Yesterday went to the school.. last week of observing. So crazy! I got to the school and saw Ana outside. Yes, her name is Ana. Apparently I misheard and thought her name was Elena. She asked me to correct my teacher because he had e-mailed her calling her Ana. Oops. Anyways, she told me she would e-mail me the lesson that I need to cover for next week. The five weeks (can't believe it's been five weeks already) of observation have definitely helped and I've learned a lot. I'm ready to start teaching. In class Tuesday they were reviewing colors (red, green, blue, and yellow) and numbers 1,2,3,4, with flash cards. The kids knew them all pretty well. They then went to their seats and had to connect circles with dots (1,2, or 3) to the numbers. I had to write their names on some of the papers again - I'm getting better at it. Although apparently I'm supposed to write the names and put them in the middle of the table, facing down, so they can find them, as the kids corrected me. They colored the paper in and brought it to the teacher when they were done and she'd write "perfect!" on it. The problem is, when the kids are done, they can apparently do whatever they want. So for almost ten minutes while the slow ones are finishing up, the other kids are running around and being rambunctious. So of course some issue always arises. One of the little boys, Jesus, who is the one of the two sweet ones in the class, started saying about Alvaro being in the bathroom. At the front of the classroom there's a bathroom with windows so you can see in (above the toilets though, and the little kids are too short to see) and the door is always left open. Then when you go in there is are two toilets to the right - directly next to each other, nothing separating them. No stalls, just toilets. So I went in there, and Blanca and Paula are on the toilets, and Alvaro is standing right in front of them, just kind of looking at them and hanging out in the bathroom. Paula is very unfiltered and demanding, but in a cute way. She'll just come up to me and say "Why do you have a bracelet on? Who gave you this necklace? What are you eating for lunch?" She's cute I like her. So I went in there and she was like "Hacemos caca los dos!" She told me that they were both "making caca", so I kicked Alvaro out. Well my bad, because he peed his pants like a half hour later. The kids played with centers - she let them lose to wear costumes and/or play with blocks. The costumes are adorable. There were princesses everywhere. Two of the little boys wear wearing scrubs and doctors masks it was so cute. And then one little girl was wearing a football jersey and a helmet made out of felt. Okay they were all cute! Except Coral, who cried because she wanted the princess dress that one of the other girls was wearing. She's such a little snob! Some of the kids were playing with a bucket full of shapes that were red, blue and yellow. So I went over and started asking them what colors they were. They knew them very well. Then they kept picking them up and asking me what color they were.. so I continued to play with them because I was at least putting my English to good use here. Everything was going exceptionally well. Ana was getting her hair done by Alicia while and a few other girls, I was playing with Pablo and Alejandro (who can both be little terrors- especially Alejandro- he is so adorable. He's so tiny and cute, but he can be a little troublemaker), but anyways they were both behaving, and a few other kids. The rest of the class was sitting down doing puzzles, watching Tinkerbell or playing with blocks. There wasn't much running around or commotion for about 20 minutes. Then all of a sudden everything stopped when Ana asked Alvaro "Did you make pee inside your pants? Why did you make pee inside??" Someone came in to clean him up. It smelled gross. He's cute but I think he's evil. When they finished with centers it was time to go. I came home and starting studying for my exams. Had lunch with the Italian girls. Senora made us hamburgers. The hamburgers here are just gross. They're dense and a weird texture. The girls are nice but having them here is weird. Last night I wanted to shower before bed but they were in the bathroom getting ready. Or this morning I wanted to brush my teeth and they were in there. It's fine that's how it is when you live with other people but it was definitely better when it was just me and senora. Went to class. In my teaching development class our midterms are presentations - teaching English to our own peers. The first two groups went. The first group are students that are teaching secondary here, so kids that are 13 and 14. They decided to teach us the difference between "how much?" and "how many?". This is something that some of them have had to teach here. It's crazy because as they were teaching it, I realized I've never learned this and I had no idea of the reason why. I guess you use "how much?" with non-quantifiable nouns, and "how many?" with quantifiable ones. I've come to realize teaching English to highschoolers really wouldn't be so easy. Teaching Spanish will be much easier because I've had to learn it as a foreign language myself. After class came home and had dinner. We had sandwiches and soup. I'm starting to doubt senoras cooking abilities. She always burns the sandwiches and doesn't know why. Senora, turn down the sandwich press and watch it so it doesn't burn!! The Italian girls are really goofy they're always giggling. They thought it was hilarious because senora was talking about "pizza" but the way she pronounced it sounded like "pisca" which means pee. They're nice though. They've been to a lot of the states. One of them wears I<3NY pajamas. They said they don't like the pizza there. I can only imagine how amazing it's going to be in Italy!
Today I had my meeting with Luis, my teaching development teacher. Every time I meet with him it's so helpful he just knows so much about teaching foreign languages and Spanish grammar. After I had my first final, the cooking one, for which I was up all night studying. The four essay questions that I chose I feel like I knew them well. I took the whole hour and a half and was the last person to finish. On the last question I even had to rush. So we'll see. Came home and had lunch with the girls again. Senora made meatballs with a yellow sauce that was really good, and served them with fries. This is the third time she's made meatballs and each time she's made (homemade) fries with them. It's so funny when the Italian girls speak Spanish because I can hear the Italian accent. You know the way they talk.. like "I like-a the meat-a ball-a". I can't really imitate it online, but you know. Well they talk that way in Spanish, too, and that's not the way Spaniards talk so it sounds funny. After lunch I studied for my next test. Kind of. I was just so tired and sick of studying. I couldn't concentrate and I was so tired so I set my alarm to nap for twenty minutes. When I woke up an hour later, I studied a bit more and went to class. The Flamenco test was multiple choice, fill in the blank, true and false, two short answers, a critical reading analysis, and we had to listen to two songs, decide what type of song they were, and list the characteristics of that type of song. I haven't had a test that wasn't short answer/essay in so long. Not feeling so great about this one. I'm hoping for a high C or a B if I'm lucky. After class had dinner. Lasagna and pizza - surprise surprise. I'm normally not a fan of lasagna, but it was so good! It must just be that American lasagna is not as good. The cheese was creamy and delicious. After dinner went and met up with my intercambio. Talking to him I could really tell how much my Spanish has improved, and he said it's much better. With him I don't feel the pressure like I do when talking in class, or talking to my senora. Also the things we talk about I know what I'm saying because it's not like in class where I have to discuss linguistics and methods of teaching with hard words. We met up at the catedral per usual. This time we just walked around. Sevilla is so pretty at night. I had forgotten, because I haven't gone out, especially at night, because I'd been sick for almost two weeks and went away the last two weekends. We went and bought cheetos - some little white ones (they're so popular here there are tons of varieties) and each bought a beer. But when we went to buy the beer they wouldn't sell it to us because it was past 10. So we ended up getting non-alcoholic beer that was lemon flavored. I wanted to try it even though it sounded weird - it was so good. It tasted like lemon fanta. So we sat out kind of near the river and just talked. We mostly compare words in English and Spanish. He said something about how the person who discovered America was Spanish. And then it all connected in my head. Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus) is Spanish!! I know his remains are here and I saw a statue of him in Barcelona. And I knew that Isabel and Fernando sent him to..well wherever he was going when he discovered America. The Indies? Well anyways somehow I never realized this all occurred in Spain. Because when I learned this back in, like, elementary school, I didn't even know what Spain was. It was just some foreign place that I couldn't comprehend. So I didn't remember that he was from Spain. Plus, I used to hate history. Anyways, it's crazy that I'm living in Spain right now. And seeing all of these countries. And visiting all of these historical places. I really should've paid more attention in school!
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