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 Am I out of date or a bad teacher?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
Tuesday, 25 January 2011
An Afternoon in the Town Hall
This conversation was held in broken English and Spanish with an impressive multitude of hand gestures. It has been cleaned up here.
Council Man: What can I do for you?
Me: I need a new NIE number (the number you receive when you register as a foreign resident)
CM: What happened to yours you cretin?
Me: My copy was in a bag that was stolen a few months ago.
CM: Why do you need one?
Me: For loads of things! Because my old foe CAN bank, the Moriarty to my Holmes, has closed in Madrid leaving me without a bank in a last desperate attempt to defeat me. Without an NIE number I can't open a new account.
CM: A passport is enough.
Me: Thats what their website said but, no.
CM: You said it was a copy, that must mean that you sold the original to a Colombian drug cartel, some Jihadists or Russian people smugglers.
Me: My former employer has it, they were shady I grant you but not that bad!
CM: Ask them for it then retard.
Me: I have, no response, CAN has evidently got to them.
CM: Well without one you are aware that in the eyes of the Spanish government you no longer exist.
Me: Well I do have my NIE number here on my contract and here on my old Pamplona healthcard. So I do have it, but apparently those don't count
CM: Well obviously.
Me: Why don't they count?
CM: Because
Me: Because?
CM: Because.
Me: But Pamplona is in Spain surely that counts?!
CM: Nope, Navarra is an autonomous community so no it doesn't count. We need you to prove it was stolen.
Me: Is the police report enough?
CM: We would prefer you had a written account from the guy who took the bag or at least a sketched picture of the event but the report will do. But this doesn't have your NIE number on it!
Me: I know, because the NIE was in the bag.
CM: Well that's no good. You haven't said the NIE was in the bag on this form.
Me: There's no option for it so I ticked other.
CM: Well other could be anything...
Me: I need the number!
CM: Well clearly you can't be trusted with it.
Me: Please!
CM: Well you need to identify yourself with two forms of ID.
Me: I have my passport, what else counts?
CM: Ideally your NIE.
Me: Silence other than gentle sobbing.
CM: Well come on now, its not that bad. You just can't open a bank account, buy things online and just hope to God the police don't stop you at any point. We also strongly advise not getting sick.
Me: Louder sobbing
CM: We can't do anything today. Come back tomorrow and as nothing will have changed we can go through this all over again from tomorrow until eternity.....
love love love x
Council Man: What can I do for you?
Me: I need a new NIE number (the number you receive when you register as a foreign resident)
CM: What happened to yours you cretin?
Me: My copy was in a bag that was stolen a few months ago.
CM: Why do you need one?
Me: For loads of things! Because my old foe CAN bank, the Moriarty to my Holmes, has closed in Madrid leaving me without a bank in a last desperate attempt to defeat me. Without an NIE number I can't open a new account.
CM: A passport is enough.
Me: Thats what their website said but, no.
CM: You said it was a copy, that must mean that you sold the original to a Colombian drug cartel, some Jihadists or Russian people smugglers.
Me: My former employer has it, they were shady I grant you but not that bad!
CM: Ask them for it then retard.
Me: I have, no response, CAN has evidently got to them.
CM: Well without one you are aware that in the eyes of the Spanish government you no longer exist.
Me: Well I do have my NIE number here on my contract and here on my old Pamplona healthcard. So I do have it, but apparently those don't count
CM: Well obviously.
Me: Why don't they count?
CM: Because
Me: Because?
CM: Because.
Me: But Pamplona is in Spain surely that counts?!
CM: Nope, Navarra is an autonomous community so no it doesn't count. We need you to prove it was stolen.
Me: Is the police report enough?
CM: We would prefer you had a written account from the guy who took the bag or at least a sketched picture of the event but the report will do. But this doesn't have your NIE number on it!
Me: I know, because the NIE was in the bag.
CM: Well that's no good. You haven't said the NIE was in the bag on this form.
Me: There's no option for it so I ticked other.
CM: Well other could be anything...
Me: I need the number!
CM: Well clearly you can't be trusted with it.
Me: Please!
CM: Well you need to identify yourself with two forms of ID.
Me: I have my passport, what else counts?
CM: Ideally your NIE.
Me: Silence other than gentle sobbing.
CM: Well come on now, its not that bad. You just can't open a bank account, buy things online and just hope to God the police don't stop you at any point. We also strongly advise not getting sick.
Me: Louder sobbing
CM: We can't do anything today. Come back tomorrow and as nothing will have changed we can go through this all over again from tomorrow until eternity.....
love love love x
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
Spanish Moss
I love you Chris.
It is as if we never left. I'm back in routine with some new added improvements. I pride myself on making my years resolutions last until at least the first week of Febuary. The main has been to do a little Spanish every day and so far so average. I've just been doing a little and I'm trying to work out whether Spanish is hard or if I'm an idiot, I think its a bit of both. The usual eat better and do excerise has been its usual waste of time. I thought I had set a fair few targets until seeing what a friend from school's resolutions, she is determined to completely cut out joy. My Spanish has been tested and found wanted this week as we have had workmen in. Julia had the misfortune to wake up with water spraying out of a pipe in her room. Some plumbers came and then some more guys came to fill the whole in the roof. Being the only one in at the time I did my best to sound gruff, admire their job and be manly, the sort of man who could do this job if he wanted. I failed but I can't blame the Spanish...
Its been a good week. Went out at the weekend and ended in one of the strangest places ever. It looked like every miserable shopping arcade you get in places like Swindon or Dartford but every shop was actually a metal bar. I'm not one to comment on fashion generally but some of the stuff on display was truly special. The average age must have been 17, mum and dad were on the end of some serious abuse. I had my first run in with the law. It is against the law to drink in the street in Spain but normally the police turn a blind eye. This one didn't. Seeing me with drink in hand standing at the top of some steps he gestured at me from the bottom of them. He gestured writing a fine in his book and kept pointing at me. In my state I didn't quite understand what this could possibly mean so I just stood there looking puzzled which made him annoyed. As he came up the stairs I realised what he meant put the drink down and walked off. He came up and glared at me as he kicked my pint over. Now I know how these guys felt.
Fortunately the number of underage, street drinking Goths distracted him. Of course if he had come over I wouldn't have N.W.A-ed him (yeah I use it as a verb, what of it?) I would have been very polite, smiled a lot and played my best ignorant foreigner card.
Class is back in full swing, lots of new faces, I've lost some students too, which is normal before anyone thinks anything. Some I'm delighted to see the back off, others not so. I have one new student who has been in America and is very good but says things like sidewalk, gas and my favourite, fo sho, like Omar from the Wire. In my corporate class I've been moved up the -1 floor to floor 16. I'll own that tower in no time.
Otherwise I spend my time thinking about Chris. He is our new manager. I normally don't like hero players coming back as manager but its Chris, there should never be a time when he is not at Charlton in some capacity. It's first managerial job so maybe it will be a master stroke. I'm caustiously optimistic. Please don't fuck it up, I couldn't bear it.
love love love x
Monday, 10 January 2011
Dacia
jalopnik.com/5729853/the-most-insulting-car-commercial-ever-made
Here's a link to a Romanian car advert (in English) I don't get it but God I miss them
x
Here's a link to a Romanian car advert (in English) I don't get it but God I miss them
x
The King Is Dead
I'm sorry for the long delay. The reason for this is that I have been busy what with Christmas and more recently giving potential Charlton managerial candidates imaginary job interviews. I hope you had a lovely festive Christmas. I was incrediably lucky that my flight both back home and back here were completely unaffected. Unlike the poor bastards going to Belgium, that was shaping up to be one miserable Christmas. Poor Belgians.
Home was really good! This sounds horrible but I was surprised how much I enjoyed being back. I always like being home unlike most people in TEFL I didn't get into it to run away from home and I can't explain why but it was really good to be back. The most eventful event as it typically is was a visit to Dalston. A little drink before dinner turned into a few hours in one of these trendy bars that are now all over east London. We brought the tone as Alex fell literally on his face, sorry for sharing Alex but it was really funny. Not that I can say anything I briefly fell asleep and was even the tinniest bit sick. That however was the doormans fault. Other than I got in a visit to Cambridge which always makes one feel scholary. So scholary I think I have mispelt scholary, have I? I'm a disgrace to my profession.
I am enjoying work at the moment. In a novel turn we have taken in new teachers and now I look like some weary war veteran with a cigar hanging from my mouth looking at some fresh faced recruits. I feel like shaking them and shouting in their face, something like this
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUc62jD-G0o
Its gone a little to my head, I feel a little dizzy. Most of my classes have involved a quiz about 2010 which had been translated into English. It has been fun and has done wonders for my knowledge of Spanish politics. Apparently there is a shady kingmaker, man behind the throne type, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba and theres some serious tension between Spain and Morrocco.
Since being back I had my first night out in the new smoke free Spain, I forgot what a huge difference a smoking ban makes. Jonathan rang me on Sunday barely able to contain himself that he had found a cinema showing Tron in English. I'm not a huge fan but I went along and it was ummm. I just had one question that summed up my whole attitude to the film, why? He built an amazing grid! Why? The villian is trying to get into our world! Why? He's building an army! Why? We must see Zeus! Why? But wait Zeus is allied with the villain! Why? This disk on my back contains all the knowledge about the grid! Why? Why? Why? WHY? W*^H%!$Y???
I have to go. I have vowed that I will do some Spanish work every day and I have yet to do any and its three minutes to midnight. I'm leaving it dramatically late.
love love love x
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