New Beginnings

Today marks the beginning of a new month, but it’s more than that for me. It is also (one of) my first days living in my new apartment, and the beginning of my full work schedule.

For the past few weeks I have been living with Pilar and her family, and now I am finally settled (mostly) in my own place. I am living in the apartment I mentioned earlier, with the three Italians. Still have only met two of them, the third one is on a really long vacation/business trip (not sure) in the USA. So far the living situation is good. Of course, being as this is Spain, the apartment has some…quirks let’s call them. For example, there are one and a half bathrooms. Or should I say one bathroom and a closet with a toilet in it. When one of my roommates was in the shower yesterday, I decided it would be a good time for me to explore the second bathroom. Well, for those of you who don’t remember, I am relatively tall…and I didn’t exactly fit sitting down on the toilet seat correctly (sorry if this is TMI), so I had to sit sideways on the toilet. For those of you who haven’t tried it, it is not as comfortable!

Also, on the theme of bathrooms, I feel obligated to mention my first experience in the shower here. As in most places I’ve been in Europe, the showerhead is hand held, but has a place where you can let it rest so it becomes a normal over the body showerhead. I thought this would be no different; hold it in my hand when I need to, but have the option to put it in the rest (I’m not sure what the appropriate word for that is) when I want to shampoo or soap up. Well, when my hair was adequately rinsed and I was ready for shampoo, I put the showerhead in its holder, and just like a scene in a movie it started spinning around in circles, water spraying everywhere. I mean the shower head was running laps swinging back and forth from one side of the shower to the other, somehow also managing to spray water on the ceiling. At the time I didn’t think it was that funny, but looking back, it’s just one of those things you gotta expect and accept when living in a foreign country.

Also, as I mentioned, this week I start my full work schedule. For the past two weeks, I have been only teaching primary level classes, children basically. Then in the evenings we were doing exam practice for those students in the academy who are studying to get their FIRST or PET certificates. Honestly, I’m still not quite sure what those things mean, so I can’t explain it to those of you who have no clue what I am talking about. But I know there is some European Union standards for learning English and these tests represent different levels of proficiency.

Now the test prep is over (I think because the test is in the next two weeks) and we are starting with the adult classes in the evenings. I am actually a little nervous to teach adults, especially because my past experience is mostly with children. Of course adults will be easier in terms of discipline, or at least I hope! But the problem is that the English is more difficult, more grammar than games. I guess there are pros and cons to each level. Who knows, maybe I’ll love teaching the adults. Only time will tell.

So, here’s to new beginnings! Happy October everyone!