Trying to Get into the Swing of Things

Well, I'm halfway into my first full week, and it's pretty hard to adjust. I'm not used to working all day. Spain is really good in that they are more laid back, and I love meal time and break time.  The kids are wonderful, but they're exhausting.  They talk very loudly which I'm trying to get used to because by the end of the day my ears hurt a lot making me really sensitive to sounds. It's definitely something I need to get used to and mostly a problem because the monastery is the most echo-y building I've ever been in.  Something about the stone walls and floors I guess. Yesterday was exceptionally exhausting because right off the bat, I went to have coffee and practice Spanish with my friend Anja who speaks fluently.  This was good, but I have to focus a lot on something as simple as speaking.  Then, after morning classes, I had lunch in the teacher's comedor which consisted of focusing even harder because they speak about as fast as....well, I guess, as fast I do when I'm telling a good story. So, I'm sure you can imagine how hard I had to try to understand.  By the end of school, my head was pounding and my legs throbbing. I've always heard of people getting headaches from trying to listen to a different language all day, but something I didn't expect is that it actually made me a bit nauseous. After school, I went to a birthday party of a girl in Sally's class. I had taught her class earlier that day so all the kids at the party knew who I was. I was tired, but I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to be around people who don't speak English.  I ended up talking to a couple of 4th graders for most of the party because they were excited to help me learn Spanish.  The little kids spent most of their time on the trampoline, and when I went out to watch, they all started screaming, "¡Profe! ¡Profe!"  followed by a lot of high-pitched, fast, unintelligible Spanish.  They were all upset because there could only be "cuatro niños" on the trampoline at a time and so-and-so had been on for the longest...blah blah blah.  Finally, after a couple minutes of trying to get them to share, one of the dads came over and announced in Spanish that it's like at the fair they have two minutes and then they have to listen to me when I tell them switch. By the time I got home at 8:30 yesterday, I was dead. I went to bed at about 9:30. So far, this job is the most fun and great experience I've ever had, but I really need to adjust to the time and schedule before it will be comfortable going for so long.

This morning was the first time Marina left me alone to get Sally up and ready for school. She had to go to Madrid at around 7:30 so I was just going to get Sally ready alone. I was sleeping and heard a knock on my door. I opened my eyes to try and figure out what all the banging was and the first thing I noticed was that it was kind of light in my bedroom. I quickly grabbed the clock and saw it was 8:30! We have to leave at 8:40 to get to school on time! I threw the door open in a rush to see Sally standing there all dressed in her school uniform and had her backpack ready to go. All she said was, "Are we late?" in a calm little voice.  I've never met a more responsible 5-year-old in my life!  I quickly gave her a piece of bread with some oil on it, packed her snacks for the day, threw on some jeans and we were out the door.  Of course this would happen on the first day I'm left alone! I kept telling her I was so sorry I didn't wake up on time, and when I asked her how she woke up since she doesn't have an alarm she said, "I don't sleep so good in the morning." I asked her why she didn't wake me up if she was up for so long, but she calmly reminded me that she doesn't know how to tell time yet.  We got to school on time, but we were pretty exhausted. I had to call my teaching partner and tell her I couldn't get there on time because I had only enough time to get Sally out the door.  When I got back to the house to shower and rush back to school, I went to make Sally's bed because she needs to make it herself on Wednesday's and I didn't want her to get in trouble since I didn't remind her which was  my fault.  When I got to her room, I saw her bed nicely made! She's so much fun! I love not knowing what funny thing she'll say or do next.