I'll Be Seeing You...

Over the past nine months my blog has been about my reflections on Spain, so for this hasta luego (see you later, not goodbye) post I asked my Spanish friends to write reflections of me in Spain. Here’s what I got: 

Far in the distance I can hear somebody roaring with laughter and... I fall in love.

Ellie introduced herself grinning from ear to ear and her irrepressible hunger for learning: the best résumé ever.

After spending a whole school year with her, she is no longer the language assistant, but that friend we all adore and need, always ready, camera in hand; that friend who knows how to preserve the best of the American lifestyle, but has also appreciated everything that Adra offered. 

I am sure she will do her best in Washington DC and that she will change the world for the better, like she changed ours.

You’re not the language assistant, you're Ellie, you're one of us!

You are going to be very lucky wherever you go because you have a very positive attitude – it’s true, you’ll see!

Out for tapas with the teachers then another group of friends my last few nights in Adra. Even though both spoke a mile a minute in accents I couldn’t always decipher, nothing has made me happier than laughing with them, smiling with them and trying my very best to participate in their conversations and lives. 

On Thursday there was a flash mob, confetti and balloon filled dance party at the school during the first recess. I heard the music from the teachers’ office and wandered to the courtyard with my co-workers. I soon went outside to take photos with the school camera. I felt myself enveloped in this world, this madness, noise, color, laughter – a world that made no sense to me, but one that I tried to enjoy in nonetheless. After a few minutes of fire juggling, dance instruction and balloon throwing, the kids began a conga line. They started to pass me, waving and smiling as their heads fell back in laughter. My year in Spain has been one extended flash mob, confetti and balloon filled dance party. It has been spontaneous, it has been boisterous, it has been filled with hilarity, and, in the end, I am so happy I participated.

Crisis: Trying to cancel my Internet account without knowing my Spanish home phone number.

Success: After the conga line settled down post-flash mob, a few of my youngest students came up to me and said, “No te vayas Ellie!”, “You are incredible!”, “The most incredible!”, “In the magazine I write – Ellie is the best teacher!”

Key Spanish phrases/words: The continuing consequence of only taking a summer Spanish course before this year is my utter lack of necessary vocabulary. I can carry on a conversation involving past, present and future, but throw in a simple word or two and I may be lost. As I was writing hasta luego notes to all my co-workers and friends this week I discovered just how little of the basics I knew. This is embarrassing, but learning is all about failure and now I know these really key words: tan (so), suficiente (enough), te voy a echar de menos (the proper way to say “I will miss you” ), orgulloso (proud), te admiro (I admire you), agradecido (grateful), abildad (ability), comodo (comfortable), afortunado (lucky), inclusivo (inclusive), quedarse (stay), cuentame (tell me), aprecio (appreciate), illuminar (illuminate), casero (landlord, homemade, type of bubbly drink).

Super casera – last batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies one my very best friends helped me make for the teachers, the local bar and my favorite tapas restaurant in Adra. 

Teachers and students strike to protest education budget cuts

“The unemployment rate in the United States is 25%” one student reads. We are doing a class activity about America in which I have written various facts and figures on cards. The students must determine whether these are true or false. Of the 40 students who participate in this activity, 100% believe this to be true. “False.” I tell them, “Do you think it’s higher or lower?” The students’ answer is spilt down the middle. “Lower.” I say, “And what about Spain? What do you think the unemployment rate is here?” They laugh and roll their eyes as they look around to their fellow classmates. “Much higher”, “100%”, and “Too high” echoes in the room.  I interrupt with what now seems like good news, “25% is the unemployment rate here in Spain,” I pause, “but for people under the age of 25 it’s over 50%.” They are not surprised. Unfortunately for students, those numbers are only expected to rise. The government has recently proposed huge cuts in education, which was the reason for yesterday's strike. The cuts would increase class sizes by 30-50%, cut critical educators from schools (as one student said, “our math teacher will also become our language teacher”) and reduce teachers’ salaries while increasing their hours (likely providing students with overworked, stressed out and resentful educators). How will these cuts refuel the economy and solve the crisis? The majority and teachers and students assert it won’t, as better, not worse, public education is the key to stimulating a country and an economy. As a sign read in a local protest yesterday “La educación no tiene precio, quien lo piense es todo un necio” (Education is priceless, he who thinks otherwise is a fool).

 

Almeria, Spain

For more information about the countrywide strike that took place yesterday (May 22^nd), go here.

Countdown.

My time here in Spain is wrapping up quickly with only two weeks until I leave the place I’ve called home for the last nine months. For the first time in my life “packing” means little more than throwing my things into a suitcase and calling it day. In the past moving has always involved lots of boxes, masking tape, screwdrivers, trips to goodwill and beers drunk out of stress. Last year I had an all day yard sale with my best-friend-house-mate that made us each a whopping 12 dollars. Without the anxiety of packing and no more trips, lesson planning, visitors or graduate school applications to complete, I have suddenly found myself with an abundance of free time.

I know I will look back at this time with complete and utter jealously in three short months when I enter my first semester of graduate school, but for now, I am searching for things to keep my brain stimulated. Here is a look into how I’ve been passing and marking my final days:

2 Number of kind yet fruitless attempts by Spaniards to teach me to roll my R’s with the saying: “El perro de San Roque no tiene rabo porque Ramon Rodriquiz se lo cortado” (The dog of San Roque has no tail because it was cut by Ramon Rodriquiz).

13 Episodes of Downton Abbey I watched last weekend

17 Jellyfish I avoided on the beach last Sunday

3 Restaurants in Adra that know my drink before I sit down

2 Versions of Fresh Prince theme song (probably more than 2 exist, but 2 is how many I heard sung as I was walking around with my Spanish friends after dinner the other night)

3 Shirts I saw at the local market that said “Living to return to the womb’s kingdom. Meet you there.”

2 Occurrences of hiccups (hipo) this weekend

1 Number of Frankenstein musicals I saw yesterday (or more accurately, the number I have seen in my entire life). 

11 Days until I leave Spain

Too many to count: Friends I’m going to miss when I leave this crazy world.

Crisis: 3 Wounds I got after a nasty fall over a rock during a run

Success: 4 Number of people who waved, yelled my name or honked at me to say hello on my way to the Frankenstein musical (Adra celeb status!)

Key Spanish Words/Phrases: cigaro (cigarette), puro (cigar), vago (lazy), cangrejo (crab), poner de pie (stand up), ovacion (ovation), aplaudir (clap), chasquear (“snap” – although I was told no one ever says the word snap, CRUCIAL information).

10 Things I Learned Chaperoning a Camping Trip in Spain

1. Chaperoning in Spain is legit.

I suppose I don’t really know what it is to chaperone an event in America, as I am a baby to the workforce and was usually trying to avoid such adults when I was an adolescent, but I surmise it may not be as relaxing as it was here. As a chaperone to sixty 12-year-olds on a three-day camping trip last week I was asked to do nothing, feed delicious food, given beer with lunch and dinner and I did not have to wash a dish. This is all thanks to the abundance of duendes (literally “elves”, but really helpers). These physical education teachers in training planned all the meals, activities and supervised the children while the teachers sat back in relaxed. I also got to choose to participate in the activities most interesting to me, which brings me to… 

2. Zip-lining is awesome. 

Last time I checked “school camping trip” is not synonymous with “zip-lining.” The only organized adventure I remember doing in Minnesota was plunging myself into a freezing cold lake via an ice hole. 

Cave exploring isn't bad either.

 

 Okay, I've done archary before, but still pretty sweet. 

3. Some Spanish campgrounds have bars and discos.

Enough said.

4. Campgrounds have money.

The bar/disco thing already pointed to that, but when I saw the main building of the grounds, I almost fainted. It was like a Swiss chalet with beautiful woodwork, stone tile and Hogwarts-eqsue wooden bunk beds. I asked why in the world we weren’t sleeping there and was told sleeping in tents builds character.

5. Sleeping bags were invented for a reason.

Despite asking everyone I know in Adra for a sleeping bag and having many people tell me they had one, that turned out to be false and instead I brought my blankets with me. I know I’m a kicker when I sleep as my blankets often fall to the ground at home and my mom refuses to share a hotel bed with me on vacations, but I have never felt the affects so harshly as I did when I awoke blanket-less in my subzero artic tent.

6. Spanish ants are on steroids.

Seriously. Things are huge.

7. They play “Red Light, Green Light” in Spain but it’s called “Uno, Dos, Tres, Pollito Inglés”.

Pollito means chick. Inglés means English. Thus, “English chick.” Besides the fact that tres rhymes with inglés, no one could provide an explanation for such a name.

8. Spain does scary things accurately.

As I learned from some terrifying costumes on Halloween, people get into being scary here in Spain. The night of terror on the last evening of our camping trip was no different. The duendes wore some of the most haunting masks I have ever seen and sneak attacked us as we walked around the pitch-black woods. It was like a corn maze except we were in public campgrounds filled with unsuspecting campers and the duendes had zero inhibitions about touching us. When I patted a 12-year-old’s back as he was literally shaking with fear the chuckie-bride-monster encircling our group quickly slapped my hand and then sniffed me head to toe. 

9. This trip was important to my students.

Despite being terrorized the night before they left, 90% of the students cried as the bus pulled away from the duendes and many ran off the bus to hug them one last time. As previously described, the students spent most of their time with these physical education teachers in training and, as I suppose I already knew, caring and cool adults have a huge impact on students, even when they only share three days.

Crisis: Shivering for three nights without a sleeping bag.

Success: Three straight sun-filled days outside finally provided my skin with some sort of color. My friends in Adra frequently refer to me as “blanca nuclear” – nuclear white.

10. I love colloquial words and when Spanish words are also English words.

Key Spanish Words/Phrases: tupper (tupper ware), camping (camping), mosquito, (mosquito), tienda (literally “store” but also “tent”), pilla-pilla (“tag”, the game), pringado (“doormat” or “sucker” - the teachers told lots of inappropriate jokes on the trip and this is the only new word I learned suitable to translate).

What's a girl like you doing in a place like Adra?

A few months ago on a taxi drive from the airport to the bus station, the driver asked me where I was headed. “Adra,” I replied. “Como? Que es una chica como tu haciendo en un ciudad como Adra?” Translation: What’s a girl like you doing in a city like that?

That’s a good question and one I get from most people when I tell them I’m living in Adra. So, to resolve the burning curiosity of all about what life is like for an American in Adra, Spain I give you the highlights from an average day:

9:09 Pass the cat colony. See Coco, a dog, who is seemingly convinced she is a cat. She only socializes with cats and does not like stepping beyond the five-foot radius of the auto mechanic shop – the place I perceive to be her home, but perhaps she has merely convinced herself of that as well.

Coco on the far left.

9:13 Arrive at school. Wait five minutes to be buzzed in through the school gate. Wonder why this happens every day and why there has to be a gate. Be late for class.

10:01 Play a conversation game where students must interview each other about the “egg of their dreams” (Easter lesson) to draw a monster-like egg with an abundance of eyes, legs, noses and mouths. Watch one student draw a egg with shapely legs and high-heeled shoes. Ask where that egg is supposed to be. Student answers, “strip club.”

10:19 Write next month’s lesson plans in English department office and watch week’s Glee music videos with fellow teachers. Mutually wish Blaine was real and in our office.

 

10:22 Health teacher walks into office. Points to a sentence on a piece of paper: Testes hang from ballsack. Asks “Hang. Is it correct?”

Recently a friend who works at the local bar told me “I live in a parallel universe. A parallel universe called Café Blacky.” I often feel the same way about Adra. This photo is from a recent traveling carnival that appeared in front of our school twice in a month.

11:36 See one of the students I privately tutor. Tell her I’ll be joining her and her class for their P.E. camping trip in May. Watch a smile come across her face as she jumps for joy and claps her hands.

1:04 Head to the local cafeteria for coffee and jamon serrano toastada while I write postcards to friends and family back home. Interrupted by teacher who asks me to remind him how to do the “loser, loser, double loser, get the picture, duh” hand motions. See pigeons walk into cafeteria. Remember pigeon attack dream from last night. Feel terrified.

Not a totally average day as this was from the local parade for the patron saint of Adra last Wednesday, but it’s not the first time a herd of animals has caused a traffic jam.

1:40 Go get greek yogurt, Coke Zero and tinto de verano at local grocery store. Rapidly bag my goods as line of four impatiently wait behind me. Curse Spanish bags for being so staticy and refusing to open.

2:19-5:00 Take a typical Ellie, not typical Spaniard, siesta. The other week I took a six-hour nap and told my Spanish friend about it. He replied “I took a six hour nap once – it was called sleep.”

5:02 Have private lessons with the two cutest and most rambunctious children in all of Adra. Play bingo, bananagrams and do crosswords. Watch them turn every activity into a cold-blooded competition.

7:46 Go for a run. Do lunges, squats and push-ups on the boardwalk. Confuse and mystify the people of Adra.

8:22 Put feet in Mediterranean. See baby and puppy playing in sand. Feel heart melt.

9:30 Meet Spanish friends for tapas. Learn an abundance of new words on bar napkins.

Usually these napkin lessons are to teach me Spanish, but occasionally I return the favor. Napkin lessons have become my absolute favorite thing.

11:35 Go to only bar in Adra – Café Blacky (in reality there is more than one, but this is the one where you are most likely to find people). Listen to American pop music. Watch friends make fun of my dance moves.

Despite being one of their best customers, I don’t usually get a cake and candles when I go to Café Blacky, but last Monday was my birthday and I did.

2:15 Come home. Check world clock to see if anyone from back home is off work yet. Victory. Talk until I fall asleep.

Success: A student stayed after class and told me, “Your class is funny. This is the best class in the high school. I love your class.”

Crisis: During the next week’s lesson, a boy gave me the finger.

Key Spanish words/phrases from the napkin lessons: me da igal (“I don’t care”), por la menos (“at least”), hay de todo (“there is everything”), abeja (“bumble bee”), oveja (“sheep”), cordero (“lamb”), ternera (“beef”), mente (“mind”), alma (“soul”), sin embargo (“however”), lo que sea (“whatever”), donde sea (“wherever”), como sea (“however”), me hace reír (“makes me laugh”), envidia (“envy”), malvado (“evil”), silbato (“whistle”), chocar (“crash”), mantenido (“trophy wife”), trago (“sip”/“gulp”), estrangular (“strangle”), flequillo (“bangs”), carabina (“third wheel”), creyente (“believer”), pastelazo (“sappy”), relación a distancia (“long distance relationship”), mote (“nickname”), cosquillas (“tickle”), enganar/ ser infiel (“cheat”).

Looking back, this is an interesting reflection of the things my friends and I talk about.

Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ has danced in the streets.

When I was growing up, Easter meant getting up early, wearing a pale pink dress, and finishing the day with an elaborate Easter egg hunt. Looking back on it, that’s kinda strange. Why go hunting for fake eggs filled with candy by myself in a fancy dress in my own backyard only to find warm chocolate my dad could have just handed to me fresh from the start? Weird, but do you know what’s way weirder? Easter in Spain.

Case in point.

Easter in Spain is not a day; it is a week and it is called Semana Santa (Holy Week). Just like Christmas in Spain (despite what makes sense and feels right), this is NOT a time to go to church. No no. Not at all. This is very specifically a time to flock to the streets at all hours and watch statues of the Virgin Mary and Jesus ever so carefully balance on floats carried on the shoulders of twenty-five pained, yet committed, townspeople all while a marching band encouragingly plays them all along. Oh also, did I mention the KKK outfits? Yep, got those too (no relation, just trying to look like ghosts and ignoring the horrible connotation such garb brings to the majority of the world).

Look familiar? Not only weird, but super terrifying. The child next to me was screaming “Tengo miedo!” (“I’m scared!”), just about the whole time.

This little girl was not thrilled about it either.

But alas, these descriptions and photos description do not even do the whole display justice – it is simply something you must see for yourself…

 

Note the cape change and the doves. Big thanks to the random Spanish man who saw me take ten other videos and stopped me just was I was putting away my camera - “Ahora!” (Now!) he said. This was clearly the moment I needed to capture.

Before this week, people had described these processions as beautiful, magical and precious. I had my doubts as statues propped on shoulders moving to the drum of a marching band has never really been my definition of beauty. But being in the hot Spanish street squeezed between a hundred fancy grandmas and adorable clapping children while seeing white doves released into the sky and hearing the bangs of noisemakers…well, it was no Easter egg hunt, but it did feel pretty spectacular.

  

To be fair to both me and the child, this boy somewhat knows me in that is the brother of one of the students I used to tutor. But that was four months ago and he is only three and thus, well, his little mind was confused and we got this.

Crisis: One thing Semana Santa is not a time for? Laughing. I laughed during the second procession I saw, as it was almost 1 AM and I was told these people had been walking since we last saw them at 10 PM. In retrospect, this is not funny. It is unfortunate and probably endangering their health, but I had had a big beer and it was weird and it all felt really funny. I was quite alone is this giggle as I not only got scolded by my Spanish friends, but I also received looks of disgust from my fellow Adrans (by the way, pretty rude Adra. I let you all get away with the strangest crap all the time… and by “get away with” I mean I do the kind thing and I smile and act as if you’re totally normal in the moment then rush home to write down your faux pas in tantalizing detail RIGHT HERE).

Super serious.

Success: Stumbling upon two processions by accident while I had two friends visiting from the US.

New Spanish Words/Phrases: Imagen (holy week statues), trono (throne), penitente (“penitent” – a.k.a. the little girls dressed in black), costalero (“costalero” – this is a word in English. Didn’t know that. It is the name for the men who carry the religious floats).

The Hostel

When traveling through Europe as a poor young person, your most frequent form of accommodation is a hostel. Maybe you’re lucky enough to have family or friends in the city you reach, or perhaps you think you’re tough enough to survive a night on a park bench (never again!) but more often than not, you choose the cheap and relatively safe option of a hostel. Hostels are magical places where magical things happen. Sometimes that magic is beautiful and other times that magic is black. You never know what you’re going to get with a hostel or for that matter, a hostel room. You can read the reviews and examine the pictures, but you can never guarantee hostel happiness.

Hostel happiness is unpredictable.

Sometimes get the wonder of the best summer camp EVER as you share stories with fun roommates, participate lively activities and eat free snacks, while other times you get a dingy room with three smelly Chinese boys who decide to play a game. The game is called “let’s see how many times we can open and close our metal lockers at 3 am.” You are never invited to play this game.

Heaven.

Sometimes you have a hostel with rooftop terrace filled with beautiful hammocks and a Jacuzzi sent from God, while other times you find yourself in the middle of nowhere London at 2 am begging strangers to help you find the Hogwarts express at 9 ¾ platform as you are in England and you are lost this must be the only logical reason your hostel is so hard to find.

Sometimes free breakfast means endless Nutella (score!), hard-boiled eggs and fresh brewed coffee in a quaint open kitchen, while other times it means you waiting in a line akin to that at the Apple store only to discover knock-off frosted flakes and cream.

Sometimes you have the nicest friendliest staff in the world who lead you on walking tours, give you restaurant suggestions and let you use their phone whenever your little heart desires, while other times you have a sleepy Venezuelan woman who wishes her hostel way empty, hates you for exisiting and offers you nothing but a death stare when you inquire about renting a towel.

Sometimes the beds are sent from the Serta mattress factory with abundant blankets and sheets that smell of lavender, while other times a wooly mammoth inhabited the bed before you, AND you’re left with nothing but a ripped sheet to keep you warm in the cold night as you lay awake shivering and listening to the chorus of snores in your room.

Like a box of chocolates, with European hostels, you never know what you’re going to get.

Success: Our most recent hostel in Lisbon, Portugal had the comfiest beds ever and endless breakfast Nutella. YES.

Crisis: The wooly mammoth example was from my most recent trip to Madrid. I’m still trying to shake that memory away.

Key PORTUGUESE words/phrases: Since I traveled to Portugal this week (and Portuguese is NOT Spanish), here are the essentials for a weekend get away – Obrigado (“Thank you”), Olá (“Hello”), Todo bem? (Literally “all good?” but used more as “How are you?”), and my personal favorite - Bom dia! (“Good morning!”).

Oh, The Places I've Been!

London

Rome

Sahara Desert

Paris

Switzerland

Sevilla

Is Spain a province of Mexico?

Conversing with someone from another culture is bound to come with a load of misperceptions and misunderstandings. As evident from recent polls showing almost 50% of Republicans in Alabama and Mississippi believe Barack Obama is Muslim, we live in our own realities, even in the same country. One’s family, friends, school, state, country and all-around culture greatly influence their outlook on life. Living in Spain and traveling around Europe over the past seven months, I have seen just how much community can influence said perspective.

Full kegs await in a restaurant bathroom? Why not. Totally normal and sanitary.

I have learned quite a bit about cultural differences this year and with two of my best friends visiting Spain last week, the lessons have become even more obvious. I knew I stood out before my American counterparts got here (when I order a half pint of beer instead of a ¼ pint fellow bar goers seem to think I’m on the road to alcoholism; when I open my Apple computer at work childrens’ eyes widen and simultaneous whispers of “is Steve Jobs” envelop the room; and when I go for a run on the beach people literally stop in their tracks and stare at me – today a car turned around to get a better look at what I was doing). Yet, having two rambunctious girl friends in tow illuminated our distinctness from Spaniards and increased oncoming questions about American culture. After one of my private tutoring lessons last week, the father of one of my students interrupted our conversation to ask about something he had heard on the news earlier that week - “Is it true that most Americans believe Spain a province of Mexico?” We all looked at each other and laughed, “I hope not!” (...right? America hasn’t gotten that bad. Please please tell me we haven’t gotten that bad). 

Taken after we did lunges, squats and push-ups on the beach. I think this was probably the most exciting thing Adrans have seen in years.

In Adra my friends were greeted with huge grins from curious, albeit shy, students and the Spanish teachers were eager to spend more time with them. And during our travels around Spain we got more shouts of “guapa!” on the street than I’ve gotten all year, and made friends in every city we visited. Their presence confirmed one of the most interesting and consistent things I have noticed here – people in Spain are fascinated with America. They may not agree with our politics, love our reality TV shows or think that we are the smartest people to walk the earth, but overall, say you’re from America and you’re bound to get a conversation and a smile.

Success: Renting, driving and returning a rental car in Spain without a GPS or scratch in sight.

Also a success? Horse-drawn carriage ride through the streets of Sevilla. Touristy, but worth it.

Crisis: Getting pick pocketed on the Metro in Madrid immediately after returning said rental car :(

Key Spanish Words/Phrases: Culo (“butt”, I knew that already, but when my friends accompanied me to my pilates class in Adra last week my instructor wanted us to lift our glutes and ever so sweetly asked “Como se dice ‘culo’? ‘Ass’?” Literally yes. In a pilates class, no).

Quiero tu cuerpo ("I want your body." I also knew that, but had not heard those words together until my best friend decided to try them out…on basically every person we met – waiters, friends, pure strangers. Turns out that one is an attention getter, especially when coming from a tall pretty blond).

How to Win Amigos and Influence Gente

From ages three months to four years I was convinced my parents were monsters. I can offer no good reason for this conspiracy theory except that they seemed a little too tall to be related to me and I quite mysteriously had bright red hair while they were brunettes. Starved for social interaction with “normal” human beings, I used to walk up to unsuspecting children in the library and hug them. Recently, confronted with a similar social starvation in Adra, I found myself following an American-looking man in the grocery store. Three aisles and five minutes later I realized I was mistaken and ever so subtly turned away to examine the different varieties of Coca-Cola.

There aren’t many Americans in Adra or the surrounding area and if we’re talking about real crises, that has undoubtedly been the hardest part of this experience. Yet, with time, baked goods and a few good jokes, I have been fortunate enough to make friends with many Spaniards. One way to ensure and secure these friendships? Slang. Lots of slang. Here are some of the best slang words I have learned over the past few weeks and that you will not find in mind of Google Translate....

Gafapasta = Hipster. 

Perroflauta = Hippy. Literally “Dog Flute” (Dogs follow dirty musicians who play flutes for them? I’m not entirely sure, but that makes enough sense for me to buy in).

Cañí = White Trash. “Just like Jersey Shore” as one teacher said.

Pagafanta = The less than handsome guy who pays for all a girl’s drinks (Fantas) at the bar mistakenly thinking that such chivalry will convince her to sleep with him.

The poster for a movie of the same name. Pobrecita.

Me meo = I pee, I have to pee, You’re making me pee. A teacher said this to me after I made a funny joke. Throw that in the success bank.

View of La Albramaha from a recent trip to Granada with one of my teacher friends. Not bad.

Apart from my social life, there is my job and put simply, my job is to make students speak English. At 8 A.M. this can be difficult. I have found that Spanish teenagers would rather pull out their own hair than engage in a conversation with me. I ask questions and get blank stares. I provide fun pictures and they are silent. I make what I think are hilarious jokes and they ask me what time class will be over. That was until I discovered three little words: “It’s a game.” New vocabulary, grammar review, readings on Martin Luther Kind Jr. – shake these papers in front of them like a Spanish matador and say “it’s a game” and students are guaranteed to perk up, speak and race to the finish.

Crisis: Speaking of needing friends, I am a blogger and thus according to Dwight on a recent episode of The Office this makes me…well, watch for yourself:

 

Success: I have made myself five delicious pizzas (homemade crust too!) in the past two weeks. Dwight may be right after all, but at least I can cook.

Key Spanish words: The slang mentioned above and the word “Seguro.” I have known this word to mean “insurance” and “safe” for a while, but I recently discovered it means so much more…

Seguro -

Noun: insurance, assurance, diaper, tumbler

Adjective: safe, sure, secure, confident, assured, reliable, trust, dependable, positive, surefire, confidant, infallible, airtight, odds-on

Adverb: definitely, in the bag

When in doubt, use “seguro,” serguriously.