2 Weeks Down, 39 to Go!

Alright, I made it through a second week. The major events of this week were the orientation sessions for the Auxiliares program and the beginning of work in the schools. Since posting I went to work for one more day, which was kind of a mixed bag.

I really love the people who work at the school. Thus far they seem like very wonderful, nice people. As teachers, I'm still on the fence. Thursday my schedule included planning time with Elena, the 3rd grade teacher and Eduardo, the 4th grade teacher and bilingual program coordinator. Elena had no idea that I was supposed to be there at 10 to plan with her and had to run off to a meeting. She and I discussed the class briefly, as she doesn't quite have the lessons planed out she just gave me copies of the science and English books so I could see what was coming up. I flipped though them, but I'm still unclear what my roll in the classroom is going to be. During our discussion Elena told me that this is the first year that she has taught 3rd grade in a bilingual program, this leads me to believe that we will be figuring it out as we go. Given her newness to the subject, I was willing to let her lack of preparation go while hoping that Eduardo's experience will mean he has a plan for me.

I left Elana's room and thought I was going to Eduardo's, unfortunately when I arrived there he reminded me that we have a half hour break, so I kind of made myself look silly. We went into the staff room where I found a spread of breakfast pastries, fruit and coffee. Soon the room filled with the loud, excited chatter, of Spanish teachers. I'm typically a quiet person, so this kind of thing overwhelms me. I will need to learn to deal.

After our breakfast break, Eduardo and I returned to his room. Once the 4th graders had sat down and were relatively quiet Eduardo introduced me to them. After I tried to explain where Oregon is (I used the reference point of the basketball player Rudy Fernandez, but that pretty much fell flat), the floor opened for the kids to ask me questions. They asked about favorites, and if i have brothers and sisters, along with a few tough questions like what I want to be when I grow up.

Finally it was time for the 2 hour lunch extravaganza. Eimear and I went to the computer lab so she could print a passport application (hers were stolen, both the American and Irish, whilst she was in IKEA). The computers hardly worked, so we gave up and went across the street for a small beer. Yes, I can drink at lunch and it is acceptable. I still felt slightly guilty to walk back into school with a faint beer taste in my mouth, but this is Spain and things are different here.

After lunch I had prep time with Eduardo. In this time he told me to go upstairs to look at the text books while he had a quick meeting. He came in a few pages into the English book and basically explained that for the first week he wanted me to watch the kids and basically assess who needs help and who is more advanced. He also admitted that he hadn't decided yet what the exact lesson plans for the year were going to be. Great, more uncertainty. The best(please read with a fair amount of sarcasm) was when he asked if I was good with computers and requested that I go back to the computer lab to make word art pages with the question words. This task would normally take, oh, 5 minutes. When the computer is in Spanish it takes about 20. So my planning time in both grades was a complete bust. I don't exactly know where I fit in with this program. Ugh.

The kids are great. Overwhelmingly they want to practice English and are really excited to see a new face. They want to ask questions and to work with me. But so far, I haven't seen exactly how that is going to happen.

Today, we went to pay our rent. I think while paying the second month of rent it started to sink in that this is for real. I'm really living in Madrid. For 9 months. On the way home, Melanie and I swung into an accessories store and another low-priced clothing store. While we looked around we kept referring to our first pay-checks, and how we were going to spend them. This kind of planning only cements the idea of living here.

When we returned home Melanie got a call from MariCarmen at Mosaic. Let me back track, while paying the rent we basically interviewed so Mosaic to see how well we teach English and what level we could work with. It was a bit frustrating because all that happened was we received a paper about superlatives and comparing words and were told to take 20 minutes to prepare to explain it to one of the English speaking staff. The interviewer really liked Melanie, so they set her up teaching a group 2 hours a night, 5 nights a week. MariCarmen also said that they are working on finding groups that would be right for Audrey and me. Hopefully this works out!

It would be great to have the luxury or not being preoccupied with money. While sitting around the apartment I figured out that making an extra 125 euro per week under the table would cover my rent and bus pass, which would leave my whole stipend for food and fun. Please don't think that I am suffering or anything, it is probably just the fact that this month I have no money coming in, the program doesn't pay us until the end of the month and I will have to wait until the end of October, just in time to pay November rent... Welcome to being a grown up, in Spain.

Yet another tragedy in the process of getting settled in Spain occurred today. After we paid the rent and mentally spent our first paychecks, I called to get my residency card. This involved telling a native Spanish speaker, over the phone mind you, my passport number and how to spell my name. The words for 3 and 6 sound really similar. My passport number has four 3s in it. We spent a long time going back and forth about which number I said and how that compared to which number she heard. When she read it back to me it sounded right, but I had a sinking suspicion it could be wrong, given all the confusion. Then I spelled my first name, that went fine. Next I was asked to spell my last name. What I thought I spelled was TURNER, there was some confusion on the first letter I gave her and example of the first T-word I could think of "tarjeta". I wanted to verify if everything was done correctly, so I asked Melanie for the website where you can go online to verify your cita (Spanish for appointment).

Melanie didn't have it off the top of her head, but while I was at the corner store buying bread she offered to look it up for me. When I came back in she said "I have some good news and some bad news". The good news was that she found the website, the bad news was there is no appointment under my passport number. One of the 3s had turned into a 6. The worse news is that my last name is entered as "GVRNER", really? Is this actually happening to me? It appears so. Son of a Bitch! ...or in Spanish, Hijo de puta!

Don't worry, I'll update you on the NIE fiasco and any other noteworthy events.