That’s all, folks.

It’s true, I’m done! I just finished my last day of work as an auxiliar de conversación in CEIP (Centro Educativo Infantil y Primario) La Inmaculada y IES (Instituto Educativo Segundario) Fuerte Cortadura. I don’t think I really believe it yet – that pretty darn soon, everything is going to change quite radically. What’s going to change? Well, let’s see, for one thing I’ll be moving back to the good ol’ US of A in just over a month’s time, where, oddly enough, I’ll be immersed by English-speakers. GASP. Also, I won’t have to light a butane tank to get hot water or climb to the roof terrace to hang dry my clothes (actually kinda going to miss that). And I won’t be a minority. No one’s going to call me “rubia” or “guiri”. I’ll be (oh wait, I guess I am) unemployed. The keyboard I use to type won’t have an ñ key and I won’t have to substitute a ´ for a ’ when writing words with contractions. People won’t try and push ham, sausage and other meat products on me, but restaurants won’t offer me delicious wine for 1.50 or less a glass. Essentially, very soon, I’m going to stop existing in a world where it’s fine to use Spanglish as a primary means of communication and where multiple cultures intersect and learn from/about one another on a daily basis. I’m really going to miss that, as they have been two defining features of my daily life for the last 8 (yeah, I know, that’s 8 as in OCHO, as in EIGHT) months. One of the things I’ll miss most about being here is just how every day is an opportunity to learn and experience something new, whether it’s something annoying and frustratingly dysfunctional that makes your roll your eyes, shake your fist and mutter “oh Spaaaainnnnn!” under your breath, OR it’s something cool and interesting and eye-opening (“huh, Spain…”), OR it’s something charming, endearing and oh so fitting with the local cultural norms (“Aww, Spain…!”) OR – probably most common – downright puzzling but absolutely hilarious and absurd (“uhhh. Spain?”).

I’ve been lucky to learn so much about a wide variety of temas over the course of my time here – how difficult and rewarding living abroad can be, the importance and value of being able to communicate clearly and speak up for oneself in an effective, appropriate manner, the genius skill of extemporaneous lesson planning/teaching a class with minimal to no preparation time, the balance of negotiating how to be “flexible and open” and “take advantage of cultural experiences” while still doing what makes me happy, the realization of just how virtuous the virtue of patience really is, and most importantly (and most emo-ly) I’ve learned a lot about who I am and the type of person I’d like to become in the future. That last part is so corny I just rolled my eyes at it, but nevertheless it’s true, so I’m keeping it there.


To combat the sickness I’m currently feeling due to previous touchy-feely statements, I’ll share an entertaining incident that happened last Monday when I was working at el Instituto (the older kids' school). I was working with a decently sized group of kids (~12-15 I’d say) in the extra room that’s down the hall from their classroom. I had been given several pages of vocabulary lists with instructions to practice reviewing the words with them. Okay great, so let’s play a game. We’re playing a game that makes them repeat whatever the word is and use it correctly in a sentence, but as these kids are 6th grade-ish and it’s the end of the day, focusing abilities are quite limited. Two of the boys sitting in the back row keep playing some middle school boy "poking/hitting/touching my friend who's sitting next to me and distracting everyone else while the teacher is talking" game, so being the lenient profe that I am, I decide to give them a couple of verbal warnings before I make them do anything drastic like change seats (believe me, it’s a big deal). Two strikes later, they’re still acting like the squirrely pre-teens that they are and I give them their final warning (this time in Spanish, wooooah) to let them know I meant business, but unfortunately I made the following linguistic faux pas:

So grammatically speaking, Spanish uses reflexive verbs, used for when you are doing something to yourself (i.e. putting on your clothes, brushing your teeth, etc.) … unfortunately, in trying to ask the why the heck they wouldn’t stop touching each other, I accidently used “tocandose” (touching oneself) instead of “tocando uno a otro” (touching one another). In short, my attempt to get these two boys to sit still and pay attention resulted in class-wide pandemonium, and I don’t blame them… how many of your middle school teachers ever told you to stop masturbating during class?

….

and to think, I almost got through the whole year without making a fool of myself in front of them, ooops!