The perks

Today the director at my school invited Thi and I (the two poor and hungry auxiliares) to the Christmas luncheon for the teachers.  A thirty-five-euro meal for free?  Yes!  It was great.  It was a total Spanish lunch, too.  We had about three or four different types of fried fish at first.  This was to prep you for your main, second dish.  For me, that was the fish.  More fish!  (We had a choice between carne o pescado.  I chose pescado since we were going to a place on the beach.)  Then, dessert and coffee.  Then, the champagne.  Damn, y'all, you done did it.

And just before we went to the luncheon, the director decided to give me a bottle of wine just because.  He bought two cases of wine from another teacher whose family bottles wine or something like that, and he asked me to help him carry them to his car.  I did, and then he opened a case and gave me a bottle.  Yes!

My two roommates have left to the U.S. for part of Christmas break.  I'm going to be home alone for a little over a week before I go to Berlin for New Year's Eve.  Kind of scary, kind of cool.  Hit me up since I'll probably be having cabin fever.

I noticed something obscene

England was great. I think the best part was seeing Stonehenge. We did it on the cheap, though. We had heard that Stonehenge is fenced in, but you don't have to pay the entrance because you can see it anyhow. And since you've got to save when you're in a place as expensive as England, we decided to just see it from the highway a few feet away. It was cool. While we were waiting for the other people in our tour group to go inside with their audio guides (we took a tour because it was the cheapest way of getting there; it's pretty much in the middle of nowhere), we were waiting in the parking lot. (Yup, there's a parking lot at Stonehenge.) It was freezing out there. We thought jumping onto a curb with someone on your back would be a great way to warm up.



It's weird how much more I noticed people referring to stereotypes of Americans in England than anywhere else I've been. They kept saying we are all loud, a little shameless. It got annoying. But, I had a good time nonetheless.

We ate some great food, met some people. Got cold. Walked in the rain. Slept on floors. It was great.

Taking a Bath

It can get pretty frustrating teaching English to teenagers who really have no interest in learning.  I've grown to really dislike going in to class with the kids in 3º.  They're about 14 or 15 years old, and damn, they never shut up.  I really shouldn't even be going into class with them since I am here to help out in the bilingual classes, but for some reason I got scheduled with a non-bilingual class.  I think it's because the English teacher I go in with wanted to be lazy and have me do a lot of the work in class.  Yes, she plans out the lessons and knows what should be covered every day, but as soon as we get to class, she tells me, "We're going to do so-and-so today.  Here you go."  And then she does her own thing.  Fuck.  I usually don't mind too much because even if she's just at her desk, she can get the kids to shut up.  Today, though, oh man.  She handed me the work to be done, and then she just walks out of class.  She didn't even tell me what she was doing!  I was like, "Um, okay, let's look at exercise 1...."  Fuck that, yo.  If the kids were any other age, I wouldn't mind.  I know how to control the classroom by myself with the younger students because they get scared easily.  I am also capable with the older students because they're too self-conscious to talk so there aren't behavior problems.  The 14- and 15-year-olds, though, can be a pain in the ass.  And today I left the class in a really bad mood because they just wouldn't shut up.  No matter what I say, they won't shut up unless the teacher is in the classroom.  They've realized I don't really have disciplinary power, so they don't care.  Eh, it was only 55 minutes anyway, so I shouldn't be complaining.  I guess I just needed to vent.

Anyway, I'm going to England today!  My flight leaves at 9:30pm or so, and I fly into Bristol and then head to Bath.  It'll be my first time in England, and I'm excited about it.  I'm not excited about the hit my bank account is going to take, though =/.  The pound is so strong compared to the dollar and the euro.  I'm going to be even poorer by the time I get back on Sunday.  Here's to buying our liquor at the duty-free shop at the airport instead of paying ridiculous English prices!