Hodge Podge of Pensamientos

So today’s post will be a hodge podge of thoughts and stuff.  Since I haven’t been traveling most of January and February I’ve mostly just been hanging around, going to school and planning the rest of my time here. 

1.) My bestest friend Sara is coming to visit me in June and we’re going to travel together for about 2 weeks before we go back home to states.  So!! I’m super excited and am going to start getting all of that together soon.  I have to start booking hotel rooms and transportation throughout Spain, so it can be cheap and affordable for the both of us.

2.) I’m going to Cadiz in one week to celebrate Carnival!  It’s only like one of the biggest celebrations in Spain, it’s right up there with well known celebrations such as the Tomatina and the Running of the Bulls.  Cadiz holds the largest celebrations that last two weeks, and it’s the weekend before lent begins, so there’s lots of singing and dressing up and funness.  So me and Camille are going to look for a great carnival costume.  Which is basically like Halloween, in February.

3.) My favorite Peruvian left me last week. :(  She is such an amazing person and I will truly miss her.  She was wonderful and kind enough to let me join her and her family for Christmas while I was here by myself and I spent 4 amazing days with her sister and her family in Germany before I set off on my own for the rest of the vacation.  We had a goodbye dinner for her at her apartment.  She lived with some other good friends of mine here so we all went over and celebrated (drank a lot of wine) and ate really good food (mostly amazing Peruvian food) and took lots of pictures and cried a lot.  But hopefully we will be reunited in Peru one day, or in the US, or perhaps fate will look upon us and we will run into each other on a train in some other country in the future.  I don’t think any of us are going to stay still for long and we will continue to travel and see things.  So maybe one day….one can only hope and wish and dream. But for now, this person is no longer here in Spain.  She’s in England for a couple months perfecting her English, heading back to Germany for a couple more months and then finally going home to Peru in July.  She has truly blessed me with her kindness and I can’t thank her and her family enough. God is so good. <3

   

4.) I’m going to Santiago de Compestela in May for our long weekend!  I can’t even express how excited I am about this trip.  For those of you who don’t know, Santiago is Spanish for James.  So I’m going to the city named after James, Saint James, one of the apostles of Christ.  And it’s said that some remains of Saint James are at the church there. It’s a huge pilgrimage site for Catholics, Christians and all faith and non faith people.  You can walk the Camino de Santiago from Portugal, Southern Spain and France to the site of St. James’ bones.  Needless, I’m not walking it, I’m flying there from Seville, BUT, I’m going.  I’m really excited and feel even more blessed that I have been able to grow in my faith here in a different way.  I’ve seen so many sites that are important to me, and to the faith.  And I’ve met so many people that have reinforced my faith, helped me stay true to it, and that have been so tolerant and loving towards me, even if they don’t agree with me.  I’ve been able to share about myself and what my believe and have some wonderful banter.  And my wonderful friend Jess has been supporting me and giving me great advice from the states.  Basically, I’ve been really blessed.  I can’t wait to go to Santiago and experience and see just one more thing to remind me why I love God so much.

5.) School has been fine.  Now that we’re in our second semester I feel like I really connect with all my students really well, both at Clara Campoamor and at the private academy.  There’s a new dynamic in the room, and I’m really comfortable with the material now.  I’m getting better at teaching English, coming up with engaging ways to teach and to help them learn.  One of my students that has been struggling with speaking even used some new vocab when she was telling a story the other day and I was like “OMG YES, YOU USED THAT RIGHT!”  I’m also learning how to handle the different personalities better in the room, who to pair with who and trying to get them to get better at working together.  I think I’m starting to get the hang of the whole teaching thing…..  Now, this doesn’t change the fact that teaching English isn’t my favorite thing, but I’m not horrible at it anymore.

Other than those three things, life has been quite mundane.  I’ve got Cadiz and a return to Malaga coming up in the coming weeks.  Then commences the long wait till April when I see my parents again!! :D Hopefully there’ll be a day trip in between somewhere, but it’ll be fun!  OH! And I started reading a Spanish book from the library.  I’m successfully about 110 pages in, in only a week in a half.  Basically, I’m reading at a fairly normal pace for myself with few references to the dictionary.  I’m proud of myself.  AND, I’m understanding a lot more on the street now and can speak with relative fluidity.  I will never know every word in the Spanish dictionary, and I still struggle with some structures, but for the most part, I’m doing really well.  Snaps for me! :D 

Much love to everyone at home and to anyone else reading my blog.