classes

So classes began on Monday.... I only have two. The first one is called IPDDAE ( Innovative Product Development, Demand Assessment and Entrepreneurship) with professor Ubeda. He is a really funny guy who likes to lead the class with lots of discussions and examples. His class is on Mondays 2-4pm and Thursdays 3-6pm. We made our groups in his class on Monday, I'm in a group with Emmeline, Margareth and Juan. The other class is GEBT ( Global Environment and Business Trends) with professor Moslares. His class is on Tuesdays 5:30-7pm and Wednesdays 3-6pm. He has an accent, so I have to listen to him carefully when he speaks and I can't take notes at the same time. He assigned us to read a 30 page case on Tuesday and a lot of the students from Taipei had a difficult time reading a long business paper in one night. Since Fu Jen is a linguistics school, not many of the students here have business degrees. For instance, Debbie my roommate has an undergrad in Spanish. On Wednesday after the quiz, he informed us that he only wanted to get an idea of where everyone was from the quiz results and that he won't be assigning a case due the next day anymore. I felt bad because lots of the students had been really stressed about reading/understanding it. But on the other hand, I came into the program thinking everyone was going to have a business background, and since that's not the case I think we are going to move at a slower pace which is not what I expected.

I know that this is the inaugural class and that the program is literally being written and decided around us as we continue, but so far there has been a big gap in communication between the directors and the students. For instance, we thought that we would have personal internships in each of the countries, but now we are doing consultancy projects instead. It seems like everyone got different information from the directors, and now that I am here, I'm trying to sort out everything. One of the students even decided to leave the program because it wasn't what she was expecting when she got here. The students seem to be separated into three groups now. The group that is worried about all the changes and trying to figure out exactly what they are getting and spending their time/money on. The group that is overwhelmed by the work but wants to stay, and the group that doesn't seem to care about changes or workload and wants to go with the flow. I'm in the concerned group, and have been asking a lot of questions, but now that I have more answers, I think I'm going to stay.

On a totally different note, Emme, Margareth and I have been trying to get used to how the Spanish pace their days. It's so different. Everything opens at 10 am and then closes at 2pm for lunch. At 4pm they open back up till around 8pm. Between 9 and 10pm everyone has dinner. It's weird going to dinner so late, and then coming back to do homework.

OH MY GOSH! On Thursday night we went to do our laundry down the street and when we came back after an hour to get our clothes from the washer and put them in the dryer, the store had closed! We had Emme's friend who lives in Madrid call the owner and talk to him in Spanish. The owner said it wouldn't be opened until Saturday because of a Spanish holiday on Friday. Today, ( Friday ) everything has been closed except for restaurants and guess what? The laundromat! The guy lied and said he wouldn't open the store until Saturday! Luckily all of our clothes were there and we stayed in the room until our clothes were done and safely back with us. We took the picture after. Emme is in the dryer and Margareth is on the left.