Academic Life (2)

     While it may not be obvious from all the pictures and field trips, we do actually still have school over here.  Monday through Thursday we have class from 3:00-7:15 and Friday from 10:30-1:00.  We are taking 4 different classes while here.  The first one is a European Studies class where we have guest lecturers from different areas in the university.  They talk about a range of different topics from history to culture to economics.  It's very interesting to hear about these things from a different perspective.  Whenever we hear about history and such it's typically from an American view point.  I like that we get to hear about it in a different way.
     Our next class is a Czech language class.  The first thing I have learned about their language is that it is very, very difficult.  A lot of the letters make completely different sounds than in English and they also have some sounds that don't even exist in the English language.  In Czech it would not be uncommon to see a word with 5 consonants in a row, which never happens in English.  This makes the pronunciation very difficult for us.  We probably spent the first whole week just working on how to pronounce the letters and words and I still struggle with it sometimes.  Luckily our teacher makes the class very interactive and makes games out of it so I really enjoy the class.  I finally have some basic phrases memorized and am glad that I can at least say 'Thank you'.

Our Czech Language Book

     Our next class consists of lectures and field trips.  Jan and Martin are our program leaders so they take off turns giving lectures as well as accompanying us on our field trips to different countries.  They are very knowledgeable and have really interesting lectures.  I'm glad they come with us on our field trips because they know so much about all of the sights and cities we see.  It's not just the history that they know either, they know the weird little tidbits that you would never hear otherwise.  I especially love the field trips because instead of just hearing about things in a classroom we get to actually go out and experience it!
     Our last class is keeping up this blog.  We have some assigned topics that we have to write about and others we get to choose.  I really like it because it's a great way to keep track of what I've been doing.  It already feels like I've been here for ages and can barely remember what it was like the first week so having a record of it is nice.  Overall all the classes are very different from anything I have taken in the past but they are really intriguing.  I feel like I am learning so much about different countries and their cultures that I would never be able to understand before and I am excited to continue learning!