June 6: "Estudiante''

I’m not sure what I expected summer school to be.

Whatever it was, it was wrong.

As of Monday, I have now attended each of my two classes – Spanish I and History of the U.S. After World War II – four times. Already, I’ve had one major test (in Spanish) and two quizzes (history) with my first essay due on Wednesday and my second Spanish test on Thursday.

What I am discovering if that summer school is not day camp. It’s work, and lots of it - daily reading assignments in history and web assignments for Spanish, which are due on Friday each week.

Unlike the classes I took during the spring semester, you never had a day between classes to finish your assigned work. When you have assigned reading on Tuesday, you had better be able to discuss in on Wednesday.

Far more than is the case during the spring semester, summer school requires daily homework.

I guess, had I thought about it, I would have understood why it must be so. Obviously, when you are compressing a semester’s worth of material into fewer than five weeks, the pace is accelerated. In fact, by the end of the week, I’ll be 40 percent finish with the courses.

One benefit of summer school – small classes. There are 16 students in my Spanish class, just 12 in my history class.

I am really enjoying the history class, since it touches on a subject that I had already gravitated toward. About a month ago, I finished reading David Halberstam’s “The Best and the Brightest,’’ a masterful examination of how the U.S. became hopelessly, tragically entangled in Vietnam.

And just this week, I finished reading Michael Korda’s “ Ike: An American Hero’’ a thorough, if fawning, biography of Dwight Eisenhower.

Both books are of obvious relevance to the course.

There is another cause for optimism as far as the course is concerned: All the quizzes and tests are essay-style. In fact, our three main tests and the Final are really three-page essays that we get to write from home, using our notes, on the day before the test is due. I’ve always felt that essay-writing plays to my strength, so I feel very confident about this class.

Spanish is going well, too, although the pace is alarming. Still, I’ve picked up enough Spanish in my years in Arizona to have at least mastered things like pronunciation.

I’ve also met a couple of friend in the class – Lauren is 22 and from Tupelo; Susan is 31 and is a grad student from Belmont. We meet at the library on the night before tests to study.

Hasta luego!