I know I haven’t been writing as often as I use to but things have slowed down here and therefore I don’t have as much to report on. November has arrived and so has winter. Andalucía this year decided to skip fall altogether. We had 80-degree weather from my arrival in September until November 1st. I have separated my bathing suites and shorts from the rest of my clothes and now wear either my sweatshirt or my fleece in my house at all times. The houses and flats here have no air conditioning or heating so we have to bundle up and plug in space heaters. I try not to use the space heater because it increases the electric bill for the month. Every house and flat in Valverde at least also come with heavy duty plastic shutters that when closed all the way block out the sunlight completely and also keeps the rooms warmer. The only problem is in the morning in order to stay warm I pull the shutters closed completely but then I have to rely solely on my alarm to make sure I get up in time because I have no idea if its night or day outside. I don’t really like that feeling but I also hate being cold so I’m working on finding a compromise of some sort.
This past Sunday I had my first emotional meltdown. Like I mentioned in my last post, November is the month to get homesick. Well it happened. I contributed the meltdown to a number of things. I was so upset on Monday that I was about to scratch my winter break plans entirely and come home. I gave myself a day to really think about and I got an email from someone that really helped me put the situation in perspective. In the end I stuck to my original plan and now will be going to three countries and four cities this winter. The plan is to arrive in Berlin, Germany and stay there through Christmas and then head over to Vienna, Austria for a few days. After Vienna we will bus it to Prague, where we will spend a good 3-4 days. This is also the city where we will be for New Years. Finally, we train it back to Germany and head to Frankfurt for a day or two before me get a flight back to Seville. In order to get a good deal on a return flight we cut the trip a little short, but I think it was the best decision because I know by that time we will annoyed with each other and just want to go home to our own beds. This will be quite the adventure. I know the odds of coming home from the trip without something being stolen is very slim, so I’m just hoping that item doesn’t belong to me. I will also be sleeping with my passport tucked away inside my PJ’s just to be safe.
Monday night was fun because I had an intercambio with a girl named Rocio. She teaches at the Residencia, which is connected to Don Basco, which is the high school that Corrie and Kate work at. She is a close friend of Reuben’s, Corrie and Kate’s favorite teacher at D.B, and so I’ve met her a few times at the Italian parties and she is very nice. This is her first year taking English classes so she wanted some extra practice. An intercambio is when you talk with someone for lets say a half hour in one language, and then you switch to the other language for the rest of the hour. This way both people get to practice their language skills and it is equally stressful for both people when they have to try and speak the other’s native tongue. I tried to go to an intercambio in Argentina, but too many Americans signed up and not enough Argentine’s so it wasn’t beneficially for me to attend. This intercambio was a lot of fun. It’s a great way to practice speaking in a relaxed fashion. You’re not surrounded by a lot of people, you're not talking about difficult topics, and you can really work on correcting and tweaking your speech. I only wish it was just Rocio and me because since Corrie speaks the best she tends to dominate the conversation when its time to speak Spanish. I also don’t like the pressure of having her there. I would rather just be one-on-one with someone so it forces me to keep the conversation going. Before the intercambio I had a great tutor session with my adults, Paco and Ana. I decided to start the session off with the topic of obesity in America and why American’s are so fat compared to the rest of the world. This evolved into comparing food from America to Spain and then specifically to Valverde. They told me names of dishes that I should order and about local markets to go during the weekend to buy a premade-meal (like the kind you get at Whole foods) for very cheap. These are the kinds of things you would never figure out on your own unless you knew an insider. It was great. There tutor session has become my favorite of the week because we talk about awesome stuff. It’s my intellectual stimulation for the week. I only wish they had more time in the day to devote an hour to the same kind of conversations but in Spanish. That would help me so much but alas all the adults are so busy and I don’t even know how they manage to squeeze in two hours a week for me.
Menendez School got Wi-Fi but it doesn’t work for my computer because I’m American, so really it means nothing to me. I still have to rely on Pocho’s computer to do all my work and check my email daily. I still enjoy my classes and I’m not tired of the kids. I get frustrated with a kid here and there because they call me over every time they finish one part of a worksheet or activity. They need me to say, “Yes, that’s right. Now do the next one.” I started putting my foot down and refusing to come over to their desks until they have completely finished the worksheet. It’s just so tedious and it takes away from my time helping other students who actually need help with something. While my Spanish hasn’t really improved much yet, my ability to talk in English in front of the class to the students has. I somehow found the ability to project my voice without getting to pitchy and can hold the attention of the class. I’ve led a few classes in new topics now so my confidence in that respect is improving. This is good because it will cross over to coaching soccer. Oh I also received an email on Tuesday stating that Christen was on her way to Valverde as we speak and would be here by Wednesday (meaning last Wend Nov 11).
Well Tuesday was also a very eventful day. I had a full day of classes and two tutor sessions. I had a whole lesson planned for Marta my 8 year old but when I arrived her mother Toni had her own plan for the lesson. She wanted Marta to study science. Toni set up two white boards and I had to translate what Toni wrote on one board in Spanish into English. Sounds easy enough. Well the topic was fish and amphibians so it wasn’t something I was well versed in when it comes to Spanish vocabulary. I managed to get through it and I actually kind of enjoyed it because it helped me learn some knew words in Spanish that are now in my long term memory, like Merluza is Hake, Rana is Frog, and Lubina is Sea Bass—all useful knowledge when ordering from a menu. The lesson was pretty intense for Marta though. Her mom is very strict when it comes to academics. She is a no nonsense type of woman so she made Marta repeat everything in English multiple times, she wouldn’t let her fiddle in her seat, or play with her hair. She tested her for an hour straight on only that material. I felt bad for Marta because every hour of the day she has something planned and her mom is very tough on her. Now if I had met Toni for the first time that day I would have said this lady is insane; she is forcing English down her child’s throat, she is a perfectionist, and she treats her 8 year old daughter like she’s in high school. However, that is one side of Toni. This is also the same lady that welcomed me into her home, forced me to take food back with me, and told me if I ever need anything at anytime that I should not hesitate to come over. Also you should know that Toni is a teacher at Menendez so she knows what she is doing. I will admit it was an intense session for Marta, but I kind of found it fun. I’m thinking that I might do that every other week or so with Marta when she starts a new topic because it secretly helps me in the process.
After that session I ate a quick dinner and then met up with Corrie and Kate at a bar in the city center to meet their first Couch Surfer. -------Couch Surfing is a social network like facebook or MySpace but it’s for people looking for a couch to sleep on while they travel around the world. You make a profile stating whether you have a couch for someone to sleep on, that you’re looking for a couch to sleep on, or both. There is a creepy, “I don’t know you and I’m staying in your house” factor that comes along with this, but its at your own discretion, its free, and you can message the person before hand and talk to them and explain your bottom line so that there is no confusion. Some girls have said that when they stay with a guy there was a miscommunication that they were looking for a relationship. Things like that happen, so you have to be careful, but I know way more success stories than creepy stories so I definitely think it’s a cool concept. ----------That brings me to Joaquin, like the actor. He is from Granada and is a clarinet player. He only works two months out of the year, but for the months of October and November he travels every few days to different locations in Andalucía to give presentations and play his instruments for kids. It’s a cool gig but not one I would want. What do you do for the other 10 months??? Anyways, he was really nice. He spoke really good English so that was a nice surprise. He taught me some Andalucian slang terms and colloquialisms that were really useful to know. For example, Spaniards refer to people over the age of 65 as “people in the third age”. I really liked that term so I plan on using it for now on. The most interesting thing he taught me that night was about the province Almeria (its next to Granada province in Andalucía. It’s the direct opposite of Huelva, so southeast). Apparently Almeria has a desert region and back in the day American westerns were filmed there. Now there are tourist locations in Almeria where you can learn about the influence of the American western cinema culture on the region. He told me Spaghetti Western was filmed there along with The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. You know that famous whistle that all westerns have when the bad guy and the good guy meet for a dual? Well that came from Almeria, Spain!!! He also told us that he loves Dolly Parton and every time he hits the desert he plays her cassette. How funny is that? It was all very fascinating. We ended up getting kicked out of the bar because they were closing. Hah, that’s a first! Even though it was late and a Tuesday I wanted to hang out with him some more so I went back to Corrie and Kate’s place and then Joaquin asked if we wanted to watch a movie. A MOVIE? Do they still exist??? I haven’t watched a movie since August. We all said, “OF COURSE!” He picked the movie that none of us had seen but was in English with Spanish subtitles, which was perfect. I spent most of the movie reading the Spanish because I found it really helpful. We watched A Happy Accident, a movie I had never heard of (a first, I know) so I was really excited to watch. It was a romantic comedy and it was very interesting. The movie ended at 3am and sadly I had to go back home. Ugh sometime I really dislike the 15 minute walk back home. Although tired, I was really glad I met him. I plan on staying on his couch for a night or two when I visit Granada in December.
Wednesday was a lot of fun as well because it was the night of Elisa’s birthday party (her real birthday is 11/12 but her mom wanted her to be born on 11/11 so she always has her party on 11/11. Cute right?). For anyone that knows me well, knows I like to celebrate birthdays, and this one was no exception. I bought Elisa an ice cream cake, I made her a birthday card, I wrote happy birthday all over the apartment, and I bought food for the party. I only had one session today so I dedicated most of my down time to exercise, organizing, showering, and getting ready for the party. My tutor session was with the adults, Ana and Paco, and I decided to talk about stereotypes. It was a great topic because I got to see what aspects of American culture really make an impact in this country and to their generation in particular. Ana mentioned that her daughter thought the most significant difference she noticed with American students verses Spanish students was that Americans travel everywhere. They go all around the world whereas Spaniards might never leave their town, let alone their country. I told them it was because the drinking age everywhere else in the world is 18, so students really like to study abroad or travel during the summer when they’re in college.
This reminded me of something I had just read from the new book The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. I know the book is fiction but I think the following comment that he made in the book holds true. The lead character, a professor at Harvard, asked his students how many of them had traveled around the world to major cities like London, Paris, and Rome. Almost every hand went up in the class. Then he asked how many of them had been to DC. Only a few hands went up. He says, “Washington, DC has some of the world’s finest architecture, art, and symbolism. Why would you go overseas before visiting your own capital?” It’s a good question. I’m actually no better than those fictional students. Yes I’ve run around every monument in DC, but I haven’t toured the Capital, the White House, or any other important landmark in our nations capital. I’m far more interested in visiting the Pantheon in Rome and the Berlin Wall in Germany. Not sure why that is but I’m being abroad (and reading a book about DC) has made me want to really take advantage of my proximity to DC when I return—and I don’t mean more running.
Back on point, the hour session was quite entertaining and I didn’t want it to end. Both sessions with Ana and Paco this week were simply delightful. When I returned home only one guest had arrived for the party. Eventually more people arrived and I was introduced to all of Elisa’s friends (finally). I had invited Corrie and Kate but they ended up not showing up until much later and by then everyone had headed home because it was a Wednesday night and a lot of people had to get up early the next day. The party was fun. I talked to Ruben most of the time and listened to the other conversations that were going on around me. Elisa’s boyfriend had bought this giant box of amazing sweets but nobody was eating them because apparently they had all attended a BBQ at the school right before so they were full. What a shame, more for me :) Before anyone left Elisa opened all of her gifts. Her friends had chipped in and bought her a beautiful ring and matching earrings. Once people started leaving I began cleaning up and refused to let Elisa clean anything since it was her party. She loves to clean so it was very hard to get her not to help haha.
Corrie and Kate finally arrived after I had just put everything away. The reason they were late was because they helped Christen (who likes to be called Christina because its easier to say in Spanish) settle into her new flat. So I finally got to meet the infamous Christina. She is from Ohio and went to OSU but currently lives in Tampa, FL. She is 25 even though she looks 21. She has studied Spanish for over 6 years and lived in Cuba for one month and Mexico for three months. In Tampa she works for a law firm that deals with immigration and she’s the translator. So yeah, her Spanish is perfect. My confidence goes up with every new language assistant I meet here in Valverde haha. The only obstacle she faces is that she speaks Mexican Spanish so a few words here and there are different but that’s hardly an issue if you ask me. Anyways, she was very nice and I’m excited to have her here in Valverde. No I won’t be the third wheel. I’m really relieved that she didn’t end up living with them because then I would be COMPLETELY out of the loop at all times and it would make my time her pretty awful to be honest. The reason why I was so excited for Christina to finally arrive was because now I can FINALLY get a set timetable of classes and I get one free day!!!!!!!!!!!! Wahoo, no more Friday classes. :)
So on Thursday I finally went over the schedule I wanted with Pocho. I kept all of my favorite classes and told her I wanted Fridays off (which she already knew). Well after Christina made her schedule Pocho realized that there weren’t enough bilingual classes for both of us to attend because the last hour block on Friday had 4 bilingual classes scheduled. Somebody did an awful job at planning out the schedules. Unfortunately that means that 3 bilingual classes never get a native speaker. Nothing I can do about. Well with the shortage of bilingual classes to attend Pocho now wants to give Christina some of my classes. She can have the 4th graders but I refuse to give up the 1st graders!! Yes its selfish but they are just too cute to give up and I don’t want them calling me Christina by accident. I have enough issues with kids calling me the previous assistant Kayla. When that happens I refuse to acknowledge them until they say the correct name and I say, “no Kayla!!”
Later that night Corrie and Kate decided to cook dinner for Christina, Ruben, Rocio, and their new roommate Michele-Angelo (Michael Angelo!!). I was under the impression that they were going out to eat so I packed my own dinner and planned on using the Internet while they were at dinner. When I arrived I found out I was misinformed (as usual), but decided to eat my dinner since it was so good. Plus they were making Macaroni and Cheese and I’m not a big fan of that. Well everyone had a great meal and we talked well into the night. I didn’t get home until 11:30pm. This was my fourth night in a row staying out late. Definitely a record.
I finally got to sleep in on Friday and have the whole day to do whatever I pleased. Since Elisa departed for Seville like clock work the night before I had the whole place to myself so I blared my music really loud as I exercised and did abs in my room and left the news on while I ate breakfast and wrote emails to people. While its relaxing have the place to myself I hate that Elisa always leaves because I’m always alone on the weekends. I’m separated enough from everyone but then my own roommate “vamos’s” so I’m all-alone. Well I made my own plans to hit up the Youth House and clock in some quality Internet hours because I needed to finalize certain parts of my winter break. After I finished planning my break I finally got the chance to Skype with my best friend. OMG it made me soooooooooo happy. At first her video was delayed by two minutes or so, so if was entertaining to see her reactions after the conversation was over haha. The video finally corrected itself and we talked for a good 2 hours I think. It put me in the best mood because I had been trying to contact her for over two weeks and every time I was unsuccessful, so it was great to hear her voice and see her. I was able to completely be myself and I haven’t had that chance in awhile since I’ve only been emailing most of my friends. I didn’t even care that it was another Friday night spent at the Youth House rather than “going out”. I prioritize my friends and family before drinking any day.
