When life slows down.

Life has kind of slowed down recently.  I've gotten into my routine of working 3 days a week, doing something or other on the weekend, and then cleaning and lesson planning and running errands on Monday and Tuesday (when the rest of the people in my apartment have work).

Contrary to popular belief of most of you who read this, I do work. Granted, it's not much and it's not extremely hard. But it happens. 3 times a week on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.  I carpool with different teachers every day and the 20-30 minute drive to school is breathtaking.  My school, Alta Axarquía, is literally in the mountains. One day, the entire town of Periana was enveloped by a cloud. This was no regular fog. This was a legit cloud. You could not see more than 10 feet in front of you. That kinda made the drive through those windy roads to get there a little scary, but the teachers that I commute with know the roads really well.

View from a window at school

Wednesdays I have a short day where I just need to come in for the afternoon and then Thursdays and Fridays I have full days.  Most of my classes are English classes, but I also have some other classes within the bilingual program such as Physical Education, Natural Sciences, and Social Studies. Math is also a course in the bilingual program, but I don't have any Math classes until February.

Leslie is the other Auxiliar de Conversación at my school. We are actually living together which is nice since we can help each other with lesson planning and ideas.  She works Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays but in February we are going to switch our schedules so that I can have Fridays off since a lot of our friends also have Fridays off. It's also cheaper to travel Thursday-Sunday than Saturday-Tuesday.

Every other week, I teach a 30-40 minute activity in my Social Studies class with the 4th year students.  Two weeks ago, I taught the American War for Independence.  Since it was also around Halloween, I incorporated candy into the lesson. I gave each student 4 pieces of candy, but I told them that they were not allowed to eat it until the end of class. Then, I appointed tax collectors and I collected taxes (of candy) to simulate the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act, etc.  The kids were not happy that I was taking away their candy, and they tried to reason with me. But I told them that they did not have any representation in my parliament, so I would not listen to them.  At the end of the activity, one kid who does not speak up in English very often raised his hand and said "Teacher" (referring to the Social Studies teacher, Fábian) "I propose we start a revolution."
This was probably one of the most rewarding classes I've taught so far. Sometimes I wonder how much they pay attention when I am talking in English or how much they understand. But with the combination of the worksheet and the activity, I feel like the students really learned something with learning in English.

Soon, I will update about my commute and hopefully get pictures of the drive.

Ibiza

Sorry for not updating in a little bit...I'll try and do better to keep up with it.

Two weekend ago I went to Ibiza with los Lobos. Ibiza is one of Spain's Balearic islands of the eastern coast in the Mediterranean.  It was towards the end of the season in Ibiza and a lot of places were already shut down (It apparently becomes close to a ghost town when it's not summer). Nevertheless we made the most of it.  It was also good because places had a lot of great off-season specials for tapas and such things.

The first night we were there we went to one of the most famous discotecas in Europe. At least in Spain and they have the best discotecas in Spain in the first place.  We went to Pacha Ibiza. I had been to Pacha Madrid when I studied abroad and it was a lot of fun, but this was even bigger. There were a couple different rooms so you could decide which music you liked better. Anyway, in the spirit of a Spaniard, we stayed out until the place closed at 6am.


The next day we went to one of the really nice beaches.  Even though Ibiza is an Island with a lot of beaches, not all of the beaches are beautiful. The beach outside of our hotel was nice enough, but it also had a lot of seaweed buildup.  The sand at the beach we went to was so incredibly soft (unlike the sand here in Torre del Mar which is not as fine). We soaked in the sun and went in the clear teal water. Mind you, this is in October.

Out in the distance, you can see this cool tower, so Robby and I decide to take a hike and explore.  On the way there were all these really cool alcove beaches from the water eroding the shoreline over time.  And then we get to the tower we found out that it was an old watchtower first set up to protect the fishing industry and then it was turned into more of a defensive tower. In the distance, from this point, you could also see a beautiful lighthouse.









Oh, and the last night in Ibiza, I rode a mechanical bull.