Livin' the Lima Loca

To start your day off on a bright note...

Don't feed the deer!!! These little guys run around our gated campus and are the least skittish "wild" animals I've ever seen. They're a truly unique part of La Catolica's (the vernacular for PUCP- my university) campus.

Oh, and something else about PUCP: classes. Were I to summarize them, I would say challenging. tons of group work, and unstructured. The whole concept of a syllabus is looser here, and readings are given each week during class. After being informed that a article or chapter is due, students go to a photocopier for the academic department their class is in and have it printed. The main challenge is obviously language, however others do exist. The workload is high, even for a native Spanish speaker. Group work and interactive classes are a norm here, and I have many group projects due throughout the semester.

Now, the interesting part: the cool things I've been doing in Lima due to my class work. Ecology and Society (my most bleh class) has a group exposition on rights to natural resources mid-way through October. Organizational Communication likewise has a large final project, however this one deals with investigating the corporate culture and functions of a major business in Lima. We previously had to observe non-verbal language in a movie scene, for which my group chose "The Notebook"- Noah and Allie 4evah!

Okay, so those were not the coolest. My Intercultural Communications class may be. Today, I went to the Museo de la Nacion and went to the Shining Path exhibit. It chronicles the 20 year civil war in Peru that ended with tens of thousands of fatalities. My assignment is to take a photo from the exhibit and analyze it in the light of several articles we read recently.

Also a top contender, Activity in Anthropology. This class is basically one long field research project. Our task is to interview a specific artisan in Lima who produces traditional crafts for festival and other purposes. My group is investigating the work of Jose Luis, a bordado maker. His work is fascinating and is located in Central Lima directly behind the Congress building with a number of other artisans.

 

 This weekend for my Anthropology class I will be visiting the patron saint festival of a small village in the Andes. All I can say is, "be prepared!" (courtesy of Scar- a little Lion King action and you never saw it coming). Anyway, there is definitely one monster-sized blog coming up.