Week One Complete

Well, it's officially been one week since I arrived in Spain.  It's been a good week, but it feels as though I have been here a lot longer than that.  Coming to a new place is like starting over really, and so the goings are a little bit slow as I try to get settled.  I've spent the past week in the school meeting all the staff and children, and also doing a little bit of exploring in town as well.  I've learned where some of the cash machines are, where to buy groceries, and where to get pistachio ice-cream!!!  (So very delicious!)

In terms of life at the school, I have a feeling that I have a very difficult semester ahead of me.  It turns out that I will have to write a lesson plan for every single lesson that I teach, and that alone makes me want to run screaming for the hills!  Oh wait... I'm already living and working in the hills... drat.  All I know is that it wouldn't be that way if I were student-teaching in America (with a few exceptions), and so I'm kind of frustrated about it.  But I'm trying to suck it up and prepare myself for absolutely no social life once my involvement in the classroom picks up.  Oh wait, don't have much of a social life yet either!  Haha, hopefully that will change after I've been here a little longer. :)

Although the goings have been slow, yesterday (Friday) was a very good day for me.  After school, my cooperating teacher gave me a lift into town and we went and talked to the owner of a newly opened radiology center to see if we could arrange for the children to learn about bones via x-rays.  The guy took about an hour to show us through the entire establishment and explain everything to us.  It was very interesting, and we are hopefully going to bring the children there this coming Thursday for a tour!  My cooperating teacher told me that when you are a teacher you just need to be brave and go talk to people.  That is how you get connected and create opportunities for field-trips and informational visits for your class.  I got to see this first hand, as we just walked into the place and asked... and now we have a visit scheduled in less than a week.  The school-wide topic for the beginning of the year is "Healthy Us" and the children in my class are learning about bones, so this is going to be a very educational visit for them!  Yesterday was also a good day because my roommate, Tom, and I went into town for dinner.  In Spain, people don't eat dinner until after 10 pm, and so we left our apartment at probably 10:30 or so.  The food was fantastic, and afterwards we walked around a bit.  I caved and bought some ice-cream, and I also had a chance to walk onto the beach and put my feet in the ocean for the first time since being here.  Now I'll just have to go visit the beach during the day sometime!

Today has been a lazy day, and all I've managed to get done is some laundry.  Tomorrow I will have to work on my first lesson plan, but I'm excited because tomorrow is Sunday and I'm going to try and attend a church that I found out about online.  Hopefully I will meet some new people! :)

Stay tuned to hear how week two goes... hasta luego! :)