18 Weeks Down, 24 to Go!

What to say, what to say...
This week had been business as usual. School had become fairly routine; I show up, I speak some English then I go on to private lessons. The kids seem to like the substitute for Elena, and I enjoy her too. She is a really nice woman and is well prepared to take on the class. I think she was a little shocked at their bad behavior, but is developing ways to work with them on that. I am mostly in charge of the English lessons because Carolina's English isn't as good as Elena's, but Carolina takes over the Science class. We work pretty well together.

On Tuesday I lectured one class of 3rd graders about being disrespectful and not taking advantage of the opportunity they are given. I recognize that it is easy for me to look at it from a grown-up perspective and know that they are in an amazing position to be bilingual, while they just see it as another subject they are forced to take. I can't stress to them enough how wonderful it is for them to be able to speak two languages, possibly more. They all talk about wanting to visit NYC and America, but honestly they would have a better time if they spoke the language and didn't wander around with half a clue. I've tried explaining that I would have loved for my elementary school to force me to be bilingual, but that just flew over their heads. Maybe, one day, when they are struggling to order a sandwich in a real New York Deli they will realize that I was right and they should have paid attention.

Also in school related news, Thursday this week is Peace Day. This means that the kids will be learning to sing Micheal Jackson's Heal the World, complete with actions. When I was younger I liked Micheal Jackson, mostly the Thriller album. This particular song now drives me nuts. It is fair to say I hate it. Now I get to listen to it over and over and over. It is like Eduardo knew and has selected it jus to torture me!! Thankfuly it will all be over Thursday afternoon.

I've also been working with my private lessons. They are all going along well, but I think I have to start challenging the older kids. Both Carlota and Fidel have good vocabularies, but they need to practice using them. Carlota is by far my most advanced student, which makes her class easy and difficult at the same time. Her questions are usually more technical or complicated than Fidel's. Also she will complete an activity in half the time I plan for it to take, leaving me to cook something up on the spot. Fidel's little sister, Miriam, is bright also, but she speaks very little English (mostly because she is 7 years old) and I have to work very hard to be clear and repeat things several times. I try to use very little Spanish, but there are times when there is no other way. With her I try to read books I've borrowed from school or play games. I think next week we will work on cloths and dress paper dolls. This will test my artistic skills.

I could close with promises to write more often, but that would be pointless. I've resigned myself to the fact that some weeks there just isn't much to write about. When something interesting happens, rest assured I will let you know!

17 Weeks Down, 25 to Go!

Laziness has taken over. What else can I say? Lets try and update you, but as I said before I'm in a lazy streak and might just cut this post short...

Well, last week we got a permanent substitute for Elena (the 3rd Grade teacher who had surgery). The only catch is Carolina didn't arrive until Wednesday. Tuesday I basically taught all of third grade. At the end of the day my voice was dying. These kids were awful. Terrible. Horrible. I was down right disgusted with their behavior. It was the worst I had seen since starting this job. It is entirely possible that I spent more time telling them to be quiet then I spent explaining English grammar or Science.

At the end of each class the Spanish-speaking teacher, who was just filling in for the hour, would leave and yell at them for being so poorly behaved. The teacher also tried to impress upon them that they have a great opportunity to learn two languages and they shouldn't be such little bitches about it. Well, the teachers didn't call them bitches, but I will. Yes, I called a bunch of 8 year-olds bitches. But to be fair, they earned it. The sad part is that they weren't angles before Elena left, so I'm not sure what I was expecting.

The new teacher is very nice, to me. She is tough on the kids, but they honestly need it. She moved their desks out of groups of four into rows. In the groups they did nothing but push pencil cases across the line and annoy the person facing them. It was torturous to watch. Even worse to yell at them the whole time. Now in the rows they fully turn around and talk to the person behind them. RIDICULOUS. Today I had to yell at them again. Normally I keep my voice at a decent volume and just project so the whole class can hear, but it got out of hand. I had to remind them that they were taken out of the groups for a reason, and that was because they didn't listen.

I do like most of the kids, but their behavior is impossible. I also don't what will work with them. Elena chastises in English and Spanish, Eduardo throws pens and tells kids to leave the class, I try to be patient and talk to them. NOTHING seems to work. I don't know about you, but I don't remember being that bad in 3rd grade, or really any grade.

Thursday was my birthday. Typically on birthdays teachers and staff bring in a treat for everyone to share at our mid-morning break. I decided to hold on to the chocolate chips sent to me by my awesome friends Emily & Maja and bring cookies for my birthday. Gathering the ingredients wasn't difficult, if you define going to two grocery stores and eventually grating dry vanilla beans to substitute vanilla extract easy. I also resisted the urge to eat tons of dough, which was more difficult than the vanilla. From this self restraint I learned that they aren't kidding when they say a batch of cookies is 4 dozen. Before I thought it was a joke.

I made the cookies unsure of how the ladies at school would react. The Spanish are not big on sweets, but chocolate chip cookies aren't that bad... Usually people bring ham or other savory dishes to share, but I really would rather eat paste than more ham. I also didn't know what they would do about me baking the cookies. Sometimes I think they think we are babies or incapable for whatever reason, so baking and using the oven might be beyond me. One thing I was sure of was that they would all give me two kisses, one on each cheek and say congratulations. Which is a scary concept; imagine 20 Spanish women flocking to you, grabbing your face and kissing each cheek then making a huge fuss because you are such a baby and you made cookies.

When Thursday morning break rolled around I unwrapped the cookies and placed them in the middle of the table. I have to admit I was waiting for a few people to see me do it, so they would know it was my birthday and help explain to others why there were cookies on the table. And so it began. The kisses and birthday wishes flooded in. Then they started eating.

Every time we've made food or brought food the Spanish staff are hesitant to dive in. The usually pick up the item in question and look at it for a second before taking a bite. This time was no different. They picked up the cookies, clearly not from a package and tasted them. A HIT! No less than five of the women asked me for the recipe and I had to explain that the chocolate chips were imported and it would be difficult for them to reproduce it. Nonetheless I found the recipe on the Nestle website already translated into Spanish and passed it out after lunch. They were super excited to make the cookies at home and I was thrilled to have a reason to talk to them.

One of my favorite birthday moments was the several rounds of "Happy Birthday" sung to me by various groups of 3rd graders. For as much as they can suck in class, outside of class they can be super cute. I expected the hoards of girls who love me to come up and say something. What I didn't expect was little Javier to run up. He had seen several other students come up and say happy birthday, and he wanted to join. He ran up, opened his mouth and realized he didn't know what to say; quickly he ran back to his pal Pablo and asked in a very urgent tone "Como se dice feliz cumple?" Pablo responded, almost exasperated by the fact that Javi hadn't picked up what all the other kids were saying, "Happy Birthday". Then Javi came back and repeated it to me. Adorable.

Until this point I really hadn't engaged with many of the non-English speaking staff. Sure we exchange pleasantries and brief comments about weekends or students but never much more than that. This lead Fatima, the Religion teacher, to say that I frequently look lost when people speak Spanish. Luckily, one of the women obsessed with my cookies was Fatima, so we had a chance to talk about baking and I could prove I'm not always lost!

After school I came back to my neighborhood and took advantage of a coupon to the English book shop. For only 24 euro I bought four books. At the rate I am going this will last a while, but I could easily pick up reading more. When we first moved here I was reading all the time, but since we got the password to the wireless internet I've spent much more time surfing the web, reading perezhilton.com or news articles than real books. I've decided to cut back on the pointless internet, books are probably better for my brain.

My birthday celebration didn't stop with the books. I went to dinner with Melanie, Meagan and Theresa to a Mexican restaurant. It was delicious. They had some of the best guacamole I've ever had. Or maybe I just think it is the best because I can't remember what good guac tastes like... either way I was satisfied. The only downside was when one of the waiters was a jerk to us. He rather quietly announced a plate to give us; it was mine and I was far from him so I didn't hear him. He then gave us flack about not speaking Spanish and reminded us for the billionth time that we are in Spain and should speak Spanish. DUH! We know what country we are in and what language they speak here, get off my back. I wonder if he was a jerk because he heard us speaking English amongst ourselves and assumed we were tourists or imposed some anti-American feelings for no reason. Whatever his motive was, it was uncalled for. Meagan, who was sitting at the other end of the table, heard him and told him where to put the food. No pasa nada, buddy!

Now I am back to the daily grind. Yelling and 3rd graders and talking to kids in English. I'm also back to working my private lessons, I even managed to pick up an extra one. Oh! I forgot to mention that on Tuesday i bought tickets to meet up with my cousin in London. It will be awesome, but it will also be in May...

Note: I know that today is Inauguration Day but I won't be posting on that today. I am too upset about not being there to think about it too long. It could be fair to say that I am more upset about missing today than I was about missing election day...

16 Weeks Down, 26 to Go!

Yesterday was the first day back at school after our long vacation. I have to say it was difficult to get out of bed, but once I was up and going the day passed quickly. The metro and bus ride to school was oddly familiar, the same way that coming back from Berlin felt like coming home.

My Thursday schedule puts me with Elena for planning first thing. I knew this time was going to be important because before break she told me that she was going to be gone for most of January. Today she had surgery and will be out recovering for the rest of the month. Her absence is complicated by the fact that most of the substitute teachers are in the sub-pool because they didn't pass the exams and there is no way of knowing what level of English this person is going to have. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they person they bring in will be decent at English, as I'm only there two days a week and the rest of the time there will only be the teacher.

For the afternoon Eduardo had to cover Elena's class (she left at recess to get ready for her surgery) and I had to go with him. While in there he had the kids do the same project that the 4th graders had done earlier in the day, which was simply to write a few sentences about four of the days from break and draw a picture. Victor, the kid who doesn't understand a single word of English was clearly lost. I went over and tried to explain it using as many cognates as possible, still nothing. Sensing the problem Eduardo called Victor up to him at the teacher's desk and tried again, this time slipping in a little Spanish. When I passed his desk again, Victor had one sentence written and looked lost again. This time I broke character, so to speak, and explained it in Spanish to him. I also gave him the Spanish-English dictionary to look up basically every word. I really do try with him, but I'm starting to believe that some kids just don't belong in a bilingual program like this one.

What I noticed about Victor was that he basically could figure out what we were talking about, vacation and the special days, but when it came to the details of the instructions he was lost beyond belief. He figured out how to prepare the paper the way Eduardo showed them, not by listening but watching. When it came to what to do with the paper, nothing. It doesn't help him that his table mates hardly pay attention, so when he asks for help in Spanish they can't explain it. When I finally explained it in Spanish he got the biggest smile on his face. I'm pretty sure up to this point he hated me for not being talking to him in a language he understands. Every other day he would basically glare me down and tell me to go away (the one English phrase he has mastered), hopefully next week he will be less hostile toward me!

Wednesday was the beginning of the big sale season in Spain. Practically everything is marked down. I held my December pay check (because it is the January money) in reserve until yesterday. I decided that today I would go out and shop. Unfortunately, there was a huge snow storm today, so the streets were slushy. I hoped that this would keep shoppers at home, but clearly I misjudged Spaniards' love of mark-downs. With their umbrellas in tow the shoppers crowded as usual. I would like to report that I found tons of things, but apparently in two days the stuff was picked-over. I might try the other shops in our area tomorrow, but today was a bit of a bust. Boo!

15 Weeks Down, 27 to Go!

Let's see here. I think the two main points in this update are New Years and a short trip to Sevilla.

Since Meagan had her troop of friends visiting and Alicia was also here we had a New Years dinner party. Most restaurants in Madrid charge upwards of 70€ per person for New Years dinner, and we all agreed that was ridiculous. We gathered in Meagan and Theresa's living/dinning room and feasted. The general feeling in the room was really nice; everyone was friendly and chatting freely. The food was amazing. Meagan and Theresa supplied chili and tortilla española, I made cornbread and the guests picked out a nice apple tart for dessert.

Let me pause for a moment for a story about how things in Spain are never as simple as I want them to be. Since I have an oven, the hosts requested that I bake something for the dinner. Not a problem, I actually love to bake back home. I decided that since they were going to make chili I would make cornbread. Before going to the store for ingredients I looked up the word for "corn meal' which was translated to "harina de maiz" (literally, flour from corn). I found the product in the store and bought two boxes.

Later in the day I went to make the corn bread. My butter was melted, my ingredients were lined up and I opened the box of harina de maiz and took a peek inside. Harina de maiz turned out to be corn starch; you know, the very fine powder most people use to thicken stews or pie juices, not make bread. I had to pack away the corn starch, haul myself back to the grocery store and pray they were open and that had actual corn meal. My first clue should have been the ease with which I found the harina de maiz. It was just sitting there, waiting for me. Too easy.

Luckily, I found the right product in the Mexican foods section and proceeded to make a cornbread like food. It didn't turn out right, and I'm still working out why not. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and it tasted alright, the fluffiness was just a little low.

After the feast we went to Puerta del Sol to countdown until 2009. This was basically the Madrid equivalent of going to NYC Time Square. The crowds were huge, there was a security checkpoint so you didn't bring in bottles. Thankfully, the city was smart and passed out huge cups so you could bring in the beverages just not the containers. We figured that it was the danger of carbonated drinks, like Cava (Spanish Champagne) posed to the crowds. Imagine bunches of corks popping into a packed plaza. That sounds like a recipe for disaster.

We found a spot and hunkered down for about an hour, maybe a little more and waited. While we were waiting a slide show of pictures of the city played, as did some pop music. Finally it was time. The Spanish countdown from 12 because you are supposed to eat one grape per second to bring good luck into the next 12 months. I managed to finish my grapes, but many did not. We got a little bit of a late start and had to play catch-up. We struggled not to laugh our half-chewed grapes out onto the side walk, as the idea of herds of people forcing down grapes seemed comical.

I'm not sure what kind of luck the grapes will bring this year, as shortly after finishing them I got punched in the head. It was a total accident and it wasn't that hard. What happened was one of Meagan's friends tried to put his hand in a picture and in doing so reached over me. When the picture subjects realized what was going on they pushed his fist out of the frame and into my forehead. It mostly startled me and I'm fine now. I just hope it was the manifestation of all of 2008's bad luck leaving!


On New Years day Theresa, Alicia and I went on a trip to Sevilla. We took the bus that left at 11 pm and arrived in Sevilla the following morning. It was kind of difficult to sleep on the bus, but I made it work. When we arrived at the bus station it was way too early for any sightseeing, as the sun wouldn't be up for three more hours and the sights wouldn't open for four more. We camped out in the Cafe and fueled up on Churros and warm beverages.

Sadly, our trip was basically rained on the whole time. We had a nice stretch in the afternoon, but most of the morning, including the walk to the sights from the bus station was rainy. We started with the Royal Palace. This was constructed on top of a former Moorish building. Back in the day, and I mean way back, like 900's, the Moors invaded Spain and held on for a few hundred years (until somewhere around 1492, I think). Even though the original building was removed the new castle had many Islamic influences, such as water features, courtyards and arches upon arches. The Royal Gardens also produced enough oranges to prevent scurvy in all of Spain, but the fruit was sadly falling to rot. The building was gorgeous.

Across the plaza was the Cathedral. It is the second largest Cathedral, after Saint Peter's in Rome and Saint Paul's in London. Now I have been to two of the three, and I hope to check Saint Paul's off before crossing back over the Atlantic. One can't help but be impressed by things like that. They were designed to impress and show power. I just can't wrap my brain around why Churches would spend so much money on golden tapestries or HUGE statues when the funds could be put to helping people. I'm sure this is a lesson they learned in time, as these types of churches were constructed long ago, but still I have to wonder if somewhere in the planning stages others found it silly also.

After those two big sites we ate lunch and went on a walking tour in our brief period of sunshine.

We closed the night with a few drink in a "Tapas" bar recommended by the guide book, but actually does not serve food. We were a little bummed, as we like to sample local foods whenever possible. But we had a nice drink then moved on to our last item. The Flamenco show.

I don't know if there are words to describe Flamenco. I really think you have to see a show, if you get the chance. (If you end up in Sevilla, I can recommend a good cultural center with cheap tickets!) I have to admit, I didn't catch many words in the singing, but I did catch the elevated levels of emotion. I also was enthralled by the dancing. Both the man and the woman were stomping and stepping with such precision and passion that I couldn't take my eyes off them.

After the action packed day we walked back to the bus station in a monsoon. I kid you not, it POURED to the point that there were currents of water rushing through the streets. Theresa and Alicia popped into a store to buy a change of socks (I had packed one in a moment of temporary genius) and a towel to dry our feet with. We made it almost back to the bus station when the rain proved too much and we hid out in a Pizza Hut to eat and wait it out.

When we got on the bus I removed my soaking shoes and put on the dry socks and settled in for a 6 hour ride back. We jam-packed our day in Sevilla, but it was nice. I would love to go back sometime when it isn't raining and stay for a few days. On our walking tour we ended up in the labyrinth of the Barrio Santa Cruz. Thank God Theresa is an expert map-reader, because I would have ended up so lost in that maze. What I did notice while she lead the way was there were hostels abound there. I would love to stay in one and really explore the city and that neighborhood in particular.

Now I have three more days of vacation left and to be honest I haven't thought about school once. I should probably crack open my teacher's editions and see what I will be getting back into, but for now I will continue to rejoice in doing nothing.