I was tired last night. I did not want to go clubbing with Barbara and Sarah and Meredith.
Instead, Sibley, Rex, Abby and I said we were going to get a few drinks and explore Las Ramblas for an hour or two, and call it an early night. Aka be back by around 2 am because we all had 9 am classes. I went over to the boys room at 11ish to have a drink before we went out. One drink turned into two, two turned into many, many turned into not going out at all, which turned into SB and Andrew joining in the drunkenness, which somehow evolved into a deep discussion on American politics and society and the state of the world today. Hmm.
If you know me semi-well, you should know that I am a little bit more multi-faceted than your typical party girl. One of my favorite topics of discussion is society and the world we live in today. (Thanks to me, this is my boyfriend, best friend Barbara's and brother Tom's least favorite topic of discussion because I like to ponder these things out loud way too often.) But anyway, what I'm trying to say is the conversation last night was right up my alley.
One of my biggest frustrations recently is the lack of interest us young Americans have when it comes to what is going on in the world. So when my four drunk guy friends wanted to have this conversation, I was naturally quite excited. Despite what their beliefs may or may not be, and regardless of if I agree or not (which I often do,) it is important to me to have different ideas and perspectives flowing (regardless of if drinks are involved.) We discussed the financial bailout, media censorship, etc etc nerd nerd nerd.
So, since I've already bored you all with these thoughts, I will continue to bore you by telling you about the stuff I'm learning in my classes.
The one class that is especially interesting to me is Politics of the Developing World. The professor is extremely intelligent, well-read and encourages discussion-based lectures. In the first class on Monday, we discussed two of the readings we had for homework- one arguing that we should view "development" as an ever-evolving process of expanding social, political, and economic freedoms and not just in the sense of a formula calculating GDP and increase of wealth per capita. From this perspective, even "first world countries" like the US are constantly developing, being that there are still people marginalized in our country and certain aspects of their freedoms are not being fulfilled to the fullest potential. The other reading we discussed is encouraging a society that is more engaged in the political realm and talks about different means of making it happen. This essay blames the lack of political action in the nature of the setup of our government- it redefines the term progressive to those taking a more radical approach in changing the nature of government.
We also watched a video today which was featured on Ted Talks. It was extremely interesting and discussed different statistics about the changes the world has seen in the past 30 years. If anyone is interesting in seeing it here is the link:
http://www.gapminder.org/
I apologize if I bored you guys with the details of my classes.
On another note, one thing I have been extremely appreciative of since I've been here is the outpouring of recommendations of things to do while in Europe that I've gotten from friends I haven't talked to in long periods of time. It means a lot to me that everyone is taking the time to share their favorite experiences from Barcelona and other European cities. I want to compile a list of these recommendations at a later date to keep a checklist of the things I want to see while I'm here and let you all see the progress I'm making when it comes to site seeing. I reallyyyyy really appreciate all the advice I've gotten from so many friends, it means a lot!
Anyway, the rest of today was very mellow and I felt tired and sick all night. Tomorrow, I am flying to Rome to spend the weekend on the Amalfi Coast :)
Cannnotttttttttt wait!!! I will update you guys Monday with a less intellectual blog post and a more exciting, picture filled one.
Have a wonderful weekend my friends- talk to you when I've experienced a taste of Italy!
Xoxoxo
Yarden
The one class that is especially interesting to me is Politics of the Developing World. The professor is extremely intelligent, well-read and encourages discussion-based lectures. In the first class on Monday, we discussed two of the readings we had for homework- one arguing that we should view "development" as an ever-evolving process of expanding social, political, and economic freedoms and not just in the sense of a formula calculating GDP and increase of wealth per capita. From this perspective, even "first world countries" like the US are constantly developing, being that there are still people marginalized in our country and certain aspects of their freedoms are not being fulfilled to the fullest potential. The other reading we discussed is encouraging a society that is more engaged in the political realm and talks about different means of making it happen. This essay blames the lack of political action in the nature of the setup of our government- it redefines the term progressive to those taking a more radical approach in changing the nature of government.
We also watched a video today which was featured on Ted Talks. It was extremely interesting and discussed different statistics about the changes the world has seen in the past 30 years. If anyone is interesting in seeing it here is the link:
http://www.gapminder.org/
I apologize if I bored you guys with the details of my classes.
On another note, one thing I have been extremely appreciative of since I've been here is the outpouring of recommendations of things to do while in Europe that I've gotten from friends I haven't talked to in long periods of time. It means a lot to me that everyone is taking the time to share their favorite experiences from Barcelona and other European cities. I want to compile a list of these recommendations at a later date to keep a checklist of the things I want to see while I'm here and let you all see the progress I'm making when it comes to site seeing. I reallyyyyy really appreciate all the advice I've gotten from so many friends, it means a lot!
Anyway, the rest of today was very mellow and I felt tired and sick all night. Tomorrow, I am flying to Rome to spend the weekend on the Amalfi Coast :)
Cannnotttttttttt wait!!! I will update you guys Monday with a less intellectual blog post and a more exciting, picture filled one.
Have a wonderful weekend my friends- talk to you when I've experienced a taste of Italy!
Xoxoxo
Yarden
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