Argentina Stories #2

I went, for the first time, to a university in a foreign country. First off, I’ll say: things were a little different. First things first, the teacher spoke only Spanish. This was in my Metaphysics class. It was being held at the University of Buenos Aires’s prestigious philosophy and letters building.

I met a few people in the class, including Alan, with whom I’ve arranged to study the work of Aristotle and Jorge Luis Borges. That is our homework for Tuesday’s marathon-like class. I say it’s marathon-like because I’ll have 6 hours of straight metaphysics on Tuesday of this upcoming week. That’s a lot of metaphysics for one day.

Alan is my first Argentinian friend, and I also met some of his friends that very same day. That was probably the highlight of my week: hanging out in the courtyard of the University of Buenos Aires philosophy and letters building with my new friends. The conversation subject was philosophy, of course, though I had to say words like “Phenomenology” in Spanish. I tried my best to express my ideas about philosophy.

I joined a gym as of late and am running there every single day (except Sunday, on which the gym is closed). The gym is nice. It pleases me to go there. It’s also right across the street from where I live. (No excuses).

I honestly didn’t expect to make so many friends in the first week of classes, but I did make friends, and I like them all. A metaphysics class, take note, is a good place for me to make friends. That is a good thing.

I still dream about writing novels down here. I try to write fiction and a journal every single day, as well, knowing my efforts some day will culminate in some sort of opus. Whether it’s an opus of fiction or poetry or an opus of funk (music reference), I don’t know what it will be. But stay prepared.

In whole, this whole Argentina thing was a good idea. I came down here, not quite knowing what to expect, but it is panning out in my favor. That is good–to say that.

The second class I went to at the University of Buenos Aires was a bit of a different story, as it was difficult to follow, and was designed for a student more advanced in the study of linguistics than I was. The class was called Phonology and Morphology (rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?) I dropped said class and decided to enroll in another class that seems more manageable. I am liking the aspect of this trip that is related to the concept of freedom. I have a lot of freedom here. It’s not to say that I did not have freedom in Boulder, but I feel like life in Buenos Aires is pretty free. I can do almost anything I want down here.

And so, I will end up with a manageable schedule (that still includes Metaphysics in Spanish). That probably won’t be the easiest course I’ve taken in college. Nonetheless, it seems manageable, and as long as they don’t delve too much into Ancient Greek, I should turn out okay.

I’ve been taking the bus (colectivo) a lot more down here lately because in the subway (Subte), when you ride it, you don’t get to see surface-level things (such as places you’d want to check out later, or whatever else). I like flagging down the buses (you have to wave aggressively to get one to stop for you.) (It’s actually not that hard, but I said that for comic effect).