Classes

The new semester seems as though it's going to require very little study.  On the one hand that's a good thing, but at the same time, re-organizing my time to maintain efficiency when I suddenly have "free time" is easier said than done.  And the real crux of the promblem is class prep--how I hate it! 

Since I don't need to spend as much time on school work, I theoretically have more time to prep... but what actually ends up happening is I find some other completely low priority to occupy myself and push class preparation to the very last min.  This only increases my stress and the feeling that I am never on top of my game.  But it's also true, at least for me, that class prep. requires a certain ammount of inspriation.  I cannot just sit down and do it.  So sometimes I find myself in front of the computer without a clue as to where to begin and I just end up wasting time.  Usually I find something...or sometimes I just give up and sweep the floors or run a few shopping errands to clear my head.  But of course, this kind of "productive procrastination" can only last so long before it's actually down to the wire and I must have something ready for my afternoon classes.

I try to always be at least a day ahead of myself.  In general I'm pretty good at that.  The problem is what happens when I've finished preparing for the next day:  I lose all motivation to continue and get another day knocked out of the way.  Right now, for example, I am writing a blog instead of thinking about what on Earth I'll do with my Tuesday classes.  (And as I wrote that a churning knot began to form in my stomach)  I've had Monday ready since yesterday and so it seems I've been able to lull myself into a false sense of accomplishment--"I'll prep Tuesday tomorrow!"  Ugh.

And then there's the added problem that I am completely at my wit's end with one of my Tuesday classes.  No matter what I do, how I do it, what I say, or how well I plan; everything goes to hell after about five minutes (if I'm lucky!) of class.  Part of the problem is that the class is bigger than my others...but if I tell you how big, you'll laugh at me for thinking I can ever teach a class of 20+ kids in a public school!  There are only twelve kids in class (I'm ashamed to admit). 

My mom has very helpfully given me advice for dealing with difficult kids that she's used in the classroom or seen other teachers use.  I have looked online for idea for getting kids attention.  But as great as it all sounds when you read it online, and as great as I'm sure it works at C. Roy Carmichael Elementary in Portola, California...  None of you have ever seen children like Spanish children.  I am convinced that there are no worse behaved children on the planet than Spanish kids.  Seriously.  I can't begin to tell you why that is, I can only vouch that it is absolutely true.  Of course, not ALL of them are heathens; but even the best behaved Spanish child would probably stand out as rowdy kids in an American classroom.

This class has me completely perplexed, and honestly, if I could, I would just cancel it.  The trouble now is that I've had so many failures with so many different strategies that I've begun to look at is as just an hour I have to suffer through.  I have lost all desire to try to figure out something fun and motivational for these kids because I swear there is nothing in the world that will hold their attention.  Even the games that I think will be fun go sour pretty fast because they make fun of each other and gloat or cheer when a classmate doesn't answer correctly.  If it were my class in a real school setting, I'd do some serious team-work exercises.  But seeing as how I have them only one day a week for one hour, I don't see how I'd get very far with them; certainly not if we have to do the activities in English!

Still, I can't help feeling as though if only I were more creative, I could come up with some kind of solution.  I can't help feeling like a giant failure every Tuesday when another painful hour creeps by and it's all I can do to get half the kids to participate or keep them from hitting each other.  Thank goodness I end with a class that I love through and through (like I say, not all Spanish kids are inherantly bratty).  At least I usually end on a good note.

...And now I'm off to suffer through planning...

Friday

For the first time in a long time, this actually feels like a Friday.  My usual Saturday morning class has been cancelled, so I've got nothing until Monday morning.

Well, maybe "nothing" isn't quite right.  I should of course be getting ahead with planning, but I got into such a routine of waking up at 7:00 to start studying in these past few weeks that this morning I finally just got out of bed at 8:00 even though my alarm wasn't set to go off for another half hour.  I just couldn't sleep anymore!  So I know that tomorrow I'll be up bright and early once again and I can dig into the week's planning then.  Tonight I just want to take it easy.

My new semester's classes began this week and I had my first "virtual" classes (basically like a one-way skype call) today.  I have all three with the same professor: Svetlana Stefanova.  She is not Spanish, that's for sure! ;)  So I'm being taught about English grammar, phonetics, morphology and syntax by a foreigner... but really, I guess sometimes they're the best teachers.

We native speakers can use the language (usually) perfectly, or at least without too much trouble; but how many of you can do morphological analysis?  Or point out the adverbial phrase in a sentence?  And probably none of you could spell "mother" using the international phonetic alphabet!  I don't know how useful any of this will be for my own teaching, but it is true that fluent speakers of a second language often know the grammar and rules inside and out while those of us who were born speaking the language haven't got a clue as to word order, sentence structure or what on Earth an extraposed subject is.

I find that this is true here in Spain.  I can write and spell and form sentences better than many native sevillanos.  That's not bragging; it's true.  I haven't had the luxury of growing up speaking this language, where being surrounded by it naturally leads to near-perfect oral production before heading off to school and  being introduced to the written word--struggling to memorize the rules of how all the letters come together to make the words we say; or how, in turn, those words come together in different patterns to make meaningful sentences.  I have learned to speak and read and write Spanish all at once.  Therefore, my spelling (in Spanish) is nearly perfect (a novelty for the girl who scored in the 9th percentile in spelling on her STAR test in the seventh grade).

So I guess it isn't so surprising that I now have a foreign teacher to tell me about all the intricacies of my own language that I never wanted to know.  Still, I can't help but be annoyed that I have to take the classes at all.  Sure, it's not all bad, and being the strange, language-loving, nerd that I am, I got sick pleasure out of doing an assignment for my morphology and syntax class three weeks ahead of schedule tonight.  Breaking down words, designating the root, the bound inflectional suffixes, etc. it was like cracking an English-lover's code!  And yet I worry about how long these new classes will hold my interest.  It seems as though they'll lose their luster quickly, and then I'll just be stuck grinding through exercises with words like "predicative compliment" and "morpheme", or "non-finite verb."  Only time will tell.

But I didn't really want to tell you about what a language nerd I am.  What I wanted to tell you all was that despite the many things I could be doing or could have done this evening, I just decided to watch a movie. :)  So while I did get a jump start on my morphology class and I did do some reading from my grammar book, I also just decided to enjoy my Friday and sit down on the couch with a good movie--The Silver Linings Playbook.  I liked it and now I'm going to sleep.

TGIF

Where does the time go?

I know, I know...beginning each new blog with an appology is becoming a routine!

I am sitting at the bar keeping Angelines company and enjoying the fleeting feeling of freedom that comes after finals.  That's right, today were my final exams and now I have one week of "break" before the new semester begins. I say "break" because obviously I am still teaching my private classes this week.  Even so, it is a relief to not have reading or assignments hanging at the back of my mind trying to catch my attention between, class prep. and life in general.

For probably the first time in my whole four years of school here, I began to study in earnest this semester a full two weeks before my exams.  In the past I've always worked hard to get the maximum grade going into the exam and then not really worried too much about studying.  This year I decided that it wasn't worth it to loose sleep during the semester, and going into the exam with fewer than the maximum, wasn't the end of the world.  I decided I would study more and that would be that...

Changing things up worked out nicely during the semester--I wasn't nearly as worried or stressed about assignments.  If I had time to do them, I did them.  If I thought they were important to reinforce important aspects of the class, I did them.  If they were worth a lot of points, I did them; but I didn't worry about letting a few slide.  And surprisingly I found that giving myself permision to do less than 100%, actually motivated me to do more.  I didn't achieve the full points possible in any of my classes going into the exams, but out of a possible four, I had more than three in all of them.  I would say that's pretty good.  In other years, I have stressed to get those four points and sometimes only gone into the exam with the same 3.3 that I had in two of this semester's courses!

And the fact that I didn't have the full credit forced me to do some good, old-fashioned studying, which was a huge help.  It's not that I haven't studied at all in the past, but I usually just crammed in the four days leading up to the exams.  This time, I reveiwed notes, re-highlighted my texts and wrote up concept maps of each unit.  I prepared all 28 questions that one teacher gave us ahead of time to study from, and I wrote up a full lesson plan for my Didáctica de la Educación Plástica y Visual (my art class required that we write up a lesson plan in the exam aside from completing a multiple choice portion and an essay question!).

ASIDE: All this is to say that if I don't pass (or if I get anything less than a 7, let's be real!), I will be very sad.

As I was saying, the studying paid off.  In my art exam, for example, I used the full two hours for the test, but I wasn't stressed at all.  It was a great feeling.  Of course, there were some questions I wasn't sure about, but all-in-all, I was able to do each of my three exams with very little problem and next to no stress--what a concept.  I guess in the past maybe I've just been too confident in my bullsh*tting skills. ;)  Feeling prepared was a welcome change.

There's not a whole lot of other news around here.  2014 has more than begun.  I can't believe January is over already!

I'm not sure I mentioned it in my last post way back in January, but one of my New Year's Resolutions was to begin swimming again.  I am happy to say we have now gone four times. :)  Thursday was a great day in the pool.  We usually spend about 45 min in the water.  Getting to the pool takes about 25 min. and between changing clothes and showering, etc. we can't afford to be in the water much longer (depending on what time we leave home, of course).  Anyway, in 45 min, I swam a mile and it felt great--a total disconnect between mind and body.  It was like I was watching myself go back and forth across the pool: breathing and moving, the coordination came naturally.  And I didn't even feel like I was working.  My pulse must have been up, but I never got that squeezing feeling in my chest like my heart was going to come bursting out.

So despite my recent lack of blogging, I am actually feeling much more balanced than I have over the last few months.  Christmas was stressful, so January was a lot of playing catch-up and recently things have been calming down again.  Judging by the length of this blog (I could go on...), you can tell I've also been dying to get on here and write!  Now that my exams are out of the way, I think I'll be able to get back into a propper blogging routine. ;)

Cheers!

Happy New Year

Well, Maggie and Lucy are back in California now and things are awfully quiet around here.  I've been
 playing music to fill the silence as I catch up on school work and planning classes.  They were here for three weeks--a good, long visit, and just as with my parents' visit in June, it got to feel normal having them here, and so now my big house feels even bigger without them.

Strangely enough...when I saw them through the glass at the airport, I didn't turn and run. ;)

For the first time in five years, I entered the New Year with my sisters.  Unfortunately, Lucy was sick with the flu...and I couldn't even stay home and make her tea because I had to help Angelines and work at the bar.  So we left Lucy on the couch with a bottle of water, my down comforter and Bela and spent New Year's Eve dinner at my sister-in-law's house.

We put the balloons up at the bar again for New Year's.

Dinner was delicious and as always there was too much food.  We ate our twelve grapes with the last twelve seconds of 2013, kissed each other, toasted with cava and then dashed out the door to open the bar again.  Maggie came out for a bit, but without Lu it wasn't much fun and she headed home early (2:30am).  The bar was slammed.  I dare say it was busier than last year!  At one point we ran out of glasses!  A and I had another girl working with us, and the three of us were going non-stop from about 1:30 to 6:00am.  We finally closed up at about 7:30 and headed home to have breakfast before falling, exhausted into bed.  All-in-all it was a pretty good way to usher in 2014. ;)

But the holidays in Spain don't end until Epiphany (Jan. 6), which is when all the kids get their presents from the Magi.  This year San Pancracio didn't do a float for the King's Day parade, but Maggie, Lu and I did go out for just a bit to see the other floats and let Lucy have the full cabalgata experience--read: getting pelted by hard candies flung by enthusiastic children. ;)  We spent the evening at home watching movies, chatting and laughing.  Truth is, I didn't miss dressing up for the parade with that company. :)

In the morning, I dragged Mag and Lu along with me to the bar to give Angelines a King's Day surprise: no need to clean and Christmas decorations all packed away.  They were good sports about sweeping up at least four kilos of sunflower seed shells and packing up deccorations, and Angelines was a happy camper when she woke up. ;)

King's day parade.

I guess it must have been because they knew Maggie and Lucy were such good house guests, but when we came home from cleaning, we discovered that the Magi had left gifts for them!  My mom had also sent a whole suitcase of gifts with the girls that we were ordered NOT to open until Jan. 6th; so we all sat around and opened presents after breakfast.  It actually felt like Christmas. :)

You're probably beginning to see that even though I wasn't "working" for the first week and a half that my sisters were here, I wasn't exactly free to tour around and do things with them.  The bar is a pretty time-consuming business, and poor A just can't do it alone.  We did manage to do a few things that first week, though.  We visited Puente Genil (about 25 min away), which is famous for its Christmas lights.  We headed out after our 5 o'clock coffee and spent the evening wandering around the street and eating roasted chestnuts while admiring the lights--gorgeous!

Snow White's chocolate castle.

I also took them to Estepa to see La ciudad de chocolate at one of the matecado factories.  Estepa is famous for its traditional Christmas sweets--mantecados.  They're difficult to describe...made of flour, sugar, cinnamon, almonds, and lard.  They're delicious.  One of the many factories in town makes a chocolate city each year that's free to visit.  So we bought some treats for Maggie to take her friends in Belgium (she made a four-day visit to Belgique while on the continent), and took a tour of the city.  It was quite impressive.  This year's theme was Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.  The whole thing was entirely edible--walnut paving stones, lakes of honey and all the buildings and figures were chocolate.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't very cooperative either so there were several days when we could have gone somewhere and done something...but leaving the warmth of the fireplace to go out in the cold drizzle wasn't anyone's idea of fun.  Actually, some of the best weather we had was when Maggie left for Belgium!  Lucy and I took advantage and headed to Cordoba for the day.  We visited the ruins of Madinat al-Zahara and explored the city center.  We missed entrance to the cathedral by about five minutes, but wandering the stone streets of the judería was fun just the same.

The world's best tapa.

Our tapas that afternoon were some of the best: tortilla española and braised goat cheese served over
smoked salmon with a balsamic sauce.  Wow!  Later in the evening we had another culinary adventure when we decided to stop into a tea house before the horse show (the day's big highlight!) that started at eight.  We ordered tea to share and a chocolate pistachio milkshake.  After taking our order the waitress came back to tell us that they were out of the chocolate pistachio and if we would like to try almond avocado instead.  We looked at each other dubiously and then decided to go for it--it wasn't bad...and that's about all I can say.  It was like drinking sweet guacamole, but it really wasn't bad.

The horse show is the same one that I took my parents to this summer, but I enjoyed it just as much the second time.  Lucy loved it. :)  This time, since it's winter, it was inside and the lighting was better than the outdoor show I saw in June.  It was a great day and lots of fun (as always) to bond with my littlest sister. ;)

Maggie came back on Tuesday and brought Belgium's weather back with her... So we didn't do any more exploring, although we did go out for churros and chocolate for breakfast on Thursday, at her request.

Wine on the upstairs terrace--one of the sunny days we had. :)

For the most part, I think all three of us were just content to be together.  We cooked and cleaned and prepped my classes together.  Maggie made pasties (she works in a pasty restaurant in SLO)--they were fantastic!  I forced her to leave me with dough so I could make more after they left.  And we also made both my mom's truffle and fudge recipes to give to my neighbors over Christmas. And both girls dropped in on my last class Thursday to give the kids some "real" conversation practice.  Lucy also braved my youngest kids' classes--she left with a new appreciation of the children at Portola Pre-school!  And she was the main event at my adult class Monday night, too. ;)  We just enjoyed each other's company and A marvelled at how silly and loud the three of us are when we're together!

A Merry Little Christmas

...This is a bit late in coming.  Sorry!  I started this post on Christmas day and I´m only just finishing it on Jan. 1st!  Oh well.  Before I tell you all about New Years, however, I wanted to tell you how my Merry little Chirstmas ended up. :)

Mexican soap operas and weather aside, it was a very nice Christmas.  I don't remember if I mentioned that I was knitting a surpise scarf for Angelines.  I bought the wool the Friday before and spent the evening/night knitting away while chatting with my mom on skype. :)  Saturday I relized I'd need more wool to finish the scarf and I also decided I had made it too wide so in Penelope fashion, I unravelled everything from the night before and started over again!  Saturday evening I skyped mom again.  She was wrapping xmas presents, so we kept each other company.  In the end, it's a four color scarf: stripes of burgundy, navy blue, grey and tan.  It's very pretty and A loved it. :) 

I decided that I wanted to give it to her for Christmas insead of Reyes when Spaniards usually exchange gifts.  I was very insistant that she write a note to Santa Clause or he wouldn't bring her anything...apparantly that tipped her off to the fact that she was getting a Christmas present (in general, neither of us is a big gift giver).  She called a friend in a panic and asked him to get me something for Christmas!

After Christmas dinner I was too beat to go to mass as I have in the past and I just ended up going to bed.  At 6:30am, when Angelines got home from work I woke up to see how the night had gone and she greeted me in the hall saying, "Santa came!"  I had left out anis liquor (typical at Christmas time in Spain) and some sweets from my mother-in-law for Santa.  After writing my own note to him, I wrote a letter from Santa for us with a pretty silver pen and left it on the mantel by our stockings along with a nibbled pestiño. ;)

I wasn't expecting anything from her, so I was happiliy surprised when she insisted that "Santa came" and I should look by the fire.  It was just like when I was a little girl and I'd wake up at dawn to sneak out and look at my presents!  So at 6:30 on Christmas morning, we exchanged gifts.  She gave me a very soft stuffed puppy. ;)  cute.

Later that morning I went to clean at the bar with my mother and sister-in-law and the morning was slightly spoiled when I popped the tire driving the glass down to the recycling bin!  It was POURING rain and very windy.  We called my brother-in-law, who's a very big guy...but not even he could loosen the bolts on the tire to change the flat!  We had to call the insurance company to send some one!  Merry Christmas!

My sisters came on the 27th.  I'll fill you in on that in another post.  For now suffice it to say that we are having a blast.  Starting the New Year with my sissies is just about the best Christmas present a girl could ask for! :)

Kisses from Spain!

This little round stool was an early xmas gift from A--she made it for me! :)

Merry Christmas! :(

...The Spanish version of Christmas snow. ;)

Merry Christmas

The fire's lit, table set and dinner ready.  I'm sitting on the couch with my mother-in-law watching an uber-dramatic Mexican soap opera and waiting for Angelines to come home for dinner.  Not what you might call a typical Christmas eve... but that's okay.

This year I've been more in the "Christmas Spirit" than other years, streaming the classic carols, painting ornaments, putting lights on my very first tree :), and knitting a surpise christmas scarf for A.  Tonight it's just the three of us (and Bela) eating Christmas dinner... a little sad, but I'm happy to be having dinner at our house--our first Christmas here.

I have so many things I'd like to write.  When I'm walking the dog in the late afternoon with the slanting winter light cutting through olive branches, I think of so many things I'd like to sit down and write here, but when I get a moment to sit down at the computer, my mind goes blank.

... And I was interrupted.

Christmas dinner is being digested--ham hocks with orange sauce in a pastry bowl accompanied with sauteéd zucchinni, onions and peas.  All that preceeded by shrimp, jamón, cheese, and nuts.  Tangerines for dessert.  I'm nearly falling asleep on the couch.  I'm debating simply going to bed.  But first, I have to write a note to Santa Clause.  After coercing Angelines into doing so (I'm planning to leave her scarf in her stocking), she pointed out that I hadn't written one--busted!  This year Santa's getting pestiños and aguardiente. ;)

'Tis the Season

My favorite reindeer!!

I realized today that I haven't even managed to blog about our Thanksgiving ...and here we are mid-December!

The truth is I just haven't been inspired as of late.  Yes, I've been busy, but there have been times when I've had more things to do and still managed to find time to blog.  At least two or three times a week I think to myself, "oh! I've got to blog about this!", but then the inspiration leaves me and another week passes.

Christmas is upon us!  This time of year is always particularly stressful for Angelines--long hours, more days of work, festivities in which she can't take part because of her job...  She doesn't like Christmas.  However, this year we've decided to change things up a bit and make the holiday more fun for both of us.  For the first time in seven years, I have a Christmas tree in my house!!  And despite the lack of evergreen trees here in Sevilla, we did not buy a fake tree--totally against my NorCal upbringing!

Today we went to a nursery and picked out a cute little fir tree: live.  Our plan is to plant it in the patio and we'll have a perennial Christmas tree!  True, if we do ever have a white Christmas (or what's more likely a wet Christmas), we won't be able to put presents under it, but we can still light and deccorate it.  I am please with our purchase and also happy that instead of killing a tree for Christmas, we're planting one!  I spent this evening putting lights on our little fir, pictures tomorrow.  Now I need some ornaments... ;)

And speaking of ornaments, I spent Thursday's English classes (5th and 6th graders) making salt dough ornaments!  We are going to paint them this coming Thursday.  So perhaps I should whip up some more salt dough and make myself some ornaments.  The only catch is the acrylic paint we need to paint them costs a fortune!  The kids made a lot, but I think I'm going to limit painting to just two or three.

Christmas has made it to the bar, too.  We have a tree (fake) put up and decorated, pointsettas behind the bar, and a nativity scene in the window.  Pub California is ready for the holidays. :)  This weekend, we're serving Christmas pancakes and the next two weekends we have music groups coming in to liven up the atmosphere.

Pub California's Christmas tree--just missing the tree skirt!