Lazy Days

There's nothing like getting back to work to help you enjoy some nice, guilt-free, lazy days.

Today is a holiday: Columbus Day in the States and El dia de la Hispanidad here and in many Latin American countries as well (I think). Anyway, we got Monday off too, so this has been a four-day weekend for me. Have I "done" anything? No. :)

My dear friend and Ex Co-auxiliar from last year, Kristen, came down from Madrid, but was only able to stay through Sunday--poo! It was great to see her. As Angelines says, short, intense visits are better than long ones anyway. She's right (as usual). Kristen's visit was intense just because I felt there was so much to say--catch up on summer, talk about plans for the school year, life in general--and so little time. Of course, being in Madrid she isn't really that far away, but it's not the same as being able to meet up for coffee on a whim.

Other than Kristen's visit, I really haven't been doing anything. I've become addicted to downloading TV shows and movies on-line. I've decided that the best way for Angelines to learn English is hearing it in a "real" context. I mean, as much as speaking to her in English is a good idea, she's not going to take away conversational skills, or even very useful language by me asking her if she wants toast for breakfast, or to wash the dishes in English. When we go back to the States, she's not going to be able to say more than, "shut the door" or "Do you have the keys?" to my mom...not acceptable in my book.

In the past, she's been reluctant to watch movies in English because she doesn't understand them, and even if they're subtitled in Spanish, she's not a fan of reading the whole movie (plus she's kind of a slow reader). I can understand her position, but we can watch movies that are old favorites of hers, ones that she knows by heart already and that way she won't loose the plot of the story and still be getting lots of language input in context. I also think that she won't mind watching cartoons in Engish, so I've downloaded Pixar's "Up" and also "Toy Story 3". We'll see where this goes. My hope is that little by little English starts to sound like something more than garble to her and she'll pick up some language chunks as a base for more learning. "Classes" begin tomorrow. ;)

With all my downloading I've been doing a lot of vegging in front of my lap top. Still, I think that's less bad than vegging in front of the TV. At least I don't have to swallow double the amount of commercials to get through a TV show. I downloaded the first season of FlashForward--I really like that show--and finished it. I have also downloaded the seventh and final season of The West Wing. I got hooked on that show in Portland the year after I graduated and the seventh season came out my first year here in La Roda...since then, I've been wondering what happened to all my favorite fictional politicians. Time to find out.

Now that it's Tuesday and I'll be heading back to work tomorrow, I'm sitting down to do some planning, but as you can see, I've gotten distracted. C'est la vie. As soon as I post this I've got to look into downloading Seasame Street video podcasts. They're perfect for preschool and first grade...maybe even second because they're short and packed with good language chunks. They also tend to have a focus on healthy habits for bilingual science.

Besitos. Off to watch Seasame Street!