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...