Mon: 9:45-1:45 SCHOOL (with a daily recreo break in between)
4:00-7:00 WORK at Covent GardenTues: 8:15-12:15 SCHOOL
12:15-?? FREEEEEEWed: 9:45-2:45 SCHOOL
4:00-7:00 WORK at Covent GardenThur: 8:45-11:15 SCHOOL
11:15-?? FREEEE for the weekend!I do things in between my time off in the afternoon and during school. There’s some holes in my schedule but I get to relax in the teachers lounge and chat or prepare for other classes, or prepare with the teachers. Not all my time at school is spent teaching, some of it is spent relaxing and some of it is spent planning with other teachers. It’s a really nice and relaxed atmosphere. It’s very different here, and very relaxed, I like it. A lot of them wear jeans and some even wear T-shirts, which is very funny, also, the teachers do not go my Mr. or Mrs. or Miss. The students tend to call them Teacher (our equivialant of Miss!) or they call them by their full name, so I had to introduce myself as Bonnie. I have to admit, it’s kind of strange. I’m so used to them called me Ms. Srubas by now that I almost prefer that, and it helps put a barrier between me and my students, since we’re so close in age. But, I’m getting used to it, and to them butchering my name. You wouldn’t think that Bonnie is very hard to say, but for them, the “ie” makes it hard, they want to say Bon-ee-a, but that’s wrong, or they want to say “boonie" (like I’m stuck out in the boonies). Now, I tend to answer to any variation of my name and Teacher of course.
I got to teach about the Beatles today!! It was great, and I can’t wait to show them the picture of the Beatles outside of Wild Bill’s and tell them about how the vine’s have grown up the building in the order in which they died. FUN FACTS about Middletown!!! :) I get to teach a lot of different things at school, some are good and some are not so good. I have to teach the following: Math, Physics/Chimestry, Natural Sciences, Ethics, Geography, History, and Music. SO MANY CLASSES! It all proves to be very interesting, especially when I have to look at the math teacher to make sure the students get the correct answer, I have no idea how to solve math problems, especially not ones that involved negative numbers, powers, and sequences now! I also had to explain to students how to say mathematical expressions in English and describe some symbols. FYI: I got a C in math in High School, I should not be allowed to teach this! haha, but I guess I did well enough since all I had to do was say the phrases and tell them how to say 2+2=4 (two plus two equals four), and yes, my spelling was off when I wrote it on the board…oops.
So I know you all want to hear about late nights and nights out here in Spain. I can almost hardly believe it because nights out here are ridiculous, they last forever. Literally. Friday night I decided that I would hang out with my roomies, one roomie had a friend from Sevilla and Laura mentioned that they were going out together tonight. Little did I realized that we weren’t just going to a bar to hang out, nope, they were botelloning (drinking in the streets) first, then going back to the party to “pregame”'/ drink in the apartment and then go to the discoteca….at 4:30 in the morning. So Friday night first I went out with some people I work with at Covent Garden, we met up at work and went down to a bar around the corner for casual drinks. Later, at around 9 we went to get some tapas at a really good tapas bar that my boss, Hayley, knows about. There I chillaxed with 2 Brits, and an Irish woman, and then 2 other girls who I work with (both through CIEE). It was all great fun, and we left at around 11 to go our separate ways, that’s when Sarah and I decided that we’d try to rally and go out with the Spanish tonight….Now, I thought I partied hard in Granada last year…nope, the Spanish party harder. We showed up at my apartment at around 11, Laura was just getting out of the shower getting ready to go, and no one had arrived yet to pregame, so we sat around awkwardly making small talk with my roommate and his friends, and then people started to show up, at Midnight-12:30. Yup, they started that late, haha. Basically, we partied till 4:30, left for the club, danced the night/midmorning away in the underground club below the bar in the center of town and I was out of the club and in bed by no earlier than 6:30 in the morning. They roommates came home closer to 7 AM. But it was a great time and I met some really great people. I’m really happy I stayed up, it was awesome roommate bonding time, and something I really needed because I haven’t quite figured out how to bond with them yet. The language barrier poses a problem when I want to have small talk, it’s harder in a second language!
Also, I went to the beach again this weekend!! :) Yay! I met a bunch of other auxiliaries, mostly second years, which was very interesting because they always have great stories. I also met a Scottish person who’s teaching here in Erasmus and a girl from Northern Ireland with the cutest accent (she’s Sam size too!), who’s also teaching through Erasmus. The weekend was so much fun, I was crazy busy all weekend. After I stayed up till 6:30 Friday night I woke up to go to Cartaya with those people (in the photo above) and we had some fun walking around Cartaya. Cartaya is a small pueblo outside Huelva where they had their Feria, a fair, celebrating Nuestra Senora de Cartaya, basically, Mary, and they had a crafts fair and all sorts of other things going on. I was way too tired to stay till later in the evening for the fair activities, so unfortunately we left before the good stuff started, but we had our own good stuff going on and bonding experience when some Gyspsies tried to get us to go in a taxi with them back to Huelva. Basically, we were disagreeing with them on when and where the bus back to Huelva would show up, they believed it was never coming, we knew it was, so that was fun. We hung around for about 2 hours because our original bus showed up 20 min early, we missed it and then waited around for another 1 1/2 or so. It’s cool, it was fun times, and then we made plans to go to the beach on Sunday and just sun bath. It wasn’t too hot, only about 80 or so, but I didn’t get sunburnt and I was able to relax and meet some new people.
Basically, my life is pretty awesome right now. I’m making plans to travel soon, I promise, then I will have great stories to tell or travel catastrophes' and about all sorts of old things. Until then, bear with me as I live a mundane life of surviving on a small salary and savings, and once I start getting paid I will be off and traveling! :) Much love! <3
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