why didn't i take spanish in high school???

so far, i'm not impressed with UPF. this could be because my expectations were too high, i admit. i chose this MLTA program for several reasons:

1. it was cheap (the whole program is about $5000)
2. it was one year (rare and not actually ideal for a master's program, but enticing)
3. it was in barcelona (the #1 tourist destination in europe at the moment, great weather, etc.)
4. the acclaimed linguistics department (in fact, pompeu fabra, UPF's namesake, was a linguist)
5. the website was impressive, informative, and kept up to date
6. the whole master's program is guaranteed in english

1-5 are still true, but that pesky #6 is proving hard to enforce. 


thursday i went to my second ever class (Cognició, comunicació i competència lingüística) with of bunch of other linguistic students. the professor began speaking in spanish. then she noticed some faces lacking the comprehension look and asked whether everyone spoke spanish. a girl from macau (who speaks chinese and english) and i raised our hands to signal that we don't speak spanish. she explained in english that it would be too hard for her to maintain english for the three hour class each week (well, for 5 weeks) so she was just going to speak in spanish. she said not to worry, though, because the powerpoints and handouts would all be in english. 

wtf. 

some girl next to me kindly interpreted a few important things the teacher said during the next couple of hours, but i was just sitting there seething and hardly cared what she said.

that night i went home and wrote an email to the teacher, citing the page of UPF's website that guarantees the possibility of taking the entire linguistics major in english. i told her how i (and the other girl must have) felt isolated, discouraged, frustrated, and angry. i asked for her suggestion about what i should do about this class, as i won't be sitting through spanish classes any more. 

friday i went to the registration office to pay and confirm my schedule. i asked the nice ladies up there (who speak english on a lower intermediate level) what could be done about this lady who speaks english but simply refused to, or if not about her, about my schedule, since hers was a mandatory class for my discipline. they said i should tell the department head. since i'd already written an email to the lady, i decided to wait for her reply before doing anything else. 

after registering and paying, i went to my only friday class, only to find that not only was the professor speaking in spanish, but all the materials and powerpoints would also be in spanish. i walked out of the classroom less than a minute after i walked in and headed back to the nice ladies in the registration office to tell them another class of mine needed to be changed (thankfully, this one was optional at least). while i was telling them, i started to tear up in frustration. they were so sweet and assured me they wanted to make me happy and comfortable at UPF. they said they'd talk to my adviser and get me out of the optional class. then they'll get the department head involved, who will talk to the first teacher, and if she won't switch, then they would help me change my discipline to get out of taking her class.

changing my discipline would mean my mandatory classes change and my classes would be better suited for a professional or research career than an academic career.

my expectations have been lowered a lot now, but so far i'm not impressed with UPF (except the admissions and registration ladies). 

first day of school

today i started the master of applied and theoretical linguistics program at UPF. the welcome session, meant to start at 10am actually started at 10:30something due to the presenter being MIA. the other teachers present didn't know what she'd planned to say so they voted for us to wait for her to arrive. during this time i started talking to the two chinese girls next to me. they're doing their masters in translation, so we'll only have a few classes in common, but it felt nice to chat in chinese or in english about china with them while we waited. they told me nothing in spain ever starts on time and i should get used to it. (i hope not...)

finally the teachers switched the order of the orientation sessions and the librarian came in to talk about all the resources available to UPF students. i could tell immediately that she wasn't a teacher by the way she talked non-stop without checking for understanding or even looks of understanding. she spoke for nearly 90 minutes (JUST HER!!!) and we all almost died.

then an IT guy named herman (well, german, i think) talked about how to log in to the intranet and access your classes online, etc. which is pretty useful and important information. unfortunately, his accent was so thick and his speaking voice so quiet, no one had a clue what he was saying... but that didn't stop him from rambling on as if we were all following along well. (we had to clarify with the next speaker everything that guy said.) my patience was long gone and that point but then my head started hurting so i had to switch off. the chinese girls tuned out and played candy crush and i could hear others breaking out into hushed conversation.

when we couldn't take any more, some lady rescued us and took us on a tour of the campus. UPF has three campuses (health and medical, humanities, and communication ... or something). ours is the medium sized one with just a few buildings. the classes and library are all geared toward communication, linguistics, translation, and language science. handy that the books we'll need are all in that library (which we didn't see on our tour). the tour, unfortunately, was in spanish. there were a handful of us there who don't speak spanish, so it was a bit pointless. some girl offered to translate but i declined, having been on tours of cities in languages i don't understand and having already used up my pretending-to-care ability for the day. nearly everyone in the university speaks english so if i have questions, i'll just ask.

one more session that vaguely described our disciplines ended up raising more questions than it answered. the teachers mostly said they'd keep us informed as we go. the first trimester is supposed to be pretty light, then the last is super hectic and we should be prepared. mmmk.

we were supposed to have lunch and go to class then. but i didn't know what or where any of my classes were because my adviser didn't send me that pertinent information. several emails to the school went unanswered so i had to stay after and hand-write my schedule off of a master sheet and look up the times, room numbers, and days. i had a quick lunch of salad and pasta in the cafeteria and went off to class.

all the classes are THREE HOURS. i don't know how i'm gonna make it. today's was a class on syntax, though today we just talked about what the class will be like, listened to the teacher a LOT (for 2 hours)... thankfully he was 16 minutes late and hadn't set up anything (or i wouldn't have made it - information overload). at the end of the class he asked us to go around giving introductions and answering questions about our backgrounds. he interrupted 18 of 20 people, so this took like an hour and we still ran over. he gave us an assignment on the class website which we don't yet know how to access.

i haven't paid or finished enrolling or shown my authenticated documents or seen my schedule. so far, i'm less than impressed with spanish school. the people are all friendly and helpful, at least. tomorrow i have two classes but i'm more excited about picking up xander at the airport.

day 1: meh.