Week 2 of classes

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  Monterrey, Mexico
Wednesday, January 23, 2008

It's Tuesday of the second week of classes, and things are starting to pick up.  My classes are going pretty well.  I'm having some trouble with my two classes in Spanish.  At the TEC, teamwork is a part of every class.  In all of my classes, we have formed teams.  I tend to work better alone, so this will be a good learning experience for me.  The only thing that I really don't like about it is the scheduling part.  It's hard to have a meeting with three or four people who have completely different schedules.  Other than that, it has been great so far.  In my international economics class, I am the only non-Mexican student, so my group members only speak Spanish. It's really forcing me to think in Spanish almost all of the time.  I also am in a group with a guy from Mexico and a guy from France.  The Mexican speaks Spanish and a little bit of English.  The French guy speaks French and a little bit of Spanish and English.  That's a lot of languages.  I think by the end of the semester I will probably know a lot more about a lot of different cultures, which is a great thing.

In addition to my five academic classes, I am taking a rock climbing class and will be playing intramural basketball.  I'm also in the conversation club, which should really help my spoken Spanish.  The first climbing class was tonight.  When I signed up for it, I didn't really think too much about the fact that it would be taught in Spanish.  I now realize that this class will be like an additional Spanish class, and I might learn a little bit about climbing.  Learning how to tie climbing knots seems like it would not be difficult, but when you can't understand a good part of the directions, it's a little more confusing.  I am also the only American in this class, so I've been able to meet more Mexicans, which is a great thing since I've really been trying not to hang out with Americans.

On another completely unrelated note, my host family experience has been great so far.  The Mexican food is delicious.  Half the time I don't have a clue what I'm eating, but it is wonderful.  Mexicans don't really seem to use specific words for meat. Every time I ask what something is, they just say "carne."  In Mexico, there only seems to be chicken (pollo) and every other type of meat (carne).  I guess it doesn't really matter. Also, my dinners are often in the company of several generations of my host family.  Tonight, I ate with my host parents' granddaughter, son, daughter-in-law, and mother.  That's four generations at one table.  It's very interesting to me.  These kind of dinners happen about two or three times a week. The way Mexican families interact is much different from what I am used to, and I am really enjoying the experience.

Well, that was a lot, but I figured I write down what I've been thinking about before I get too busy.

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