Wednesday Musings

Hello, all!  I’m just waiting for the water to boil for my “alubias blancas con chorizo picante” (white beans with spicy chorizo soup).  I found the recipe in the Spanish magazine “Pronto” and thought I’d give it a shot for my first course, or primer plato. The main course (segundo plato) will be a nice shrimp jalfrezi if all goes accordingly!  I’m cooking through my siesta right now, though, so… something’s gone terribly awry already!  The truth is I have only taken one really satisfying siesta since getting here a month ago.  Criminal, I know, as this is the first time naptime has been institutionally built into my day since kindergarten… Alas, that good old American compulsion to fight down-time has gotten to me yet again!

School’s been pretty great this week because my Halloween lessons are going really well, if I do say so myself.  The teachers seem pleased as well, which is a bonus.  The most difficult part about my job, I’d say, is the way they divide the classes up here.  They put all the most motivated students in the same class, leaving all the least motivated students together.  So, let’s just say, I was not looking forward to a 55-minute Halloween presentation for the unmotivated 17 and 18-year-olds.  Imagine senioritis multiplied by 10… and in a foreign language.  The kids in this class know so much more than they want to let on too, it’s sort of frustrating.  I think they just want to look aloof and cool.  Anyways, I was excited because we played a really fun round of Halloween Pictionary at the blackboard, and they were really engaged and using their English skills without even realizing it.  Basically, they were just divided into two teams and I had pictures of Halloween costume ideas on my computer, like ‘zombie, ghost, etc,’ that two students had to draw and their teams had to guess what Halloween costume they were “wearing”.   There was a grammar component to the way they had to answer too.  It was really fun.  I was afraid they would get bored so, I kept throwing in names of celebrities like the soccer player Ronaldinho, which was hilarious because they kept guessing that the kid was drawing a pumpkin or a jack-o’-lantern for some reason, and then at one point after that, a kid was trying to draw a clown, and his team kept guessing “Carles Puyol,” the unattractive Spanish soccer player.  Anyways, I was really happy at the end of the day!

So, I’m riding this momentary high into a delicious dinner.  Will let you guys know how it turns out! 

Tonight, I will probably go to my friend’s apartment, where her roommate has the Trivial Pursuit night, but it’s sort of an exhausting affair because they speak only Catalan, and I might find an alternative plan tonight… Anywho, later everybody!