Halfway done with my year in Madrid...

I've finally finished with exams and such. The Reunidas classes have already started, which is a pain because I have to get to the university at 8:30 and then don't have any other classes afterwards, but I'll live.

Spanish exams are strangely stressful. Even though my grades don't matter so long as I pass, in the U.S. if you regularly attend class, can follow the material, and write something relevant to the class on the exam, there is pretty much no way you can fail. Here, there is absolutely no grade inflation and failing is rather common, since you can retake the exam in September. I'm pretty much hoping though that since my professors generally seem to know who I am and that I'm American, they won't fail me.

I won't know exactly what classes I'm taking until I go to the first day and see if the professor seems decent (and there aren't more than three Georgetown students, hopefully I won't have problems along these lines). There is a new policy forbidding Monday-Tuesday only schedules (although no one from the Dean's office has ever contacted me), and apparently a two-hour tutorial in the Prado doesn't count. To comply, I have found a Wednesday-only class in Ciencias Políticas called "Literatura y Política". I'm not sure this will end up counting for my English major, but I'm considering dropping that anyway, so I don't really care.

Here would be my schedule:

Monday-Tuesday
8:30-10 Pintura Española en el Museo del Prado

15:30-17 Política Exterior de España
17-18:30 Las Ideologías Políticas en España del s. XX y la Idea de Europa
18:30-20 Seguridad y Cooperación en Relaciones Internacionales

Wednesday
12:30-14:30 (tentative) Prado Tutorial
15:30-18:30 Literatura y Política

Apparently the woman in charge of the Spanish department told one of the new students that the Prado class wouldn't count towards the Spanish minor, which is outrageous, because they are supposed to count any class taught in Spanish (um, they all are here...) about Hispanic culture. Also she signed next to this class on everyone's academic proposals. I guess if that were the case I could just count one of these hispano-centric government classes since only a total of two for the whole year will count towards my government major anyway. Basically everything I'm taking here is just going to be elective, which is unfortunate since I would rather take electives at Georgetown, one motivating factor for dropping the English major.