School time

I decided that I am fascinated with the Spanish or more likely broader Europe's classroom situation. Since my university is fairly atypical in terms of Spanish universities, Im not really sure what my observations are representative of... but here we go:

• I feel like Im in high school with the way our days are structured. Although I have classes in the morning and afternoons, the normal Comillas student just goes for consecutive classes in the morning OR the afternoon. During the day, there are breaks when none of the departments have class which makes for a Reservoir-like extended passing. And, everyone goes to lunch at 2:30, meaning everyone eats together in the cafeteria. All of the students know one another in their classes since they have little freedom in picking their classes (I think they get one elective a semester and there's only one section for each class). This makes the international kids even more obvious than we already are.
• They use graph paper instead of college ruled...
• ...Unless they are taking notes during class in which case they use the white computer paper. For taking notes, it's almost like (and I wouldn't be surprised at all if it were true) they have a class devoted to note-taking in high school. Here's how it goes:

1. You must have a cute, tiny pencil pouch
2. In this pencil pouch, you must have at minimum: mini ruler, white-out, 100 different colored pens, highlighters, and regular pens
3. Your handwriting must be perfect
4. To take notes, take out way more computer paper than you think you will use
5. Write the lecture topic REALLY big at the heading
6. Start your notes halfway down the page to waste some space NOTE: you must change colors between headings and notes-notes
7. Never try to conserve space: write as far apart as possible skipping 3 finger-spaces inbetween lines, give yourself 3 inch margins on the left and right, and don't write on the back of the page
8. Change colored pens, underline and box in different colors, and highlight as often as possible NOTE: if you ever underline or box, take out that mini-ruler
9. If you receive a hand-out, highlight every word as the professor reads it
10. Dont make any mistakes, and if you do, use white-out instead of crossing anything out

This is not an exaggeration. Everyone's notes look like a non environmentally-conscious rainbow threw up in perfect order over extra long sheets of white paper.