I didn't really know that much about Spain before we arrived here. For that matter I still don't, but I'm learnin' me good. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the word "siesta" in Spanish. It means "nap". The Spanish love siestas almost as much as Katie does (she's sleeping right now @6:04 pm local time). I don't know if the Spanish actually take a nap in the afternoon, but everything here closes down from 2:00 - 5:00 in the afternoon. It's really annoying, but on the other hand places open back up and stay open til about 8-9, which is nice. It takes a bit to get used to this sort of thing. Can you imagine trying to go to Walgreen's at 4 o'clock and finding that it's closed! It's just different, that's all.
Did you know that Madrid is the only city in the world to regularly experience traffic jams at midnight with people try to COME IN to the city!?! On the weekends people love to stay up all night partying. They come into town at about midnight and then the clubs OPEN between 1-3 in the morning and the kids will party until about 7 AM and then some hardcore partiers will continue to drink a beer on the sidewalk with their buddies. This is called Botellon. Botella means bottle, so botellon means big bottle. It's an age old tradition here and sometimes our neighborhood will be packed with late teens drinking at all hours of the night. Surprisingly very little crime results from this practice (at least as far as I'm aware...). Katie and I have yet to join in the festivities :)
Anyway, I'll try to tell you about our life here without boring you to death. On the average day we wake up at about 7 (Luke=7:35) and eat some quick breakfast and try to catch the train at about 8:05. Our ride to school involves 3 trains and usually takes about 50-55 min. It's not as bad as you might think though. When your not driving it's easy to pass the time reading the newspaper or eavesdropping on strangers' conversations. Our school day goes from 9-3:15 or 4. During that time though we have a 2 hour lunch break. Today I used that time to sleep on the floor of a classroom and awake with a nasty crick in my neck. Usually we try to talk to the other teachers while we're all eating lunch, but I only understand about a tenth of whats said. They just talk so dang fast! They really do. We have some friends here from South America who speak at a reasonable pace, and they're easy to understand, but these dang Spaniards just go a mile a minute. I think it has something to do with the culture here. It's an extremely social culture. People make out everywhere! On the subway, the bus, the street, the grocery store. Everywhere. It's just flat out gross. I mean I tried to convince Katie that we need to become a part of the culture here, but she's still resisting. I'll keep you posted.
Continuing on. Teaching has been quite an experience. The kids here never flipping shut up. We spend most of the class shushing them or just outright shouting at them to be quiet. It just never stops. Maybe if school started a bit earlier they would come just a bit more tired... but really then I would just come more tired and that would be worse. Bad idea. Well, luckily for me I am blessed at appearing angry, which usually scares the better kids into silence. Katie has had a harder time of it. She's teaching second grade, which is pretty hilarious. I've seen these kids and they are insane. If more than half the class remains seated for the entire hour you could say that it has been a successful day! I am teaching 3rd and 5th, which I really like. Don't get me wrong, they're still insane, but in a slightly more manageable way.
Teaching has been enjoyable, but it is tiresome. Jason Wilmot previously explained elementary school to me as constant bribery, which is absolutely true. Negative reinforcement only goes so far, so you have to give then good fun reasons to pay attention and learn. Who would have thought that drawing a star by the kids name would work so well? And when you get 5 stars guess what... you get a piece of candy and an eraser (called a "rubber" here) with a star on it!!!
This past week the one of the second grade teachers that Katie has been teaching with didn't show up on Monday and Katie was informed that she wouldn't be here for the next two weeks and that she would have to work full time and run the class. The teacher didn't leave any lesson plans or anything, so Katie had to make them all herself. Katie works with two different teachers, one is very good at managing the class, and the other who was gone, has a bit of trouble. Katie planned out the lessons and manage to get the class to behave a bit more reasonably, but she did send me a text on friday (We usually only work four days a week, but Katie had to work everyday this week - so she was at school and I wasn't :) that said "I probably won't see you again outside of jail because I will have murdered some 2nd graders!!!". Despite this she said the week went well.
Well, I think that's all for this post. I'll try to segment and document our experiences here is a more topical manner from now on... or maybe chronological. Who knows! Well, I hope this blog "le caigan bien"! I think that's how you say it, but katie isn't here to correct me, so that may make no sense at all...
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