There’s not much to report from
this week so far as everyone seems to have done the same thing and is
frantically catching up with work after the Easter break. However, since the
weekend and following week are bound to be busy with the Benidorm trip, my
birthday and my parents’ visits, I’ve decided to write a short blog entry now
before things get too hectic.
After writing my entry on
Tuesday, I stayed in the flat chatting to Giorgos for a while before going out to
do some reading in the sun. That evening, after teaching, my friends and I went
for a few casual drinks because the weather was too nice to be cooped up
inside. For the first time, we were able to sit outside without heaters and
feel completely warm; it was bliss.
The next day I woke up at a
reasonable time again to finish off the remaining translations I had to do for
my Methodology class. At 2.30 I met Ali at the library in a vain attempt to
find books on non-verbal communication in Britain for our linguistics
presentation. After ascertaining that the library had nothing even vaguely related
to what we needed, we sat in the sun waiting to meet people at 3.
I was meant to be meeting my
Methodology group to do some work on an upcoming presentation, but since there
was no sign of them, I went to sit with Giorgos and a friend of his, who had
just walked past. When 3.30 came and went I decided to go on a quest for my
group, eventually finding them in our classroom, not at the library entrance as
agreed. It was then that I found out that we were doing our presentation that
day. Naturally, I’d assumed that we were meeting up to work on the presentation
a lot earlier than half an hour before we had to perform it, so only had
half-finished answers which weren’t in Powerpoint form. Not only this, but my
group had allocated the questions wrong, meaning that if we had to present the
first set of questions, I wouldn’t have anything to say at all. So, ten minutes
before we had to stand up in front of the whole class, we were frantically
translating one of the other girls’ translations into Spanish (since they have
to answer in English, and I in Spanish).
When my turn came up I was
surprisingly together and managed to read off my crumpled bit off paper with
only a few hesitations. At least I could be confident that the Spanish was
perfect – the problem was that the content of the answer wasn’t all that comprehensive,
and the lecturer picked up on it. I was a bit annoyed about the time I’d wasted
preparing full answers and translating them all into Spanish, but I’d survived it
and that was the main thing.
After Methodology I had General
Translation, which really dragged that day. Unusually, the class lasted the
full two hours and I didn’t get back to the flat until almost 8.30 – just time
to grab something to eat, have a quick shower and get ready before heading out
again to meet the girls for drinks. Again, we all had early starts the next day
so only stayed out till just gone midnight, but it was nice to have a few quiet
drinks in the warm.
Today has been the longest day my
week so far. I started with linguistics at 10, which consisted of two hours of
constant note-taking. After that I had an hour to kill before meeting Isabel
from my German group, which I spent reading Cincuenta
sombras de Grey (my latest attempt at learning everyday vocabulary –
although admittedly, I don’t expect a lot of it will come up in polite
chitchat.) When Isabel arrived, we did the usual Spanish greeting of a kiss on
both cheeks, which has already become second nature, before making our way to a
bustling bar just off Plaza Santo
Domingo. We had a lovely chat for an hour before I had to dash back home,
grab some lunch and my teaching materials and go back out again.
Today’s Methodology lecture was a
bit strange as half of it was spent in the corridor waiting for our tutor group
session to begin. When we eventually got to see the teacher, all we had to do
was tell her our plans for the final presentation before she let us go. From
there, I made my way to teaching, which started a bit strangely too. Marie
Carmen and Carmen were at the dentist when I arrived so I had to call Marie
Carmen for her to come out of the dentist (which was, helpfully, just opposite)
and give me the key to the flat. I couldn’t quite believe that she trusted me
enough to do this but was glad she did. When she and her daughter returned, I
even had to let her in. She’s obviously happy with my teaching because at the
end of the hour she told me she’d recommended me to a friend of hers. It’s all
going very well.
It was around 7.30 when I
returned to the flat. I’ve just finished my dinner and completed some writing
in German (which feels scarily rusty already) and now I have the rest of the
evening to do a bit of work and relax before my long day tomorrow.
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