First Days Settled In

We took our placement test on Sunday, and I made it to the fourth level.  My whole class scored on the fourth level along with two guys from the lower level class.  Our subjects include dialect, reading, listening, speaking, media, and writing.  One of the teachers that we had last year is teaching us again this summer (listening), and we have three new teachers.  They are all great.  Our writing/reading/dialect teacher, Dr. Kimal, is very good at making sure that everyone in class participates at least once.  We also have listening everyday, which was my worst subject last year, so I’m looking forward to drastically improving in that!  Right now our classes are held in the English building on campus instead of the language center because there are so many students here at the same time, leaving the building with no empty classrooms.  We have our class in this new building for only two weeks, and will then be back in the language center.  Class is four hours a day with two hour long breaks making the day go by quickly.  As of yet we have not had too much homework, but it is only the first week! 

I did have an interesting experience with the bathroom in my apartment.  There was a leak in there somewhere and the floor had about an inch of water all over it!  There is a drain in the middle of the floor and I took a floor squeegee and tried to get the water in that, but it was no use.  It was like that for about two days and finally got fixed today!  On a better note, I’ve already gone and smoked shisha twice this week.  I like to go to this café near the University that has a great balcony that I can sit on and watch the people on the street.  I’ve forgotten how much the car horns are used and how there seem to be no rules for parking; two cars are sometimes parked parallel to each other.  I have also gotten very good being oblivious to all of the stares I get.  It doesn’t bother me because everyone here is very nice and they are just curious.  I’m looking forward to going on a few explorations this weekend with some of the people from my class.