This week at school has been as the Spaniards say "un rollo" a struggle. It happens at every school, there is always so much to cram into the last 2 weeks of classes before a term ends. Not only are final tests being given, grades were also due this week. And we have our Christmas show on Friday. And the parents brought churros and chocolate yesterday which cost 1.50 euro per child. And the school is taking a trip to the movies next week which cost 7.00 euro per child. And they have a show next week in Spanish on Friday.
Needless to say, we have been trying to get everything done in time and it has been quite an adventure. The students feel the same crazy pressure that the teachers feel, so they act out more and are making the teachers even more stressed out. I feel their pressure even though I don´t have to do anything with grades or tests (besides explain the questions). With having such a horrible cold from Bilbao, this week has been rough. I have been trying to teach Christmas carols to all of my 1st and 2nd grade classes with a super sore throat. They are finally starting to actually know the words (hopefully they know by the show tomorrow!!).
My favorite story from the week happened in my 2B class. This class is singing I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus. I was explaining what the words meant. One of the students asked what mistletoe is. I drew a picture on the blackboard and said that it was a plant with small red fruits on it. Then I went over to the door, pointed out that we put it on the door frame and said when two people walk by, they have to kiss. About half of the students really understood what it was. There was one student who had NO idea and kept shouting out "IT´S SNOW!" and I was like, no it´s not, but I guess I am glad you are speaking English. Once they finally understood what the song was about they began booing and making sad faces. I had to explain that it is a tradition to kiss, it wasn´t a bad thing that Santa is kissing Mommy. It was quite an adventure.
I am really excited for the show tomorrow. The children will be singing Jingle Bells, He wears a red coat, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I am nervous about how the singing part will go, but they will look cute in their santa hats/reindeer horns and their dancing is great! The parents will be coming to watch, which also makes me nervous, but it´ll be fine. Tomorrow is my last day of school before heading home for break for 3 weeks. I can´t wait to celebrate Christmas with my family and see all of my friends. :)
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Al Norte- A Trip to Bilbao and San Sebastian
Last week with Constitution Day and the Immaculate Conception, we only had school on Monday and Wednesday. So, I took the oppotunity to travel into the northern part of Spain that I have not had the oppotunity to visit yet. I highly recommend visiting the area, it is an amazing place that is very different from the rest of Spain. I traveled with my rooommate Kathleen and a friend Kelsey. We didn´t plan our trip together, but by happenstance, we all ended up in Bilbao the same weekend. I was planning on travelling by myself, which I did a couple of times during study abroad, but as always it was nice to have company :)
We started our trip on Thursday around 2 pm and arrived at our hostel around 9 pm. The first night we were there, we asked the man at the front desk for some suggestions of where to eat. We went out for pinxtos (tapas, but on top of bread). The way it works is that you just go into any bar or cafe, approach the bar and point out what pinxtos you want. One of my favorite ones that we got while we were there was the first night. It was jamon serrano, 1/2 a hard boiled egg, mayo, and a shrimp. Eating it was kind of difficult, but it was a lot of fun and it was delicious! We went to a bar where our hostel man said a lot of young people hang out and got delicious mushrooms that were cooked in garlic.
The next morning, we got up and headed out to see Bilbao. We went to the San Nicolas church where they were having a nativity exhibit. The exhibit was very intricate. Since Spain is such a Catholic country, the nativity scenes are a HUGE deal here. They were really cool, they even had parts that moved, like a stableman nailing a horseshoe onto a horse. I really enjoyed it. After that, we had some churros and chocolate, a very typical Spanish snack during the winter. Then, we walked over to the funicular that took us up to the top of a mountain. The town was called Atraxanda and had an amazing view of the entirety of Bilbao from above. We tried the cider, which is made up at the top of the mountain and it wasn´t my favorite drink, but I´m glad I tried it. We walked around all of the pedestrian shopping streets to look at the beautiful Christmas lights. Then, we met up with Andrea who is my friend from when I was very little. It was great to see her and meet her friends. I really enjoyed being able to catch up, even in a country so far away and hope we can met up in Chicago soon!
Saturday, we took a day trip to San Sebastian, a beach town about an hour away from Bilbao. I would love to go back to San Sebastian during beach season because it was an absolutely gorgeous town. We spent the day exploring the beach, the old part of town, the Cathedral and of course eating. The pintxos in San Sebastian were so delicious because they were topped with fresh fish from right next to where we were sitting. After having a filling dinner, we went back to Bilbao to catch the end of the Classico. This is one of the biggest games in soccer, it´s between Real Madrid and F.C. Barcelona. Barça won, obviously, so I was very excited!
Sunday we went to the biggest tourist attraction in Bilbao. We went to the Guggenheim museum. Let me tell you, the building from the outside is beautiful and so cool to look at, it is a work of art in itself. I loved walking through the museum. My favorite part was a piece called Humans. It was in a room lit with dim lights that were hanging from the ceiling almost down to the floor. On the walls, there were hundreds of pictures of random people´s faces that I guess were taken from newspapers and magazines. I thought it was so interesting. Then we headed home.
The only thing I can complain about is that I caught a terrible cold on my trip. Other than that it was an amazing experience to leave Andalucia and experience a different culture. Euskari (the language spoken in the Basque region) is one of the oldest languages. I am glad I went there and learned more about a new culture.
We started our trip on Thursday around 2 pm and arrived at our hostel around 9 pm. The first night we were there, we asked the man at the front desk for some suggestions of where to eat. We went out for pinxtos (tapas, but on top of bread). The way it works is that you just go into any bar or cafe, approach the bar and point out what pinxtos you want. One of my favorite ones that we got while we were there was the first night. It was jamon serrano, 1/2 a hard boiled egg, mayo, and a shrimp. Eating it was kind of difficult, but it was a lot of fun and it was delicious! We went to a bar where our hostel man said a lot of young people hang out and got delicious mushrooms that were cooked in garlic.
The next morning, we got up and headed out to see Bilbao. We went to the San Nicolas church where they were having a nativity exhibit. The exhibit was very intricate. Since Spain is such a Catholic country, the nativity scenes are a HUGE deal here. They were really cool, they even had parts that moved, like a stableman nailing a horseshoe onto a horse. I really enjoyed it. After that, we had some churros and chocolate, a very typical Spanish snack during the winter. Then, we walked over to the funicular that took us up to the top of a mountain. The town was called Atraxanda and had an amazing view of the entirety of Bilbao from above. We tried the cider, which is made up at the top of the mountain and it wasn´t my favorite drink, but I´m glad I tried it. We walked around all of the pedestrian shopping streets to look at the beautiful Christmas lights. Then, we met up with Andrea who is my friend from when I was very little. It was great to see her and meet her friends. I really enjoyed being able to catch up, even in a country so far away and hope we can met up in Chicago soon!
Saturday, we took a day trip to San Sebastian, a beach town about an hour away from Bilbao. I would love to go back to San Sebastian during beach season because it was an absolutely gorgeous town. We spent the day exploring the beach, the old part of town, the Cathedral and of course eating. The pintxos in San Sebastian were so delicious because they were topped with fresh fish from right next to where we were sitting. After having a filling dinner, we went back to Bilbao to catch the end of the Classico. This is one of the biggest games in soccer, it´s between Real Madrid and F.C. Barcelona. Barça won, obviously, so I was very excited!
Sunday we went to the biggest tourist attraction in Bilbao. We went to the Guggenheim museum. Let me tell you, the building from the outside is beautiful and so cool to look at, it is a work of art in itself. I loved walking through the museum. My favorite part was a piece called Humans. It was in a room lit with dim lights that were hanging from the ceiling almost down to the floor. On the walls, there were hundreds of pictures of random people´s faces that I guess were taken from newspapers and magazines. I thought it was so interesting. Then we headed home.
The only thing I can complain about is that I caught a terrible cold on my trip. Other than that it was an amazing experience to leave Andalucia and experience a different culture. Euskari (the language spoken in the Basque region) is one of the oldest languages. I am glad I went there and learned more about a new culture.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Happy :)
I am so happy that I was placed in the school that I was. They are absolutely great and I leave everyday feeling accomplished. After the initial months of feeling out of place and unsure, I now feel very confident in all of my classrooms and feel more and more comfortable outside of the classroom. I am not worried about approaching any of the teachers in my school with any problems or questions. I also now feel more comfortable with going up and chatting during the break with the teachers.
This week at school the students took their second round of exams in English class. I think that the students may have done better on these exams than the first ones. Although there was less time spent on this unit, the students are more used to having me in the classroom and listening to the way I speak. I think this will help them pass their exams with better grades than the previous unit.
In my 6th grade class, we did a Twas the Night Before Christmas Mad Lib. I first had to explain what a Mad Lib was and they got the point that the story was supposed to be somewhat funny. We filled in the story, then I had them watch a YouTube video of someone reading the actual story. Then as I read them the story we wrote together, they laughed at the funny parts. I was worried they wouldn't understand the story, but they did really well with it. Then they got to do their own Mad Libs with the song Jingle Bells. I sang some of the songs that they made up and it was a great time.
In 2nd grade science, I am teaching about animals. As many of you know, I am not a fan of animals, but I think I am doing pretty well with it. I actually got tripped up the other day by some of the vocabulary because I had no idea what a word meant/how to say it. The words were viviparous and oviparous. This basically means whether the babies are born from the womb or eggs. First of all, I had to learn this and second of all, I feel that it is a little unnecessary to be teaching such large terms to 2nd graders. Oh well...
This weekend was a blast. We had a visitor in, Jackie, who is Bridget's friend from Penn State. She is teaching English in Cadiz and wanted to come see Sevilla for the weekend. We wanted to show her around to all of the cool places, so we took her to our favorite bar Antiguidades on Friday night. The bartenders there are our friends so they were excited to see us there again. Then on Saturday, we did some shopping and I got some gifts for people. Afterward, we went to Los Coloniales for dinner with my friend Anna who is from Latvia. Even though we had to wait an hour to get seated, the food was just as delicious as always. Afterward we went to our friends Sam and Clarissa's apartment. Anna was leaving to go meet her boyfriend at a bar, so we all joined her and ended up having an amazing time dancing and hanging out.
This week at school the students took their second round of exams in English class. I think that the students may have done better on these exams than the first ones. Although there was less time spent on this unit, the students are more used to having me in the classroom and listening to the way I speak. I think this will help them pass their exams with better grades than the previous unit.
In my 6th grade class, we did a Twas the Night Before Christmas Mad Lib. I first had to explain what a Mad Lib was and they got the point that the story was supposed to be somewhat funny. We filled in the story, then I had them watch a YouTube video of someone reading the actual story. Then as I read them the story we wrote together, they laughed at the funny parts. I was worried they wouldn't understand the story, but they did really well with it. Then they got to do their own Mad Libs with the song Jingle Bells. I sang some of the songs that they made up and it was a great time.
In 2nd grade science, I am teaching about animals. As many of you know, I am not a fan of animals, but I think I am doing pretty well with it. I actually got tripped up the other day by some of the vocabulary because I had no idea what a word meant/how to say it. The words were viviparous and oviparous. This basically means whether the babies are born from the womb or eggs. First of all, I had to learn this and second of all, I feel that it is a little unnecessary to be teaching such large terms to 2nd graders. Oh well...
This weekend was a blast. We had a visitor in, Jackie, who is Bridget's friend from Penn State. She is teaching English in Cadiz and wanted to come see Sevilla for the weekend. We wanted to show her around to all of the cool places, so we took her to our favorite bar Antiguidades on Friday night. The bartenders there are our friends so they were excited to see us there again. Then on Saturday, we did some shopping and I got some gifts for people. Afterward, we went to Los Coloniales for dinner with my friend Anna who is from Latvia. Even though we had to wait an hour to get seated, the food was just as delicious as always. Afterward we went to our friends Sam and Clarissa's apartment. Anna was leaving to go meet her boyfriend at a bar, so we all joined her and ended up having an amazing time dancing and hanging out.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
This year, I am thankful for...
Wednesday and Thursday at school this week were AMAZING days. I have been really loving school for the past couple of weeks. I think that I am finally comfortable with being there and what my role is. I also think that the teachers are more comfortable with me in the classroom. After my lessons in 6th year on Wednesday, Milagros pulled me aside and told me that I am the best Auxiliar de Conversacion that the school has ever had. That made me so excited and so thankful for the opportunity to be in their school! On Thursday after my lessons, I helped Bea (my coordinator) make a blog for the school. On this blog, we are going to post English activities, vocabulary, videos and pictures of what is going on in the school. I am really excited about the new project and I can't wait to start posting. If you want to check it out the website is http://ceipelmanantial.blogspot.com.
Being away from family on Thanksgiving day was a bit difficult. I tried to get my dad to show me the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade over skype, but the computer didn't like being close to the tv and it kept freezing. Then, later that night, my brothers set up a screen so that I could be a part of my family's dinner. It was really nice to be included, but it was hard to not be there. We went around and said what we were thankful for and then I sat there and watched my family eat delicious food. Oh well, there are only 22 days until I go home and can be eating with them too!
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| Our beautiful feast! |
Saturday, the weather was absolutely gorgeous, so I went over to Parque de los Principes which is right down the street and sat in the sunshine and read my book. I am finally ALMOST done with the 400 page book in tiny font, in Spanish that I have renewed twice! I really like the book, it is just hard for me to read more than a chapter at a time because the print is soooo small and in a different language. After getting back from reading my book, Bridget and I prepared the leftovers and a few additions to our feast from the night before to serve to Fidel (for being such a great help with everything related to technology), Pilar (our neighbor who we have become very close with over the last week), Joanna (another Auxiliar friend), and ourselves. As we shared the meal with our friends, we explained the tradition of Thanksgiving and what we do to celebrate it. I shared that I am thankful for my family, my friends- especially the ones sitting around the dinner table, the opportunity to live and teach in Spain and my good health. Sharing this tradition with a new culture was very exciting and is exactly the reason why I came here. I want to share as many things about my culture with everybody here so that in return, they will share their culture with me!
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Spanish students do Thanksgiving!
The 6th graders "I'm Thankful For..." Turkey!
2nd graders handprint turkeys!
1st grader's handprint turkeys!
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Thanksgiving Spirit
Even though I am far way from all of my family and friends for this Thanksgiving, I am still trying to make the best of it. Today I started making some decorations for our piso, just like I did for Halloween. I am also in the middle of making pumpkin muffins, just like I do every Thanksgiving at home. I think it will be a bit hard to be away, since it is the first Thanksgiving that I will spend away from my family and I am SO far away. They said they are going to Skype me in during Thanksgiving dinner so that I can be a part of it, but it won't be the same.
My roommates and I are going to cook a Thanksgiving dinner here in our apartment. The only thing that will be a little different is that we will probably not have turkey. They don't really sell whole turkeys or even turkey breast anywhere here. So, we are either going to get a cooked full chicken from a place around the corner, or we are just going to cook some chicken breasts. I am going to make homemade stuffing, gravy, and sweet potato casserole (with marshmellows of course!) Bridget is going to make a green bean casserole and we are also going to have a salad and some wine. It should be a great meal. We aren't going to have it until Friday though since we all have to work on Thursday.
This week at school I am going to be teaching about Thanksgiving in 5 of my 7 classes. In 1st and 2nd grade, I am teaching them song that goes to the tune of "Do You Know the Muffin Man?" The first verse is "The Pilgrims came to America, America, America, The Pilgrims came to America a long, long time ago." Then there are verses about the Mayflower, Indians, corn and a feast. I think it will sum up Thanksgiving for them pretty well. Then I am going to have them make a handprint turkey as a fun craft. In 6th grade I am going to read them a story about the first thanksgiving. After that, I am going to make a turkey to put up on the wall, then each student is going to get a feather. On that feather they are going to write "I am thankful for...." and they are going to paste the feathers up on the turkey. I think this activity will go really well and they will really like it.
My roommates and I are going to cook a Thanksgiving dinner here in our apartment. The only thing that will be a little different is that we will probably not have turkey. They don't really sell whole turkeys or even turkey breast anywhere here. So, we are either going to get a cooked full chicken from a place around the corner, or we are just going to cook some chicken breasts. I am going to make homemade stuffing, gravy, and sweet potato casserole (with marshmellows of course!) Bridget is going to make a green bean casserole and we are also going to have a salad and some wine. It should be a great meal. We aren't going to have it until Friday though since we all have to work on Thursday.
This week at school I am going to be teaching about Thanksgiving in 5 of my 7 classes. In 1st and 2nd grade, I am teaching them song that goes to the tune of "Do You Know the Muffin Man?" The first verse is "The Pilgrims came to America, America, America, The Pilgrims came to America a long, long time ago." Then there are verses about the Mayflower, Indians, corn and a feast. I think it will sum up Thanksgiving for them pretty well. Then I am going to have them make a handprint turkey as a fun craft. In 6th grade I am going to read them a story about the first thanksgiving. After that, I am going to make a turkey to put up on the wall, then each student is going to get a feather. On that feather they are going to write "I am thankful for...." and they are going to paste the feathers up on the turkey. I think this activity will go really well and they will really like it.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Madrid!
Sorry it has been awhile since my last blog, I have just been really busy since the last time I posted! Over the weekend, I went to Madrid to visit Chelsea Isley. I really enjoyed myself and I really liked getting away for the weekend. On Friday, we started an apartment hunt for Chelsea because shes is looking to move. So, we went to this apartment which really reminded me of the gross apartment that my roommates and I saw. The common area was the kitchen which was only a sink and a bunson burner type of stove. All of the rooms were off of this "kitchen" and were all locked like a hostel or something. After we did that, I went to see the Royal Palace, which is absolutely worth the money you pay to get inside. The rooms are beautiful and there are a ton of different architectural styles in different rooms, which I really loved. We at Doner Kebab for lunch which was absolutely delicious. After that, Chelsea had a private lesson, so I went shopping on Gran Via and I am really proud of myself because I held back from buying anything! I did see a few things that I will go back and buy with my next paycheck though. Once Chelsea was done with her lesson, we met back up and went to visit another friend who is teaching English in Madrid, Rebecca Grosebeck. We met up with Rebecca and her boyfriend, Sandy, for some wine and chorizo.
The next morning, Chelsea and I cooked a delicious pancake breakfast. We made pumpkin pancakes and blueberry pancakes. The pumpkin pancakes were a bit of a fail, but they tasted delicious. After, Chelsea took me to a store called Taste of America where I bought canned pumpkin and cake mix so that I can make pumpkin muffins for Thanksgiving like I always do. We then got a wonderful gourmet picnic (McDonald's) which we took into Parque Retiro. The park was absolutely gorgeous because fall actually happens in Madrid. I was so excited to see the leaves changing color! After that, we saw two more apartments which were both extremely great. She is going to live in one of them with two other roommates and a really great location. We then went out on the town on Saturday and ended up running into her friends at both of the places we went to. It was nice to meet her friends and I really had a great weekend.
This week at school, I feel a lot more "in the know" because teachers are actually telling me what I need to do to prepare for classes. I also feel that the students are doing a much better job of at least trying to understand what is going on. Most of the time so far, they have just spaced out when I am talking, but I reinforced that if they want to do well on their tests, they are going to have to start paying more attention.
The next morning, Chelsea and I cooked a delicious pancake breakfast. We made pumpkin pancakes and blueberry pancakes. The pumpkin pancakes were a bit of a fail, but they tasted delicious. After, Chelsea took me to a store called Taste of America where I bought canned pumpkin and cake mix so that I can make pumpkin muffins for Thanksgiving like I always do. We then got a wonderful gourmet picnic (McDonald's) which we took into Parque Retiro. The park was absolutely gorgeous because fall actually happens in Madrid. I was so excited to see the leaves changing color! After that, we saw two more apartments which were both extremely great. She is going to live in one of them with two other roommates and a really great location. We then went out on the town on Saturday and ended up running into her friends at both of the places we went to. It was nice to meet her friends and I really had a great weekend.
This week at school, I feel a lot more "in the know" because teachers are actually telling me what I need to do to prepare for classes. I also feel that the students are doing a much better job of at least trying to understand what is going on. Most of the time so far, they have just spaced out when I am talking, but I reinforced that if they want to do well on their tests, they are going to have to start paying more attention.
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