Laura Butterbrodt

All but one of my classes are in the Main building, so I did get a little exercise on Monday, but other than that I had a pretty lazy day. A big group of Erasmus (the European exchange program) students met in the lobby of one of the dorms to meet with some students who had been on exchange since last semester. We just hung out for a while, then I came back and actually did some homework.

 

Tuesday I also only had one class. I went to the gym with Sindija A. in the morning, which felt so good! I had gotten into my routine of working out every day over Christmas break, and even though I've been walking a lot here, I really missed doing weight training. Hopefully we keep up our motivation this semester and keep encouraging each other to go!

 

My class wasn't until 5:45, which is nice in some ways and not so nice in others. I had the whole day free, but I also spent a lot of time just waiting around and anticipating my class. It was Writing for the Ear with Laura Kelly, who I had Skyped with before coming to AUBG to see what the school was all about. I think she will be a really great instructor and she introduced me to another journalism student who she thinks I would work well with.

 

The course seems like it will be really great! It's about how to write a story using audio and captivating your audience without having the visual element to keep their attention. Since I don't have much experience with broadcast or audio at all, I think it will be a good challenge for me.

 

I ALREADY had homework assigned before my Media Law and Ethics class had even started (not that I'm bitter about it (I AM SO BITTER ABOUT IT)), so I was working on that for a while last night. Then all the exchange students met in the party space in the basement of our dorm to hang out and party before people went to the bars. Tuesday nights are lit here, I guess? It's really weird for me not only to be allowed to drink, but to have drinks so casually on campus and out in the open at the dorms. It's encouraged here! So strange compared to SDSU. I didn't go to the bars or stay up late at all because I had class at 9 in the morning. Party animal!

 

I was nervous about the class, Media Law and Ethics, before it had even met, partially because I was bitter about having homework, and because the first reading was really hard for me! It was about various ethical strategies and practices from philosophers and how they could be applied to communication situations. 

 

The teacher is here for this semester only. She lives in New York and works at NYU and Columbia. I think her standards will be exceedingly high, but what a great opportunity to get to learn from someone from such accredited schools. I'm not very good at studying ethics and philosophy because it doesn't really click in my head, but I definitely know I will learn a lot in the class. It's three hours long, so hopefully I manage to make it through! I can tell it's going to be my hardest class.

 

Working in groups here is really interesting for me. It's a lot harder than at home because the language barrier here is still present even though all students speak English. For example, in my media ethics class, I understood what the professor was trying to ask in one way, but other students in my group interpreted it differently and some didn't understand the question even after it was explained and rephrased a few times. I'm interested to see how discussions and group work goes for the rest of the semester.

 

My other class for the day was Introduction to World Religions, which I have with Laury! The professor seems like a really funny and interesting guy, but honestly I had no idea what he was talking about the entire class. I think Wednedays are going to be really hard for me because the classes have a lot of abstract thinking, which I am not so good at. I would rather they give me the facts and I memorize them. But I guess it's good for me!

 

I just woke up from a really great nap. I actually have homework here, so naturally I've been getting really creative in finding ways to avoid doing said homework for as long as possible. I guess I should probably ACTUALLY start working on it now...