OH BROTHER!

before i post..i have an unhealthy obsession with this car commercial!


wipe your tears now...(sniffle)

As you know I have been teaching English...I don't know if you would really call it teaching though... its more like we go to class for 12 hours with no tests or class on Friday. And we get paid.

sighh....our days are so taxing.

But my students are pretty funny. Lets see here..Lets see. Well the first week they had to ask me questions about myself.

Some spit-fire questions from my students in Arroyo de la Luz

" Do you like Spain?"..obviously
" Do you like Spanish food?" ...I've been here three weeks and have only eaten ham..so uh I like the cheese.
" Do you like Spanish?" ..no I hate Spanish thats why I came to a Spanish speaking country.
" Where do you live in Spain?" Caceres.
" Are your parents living in Spain?" WHAT? No..again I am from.. you know what nevermind.

After the enormous wave of "Do you like Spain(ish)..etc." they get just downright comfortable.

" Do you like party?" ...um yes.
" What are parties like in America?"...ummmmm we go to bed earlier than you.
" Do you like beer?" yes.

" Do you like spliff?" ....okayyyyyy

continuing...

" Do you have boyfriend?"...no
" Are you married?" ...no!
" Do you have baby?" WTF.

and continuing...

" Do you like Spanish men?" (eyeroll) yes.
" Do you prefer Spanish men over American men?" are you seriously asking me this? how old are you again??? 11?

Oh the constant entertainment. My roommate Courtney had some dousy's as well. Courtney has been doing the program for three years and as a seasoned veteran shes heard it all.

Courtney's story:

Courtney: So class what did you do this summer?
Student: This summer I went to Miami and saw the bitches fighting on the street.
Courtney: Did you mean beaches. You went to the beach.
Student: No I at breakfast I saw the bitches fighting on the street. Bitches ..PUTA... bitches!

Teacher: Bitches is not a nice word. A better word is prostitute or whore...(teacher then writes WHORE on the blackboard).

Then another student apparently asked (because Courtney is from Florida):
"I heard on the Simpson's that Florida is the penis of the United States" -NICE!

After I finished peeing my pants after this story I decided to grade some papers from my Bachellerato class. My Bachellerato class consists of students practicing for a test (equivalent to the SAT) and they MUST pass English...

well we've got some work to do..

Essay question: Do you think noise is necessary for enjoyment?
(yup I had crickets cheerping in my ears too when I thought about it)

BUT heres what they said..of course I took notes.

"However, there are places where teenagers makes "botellon" some party in those places there is a lot of noise because some people think that loud music is better."

This kid used the word Botellon..which is Spanish and it is an outdoor party. Good Job. Totally appropriate for an exam.

This girl wants to say that noise is necessary for enjoyment because it can help her find clubs and parties

“ On the other hand, noise is able to be good. For example, noise is able to do you find a party or a clubnight or to even find somebody.

This girl was trying to say to be loud was fashionable..as if all the cool kids are loud.

“ we can say (that) the noise is related to the fashion because everybody want to go to noisy places to enjoy. “

And then theres this girl:

"I think that noise is not totally necessary for enjoyment because there are other forms for enjoyment as for example if you talk calmly with a friend, or if you are with your boyfriend or girlfriend it is not necessary it does noise for enjoyment because all is told by only a glance often, reading is very enjoyable too and it is not noise either." (ONE SENTENCE!)

Too many romance novels my dear..

Then we have this dosy:

"I think that yes, because when go to the party noise or music enter into the body and help have fun. But also molest, because there is much noise, it can molest neighbors. If the noise or music molest, you have a big problem because the police can denounce , or call attention, but this not need be so."

Apparently this kid thinks sound can molest

and i have no words for this one below:

"I think that people aren’t noise for enjoyment. In the first place, noise don’t like to nobody. It is some pesky for ours hear. We can have headache and we can finish all crazy. In the discoteques is normal hat the music sing loud. When you go to the disoctques you know that the music pesky but you go here because you want it. When you have a small brother for the night you don’t sleep because he cry and he make noise."

I mean I guess he tried using personification....
And now this one:

"In my opinion make noise isn’t necessary for enjoyment. Why moreover at night the people must dream and loud music for a long time is estthesing. Moreover te motocycles very noisy."

This kid finalized his essay about motorcycles. Even though he wrote entirely on parties. Motorcycles. Yeah! It all makes sense now. Thank you.

This girl below liked to replace her M's with W's...what a strange wistake..i mean mistake!:

"When a group of people weet with other people and they speak, they wake a lot of noise. They weet for enjoywent, then the noise is necessary."

And this kid below just wrapped it up in one clear concise sentence. The winning conclusion is...

"In conclusion everybody is very bad listen loud music"

In conclusion, I read 50 essays a total of 12 hours of reading bad English. Needless to say I decimated their essays in red ink. I used about one full red pen's worth of corrections.

In their defense the excerpt they had to read was downright aweful and confusing...part of it was talking about crops and how they smell. How that related to noise..I do not know. And to the motorcycle boy's defense. It did randomly mention motorcycles for one brief sentence. I don't know.

Anyway now I feel as if I can work for the CIA or FBI in their decoding department. Experience...12 hours of translating poorly written english essays about whether NOISE IS NECESSARY FOR ENJOYMENT.

This week is Halloween. I having them bob for apples, trick or treat, AND monster mash. Whose the most awesome teacher ever. (pointing finger at self in a proud confident manner..hells yeah)

Next post..I dont know. I'll surprise you guys.

Welcome to my city!

watch me butcher spanish, be startled by my friend Will, and say bell tower 800 times all while giving you a grand tour of Caceres!




Hello Everyone!

Long time no read. I apologize for that heinous posting below. Boring content and bad writing. But thats what happens when you have zero internet and are trying to write a post in the library.

But now I finally have internet and can write long posts about overly generalized opinions about Spain.

Yesterday the telifonica man came out of the blue to install our internet at 10:00 on a Saturday morning which is unheard of in Spanish time.

Lets first generalize about time. Spanish time is always double of the actual time.
For Example:

" We will be leaving in a half an hour to an hour."
(Two and half hours later.... )

The time here in Spain is just overall ... insane. Shall I bullet????
Yes I think I shall.

~ The Sun does not rise...repeat does not rise.. until 8:30 a.m. ~

Can I explain the confusion this can generate for an intense morning person. Our whole beings involve us morning folk waking up to and by the sun. No sunrise no morning person.I go to school in the morning in the dark. I am walking through the halls in the DARK. Just LOCO!

~ People go out at 1 a.m. and don't go home until 8 a.m. ~

Nope I did not get a.m. and p.m. confused nor are there typos. You read that correctly! The reason people here siesta from 2-5 p.m. and eat dinner at 10 p.m. is..drumroll... so they can go out until Spanish time sunrise.

This is absolutely the most intense lifestyle EVER. Some clubs don't even open until 6 a.m.

If you tell a Spainard you want to go to bed at 3 a.m. or 4 p.m. they just yell at you and tell you you are " Parrty Pooperr!" and that " It's early! It's early!". The only defense is to say" I'm American."

My students often ask me " What are American parties like?". One awkward question..but I say and only say " We go to bed earlier than people in Spain. We go home after parties around 3 a.m. maybe 4 a.m." and that just erupts loud baffled whispering for a solid 10 minutes.
I dont even have words for this..ok maybe one. INSANE

~ Nothing is open. EVER. Or during hours when most convenient. ~

Siesta is a serious serious matter in Spain. While things don't open until 10 a.m. (AT THE EARLIEST), everything, literally everything, closes at 2 - 5 p.m. for siesta. NO ONE works 2-5. No ONE. Top marks on the life style list.

I know what your thinking... "Oh the important things must be open during siesta." WRONG (eeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh slamming the wrong buzzer over and over and over and over). The government bodies and important places such as the bank..they close at 2 p.m.!!! They dont even open after 5. Yup. I mean it makes getting your residency card and setting up your bank account to get paid virtually impossible...but its also kind of awesome. How this country functions..my bet Madrid and only Madrid..maybe Barcelona.

While I am struggling to adjust to this time schedule the Chino store has helped me through, the chino store, the most reliable genre of stores I will ever come across in my existence. My whole being survives on the graciousness and the accessibility of the Chino store. The Chino store is ..well.. that random shop run by Chinese. And these stores are LITERALLY called Chino stores. For example Chino Bazaar, Bazaar de Chino..etc. etc. They take pride in the ability to keep foreigners like us living cheaply and as if we were in a normal country. Im proud of you Chino stores and I am proud to say half of me belongs to your race. Live long and prosper!

~Now lets move on to food~

The five basic staples of the Spanish diet: ham, cheese, bread, ham, and ham.
Everything is ham, every style of ham you could think of, they even have ham flavored chips that they eat with their ham sandwich. Everyday all the students (every single one) eats the same ham sandwich, a baguette with cheese and ham, EVERY student EVERY day. I will take a picture one day and prove this to you.

The Spainards do eat other things...sometimes. Sometimes they eat tostadas..well which usually is a piece of bagette bread and ham, or tapas which is also bread cheese and ham..o wait same ingredients ..ok ok . Sometimes they eat payeya (can't spell) which is rice and shellfish. Or sometimes they eat eggs with potatoes called Tortilla de patatas. Or sometimes (scratching head - thinking intensely) sometimes they will eat some peppers or lentils maybe.

OH shoot and Papas Fritas and mayonaise. They love their papas fritas and mayonaise.

~Style.~

Lets go onto style. (Spain is a haven for cheap shoe shoppers everywhere!!! Yup that is the first thing I noticed and I am super excited to by cheap black flats on a monthly basis if I wanted too.)

The Spanish style is relatively distinct. You need skinny jeans, leggings, and a botched haircut. The clothes are modern and interesting, you can wear almost anything you want. Some people even go all out and wear the same color all the way through.. yup some people just wear entirely one color..or others combine different articles of clothing in ways I cant explain but are cool.

But the hair. The hair is oh so ridiculously awesome. The hair..ok I will list again.
1. Mullet
2. Drullet (mullet with dreads in the back)
3. Rat tail
4. Side rat tail
5. Side dread rat tail
6. Randomly shaved head
7. Randomly shaved heads with random dreads
8. Fohawks
9. 90's front spike (YOU KNOW WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT)
10. Side-bangs

So many options so little time to regrow your hair! Im going to have to rock one of this at some point...Im thinking the side dread rat tail but I also am loving the drullet.

~OH and the language.~

Now my Spanish was bad when I got here. It still is bad. I knew this was going to happen ..but I had no idea that I would have absolutely no idea what anyone says. At school Boston University we learned MEXICAN SPANISH. You think not..but we did. Ok remember that minor detail that every spainish teacher voluntarily left out..oh yeah thats the VOSOTROS form...yeah. They use the vosotros here. They also lysp there "c"s and in Extremadura my region they mesh everything together and omitt the "s" (similar to how Boston omitt's the "r"). My best strategy for speaking in Spain is the slur all my words together..much more effective than pronounciating.

Overall ESPANA. Te Quiero. Love Spain. I love my students, I love my city Caceres, and I love the people I know here.

Caceres is an old moorish city covered in stork nests with no storks because they have gone south for the winter, intense conquistadoresque buildings, a plaza mayor, and a normal part with clubs, shops, and restaurants. Caceres is small (80,000 about the size of Quincy) but it is big enough to have a social life and since it is in the remote countryside, living is cheap and affordable. A+ in my book.

Caceres is also a catholic town, many catholic churches and it has its own Virgen de la Montana (the virgen my street is named after). The virgen of Caceres that they haul down from their mountain(hill) in an absurdly ornate parade. They also have crazy religious processions with pointy hats and huge heavy platforms where they carry statues of the saints. There is even a nunnery where the nuns never see any outside person. You can buy pastries from the nuns through a rotating door. Very cool.

And though Caceres is a "catholic" city..it knows how to party party party. In attempts to become the cultural capital of Europe, Caceres has been putting on crazy cool events. Last weekend, my birthday weekend, was the visual arts festival where they had a light show on all the major cathedrals and buildings. The light shows were tailored to the building so it seemed as if the buildings were emitting these crazy psychedelic light patterns. They also had amazing d.j.'s rocking out while the light show was being displayed on these antique cathedrals.
Two words "Catholicism Rocks"




Also I love my pueblos. I work in two towns Malpartida de Caceres and Arroyo de la Luz. My teacher who picked me up from the bus station is the main English teacher in Malpartida. She virtually did everything for me besides hand feeding me. I was lucky since some auxiliares teachers didnt even contact them let alone help them.

Malpartida is a small suburb of Caceres. My school is teeny tiny but the students are fun. Most common questions " What is your favorite Spanish food?", "Who is your favorite Spanish Actor?", "Do you like Spain?", "Do you like Spanish?", "Do you have Spanish friends?", "Do you like Spanish men?"...absolutely ridiculous. After you get through those wave of questions its relatively smooth sailing. These kids have never heard anything about America, only the U.K. so there is a vast vessel of information to give them.

Arroyo is the other town 45 minutes away. The students are super eager to learn, ask less questions about my opinion of Spanish things, and are from a town known as the "pueblo de los caballos" ..TOWN OF HORSES. EPIC win. The teachers are super friendly and the students have actually made me consider becoming a teacher. Teaching made fun.

My life is pretty simple and I am enjoying it as much as I can. Hopefully I can improve my Spanish so I can stop being mute at parties and bars. In time..in time. Im building up that vocabulary.

Next post is going to be about my schools again..I have left out so many details but a blog post can only be so long. AND I will get to China..I will.

Besos!

Journey to CACERES!!!

HELLO EVERYONE

I am going to put China on hold and write about my journey to Spain. I haven't had internet in weeks so I that is the reason for my lack of blogposting.

Last week I arrived in Caceres the city of storks. The trip here was (to say the least) "interesting". I had just arrived back from China on September 27th and had just gotten over some sort of "flu" (that will go into the China post...ohhh the details" and was ubber jet-lagged.

First task...get the visa. YUP. I had one day in the states to get my Spanish visa. Since the Junta (the education department) did not send my letter which was necessary for my visa on time, the Spanish Consulate in Boston had to process my visa while I was in China. I arrived the 27th and then had to go in Monday morning on the 28th to get my visa in order to leave THAT NIGHT at 9:30.

Two hours after sitting in the consulate I grabbed that visa and booked it, and i mean BOOKED it out of that consulate.

And back to the airport.

I get on my seat and take a deep sigh of relief, I hope we start moving. I fortunately sat next to some nice german students who were the first and probably only german vegetarians i will ever meet We talked about american parties, how americans go to bed to late and drink terrible beer. It was quite entertaining. We finally lifted off and Only bother was the person in front of me whose seat was basically touching my forehead. but whatever. Im going to Spain!

I land in Madrid and go through the easy customs I have ever experienced. Literally a customs lady stands outside of the terminal, glances at you visa and that is it. THATS IT. I was convinced I had to do something else, some other line, but then I there was baggage claim. GREAT! I made it.

I get to the bus station buy a ticket to Cacers and realize I have two hours to wait. So I decided to call my teacher.

Easy enough right??? Oh if only someone was video tapping me trying to drag my two monster sized luggage bags as I go buy something to get change for the pay phone. Nothing was really open but the heladaria (ice cream shop) so I think..ice cream is good why not. I break my euros and get an ice cream.

Now I am dragging my two bags, which dont roll very well, and my ice cream, across the bus station to the phone, two of which dont work and one which ate my coins. Finally I get to one that worked.

"HOLA! Otilia. Es Mai Lombardi, tu auxiliare de conversacion"

"OH Mai, how are you?? (english thank god). Where are you? Do you need me to pick you up?"

"I am on a bus to Caceres I should get in at 9:30?"

" what time?"

(phone hangs up).NOOOOOOOOOOOO. This happens atleast four times. Finally the last call.

" Mai, I am wearing a white shirt, I will see you at 9:30.BYE!"

FINALLY. So I wait for my bus. Why isnt it posting the terminal? I drag my bags AGAIN now to the ticket counter. "donde es el autobus?"

Terminal 57.

I finally get on the bus. ALMOST THERE. Someone is getting me. Halelueigh!!! I also fortunately met another Auxiliar (english conversation assistant) who had done the program for three years. We arrive in Caceres together and my teacher drops her off at the Albergue (the hostel). I go back with my teacher and get a full meal and shower. Finally some luck!!!!