The days can get so long and so tiresome here. The weeks will drag, or at least the school day portions. Sure, classes aren't that long. Three hours a day, that's all I have, only four days a week. But then there's that lull time where there isn't much to do. I'm stuck in the house, on my bed (since there is no other furniture in my room and there's no way in hell I'd go out into the living areas of this infernal household), hunched over bored out of my mind. Dicking around on the internet, probably the real reason it took me two weeks to update my blog. I wait for other people to finish lunch or something, so we can go out and get coffee or something at least, but that adds up after a while and not everyone wants to get coffee all the time. So I'm stuck at home. I've been spending the last two weeks downloading and watching entire seasons of The Simpsons. It's becoming my new hobby, my new obsession.
So when I have free time, instead of doing homework (which I always hold off until after dinner), I'll watch The Simpsons. It's great, I'm catching up on my childhood, while seeing episodes I've never seen before, and learning a lot about family, oddly enough. School days are such: school, lunch, Simpsons, ???, dinner, homework, bed.
On Tuesdays and Thursday I do tutor two kids for an hour. Getting paid, getting paid. At times I find it hard what to do with them, I'm finding it's hard doing this teaching stuff, especially when you don't have a lesson plan or even an idea how or what to teach kids. They're at the point where they understand plenty of English vocabulary but have no idea to how string together a sentence or understand a question. So I'm trying to teach them set phrases. We end up playing games all the time, which isn't bad, but I feel at times like I'm doing a shitty job. I did make up a game for them though, that we just started playing so hopefully that'll last a few weeks and they'll actually be able to ask and answer typical questions in English. Oh, and I taught them Go Fish, which they seem to like.
Had a brief fling with a sickness this past Friday, perhaps because of the previous night's botellón and dancing (ha-- I'm allergic to dancing, and yet I still go...). So most of Friday was spent inhaling medicines and trying to get fresh air and not succumb to the sickness. Saturday I was in much better spirits, and it happened to come on a good day because it was the birthday celebration of Javi, one of our Spanish friends.
We went to his house for dinner and drinks and games. He lives just off Calle Mayor in this absolutely beautiful and big typical Spanish...villa? hacienda? It's gigantic and has a courtyard. Totally jealous. Stayed there for a while, enjoying ourselves, then went to go meet up with Rebeca and Maya. Had some drinks and patatas at a bar that was closing down (how happy they were to see us leave), then off to Gabanna Bar for dancing (oh no, the allergies are acting up). I actually stayed for quite a while, which is a rarity with me. I helped fend off a French creeper from the ladies. Simply had to walk near them and he darted away like a cockroach or mouse. At one point he put on a black glove, which I believe was his signal of his affinity for OJ.
We had to fortune of Armani's host family being gone for the weekend, and her mother said she could have a friend over if she wanted. Of course with us that means four friends. Don't you know you multiply everything by four in Spain? Yes. So we headed to Armani's at three or four in the morning and began devouring food. I basically inhaled two pizzas with little help from the rest. They were jamón york I think. Not sure, didn't pay too much attention, just ate. We sat around the kitchen eating and eating and shooting the shit (and downing water)...it reminded me so much of home. This was the first time I've actually been able to sit in someone's house or even kitchen at the end of a night and just chill out and eat. It's the rarest thing in Spain yet so common back home. For those back home having such experiences right now: cherish it. Eventually you'll get old and people stop doing that. How lame! Or you'll study abroad in Spain or some other crazy customs country and not be able to sit drunkenly around a table eating whatever is in front of you and feeding lettuce to a hamster at 4:30 in the morning on a Sunday.
Seriously.
