School

I can't believe it's been more than two weeks since my last post; time has really gone by quickly here.
Now seems like the best time to explain exactly why I'm so busy all the time here. Other than traveling and going out, school here really keeps me busy. But not in the way that I've been accustomed to over the past 14 years of school.
Here, what happens in class really doesn't matter much in your grades. Most of what your grade comes from is your ability to read several texts and regurgitate what they say on a test. These readings may be talked about in class, but for the most part they aren't. In fact, it isn't always necessary that they have anything to do with what is discussed in class. Well then, why go to class, you ask? The professors take attendance, because there really is no other reason to go to class.
It really is a frustrating system that has all the foreigners confused and angry. Grades are based not on a midterm and final, but on a series of tests on readings and a paper or two. That means that instead of a predictable schedule of paper-writing and test-taking, they fall at random depending on the schedule of the professor. These schedules are rarely hard and fast, meaning that they always fall behind and push things back, right on top of something else that you never planned on conflicting with it.
This results in a lack of incentives for keeping up with a constantly morphing schedule (because readings don't coincide with classes, they're only necessary for tests).
I've yet to find another foreigner who enjoys school here or doesn't find it frustrating. Others who had planned to stay for a year have said that the difficulty of classes here has made them reconsider.
Aside from the frustration this causes, it really isn't conducive to any sort of intellectual exchange. In only one class do I have a professor that actually tries to engage the students and stimulate discussion. In my poetry class there is never any open discussion in the classroom, the professor lectures everyone to sleep during class. The school seems to lack a real intellectual community, something that is choked back by a poorly designed system of education.