Last week I'd saw a little flyer asking for a native English speaker to do a conversation exchange with a Spanish girl. As if my schedule wasn't already packed enough, I decided if I could memorize the email address long enough to walk home and get to my computer, I'd shoot her a message and see what happened. Sure enough, a day later I received an enthusiastic response from the girl - who turned out to be 23, also, and a native of Madrid. We scheduled a date for Monday and that was that.
I didn't think about it much today - I just knew that I wouldn't be getting home 'til late. Classes were fine - I'm starting to like the positive attention all the students are always giving me (it's great after you seriously could use some perking up) and the teachers are starting to give me suggestions while I'm teaching, which is really helpful. The best moment of the school day was in first period, with 11th grade, while we were talking about their weekends. The guy from Portugal raised his hand and told me he'd gone into Madrid this past weekend and saw a group of hipsters!! I just about peed my pants laughing. I told them I came from the hipster capital and I was shocked and dismayed that he was telling me they exist outside of the Pacific Northwest! He laughed and assured me he knew what he'd seen. I then looked around the room and realized not one other person knew what we were talking about. I did my best to define a hipster, and then he tried, but the whole time we were laughing 'cause it's just not something you can describe without witnessing it yourself. ;)
After school I was dreading the two private classes I had to teach, as usual, but was shocked that the girl actually did well today. Her mom told me that she needed to work on her writing as it was "fatal" (sounds like such a harsh word to describe the writing abilities of a 5 year old in a foreign language... but okay...). After about two seconds of my trying to help the girl with her writing she informed me she was bored and began doing a maze in her workbook. I wrote out the words I wanted her to try to write in Spanish and then asked if she could write them in English. I didn't think it would get her attention, but I'm pretty past caring if I have her attention or not. Much to my surprise, she said, "Okay!" and grabbed the pencil from me and began. I have to admit I was shocked when I looked over her work and she spelled numbers 1-10 correctly - even the eight (which looks like a hard one to spell!)! I was shocked and gave her all the praise I had in me. She proudly drew check marks next to each correct answer and smiled up at me. I told her to draw herself a smiley face because she deserved it. She was way excited to do so. She asked if she could do it again to show me how good she was and I said sure, why not practice a little more. Once again, she did it perfectly and once again I told her to draw herself a smiley face. I heard her, in Spanish, say to herself, "But of course! Why did I think this was so hard before? Numbers are easy to write in English! I can do it!" It was a pretty adorable moment. Seriously. After that we continued in the same fashion - I would write words in Spanish and she would write them out in English. She got a few wrong, but not many, and continued to be oh-so-proud of herself. She then asked if I could write her fill-in-the-blank exercises so she could practice they way they have to do things on tests. So cute. I wrote blanks for all the things her mom said she was writing poorly and she got every single one correct - even the ones I tried to trick her on. She started drawing herself championship cups next her her correct answers instead of smiley faces. Tee hee. :) At the end of the lesson she was actually sad I had to leave and I pulled out my notebook and drew a big smiley face and wrote her name. I said she did so well today that I was very happy with her. Every time she does well I'll draw a smiley face and when she gets six, I'll give her a surprise, like Oreos (she loves them). She looked at me and said her mom buys her Oreos, why would I. >_< So I said fine, what would you like? And she said she'd like me to draw her a giraffe that she can hang in her room!! Lol, seriously!??! I had no idea my love of drawing giraffes would be such a serious hit with small children. Go figure. Whatever motivates them, I guess...!?!
One thing - the 5 year old is seriously stubborn and a "firecracker." Sometimes it's annoying, but over all it's kinda fun to watch, if you're not invested in her actually learning anything while you're with her for 45 minutes. I've pretty much just taken to trying to learn from her, instead (somebody might as well benefit from this exchange!). So far I've learned the word "fus!" from her - which means "GO AWAY!" in child speak - and "Punto Pelota" (literally: Dot Ball) which basically translates to "PERIOD!" as in: "I'm not going to give you any of my cupcakes. PERIOD!" I've resolved to try to use it more in my everyday speech. I'll write updates. So far I managed to put it in my Facebook status. Win.
Anyway, after the tutoring sessions and after taking the bus the wrong way and getting home with enough time to say hi to my roomies, it was off to meet the conversation exchange girl. At first it was a little awkward, randomly meeting up with someone and then realizing we had to just begin talking about something - anything! But after a little while we became more comfortable and were giggling. She reminded me a lot of my best friend in middle school. :) We spoke in Spanish first and then switched to English and it was nice to be able to say, "Wait a minute, which verb tense should I use there?" and without judgement she'd just smile and correct the verb for me and we'd move on. She was really nervous for her turn in English, but she did really well and her accent was great! I had a good time going out for tapas with her and on a walk around Alcala and we said we'd see each other again soon. :)
When I got home Katie was lounging on the couch looking up flights. When I asked her to where, I was shocked to hear "Switzerland!" I said that was basically the most random place to go ever and I wanted in. She's looking up flights and hostels, etc. for the first week of December and I would love to go and peruse the Christmas markets and drink hot cider with her and her friends. OMG how cool!! :oD
And now, I must go to bed. My roomies don't have school tomorrow because it's Cervantes' birthday and it's a festival in Alcala (like, a literal festival! They've been setting up a Medieval Market for days now and it's supposed to be one of the biggest ones of its kind in all of Europe... it goes on all week long so I can't wait to go!), but my school is technically in Camarma, so I don't have off. RAWR.
XOXO
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