The Ghost of Tom Joad

Spain has many wonderful things, the pintxo, that the Christmas decorations were up today, unreasonably attractive television presenters. However the best thing is the fact that the Spanish will do just about anything to avoid going to work. This week we finish on Wednesday. Thursday is Navarra day and Tuesday next week is a Saint's day and you can't possibly be expected to work on a Saint's day so whoever decides these things sat down and thought well you might as well have Friday and Monday off as well. This doesn't include last Monday which the schools had off for some reason known only to themselves so I didn't have to go to my kids classes. God bless Navarra and all who sail in her.

When you don't speak the language small, mundane tasks become very stressful. Panic when the person at the till asks you a question, rehearsing what you want to ask for at a counter only to fluff it under pressure, the all consuming vortex that is trying to deal with money. With serious things like when you lock horns with a certain Spanish bank, people go out of their way to help, there is also a much better chance of someone speaking English. With smaller things people are less concerned.

One of the scariest things is the hairdresser. A friend here just attempted to cut his own hair with a nasal hair trimmer, with unfortunate consequences. I braved a trip to a barber even though it did conjure up memories of the humiliation that I suffered in Romania when the middle aged women grouped around to take the piss in Romanian. This was slightly better. Bolting only crossed my mind once when I first noticed the guy was wearing a backwards baseball. He thought he was in the film Barbershop, surely Ice Cube's finest moment? My initial reaction was the same as anyone elses would be, it will be a cold day in hell before I let someone who thinks its acceptable to wear a backwards baseball cap touch my head, but I calmed myself and after a few hiccups we managed to get through. At first he shaved the back and sides and left the top completely alone and thought that was finished but with some Spanglish I got him to carry on. It took him an hour, including a TV break but its done. I'm dreading the next one already.

The exam period is coming to an end. The initial delight in ruining some teenagers day has been replaced with the bitterness and regret of a massive pile of marking. I hate marking, firstly its boring and repetitive. Secondly and worse of all is that I can't detach from it. Some teachers can just say oh well if their class gets bad marks, I feel personally responsible for every mistake. All I can think of is a saying which I don't know where I heard it but it goes: There's no such thing as a bad students, only bad teachers. That's not true but that's what marking will do to you.

It's been quiet. The biggest stir was yesterday when we had snow! It took me a while to get my head around that it wasn't big bits of rain. The weekend was good. A night out on Saturday followed by a day watching football on Sunday. You couldn't miss the fact that it was Barcelona vs Madrid, it has been the only thing on the news all week. Channels who weren't showing it previewed it all week and the build up on the actual channel started at 9 in the morning, kick off was 8 in the evening. As Charlton weren't playing it was the biggest game on the planet.

One more thing, HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROMANIA! And you thought I had forgotten. To celebrate here is a short video of Romanians dancing. Happy days.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kf-RI62PFs

I miss them so

love love love x