You know you're in Texas when...

You know you're in Texas when...

1. You've been in two pick-up trucks. And they both were red.
2. Lunch conversation focuses on the excitement that is the beginning of dove hunting season (I totally should have mentioned my vegetarian sisters at this point!).
3. Your school slogans are "Wreck 'em TECH!" and "Guns up!"
4. Everyone in your school is from Texas, but from a city you've never heard of.
5. People actually say "howdy!"

and lastly,
6. You cringe when the topic of politics comes up in conversation, because there is a 90% chance the person didn't vote for the same presidential candidate that you did.

Ah, culture shock, how I love thee. At least the Mexican food is good (finally, a similarity with California!).

So yesterday I had my first taste of graduate school class. My first class was a Spanish lit course. We basically are going to read and re-read and re-re-read a short novel by a Latin American 20th century author (I'd say his name, but you've never heard of Onetti, have you?) and learn how to analyze his work. With a little help from Freud and Marx and other literary critics, we will write an exciting term paper by the end of the semester.

My second class was taught by Dr. Drew Farley, the former Notre Dame professor. It is called "Methods for Teaching a Second/Foreign Language," and we will focus on how students best learn languages. In the first class we talked about misconceptions associated with learning (i.e. drilling and explanation of grammatical concepts are the best and only ways to teach language). I hope it will be a real eye opener as to the best ways to help people learn language (as that is what really interests me). My first week prediction is that this will probably be my favorite class, but you never know what the semester will bring.

Later tonight (6:00-8:20PM, to be specific) I have my third class which is called "Curriculum Design." This should be very interesting, as well, though I am curious to see how it will be different from the methods course. Hopefully it will be a great complement to it and not overlap the information too much.

The classes I am TAing for are going well, too! There are lots of group work activities in both classes, which works well because the classes only have about 10 students in them. It will be great to see how students improve their English throughout the semester. And it's great because it's also a perfect opportunity to concretely apply what I'm learning in my linguistics course. All my work has a purpose!

Ok, back to reading.
Paz.