Feeling Sevillana

Today I feel very accomplished. School was a lot of fun. I read the book There Is A Bird on Your Head by Mo Willems to all of my classes today. I related it to emotions in 2nd grade and to body parts/simple emotions in 1st grade. Even the 1st graders who have been looking at me as if I am an alien were laughing and smiling throughout the entire story. All of my cooperating teachers decided that it was the most amazing book ever and think that they are going to use some of their grant money from the government to buy Elephant and Piggie books. :)

During the break time, I finally made a teacher friend! His name is Joaquin and he teaches in 4th grade. He approached me and asked how things have been going so far for me. He told me that he would teach me some Spanish recipes when I told him I was getting bored with my food. He also told me about some different opportunities to get involved in the community such as Latin dance classes, mountain climbing and rowing in the Guadlquiver. It was nice to have someone approach me and start up a conversation!

 After school, I did two things that I have been wanting to do, but I was too nervous to try until today. After my success in school, I was ready to go out into the city and become more of a citizen. The first thing that I did was go to the public library. I love to read and I think that I would go crazy if I didn't check out books, since I don't have much else to do yet. It was quite a process, but I found that they had children's literature in English (which I am very excited to incorporate into my classroom). They have a wide selection of fiction and non fiction adult books. They also have adult books in English. I checked out one novel in English and one in Spanish. I want to read Spanish books to better my Spanish vocabulary, but sometimes I will also want to read English books to understand everything easily. Getting my library card wasn't difficult like I thought it might be, I only needed my passport. But, just like everything in Spain, it took a long time because nobody was in any sort of hurry to help me.

After getting the card, I wanted to accomplish another one of my goals, buying meat at the supermarket. This doesn't seem like a big feat to anybody, but they don't sell meat prepackaged and ready to go like they do in the United States. I had to approach the butcher and ask for the cut of meat that I wanted and the amount in kilos that I wanted. Every time I have gone to the market so far, I've wandered by the meat counter and chickened out on buying anything. So finally today, I walked up and said "Quiero medio kilo de filetas de pechuga de pollo" (I want a half kilo of chicken breast fillets.) The butcher said "OK, muy bien!" (Great!) I think that he had noticed that I was nervous and he may have even noticed that I have chickened out before. He cut my meat for me and cut off all of the fat without my asking.

I know both of these things seem small, but I feel great right now! :)