I speak American.

29 de octubre
Well it’s about that time again… not a whole bunch of new news, but I’ll do my best to give a few minor updates.

At work:
Still having lots of fun with the kids… the seeming randomness with which CEIP La Inmaculada operates never fails to amuse/confuse me on a day to day basis.
Example:
Today when I walked into one of the 3rd grade classes I help out with, I was met with overwhelming, raucous applause… I’m absolutely not worthy of that kind of greeting, but it was definitely funny to be received in a classroom as though I were being announced for the starting line-up of a basketball game. Anyway, that same class period, we were playing a bingo-like game with pictures and descriptive phrases where I had to read sentences aloud such as “The mouse is in the bath”, “The mouse is behind the cooker” and “The mouse is on the basin”. The game itself was simple enough, but my nasally American accent threw these kids for a loop – the English that is taught in schools here is purely British English (as you can also tell from the vocab – I have definitely never heard anyone from home refer to an oven as a cooker). The word “bath” is a prime example about how confusing my accent can be for the students: whenever I pronounced “bath” with the short-a vowel sound, I was met with a myriad of puzzled 8 year old faces staring blankly at me. Eventually, after repeating the word two or three times, one of the students would inevitably have an epiphany (“OOOOH! Baahth, she said baahth”) and enlighten their classmates about what I had "actually" said. The part that amused me most was that this happened not just once or twice, but EVERY time I pronounced a word in a way that distinguishes American English from the British variety. Part-way through the game, we actually stopped playing so I could explain why the way I talk sounds so silly to them.

This week, I also started teaching clases particulares, which are essentially private classes/tutoring for English. This past Monday I went to a family’s nearby apartment and talked with their three children ages 7, 9 and 10 about different kinds of fruit and how to ask questions regarding the color, shape and size that different kinds of fruit has. The subject matter was pretty arbitrary – I happened to bring along some food flashcards and made up a game to play with them on my walk over. Generally what the parents want their kids to get out of these classes is an hour of individualized attention specializing in English conversation with a native speaker. It’s pretty fun, earns me a few extra euros a week, and gives me something else to do, so I can’t complain with the whole situation. The process of finding families interested in clases particulares is essentially based on word of mouth – the father of the family I’m working with is a teacher that one of my friends works with in her school, which is located in San Fernando, a city adjacent to Cádiz. Oh the joys of networking.


In life:
This past weekend, my apartment-mate Rosa had five of her best friends from home (aka Granada, where, according to them, everything from the scenery to the bus system to the food is clearly far superior) come visit. It was a really great chance to hang out with a big group of people and I definitely heard my fair share of girl gossip en español. There were times where I felt a little awkward since I was the random blond American girl amongst a group of extremely Spanish-y Spaniards who knew each other really well. However, I really appreciated that they were all very generous, friendly and invited me to tag along on their weekend activities. I’m not going to lie though, while hanging out with them was quite entertaining, it made me miss hanging out with my friends from home!!! I miss you all oh so much, so start looking for cheap plane tickets and come visit me already!

Speaking of weekend happenings, this next one I’m finally taking my first trip out of Cádiz! I’m going to visit some other auxiliares who I met during the Seville orientation and teach in the city of Córdoba. I’m excited to a) take the train, b) visit a place where there are some hills, heck even mountains! and c) get to see a new part of Spain. If you’re lucky maybe I’ll write about it later…

So, from all of the pictures of Cádiz that I’ve posted make it look like the land of eternal summer/bathing suit weather. While it is like that some of the time, as of late we’ve been having random, intense thunderstorms at night, strong sea breezes and at least a partial amount of cloud cover at most times. The last two days I’ve even worn my (light) jacket around the whole day… shocker, I know. I really can’t complain though because even when there are clouds or rain or something other than sunshine, it’s pretty much guaranteed to change into something else before too long… and I did go to the beach this weekend and managed fall asleep in the sun for a few hours… oops.

Well, since I've resorted to talking about the weather, I would say I'm out of material for now. I guess it’s off to bed for me, buenas noches!