1) First day of class: Anyone remember my first day of class back in August? Words to describe that day would be: anxiety, shock, overwhelmed. First day of second semester: normal, easy, routine. What a difference a semester has made! So it was very fun to reflect of the growth I have made!
2) Courses:
After much planning and debating about which classes were best for me to take, I finally know my schedule and courses for this semester. Most importantly, I am quite pleased about it, especially regarding the content! They are classes a) of personal interest to me, b) related to my BGSU assignments (except the Soc . class), and cover a variety of educational fields. So, the classes I am taking are Mexican Literature 4 (1960s to current), Writing Workshop 2, Spanish Morpho-syntax (Linguistic study of the how words and sentence are formed) and Sociology of the border/migration. Furthermore my schedule is from 8:00-1:00 Monday through Thursday with an hour break at 9:00, and on Friday I only have two hours of class. This means that every afternoon I have a big open block of time, which is helpful for studying. I still need to figure out if I am going to incorporate a possible PE course, which would break that up, but would be beneficial in carving out time to exercise.
3) Classmates:
Two of my classes, Mex Lit 4 and Writing Workshop 2, are continuations of the classes I took last semester. This means I have class with two of the same groups of students (about 50 students altogether)! This is really nice as it means that I get to continue those relationships instead of having to meet two more sets of students. Furthermore, both of the groups are quite fun and I definitely enjoyed the class atmosphere. (In one class, I have the same professor, but in the rest the professors are all different). Returning to the topic of students, in my Morphosytaxis we are only three students. I guess I’ll be doing al my homework in that class!
4) Balance of study and fun
Although overall I did a decent job of balancing these areas this week, I will need to be extra intentional in this area this semester with the work I will need to accomplish. The trick will be not burning out of too much studying and therefore making my work less efficient, being able to say no to fun when I need to work, still feeling like I am taking advantage of living here, and time to deepen relationships. What else to say…same story as always for me.
5) Cold: I don't exactly know what the outside temperature has been here in the mornings, although one especially cold morning it was 2 degrees Celsius. However, even when it warms up outside (for example at 11:00), the classrooms are freezing. So I tend to wear my winter coat or heavy fall coat and scarf (and hat) in class, and still am cold. However, I can't complain too much as soon enough it will be hot again here, and midday can often be 80 degrees Farenheit now in January.
