When I first started classes at UBA, I loved it. I loved the students' crazy haircuts and the way they all readied their cigarettes at the end of lecture so they could light them the second they stepped out of the classroom. I loved the arguments about whether to legalize abortion written on the doors of the bathroom stalls and the way everyone knew the difference between the syntagmatic and the paradigmatic axes. I even thought it was kind of charming that half the desks in any given classroom were broken.
By the time my classes ended last week, I couldn't even sit through an entire lecture. For one thing, my Filo y Letras teoricos were four hours long. It kind of makes sense to do it that way, since students live up to two hours away from the university and have to make the commute for every class. But seriously. Four. Hours. Also, the lectures were recorded and the transcripts were sold for 3.75 pesos, so the only thing that got me to class in the first place was an abstract sense of duty.
And then there was the fact that nothing ever happened on time — or even consistently late, which at least would have meant I had some time frame to shoot for. No, some days class started 10 minutes late, sometimes 45. Sometimes it was canceled because of a massive protest downtown, sometimes because the students had staged a revolt, taken over the building, and shut off the power. I'm not kidding, it happened once.
Last Friday, I went to go sign up for my exam at the Filo y Letras building. I went to the window on the first floor that FLACSO had told us to look for, carrying the materials FLACSO had told us to bring. When I got to the front of the line, the man told me I was missing a piece of paper and needed to go to the third floor. I went to the third floor, where a secretary harangued me for not knowing who had initially enrolled me in my class and then sent me to the second floor. The people at the second floor sent me back to the first floor, where the man I had first talked to told me to go to the next window over. I waited in line and asked the people there what the fuck was going on. They told me to tell the man at the first window I was an exchange student. I went back to the first window, said I was an exchange student, and finally got piece of paper I had come for. By the time I left I would have been happy if the Filo building, which looks like it's going to fall apart, made good on its threat and imploded.
I wouldn't change anything about this semester, and that includes the two classes I took at UBA. But I can't wait to get back to Yale, and the slightly ridiculous way everything I could possibly want appears before I know I want it. You mean I don't have to go buy my midterm? The readings for class are in the packet I bought at the beginning of the semester? There's toilet paper in the bathrooms? Free Thai food during exams?
Only about 20 percent of students who start at UBA end up graduating, and I can now say I know why. Going to class takes superhuman patience and effort. I'm not sure I would be able to keep it up for the 5+ years it takes to graduate. UBA students have my utmost respect. But I'm glad that, as of a week from next Tuesday, I'll no longer be one of them.
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