get pissed if a teacher tries to take up any of the break time and doesn’t “reimburse” them by letting them out early. In anthro, the break usually winds up being 25 minutes because of all the questions the first-years have regarding everything about the homework and everything in general. These kids need major hand-holding. Break time is usually cigarette, food, mate time for everyone. And, whats even worse is that they have bells in the Filosofía y Letras building, where I have my classes. Teachers cannot hear the bells if the door is closed, which means the students close to the door shout when the bell goes off (or a few minutes beforehand if they are feeling bored). Today in anthro, the guy sitting next to me left for the ten minute break and didn’t return for an hour (when the next 10 minute break was beginning).
Tomorrow is a strike at the university, but we’re still going to have class. I really have no clue what they are striking about; I think its something medically/health care related. Teacher
(this is actually being typed on Tuesday, whereas the rest was typed on Monday) So today I went to class and we actually started on time (9AM). During the break at 9:50AM, the prof walked back in and said students I have an announcement (in a loud/excited voice): class is cancelled, we need to leave immediately. We thought something was wrong, but really it was that someone who worked in the building had died recently and out of respect, we were not allowed to have classes. So I left and went to COPA to use the internet.
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