@hotmail.com? Sounds legit to me....

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY:
I have no standards.

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So I am applying for jobs, right? Kinda.

Yesterday I went around with my friends Jessica (from NY) and Kelly (from outside Manchester...as you may already know) and we put up flyers advertising private language lessons. I now totally appreciate the ready availability of printing and copying that I had at my former job. I had to totally sneak back into Oxford House to hijack their capabilities yesterday. I did, however, use my own color paper.

Oliver, that ass, was offered a job by our "alma mater" teaching for about 8 hours a week at the pitiful rate of 7 EUROS AN HOUR. That's like 50 bucks a week, people. In fact, when offered the job, our tutor actually told him he should never accept that pay rate, at which point he promptly took the job. I was told that OHC would have offered me a position, but they are in the habit of only hiring Brits or other European Union members because they can legally do so. The discrimination of it all....but at 7 euros an hour, this is discrimination I can deal with. The silver lining is that I get free copies through Oliver who has unlimited access now. Smiles.

As for my career prospects, Anna, the careers advisor at OHC is sending my and Jessica's CVs out to all the schools here that are hiring right now and that she knows hire Americans and new teachers. Basically, these are schools that will take any scum off the street, give them a Natural English textbook, lock them in a room with 15 pre-intermediate students who will introduce themselves by saying "I call myself Juan," and call it language learning. The kicker? I will totally be groveling over the phone to these people next week: "Um hi, yeah, did you receive my CV? I'm one of the inexperienced Americans you're known for illegally hiring in order to cut corners. - Thursday at 4? Perfect."

Additionally, my level of lowness sinks yet lower as today I actually sent my CV to a school that is hiring at the email address dublinschoolofenglish@HOTMAIL.COM ! Word of advice to all learning institutions, if you want to appeal to qualified teachers rather than scum like me, get a web domain!

Despite all of this hilarity, I am feeling confident that I should have a job by the end of next week, or at least a few private students. Kelly, on the other hand, is perpetually freaking out, to the entertainment of all those around her. Yesterday at lunch (we spent 1 hour putting up flyers and 3 eating and shopping...), in the middle of silently scarfing our tortillas and salchichas, she shouted out, "I feel like a SHEEP! I am a little lost sheep and I can't find the farmer's house!" When asked to explain where in the HELL that statement came from and what it meant, she stated, "Well, I was just sittin here thinkin to meself, I am here in Barceloner without a job and money and I can't find work. Work is like the farmer's house and me the distant sheep." She makes me pee...and realize how not dire my straits are.

In other news, we went to Montserrat on Tuesday. Not much to say other than that it was DAMN cold and beautiful. The monastery was worth the trip as was seeing the famous "black virgin" and hearing the boys choir...that NEVER leaves the mountain except once every other year to go on a few months world tour. Otherwise, they are relegated to the tiny mountain. Bizarr-o. Also had the stongest coffee of my life.

I have finally set up an intercambio in order to work on this crazy Spanish language. While my functional Spanish is totally fine, my expressive Spanish sucks the big one...although, I am REPEATEDLY giggled at and told I have a strong central/south American accent, which I take as a compliment. Better that than a white girl Chicago accent. Anywho, Every Friday some of the intermediate and advanced students from OHC go out to eat and they invitied me to come with. Then, on Sundays, 2 of my former advanced students Virginia and Sheila (both from BCN) and I will go out and do things like go to movies, restaurants, each other's places, etc. and help each other with our respective languages. This is quality as these two ladies are hilarious and full of wit, a winning intercambio combo.

Finally, tomorrow we say goodbye to the last of our departing classmates. We've sent off many this week, a few of which were really hard to say goodbye to. Very sad....but life goes on I suppose and it's cool to have connections around the globe now. Tonight Jessica and I are having American Girl night, which means cooking dinner (Peach-Chicken stirfry....my old standby). Then we're heading out to Placa Reial to meet our friend Luis's girlfriend who has just moved here to do God-knows-what as she doesn't speak Spanish and isn't planning on Tefling. Then again, I shouldn't underestimate the economic clout of Luis' new teaching job, which does, after all, pay more than 7 euros per hour. Lucky British jerk.

Living in a Hippie Commun

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY:
Unemployment is amazing. I think this is the first time I have been unoccupied since I started kindergarten.

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So my first day of unemployment was fantastic. I'm sure they'll get progressively less fantastic, but please have a heart and let me revel right now.

This weekend was fab. Went out dancing with our students to say goodbye to them on Friday, went to the beach ALL DAY Saturday (see below) and then to see Before Sunset (liked it, almost loved it), and took photos and watched soccer on Sunday.

Our road trip has been scaled back to a day trip to Montserrat tomorrow. I'll be sure to let you know the scoopage.

On a related note, I am quickly becoming a classic beach bum. I call people "dude" and "man" ALL OF THE TIME. I spend every spare moment at the beach "chilling," playing frisbee, swimming and eating. I am getting really into and good at frisbee; just as surfers wait for those great waves, I wait like a cokehead on edge for those great chucks that you have to chase down and dive for. I even have a denim skirt that I call my "frisbee skirt" becuase it is easy to throw on for beach going but allows for leg movement (running and diving). My new challenge is overcoming my poor night vision so that I get better at night frisbee...which is ridiculously fun because you start playing in rhythm with the music pumping from the beach-front discotheques.

With this lifestyle has come a certain communal etiquette that I am growing fond of. Between Timo, Oliver and I, there is this lovely "watch each other's back" kinda thing. One of us will always pick up a bag of groceries when we go to the beach and share with everyone who comes along; Oli always brings sporting goods aplenty; one of us always picks up donuts when it's time to watch soccer at the White Horse; and we always include others in our beach games and show them how to play no matter how bad they are at first....we are also not discriminatory when it comes to playing practical jokes. There was a classic "hole dug under the beach towel" pulled this weekend...although it didn't pan out because our friend whose towel it was never came back; she had just forgotten her towel. But digging that hole was damn fun.

With this etiquette also comes a language. You can't just "okay" someone when they ask for some of your fruit; you have to say "no problem, man," or, "hey mate, help yourself." I don't know why, but it just feels wrong otherwise.

So, that's my latest developement. Angela Ruiter, former honor student, is now mediterranean beach trash, and she loves it.

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CHECK OUT PHOTOS AT http://community.webshots.com/user/ajruiter
Once our DSL was hooked up it still took me like 90 years to find a good webalbum provider...but alas, all is well now.
The black and whites will be up tomorrow :)

Lamptastic

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY:
You can craft your worries away...

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FYI, I had my final interview today and the course is officially over for me. I had to meet with a moderator who flew out from London to hear us "defend" our materials assignments (we each had to teach 2 lessons in which we used materials we had made, not those from a text book). We had previuosly written a few hundred words on various topics about our materials, an assignment which we had to turn in, and which was a prep for the interview.

This morning while most everyone else was sleeping off last night's stupor or practicing their responses using their written assignment, I was making a lampshade, obviously.

I got the idea the other day while reading in my room. First off, my colors for the season are SO red, green and black. It's practically all that I wear now (as opposed to last Spring's pink and brown). So, I was reading on my green bed staring at all the red and green in the paintings and drawings on my walls when I realized what would bring the whole room together....a giant crimson lampshade to cover the lightbulb hanging form my 12-foot ceiling. So this morning I bought wire and giant sheets of crepe paper from the dollar store and with some scissors and glue stick, crafted an excellent DIY (do it yourself)lampshade that casts a lovely warm glow about my domicile.

We'll have internet on Tuesday and I'll post some pics :)

Oh, and the interview went fine.

AHHHH! 28 Minutes!!!

All HELL is breaking loose! We have 28 minutes until our Teaching Practice Journals and Materials Assignment Reflections (which we will be interviewed on) are due....

Amid cries of "What's my stage aim?!" and "How can I adapt this material?!," cross-continental arguments are breaking out. I was just accused of being"American" because I know how to BS well on my reflections and make my crappy materials sound like the teaching supplements of the Gods. They think I'm heartless and commercial....

I don't know if anyone will escape from this library alive....

Say a prayer for the tiny but tumultuous room full of grammarians across the sea....

Worst Blog Entry Ever

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY:
Real World, here I come.....after a brief detour into Road Trip Village....

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So this is going to be the worst blog entry ever. Why? I realized that in writing about all the big things in essay format, I've left out some of the minor things that crop up. So stop reading right now if you're easily bored. If you are, however, deeply invested in my well being (e.g. you are my mom or dad), all of this will be thrilling...or at least reassuring. So read on dear reader, especially if you are an insomniac.

1. The documentary
So I never told y'all how the documentary thing panned out with my landlord's cousin. Bottom line, it was a big hassle and now I get to go see some movies for free. I went over to help this chick two weeks ago, after 12 hours at school, and then transcribed until 3am and then went back two days later and finished up in 3 hours. Basically, this girl Almuveda often takes on the translation of English documentaries into Spanish for extra cash. This time, she was in way over her head, as she chose one about Blues singers in the the Deep South of the good 'ol USA. I could hardly understand these guys....and this film was 70 minutes long....do the math.....yipe. The film was awesome, though, and I'm going to the film festival that it was for this weekend. We're going to check out a film on Bollywood and then one on music from Mali, and my admission is free, and I've made a new friend, so what the hell?

2. Pavel
Ah, Pavel, my Chilean roommate. I think he thought I hated him. Thing is, I can communicate in Spanish, but sometimes I just can't express myself worth a damn. Oft times I'll be passing by his room or by him and just won't be able to think of something quick to say...so I end up making this face like I'm going to say something and then just freak out, look the other way and run (slowly). This is unfortnate as Pavel is really cool. We have had a few great conversations about world affairs and whatnot and he's really nice, but this girl just can't work the Spanish sometimes and Pavel doesn't speak a lick of English. But alas, all is well as I broke the ice the other day, offered the olive branch, etc. etc. by asking if he and his study buddies needed anything when I was going to grab a study break coffee. His whole face lit up as he realized I didn't hate him. So now that Pavel doesn't think that I think he is a big evil ogre, he has begun being ridiculously sweet to me. He actually came into my room and checked out my new clothes and called my new sweater "bonito." It was hilarious; I laughed, he laughed, we laughed.

3. Roommate dinners
So last week I cooked all the roommates stuffed peppers, proving that American cuisine doesn't altogether suck. They loved it. I had made 2 huge pans of it and Pavel commented that "it's no wonder gringos get ahead at everything, because they always have so much to eat." Yup, that's the reason.
It was also very adorable because when I came home from class at 10 and started cooking, they had all set out "tapas" like dried fruit and nuts and cheese (you avid blog readers may recall that these same nuts would come to be my dinner 1 week later). Additionally, our landlord Roger, who lives across the hall, came over and made Sangria. Altogether it was a success and this week, the French roommates will be serving up a French suprise. Holla!

4. ROAD TRIP
I have firmly told the real world to hold off for one more week. I looked up some van rental prices online and we're all good. For only $660, £365, or €525, 7 of us are officially road tripping to Valencia and then Granada over 5 days next week. Resumé THAT, job market!

/maI breIn hWrts/

As the title says, MY BRAIN HURTS…in fact, I’m convinced my language centers are melting and fusing back together in a bizarre lingual alloy. The reasons are myriad:

1. Barcelona is a world language center:
No one here speaks just one language, not even the natives. Between tourists and immigrants, multilingualism is a requirement. While most signs (bathroom, street, traffic, restaurant, metro) are only written in Catalan and on occasion in Castilian, commercial things are written in about 6 languages. Big businesses aim to accommodate the international population, but Barcelona isn’t as commercialized as Chicago and the majority of retail shops and restaurants are owned by mom and pops…or artists and Pakistanis. Thus, while the Fnac department store (that’s right, Fnac) has at least one sales representative who speaks a little of some other language, it is not uncommon to see examples of lingual breakdown like my friend Kelly walking into a mobile phone shop, pointing at her UK cell and repeating “SIM card, SIM card, SIM card” at the stone-faced desk clerk (we ultimately sorted Kelly out and you’ll be happy to know she got a BCN SIM card)...or more commonly, examples of small lingual breakthroughs such as when tourists successfully order a “café con leche” from Dunkin Donuts or a “Big Mac Menu” from McDonald’s after a defeating run-in with pig intestine sausage in the corner lunch spot.

On an individual level, I encounter at least 6 spoken languages a day: English, Spanish, Catalan, French, Italian and German (my new roommate Brigit has moved in), and I actively function in 2 of them. There’s definite cross-over action happening. Half the time I can't remember which language I had a conversation in, which is a testament to the fact that we don't remember individual words, but rather, just the gist of what was said. I catch myself “vale”ing my classmates rather than “okay”ing them or “oh my god”ing my roommates rather than “dios mio”ing them.

2. I hear bad English accents all day:
Anyone who’s been to a country where they don’t speak English can tell you, after repeated exposure, you start to speak your own language as if you were a foreigner. For example, hang out with Italians long enough, and you aren’t “goin’ to go to the store,” you’re “a-gonna go to da store.” Well, for several hours each day, I am surrounded by 15-17 people who speak English with the speech pattern, intonation, consonant and vowel sounds of Spanish. My classmates and I are becoming frightened as we find ourselves saying things to each other like “I like-ed that lesson,” or “Where eez the moobie playing?” Anyone who has read David Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day should immediately recall the scene where all the French students of various backgrounds are huddled outside of the classroom speaking in broken half French like a pack of refugees. Add to this the fact that we are all making these slips and thereby reinforcing one another’s lingual deterioration and you can’t help but agree that we’re all screwed. How are we ever going to get jobs as English teachers if we can’t speak English?

3. Grammar is my life:
Part of the whole “do a masters-like certification in EFL in 4 weeks” bag is that you are immersed (gently) in the sewage that is English grammar. Mind you, there are Royal Academies of French and Spanish that annually reevaluate the languages and standardize their grammar. No such thing in the English-speaking world…so, are the rules in the Oxford grammar book correct, or those in the APA or MLA??? And should I teach my students to say: “Who will you give the octopus to?” or the grammatically-correct (by WHOSE standards?!) but infinitely nerdy “To whom will you give the octopus?” ??? And what’s more, I’ve begun to realize the grammatical mistakes that I make all of the time and my classmates and I have begun to judge one another and point out our offensive mistakes. We’ve adopted a hierarchy, not of racial, but of grammatical purity: “Hm, Dana’s good enough to eat at the same lunch counter as me, but she incorrectly uses adjectives in the place of adverbs. No way I’ll let my child date the offspring of that trash.” Dios mio.

4. English is not a /fenetIk/ language:
How do people ever learn to SPEAK English? Rough, ought, should all have “ou” but are said in 3 different ways. That’s crazy! Did you know that we have 20 different vowel sounds (as opposed to 5 or 6 in Spanish) and that more often than not we don’t even say them correctly, but rather, sluggishly morph all our vowel sounds into the one same sound over and over (the infamous schwa) - Leave it to Anglo-Saxons to have access to more than everyone else and then not even appreciate it - So in class, we have to teach these people how things ought to be said and then re-teach them the sloppy way to speak like a real human being.

While we’re teaching correct pronunciation, we’re also learning about it in our classes. If only you could see us in our phonetics classes trying to distinguish between /W-this should be an upside-down omega symbol, but blogspot can't handle the power of phonetics/ (“should”) and /u:/ (“shoe”): with our lips flapping between the /W/ and the /u:/, we’re like a bunch of preteens practicing before our first kiss.

In the meantime, we’ve also each been working on this big project that is due today (I've been up all night at Oliver's flat gorging myself on phonology, Pizza Hut, tea and crumpets....which are just English muffins!) We each chose one of our students and elicited a writing, speaking and reading comprehension sample from them. Then we analyzed it all, crafted a one-on-one lesson, did the lesson, and then planned a hypothetical 10 further hours of individual lessons. Part of the analysis was orthographically and phonetically transcribing a bit of what we recorded them say. A common conversation around the school has been, “Hey, come here and listen to this. Does that sound like an ‘ih’ or an ‘eh’? Forget it, I‘m just gonna write a schwa.”

Thus, more than studying in the lingual circus that is Barcelona, listening to bad English accents like they were my favorite band, or living under a grammatical caste system, there is nothing quite like staring at a page of phonetic transcription to make you feel like your own language is the enemy with which you have been sleeping since you uttered that first fateful /dædi:/.

Food, glorious food

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY:
I am a little malnourished...but not even that can keep the old Spanish dudes away.

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So, I´ve never in my life had to go grocery shopping so much.

It first became apparent that I had not been eating well this last week (due to the course becoming more and more demanding) when I developed scurvy. Well, maybe it isn't scurvy, but I have a cold sore inside my lower lip and I think it has developed in response to my lack of vitamin C intake. I realized that I have not had an orange or OJ since arriving in BCN. Will go to La Mercat de la Boqueria first thing tomorrow morning and grab some oranges. Check.

The contents of my fridge have also been dwindling. I generally make a sandwich or bring leftovers to class to eat during the "tea break." But yesterday, the only transportable food I had was an apple and some bicuits with chocolate in the middle. It wasn't going to do the trick, so I let Luis and Rina talk me in to going out for "eggs and chips," a classic British tea time treat evidently, and a treat they talked about nonstop all day. Earth to Britain, it's just fried eggs with french fries! But dipping those greasy patatas fritas in the egg yolk was pretty yummy....so I won't complain.

And the final indication that I needed to get some damn groceries....my dinner at 11pm last night was pathetic. I scraped the bottom of my all-natural, sugar-free peach jam jar with a spoon, sucking the stuff down like baby food. It was right out of Bridget Jones' Diary. When my stomach began to grumble afterward, my darting hunger-driven eyes landed on a cup of peanuts that had been sitting out since last week when I made dinner for the roommates and they provided "tapas," which included a variety of nuts. I figured no one would miss them, but even so, I took pains to have no one see me scarf them by carrying them off to my room like a demented squirrel.

But have no fear, Mom. I went to the Champion Supermercado this morning. I was there with all the little old couples 4 minutes before it opened at 9. The security guard (they have them at all the big stores) yelled at us and made us wait outside from 8:56 until 9:00 when the store officially opened, but in the end, food was bought. I will eat like the Spanish Queen today...I have a crazy fabulous salami and cheese sandwich and an apple :)

In the meantime, my state of malnourishment has not stopped at least one old Spanish dude from approaching me each day. Today was my favourite to date. On my way to school, I was about to cross the street when this handsome old guy (they are all handsome here) in an olive green tweed suit stopped me and said it wasn't safe to cross. I responded that the pedestrian light was, in fact, green. Then he struck up a conversation about how I was guapa and must be off to my office, and responded with mock shock when I said, "no, to school." It's hilarious to me because I am sure this man is probably retired and bored and just wanders the streets of BCN looking for chicks he can pretend to save from faulty traffic lights, all in the hopes that they will ditch the office/class and grab a cafe con leche with him. Unfortunately for him, this guapa had already had her cafe for the day.

Gratuitous Weekend Update

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY:
If you're going to mess with Germans, it's best if you don't speak German.

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So, with a holiday tomorrow/Tuesday (meaning no class) and no teaching today or assignments due, it was a killer weekend. Highlights include:

1. Adam almost having his pocket picked as we danced with street vendors in Plaça Reial (our usual hangout):
He was having a gay old time dancing about when he suddenly realized that his street vendor companion had grabbed his wallet. In a stern Manchesterian accent, he demanded it back. The vendor smiled sheepishly. Adam insisted with slightly more gusto. The vendor responded with Spanish expletives. Kelly, smelling danger in the air, ran from the other side of the plaça and pointed her cigarette in the dude's face, insisting that he "give me baby back his wallet" (Kelly refers to all of us as "me babies"). Knowing there was no messing with Kell-Kell, the vendor surrendered the wallet and took to the hills.

2. Watching the England vs. Wales World-Cup-qualifying football match in a dodgey English pub:
There were English with pints, there were Welsh with pints and leeks (the symbol of Wales), but most importantly, there were 9,000 of them crammed around me in a bar the size of a pint. Surrounded by half-joking cries of "C'mon Wales, smash those damn imperialists!" and "Get yer leek outta my face!" I watched as Wales put up a good fight against England, only to lose 2-0 after David Beckham made a mind-shattering goal with about 8 minutes left.

3. Pretending not to eat McDonald's:
We were HUNGRY, ok? We had just walked from the football game to the port to catch a movie only to find that we had gone to the wrong theatre and had to treck back the way we had come. We were there, the hunger was there and the McDonald's was there. Just know that we took great pains to hide the golden arches on the carry-out bags as we sucked down bite after salty bite speaking in our touristy British/American accents. I have to stop writing about this now; I wasn't even supposed to mention it to anyone.

4. Miscommunicating in German:
Kelly was being acosted be elderly Germans and Oliver tried to come to her rescue. Grabbing her around the waist he kept saying what he thought was"Dies ist mein junges Mädchen" or "This is my young lady." What he actually was saying was "Ich bin ein junger Junge," which translates as "I am a young boy." Suffice to say, the Germans were freaked out and moved on and we all understood why once Valerie, who actually speaks German, filled us in.

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In more boring news, I have a cell phone now. If you're at all interested in having the number, email me. Additionally, once I have internet in the apt, I'll post some photos. Be aware, these will be establishing shots like "look, this is my bedroom" or "here is my teaching cohort," which will be posted for the sake of my mom. Love ya, Kath!

Corrupting the language

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY:
People's lives are in our English-teacher hands and we are not to be trusted.

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So teaching is hilarious. The things I have witnessed this week make me confused as to whether I should sing our praises or seriously reconsider the validity of allowing people such as ourselves to ever take on roles of authority. Let's discuss:

Exhibit A: At one point today Kelly was muttering to herself about chargrilling, a term she is going to teach the class. She actually turned to me and said, "This chargrilling is really stressing me out" (which is even funnier when you hear it said in a Manchester accent, and even funnier still if you could see the real anguish on her face). I don't think the students will ever know the psychological strain their teacher went through in an effort to enhance their ability to order in a pub.

Exhibit B: I am actually teaching my class the phrase "I have a broccoli allergy" today...of my own volition....as in, I didn't get it out of a book....I wrote the lesson. Someday, these poor people will be talking about allergies in English, and their example is totally going to be "broccoli allergy." I may be responsible for their future English-speaking friends shunning them.

Exhibit C: Oli said to a student yesterday, "so did you find it sexy?" in regards to a TV advert from the UK that they had just seen. "Sexy" was one of the vocab words, but it was the most ridiculous thing I had ever seen: Oliver, crouched by the students' desks as they discussed the adverts in groups, asking JESUS if he "found it sexy."

Exhibit D: 5 of us spent 10 minutes today searching for a picture of the world's fattest man online. How else will the students understand the different connotations of fat, chunky, obese, and heavy?

But what makes all the lesson planning worth it? Moments like the one yesterday when Juan María, a 40-ish industrial engineer in my class actually jumped out of his seat when his group scored a point in a vocab review game, knocking over his chair and taking his partner Pilar down with it. Ah, lexis...were you always this exciting?

I totally speak Spanish.

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY:
Dude, I totally speak Spanish!

Maybe it's just because I've been dead exhausted and unable to think, but my Spanish has been killer lately. Last night I went home and had a half hour convo with my flatmates, negotiated my friend Oliver's lease with my landlord Roger (Oli may be taking Maria's place in our flat) and then talked to Roger's cousin on the phone because....

get this! Tonight after class I'm going with Roger to his cousin's to help her with this documentary she's making. It's in English and she's the techie in charge of translating the subtitles into Spanish. She can't understand some of the older people's voices/accents, so I'm going to help her transcribe. As if I didn't have enough to do....but I thought it'd be fun.

Anywho, just wanted to gush because (weirdly enough) I just realized that I speak Spanish. Holla!

Barely Awake in Barcelona

GAH!

Slept an hour and a half last night.....was writing up my "Unknown Language Journal" and planning my lesson about music and the Beatles....was up at 4:30am singing "Let It Be" and planning a mixer game for adult learners....never thought I'd say such a sentence as that.

Oliver made an important observation yesterday: If we all stop wiping our asses, we'll save about 5 MINUTES a day! Maybe I'll actually get to sleep tonight......

"The dodgiest bar in Barceloner"

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY:
1. Chilean roommates do not appreciate it when you wash the kitchen sponges in the washing machine. French roommates do.
2. There's no understanding a Spanish speaker when he's been smoking the reefer and washing his jockeys.

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So I must say I am learning more at Oxford House College than I think I ever did in any of my formal Ed. courses at U of I. Of course, it helps that we are hands-on teaching students and are at school every waking hour of the day. I am extremely pleased because I have always struggled with how to be a good teacher without imposing my methods of understanding on my students. The whole philosophy underlying OHC is to let students discover language for themselves. So basically, the OHC staff is facilitating our discovery of how to facilitate our students' discovery of English. This sounds ridiculous, but is an AMAZING experience. It has also taught me a lot about myself as a learner of Spanish and where I need to go from here in my studies.

The best experience yet has been the unknown language lessons. We were taught 4 beginner level Japanese courses (in Japanese alone) so that we could understand how our students felt in our classrooms and to observe how we can be better teachers for them. It was so crazy awesome the way this Welsh lady Cat used body language, extreme positive energy, drawings, handouts, tapes and pantomime alone to convey vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and more. What's more, it was fun and we actually learned some Japanese (!).

In the classroom I feel that I am improving rapidly. My biggest weakness is that I talk too much when explaining (go figure). I've been working on finding alternate methods of explaining (pantomime, check questions that lead the students to the answer, etc.). They are coming along well. On the whole though, the students and I have a great time in class and they have learned a lot. It's just a matter of getting even better.

On a different topic, my roommate Maria spontaneously moved out. (?). I didn't see her all week but thought it was only because I was at school all the time and she was at work/out partying. Alas, I finally noticed that the poster was missing from her door and asked Virginie about it....and my suspicions were confirmed. Evidently, Maria wanted to go someplace where the roommates were more okay with all-day and night partying. So, during a single hour while Virginie and Olivier were in his room studying with their French buds, Maria silently and stealthily emptied her entire room. She was there when they began studying and by the time they were ready to take their test head-on, she was gone.....so much for our arrangement to teach each other our respective languages. Merde.

And as for classmate social life, it is super excellent. We all went out after class on Wednesday and Thursday and then Friday was insane. We were all melting with exhaustion by 10 when we left class, but stupidly decided it was a good idea to go out clubbing with the other TEFL class (we are 2 classes of 17 each). After an hour or so in Plaça Reial, thirty or so of us trecked through winding alleys in search of a dance joint, only to lose group after group of classmates. 2 went in search of drugs, 3 decided to stay in an authentic Spanish bar with hanging animal quarters for sale, 4 more sat down under the boardwalk to take a breather never to get back up again, and the rest of us followed Gerard (one of our advanced English students) hanging on to the hope that he actually knew of a good dance club, a hope that became more tattered with every step we took farther from downtown into the beach area of Barceloneta. Ultimately, we ended up at (as Kelly called it) "the dodgiest bar in all of Barceloner." Between the 10 neon flashing signs that read "tequila" and the fact that the "like a Prayer" remix was played twice, I was thanking my lucky stars that the Cuba Libres in Spain are made with 4 parts rum to 1 part coke. The night ended with a small group of us dancing in my family room, while Kelly and Rina, who got lost on the way to my place, ended up on the metro at 5am when it re-opened with their shoes in one hand and cans of beer they had bought from a street vendor for the rest of us in the other.

Saturday was far tamer. We took a train to a town south of Barcelona, famous for its amazing beach, Castelldefels Platja. The beach was the most fantastic I've ever been to, surrounded by mountains, practically void of people, silky sand, and crystal clear water. We played frisbee for hours, swam our hearts out and ate gelato as if it were a course requirement. Smiles all around.

Today, it's back to business as the group is coming over at 6pm to work on our unknown language journals and lesson plans for the week.