Fútbol (Football) (I am a genius translator)

KILL HIM! RUN!

Monday the 28th of January 2013 was a landmark occasion for me. I went to a sporting event. Voluntarily. I am unable to decide myself whether showjumping or a rodeo really count as sporting events (I think the fact that I am saying "sporting events" shows my lack of experience in the field) (HA! FIELD! sports, get it? Never mind.) so it might not have been my very first sports... thing, but in any case this was the first time I paid to watch people play with a ball. 

very enthusiastic altogether

Football is the national pastime of Spain. Footballs are easier to come by for the average person than bulls so that's probably why. Also, being something popular all around the world it gives them something to show off about, having won pretty much everything they could win in the last few years. So yes, Spain are very very good at football/soccer what have you. Seville, apparently, are not. They used to be but lately, no. Not really. On Monday night we probably saw them in top form as they managed to beat Granada 3 nil.

(Apparently this isn't saying much because apparently Granada are also Not Very Good.)

yay

Perhaps you are wondering why, after 5 months, I decided to go to a match. Well as a way to encourage visitors Sevilla FC organise special nights for different nationalities that they know are present in the city.  Monday was Irish night which meant we only had to pay €5 for our tickets, as opposed to €15. AND we got free scarves. A not very trad Irish band played before kick off and during half time the (quite popular it would seem) Sevilla GAA club Éire Óg Sevilla gave a demonstration of Ireland's national sport "Fútbol Gaélico". I imagine this left the Spaniards quite confused, particularly as both teams were shooting into the same goal. In any case seeing this and hearing a bit of the aul Gaeilge over the sound system made me come over all patriotic and nostalgic, you'd think I'd moved to America during the Famine. All in all I enjoyed my first taste of the World Of Sport, though I did get a bit bored when it got cold and I ran out of sweets. I suppose it helps when your team wins.

As a side note, although this blog started out as a way of me documenting my year and keeping people at home up to date, thanks to the magic of the internet I've noticed lately a little more variety in my readers. In the last week I've had views from Saudi Arabia and Taiwan which I really think is amazing. I don't know how you found me but welcome, enjoy your stay. Hasta pronto chicis xx

Exams in Seville: What?

He vuelto! So far I have done 2 exams and now I have a nice 10 day break until my next one (I have 3 in quick succession). What have I made of them? Well, put it this way, it could have gone worse. Now that's a tricky phrase to employ because you could really almost always use it. If I had sat down and not been able to write a single word I could still have said it could have gone worse because really, the room could have burned down around me, a badger could have come in and chewed my leg off, or I could have forgotten my pen. Still, it's the best assessment I can give.

study fuel

For this year I have adopted the "Try not to fail and if you do fail oh well you have to go back to Ireland eventually" mentality. For this reason I... really haven't been very studious. Yes, my political ideologies exam last Monday had me panicking because I had so little idea of the background of, well, everything on the course, so my friend and I (we divided the material between us) did have an impressive combined 60ish pages of notes to go by. Needless to say the essay questions were topics I had not revised, but I managed. I'm hoping the Universidad de Sevilla gives out attempt marks like in Leaving Cert Maths. 19th Century Art History on Thursday was another story however. Typical, it was my favourite class of the term and one I actually did enjoy revising for, yet I'd say I did about ...3 hours? work towards it. Once again it could have been worse but it could have been better.

As per my predictions, exams here are quite a bit more laid back than in Dublin. On Monday we were split up and sent into offices in small groups to do the exam because a room couldn't be found for us, and a woman came in to mop the floor of my room about an hour in. There's no anonymous marking here, so my potential failure won't be hidden by a student number. Yesterday rather than give out an exam paper the professor just read out one essay title and we all did that for an hour. So far both exams have been shorter than timetabled. No seat numbers, no ID checks, no "leave everything outside", and not one person in a cape. I'm reeling from the informality of it all. 

Avoiding Exam Stress: Instead of stabbing people, use a knife to make a healthy breakfast!

In other news, there are city workers harvesting the oranges by hitting the trees with big sticks and on Monday I might be going to a *shock, horror, plot twist* football match. So if that happens it's bound to be interesting and I shall tell you all about it. Happy weekend mis amigos xx

Stu-dy?

What is an exam? I have forgotten. Today we'll focus on the academic side of Erasmus. Something people tend to forget about. (I admit I thought my primary occupation here was olive eater rather than student for a while).

Hola folks, first off you'll be glad to hear I'm feeling a lot more postive this week (no more misery! yay!) which is odd because I'm currently buried in Spanish political history notes. Yes, it is exam season, which is a strange feeling for me because my home university only has exams at the end of the year. So I'm finding it hard to really get into the swing of things, but oh well it has to be done. This week I've had classes but a last minute panic over my first exam next Monday (which happens to be my most complicated class and also the one I went to least... smart move there on my part I'm feeling pretty proud) has led me to spend more time in the library this week than I did all last term. The same thing happens at home, to be honest. Don't set foot in there for two months and then practically live in the place for the 3 days before an essay is due.

AHHHHH

Progress is painfully slow when you're reading and writing notes in another language about things you aren't familiar with, and I'm expecting these exams to be pretty challenging. I am holding onto hope that as foreign students we'll be shown a little mercy in the grading; I'm not ruling out scrawling "ERASMUS" across the top of my exam papers, perhaps in my own blood for dramatic effect. It does look like exams here in the University of Seville, much like everything else in the University of Seville, are fairly casual though, timetables and places get changed around all the time. Fingers crossed anyway, we wouldn't like to have to repeat things would we... or be deported (preparing for the worst case scenario here).

AHHHHH

Have to admit, I'm feeling pretty jealous of the friends I have on Erasmus across Europe who are doing their classes and exams through English, but let's remember once again that I am here to learn Spanish after all. And from what I've heard there are some universities who are a bit tough on you even if you aren't a native speaker of the language you're being taught through coughFrancecough. Best of luck anyone else doing exams at this time, I'm sure we can do it. And if we can't we can't, you know? No use in worrying :D Hasta la próxima semana, I've another exam next thursday so that'll probably be the next time I check in x

AAAAAHHHHHHHHH

Round Two

on the train from Malaga

So here I am back in Seville. I've been here 3 days and already, indeed from the moment I stepped out of the train station on Sunday, it feels like I was never back in Ireland at all. The journey back was exhausting, a  lack of direct flights between Dublin and Seville during the winter months meant flying to Malaga at half past 7 in the morning, getting to the train station, hanging around for 2 hours and then getting a 2 and a half hour train back to Sevilla. Luckily Monday was a holiday so that was a chance to catch up on sleep. Classes did begin today but I wasn't able to muster the energy to go in because I seem to have been floored by yet another one of those sinus/head/throat/stomach things that are plaguing me this year. Oh well, hopefully I'll be able to stand up long enough to walk into college tomorrow and try to put my academic hat back on, although I'm not sure I even remembered to pack it. :)

Am I glad to be back? Well, the short answer is no. Not yet anyway. The being sick at the most inopportune times thing doesn't help in the slightest and the prospect of exams less than two weeks from now would make me feel ill if I wasn't already. Aside from that, I... didn't particularly want to come back. I'm really not sure what we should call what I have now, it's hardly still homesickness after all this time, but whatever it is has my resolve of my last post to Have Fun And Enjoy Myself This Term crumbling already. That's disappointing, but of course it's not the end of it. A few bad days don't have to ruin the next 6 months (6 months sounds so very long...) and I'm sure things will pick up, there's a lot to look forward to.

In any case, because I really do have to put in some work for these exams (fails and repeats are hardly going to cheer me up) and because right now (as you have probably realised) I can't really summon my happy blogging voice, posts will probably be a bit thin on the ground for the month of January. You never know though, I might suddenly want to write about my favourite trees this weekend or something similarly pointless but fun. Hasta luego chicos, promise I'll be a little more cheerful next time we talk x