ahhh! to be a teacher...

Teaching is interesting, to say the least. My first unofficial classes here in Spain were for a second job in which I am the "main" teacher. I, in the usual manner that I do things, arrived to class unprepared but not altogether clueless. I knew that, because it was the first week, I could just chat with the students while trying to get to know them and determine their levels in English. The academy where I work has just opened, and there are about 4 teachers that cycle between the different groups of students every couple of weeks. We do this so that they can grow accustomed to different accents: U.S. (me), Irish, Russian-American. I teach a couple of classes with 11 year-olds and some with 9 year-olds, but others with kids between 4-7. Those are the worst. I am totally inexperienced with children, for those who don´t know already, and got torn apart quickly. pero bueno, 3 weeks along and I am learning to barter, threaten, and play with them better. I am also getting accustomed to making lesson plans before each class and recognizing the needs of different students.

All of the preliminary obligations of moving to a new country are finally over. I now have my bank account and debit card, library card, health insurance card, a blackberry (someone was kind enough to lend me one for the year), and finally a place to call my own!!

I took a while, but after too much deliberation, I just said F-it and moved into a place that I thought would be cool. The flat is in the center of the city, on one of the main streets, on the second floor of a classic looking European building. It's 5 minutes away from the beach and bars and restaurants, and I'm pretty excited to live there for the next 7 months. My roomies are two Spanish guys, one a sound technician and the other a light technician, which is pretty cool, and they seem laid back. One plays guitar and I think that we will all have things in common. It will be great for my spanish as I've been talking too much english with the woman I'm living with now. It's just too hard to stick to spanish right now when i want to tell a story, so I end up just switching to English. I won't be able to do that with these guys, though. I don't think, at least.