1. school is not the reason i came here. i've probably told you before, but if i wanted a good school, i would've stayed in santa barbara.
2. to put it nicely, aup is incomparable to the fine UC institution that i'm used to. to be a complainy bitch about it, aup blows. on a normal day, i'd rather not waste my blogging space on the school. BUT i have to be grateful, because i owe aup a million thanks for letting me have such a kick ass opportunity.
anyway, i decided in poli sci this morning (of course i wasn't paying attention) that i should tell you guys about my classes. so here it goes.
1. european politics.
i didn't meet my professor for this class until week four. yes, seriously. when i finally did, man, was in for a treat. she's this romanian woman who speaks AWFUL english (here's a sample sentence: "so how do you conceive of this problematic?"). this, however, would be forgivable...now that i've faced the language barrier and looked it in the eye, i'm much more forgiving to those who struggle with english (curiously enough, i've started to speak like i learned english as a second language, which is weird and bad). it would be forgivable if she organized interesting classes, or inspired heated debate, or taught me something. instead, she mentions a bunch of acronyms i don't know and jumps around, talking about the euro one minute and the grading system at aup in the same breath. sometimes someone will say something in class, and she'll just kind of smile and go, "yeah."...but i think that may be because she doesn't get it in english. OH and bonus points: she's got this orange hair with dark brown roots growing out. i think she may be letting her roots go just for halloween.
2. macroeconomics.
when i went to the poli sci dept at ucsb to get my classes signed off, the head of the dept looked at me like a crazy person when i told him i was going to take macro over here. but i'm actually really enjoying this class. economics comes easily to me as long as i don't complicate it with fancy terms and overly complex theories and stuff. this professor is equally as crazy as my poli sci professor, but with an added pinch of anger and impatience. every day when we come into class, there are notes left on the board from the previous class. my prof HATES this. he goes on a rant every day about how there must be "something fundamentally wrong" with the other prof. he is appalled that anybody could be that indecent of a human being that they would leave notes on the whiteboard. my prof has started calling the other prof "his highness" and has complained to the dean of students about the situation. my prof (i have no idea what his name is) is also filled with random sayings that he says daily ("the proof of pudding is in eating" is my fav). in fact, on our midterm, we had to explain how the phrase "you can't have your cake and eat it, too" related to economics. yes, seriously. oh, and i got that midterm back today (after he went on a 20 minute rant about how the 5 people out of 26 who got Ds or Fs should see him after class). i got an A-, which i was really proud of, until i saw that he wrote "you could have easily made an A" under it.
3. french 2
well, it's kind of french 2. at ucsb, the material would be equivalent to french 3, but it's only level 2 here. anyway, i'm liking this class a lot, too (i guess i lied to you earlier when i said i don't like aup). i'm still pretty awful at french, though. i can listen to it MUCH better now, but my reading/writing is still pretty much the same and my speaking has improved only minimally. my class is filled with really fun people, though, and my teacher is a hoot. she's an older woman, a feminist, and generally seems pretty happy with life. last thursday, we listened to a french song for the entire 80 minute period. oh, that's the biggest reason french sucks--it's 4 times a week, 80 minutes at a time. yes, it blows.
4. media globalization
this is a weird class. i like the topic, but we don't really learn anything. we don't have a textbook for the class. instead, we're supposed to all read something about the topic of the week and bring that information to the class. but, predictably, only about 5 people out of 20 or so actually read something. really, we just end up debating random things that are only loosely related to media. for example, today we got into a big philosophical discussion about if you could really prove things or not. we don't have an in-class midterm or final...only a paper due at the end of the semester and a presentation on that topic. this means that i do practically NOTHING for this class except go to it. i have the typical characters in this class, though...the girl that thinks she's coming up with brand new ideas but is really ignorant and is just putting out old stereotypes; the mumbly guy who thinks he knows more than everyone and has a snide, under his breath comment after everything anyone says; the girl who has something to say about EVERYTHING. i spose it makes for an interesting 80 minutes (more like 60...nobody comes in until 15 minutes after class has started, and we've convinced her class ends 5 minutes before it actually does).
oh, that was surprisingly fun. writing about my classes makes me realize they're not THAT awful. maybe they just seem bad because there are so many better things to do than sit at a desk for 80 minutes. the weirdest thing about aup, though, is that it feels like they grabbed people off the street to be their professors. my poli sci professor jumps from topic to topic without much logic, and has actually said that they recruited her from sciences po late to teach this class, so i guess she still doesn't know what's going on. i can't tell you how many times i've beared 80 long minutes watching a totally unprepared teacher.
and WHY 80 minutes?!
you see how it looks beautiful and green right there? it never looks like that. that's what we've labeled "smoker's row." a crap ton of people smoke here, but because they can't do it inside, they go just outside the building in this small area to smoke. it's like when you're 10 and you're going through a parent-made "we are proud of you" tunnel, except minus clapping parents and plus cancer.
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