1 Beautiful Man and 4 Dangerous Babies

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY:
A head butt to the stomach, even from a six-year-old head, hurts.

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First off, my friend Jessica has loaned me her laptop for the week, so I have apostrophes for the time being ''''' !

Secondly, I’ve started 4 of my 7 jobs.

You’ve already heard about Vanesa.

Begona is a 50ish woman learning complete elementary English. She cracks me up and showed genuine shock when I said I'd only been in Spain for 8 weeks, citing my excellent espanol, so I have to love her. My favorite part of the lesson was when she asked me if my mom's 4 cats were outdoor or indoor cats, but I thought she asked if my mom lived in or outside of the house. Cute.

I also have my first class with my little Spanish DEVILS: six-year-old Julia, Jean, Luis and Alvero. They are such evil geniuses, I can't help but love them. Best events so far: a) when Julia jumped out of her little chair, and ran around the table just to show Alvero how to play the game we were playing because he wasn't getting it and b) when Julia head butted my stomach, thus encouraging Luis to do the same. Ah, my babies.

Met yesterday with the mother of my 2 private child students Marcel and Guillermo. Let’s just say, these people have money. I was shown in by the maid, had to wait in a parlor, and was brought a glass of water on a saucer while I waited for "la Senora" to arrive. Crazy. Ester, the mom/Senora, is cool though. She and her husband are lawyers and their practice is on the first floor of the building where their giant flat is. She, surprisingly, doesn’t speak English, but has taught French in the past, so she had some good insight into how to work with the kiddies, who have had a laundry list of young tutors from around the world in everything from piano to political science (?).

Today I meet with Juan, a 60ish man who talked my ear off on the phone and took 20 minutes to decide where we should meet. I think he's lonely.

Next week I begin with my triplets: that´s right, private lessons for 3 triplet boys, age 4 and half. Whoa.

Must say, all the private students have really helped me to improve my Spanish phone skills. Coordinating times and dates is HARD because people say numbers so quickly but your brain is slow to recognize them in a foreign language. I do get better every day though and the noticeable improvement from last week to this one has given me some positive feedback.

Other than private lessons and the kids, I just have to plan more for this insane Transportation class that daunts me more and more every day, but alas, it is the one that pays the bills.

Additionally, I am moving. Timo, Oli. Kentucky Fried Todd, Oli's friend Matt (see below) and I are getting a place for the start of November. Should be a blast as we generally make each other wet ourselves and are nice people...and will be the hottest 5 people in any one flat in Spain.....

On a whiny note, I MISS THE OC! I know it started up again and I beg anyone reading this to please tape it for me as a proper wicked Christmas gift!!!

And on a gushy note, I have met the most perfect man EVER. Oliver's good friend from home Matt (see above) has came to visit BCN, and happens to be drop-dead-off-the-chain-monster gorgeous and even more so because he has a south-of-London accent, studied publishing, is polite, hilarious, smart, and modest...and single - JESUS HELP ME. He was only going to stay a week before heading in to France to take some French lessons and chill, but has decided to stay here for the year to take Spanish classes, which he has asked for some tutoring in from yours truly....we went to Parc Guell on Sunday, and let me just say, I can now cross "taking in a beautiful panoramic Euro city view while sipping tea from a thermos with a beautiful wonderful man" off my lifetime achievement list. ***SIGH***