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!!!!