Levels

Monday, Feb 6^th, 2012

Monday things started to get a little less vacation-y and a little more academic, as we took our placement exams to determine which level of Spanish we’d be in for the intensive month. Not that my Spanish is poor, but I was worried as to how long the test would take, what would be on it and where I would place. But, like usual, I worried for nothing.

The test was only a page front to back that was an interview with Sofia Loren and we had to fill in the blanks with the correct vocabulary and verb conjugations. But it’s amazing how the test worked and everybody ended up in more or less the right level. But before we found out about our level, we had a long wait so 4 of us headed out for a lunch close by. We ate at a cute little Argentized Italian café, where I ordered la milanesa, which is simply a special type of chicken sandwich. It was pretty good but I’m sure there’s some great milanesas out there so here goes my 3^rd journey for “the best”!

We walked back to University of Belgrano (btw, that’s the school I now attend) and haphazardly found the classroom where they announced our results in the typical Argentine manner—mumbly, quiet and with a thick accent. But it’s hard to misunderstand your own name, so I was delighted to find I’d made it into the advanced section along with my friend, Angela and students from other programs. This never happens to me. Usually all my friends are in section one, then I get to be the loner in section 2. Or the person I do make friends with in the first few days is in the other class and the threads of a potential friendship come unraveled—and right now, I’m in no condition to pass up the opportunity to make some friends. Then we sat through another orientation about academics, which was slightly useless because this “intensive month” of Spanish I’m doing is before the actual semester begins, meaning the class dynamics are different, it will probably be a little easier and my schedule is comprised of 5 straight hours of the same class 5 days a week. This seemed a little daunting, especially given the fact that it’s so hot out and I generally can’t pay attention after 1 hour of the same class—we’ll see how it goes.