Its finally sunny in Sevilla....so here come the midterms.

21/3/11

This weekend it finally warmed up and we had clear skies here in Sevilla, however I was unfortunately admiring the nice weather from my room since I was sick.  Last Thursday night I came home with a fever and even though my temperature had dropped back down to normal by Friday night/Saturday morning, I had to miss the excursion to Cádiz and wasn’t feeling up to leaving the apartment until Sunday afternoon.

Today I was informed that my midterm count for this coming Wednesday was raised from two to three.  Surprisingly, the midterms for my Arab Influence on Spanish Literature and Cervantes & Don Quijote classes are going to be much easier than my Flamenco class.  I initially thought that this class would be more history and culture of flamenco but the class has actually been more of a music theory of flamenco.  At the beginning of the semester we were told that our midterm and final for the Flamenco class would be in an essay format, which at first didn’t sound that bad, and even after the professor told us a few days ago that it would be an open ended essay in which we had to write about everything we’ve learned in the class thus far, I wasn’t too concerned.  Today, however, his expectations were clarified further and he expects not just a general summary of the class (like we all thought) but rather something more along the lines of a detailed account of everything he has said in class.  I am usually not one to complain about professors, class work, and exams, but considering that we have covered about 5 styles of flamenco each with a half a dozen or more different sub-forms and he is asking for all the information about each sub-form and then some, it’s a little overwhelming, especially for a group of students with no musical background and complete novices to flamenco.

On a lighter note however, I will be traveling to Barcelona this weekend with a group of fellow API students….which has pretty much turned into an unofficial API excursion, considering that the majority of us will be there this weekend!!