Well the Spaniards know how to party. Starting on Friday at my school, all the kids were dressed up in an array of outfits, from snow white to smurfs. Here is the promised picture of the giant snake, which seems to have no reason or meaning behind it, except that it is carnival..
The teachers were all dressed up as mourners for the death of the public sector and carrying "no a los recortes" (no to the cuts) symbols. It was a really fun afternoon. Then in the evening I went shopping and bought a summer hat :) and then to a concert which was really good, followed by Catwalk with Rosa and Soizic. This is a club where the people really are crazy, I have never seen so many crazy dance moves in one place.
So Saturday morning, after sleeping very little, I met Catania, we booked our flights and hostel for Samana Santa in Malaga and afterwards, with Ollie we headed to Sitges for the Carnival. Ollie and I were dressed as musketeers, the best part about this outfit choice was when we encountered a group of 3 musketeers who called us over to say "todos para uno, uno para todos!!" Not quite the same as in English, but hilalrious nonetheless. We danced to a samba band around the streets of Sitges and had yummy frozen yogurt.
Today I returned to Sitges this time with Sam, Adam and Rosa to watch the official parade, it was really good, slightly less spontaneous when compared with yesterday, but really fun. I even got an action shot of a giant monkey!
We got covered in confetti, then after the parade we wandered down to the beach, took a few photos and ate a huge bag of churros! It was delicious and much needed seeing as it didn't feel that warm out. Sam and I bought masks to wear, and to keep as souvenirs, then we all headed home. I'm just glad that I don't have to work tomorrow as I am absolutely shattered!
I'll leave you guys with one final carnival themed photo:
Today was crazy hair day at school, this was the only possible way to avoid the dreaded face painters of year 6. I rocked some odd pigtails for the hour they were patrolling the school then took them out again. Today I worked with year 5 on the differences between a/an/some/any as well as there is/there are/there isn't/there aren't/is there?/are there? they really struggled with this. I never realised just how hard English is in comparison to Spanish until I started teaching it. They have no grasped the differences between a and an, as well as knowing when to use singular and when to use plural, although the difference between some and any is still hard for them to grasp, they also have great difficulty pronouncing these words, it's hard work, but it'll be rewarding once they grasp it.
Before I finished for lunch I watched the other year 5 class do a little five minute play based on the book, The Little Red Hen. It was adorable to watch and they did so well.
This afternoon I have been planning some travels around Spain and I am now more or less booked up until the end of April, my year abroad is flying by, I am trying my best to make the most of every opportunity given to me and to travel as much as possible, but sometimes it feels as though it is slipping through my fingers.
So now I start my weekend of carnival celebrations, got to love working 12 hours a week. :)
Fins ara tothom!
x-x-x
Today marked day two of carnival at my school, the requirement today was to wear many bright colours, I wore the following awfully beautiful ensemble....
I thought this would warrent me safety from the face painting year sixes.... Oh how wrong I was, they were instructed BY ANOTHER TEACHER to attack and paint my face! Now that is just mean... if the Catalans weren't such a damn lovable people I could go off them.
So today at school I recorded some year 4 talking about still life drawings they have done. Things such as... There are some yellow bananas, there is a blue apple... etc. I've already started the finished presentation where the voices are linked to the photos in a movie - the IT half day course offered by the Generalitat was actually useful! I'll post it on here when it's finished.
Today I also had to do a presentation in my Catalan class, I talked about waterpolo, I didn't learn it off by heart and improvised quite a lot, which is new for me. Despite this I feel it went quite well, so if this technique works in my weakest language I may apply it to my others the next time I need to do a presentation.
Tomorrow I will get a photo of the giant snake, I promise!
Hasta luego chicos!
Im talking about the types of hat that the children were all wearing at school. As today was day two of Carnival at my school, gosh the kids are loving it. From today until Friday the children (and teachers) have to wear a different thing to celebrate; today it was a hat and a tie. Then just before lunch a group of year sixes go round to check that the children are wearing them, if they aren't wearing the correct things they draw all over their face with facepaint. Very strange... they half pin down the poor child/victim... only in Spain.
Tomorrow everyvody has to wear bright clothes, I'm going to look like an idiot on the metro on the way to and from school. :(
Today was also a pretty easy day as my first two classes both were doing english exams so I was only really there to invigilate. Then with year six I was teaching telling the time... gosh it was hard work. It took so long for some of the children to grasp the concept of 5 past/25 to etc. Some of them even claimed that they can only read digital, they can't even read a clockface in Spanish/Catalan. Eventually though they got the concept and when they went to back to class the teacher tested them and they all knew it, it made me feel really good. :)
This afternoon I had a private tutoring lesson, which was fun as always, we spent the last 15 minutes playing guess who in English and the rest of the lesson revising for her English exam tomorrow, things such as there is/there isn't/there are/there aren't, which the Spanish struggle with as they simply use hay or no hay, they don't differenciate between singular and plural.
I finished writing my presentation for Catalan class tomorrow, and need to learn it later tonight/tomorrow afternoon. Wish me luck!
Here's a photo from Girona again (I've not taken any of carnival yet)
Adios chicos
x-x-x
Today I had such a good morning working in my primary school, and it reminded me why working as an ELA is so much fun. I was feeling tired and a little under the weather this morning but going into an environment where I was given hugs, asked how I was and shown different pieces of work by the children really cheered me up. My first two classes I was working with year 2, colouring love hearts in different colours to revise the colours, they regularly get mixed up between blanc (white for none Spanish speakers) with black in English, as the letters are so close they always get it wrong so today we were re-emphasising the colours, with a Valentine's day theme. We also sang songs and they were generally very sweet today. Then at break time we welcomed in Carnival week, the whole school sat in the playground and some year sixes brought in a giant snake, (photo to follow if it's still there tomorrow), whilst playing the drums. All the children are getting really excited about dressing up on Friday and celebrating the carnival and I'm starting to get excited about going to Sitges this weekend to celebrate carnival. After break I had year six, we played a board game based around jobs and they were really good today. Sometimes they can be a bit moody and difficult but today they were really interested, were practising their English and complained when it was time to go back to class. The only bad point about school at the moment is we have 6 of the 30 teachers off sick, which means that everyone is on cover and all over the show, the tutor I work with will be off on Wednesday, so I'm going to have to adapt as I don't know where I'll end up, or who with.
That's about it for now, oh, I'm probably getting another private class soon, so hopefully that should be fun and bring in a bit of extra money, especially seeing as the Ministerio still haven't paid me for January yet.
I'll leave you guys with a photo from when I went to Girona on Friday, such a beautiful city.
Sorry it has been a while since my
last post, I've been under the weather so have spent a lot of time sleeping to
try and get over my bad cold/weak flu. I'm finally starting to feel better
though :) Well after the Dali museum last week this week as school was
definitely much more realistic than usual, I finished doing my restaurant
project with my year 4's, so hopefully this week I can link you guys to the
school blog, and you can see there hard work. My Catalan class is getting yet
more intense, I need to finish writing a presentation for Wednesday and a book
report for next week, but I finally feel pretty comprehensive in the language,
which is hopefully a good sign for final year.
On Friday I went up to
Girona and saw Sam and Adam. Girona is an absolutely beautiful city, lovely
buildings and an ancient city wall, also a statue where you have to kiss it's
bum. It means that you'll return to Girona and is lucky. So obviously, we all
did that. I still find it weird meeting up with Lancaster people in Spain, it's
like my two world's are colliding. In the evening I went to a concert, it's my
friend's friend's band (god that looks stupid when typed). They are really
good, they are all from Rubi, which is a town just outside of Barcelona, they
sing in Spanish (and one random song in French) and they talk in between in
Catalan. After the show whilst my friend was talking to her friend Adrian and I
decided to go and speak to the guitarist, in Catalan, maybe it was the
cocktails that gave us the confidence, who knows, but it was fun nonetheless, I
can't wait to go to their next gig. We then went out to a club and rolled in
reasonably early at 3.30ish.
Saturday evening we all
went to Rosa's for food and I ended up discussing English learning in France
with some Frenchies, apparently every character was called Brian, Kevin or
Katie. They spent the evening saying "where's Brian?" "Brian is
in the bathroom." It made me realise just how stereotypical the books we
all use in schools are. I also will never be able to meet anyone called Brian
without laughing hysterically!
Today I did some work for
Catalan class and I am considering doing a bit of French later.
Bye for now
xxx
I am over half way through my time here in Spain. This is very saddening for me, I don't want to have to leave, Barcelona has become my third home, I'm now trying to plan as many weekends as possible so that I can see as much of Catalonia and Spain as possible, I don't want to miss anything, but I know I probably will. This Friday I'm heading up to Girona to see Sam and Adam and explore the beautiful town, I've so far only seen it out of the train window.
Quite a lot has happened since the last time I blogged (is to blog a verb?) This weekend 6 friends from Lancaster came over and I showed the delights of Barcelona, it was so lovely to see some familiar faces, even if at times I felt a bit like a performing monkey speaking Spanish for them. :) Ruby even took on a pickpocket after he took her phone and got it back, she's braver than me but pickpocket 0 - Ruby 1. It was absolutely freezing though this weekend, I felt bad that I was showing everyone so many things outside, on Sunday we went to Parc Guell and it even snowed a little!
My friends also got me an absolutely gorgeous pair of Cavella shoes for my 21st! I can't wait to wear them out once I'm back in England, for now I'll just trot round the house in them.
On Friday I went to Figueres with Sam and Camilla to visit the Dali museum, it was amazing, unbelievably weird and inexplicably strange but I loved every second of it. We also found out that you can get the train from Figueres to Perpignan in a mere 20 minutes so we are planning on heading there at some point.
I also finally have Internet back in my house! This happened on Thursday and I swear I did a little dance when I came home and discovered it was working.
School is ok at the moment, the kids are restless and naughty though, I think it's due to them being cooped up inside more due to the cold weather, and I worked 2 extra hours last week, which means I have 2 available at my disposal that I can take off another week, I just have to find an ideal time to do it.
On the essay front, I have done no more work... oopsie, I plan to finish writing my Catalan speaking presentation and book report tomorrow and then work on the essay other evenings this week, now that I have the Internet back. I want to have it finished by March.
I think you guys are up to date on pretty much everything now. :)
I'll leave you with a picture from my visit to the Dali museum.
Adios
xxx
