psicología social

This week has been well, as my roommate would say, extra. I finally got my university class worked out, it turns out the Education and the Environment class was a complete bore and the class I loved so much was a Social Psychology class. Since the UGR (University of Granada) website is incredibly un-user friendly I spent a miserable hour navigating and desperately looking for this class and professor, neither of which name I knew. When I finally found what I thought was right I took a gamble and registered for it and thank goodness I did because very fortunately I was right and the class is incredible. I was finally able to go to class this Thursday and it’s easily over 100 students, which coming from Southwestern is already a huge change for me. So I sit down and prepare myself for taking notes in Spanish, which is a beast of a task in itself, when the professor walks in and tells us to arrange ourselves in small groups. Asking to join a group is still a social challenge for me here, but I paired up with four Spanish women all of whom were very friendly and accepting of me. The prof starts to explain the exercise he wants us to do and the idea is that we have to select one person in the group who is, for whatever reason, different to be the “marginalized” person. **As a side note, any dialogue in my story is, of course, in Spanish.** None of the others wanted to be that person and I figured it was a unique opportunity to talk so I introduced myself and said hi, I’m Anna and I’m American so I feel like, for obvious reasons, I’m the marginalized person in our group. So we talk about what makes me different, I’m a foreigner, they had never met me, I was wearing red, etc. The professor then has all of the marginalized people stand in a corner at the front of the room because, as he explains, society views marginalized people as being outside the norm and therefore the groups don’t mix. He then has the marginalized people stand up on his desk in front of the class while a group leader explains to everyone what makes us different. Granted it was awkward to stand there on display, but no big deal it was otherwise quick and painless. But then he has each of us stand on his desk again and describe to the class how it made us feel to be considered the marginalized person of our group. For most of the students they were different because they were the only guy or had a different haircut, so most of their explanations and sentiments weren’t terribly profound. They were after all standing in front of a group of their friends. And then there was me. So I climb back up onto his desk and say, “Well as an American student in Spain I’m going to be the marginalized person in many situations for the next four months”. Because I didn’t really know what else to say I hesitated and a girl in the front row rather maliciously calls out to me to speak in English. I explained that I was in Spain to study Spanish so I was going to speak in Spanish while I was here and my sweet professor said that I was a good person for him to practice his English with, but that I was going to continue to speak in Spanish. So I keep talking, explaining that I feel it’s normal that I’m seen as different and that generally Spaniards have lots of questions for me about my country and my culture and that that’s ok with me. This same girl calls out again and says great! now we have someone who is marginalizing herself. Ok it’s really hard to defend yourself in a foreign language especially standing in front of 100+ people you’ve never met, but I tried to explain that it really is ok that people are curious, because I do come from a different place and that it’s really important to have conversations about our cultural differences because that’s how we learn about each other. Anyway I got down, again, a little shaken, but so incredibly proud of myself. It’s a very empowering feeling to take on a challenge like talking in Spanish before such a big group and feeling successfully when it’s over.

The next day we had our first Mediterranean Ecosystems excursion to a place right on the coast called Cerro Gordo. One of the professor started talking and the first thing he said was, “Ok this is the Mediterranean and you can’t see it, but straight that way is Africa.” How many times in your life do you hear that? Any day that starts off that way has got to be good. We hiked around this beautiful area and stopped to look at all these different species of plants, pines, orchids, grasses, etc., and they would explain to us their special adaptations to the Mediterranean climate or their reproduction patterns. I’ve never been big into ecology, but if you are going to study plants this is absolutely the way to do it. Later we ate lunch on the beach and returned home. Despite the horrendous bus ride (apparently it’s normal to speed up to go around turns?) the views in the mountains and of the sea were incredible.

I feel like I’m a little behind on pictures so here are two today. The first one is of one of my biology professors with a grasshopper on his finger. I think it will help you understand why I love the class, these guys are precious and WAY into plants. The other is of my group doing an exercise in my theater class. We had to “create” a machine that represented an emotion or feeling. We were assigned loneliness and though you’re obviously missing the motions it was an interesting and very funny moment that seemed worth sharing. And just for the record, I wasn't dressed up because of some sudden fashion related inspiration, I was literally out of clothes and it was that or a dress.

bss