Last week was light on blog posts because I had a quiz on Tuesday, an oral presentation on Thursday, and an exam on Friday. On Monday I got all my grades back. It was kind of a frustrating day of “class” because she gave us a list of pages to read or fill out and then she took students out one by one to discuss with them their oral presentation grade and their mid term grade. I do appreciate that she did that but I didn’t really like doing busy work worksheets for 3 and a half hours.
On my oral presentation I received 8,3/10. Which means 83%. (In Latin America, with numbers and figures, they use commas where we use periods and vice versa. So for them, a million dollars and no change is written 1.000.000,00.) I did pretty well on most sections, receiving a 4 or 4.5 out of 5 on each, except for the grammar section. My professor said my main downfall was that because I talked twice as long as I should have, I gave myself much more room to make mistakes. Usually it was stupid stuff like agreement (“los mujeres” instead of the proper “las mujeres” for example – though “mujeres” was not actually a word I messed up on). Her suggestion for improvement was to record myself practicing my presentation. I’ve done that before for some of my vocal theatre classes at Central, but it never even crossed my mind to record myself speaking my Spanish presentation.
On my exam I received 18,3/20 or 91%. I’m very happy with that grade. I seem to be a pretty reliable A- student in a lot of my studies. I’m okay with that because I’m human and definitely not perfect. Plus I need time to hang out, relax, watch TV, and not spend every waking moment that I’m not in class with my nose in a book.
But compared to some of the students here, I am exemplary. Perhaps it’s the excitement of being in a foreign country, but so many people that I have met go out to the bars every other night or perhaps Thursday through Sunday. It seems a bit ridiculous to me. Maybe it’s because the drinking age in Costa Rica is 18. Maybe it’s because things are a little bit cheaper here. People that I’ve met that are already 21 are a bit shocked when I tell them on average, for a semi-fancy drink at a Washington bar, you have to pay $8. I suppose because of Washington’s liquor laws, alcohol is more expensive. (Side soap-box tangent: I’d prefer that the liquor laws in WA stay tight and keep alcohol expensive. It’s not something that people need, like fruit, and I’m fairly certain that liquor profits go towards good stuff like roads and education. And even if they don’t support those things, I’d prefer the state make a profit over private companies like Costco.) No matter where you live in the US, alcohol’s probably cheaper here. I honestly don’t care that much. I’d rather buy souvenirs. And besides, I'm hoping to transfer my classes to Central. I certainly wouldn't want to transfer a bad grade. I suppose it's possible that people are here more for the learning experience than for a grade and credit. But I want a nice balance of both.
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