a bit nervous and excited when i get up this morning. the spanish exam on monday was quite broad: almost thirty pages of exercises, reading and listening comprehension, small pieces of writing, and i know that my weird knowledge of spanish doesn’t sit well with a more standard divisions of levels. no problems in comprehension and after a weekend of studying verbs the verb grammar exercises must have been flawless, but then there were entire pieces i had to leave blank. (and yes, i admit, i simply switched to italian when i didn’t know the spanish words.) after class alvaro calls some people to come to his office and discuss problems with the test. he doesn’t call me, so i go to him – can i stay? i had counted the people taking the test on monday, and we were just above the prescribed maximum of 24 students. he nods, no problem. ooooh, my first full UCSC class…
alvaro makes me laugh a lot. he plays much of the time, and i’m not entirely sure if the kids (these undergrads really look so young) get it. all UCSC spanish classes use the same (incredibly expensive) books, in which the language is embedded within a latin american hispanic cultural background. but alvaro just skips over the cultural references and brings in his own photocopies. the conversation topic today was la comida, food, and instead of using the textbook which teaches us about the cuisine of Venezuela, alvaro gives us a text (La Dieta Mediterránea) that starts off like this: “Cuando se estudiaron las costumbres alimenticias de los paÃses mediterráneos, descubrieron que en general los habitantes de estas zonas tenÃan un bajo nivel de colesterol, comparados con los consumidores anglosajones, centroeuropeos o norteamericanos.” i mean, i do see the point of criticizing north american food habits. but he’s so obviously playing the european and the mediterranean with the students, and enjoying it a lot. and i enjoy the whole spectacle.