Fried

Believe it or not the hardest adjustment thusfar is sleep. Yesterday, despite not taking a siesta of any kind, getting up at 8am, walking around for MUCH of the day, and drinking myself to a happy hum before midnight, I still got a shitty night´s sleep. I was out almost as soon as I hit the pillow, which was a first (and a product of alcohol most likely), but I awoke suddenly at about 4am. Thinking it was just that I had to hit the head, I did that (marble floors are freezing at four in the morning, even while wearing socks). Jumped back in bed, closed my eyes, and waited for...for....for hours. It was as though my brain had misfired and decided it was time to get up. All sorts of things whizzing through my head: phrases, faces, street names, things to do tomorrow, things to do this weekend, things to do before I leave.... Frankly that doesn´t make any sense, even considering jetlag (my body should have thought it was about 10pm on the previous day, a perfectly rational time for sleep). Maybe that´s a weird product of culture shock? Whatever it is, it´s got to stop-- insomnia is not what I need right now.
But anyway I eventually got another hour or so of sleep before getting up to shower. The shower is perfectly decent-- tub fills up with water gradually, and the entire bathroom becomes a sauna, but none of that bothers me. I have to get Sebi to show me the proper usage of the showerhead, if it exists. Still and all, it´s a perfectly functional house plumbing-wise, which I gather from friends is not necessarily to be expected in a homestay.
Shower. Dry myself. Quick-change act as I realize I´m behind schedule. Munch down the tostada and hot chocolate Sebi´s put on the table for me. Throw on shoes. Throw things in backpack. Forget to brush teeth. Gross. March out the door with Bart (who´s also got class a las ocho y media) and we start speed-walking up to the CLM for class. Ended up being about 7 minutes late, so not horrible considering that I had made us late.
Did I not yet mention my placement? They´ve put me in Avanzado B, which is the higher portion of the advanced section-- think of it as 6 on a 1-8 scale, with 8 being bilingual and 7 being essentially fluent. I´m worried, as I predicted in my last post, that that´s an overestimation of my abilities, but what the hell, right? I´m not about to duck it...if they think I can do it, then goddamnit I can. Plus there´s some chance that I can totally wail on this course and get moved up to SuperiorA, which would allow me to take classes in the Universidad itself. Probably that would be a bad thing on net, because it would be far too demanding, but it´d be the most interesting too.
So basically the way the classes work is there are two separate two-hour blocks separated by a 20 minute break. Each block is taught by a different teacher, and it seems like there won´t be a great deal of stylistic difference between them. Real work starts tomorrow-- today was a lot of rompiendo el hielo, and simple conversation, Q&A about the city &c. Apparently in Granada, unlike most of Spain, tapas are free with drinks...something of which I will avail myself today. The class time seemed to go by very quickly, and after some initial hesitancy from everyone (there are about 11 of us creo), people were talking pretty freely for the last couple hours. There´s only one girl in my section that I find myself disliking deep in my gut (way below average). Her name is Meghan, and in trying to pin down why I dislike her I´m having a hardtime finding a good string of adjectives; instead, a quick anecdote. One of the icebreakers we did involved pairing people off and going through a list of questions, and then presenting the person we spoke with to the class. In the course of that, several people were identified as being completely mad about ´Love Actually,´ at which this girl scoffed heartily. Come to find out, her perfect man is her boyfriend, and she loves Gray´s Anatomy and Sex in the City-- I know, that doesn´t help, I still sound like a judgmental prick, but you could almost smell the hipocrisy in the air. The nose upturned to too-cute romance with a slight edge and a huge heart, and open arms for TV that is utter bullshit at the cerebral level. Wait why am I trying to justify this? Love your inner dickhead, Alan...

In conclusion, this has been my first post with a generally bitchy tone. Probably won´t be the last. Hopefully those to come will be funnier. I´m very, very tired.