Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Catching up on vida...

So now that I´ve returned from Murcia from my mid-semester break, life is a bit busier.  A few things have changed:

- I still only teach Tuesday-Thursday, but I have picked up a couple more private classes.  I´m now up to eight a week, and they´re all in the evening.  I usually don´t get home until about 9:00pm each evening, but I´m making enough to pay my rent with the extra money.  All of my students are still anywhere from 5-17 years-old, which means I focus more on conversation than writing and grammar.  Though it can be tiring to deal with three five-year olds at the end of the day, I love my classes.

- My roommate from Nicaragua, Lizbeth, moved to another flat across town.  And though I miss her a lot, I´m really happy with my new roommate, Ellie.  She´s English and we met on a bus to Alicante (she´s blonde with blue eyes and she was reading a book in English, so I decided to harass her).  We met up a few times in Murcia and got along really well.  She decided she was fed up with her roommates at the same time Lizbeth had to move, so Ellie came over to take one look at the flat and said she was moving in.  We´ve been cooking, cleaning, shopping, throwing fiestas and attending fiestas together.  And though we were both initially concerned about not developing our Spanish enough since we are both English speakers, each day we´ve been practicing and teaching each other new words.  We´re two Enligsh-speaking blondes taking over Murcia.

- For the past month I´ve been gradually acquiring new friends from all over the world: France, England, Ireland, Brazil, Canada...even Morgantown.  Over the past two weeks these friends have meeting one another, and group is slowly solidifying.  I´m really liking this international crowd.

- Ellie and the girl from Morgantown, Brittany, are going on a group trip to Cádiz (the town I studied in three years ago) this weekend for one of the biggest festivals in Spain.  I contacted the organization with which they are traveling, and I reserved one of the few spots left on the trip.  So this weekend I´m going back to Cádiz for one of Spain´s most notable fiestas.  And more important, I´ll hopefully get in touch with my former host family.

- I decided to give up sleeping-in for Lent, la Cuaresma, so I´m making more of my days here.  I bought myself a Spanish textbook, so my mornings consist of coffee and self-guided Spanish lessons and yoga.

- Speaking of la Cuaresma, last night Ellie and I held fiesta last night, Pancake Day, which is associated with Lent.  Posts, pictures, and videos are soon to come...

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