Second day of Uni – It’s not looking good!

So today was my second day at university, another early start and no, it didn’t get any easier. I went to my literature class first, to be honest I don’t remember any of it, I was half asleep and I didn’t really enjoy it. I then came home, thank goodness its only a 5 minute walk, so that I could have a nap in my two hour break between classes. I did try and visit my tutor before leaving university, but I think he must be avoiding me. Geo came home as I was waking up from my nap, her morning class had gone OK but she has a bit of a cold, which I think she has passed to me, so wasn’t feeling great. I headed back to the facultad de filosofia y letras for my first class of ‘historia de la lengua espanola’, it will also be my last.

I found the room easily enough, ten minutes early, there were already a few people there so I just sat down at the back of the classroom, in the next ten minutes around 30 other people entered the room. When the lecturer turned up the first thing he started talking about Erasmus students, he asked us to raise our hands, I was the only one – great. As if this didn’t attract enough stares from my Spanish classmates he then proceeded to tell me how this class was very hard and most Erasmus students preferred to spend the class time on La Caleta. He then asked where I was from, England I replied, this didn’t seem to offend him too much, then he asked if I spoke Latin – erm no! This was apparently a problem, he proceeded to tell me how everyone’s level of Spanish was very high in this class, and they were also familiar with Latin – great. He told me how lots of Erasmus students aren’t good enough and drop the class, I took the hint. The Spanish students just watched and listened the whole time whilst I wished the ground would swallow me up, fair enough tell me I’m not good enough for the class – just not in front of everyone else please!

So I sat at the back of the class for the next hour and bolted out of the door as fast as I could when class was over. I met up with Geo and Alice who were at the ESN office paying for the Gibraltar trip and told them about the experience, not the most fabulous start to Cádiz university life, they both suggested some other classes that I may wish to join which were better. We then headed to the bank as planned to sort out paying our landlady, but apparently we have to pay commission if we transfer money from a Spanish Santander account to a Spanish UniCaja one, so we resolved to just give the money in at the UniCaja in Plaza San Antonio with the instructions to give it to Ana. But UniCaja was closed. Tapas and Tinto it was! That cheered me up a bit then, I was feeling a bit down and stressed about having to change my classes yet again, I was looking forward to Historia de la Lengua Espanola, but if I’m not going to understand it then there is no point in me going. We discussed some stories from other girls who have had similar experiences, Kath had been told off earlier that day along with the rest of the Erasmus students in her class for not participating and Jana had been told by her lecturer that the English class she was in was too difficult for Erasmus students, even though she thought it was ok.

Geo and Alice headed off to the rest of their classes for the day and I headed home to look at options for changing my modules as well as Skype my mum – she always makes me feel better. Unfortunately mum was not on Skype, so I watched an uplifting episode of Mock The Week from back home and eventually mum came on line. We had a really long chat, well more of a pep talk from her then my little brother, Jake (I say little he is 16 and almost 6 foot tall) came and talked to me and cheered me up by being his usual goofy self. I then ate a whole box of chicken wings and now I feel fine again, who wants to do Historia de la Lengua Espanola anyway?! Let’s just hope the lecturers in the next set of modules that I choose are not so anti-Erasmus.

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