midterms… even abroad!

Okay, well they’re not actually midterms. I don’t have any exams, save for in Dutch class, when we have a mini-written exam at the end of every chapter. But I do have a ton of written work. In my one class, we have to create a portfolio of all our work to date and include a book review and a four page paper. Four pages?! I could do that in my sleep! But wait. Here, four pages is actually four pages. Single spaced. So all of a sudden, this easy-as-pie four page paper is suddenly an eight page paper. Ugh. And to make matters worse, until yesterday, I thought the book review was all we had to do! So this was kind of sprung on me.

In my second class, we have to interview a researcher on a topic of our choice, then write a 4-6 page (SINGLE-SPACED!!) paper about a comparison of social work policy in two European countries. I’m doing youth and prevention… and I haven’t started. Yesterday I confessed to my teacher that I hadn’t so much as chosen a topic, let alone set up an interview. He wasn’t exactly thrilled about that, but luckily I contacted a prof yesterday who agreed to meet me tomorrow.

And my last class… is a nightmare. It’s the driest of all my classes, even though the prof is absolutely amazing. It’s a lot of work, though. Different work than what I’m used to in my program. We have to do a one-hour interview, a 30 page report, and my partner speaks little to no English and has been in Spain for the majority of the semester. He’s really nice and a hard worker, but his English is just so weak that I know that I’ll have to end up writing the majority of the final report. It’s a lot of work. And wouldn’t you know, I haven’t done anything at all for the first six weeks of the semester?

I’ve been so busy traveling and meeting people and exploring that it nearly slipped my mind that I’m supposed to be doing some work as well – it’s been getting a little bit out of hand! Nothing is due until the very beginning of April, but I leave on March 22 for Berlin/Prague/Budapest/Vienna/Munich… so I have to have everything done about two weeks early. In other words, I need to have all 60 pages of work done in the next nine days… we’ll see how that goes!

I know everyone at U of L is currently busy with papers and midterms and other projects, and I don’t envy them that! March is a crazy month at home, and I guess a crazy month abroad as well. Today was easily the most productive day I’ve had yet though, a friend came over and made me lunch as a thank you for bringing him soup when he was sick, and I managed to get almost my entire portfolio and final paper written!! At this rate, I’ll be on full vacation come next Thursday, with nothing to worry about besides how many photos I can take and how many amazing things I can see!

PS – Interesting to note that apparently if you go on a semester abroad, you aren’t allowed to vote in the ULSU elections (that took place March 7-9, 2012!). I was pretty upset, because I’m big into voting and taking part in things around the University and not to mention the fact that I am still paying Student Union fees even though I’m abroad. However, I just sent a quick email to the wonderful lady who organizes the elections, gave her my student ID number and she got back to me the next morning, letting me know it was fixed. Amazing! One of the things I miss being abroad is the personal service at U of L. Everyone there really works hard for the students, and I took that for granted before… anyway! Congratulations to our new Exec, they’ll be there for you next year, so feel free to stop by their offices, they’d love to hear from you!

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