Mi primera semana exitosa,
Monday, October
2nd
It
is 4:46pm. I am just home, 18k+ steps deep, utterly exhausted and positively
beaming. I have been on my feet for 10 hours straight, minus two 40-minute
train rides. I had a 15-minute break the whole day long. I taught 7 lessons
today. I did not help or assist or enhance, I ran the entire 55 minute session
of all 7 classes on my Monday schedule.
I
had half of this post already written in my head as I slow wandered home from
Laguna station in the heavenly shade of all surrounding apartment buildings (a
28 minute walk from my school to the train station every afternoon along an
unsheltered highway in 35 degree weather might
kill me if this heat wave doesn’t break soon!), sipping my well-earned mango
juice, trying to focus on the smile on my face and not the ache in my feet. But
now that I am home and have collapsed onto my bed, I can feel my brain start to
shut down into power-saver mode…
Today
was by all measures, and in all aspects of the word: a success.
Wednesday,
October 4th
Today
I arrived to my English Department staff room before my first lesson to find
all of my fellow teachers finishing up an impromptu meeting of sorts. Big
smiles and the friendliest of greetings and I am reminded of how lucky I already know I am to be here, in
this school, on this staff. My Eso4° teacher
quickly fills me in on the conversation I’ve just stepped into the conclusion
of. My Head of department has been approved by our school’s Head Master to give
me my own classroom in the school J J
The
role of an English Language Assistant is to help facilitate and enhance the
lessons by working to influence the students’ spoken skills and cultural
awareness. I expected many things, having been lucky enough to work with some
fantastic LAs in my Thai classrooms. In the most general definition of the
role, it can easily be compared to a teacher’s assistant. In addition to keeping
students on task and sparking their enthusiasm for the pre-planned classwork, their role is to
bring language and culture alive in the classroom and across the school
community, motivating students to learn and develop their understanding of the
world around them.
I thought
this would be an awesome experience, and a really good fit for me at this point
in my career. Yes, I had just concluded two years as a full time teacher, 1 of
those after being promoted to the Head of both Primary and Kindergarten
departments. It was a huge take-on and an incredible learning experience (in
more ways than just professionally), and I knew in comparison this year would
be a major step back. I have always been fully aware of this! But more than my
desire to simply teach, I have always wanted to experience the classroom from
every possible angle and from all different contexts.
The role
of ‘teacher’ comes in so many beautiful shapes and forms and more than anything
I want to build my awareness and my appreciation for all different faucets of
the job. I have loved being a full time teacher at both the Primary and Secondary
levels, and I hope to carry that role into other age groups too. I want to
teach mature students and adults in both a school and business environment. I
would love to be a University TA someday, or even a Professor of Language or
Education. I want to be a supply teacher, learning how to jump from one school
to another on such short notice. I want to be a student mentor, a guidance
councilor, even a school secretary! There is so much to learn in each of those
roles, and I couldn’t think of a better place to start, or a more appropriate
next step in filling out those career goals than here in Spain as a Language
Assistant and Cultural Ambassador.
As the
majority of Language Assistants are not trained teachers, we should not be
asked to take sole responsibility for a whole class, deal with discipline
issues or mark students’ work. These are things I do thoroughly enjoy and have
built a sturdy confidence in and ability for throughout my years in England and
Thailand. I knew I would miss these aspects of the job (though, of course, it
would cut my workload in half). I had accepted these major role cut-backs, but
as a qualified teacher I might have always wished for a slightly more useful or
powerful role in the school.
And
now suddenly I have my own classroom. I can plan my own full lessons, assess
progress how I see fit, prepare materials and use resources and run activities
independently. It is a huge relief and major reward to come so quickly in my
time as a teacher here. As soon as my staff learned I had already trained to be
a teacher, that these sorts of things might come second nature to me as soon as
I walk into a classroom (after 2 days of them essentially observing this of my
first introduction lessons), they were incredibly keen to offer me a much
bigger role, a real opportunity for teaching and for learning, a perfect little
bridge between this new foreign program and what I know and love.
I
couldn’t be more thrilled.
Basically,
I get to do all of the best parts of teaching, and none of the worst parts of
teaching, lol. I get to move slowly through material, I have no pressure for
results or numbers in testing; I work with ten students at a time. I get to
build real relationships with these young humans, without the pressure of being
the sole authoritative or disciplinary figure (though I get to practice this
role when necessary too). I get to plan a small handful of awesome lessons and teach them over and over to all 16 classes,
differentiated to suit each level’s needs and interests, absolutely perfecting
them. I actually have the time to understand
and notice these needs and interests! I already see the students’ faces
light up when I walk into the classroom with their regular Spanish English
teacher, the possibility of something new and different and fun swirling around
me.
I
have this really secure feeling inside my chest that this is going to be such
an awesome year here at this school with this wonderful staff and these eager
learners. I’m off to dig up all of my most interactive & exciting lessons
from over the years!
Friday,
September 6th
I spent yesterday evening in my newest favourite company. My
SpanishAussie treated me to rooftop gin & tonics, beet humus & guacamole, laughing and
boasting and celebrating my first full (incredible) week of work. By noon on
Thursday I was already on the train, buzzing at my first real weekend ahead and
all the fun to be had. Dinner with the girls (& sand between our toes at
Ojala) followed by cheep beer & tequila in Chueca, playing out-of-place judges
for the crowd of regulars in their boy vs boy dance-offs. Sparkly-faced men
double-cheek kissed and brought out our inner 90s pop fangirls as Enrique and
Brittany and N*Sync took us all the way back to the glory days.
Today
is the joy of wasting a whole day being hung over and lazy with reruns of
Friends, knowing I have two more whole days (a whole real weekend!) ahead to
take advantage of this beautiful downtime. Speaking of, next weekend is even
more glorious with Fiesta Nacional de España giving us an extra day off still!
All of the possibilities of a 5 night holiday is something equally wonderful
and painful to me.
If anyone knows me in my abroad
tendencies, you know how much I absolutely loathe travel. I really do, I have
always said through and through I am not a traveller! I am a mover. Because
when you up and move, you get yourself somewhere semi-permanently, and you give
yourself time to figure it all out as you go! As I move from country to
country, I am generally on no real time limit or under any real pressure to
make the most of it. It just comes as it does (as it has been), the days pass
and things get sorted and I get that most lovely of feelings of being settled.
Travel and organizing to travel
gives me no such lovely feelings. There is stress and there is anxiety and
there is major doubt in myself and my abilities to orchestrate the most time
and money-efficient itinerary. Where should I go? How deep can I get into these
link-after-link travel blogs, dozens of options open in different tabs across
my browser, before I go mental trying to make that most crucial of decisions?
And when I get there?? Where do I
stay? Why is there only one hostel in this entire town… that can’t be right? Or
should I AirBnB? Or just splurge on a little hotel room because it’s right on
the beach and will be easiest to navigate to once I arrive?...
Oh yeah! Arriving! … How. I hate
the puzzle that is travel. The lining up of proper transportation, different
legs of the journey, the dozens of different options of getting myself from
point A to point B in a safe and efficient and costly manner (do I take the
underground to the outskirts of town and then train north? Do I take the 18
hour bus instead because it is direct and cheap? Should I use Eurail or RENFE or
the circanías or FUCK IT AND BOOK A FLIGHT.).
And then, in all of my frustrations
and over-complicated, exhausted, googled-out misery, my SpanishAussie (my
source of all Euro-knowledge, my biggest point of reference on a daily basis
and an easy contact with all the many questions I had about traveling Spain),
offered his own solution. A very simple option. An opportunity to avoid all
long-weekend nightmares and potential solo-travel disasters:
We could take his car and road trip
together. Forget public transit. Also, forget choosing an exact location or
worrying which is best for this allotted period of time, he’ll decide for us.
Finally, don’t fret over accommodations. He’s got that covered too.
Now, I had two options here. To
choose to see this as a crazy proposal, an unrealistic offer, seeing as I have
only know this young man (as great as I already think he is) for 10 days at
most. I could remember the last time a man organized a weekend getaway with me,
and how shit it felt to get stood-up
last minute, bags packed, still hung over but willing. I could let myself fall
deeply into longing and what-ifs at the morning messages I received from a
once-upon-a-time, long-long-ago and far-far-away significant other, calling
myself absurd for considering something so adventurous and intimate with any
other human being…
Or, I could see it as a real
opportunity. To have the most of this holiday made for me. To get over my fears
and anxieties of being so near and so… stuck (essentially) with someone who is
not that someone I had been stuck with for oh so many years. I could finally
let myself realize that there are a lot of really incredible things in this
big, beautiful world, and also inside of me and maybe it is time to really open
myself up to the possibility of them, to the possibility of sharing them with
someone else again. Isn’t that why I started doing all of this in the first
place, all of those years ago as I boarded that plane to my first abroad life?
Isn’t that why I have ever wanted to
be doing what I’m doing? I am here specifically to uncover those beautiful
things, to seek all of the allure and charm and wonder of this incredible
world. I am here to let all of it reflect in me, inspire me, change me, teach
me, water and grow me.
Needless
to say, I said yes.
{A
mystery adventure awaits!}
Sunday,
September 8th
7pm
The
air smells deeply of flowers long-past bloom; an old-news bouquet, overripe and
forgotten. A smell that once had a purpose, a clear reason, an affirmation of
greatness.
The
sun is warm and blinding at eye level, but tucked safely behind a graffitied
pillar it shines proudly in its final hour, still perfectly illuminating the
grace of this city only Sunday evenings know. Attractions of an amusement park
in the distance twirl and dip and swirl, putting on a show for the mountains,
dizzying the last of its weekend welcomed.
Everything
is bathed in gold. Marigold, hearts of gold.
It
is warm and beautiful and rich and gilded; the truest reflection of the week
that has come all so suddenly to an end. There is nothing more suiting than
sitting to reflect, feeling the earnest accomplishment in the glow of this
day’s end. And even sitting here alone, watching families and couples and loved
ones stroll past, arm in arm, I am totally content. My family and my friends
are all thousands of miles away, celebrating in each other’s love &
gratitude for what this beautiful life has brought them, sharing this year’s
dinner table ‘Thankful For’s one by one, smile by smile. I’m not sad to not be
there. I feel that love, I feel that gratitude mirroring my own, all the way
across the planet.
I
am the luckiest. I am grateful. I am so, so thankful.
Happy
Thanksgiving, to my Canadian bests & brightests.
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