Holly

The very end of an academic quarter is so exciting!  It makes all the intense stress and anxiety of finals seem like minor inconveniences, at most.  I finished editing my final research paper for my Social Movements class last night, emailed it to my professor, and woke up this morning one quarter closer to being a college graduate.  Congratulations to us all for surviving Autumn Quarter!

Next quarter is already looking busy for me.  My curriculum is similar to the one I had this quarter, including Spanish, Portuguese and another Latin American Studies seminar.  I’ll be taking my first 400-level Spanish class, SPAN 406-Advanced Spanish Grammar.  The class is supposed to look at the problems of Spanish grammar as compared to English and techniques for the effective teaching of Spanish.  I am also taking Portuguese 105, which is an intensive class for Spanish speakers highlighting the differences between Spanish and Portuguese.  No grammar here though; it’s assumed I will already know basic grammar structures, as Portuguese and Spanish are extremely similar, but with different pronunciations and verb conjugations.

The topic for my Latin American Studies seminar for next quarter is the Culture of Violence in Latin America.  I’m anticipating some heavy content in the materials for this class, although I don’t have the syllabus yet.  I almost wonder if I can stomach another quarter of depressing case studies about how so many countries in Latin America experience social injustice, debilitating poverty, and as mentioned by the title of the course, extreme violence.  I have enrolled in the University Singers and the UW Women’s Chorus for next quarter, so hopefully the joy of singing will help me to find some balance throughout my classes.

All together right now I am registered for 18 credits for next quarter.  I may drop a class because I only need 24 more credits to graduate after this quarter, and that would leave me with the need to only fill 6 credits in the spring.  The only problem is that I don’t want to drop anything!  I’m going to do some thinking over the break… I’ll keep you posted, as usual!

I can’t believe I finished classes this week on Wednesday!  It has been such a short quarter, but with moments of what has seemed like unending stress.  Now it has finally all culminated down to one final research paper to finish and hand in one week from today, next Friday, December 12.  This is the paper about immigration from Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands for my Social Movements class, and I am consumed by all the  astounding facts and outraging policies and tempestuous anecdotes that I have read about the process of crossing into the U.S. sin documentos.  I have to confess that I have had a difficult time with the material for this class, not because it has been too academically challenging, rather because the content has been so heavy with graphic illustrations of social injustice.  The discipline of Latin American studies is not lacking in examples of devastating, U.S.-inflicted human rights violations, and I suppose this quarter it has all been a little more emotionally draining than in previous classes.  It just reminds me of how much work there is still to do…

One more week.  Una semana más.  One week from today I will be completely cut free from the clutches of academia until next year, one quarter closer to graduating on June 12, 2009.  Next week, also on Friday, December 12, I will be coming to Olympia to celebrate my quarterly liberation festivities by watching the Evergreen Singers perform songs from HAIR.  I missed being in the Singers desperately this quarter, so I am anxious to see their show and visit with some fellow choir compañeros.  I’ve heard about costume fittings, wigs, and bead-making parties, so I have no doubt it is going to be downright exceptional in true Evergreen fashion.  ¡Ya vengo!