My oh my what a busy week it has been. School is kicking my butt and stressing me out Just having six straight hours of class two days a week and four hours the other two days. We don't have classes on Fridays though thank goodness. But Monday is a holiday, which makes this a four day weekend, which means we have class Friday to make up the hours for the day off on Monday. But whatever, a four day weekend means a long weekend to recuperate. I have two presentations to do with groups for two different classes. One is on the 30th or 31st of this month and it has to be an hour long, the other is on the 3rd of November and it has to be 50 minutes long.
Ughh, I hate presentations. I already did a small one in my POE class and it went horribly. I stuttered and forgot how to say the years in Spanish. I seriously need to practice speaking and widen my vocabulary even more, but that's only half the problem. Even back home in classes, I hate speaking in front of the class. I get so nervous and my heart races and it just sucks. It's so much easier for me to sing in public than it is for me to talk, I don't even know why that is, but I know that's pretty backwards.
Other than school though, my week was pretty fun. Kyla left for Rome on Wednesday morning so I've had the room to myself for quite a while. But that means I've had to babysit Mateo by myself (since Gloria comes earlier and I get home later, Gloria is never here by the time I get back from school) and that's difficult because he's a bruto and supercaprichoso. And he's super attached to my computer so every time I take it away, he just wails. But I love that kid anyways, he's too freaking adorable to hate.
Also twice this week I went out with my host mom and sister after siesta. Every evening around 7, daughter Silvia and Mateo leave, so my host mom, Silvia, walks them home. Side note: from now on I'm going to refer to my host mom as Silvia and my host sister as Silvi because in the house she gets called Silvi. Wednesday evening, my host mom asked me if I wanted to come along, so I decided to since I had nothing better to do. So we walked to Silvi's piso (apartment). Her place is really nice, small and comfortable, I could see myself living in a small piso like that if I found myself living here. Then Silvia and I walked back home, but before we walked home, her son Augustine had called and wanted to get tapas at Bar Sancho right down the street from the apartment. So we met up with Host dad Augustine, son Augustine, wife Gloria, and baby Gloria at dad Augustine's office nex tto the apartment and walked down the street. Other side note: host dad will be Augustine, son will be Agu, wife will be Glo, and baby will be Gloria. So we went to Bar Sancho, and I guess the family is regulars there because they knew all the waiters, especially one guy named Dani, whose name Gloria knows how to say. Every time we asked her, "¿Dónde está Dani?" she would say "Dani" and it was the cutest thing. I got red mosto and the tapas there were pretty freaking delicious, I might frequent that place more haha. It was so fun hanging out with the family. An experience I'll never forget. Thursday night pretty much the same thing happened, except we stopped by Silvia's mom's house for about an hour and I met her sister, brother, and sister-in-law. I had already met her mom because she was here when I first arrived. We sat in the salon and chatted, I mainly listened, but Silvia's brother sat next to me so he would ask me questions and I would answer, he's really cool, I like talking to him because he went out of his way to chat with me and if I didn't understand something he would explain it very carefully and try to say it in English. Then Silvia, Silvi, Mateo, and I left. Silvia and I walked Silvi halfway home and then walked back home.
Then yesterday morning I volunteered at La Asunción. That was really fun. Karen, Nicole, and I went to Adela's class of 15/16 year olds for an hour. Again we each took a group and talked with them in English. I like that age group of kids, they really want to learn English so they try harder and talk more, and that was really fun. One memorable thing that happened with the group was one girl, Maite, was wearing sweats while everyone else was in uniform, and one girl, I forgot her name but I'll remember her because she talked the most in the group and she was really funny, had said to me "Do you know why Maite is in different clothes?" and I was like "No, why?" and another girl next to her said "It's because she's special." And I cracked up so hard. Mind you, this was all in English, so it amazed me that they knew the euphemism for "retarded" was "special", and they were all laughing about it. They were joking that "Yeah, she's special but she's our friend so we love her." and Maite said that "I get higher marks (grades) than you so that makes you special!" and it was just so funny that they joked around like that. ¡Me encanta ése grupo mucho! Then the group had asked me to sing because of course I told them I sing, so I sang a bit of Ghost by Ella Henderson for them, and they all really liked it and asked me to write down the name of it so they could look it up. Then the three of us went to Angela{s classroom again and helped with an English lesson for about 30 minutes, we were only there for 30 minuts because we were supposed to be with Adela the whole time but we had walked off on our own thinking we would go to Angela's class. So after Angela's class, we went to Adela's other class and talked with another group of 15/16 year olds. There was one girl who kind of took lead the whole time but it was amazing how good she was at English, she asked me many questions and explained a lot of things, and I was also surprised that she knew many of the culture differences without having left Spain. I know that girl is gonna go places. And again, at the end, I sang for them, this time I sang a bit of Rude by Magic, they all knew the song which was cool. Then I came home and chilled the rest of the day. Silvia and Augustine went out for tapas with Silvia's brother and I stayed home by myself and watched Sherlock Holmes on iTunes. Sylvia's had left me a dinner of pastella y un sanwích con jamón y queso. Super light, and super good. Then I showered and watched the rest of Sherlock Holmes till I fell asleep.
I have no plans for this weekend, and I wouldn't mind staying in and relaxing, though I do want to go out and explore more. But I've been feeling extra tired, so I just want to rest as much as possible before I have to start working on presentations. Looks like it's going to be another lazy weekend. I'll leave you guys with a picture of Mateo with his underwear on his head that Augustine put on him. ¡Que tengáis un buen fin de semana!
Ughh, I hate presentations. I already did a small one in my POE class and it went horribly. I stuttered and forgot how to say the years in Spanish. I seriously need to practice speaking and widen my vocabulary even more, but that's only half the problem. Even back home in classes, I hate speaking in front of the class. I get so nervous and my heart races and it just sucks. It's so much easier for me to sing in public than it is for me to talk, I don't even know why that is, but I know that's pretty backwards.
Other than school though, my week was pretty fun. Kyla left for Rome on Wednesday morning so I've had the room to myself for quite a while. But that means I've had to babysit Mateo by myself (since Gloria comes earlier and I get home later, Gloria is never here by the time I get back from school) and that's difficult because he's a bruto and supercaprichoso. And he's super attached to my computer so every time I take it away, he just wails. But I love that kid anyways, he's too freaking adorable to hate.
Also twice this week I went out with my host mom and sister after siesta. Every evening around 7, daughter Silvia and Mateo leave, so my host mom, Silvia, walks them home. Side note: from now on I'm going to refer to my host mom as Silvia and my host sister as Silvi because in the house she gets called Silvi. Wednesday evening, my host mom asked me if I wanted to come along, so I decided to since I had nothing better to do. So we walked to Silvi's piso (apartment). Her place is really nice, small and comfortable, I could see myself living in a small piso like that if I found myself living here. Then Silvia and I walked back home, but before we walked home, her son Augustine had called and wanted to get tapas at Bar Sancho right down the street from the apartment. So we met up with Host dad Augustine, son Augustine, wife Gloria, and baby Gloria at dad Augustine's office nex tto the apartment and walked down the street. Other side note: host dad will be Augustine, son will be Agu, wife will be Glo, and baby will be Gloria. So we went to Bar Sancho, and I guess the family is regulars there because they knew all the waiters, especially one guy named Dani, whose name Gloria knows how to say. Every time we asked her, "¿Dónde está Dani?" she would say "Dani" and it was the cutest thing. I got red mosto and the tapas there were pretty freaking delicious, I might frequent that place more haha. It was so fun hanging out with the family. An experience I'll never forget. Thursday night pretty much the same thing happened, except we stopped by Silvia's mom's house for about an hour and I met her sister, brother, and sister-in-law. I had already met her mom because she was here when I first arrived. We sat in the salon and chatted, I mainly listened, but Silvia's brother sat next to me so he would ask me questions and I would answer, he's really cool, I like talking to him because he went out of his way to chat with me and if I didn't understand something he would explain it very carefully and try to say it in English. Then Silvia, Silvi, Mateo, and I left. Silvia and I walked Silvi halfway home and then walked back home.
Then yesterday morning I volunteered at La Asunción. That was really fun. Karen, Nicole, and I went to Adela's class of 15/16 year olds for an hour. Again we each took a group and talked with them in English. I like that age group of kids, they really want to learn English so they try harder and talk more, and that was really fun. One memorable thing that happened with the group was one girl, Maite, was wearing sweats while everyone else was in uniform, and one girl, I forgot her name but I'll remember her because she talked the most in the group and she was really funny, had said to me "Do you know why Maite is in different clothes?" and I was like "No, why?" and another girl next to her said "It's because she's special." And I cracked up so hard. Mind you, this was all in English, so it amazed me that they knew the euphemism for "retarded" was "special", and they were all laughing about it. They were joking that "Yeah, she's special but she's our friend so we love her." and Maite said that "I get higher marks (grades) than you so that makes you special!" and it was just so funny that they joked around like that. ¡Me encanta ése grupo mucho! Then the group had asked me to sing because of course I told them I sing, so I sang a bit of Ghost by Ella Henderson for them, and they all really liked it and asked me to write down the name of it so they could look it up. Then the three of us went to Angela{s classroom again and helped with an English lesson for about 30 minutes, we were only there for 30 minuts because we were supposed to be with Adela the whole time but we had walked off on our own thinking we would go to Angela's class. So after Angela's class, we went to Adela's other class and talked with another group of 15/16 year olds. There was one girl who kind of took lead the whole time but it was amazing how good she was at English, she asked me many questions and explained a lot of things, and I was also surprised that she knew many of the culture differences without having left Spain. I know that girl is gonna go places. And again, at the end, I sang for them, this time I sang a bit of Rude by Magic, they all knew the song which was cool. Then I came home and chilled the rest of the day. Silvia and Augustine went out for tapas with Silvia's brother and I stayed home by myself and watched Sherlock Holmes on iTunes. Sylvia's had left me a dinner of pastella y un sanwích con jamón y queso. Super light, and super good. Then I showered and watched the rest of Sherlock Holmes till I fell asleep.
I have no plans for this weekend, and I wouldn't mind staying in and relaxing, though I do want to go out and explore more. But I've been feeling extra tired, so I just want to rest as much as possible before I have to start working on presentations. Looks like it's going to be another lazy weekend. I'll leave you guys with a picture of Mateo with his underwear on his head that Augustine put on him. ¡Que tengáis un buen fin de semana!