"The air is full of flying factories..."

What KIND of factories?!  Please, HELP!

(Night view from apartment window)

Yes.  The daily trials and random incomprehensible word vomits of professors speaking in their second languages.  Here I am, world!  I've been in Rīga now for a few weeks and finally getting into a groove.  As expected, the transition to life in Rīga hasn't been that difficult, thanks to the previous summers of internships and random visits.  But getting into a new university and entering a completely foreign scholarly system is proving to be a bit of a challenge!  So, I've decided to keep at it with the blog to share some of the quirks and peculiarities of a student's life in Rīga.

Let's start with my program.  With the help of my darling friend Santa, this past summer I was enrolled at the University of Latvia, the faculty of Humanities in the Baltic Sea Region Studies masters degree program.  Phew, that's a mouthful.  And quite misleading, as I've found in explaining it to others.  No, I haven't suddenly had a change of heart and decided to study science...  this is not a program that studies the creatures of the sea!  The Baltic Sea Region is comprised of the countries that border the Baltic Sea, therefore, in this study program we explore not only the Baltic countries themselves (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), but also the Scandinavian countries and a touch of Northern Poland and Germany, in a comparative approach covering all the bases of politics, economics, and social studies.  To my advantage (I hope!), this is one of two programs at the University of Latvia, which is offered in English.  The Latvian language laws restrict all education in the country to be presented in the national language, Latvian, however, with some quick maneuvers and calling this an international program (it is linked with several other universities in the region), the instruction language can be English.

 

(Entrance to the main building of the University of Latvia)

As a generosity to those master's degree students who are gainfully employed during the day, my schedule consists of night classes.  Monday thru Friday 6:15pm- 9:30pm.  At first I thought I'd be fine with this adjustment, but I think this is the hardest thing to get used to, mostly because it interferes with all the other social activities I had planned on doing while in Rīga.  Yes, bar hopping is clearly a part of that, but future prospects of singing/playing in bars, as well as joining a folk group or two, arranging rehearsals, etc is much harder when I'm sitting in lectures.

My class schedule currently consists of:
Monday- Baltic Sea Region Concepts, an overview of themes and a mix of different faculty members sharing their expertise with us every week.  So far we've had a touch of Geography and History (looking back from before the Christianization of the region, all the fun stuff I learned back in Latvian Saturday school and Garezers!)
Tuesday- Research Methods & Organization, shockingly thrown back into the world of Statistics.  UGH.  I hate math with such a passion and keeping up with a professor who is spitting out formulas like a Eminem spitting out raps, it's a challenge to keep my brain from exploding.  She also has an incredibly hard time explaining the relevance of our exercises; if I could understand WHY I'm doing this, I'd be much more willing to do it.  But I guess it's good to exercise the other part of my brain... right?
Wednesday- EU Government & Institutions Theory & Practice, a comparatively easy course taking into consideration that I've heard it all before, time and time again.  This class is together with the European Studies program, so we have a much bigger and more diverse group.  I'm excited to get to group work for upcoming Seminars (aka group presentations about a theme).
Thursday- European Economies & Integration Development, another course of little interest or investment, especially because so far we've taken a retrospective view of the development of the EU.  GIVE ME SOMETHING MODERN.  I want to talk about today's crisis and what we're going to do about it.
Friday- Geography.  HA.  Geography? Really?  But when on the first day we were given a map of the region to fill out, I realized I didn't know as much as I thought I did... ooops.  And thank goodness we're discussing all aspects of Geography, current topic: Urban tourism. 

 (Faculty of Economics and Management)

Lucky for me, classes are between two buildings very close to Old Town, where I'm living.  The main building of the University of Latvia and the Faculty of Economics and Management, both right outside of tourist-packed Old Town, making it an easy 10-15 minute commute, even if it means dodging and pushing my way through some large tourist groups snapping away at pictures.

But what about those flying factories?  Last night in Econ class, a student asked about the expenses of transporting goods from far away places to Europe, the professor responded "yes... well... it is more expensive... but nowadays, the goods are always in the air... flying factories... the air is full of flying factories."  I guess what she meant to say was something about technology allowing products to be more accessible, but please loop me in if there are flying factories that I wasn't aware of before.

  So there you have it!  A start to another great adventure... with some pictures to go along with it.  More to come soon, but I need to get to reading and planning papers and group projects...

 (Walking to the main building of LU, you can see the round observatory that's on the roof!)

 (My street, Krāmu iela (Junk Street), on this lovely Friday morning!)

(Coming out of the apartment- the entrance is right behind me- earlier this month with Pops.  Trust me, it's not that warm anymore!  Definitely need a coat!)