La Bamba and the Yellow Submarine

Monday, March 24th

I had a great weekend in Aranda, so keep your eyes open for that blog. As for Monday, I had a really good day. I just hung out and relaxed. Did my weekly cleaning. Talked to my sister and boyfriend Applied for another teaching job. And went to my Spanish class at night. Other than that? Nothing. I hope you all had wonderful Mondays!

Tuesday, March 25th

On Tuesday, I had class where we practiced vocabulary that has to do with fruit, like smoothie, fruit salad, lemonade, juice, etc. There is a song that goes with those vocabulary words and it's actually to that one tune, ba da da da da bum bum, ba da da da da bum bum...ba da bum bum, etc. Can't think of the actual song though, so if you know it tell me because it's driving me crazy. *Thanks to my boyfriend, I found it! It's La Bamba. Here you go:

Anyway, hearing the students sing that song and the other ones is SO cute, especially when they have them completely down. So adorable! I will say though that they get in my head all of the time and I wake up in the morning singing "Fruit salad, jelly. I like juice, I like jelly, lemonade, too. I do. I do. I do. I do." It's pretty entertaining I guess, but it can also be enough sometime. Anyway, I had another restless science class. This class is so great in English, but lately they just have not been feeling science. Anyway, they are learning about the buildings in a town and that's about it. Also, in that particular class, there plants weren't doing so hot so we replanted them. Ha. In the afternoon, I had a kindergarten class, where I got to tell the students that Mafalda (the comic from Argentina) sent me an e-mail to tell me that she loved The Beatles and the song Yellow Submarine. Then, we listened to some Beatles' songs and then they colored a yellow submarine.

After school, I had the language exchange with Esther. Every week, it seems less and less like a language exchange and more just like friends talking. She is so great and I really hope that the friendship that we have formed lasts a lifetime. I love just sitting and talking with her. Anyway, once I got home, I watched How I Met Your Mother and, as you might know, I just started watching the series in January and watched all the way up until the recent episodes and it ends for good next week. Crazy. Anyway, I know that really doesn't matter, it's just a T.V. show. Anyway, what does matter is that I made a last minute decision to travel this weekend again, ha. Karin has a friend that is visiting and they are going to Cordoba this weekend and she asked if I wanted to come with and my first reaction was "no," but then I figure "Why the heck not?" I definitely will be traveling muchísimo in the next few months, but it should be fun and it's one more place that I am going in Spain that I wouldn't think I would get to. There are still SO many places that I would love to go, but it just can't happen, but instead of staying home this weekend, I figured that I might as well travel while I have someone to travel with. :) So it should be fun. We did some of that planning at night and we also bought tickets to a soccer game that will be happening next weekend. I am definitely spending quite a bit of money now, but I think I have come to the realization that my time is quickly dwindling down (which isn't a bad thing), but that I need to take advantage of the time I have left. :) Speaking of the time being almost up is it weird to be counting down by toilet paper and dish soap? Like, we just bought a bottle of dish soap and I know it will last for the rest of the time that I have hear. And I bought a package of toilet paper that should also last me the rest of my time here. Crazy! I only have five rolls left! I can't imagine how close it will be to coming home once I'm on the last roll! Ha, anyway, that's that.

Wednesday, March 27th

On Wednesday at school we once again learned about fruit salad through song. Ha. And in my science classes, we practiced the buildings in a town and we went over recycling. The students are learning/reviewing the products that go in each recycling bin. For example, glass goes in the green bin, plastic in the yellow, paper in the blue, and waste in the grey bin. I think our teachers find it strange that there is no national color system in the U.S. I feel like we either don't sort it, look at the pictures on the bins, or don't recycle at all. Anyway, after breakfast, I went to a kindergarten class where the students got to color a Beatles coloring page. Also, they listened to The Beatles as they worked so I obviously got to listen to the good music, too. Also, I'm an idiot and didn't know that The Beatles sung Twist and Shout! Love that song and this movie clip!

Also, since Mafalda is from Argentina, the kindergarten class is learning about everything Argentine, which includes the tango. I made the "mistake" of telling the teacher that I know the basic steps to the tango, so now I get to teaching the kindergartners them sometime. Ha. It actually should be really fun, but I also have to figure out how to teach it to a bunch of five year olds. Also, I realized that I technically know the American tango (or maybe it's the ballroom tango) (or maybe those two are synonymous). Bottom line, I don't know the Argentine tango, but hopefully that doesn't matter. :)

After lunch, I had another science class where we read an animal book, looked at our growing plants (mine is winning:) ), reviewed recycling with them, and I had to explain what miners, farmers, and fishermen are. It seems like a daunting task, but picture drawing is a miracle worker! And it's a good thing that I am a semi-decent drawer. :) I mean, I have mastered the stick person! For the last class of the afternoon, I was late because one of the teachers was gone from school and since there are no substitute teachers here, I had to stay with the class I had just had for longer until someone showed up to take over. The whole no substitute thing is pretty frustrating for the teachers, I can see. I mean, I know that in the U.S. sometimes other teachers have to stand in for a class, but almost never does that happen for a whole day's worth of classes. Also, one of the teachers recently got married and she is currently on her honeymoon right now and instead of hiring a leave-of-absence teacher, the kindergartners are just not having English. It's a pretty strange concept for me, but at least Julia and I pass through all of the kindergarten classes once a week so they are still getting some exposure. When I finally got to the last class of the day, we helped them make comecocos, also known as a cootie catcher or paper fortune teller, also comecocos in Spanish means Pacman and literally translates as "coconut-eater." Anyway, we helped them make those and that was that. :)

Our growing bean plants. :)

After school, I usually have private lessons, but I cancelled them in order to go to a cooking class with the Spanish class that I have been taking. So, after school, I went home, relaxed for a little bit, and then left for the cooking class. At the cooking class, we made fidueá, escalivada, and quesada. To be honest, the food was just okay, but the company was really fun. Karin and I met new people and practiced Spanish and we did learn to make some of the stuff, but to be honest, I would only ever actually make the dessert. It was good and the recipe was super easy. As for the entreé, it wasn't anything special and it had seafood in it, which I'm not a huge fan of. Plus seeing a bunch of shrimp head grinded up and put into it kind of makes you lose your appetite, too. Ha, anyway below are some pictures from the class. Enjoy!

Escalivada

Fidueá

Quesada

Thursday, March 27th

On Thursday, we did more fruit salad stuff and the students did some activities in their workbooks. We also played memory with all of the vocabulary words from this unit and we should be finishing the unit next week. In Science, we worked on the buildings that are in town and we did a pretty fun activity (well, I thought it was fun). I drew a town on the board and then drew little people that were saying stuff like "I like to read books." Then, the students had to decide where that person needed to go in town and give them directions to get there. See picture. :)

The funny thing, too, is that I had a student ask why only one person had clothes on. HA! He asked "Are all the rest naked?" Haha, no, I just got lazy. :) Anyway, in the afternoon, we had the drama workout and the group put on the play. It went well again and we only have two more weeks left of those, which also means two weeks left until Spring break! :) Then, after school, I had private lessons. I learned more about English in the lessons. One of the boys is learning about adjective order at school so like this order:

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
General opinion	Specific opinion	Size	Shape	Age	Color	Nationality	Material

I guess I don't really think about that. It's so natural that I couldn't have even told you what the rule was. So we wouldn't say "We have a yellow big truck." We say: "We have a big yellow truck." Crazy. Anyway, after all my lessons, I came home, made dinner, and worked on Spring break stuff. I doubled checked all of my flight reservations and bought a few bus tickets that I needed to. I just got some more of my ducks in a row. Then, I packed a little bit for Cordoba. Then, bed, of course! :) How was your Thursday?!

Friday, March 28th

Hello all, it's Friday and I'm getting ready to leave for Cordoba in about 10-15 minutes. So this is going to be quick. I woke up early this morning and finished packing. Then, I went to school and had two classes. A kindergarten class, where we played, and an English class where we did what else then some fruit salad workbook pages. Ha. And once again, I must say it's adorable hearing them sing the songs. Then, I was supposed to have the teacher's class today, but once again most of the teachers had meetings (which I completely understand!), so I didn't have class, but I did stay and talked with Esther and Laura about teaching a foreign language and best practices and I answered all of their doubts that they have about English so far. So it was good and nice to talk to them about teaching in general. Then, I came home, made lunch, skyped my boyfriend and quickly finished up this blog. :) And now I am heading out the door to go catch the bus to Cordoba. :) It should be a great weekend and I'll have a lot to blog about on Monday. I still have to blog about Aranda. So stay tuned for an Aranda and Cordoba blog sometime next week. :) Have an amazing weekend! I will talk to you soon. :)