Oh yeah we're back! Sorry (as if you care) about the break in transmission. There are valid reasons for this and as usual with anything I have to apologize for, Alex bears a lot of responsibility.
Last weekend was busy. The highlight was a trip to a karaoke bar which was strangely located in an underground car park. I didn't sing as it was a three hour wait for your turn. I'm not adverse to karaoke but after three hours the vital drink and interest levels have tipped too far. Also it may have started a minor diplomatic incident. Spanish karaoke is really different. In many ways superior, no lads doing oasis songs but then there were far more people taking themselves incredibly seriously, call me a puritan but some of the dance moves were just filth.
My new teenage class has completely transformed my week. Not only do I now spend a lot more time on buses, thanks to Kevyn my knowledge of Scottish football has improved, but it remains fundamentally pointless. Most of all I have to act like a proper teacher. They are a lovely class of four all of whom are very good. On a completely unrelated note I told a student earlier today that no one uses whom anymore and then look theres one just there in the last sentence. Am I out of date or a bad teacher? Probably both. Anyway, these four kids are to sit a difficult and official exam in the summer. Is it mission impossible? I mean, the parents are watching, we have to do a year (often 2) year course in five months and I don't know anything about grammar. It's going to be tough but I think we can pull it off. I just sent an email about them at 12.09am, working after midnight, never question my dedication!
I have also been sick. My body and I hate each other. It choose the worst possible time and hit me right between the eyes. I have been waiting for weeks for my appointment to get my new NIE number and I missed it as I was being sick. To make it more inconvienent Alex had already arrived at this point. Without my NIE I'm also not entitled to sick pay for the day I missed on Saturday. I solidered on into my class on Friday but was told I couldn't go to class as I looked like a wreck, I was told to start class and calvary would be arriving. It didn't and I was there three hours later. Fortunately my students were very understanding and largely left me alone. It's basically gone now except a cough which can only be described as whooping. It won't die and annoys Julia no end. It's also led me to drink an oceans worth of orange juice. I think my body must have a sponsership deal with Don Simon juice. You win this round body but I'll remember this next time I walk past a Mc Donalds.
And now for the main reason. Alex. Alex and Andrew arrived on Friday and it was wonderful to see them both. I was rubbish and sick but that didn't stop Alex getting me drunk, it was his fault, on a school night. But this was no drinking holiday, oh no. Saturday despite sickness was tapas and then to the Reina Sofia to see Picasso's Guernica. While Sunday was a trip to the Prado. I scoffed at the thought of being able to do the thing in a day but I was made to eat my words as Sunday turned into a mammoth session of classical art. It is such a beautiful gallery. It did get less classy later as in a bar Alex informed me we were being thrusted at by a male prostitute. I got to see their hotel, no relation between the prostitute and the hotel, which was awesome. I made myself look a bit stupid by sitting down in a swish bar and somehow making a large metallic crashing noise. The waiter couldn't resist telling us there was something wrong with us. He really has no idea. It was a really good weekend, I expect the rest of you soon, though not now as there is a strange girl staying here at the moment. She has my duvet but seems harmless enough.
The other damn exciting news, though I can't say its distracted me from anything, is the purchase of a proper Spanish grammar book. I am literally bursting with good intentions. I have been spurred on by two things. Number 1 is my rubbish Spanish and number 2 is that one of Dad's friends at home has started learning Spanish at home and I need to stay a good way ahead of him. I attempted the first exercise with Mike in the cafeteria at work. It was basic stuff, about the gender endings of nouns (the same thing my Spanish intercambio scolds me about) and we didn't realise at first that the key to completing the excerise was using the noun endings correctly. We sat there thinking this could be fucking anything before looking at each other with disgust and self loathing when we realised what we were missing. Once past that obstacle we did get 100%, there was much fist pumping to everyone else in the cafeteria's confusion and irritation.
Talking of confusion and irritation I should stop here before your levels of each become unbearable.
love love love x
Monday 21 February 2011
Friday 11 February 2011
Hansie Cronje
How do?
I've just been dealing with the landlord, I really don't trust him.
Against my better judgement I did go to watch the rugby. Whats the point? What are they doing? One girl got very annoyed with me when I was asked what I would do to improve the game and suggested just stopping and playing cricket. England won which is apparently relevant in some way.
This week has mainly been spent kicking puppies in the face. Not literally obviously but thats how its felt having to tell some students that they should think about not sitting certain exams in the summer. The First Certificate Exam in particuliar. The FCE, as we in the biz call it, is the one they all want. It's the one that proves beyond doubt that they can handle themselves in the English speaking world. These last few weeks we have been sitting mock exams. I say we, I've been reading my book while they hate themselves for not knowing whether to put in or on in the box. If they don't get 60 percent on the exam we recommend that they shouldn't sit the real deal as its expensive and you probably won't pass. Most did the 60 percent which was great but a few didn't. The reactions varied from sheer burning self hatred to defiance. I half expected one of them to stand up and shout fuck you at me before swearing to pass the exam just to spite me. They have all been working hard and its horrible to have to tell them that they probably won't be ready. I feel responsible and then we both cry together and the hug the whole thing out.
It will be worse with the teenagers. Their first four classes were an exam, they really hate me already.
I'm still hoping to set an exam like this:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=--TW18e2HPQ
I've started an intercambio! I'm so smug! On Sunday afternoons I trapse down to a cafe meet a serious young lady named, of course, Maria. We speak in English for 15 minutes and then Spanish for 15 and so on and so forth. She is a lot better than me. A lot, lot, better than me. She asks me difficult questions about grammar and the subtle differences between words, I smile politely. She brings a huge pad and writes down everything and hangs on my advice which is strange as you know most of what I say is bullshit. I mumble and stumble through and she gets more and more annoyed as the gender of my articles never matches the gender of my nouns, which is the story of my life. The amount of times she told me, its unA palabrA!! If the word ends in A the article needs to end in A, it's not fucking rocket science, but I just kept doing it again and again and she got frustrated. We have met a few times but I we have already realised that we have nothing to say to each other in any language. My Spanish classes are blowing my mind still but they are useful. The best thing however has been able to gloat at Claire because my Spanish teacher touched my shoulder and according to Claire "he's totally cute." Then we all laugh at her silly American English. In our training seminar the Scottish trainer dismissed the English of around 400 million North Americans as a dialect which is a bit rich from a man who says "laddie".
Alex is here on Thursday!
love love love x
I've just been dealing with the landlord, I really don't trust him.
Against my better judgement I did go to watch the rugby. Whats the point? What are they doing? One girl got very annoyed with me when I was asked what I would do to improve the game and suggested just stopping and playing cricket. England won which is apparently relevant in some way.
This week has mainly been spent kicking puppies in the face. Not literally obviously but thats how its felt having to tell some students that they should think about not sitting certain exams in the summer. The First Certificate Exam in particuliar. The FCE, as we in the biz call it, is the one they all want. It's the one that proves beyond doubt that they can handle themselves in the English speaking world. These last few weeks we have been sitting mock exams. I say we, I've been reading my book while they hate themselves for not knowing whether to put in or on in the box. If they don't get 60 percent on the exam we recommend that they shouldn't sit the real deal as its expensive and you probably won't pass. Most did the 60 percent which was great but a few didn't. The reactions varied from sheer burning self hatred to defiance. I half expected one of them to stand up and shout fuck you at me before swearing to pass the exam just to spite me. They have all been working hard and its horrible to have to tell them that they probably won't be ready. I feel responsible and then we both cry together and the hug the whole thing out.
It will be worse with the teenagers. Their first four classes were an exam, they really hate me already.
I'm still hoping to set an exam like this:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=--TW18e2HPQ
I've started an intercambio! I'm so smug! On Sunday afternoons I trapse down to a cafe meet a serious young lady named, of course, Maria. We speak in English for 15 minutes and then Spanish for 15 and so on and so forth. She is a lot better than me. A lot, lot, better than me. She asks me difficult questions about grammar and the subtle differences between words, I smile politely. She brings a huge pad and writes down everything and hangs on my advice which is strange as you know most of what I say is bullshit. I mumble and stumble through and she gets more and more annoyed as the gender of my articles never matches the gender of my nouns, which is the story of my life. The amount of times she told me, its unA palabrA!! If the word ends in A the article needs to end in A, it's not fucking rocket science, but I just kept doing it again and again and she got frustrated. We have met a few times but I we have already realised that we have nothing to say to each other in any language. My Spanish classes are blowing my mind still but they are useful. The best thing however has been able to gloat at Claire because my Spanish teacher touched my shoulder and according to Claire "he's totally cute." Then we all laugh at her silly American English. In our training seminar the Scottish trainer dismissed the English of around 400 million North Americans as a dialect which is a bit rich from a man who says "laddie".
Alex is here on Thursday!
love love love x
Wednesday 2 February 2011
Quiet
Hola. I'm lost in the swirling vortex one being the usual Spanish bureaucracy and the other being the fact we live in a world where Andy Carroll is worth 35 million English pounds. In fact the nice man who I thought helped me jump a whole stage has actually pushed me back a stage. I don't want to say it was deliberate but the facts speak for themselves.
I've started an intercambio with a Spanish girl called Maria (aren't they all?). Her English is pretty good and as you may expect her Spanish is solid. My Spanish however is not. We spoke for an hour switching languages every fifteen minutes and I managed to hold my own. We made small talk about family, work and oo isn't Spanish/English hard. From what other people have said this is usual and after two or three you are out of things to say, I feel I'm basically at that point now. I need to keep going as I need to speak more Spanish and I've enjoyed being even smugger than normal because I'm doing the smallest amount of work possible on my Spanish. It clearly hasn't done good as at the desk of the town hall when I was trying to explain what I was there for the woman got annoyed and went off to get someone who could speak English.
School is fine though they have given me a new class. It's in a place called Las Rozas. I had no idea where it was so I asked someone and they said it was in the north of Madrid. Lying bastard. What he meant was, north of Madrid, that 'the' makes a huge difference. I should know! I've read something on the subject in a blue box in a text book. I have to get a bus and trapse up out of the city to a school to sit in a room with some strangely quiet teenagers. It's a public school and are very nice unlike the last one which would lock me out. I'm still sulking about it.
The weekend's football went a little mad. We started in our friendly and self deprecating manner. After a few niggly fouls, I got put on my arse in the corner, and some controversial decisions it got serious. There were tactics, match orders werre given and there was an incredible amount of hand clapping. It was 9-9 in the final minutes (an indicator of the standard) and when our team grabbed a winner there were genuine celebrations. The best celebrations however have been me strutting around Madrid hands aloft, chest out. Osasuna beat Real Madrid. My student Miguel came in and straight away I was on his case, how did a team you described as hopeless just knock you out of the title race? Answer me! I saw some of it on TV. The fans were rapid seeing as they hate Madrid and helped their side by throwing balls onto the pitch to confuse the referee, it worked, it's not hard.
I'm being forced to watch rugby on Friday. I'm not happy about it.
love love love x
I've started an intercambio with a Spanish girl called Maria (aren't they all?). Her English is pretty good and as you may expect her Spanish is solid. My Spanish however is not. We spoke for an hour switching languages every fifteen minutes and I managed to hold my own. We made small talk about family, work and oo isn't Spanish/English hard. From what other people have said this is usual and after two or three you are out of things to say, I feel I'm basically at that point now. I need to keep going as I need to speak more Spanish and I've enjoyed being even smugger than normal because I'm doing the smallest amount of work possible on my Spanish. It clearly hasn't done good as at the desk of the town hall when I was trying to explain what I was there for the woman got annoyed and went off to get someone who could speak English.
School is fine though they have given me a new class. It's in a place called Las Rozas. I had no idea where it was so I asked someone and they said it was in the north of Madrid. Lying bastard. What he meant was, north of Madrid, that 'the' makes a huge difference. I should know! I've read something on the subject in a blue box in a text book. I have to get a bus and trapse up out of the city to a school to sit in a room with some strangely quiet teenagers. It's a public school and are very nice unlike the last one which would lock me out. I'm still sulking about it.
The weekend's football went a little mad. We started in our friendly and self deprecating manner. After a few niggly fouls, I got put on my arse in the corner, and some controversial decisions it got serious. There were tactics, match orders werre given and there was an incredible amount of hand clapping. It was 9-9 in the final minutes (an indicator of the standard) and when our team grabbed a winner there were genuine celebrations. The best celebrations however have been me strutting around Madrid hands aloft, chest out. Osasuna beat Real Madrid. My student Miguel came in and straight away I was on his case, how did a team you described as hopeless just knock you out of the title race? Answer me! I saw some of it on TV. The fans were rapid seeing as they hate Madrid and helped their side by throwing balls onto the pitch to confuse the referee, it worked, it's not hard.
I'm being forced to watch rugby on Friday. I'm not happy about it.
love love love x
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