2nd Day of Classes in GTO

I mentioned to you yesterday how much I enjoy my classes. The first is with Ana. We read Span. literature, discuss the vocabulary, and answer questions regarding the articles for "tarea."
Yesterday I was the only person in the class. Today a young man from Japan joined me. I think I have mentioned to some of you previously that another great benefit of learning another lang., such as Span., is that it enables you to speak not only with native Span. speakers but also with people who speak only Japanese or other languages...Span. allows us to communicate. He doesn't speak English. I certainly don't speak Japanese, but we both can communicate well with one another in Spanish.

Guanajuato state is "the heart of the Mexican independence movement against the Spaniards." It is where the uprising began. To this day, the city of Guanajuato appears very Spanish, with cities by the same name as some in Spain. Today's article was about the uprising. Mexican history is very fascinating. I enjoyed the article about the priest, Miguel Hidalgo who led his people toward their independence. Hidalgo was the child of Spaniards but was born and raised in Mexico and saw the injustices of the class system, etc...I had studied this all previously in my Mexican history classes here, but always enjoy reading it.

After my reading comprehension class, I am taking a review of an advanced grammar class. I attend that class with a young man from London. We both agree that the subjunctive tense is probably something noone other than a native speaker truly understands becuase there are so many exceptions and uses depending on the context. I get the general idea and enjoy it in small doses. :) Poor Adriana. It must be frustrating to teach "los tantos." :)

Next is a conversation class. There is one young woman in that class with me. She is originally from Chicago but is married to a Hispanic man and lives in Phoenix. She is a teacher attending here on her own for a few weeks. Elena is my teacher for this class.

My fourth and last class is Mexican music. Catalina teaches that. I have taken this class previously; however, it is a class always fun to repeat. It is really a history of Mexico through it's music. She begins with the Pre Hispanic music, that of the Indigenous people of MX., then music during the Spanish conquest, and finally ending with the music of various regions and races in MX. She discusses the names of the types of music and groups, their manner of dress, the instruments used, and then plays samples of the songs. I am the only person in that class.

As you have noticed, this week I am either the only person or have classes with only one other person. Curtis and I are very concerned about the school. We hope it can survive all the swine flu and bad publicity that has been dumped here. There has not been one case of swine flu in GTO. We love the school, teachers, and facility, but we do wonder how deeply the propaganda has effected the school.

I guess that's all for now. I keep getting a blinking light to "save now." Wouldn't want to lose all this. Hasta Luego, Joy