First Day in the Classroom

Today was my first day in the classroom, and overall it went pretty well. I had 6th grade classes, a break, a 3rd grade class, then a 5th grade class. I prefer working with older kids. Although I do have to say that I was shocked at how much they talked still! It was ridiculous! It's expected that the younger kids will talk, but I was really surprised at how much they all talked. The teachers could only get through 2ish exercises in an hour long class- absolutely crazy! I was talking about it with the other auxiliares and we all agreed that in the US (and the girl from Scotland also agreed) that at least by the 3rd grade there is a level of respect and things can get accomplished. Definitely something I'm going to have to get used to. In all the classes I introduced myself and had the kids ask me questions. (All of this is in English as I'm not allowed to let them know I speak Spanish, otherwise they'll just try to talk to me in Spanish the whole time.) In the first 6th grade class I had one kid ask me about basketball, and then he asked if I know Chris Paul?!! I was like holy shit that's one of the few NBA players I do actually know! (of course I didn't say that in class...) I told him that yes I do know Chris Paul and in fact he's from where I live in North Carolina and I saw him play basketball in college and in high school. He was pretty ecstatic. Other than that all the questions were the same: how old are you? have you got any brothers or sisters? (I hate "have you got"... that's what they're taught in their books, but it's so strange! I can bring myself to hear "mum" but I cringe every time I hear "have you got") what's your favorite color? are you single? do you have any pets? what's your favorite food? etc, etc.

In addition to the daily break (from 12-12:30 where we get coffee, oj, and a snack) I did have one free period during the day today. Luckily one of the other auxiliares in my school also had this period free so we sat in the teachers' lounge talking. There were also a few other teachers in there so we talked with them for a bit. During the break a salesman dressed in a suit came into the room and tried to sell us random things like a comforter. The other auxiliare and myself were stunned. After he left we asked one of the teachers about it and she said that it's not normal, but it does happen occasionally even though it shouldn't. Some of the teachers were also talking about how even though he claims to have discounts the items are usually cheaper & work better when you buy them elsewhere, so I'm not sure why he comes back if it's only very rarely that anyone buys anything. On a different note I'm really glad we get a snack at the break. Apparently we always get coffee & orange juice but the snack changes. Today it was mini grilled ham & cheese sandwiches which were delicious! I'm going to have to start bringing an apple or something for back-up because since school gets out at 2pm it's at least 2:30 before I can eat lunch. Breakfast around 8:20/8:30 and lunch not till at least 2:30- I can't go that long without eating?!

My third roommate moved in yesterday, so now we have a full apartment! He was born in Cuba, but has lived in the Canary Islands for the past 8 years. Luckily he doesn't have an accent from the Canary Islands because I've heard it's really hard to understand. He's studying here for the year and is really nice. It's nice to actually have someone in the apartment since Ines works all the time and is hardly around. Last night I had 2 of the other auxiliares over to watch NFL. Unfortunately none of the streaming sites were working (we found several) so we ended up just listening to music and watching gametracker... not nearly as exciting as the actual game. Hopefully for future games we can get the streams to work! At least I could watch video highlights of the Skins win over the Eagles :)