Ouch

I made an 80 on an essay in Spanish class. That hurts. The whole class did badly, except one girl that had her last semester. She made a 95. The teacher actually told us to STOP being creative. I've never heard that from a teacher. Our prof last semester always wanted us to try new things with our writing so we could learn things. I mean, he didn't want us to use verb tenses we hadn't studied, but he encouraged us to look up words we didn't know. Not this teacher.

I'm not sure what to think of this teacher. I asked her if we were going to get some exercises on the subjunctive usage — not verb endings, but when to use the subjunctive and when to use the present tense and when to use the past tenses. You know, so we can learn the practical applications of the tenses instead of just the theoretical uses. And she said, "The workbook doesn't really have any exercise. I would go to LearnSpanish.com or Google present subjunctive and Spanish. You'll be able to find something like that." I was thinking maybe she could make up some exercises for us to do, but she doesn't really seem to want to do anything requiring materials ancillary to the book and workbook we're using. That seems odd to me.

Other than that, I've spent my time booking travel because I cannot WAIT to get out of here. I'm going stir crazy and I need some socializing outside of my newsroom and classroom confines. I'm going home for Easter but before that I'm going to Chicago for a long weekend. I can't wait. Two and two thirds weeks and counting!