Love, Novela [Completed]

Re: Classes

From: novela-harmon@bethel.edu
Date: Mon, Aug 21, 2017 at 4:42 PM
Subject: Classes
To: grace-k-nelson@bethel.edu

Gracie dear,
First day of classes today. Economic and Political History of Mexico is actually shaping up to be interesting (OK, to me). The professor is an older, gentlemanly sort of man. The four other students in it are all Mexican-American and learned Spanish from their parents or grandparents, so I was really intimidated at first. But they seemed to be sleeping for most of the period so what I lack in fluency I should be able to make up in effort. The professor - he said we could call him Guillermo - gave us each a packet to read on the early presidents, typed in a small font (by him maybe?), so I definitely have opportunity to exert myself.

The Composition professor is younger, maybe around 30 or so. You could hear all the girls kind of gasp when he walked in. He's not even that good looking, just younger than you'd expect for a professor. He said that the class is basically about Mexican culture, but structured as a writing class, so all our writing projects will be related to culture. Our only homework for now is a one-page paper of "First Impressions." It won't even be graded, just corrected, so he can get a sense of where we're at, and we of what he's looking for. If things continue that way, it will balance out; I'll be able to spend more time on EPHM (which is how henceforth I'll refer to that class).

Both the classes are around long tables. EPHM is just one long table in a tiny room off the second floor, but the Composition class has double the number of students so there are three tables in a U shape. I get the sense that discussion is supposed to play a major role.

Off to read about Mexican presidents.

Love, me