Sharks and Acrobats

Yes, you read that right. Sharks and acrobats. Like, the coolest combination ever! Too bad they weren't together... I saw the sharks Thursday and the acrobats Sunday.

Anyway, I had a really great last week/weekend. My mentor David invited me to a dinner with him and his friends. Some of his friends I knew from classes, while most I had never seen before. We met at 10 pm (or 11 pm for the late-comers hehe) and went to a bar to eat. I had one of the best bocadillos (a type of sandwich) that I have tasted since arriving in Spain. It was pork loins with cheese and onions. Extremely delicious, even though I don't like onions usually! Interestingly enough, everyone separated automatically into boys one end of the tables, girls the other. Supposedly they don't do this all the time... supposedly.

Dinner... yum!

After that, we went into the streets for "botellon", which is basically Spain's term for illegal drinking in the streets.

Botellon!

After that, around 3 am (I can't remember exactly) we went to the club Indiana. For those of you that have been reading my blog, that is the same club the Mexicans couldn't enter last time. I was hesitant about going because I don't want to support the club, but decided to be a Lemming and follow everyone in. The club was sort of nice: it has 3-4 different rooms, each with different music. And, it has the sharks I mentioned earlier. Here is a video of the sharks and the first room of the club:

And here are some pictures from the club:

I can see up my nose!

I was kind of tired the whole night, as last week I didn't sleep too well... and I didn't get home until 7:30 am. Ugh... can't do this too often.

Friday and Saturday were as such uneventful. I missed the opportunity to hang out with some people Saturday night because I hadn't eaten dinner yet (oops), but I was still tired so I didn't mind too much. Sunday, my Tandem partner Paula invited me to a street performance called Fin de Sieste. It involved bicycle and pole acrobatics (not pole dancing, mind you)... but rather than explain it, here is a video!

Acrobatic excitement!

So, I enjoyed last week alot. This weekend, I am going to Granada, so I should have more fun stories to share next week.

To finish, some good and bad news about grades. The good news: I passed all of the classes I was worried about. In my hardest class, a 5th year course about Local Area Networks, I got a 6.55 out of 10, which was good seeing as I haven't taken the prerequisite courses yet. The bad news: I failed one exam, and it was supposedly my easiest. I got a... drumroll please... 2.11 out of 10 on my Logic Design class exam. I am completely confused as to how this is possible, seeing as I took a similar class in the US and got a 98% overall. The exam was a bit tougher than expected, and was too long for the 3.5 hours alloted to take the exam. However, I still should have passed it. Here are my guesses as to how I failed: either they lost part of my exam, messed up my score somehow, or subtracted points for incorrect answers (which I didn't think they would do). I am going to talk to the professors this week about it, and will hopefully know the end result by next week.

Ok, enough bad news for now. It is 5:30 pm and I still haven't eaten lunch. Check back in next week for the exciting conclusion of my Logic Design woes, and for pictures and stories from my trip to Granada!

Ultimate Blog!

Ok, so no guarantees, but I plan on this being the most exciting blog I have written yet. Why? Because nothing really happened this last week, so I am going to make stuff up.

Ok, first, I will talk about what actually happened so far. Last weekend, I did absolutely squat. I stayed at home and relaxed. It was nice. On Monday, I went to the Police Station to get my ID Card. Here it is:

I think I look one year younger... or maybe it is just that they messed up on my birthdate.

I blurred the details so no-one can steal my identity... yet. Tuesday, I began my first day of classes of the new semester. I only have 4 classes this semester, and all are scrunched on Tuesday and Wednesday, giving me almost a 5 day weekend (except I do have a lab at 8:30 am Thursdays and teach in the afternoon). I am taking Graphics, Databases, VLSI, and Networks (year long course). VLSI should be interesting: it is a 5th year course about computer processor design, and it has no final, just graded work over the semester. My Databases class should be easy. I have Graphics in English, which is strange, but it should be fun.

I also started a new English teaching schedule. I was able to continue going to my Tuesday morning class, but cannot go to the other two I used to have. So, I took up a new class on Thursdays. It is a 4th year English class, which is fun because they understand a lot more. However, they are at that age where they are too cool for school, methinks.

And that does it for my real week. Now, let's get on to the good, made up stuff I did last week.

Ahem... It was a dark, unpleasant night. The rain was streaking down the windows like tears on the cheek of a dumped girlfriend. One could only hear the sounds of thunder booming in the distance, and the sounds of a roommate talking to himself (ok, so this last part is true, my roommate talks to himself a lot!). As the phone rang, I jumped in fright, worried that the caller could be the kidnapper I was warned about by the police last friday. I hesitantly lifted the receiver, and heard a rasping voice ask, "Is this Mr. Dunbar?"

"Um, yes it is... who is this?"

"This is NASA, we need you immediately to go into space."

The next day I found myself on a plane headed for the Kennedy Space Center, back in the good ol' US of A. My heart pounded, thinking of the exciting journey I was about to embark on. Our team got together for a group photo:

That's me, front and center! Click for a larger image.

President Bush personally greeted me, and told me how important this mission was going to be. He then made up a few words, and dismissed me with "You are a great assetment to the nation." My team and I boarded the shuttle, all nervous and excited at the same time. I put on my NASA official diaper, and we were ready for lift-off.

Sadly, lift-off never occured. The countdown stopped suddently, and the kidnapper from Spain appeared inside of the cockpit. He grabbed me, and kidnapped me back to his lair deep under Madrid. I was so scared... well, let's just say I am glad I was wearing a diaper.

The end.

A new semester is upon me...

So, as of Monday at noon, I finally am finished with last semester. My last exam was a 3 hour slugfest with Digital Logic, but I survived and here I am to tell the tale. The exam was far too involved for a 3 hour exam... I am not certain that a single person finished it in whole. Regardless, I don't have classes until next Tuesday, so until then I can relax a little.

First things first, Jessica Potter finished her exams last Friday, and held a party in her flat to celebrate. It was a bunch of Swedish folk, a Colombian/Swede, Germans, French, a Canadian, Mexicans, and then us Americans. I don't think I left anybody out. Here are some pictures from that part of the night.

Left to Right, Top to Bottom: Jess and me, Ivan (Spain) and Frederick (Sweden), a couch full of Swedes, and then a bunch of people.

After hanging out for awhile at Jess' place, we decided to go to a club. The Mexicans (Iker, Jaime, and Miguel) were leaving Saturday morning, so they decided they wanted to go to the club Indiana. The club has a 20 euro cover charge and tanks with sharks, so it is supposedly fancy and nice. I still don't know. What happened is that a few of us arrived a bit later than the others. Jaime and Miguel, two of the Mexicans, tried to enter... and were blocked, because they were wearing white sport shoes. The club supposedly has a "policy" against such shoes, even though I saw several enter with similar shoes. However, the only way to get in with such shoes is to enter in the middle of a group, and since Jaime and Miguel tried to enter singularly... bounced away by the bouncers. After some talking with the bouncers, we realized all of us would not be able to get in. Already more than half the group was inside, and there were only 6 of us who didn't enter before Jaime and Miguel tried to enter. We couldn't get ahold of anyone inside... so we ended up reluctantly going to another club. It is called Dockers, and I actually liked it a lot. Free entrance, large open areas, not too many people... perfect for me. However, I think it was a bit hard on Jaime and Miguel, since on their last night in Valencia they couldn't be with anyone. Here are some pictures from the club:

Coreen? (Canada) and Jaime (Mexico); Miguel (Mexico) and Michael (France).

I ended up getting home around 7-8 am.... thankfully, I didn't wake up with a cold like I have in the past after such long nights. Saturday and Sunday were then spent with me telling myself to study... but instead procrastinating. I did get some studying in Sunday, but not enough... which made that Monday test a bit tougher than it would have been. I still think I did fine on the exam though.

So, Monday night I was invited over for dinner at Miranda's (Sweden) place. Miranda was in my Spanish class last semester, but we have never really hung out much. Several of the people from Friday night were at the dinner, and I even met a few new people. Her brother was visiting Valencia before he heads off to study abroad in China! Good luck to him (Benjamin)! The dinner was extremely delicious. Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes, and even gooey brownies for dessert. Sadly, I have no pictures of the night... I accidentally left my camera in my apartment... grrr...

Tuesday night I met up with Jessica to talk about exams and life and to just relax since both of our semesters are over. Well, at least I am able to relax... she has already started into her second semester classes. We both had milkshakes... I was expecting them to be frozen ice cream/milk shakes, but they were just luke-warm flavored milk shake thingies. Still, not too bad.

After meeting with Jessica, I went to a bar called Radio city to meet with Miranda and her brother Benjamin. On Tuesday nights, at least in February, the bar has live Flamenco music performers... and the ones that were performing this time were amazing! There was a guitarist, a percussionist, and a female singer. Her voice blew me away. I am including here a recording I made of her singing... but it doesn't do her and her group justice. If you listen to it, around the 3 minute mark she starts dancing around, stomping her feet to create the music instead of singing. It was seriously amazing.

• Here is the link to the music file: flamenco.mp3 (To save: right click and select "Save target as")

I also am going to try and include a video. If this works well, I might do it a few more times :)

Here is the link to the video as well, in case the embedded video is slow: Flamenco Video

Now here I am, writing my blog. I am sorry for waiting so long to write it, but I am glad I waited as I had a lot of cool things to talk about. Next week, I start up my classes on Tuesday... wish me luck. Until next time, you stay classy people who read my blog.

Studying is no fun... let's talk about school instead!

Wait... um...

Anyway, I have just finished 5 of 6 final exams, and boy am I tired. My last one is coming up next Monday at 9am, but it should be one of the easiest. I hope.

First, the only eventful thing I did this week was give presentations. As you might already know, I help teach English at a local school. This week, they let me give 5 classes a presentation on Montana. Yay!!! The kids were impressed with the landscape, the animals (I even explained how a Moose can be more dangerous than a Grizzly Bear), and how rural our state is. For perspective: Spain is just a bit larger than Montana, but it has 42 million (I think) inhabitants, while MT has less than a million! Also, Billings (our largest city) has only 100,000 people, while Valencia has 1 million people... and Valencia is smaller (land-wise) than Billings! They also were surprised at how cold Montana gets in the winter, and that it can still get well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer! So, 5 classes of around 40 students each... I taught about 200 students about Montana in 2 days.

Here are some pictures of one of the classes. I didn't have enough time in the other classes to take pictures sadly:

Coolest kids ever!

Ok, now I would like to talk about a different school. The one that I am studying at, the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia. Schooling here is quite different from that at Montana State University. Degrees here are 5 years long, versus 4. The norm in my department is for theory classes to be once a week for two hours, with a two hour practical (lab) session once a week or every other week. It is rare to have a class with assigned homework, and even rarer to have graded homework (only my language classes have had graded homework). Some classes give grades based on laboratory work, and others just test you on the lab work during the final. The grading system goes from 1-10, with anything less than a 5 being a failure. However, if you fail a class, it appears there is no limit as to how many times you can retake the test (you just have to wait until the next exam rolls around). Most classes do not require attendance. So, it basically boils down to this: go to class if you want, go to the lab sessions if you want, and take the final exam for ALL of your grade. At Montana State University, I am used to having homework, lab sessions, and more than one exam compose my grade. Here, it is an all or nothing exam that ends the semester. My last two exams, which I took on Tuesday and Wednesday, were by far the hardest of the 5 I have taken. And I was sick with a cold those two days, and hadn't slept well (due to the cold) for about half a week. While I still think I passed the exams, I am worried about how much of an effect my illness and tiredness caused.

All in all, I like the Montana education system alot better. I feel I personally learn better when I am required to perform throughout a semester, and not just at the end.

Ok, to end, I got a fun package from my parents yesterday!!! It contained pre-Valentine's day goodies, magazines, more food, and a new digital camera that I ordered. My new camera is amazing! It is compact and easy to carry, and you can turn it on and take a picture in around a second. My old camera took about 5 or more seconds! To celebrate, I played tourist on my campus. So, without further ado, here are some pictures taken with my new camera. NEXT WEEK: I will finish my last exam Monday, so don't expect a new blog until Tuesday or Wednesday. After that, I hope to get back onto the Monday blog release schedule.

Bad weather in Valencia... cold, windy, and rainy.

Metro-Trams in the city... this is one of the newer, nicer ones. The Agorra on Campus. It is a place where students meet. Also has the bookstore, library, barber, bank, and places to eat.

Artwork is everywhere on campus! The spire thingy. Looks so much cooler at night... Palm trees lining a walkway on campus. Don't see this at MSU!