classes, continued! y más

So this ISA computer kicked me off before I could properly finish telling you all about my classes. Grr, but haha, I have logged back on!

Anyway.

So this theater class! Yes, awesome. Last week was the first meeting, and there were about ten-ish people there, including me. We basically played games for two hours until we got kicked out (we were supposed to have the room for three hours, but there was some sort of scheduling conflict), and not many of them had to do explicitly with theater. But it was so much fun! Then this week there was a whole different assortment of people, with only about six in common (again, including me). This time we played awesome games for three hours, and I met a bunch of cool Spaniards (and other fellow foreigners-- I take comfort in the fact that I think my Spanish comprehension was not the worst in the room) and generally had a blast! Oh, how I've missed theater and its associated classes. One of the leaders (I suppose you could call them teachers, but the word doesn't seem to apply much to them) is quite stereotypically flamboyant (not necessarily in a gay way) and very ... theater-y, for lack of a better (or real) word. Also he's quite funny. I have to admit I'm pretty proud of myself when I understand the jokes in Spanish. I can't wait to get started on the play we're going to put on in December and test my acting-in-spanish abilities-- it'll be a whole new challenge, and I'm really excited to see how up to it I am.

Also, I have a class called Varieties of Spanish! Pretty much anyone who knows me will understand why I'm so excited about it. It's so linguistics-y! and it's about Spanish! AND! one of the topics we'll be covering is more or less my specialty (what my Independent Study will be): register, or different styles of speaking/writing based on context and formality and audience and all that! How sweet, yes? Yes indeed. We'll also be covering taboos, which is another of my linguisticsy interests. Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway), this class is also in the running for my favorite. I haven't met the profesor yet, though, because he was at a conference or something yesterday, so we had a sub. The sub happened to be my teacher for the grammar class, and he's pretty cool. In grammar the other day he told us all about the workings of a particular common Spanish curse word ("joder" if you want to know), and yesterday while subbing for variedades he taught us other words you should not say to a boss or respected adult (demonstrating register differences). He even wrote it on the board, with a furtive look out the door first to make sure no one was watching him teach us dirty words. Awesome. Also he made sure that we knew he was a substituto, not a prostituta. Just to clear up any doubts we may or may not have had.

So that's how my last few days have been. My roommate left last night at 4am for Marruecos (Morrocco), just two or three days after returning from a week in Ireland, so I kind of have my own room for a while, which is pretty nice.

Upcoming events/attractions include but are not limited to the following: probable voyage to Barcelona for hanging out and swing dancing purposes (with Mark Katz from Lawrence), possible voyage to Florence to hang out with a different set of friends and see the city, the latter set of friends visiting me here in Granada, and perhaps finally I'll tell you about my host family. Maybe.

¡Besitos!