Thursday, October 28, 2010

castles for ants

Now that I’m beginning to develop a rhythm here in Malaga, I’m feeling more settled. I’m getting used to my school, getting to know my teachers and students, and have begun tutoring during the week for extra money. As of right now I tutor a 14-year-old girl, a 10-year-old girl and her 7-year-old brother and an older (I haven't asked how old he is yet) tennis coach who wants to brush up on his English. They all seem eager to learn which is very encouraging and helps me to look forward to tutoring. School is going well, the students’ lack of discipline still amazes me but I’m getting accustomed to it. I learned last week that it’s illegal to send students out of the classroom, unlike at home where the threat of a trip to the principal’s office seems to solve a lot of problems, and since talking in class isn’t a big issue to their parents, it’s difficult to create a form of discipline. Also, in crazy news, last year there was a fight between a teacher and two students’ mothers after the teacher attempted to talk to them about their kids’ bad behavior. I mean a physical fight, apparently the moms hit her, which isn’t uncommon. I’m staying away from Spanish madres.

The kids I’m tutoring are lovely, they seem to know a decent amount of English but aren’t used to speaking so that’s what we need to work on. I’ve started making up exercises and worksheets that incorporate their interests so that tutoring is fun and not just “I went to the market today”. We have a good deal of common interests: football (soccer), Disney Channel, Gossip Girl, New York, Miley Cyrus and the movie 27 Dresses. Also: Bieber fever has reached Malaga in full force, I ended up doing some research on him (sad, but true) so I can make up some fun activities for Celia, who really likes him. I wrote an essay about him with blanks for her to fill in verbs and in the process I may or may not have watched some of his Youtube videos, just to make sure my information is accurate.

Aside from school and tutoring, a group of friends and I went to Fuengirola this past Sunday, another nearby city. We had a lazy lunch, wandered around the city, sat on the beach and had played around in a castle. One of the best things about Spain is the fact that you are allowed free reign of very old, very historic sites. We bought 3 euro tickets (worth every centimo) and were allowed to explore and run around the castle for as long as we pleased. The castle dates back to the 10th century and is filled with towers, cannons and lookouts, as well as doors no higher than 3 feet. My friends said watching me crawl through the doors was one of the most entertaining things they’ve seen in a while. Sorry for having difficulty controlling my limbs. After tossing out a casual “Are you not entertained?!”, and missing my dear Logan, we ran around the castle like little kids for the next 40 minutes. There were fake sword fights, we all ended up with ridiculous accents and narrowly escaped bodily harm navigating the staircases. I’m trying to figure out the average person’s height from when the castle was built because at this point it’s a castle for ants. The four friends who didn’t come inside were probably tired of waiting, but I think they missed out.

I know, I'm so cool

Translations are my favorite

Bring it.

The bridge the dementors attacked and the castle

Fuengirola panorama - que chulo

Halloween is this weekend and although in Spain November 1, Dia de Todos Los Santos (All Saints’ Day), is the national holiday, kids still get into Halloween here. While at home we dress up as whatever we please in Spain the custom is to dress up like monsters or scary creatures. I hope the kids dress up for school tomorrow, little kids dressed as monsters will be adorable, or in some of their cases, freakishly accurate. I spent the past two days at school decorating the hallways by putting up cutout bats, ghosts and jack-o-lanterns, and the other auxiliary at my school put up scary spider webs so we’re set for a freaky Friday.

Seriously, how tall were these people?

Fuengirola

This was the tallest door in the castle

Castillo

Fuengirola

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