Everybody cut FOOTLOOSE!

Today was my day full of politics... I learned some new things that are pretty exciting that I will talk about next but I also wanted to mention a couple things I've noticed first. One, there isn't such thing as being on time here. I'm so used to my classes back home starting when they're supposed to and here it's completely different. Class is supposed to begin at 1:15 and sometimes the prof doesn't even get there til 1:25 let alone starts teaching. Usually starts lecturing anywheres between 1:25 and 1:35. I sit there continuously looking at the time on my phone and notice I'm the only one who cares...just not something I'm used to. I've also decided that my politics teacher must be taking a class on how to use PowerPoint haha. Each week his slides improve. First week of class it was just black text on a white background. Couple lectures in he started having fun colored backgrounds and the like and this week he even had pictures! I'm guessing next lecture he's going to start adding animation to the slides! Tee hee...

Anyways...good news made today much better than yesterday! I have now found that it should be quite easy for me to not fail my politics class. There was confusion between what I was thinking my professor had sent me as an old multiple choice exam for this class and what she was actually sending me. Since I have actually caught up on my reading for this class and have attended all the lectures (which these are the two places she said that the questions would come from) I was fairly confident in asking how I was supposed to know those facts. Apparently...what she sent was... First, not the information that would be on this test. Second, not even a sample from this class. Third, a sample from a class test from 5 years ago (which would explain why when I tried to look up some of them I was having troubles...especially with questions on current political figures). HOW WAS THIS "SAMPLE TEST" SUPPOSED TO HELP ME?! Her reason for sending it she said was to just show the types of questions that could be asked...show that the questions would be straight forward and come from the book or the lecture slides. I think if she just would have told me that in the first place and not sent me that strange test it would have been a lot better. Here I was thinking they expected me to know the stuff on that multiple choice test when it isn't even one for this class. HA! 

Also, the 30% of our grade that I had mentioned comes from weekly newspaper clippings we must bring with us to lecture...they're going to be easier than I'd thought! We have to bring a newspaper clipping of an article we find that relates to the previous lecture with us to each seminar. At the end of the semester we hand in all of those clippings we've collected (ten in total) with descriptions we've written for each on how they relate and why we chose them. I had assumed these would be graded on by our descriptions we write but that isn't the case. For each week of seminar you either get 0 points or 3 points...0 if you don't show or don't bring a clipping and 3 if you are there with a clipping. So pretty much if I go to seminar every week (10 weeks) and bring my clipping I will earn my 30%! Looks like I can start breathing again and expect to graduate in December. :) Good thing...I kept thinking of how embarassing it would be to come back to the states and have to explain to people who thought I was graduating that I couldn't because I failed a class!

After classes today I went for a night out with Ally, Jing and Fatim. Had some nachos for dinner and then went to the movies! The Odeon has 3 pound movies every Tuesday night so we went and saw the new Footloose! It was soooo good. The only thing you have to get past is the fact that they are supposed to be high schoolers and all the actors are easily mid to late twenties. I already really like the first Footloose and this remake was definitely NOT a disappointment! Makes me wish I was a better dancer hahaha. Oh...one of the strange things about the movie theatre here...when you buy a ticket to a movie you are purchasing and actual seat. My seat was row H seat 13. I asked a couple in front of us if they were sitting in the seats designated to them and they said yes but that if not many people show up you can sit wherever you like. Only the four of us and two other couples were there so it's safe to say we could have sat anywhere we liked...but our seats turned out to be perfect so we stayed. 

Since we went to the last showing of the movie we got back home late so I'm not even going to have to try to keep myself awake so I can skype Robert...he only has 10 minutes left at work so that's what the rest of my night looks like. Skyping and sleeping. Finished with two days of classes and have two more ahead of me. Let's get through this week and on to the weekend! :)