Here are the promised photos of my room!
It feels so good to have decorated and picked up a few things to make it homier. The desk without a chair (¡9,99 €!) was rather problematic for using the desk, but the bedside table (¡7,99 €!) is just a homey touch made me excited to put my book down before bed last night.
From the doorway
Check out the PA map... don't worry Michiganders, I'm not that in love with PA. But since it was laying around I figured it could spice up my white box. Also note the beautiful quilt made by Brenda Sue herself!
My desk, complete with a Hope College water bottle, which luckily I have not lost yet. They don't use reusable water bottles here so I don't want to have to replace it. Also note all of my "presents" from the super awesome UB coaches on my bulletin board. UBelong here with me!
Hot pink boxes helped to organize my clothing better and make the room a bit brighter. My closet is also rather large considering not a single other apartment I looked at even had a closet built in to the room. (Yes, my hamper is full. No, I haven't done laundry in my new apartment yet.)
So yeah, basically Ikea is awesome. I got everything in one place and had quite the afternoon putting it all together. When I finally finished and started eating lunch at 3:15, my flatmate looked at me and said, "Comes muy tarde, ¿no? " (You eat really late, no?). Whooooooa, I'm eating late by a Spaniard's standards! I then had to explain that I would have eaten earlier, but I had gotten distracted by my Ikea purchases. Who wouldn't?
Now in regards to my job: this week's classes finished off well and I am really enjoying having the other auxiliares at school. I finally have friends to sit with during the break and swap stories about the funny questions kids ask. They also experienced the overwhelming questions of favorite color, number, band, etc. :)
However, I have also discovered a challenging situation in two of my classes. In both an English class and a history class, I have a student who is hearing impaired. The student has a hearing aid and a device that I wear around my neck in order for her to hear me. However, the focus of my classes with these students is to prepare them for a Model UN debate at the end of February/beginning of March. Thus we will be doing a great deal of debating in addition to the normal class discussion, group work, etc. My problem is what to do with the device that enables the student to hear. It seems it would be best for us to pass it around, but that could slow the process and might prohibit students from having fluid discussions or chiming in with questions/counter arguments. I'm not sure how the special education system works here, but none of the teachers here seem to recognize that the student is unable to fully participate because she can't hear; instead they've commented to me that she seems to be absent minded. My first priority is to educate the student, but this may be a tricky subject when I bring it up with teachers who I will be working with all year and who have more experience with the student than I. If anyone has any suggestions on this subject, I'd love to hear them!
Another challenge I had on Thursday was a teacher just not showing up to class. Teachers are often late since they are the ones to switch classrooms (instead of the students) and there is 0 minutes for passing time. Thus one class ends at the exact time that another class starts. Also, because I'm not recognized as a teacher here, I am not allowed to be in a room by myself with the students. Therefore, I am supposed to wait until the teacher gets there to start my lesson. For the beginning, I think this is helpful for the teacher too because they can see how my lessons flow. But on Thursday, after waiting for 15 minutes, I decided I would just start without the teacher and hope she came soon. After I got the students started in their discussion, I went up to one of the girls in the front row and asked, "Do you know when your teacher is coming?" to which she responded, "I don't know... she left class yesterday and didn't come back." Perfect.
I then sent the girl for a guardia, which is a teacher who is signed up to act as a substitute teacher for that given hour. The guardias will sometimes have a worksheet given to them by the teacher, but most times they just sit in the room with the students and make sure it doesn't get too rowdy. After about 10 minutes of the guardias running around trying to figure out where my teacher was and who was going to sit in my class, a teacher finally came in. She was a little confused when I told her that she just had to sit there because legally I couldn't be alone with the students, but by the end I think she was enjoying my discussion of prom, high school lunch, and reunions. Maybe she learned something new too! After class I talked with my coordinator and found out that apparently the teacher had a meeting with the Bachillerato students (11th and 12th grade) and didn't bother to tell anyone or account for her class. When in Spain....
Now onto food: I bought my first liter of fresh milk! Super exciting! I went to a bigger grocery store 20 minutes away and had great success. I even found chocolate syrup to make some chocolate milk :)
No, it's not Hershey's. But it will do.
And this afternoon, I went on a picnic in Retiro Park with Napala. The weather was gorgeous (75°F), so we couldn't resist being outside!
Queso, jamón, pan, and to make things slightly more balanced, fruits an vegetables!
After lunch we took a walk around the park and we saw...
GIANT bubbles! Fun!
And finally, we headed back to Napala's apartment to drop off the leftover food (aka leftover jamón... we ate everything else) and to check out an Italian gelato place by her apartment.
Hazelnut and coffee. AMAZING.
Houston, we have a problem. This gelatería is located right between Napala's apartment and my apartment (we are only a 15-20 minute walk from each other!). And this place is open every day. We spent forever trying to decide what flavors to get... we had to remind ourselves that we would (definitely) be coming back (regularly). Mmmmmmmmm...
Go figure this is also located three stores down from the pandería that has the best napolitana chocolate (chocolate croissant) that I've had in the city so far. If I walk to Napala's flat, it's healthier than taking the metro. But if I walk to Napala's flat, I will probably consume something deliciously bad for me. Such is life.
Okay, one last story before I leave. Today on my way to Retiro park, I was on the Metro with a man who is blind. I noticed him because of the way he was stroking papers against his body, reading braille; the seeing eye dog was completely out of my range of vision with the craziness of the metro. While being jostled around by the people and turns of the metro ride, I began to consider all the challenges of being blind and trying to ride the metro, a seemingly simple task.
First off, it's a maze in there. It would take so much practice and guidance from others to learn which platform to even get on. Then, one would have to figure out where the doors opened up, not even taking into account which door was least crowded. And then I consider how I am constantly watching my purse and shifting myself around to take into account all of the other people on the train. I can't even imagine having to do that all without the sense of sight. So today, I just wanted to say that I am thankful for my sight. I'm thankful that I am able to see my friends and family via Skype this weekend. I am thankful I could see the flowers lining the fountains in Retiro park. I am thankful I can see my computer screen to upload my pictures and write to all of you. I take my sight for granted every single day. But at least for the rest of today, I will not. And now I challenge you, what have you seen today that you can be thankful for?
Much love,
Amber
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