It´s a slow day in the colegio today and even tho we are having fun in class watching the grinch and reading a spanglish version of "Twas the night before christmas" I really don´t have that much to report on. However, don´t fret my pets!! When have you EVER known me to be at a loss for words? There is plenty that I can talk about. The one thing that I´ve been thinking about lately: tall, guapo spanish men with dark hair and their cute little accents when they speak english. They all remind me of Enrique Inglesias and to quote the very man himself "Baby, I like it!!" I´m just saying that if there is anything hotter than an attractive, REALLY tall, dark haired man talking to me, it´s an attractive, REALLY tall, dark haired man talking to me with a spanish accent. Now where Oh where can I find myself one of those??? I feel really bad, but I have a confession to make: When attractive, REALLY tall, dark haired men speak to me here in spanish I pretend like I don´t understand anything they are saying just so they have to speak to me in english. I know, it sounds bad and really i feel horrible. BUT not horrible enough to stop pretending :) I´ve been here for about 4 months now and although I sound like a 4 year old when I speak in Spanish I really do understand most of everything that people say to me as long as they are speaking clearly and not at NASCAR speed. There is even a man that I work with that is just the cutest thing ever. And although I don´t feel the need for anything other than a friendship from him, he still thinks I have no idea what is going on when he speaks in spanish and then he switches over to english so I understand. hahaha sshhhhh, it´ll be our secret. I feel like it´s gone too far anyway. He automatically assumes that I don´t speak spanish and speaks to me in the cutest freakin spanish accent I have ever heard. Even the other day I slipped up and answered him when he said something to me in spanish and he looked excited and said "you understand?!?" my response: "no, I just guessed, sorry". I can´t help it, you should hear the way they speak english over here. Not everyone sounds cute when they speak english tho. Some of them sounds like they have an orange in their mouth. It´s just aweful. But the good ones? wheeeww. There is only one thing I can say about them...
"BABY I LIKE IT!!"
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
it´s beginning to look a lot like Navidad en mi colegio!!
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| paz en la tierra= peace on earth |
Sunday, December 12, 2010
No thanks, LSAT this one out
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| LOVE |
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Made it the whole time in Brussels without seeing a single sprout
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| pretty as a christmas card :) |
Feliz Compleanos a BRENNA!!!!
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| gingerbread buildings in Brugges!! |
AmsterDAAAAMMMMMM
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| Winterland Amsterdam '10 |
This is how we do it. our hands are in the air, wavin' from here to there
OOOO hey girl hey. Yet another international Thanksgiving in my life. Still nothing close to the amazing times I have with my family and friends back home, but it was as close as it could get. My first thanksgiving celebrated abroad was 2 years ago in Ireland. We had a bitchin good time on the emrald isle where we rented out the local party house and got rowdy with about 100 of closest and not so close international friends. Good food, good people, great black out. I will be the first to tell you that during that irish thanksgiving I started drinking around 8 AM, puked on the way to my 9AM class, and then rallied afterwards with more booze. God, how great it would be to be young again... Anyway, I had some really great friends over there and I blacked out with them around 2 in the afternoon and somehow managed to party until about midnight that night without remembering a single thing. Those were the wild days, I'm tellin ya! So things were different for this international thanksgiving although the company was argueably just as amazing. Although there were not as many amigos to celebrate with, the quality was outrageous. It amazes me every single time I think about how incredible my friends are over here in Espanya. I have somehow been gifted the right to have the most genuine, loyal, and all around greatest people in the world as my very spontaneous yet wonderful friends. You don't fully understand how it happens until you are in the situation, but somehow one day you are living in a country minding your own business and the next you move to a different country without friends or family and are suddenly closest to complete strangers. You share amazing life experiences and live extraordinary lives abroad with complete strangers that somehow over night turn into your closest friends and confidants. Theresa, Lisa, Callie, Rio, and Stanek were present during our wonderful thanksgiving abroad and I need to confess that I am so thankful for them being in my life here. Without them I am not sure just how functional I would be (Also mad props to James for setting me up with such amazing people in spain!!!). They were strangers to me as of August and now I can't see my life without them. They mean the world to me and I can't wait to see how much closer our friendships grow over time :) My spanish family was also in attendance. And by that I mean my absolutely fabulous co-worker, Belen. I work at a school that I am completely in love with (pretty sure I've said that before...about a million times) and the teachers there are just perfect. Almost none of them speak english but all of them are making incredible efforts to communicate with me. It's an incredible blessing to absolutely love what you are doing with your life every single day. Well anyway, Belen is one of those amazing teachers at my school that I have been growing closer to as the school year progresses. She has let me into her home and I finally had the chance to pay the favor back to her. I don't know if it's lame on my part to say that my closest spanish friend that I have made is another teacher at my school who is just a bit my senior or if it just means she is wicked cool (no seriously, she is) but she's great. She brought her niece with her (slowly I'm planning on working my way into her family, meeting each member one by one!) and they celebrated their first american thanksgiving with us. We had the usual spread: green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, stuffing, mashed potatoes, etc. HOWEVER, due to the lacking demand of huge turkeys at the end of November, we couldn't find one good enough in time and settled on chickens. Surprisingly, I didn't really notice the difference. Could have been all the wine, but they tasted just as good as turkey tastes every year :) After quite a few bottles of wine, a bunch of photos taken, an uncountable number of laughs, and of course the cha cha slide, the night came to a close. We also had some British guests over as well and I am hoping they enjoyed their first american thanksgiving as well. All in all it was a spectacular evening and I can't believe how great my friends are over here. Not exactly the same as spending with my family, but it was a nice and very much appreciated substitution :) Needless to say I am a little girl with A LOT to be thankful for :) :) :)
<3
<3
Monday, November 29, 2010
you´re not supposed to draw a huge penis on the blackboard?? ooops...
No, ladies and gentlemen; I did not take a picture of it. Sorry. I figured it was weird enough to be standing in front of a class full of 16 year olds and their raging hormones with a great big knob on the board and opted to not draw more attention to the fact that their teacher had just drawn a HUGE DONG in class. Let me paint you the picture. Sit back. Relax. Just take this in...
Twas the week of exams and all through the school
all the students were buzzing about the tests being uncool.
The teachers were frazzled with what to ask
In hopes their students would all pass.
The students were struggling with the information in their heads
with visions of past lectures and of what their teachers have said.
And Javi and Paco were running about
while Paula and Maria were talking at a shout.
When out in the hall there arose such a clatter
and the students ran to the door to see what was the matter.
Down the hall they saw what was coming
it was their favorite teacher, Brenna, who was late and running.
Finally she entered, loud and out of breath
while the students filed back to their orderly desks.
All the other teachers made them be quiet to prepare
so Brenna made it a point to bring the fun there.
Down the class sat, eager to play
listening closely to what Brenna would say.
Would it be important or fun or interesting or boring?
Brenna made sure the lesson was fun to keep them from snoring.
It was the week of Thanksgiving and the students were to learn the story
About pilgrims and the new world and all of its glory.
Brenna drew a map of the U.S. although not the best drawer in the world,
It had a vague resemblance of America except Maine looked a bit curled.
As she was drawing a student asked her a question
she turned to asnwer while drawing as to not disturb the session.
When out of nowhere there was a big uproar with laughter
Brenna turned back to the board to see what was the matter.
She had a sneaking suspicion that it would be something quite heinous.
But when she looked she discovered Florida looked like a huge penis.
Yep. Pulled straight out of an SNL plot. Not only did it look like a giant penis, it was drawn so well that I couldn´t have done it better if I had been looking while I was drawing it. My job consists of either acting things out or drawing things on the board at all times so the students keep their attention at me and understand what I am saying but I think I´m going to try to stay away from drawing things on the boad for the next few days. Possibly weeks. I think I am going to have to start paying closer attention to what I am drawing as well. i.e.: Look at the flipping board when I´m drawing something. Now, with all that aside I will tell you that not only do 16 year olds find a large wang on the board absolutely hilarious, it turns out that 23 year olds do as well. The class was laughing almost as hard as the teacher was. That´s right, snorting and all. I was a mess. You know when you see something inappropriate and you know you shouldn´t laugh, making it that much funnier? You know, like seeing someone trip at a funeral or accidentally farting when they were sneezing. Well it was one of those. The kids were laughing, the other teacher in the back of the room was laughing and there I was: immobalized by hysterical laughter. It was pitiful, really. THANK GOD the other teacher was one of the cool ones or I might have found myself in a bit of trouble.
Twas the week of exams and all through the school
all the students were buzzing about the tests being uncool.
The teachers were frazzled with what to ask
In hopes their students would all pass.
The students were struggling with the information in their heads
with visions of past lectures and of what their teachers have said.
And Javi and Paco were running about
while Paula and Maria were talking at a shout.
When out in the hall there arose such a clatter
and the students ran to the door to see what was the matter.
Down the hall they saw what was coming
it was their favorite teacher, Brenna, who was late and running.
Finally she entered, loud and out of breath
while the students filed back to their orderly desks.
All the other teachers made them be quiet to prepare
so Brenna made it a point to bring the fun there.
Down the class sat, eager to play
listening closely to what Brenna would say.
Would it be important or fun or interesting or boring?
Brenna made sure the lesson was fun to keep them from snoring.
It was the week of Thanksgiving and the students were to learn the story
About pilgrims and the new world and all of its glory.
Brenna drew a map of the U.S. although not the best drawer in the world,
It had a vague resemblance of America except Maine looked a bit curled.
As she was drawing a student asked her a question
she turned to asnwer while drawing as to not disturb the session.
When out of nowhere there was a big uproar with laughter
Brenna turned back to the board to see what was the matter.
She had a sneaking suspicion that it would be something quite heinous.
But when she looked she discovered Florida looked like a huge penis.
Yep. Pulled straight out of an SNL plot. Not only did it look like a giant penis, it was drawn so well that I couldn´t have done it better if I had been looking while I was drawing it. My job consists of either acting things out or drawing things on the board at all times so the students keep their attention at me and understand what I am saying but I think I´m going to try to stay away from drawing things on the boad for the next few days. Possibly weeks. I think I am going to have to start paying closer attention to what I am drawing as well. i.e.: Look at the flipping board when I´m drawing something. Now, with all that aside I will tell you that not only do 16 year olds find a large wang on the board absolutely hilarious, it turns out that 23 year olds do as well. The class was laughing almost as hard as the teacher was. That´s right, snorting and all. I was a mess. You know when you see something inappropriate and you know you shouldn´t laugh, making it that much funnier? You know, like seeing someone trip at a funeral or accidentally farting when they were sneezing. Well it was one of those. The kids were laughing, the other teacher in the back of the room was laughing and there I was: immobalized by hysterical laughter. It was pitiful, really. THANK GOD the other teacher was one of the cool ones or I might have found myself in a bit of trouble.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
feelin good, feelin great, feelin good...how are you?!?
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| I saw HARRY POTTER this weekend!!! :D |
GGAAAAAHHHHHH holy moly yet another week has gone flying by without so much as a breath, blink, or new blog. I'm telling you, I don't know how or why it is happening, but time is just FLYING by so quickly I don't know what to do with myself! I have been enjoying every single second of it but it turns out when you pack your day busy with teaching, school work, learning a new language, and trying to hold a healthy social life together, you find it difficult to take a step back, take a deep breathe in and enjoy the moment you are in. I'm so busy that I think I am constantly thinking about what is next, not how much fun I'm actually having in that moment. I know you guys are absolutely sick of me saying this; but life here is sooo perfect :) Teaching english to my kids every day is getting more and more rewarding. I've been teaching them for 2 months now and I'm actually already starting to see the fruits of my labor. Kids that have failed english classes in the past are not only picking up a stronger vocabulary bank, they are forming whole sentences and are really trying to express their ideas to me COMPLETELY in english!! You have no idea how good that feeling is unless you are in this field, but it's kind of like when you take the training wheels off of your child's bike and spend weeks with your child teaching them how to ride that bike and holding it while running behind them so they don't fall and then all of the sudden one day you let go of their bike and they ride it all on their own. It's amazing. Perfect. Love it. I am also learning a whole lot about my culture by having to teach it to them. Hey Americans: can you tell me the history of thanksgiving?? yeah, up until last week I couldn't tell it either. BUT I did some major research, picked out the important/interesting things and now not only can I tell it to you, but my kids can too. Pretty cool, huh? You know what else is pretty cool?? Having me as a teacher :) Last week I taught some of my classes American slang. They now can say things like "Yo, bro, SUP?!?" and "Hey, chick. Did you catch that flick last week?" "rock on, brah. it was so cool". I even showed them how to hit the rock and high five. All I'm saying is: if there was a cool contest going on between all the schools that are included in our masters program, it wouldn't even be fair. My ninos would DESTROY the chumps from the other colegios. Needless to say my week rocked out last week and I spent the weekend at the Mexican festival around Plaza de Espanya, saw the newest Harry Potter flick (and finally had my fix of movie theater popcorn), and planning out this week's classes. I teach from 6th grade to high schoolers so we have some major skills and ability differences along the way but it's cool to see all of them progress. AND, to my surprise, the little kids are picking up english just as fast as the older ones. Makes my life just that much easier, right?!?! HOLLER!! Living the good life over here, y'all. If I were you I would seriously consider quitting all of your jobs, schools, and whatever else you are doing and come join me in paradise...ASAP :)
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Eat, Pray, Love? More like Complain, Whine, Talk about yourself.
Fans of the book Eat. Pray. Love. beware: you're not going to take kindly to this blog. AT ALL. Where to begin, where to begin...
Well, let's just first say that it doesn't always take horrible tragedy like not being satisfied with your marriage to decide to enlighten oneself. I would just like to point out that she had money, a nice house, great job, and a wonderful husband and she still wasn't happy. Fine, but was it REALLY necessary for her to flip the hell out and make a mountain out of a mole hill??? Yeah, I didn't think so either. Next, I get it, you're good looking. Fantastic, but do you really need to remind the reader about it every 15 pages? With your hot and steamy affairs with men half your age, which just for the record, doesn't speak very highly of you, just that the younger men liked that you either had more money and power than they did or that you were the exotic tourist that was only going to be in town for a limited time. Therefore: no long term commitment needed. I know what all of you are thinking, leave it to me to be the one to tear apart a nice chick-flick type book, but I'm being serious here, read it again! This time look at it from the correct point of view: she's going on an adventure to better herself, then she's writing a book to brag about it, and in between she's building herself up by her "amazing" romances, great food, and epic journey along the way. Holy crap, I'm so over it... I know, I sound bitter, and to be honest with you: it's only because I am. She was getting paid to make a life changing journey around the world. And why do I find myself thinking that sounds familiar?? OOOhhhh yeaaaahhhh...because I'm doing the same thing right now. Where's my book deal? Where is my movie offer? Why isn't Julia Roberts chomping at the bit to play me? I write my blogs so that my family and friends can keep up with my year abroad, not to brag about all the great times I'm having or the important life lessons I learn along the way. However, after reading this God awful book I'm thinking that I should start. The book got amazing reviews; I'm thinking that my book would have to get just as many. And probably a lot more not so great ones as well :) BUT, I'm totally okay with that. My life includes self realization, epic journeys around the world, and exotic eperiences. I, however, have a lot more drinking, wild times, and nudity along the way. I'm no longer in a long term or long distance relationship and I think I have a clear enough head to write about my shennanigans in a far away country. Don't get me wrong, I realize that my blogs aren't the funniest things you will ever read. But I can assure you with my rediculous and true tales and the help of a creative genius (my sister, obviously) I am fairly confident that we can turn my one perfect year abroad into the book that Eat. Pray. Love. was supposed to be.
On a completely different note, My life is amazing. I am the exotic blonde in Madrid looking for a good time. Handsome men and good food are in my day to day life and on top of everything else...I found out a little bit more about the life I would like to have and exactly how to reach it. LIFE IS AMAZING. Eat your heart out, Elizabeth Gilbert <3
Well, let's just first say that it doesn't always take horrible tragedy like not being satisfied with your marriage to decide to enlighten oneself. I would just like to point out that she had money, a nice house, great job, and a wonderful husband and she still wasn't happy. Fine, but was it REALLY necessary for her to flip the hell out and make a mountain out of a mole hill??? Yeah, I didn't think so either. Next, I get it, you're good looking. Fantastic, but do you really need to remind the reader about it every 15 pages? With your hot and steamy affairs with men half your age, which just for the record, doesn't speak very highly of you, just that the younger men liked that you either had more money and power than they did or that you were the exotic tourist that was only going to be in town for a limited time. Therefore: no long term commitment needed. I know what all of you are thinking, leave it to me to be the one to tear apart a nice chick-flick type book, but I'm being serious here, read it again! This time look at it from the correct point of view: she's going on an adventure to better herself, then she's writing a book to brag about it, and in between she's building herself up by her "amazing" romances, great food, and epic journey along the way. Holy crap, I'm so over it... I know, I sound bitter, and to be honest with you: it's only because I am. She was getting paid to make a life changing journey around the world. And why do I find myself thinking that sounds familiar?? OOOhhhh yeaaaahhhh...because I'm doing the same thing right now. Where's my book deal? Where is my movie offer? Why isn't Julia Roberts chomping at the bit to play me? I write my blogs so that my family and friends can keep up with my year abroad, not to brag about all the great times I'm having or the important life lessons I learn along the way. However, after reading this God awful book I'm thinking that I should start. The book got amazing reviews; I'm thinking that my book would have to get just as many. And probably a lot more not so great ones as well :) BUT, I'm totally okay with that. My life includes self realization, epic journeys around the world, and exotic eperiences. I, however, have a lot more drinking, wild times, and nudity along the way. I'm no longer in a long term or long distance relationship and I think I have a clear enough head to write about my shennanigans in a far away country. Don't get me wrong, I realize that my blogs aren't the funniest things you will ever read. But I can assure you with my rediculous and true tales and the help of a creative genius (my sister, obviously) I am fairly confident that we can turn my one perfect year abroad into the book that Eat. Pray. Love. was supposed to be.
On a completely different note, My life is amazing. I am the exotic blonde in Madrid looking for a good time. Handsome men and good food are in my day to day life and on top of everything else...I found out a little bit more about the life I would like to have and exactly how to reach it. LIFE IS AMAZING. Eat your heart out, Elizabeth Gilbert <3
Im your biggest fan I'll follow you until you love me...
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| James and I at GAGA!! |
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| The only other people dressed up at the concert. They were from Germany and were wearing liederhosen...really. |
The weekend came and I caught a plane to Frankfurt and then on to Budapest to meet up with my amazing friend, James. When I first got there we immediately head out for food and sightseeing. First stop: Langos. Langos is BY FAR the greatest thing that I have ever put in my mouth. Its like a solid elephant ear with sour cream and cheese on top. Don't worry Ohio, I wrote down a bomb recipe for it and will be bringing it home for the Christmas :) Seriously, its like a fried up cloud with presents on top. A masterpiece, really. So after a little taste of heaven, we walked to the center of the city where almost every shop in the city was closed (at 6pm , BIIIG difference from Madrid) and saw basically all that the city center had to offer. Of course we took some crazy pics along the way (direct your attention to facebook for those!) and had a really great time. James is one of those friends that I can go a while without seeing and when we finally get around to a play date we pick up right where we left off. And that is exactly what we did. That night we went back to his house and started drinking. Heavily. We somehow made it out, had some great craic, and then caught the bus back to his house. The next day we went out in the DAYLIGHT to get some great pictures and see more of the city. After all the fun to be had in one morning was up, we came home, showered, and dressed for GAGA. Now for those that know me, are aware that Lady gaga isn't very high on my music play list....BUT GAGA was AMAZING!!! Us, being two of the very few Americans in the crowd were two of about 5 people that dressed up for the concert. We're Americans, it's in our DNA to dress up at any chance we can :) After the concert we went to what I can only imagine to be the ONLY gay club in commie Hungary and met the most amazing tranny I have ever seen in my whole life. She was about 6'6" and was wearing 5 inch heels, a home made GAGA outfit with mask and all and was absolutely glorious in all of her wonder. Obviously we quickly made friends with her, grabbed a drink, and started getting down on the dance floor. When we showed up to the bar we were no joke the only two people on the dance floor. When we left, we had our very own groupies, people buying us drinks, and a dance floor packed wall to wall. You're welcome Budapest :) James and I were discussing the idea of me moving to Budapest with him next year but I have to say, if we created that much chaos in one night I'm not sure if Budapest could handle the 2 of us tehre together for a whole year. It could either be epic or fatal...or both. All in all we had SUCH an amazing time together in a pretty kick ass city but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I wasn't ready to come back to the sunshine and smiling faces of Madrid. I love it here, have I mentioned that yet? Oh, I did?? Okay, just making sure :) I'm wicked impressed with ourselves tho, not many people can say they went and saw a Lady GaGa concert...in Budapest. Random? yes. Glorious?? HELL YES!! Life win.
ali took Madrid like a tornado made of teeth, fingernails, and booze
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| Ali and I at Retiro :) |
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Everyday is a start of something beautiful.
So today was just another day in paradise and my kids were great today. Even the kids that have a hard time paying attention: GREAT. I have decided that holidays aren't just around to give people an excuse to eat in excess and have parties, they are here to give teachers a reason to be excited for lesson planning. My kids are eating up halloween classes like little american kids eat up nasty candy corn. We have been singing and dancing and watching movies all week and they actually like it. The kids that act too cool for school STILL were dancing the cha cha slide and singing the addams family theme song with me. HOLLA!! It's a bit exhausting for me to always be a flaming ball of energy at school but I have come to the overwhelming conclusion that if I stay busy, the kids stay busy. If I'm having fun, the kids are having fun. If I am willing to act like a complete idiot, the kids are willing to act like complete idiots as well. fan-freakin-tastic. I have also just talked to an old roommate from Ireland and we have decided to have a reunion in Barcelona in a few weeks and i am soooooooo excited to see him! I feel like it's been forever! So, looking at my schedule, I am going to be a VERY busy bee all the way thru the new year. Every day I leave my house around 7 or 8 depending on the day and come home around 10. The weekends are the only times I really don't have things scheduled...until now. This weekend crazy Ali Gibbs is coming for halloween so clearly I wont be getting any sleep for the next 3 days. Next weekend I'll be visiting the dashing James Harrell III in Budapest, the following week I'm going to Barcelona with Brian, the following weekend is Thanksgiving. That concludes November and starts crazy December. The first weekend we'll be going ot Amsterdam and then heading down to Germany to celebrate my birthday, the following weekend I am taking the LSAT and the weekend after tha tis my last weekend in Madrid because the following Wednesday I'll be getting on a plane back to the good ol' USof A. Holy crap, I'm a bit tugged out just thinking about it but I serisously can't wait for all the crazy escapades to come! Not to mention all the amazing people I'll be meeting along the way. After meeting people at random around the world I'm starting to realize that things aren't really random at all. I think you meet everyone in your life to serve a purpose. Maybe you don't know exactly what it is at first, but all things come back around. So, like I said before, everyday is a start of something beautiful and I'm coming to the point now where I literally can't wait to wake up to start a new day. gaaaahhhhhh I LOVE MY LIFE!!!
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
It finally happened. CRAZY metro ride
So, remember when I said I had a great weekend and on Monday, after a great day I predicted that this week was going to be nothing short of the bees' knees?? lies. all poppycock nonsense. I woke up yesterday with a MASSIVE cold and felt under the weather all day teaching. I felt sooo bad for the kids, how are they supposed to be excited to learn when their teacher is being a huge crabby patty?? my bad. So this morning is my waayyy early morning and I woke up feeling less than par and headed for the metro ride to school. Everything was business as usual on the yellow line for exactly 2 stops. And then it happened. I felt a HUGE tug of my hair, whiplash, and then I was on my ass. What. The. Heck. After I realized I wasn't dreaming I looked over to see a man with a fist full of my hair siezing on the ground next to me. I guess on the way down he reached out to try to catch himself and got a monster grip on my blonde locks. He had an episode for about 3 minutes which seemed like about 4 lifetimes with my hair in a horrible death grip and NOBODY would help. They all stepped about 2 steps back and watched as this man literally looked like he was dying and all i could do was hold his head so it wouldn't hit the ground and try to keep from freaking the F out. He finally came to and sat up clearly not knowing where he was. Someone eventually pulled the E-brake and we were able to get him off the metro and my hair was given back to the proper owner. I was about 5 minutes late to class and told the teacher I work with all about it. her response?? "yeah, it was the first time but it wont be the last, the metro is very unpredictable". 2 things with that statement caught my attention. 1-SHE WASN'T SURPRISED BY MY STORY!! like that shit happens every day or something. 2-her first sentence implied that someone will have an episode on the metro and pull me down by my hair again but her second sentence told me that the metro was unpredictable. A bit of a contradiction, dontcha think??? Either way this morning was mad crazy. HOWEVER, since it's the week of halloween I shared a bunch of pictures with them as well as songs and movie clips from halloween in the US. I then taught them the monster mash and "casper" cha cha slide. For today, I was more popular than the tooth fairy with these kids. The bad thing?? they REALLY liked the cha cha slide, i have a feeling that today isn't the last time we'll be doing that one. Clearly shot myself in the foot there.
Monday, October 25, 2010
it's a BEAUTIFUL day in the Barrio :D:D:D
Drink. It. Up, y'all! It's officially fall and it feels soooo good!! The leaves are turning, the buckeyes are falling and the temperature is finally bearable and I am loving every minute of it! Not like I haven't been completely in love with my time here yet, but I do believe it just got a bit better. Also, as a complete side note: when you look on my facebook and it says "my life couldn't get any better, i'm completely in love" I am clearly talking about Spain, people!! You all know me, and my incapability of actually being in love with someone outside the Flynn clan. DOOIIIII!! so sick of explaining to people that one to y'all... AAANNNYYYYwho...it's Halloween week at school and it's FANTASTIC!! i love halloween and I am soo lucky that my kids love it just as much. We worked all day today on all things halloween and it really makes me want to go back to costume parties in Mrs. DiGrossi's 4th grade class. I, however, am in charge and I will say, it's not as good but it's pretty flippin close :) There really isn't a whole lot to talk about today, I surprising didn't get into too many shennanigans. Woke up, went to work, had a fab day at school (like always!!) went to my private lesson I teach at Dunkin Donuts (YEESSS, i picked the location...jealous??) and then learned just a bit more in my spanish class this evening. It is now 11pm, I still have a bit of planning to do and it looks like i'll be hitting the sheets before Midnight. GAAHHH what a great Monday, people! This is going to be a great week, I can already feel it. :)
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Just livin. L-I-V-I-N.
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| 6 bottles of wine, bottle of vodka, 40 of beer, and mixers. |
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Tengo el mundo en mi clase de espanyol
Getting settled back into the fast pace of Madrid living is way easier than I thought and I still can’t believe how great things are here. The only problem is that everything is going by so quickly!! I feel like I am just living someone else’s crazy dream and I’m just waiting for them to wake up and burst my spanish bubble. But, in the mean time, I plan on enjoying this crazy time I call life. I went for it and finally bought my ticket to Budapest and will be there for the first long weekend in November. Seriously, I can’t wait to get some QT with my James :) I’m seriously so excited for this weekend that I can barely stand it! The only thing getting me by is knowing that time is flying and it will get here before I know it!! I also was just informed that my crazy DFW (down for whatever) lax friend from college will be in Madrid with me for the weekend of Halloween. AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!! Before I know it we’ll be celebrating American Thanksgiving and then I’ll be sailing thru the skies on a plane home to be reconnected with my heart <3 in Ohio. I feel like I should be writing a book on how amazing things are going right now but I wouldn’t be doing life justice because I wouldn’t be able to squeeze all my amazing memories into just one book! Life is good ladies and fellas, life is reeeaaaallll good. I’m slowly learning my way thru the spanish language and my classes are going pretty well. I am the only girl in the class but it’s great because I have 5 guys in there with me from all over the world. There guys are from Poland, England, South Korea, Italy, and a crazy Dutch guy from the Netherlands. I say crazy because I mean he is soo freaking funny. He has a house in Holland that he drives to every once in a while and we have already decided that I’ll be in attendance for the next road trip! hahaha, he seriously has no idea what he is getting himself into but I’m sure we’ll have a good time. On top of that our teacher is a Spanish guy (obviously!) so we represent 7 countries and you should hear our conversations we have with each other during our after class beers that we all get together in Sol. If I could just work and go to Spanish classes I would have it so made over here. I am not a huge fan of my masters classes only because they are about 1.5 hours away and they are 4.5 hours long so it’s about a 7.5 hour ordeal every Tuesday and Thursday after work that I have to go thru. Such a long day!! But, who knows...maybe next year I’ll be over here just teaching and taking more spanish :) Spanish is such a beautiful language and I’m getting to the point where I can understand most of it when I read it and when others talk to me but it is soooo frustrating that I can’t carry on conversations yet! I’ve been here for about 5 weeks now, that should be enough time to become fluent, right?!?! Clearly I got my dad’s patience...
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Buckle up readers, this is going to be a long one...
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| Click to make it bigger :) |
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Now I know why all my former teachers were bitter alcoholics...
AAAHHHHHHHH!!!!! Sometimes you just need to scream, know what i’m sayin?!? This week has been completely exhausting and yet I’m still as happy as a fat kid with chocolate. A lot of chocolate. Good chocolate, with caramel on the inside. I love my job more and more every single day and even tho I have some students that are a bit difficult (you know, difficult like climbing mount everest in flip flops difficult) I still love them. For example, I walked into class on Wednesday to be greeted with all of the students cheering that I was going to be teaching them that day. On the blackboard they each wrote a personal note to me about loving me and wishing I was with them everyday and other nice welcoming words. Perfect, right?? Then, five minutes into my lesson there was so much chaos and touching and kicking and screaming that I was wishing I had earmuffs and a BIIIIGGGGG bottle of wine. These students are soo eager to learn and so likable and yet so frustrating and annoying that my head is on the verge of exploding every time I have them. I remember back in the day that I was a less than desirable student (didn’t rise to my full potential, a complete handful, and an all around asshole at times to my teachers) and now all I want to do is go back in time and kick my own ass for all the hell I raised for my teachers. Looking back at all of the side comments from my teachers like “oohh, I can’t wait for the weekend” or “I work to hard to get paid so little” and the other annoying comments they said that never made sense at the time, I must say that now is the time that I have never realized how true those statements are for the life of a school teacher. By “ooh, I can’t wait for the weekend” I now realize they meant “I am counting down the seconds to the moment when I can quit being in charge of the lives of all these bundles of exhaustion and let down my hair, put on a hot dress and drown my stress with a cheap bottle of vodka and loud raunchy music in the discoteca”...you know, in so words. I spend hours and hours trying to make power point presentations fun and exciting and in the first 2 minutes of showing the class I have to completely change it because they are not interested or don’t understand. All that time lost. I would say that it makes me want to pull my hair out. BUT, to be honest with you, I am too fond of my hair to ever think of pulling it out and I actually liiiiikkkeeee thinking on my feet, being creative, and interacting with my students. I feel like the more stressed I am the better I am at my job. It makes me realize how much I care about them and what I am teaching them. I makes me feel like I am really getting my hands dirty and changing lives out here. And, maybe the most important, it makes me feel like they know how much I want to help them. I actually feel like I have finally found my purpose for living at the moment. I feel like I should be writing a letter to all my old teachers and thanking them for all the hours they spent to make me a better, more well rounded person. In that letter I feel like maybe I should also write a little apology for sucking a few years off their lives from all the stress I caused them. wwhhhoooooopppssss. My bad, guys. If I could do it over I would have been a better student but to be honest with you I am glad I acted the way I did because it has made me the person I am today. And, I have decided that I like where I am and what I am doing. It’s weird how all things come back around to you but I am really enjoying the ride and can’t imagine doing anything else with my life right now :) If I could convince my family to move over here with me I would say that I would never go back to the states but, baby steps, maybe I’ll just convince them to visit first...
Sunday, September 26, 2010
laxin it up
This weekend was GREAT and very well deserved. I was soo busy all week with teaching class and being a student in class and all the commuting so it was soo nice to just relax this weekend. Friday after classes I met all the roommates out for drinks at a wine bar near Christina's school. Great wine and great tapas. We then came back home and napped for an hour or so and decided we were going to trivia night :) We showered up, got dressed, had a few adult beverages here and set out for trivia at an english bar in the center of Madrid. We playes really great and ended up beating about 10 teams to come in a solid third. Although I ama big fan of being the best, for a first outting i'll take top three. After that we walked around downtown for a while and finally made it back home somewhere in the early AM. Saturday I caught up on Dexter. All day, DEXTER. Holy moley I'm officially obesessed and I spent all day Saturday in bed watching TV. It was so fantastic and we made a great lunch and great dinner to go with it. Great success. Sunday I woke up late, worked on some lesson plans and then headed out to my first actually training session and practice with Team Madrid. Lacrosse here isn't big so it wasn't a great shocker to see there were quite a few different levels of skill on this team. We half the field with the men's team and the first hour was just conditioning. The mean started to run and the ladies were just kind of goofing off. I asked if I could join the men's team in training and I guess they thought I was joking so they said "yeah, go for it". To their amazement I ran over to the guys and started their workouts. Much more effective. I have decided that I am going to train with them from now on. I like the girls but it's a great challenge to keep up with these guys and I figure if I'm taking the effort to come out to these practices, I want to get the most out of it :) Tomorrow when I have to walk to class and I'm tight as can be I might not be so proud of myself, but right now I feel pretty good about it. there are a few americans on both the guys and girls' teams and I really like the players. Our next tournament is looking like it's going to be in Munich, Germany so I'm SUPER freaking excited about that one!! This eveing I'll be working on lesson plans for the week and hopefully hitting the sheets around 12. Great weekend but I'm actually excite to get back to work and rock out some sick classes :)
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Earned that white coat, son
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| I'm officially a TEACHER at Collegio Patricino de San Jose :) |
I know, it looks rediculous. However....all the teachers at my school wear these white lab coats all day long to class. Today, they gave me mine. I think it makes me look smart, I'll rock it for a couple weeks or so. Today in class I showed all my students a power point I made about ohio and my life back home. Not gonna lie, it was hard to cram everything into just a 1 hour lecture, but I managed. I showed them all these pictures of THE Ohio State University, the 'shoe, brutus, american football, and of course a few pictures of people spelling O-H-I-O. This was a real crowd pleaser. Now not only do I hear O-H!! all day long, I now see the arm motions to go with it. You're welcome, columbus...you're welcome. My goal is to somehow convince the head master at my school to let me stream the OSU- M*ch*g@n (dirty word, I know) game for the kids to watch. I think with a few more weeks of laying on that american charm I somehow have my kids will be front and center for the big day. Now, to convince Gordon Gee to send over about 1000 OSU t-shirts..... Anyway today's classes and my masters classes this evening went very well and I'm starting to finally get in the groove of having absolutely no down time until 10:45 every evening. Somehow living in Madrid makes it all okay :) Im telling you, I am run into the ground all day it was a bit crappy outside and even sprinkled this evening and I'm still all smiles. There really is something magical about this city.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Oh, you're single???
So I was under the impression that, for the most part, the Spanish like to be very private about their personal life. Apparently that doesn't mean they don't want to know everything about yours. At the end of each first class with my students, I let them ask me any questions they wanted about myself or the US. They were very innocent questions about ever being to California or New York. And they asked about my family and why I moved to Spain. Finally, one of my 16 year old boys asked me if I had a boyfriend. Before I could say that this was a personal kind of thing, another teacher looked at me and asked "yes! do you have a boyfriend??!!". Awesome. No, I said, no boyfriend here. This lit the room on fire. They went from shy kids who barely understood english to a bunch of rabid reporters. "why don't you have a boyfriend?" "but you are so pretty" "how old are you? aren't you going to be married soon?" "you should have a boyfriend, I know some older boys if you want help." Now my class has turned into my very own dating service. If this wasn't enough, they went ahead and told every single other teacher they have during the day as well as all of their friends. By the end of the school day today I recieved at least 20 marriage proposals from my students, an offer to get "coffee" with a male teacher, AND one student even informed me that the leagal age of consent in Spain is 13. I know, shocking. He knew how to say "the legal age of consent in spain is 13" all in english. I wasn't even mad. As I left the building today, the girls students were screaming at me to meet their older brothers and the boys were shouting that they loved me and asking me to never leave them. Spain just went from the greatest place ever to the most awkward place ever in about T-minus 2 seconds flat.
So much time and so little to do...
SSSIIIIIIIKKKKKKKEEEEEEEE!!! Holy mayhem, Batman. My Tuesdays are absolutely nuts! I woke up at about 6:30 AM and finished getting my things ready for school. I scarfed down a bowl of cereal and was out the door and ready to go. I taught 5 back to back lectures. I know, you are thinking "okay, 5. That's not that bad." Well, when you have to speak VERY slowly and clearly and repeat yourself about 100 times over and over and over and wlak around the class and be energetic and fun and smiling and helping the students for 5 consecutive hours, you get a bit exhausted. Trust me! I was finished at 2 and had to speed walk to the metro, switch trains, speed walk from the metro and walked into my apartment at 3:10. I threw another bowl of cereal down the hatch and grabbed my things for masters classes. We were out the door by 3:20 and back on the metro. We arrived to class at 4:14 (class starts at 4) and didn't get out of classes until 9:00. We then got BACK on the metro and headed home. We finally got home near 10 and I started lesson planning for the next day. I was going to show them a little more about myself so I made a powerpoint about ohio and about my family and luckily my mom was willing to take some pictures of the house for me and email them so I could use them in the power point. Another crazy day down...
Monday, September 20, 2010
MAGNUM. I broke down and got one...
It's not my fault, today was really good but when you teach 5 lectures on a Monday running on 3.5 hours of sleep a double chocolate magnum is more than deserved for dessert :) Today was really great, all my planning into the wee hours of the night last night paid off and my kids were (for the most part) all participating and even SMILING during my class. We had some great discussions and aside from the few pain in the butt students, I was pleased with their attitudes. It has to be hard for students to come into my class once a week when they are forced to speak spanish so I give them tons of credit and am so happy that they are accepting me and lsitening to what I have to say...even if they don't understand it all. I think they just like me because I don't give them homework or tests and all they have to do in my class is talk. Either way, I like it!! Got done and went to Dunkin (could be one of my greatest discoveries thus far in Spain) and grabbed a coffee, chocolate donut, and went to work on lesson plans for tomorrow. So far my greatest accomplishment here is getting all of the students to be Buckeyes. The first day I told them that where I come from, it is custom to greet your friends with a loud and proud O-H!!! to which they must respond I-O!!! Now, every time my students see me in the halls I'll hear a much appreciated O-H!! my response, as I smile in euphoria?? I-O!! as loud as I can! Our next lesson will start with "We don't give a damn about the whole state of Michigan..." Appropriate?? Does it matter?? haha just kidding, but seriously, we will be watching that game in class.
the life and times of an english teacher in spain...
Yes folks, that there is a slice of heaven in that picture. I found it...what do i win?? free wifi and chocolate donuts paradise :) Dunkin is in Madrid and it's fantastic. This weekend went by so fast i literally didn't have time to keep you all posted. Sorry for the delay, I know how you all live and breath for the blog. ssiiiikkkee, but it's a nice thought! Friday was great, I only have to teach 2 1hour classes and one of the classes has a pretty good grasp on english. The other one? We'll call that my "special project" for the year. After class I came home and slept for about 3 hours. After waking from my slumber I hopped in the shower and started on the booze. Cut me a little slack here guys, I had a VERY busy week. I earned this, okay? I went out with Michael and Kristina to their friends place, wine bottles in tote, and promptly arrived at 11 pm in the prostitute district. Don't get me wrong, their friends' place was really great, but it was seriously in prostitute alley and the ladies of the night were out and ready for a friend. After a few adult beverages we headed out to the bars in sol. The walk was great, especially due to the fact that there are no open container laws in this great country. We ended up getting lost and went into a few great places and ended at a wicked good walk thru pizza place. Fan-tas-tic. The three of us (stanek, michael, and myself) walked home to our apartment, made some more food. had another beverage and hit the sack :) Saturday Michael peer pressured all of us to day drink all day and we played drinking games from the time we got up (1pm) to the time we went to bed (12am). Michael had his first big boy soccer game sunday morning so stanek was whipped enough to go to that while i slept in. When they got back I was informed that they won, Michael got a goal...and a black eye. What a nerd, huh?!? First game of the season and the silly american get's the black eye. Sunday was super lazy until about 9pm when I finally was willed into doing lesson plans for the week to come. Serisously, up to my eyeballs in colored paper, glue sticks, and markers. Finally made enough name tags and activities for the first few days of the week for my lectures and called it a night at about 2AM. Starting the week off with a bang...
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Soy Unbelievable
Second day of teaching...already in love with it :) I took a shower last night and discovered that if I take a shower the night before, I can sleep in an extra 20 minutes. A-MAZ-ING. Grabbed a bowl of cereal and was out the door by 7:55 this morning. I normally have stomach aches in the morning if I grab a bowl of cereal on the go (refer to the melonera 10K fiasco for details) but I switched to Soy milk in my cereal and it’s fantastic. It’s sweeter than skim milk and tastes a bit like vanilla. Perfect for cereal. So I got to my school today 20 minutes early (SURPRISE, I WAS EARLY!!!) and started saying hello and making spanish small talk with basically every single worker in the school. I would just say all the other teachers but that would be a lie. Having an American in such a big school causes quite a stir and they ALL want to know what I’m about. The janitors, the cafeteria workers, the mail man, secretaries, EVERYBODY. The fact that my spanish isn’t that great is just fantastic to them. I think they all have a challenge going to see who can teach me the most Spanish. I went into the break room to get a cup of coffee and I had 3 people jump to get my cup and say “copa” and another 2 ran over to get the pot of coffee and show me how to put the leche (milk) and azucar (sugar) into the coffee like the spanish do. People jumping to do things for me...I could reeeaaaallllyyyy get used to this : ). I finally met with another teacher named Fatima, who showed me my schedule for the day. 5 1-hour classes with 35 to 45 students per class. Okay, I think I can handle that. Then I find out that I will be teaching these classes by myself. Ridin solo, I’m feeling good about that so far. Then I asked her what my curriculum looked like and I was hit with a bombshell: there is NO curriculum! I waited for air to finally fill back in my lungs before I asked her what I was supposed to teach these students for the next 9 months and she replied: “Well, whatever you would like. You are the new English conversation teacher so we don’t have any material for you. Do whatever you would like with them.” I’m sorry, come again? Como?!? I have groups of 45 13-18 year old students for one hour each with absolutely no curriculum. After my legs regained the strength to hold me up I stood up, walked to my first class, and introduced myself. By the end of the day--5 lectures later--- I decided I officially have the best job in the entire world. Literally, WORLD. I can play games with the students. I can joke with the students. You guys all know me, I can talk about anything to anybody in any situation for hours. And now I found a job where I get paid to live in Spain to do just that. I get to organize and lead group discussions or group games or group insanity for an hour each. It’s going to be a lot of prep work and I am going to have to be EXTREMELY organized but I have decided that this is going to be the most exhausting, outstanding, frustrating, creative, irritating, rewarding, trying and absolutely wonder year of my life. LET THE CHAOS BEGIIIINNNNNNNN!!!!
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
starting class and teaching...
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| first day of teaching. right outside my school's gates |
Christina and I tried to get up early Tuesday to get some things accomplished before real life living in Spain started. By 10:45 we were out the door and on our way to the bank to see what was up with our accounts. We sorted everything out, got my ATM card activated, and everything is good to go, yo! Seriously, if you saw my bank card, you would be jealous. This is my first bank account that is ONLY mine. no cosigning with a parent, no joint account with the rents. all mine! weird, i feel like this has concreted the fact that I am on my own out here. Feels nice...for now :) After that we went to visit my boyfriend, the most beautiful man named Javier (Javi), to put some credit on our phones. Javi is breath taking; don't worry, i'll be sure to take a picture of him at some point and share. After I picked my chin up off the floor and wiped the drool from my chin we left the phone company and went to Sol so I could sign up for some Spanish classes. I enrolled in a 12 week course so starting Sept 27th I'll be teaching everyday, going to master's classes Tuesday and Thursday nights, and going to spanish classes Monday and Wednesday nights. Don't panic ladies and gents, I still have Friday and Saturday to get crunk! After Sol we grabbed some quick grub and were off to classes. Classes, other than being a bit looooooooooooong, were pretty good and I think this semester is going to go pretty well. I'm excited to start things up and get the ball rollin, know what i'm sayin?! After a long day and realizing we need to be up early to teach in the morning, we decided to meet Nova Scotia out for drinks. Not bad. Got home around 2 AM, set my alarm for 6 AM and called it a night.
I woke up this morning feeling fantastic (siiiiiiikkkeeee) and showered, grabbed some breakfast, and was off to the metro to get to my school. I arrived on time with the other American girl teaching at my school and started the morning in a closed door meeting with all the higher-ups for our school go over all of the important things we needed to know for our teaching positions (in spanish, of course). Surprisingly I think I got all of it and went thru the day without being told that I was doind something wrong. Either I understood my duties or they just let it all slide the first day, updates to come! I actually taught a few lessons today which was a bit odd since I wasn't informed I would be doing this and had nothing prepared. Luckily for me (and my class) I always have SOMETHING to say and I got thru 4 lessons with out any down time or awkward pauses. I'm like a local celeb at the school along with the other American because we are very different and all the kids want to know EVERYTHING about the U.S., aka California and New York City. The fact that I have blonde hair is really just icing on the cake :) I was really hoping that I would be teaching the younger kids but was informed today that I will be working with the older kids: 12-18 year olds. Fantastic. They are all taller than me and in most cases, much more developed. However, I will say that I really enjoyed teaching them today and am excited to see how much English they know. It was a really great day and it ended with me literally running into every single person I know in Madrid. I felt like such a rockstar while I was walking home and making small talk with somebody on every corner of every block on the walk home. Not gonna lie, today went out with a bbbbbaaaaaaaannnnnnngggggg.
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