a List

So, there've been few blog entries lately......frankly because life is just life.

Barcelona feels like home (especially since coming back from France) and well, home just doesn't seem newsworthy.

But, I bet I can muster up something interesting....like a list!

1. My roommate Lawson got into a fight (literally on the floor rolling around) with a muzzled metro guard dog on a moving train at 8am this Sunday and escaped the guard himself by drunkenly wandering away without realizing he was doing anything wrong.
2. I now sleep in parks as a rule on weekends. Not at night, but during the day for a little afternoon kip.
3. I stole a class from another teacher. I was her sub for 2 weeks and the class liked me a lot and I liked them, so I mentioned it to the course director (in the hope of stealing them 'cause I was desperate for hours), who text messaged me a day later saying it would be my class if I wanted. In total, I have been offered 6 extra hours of work this week and accepted it all, so once again I will be a real teacher, not just a 12-hour-a-week bum. Yet, my schedule remains perfect - I work my butt off Monday through Wednesday and then am finished for the weekend on Thursday mornings at 9am when class finishes. Woot!
4. Our lesson planning skills now are such crap compared to right after our TEFL course. We've resorted to teaching song lyrics and passing off sayings like "Whatchya knowing" as commonly used English. I went so far as to create pre-viewing tasks and post-viewing exercises for an original "Miss Congeniality" lesson that has gone on to some fame in the Barcelona TEFL community. Just wait til "Miss Congeniality: Armed and Fabulous" comes out. Then maybe I can teach my students more useful vocabulary about beauty pageants......
5. This coming weekend we are renting motor bikes and driving down the coast to fabulous Sitges. We plan to go clubbing and then sleep on the beach. This should be interesting.
6. My hair is growing out.
7. Weekend update: We got up at 8am on Saturday to go to one of the many outdoor markets to find cheap used bikes, but we failed. We did, however, meet a crazy old man who was the spitting image of Hemingway and wanted 100 euros for a dead 10 speed. Later we slept in the park and then spent the night at this insane squatter party in this big old abandoned hotel. The music was amazing and we danced until 8am. Sunday we were dead until the late afternoon when our friend Jordan came by with falafel for everyone; we scooped ourselves up and went out to the nearby plaza to watch the Barca-Madrid football match through a pub window. Barca lost and there was much sadness and chaos in the streets.

I'm Baaaaaack

Hola Hola Hola. I have returned, refreshed, and ready to teach again. Woo-hoo!

I have to say, I was getting alittle disillusioned with TEFL before my two-week vacation. I felt ragged and used. Not a good way to feel :( For now, I'm rearing and ready to go.

Andorra and Paris were AWESOME.

I have officially learned to ski and I don't suck! The first day, we got up the mountain too late for me to sign up for lessons for that day, so the Seeley family endeavored to teach me. They did a wonderful job but despite all their good pedogogy, I fell a lot and was dead tired at the end of the day. On day 2, Victor from Argentina gave me a private lesson in Spanish, which was hilarious. I learned tons of new words and there was a lot of Ole-ing when I fell....especially when I fell off the rope pull thingy, to the amusement of a long line of Spaniards, hehe. After my lesson, I quickly improved and would often hear Victor's "Hola On-jay-la!" as I sped around the slopes. There was only one minor incident in which I took out Oli's mom, but we decided to say it was both our faults. By day 4, I was going down red slopes (and even the last bit of a black!) and by day 6 I was having high-speed snowball fights with Oli. He kicked my butt as he was snowboarding and had 2 hands free while I had to slap both poles in one hand and pick up snow in one over-sized glove...but it was all good fun.

Paris was a blur of sunburn. That's right, I got burnt, B-U-R-N-T in Paris while chilling in Luxombourg Park eating sandwiches and cheese. Cheese. The French love them some cheese. Virginie and her roommate Vanessa could tell me what part of France each type of cheese and wine we had was from. While dining out one night, I accidentally said I wanted "vino rosado-pink wine" with my cassoulet (a beany ducky sausagey dish) when I meant "vino tinto-red wine." Virgi looked at me like an insane-o; "You mean RED wine, right?!"

Otherwise, Paris is super beautiful and clean and extensive.....miles and miles of history and gorgeousness. The people were also not evil; no more than in any other city. In fact, they were quite nice. I had just gotten off the metro in my first hour in Paris and was orienting my map when some old man came up, took my map, put it in the right direction, smiled and said some French stuff, then walked away. Classic.

So thats that. Photos are on the web http://community.webshots.com/user/ajruiter .