Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Settling In

I finally have all of my stuff from Granada and am settling in quite nicely. My roommate didn't stay long. Her job moved her somewhere else, so I have the place to myself. It is pretty quiet but I'm trying to find ways to keep busy. I have a book of short stories that I am reading, in Spanish of course. The goal is to pick one story when I get home from work and read it out loud while I'm preparing lunch. Thankfully there isn't anyone to hear me! It's pretty bad, but with time it will get better. Then after lunch, I read the story again, but this time the English version to see how much I understood. And pretty soon, I am going to try to translate some stuff for one of my classes. The teacher needs to translate the second year Science textbook for next year. It isn't the whole book, just chapter titles, activities, definitions, basic ideas. Generally, I'm just here to assist the teachers. For instance, he (Joaquin) would translate the text and I would correct his errors. But, he asked me if I wanted to correct his translations or translate it myself. I said I would like to try to do the translating. I welcome the challenge! In truth, I need something to throw myself into. Plus, I’ll get a chance to see if it is something I enjoy.

Work is going well. It is very easy. I basically get to talk to people. And thankfully, I like the people I am talking to. We laugh a lot and get a little bit accomplished in the process. I’m spending a lot of time reading out loud in English so they can hear how things are supposed to be pronounced. The hours I spend just talking to the teachers, so they can practice English, are fun and I learn a lot. Sometimes we talk about Spain stuff, sometime US stuff and often the differences and similarities between the two. The cool thing I realized is that I can use these hours to learn about things I have questions about. There are no rules or guidelines to what we talk about, so we get to talk about what ever we like that day. It is cool. Everyday hear is like an upper level Spanish class that they are paying ME to take. For people that don't like school, this wouldn't exactly be 'cool', but I love it. Sometimes I get to the point of overload, but that is how I'm going to learn. It is absolutely exhausting to talk to a group of people for several hours and understand what they are saying and try to be a part of the conversation. I still have difficulties expressing complex thoughts or things in the past. Ideally, I'd take a grammar class to review or get some good books to reteach myself, but it'll be a little while before that will happen. Everyone has been so patient with me. Last night, Marta and I went to Sonia's house for dinner and to watch a movie instead of going out. At one point Sonia asked me to put some food on the table in the other room. Or so I thought. I frequently understand parts of a sentence and then put them together to figure out what is going on. I understood 'put this on the table' and 'there are two pieces for each of us'. I was close. She actually asked me to take the food to the table, and serve it onto our plates, two pieces for each of us because there wasn't going to be room for all of the dishes. Close enough for me! We had a laugh when she realized I hadn't completely understood her.

One very big difference for me this time in Spain is that I am actually living here; not passing through, not a guest in someone’s home. This means I have to cook for myself. And as many of you know, this is not one of my strong points. J I have never had much need to learn how to cook meals. Oh, the times have changed. Now I spend 1-2 hours everyday cooking and doing dishes. Everything I eat comes off of the stove top. I DO NOT have a microwave-I do not have an oven-I do not have a toaster. If I want to reheat leftovers, they go back in a pan. If I want to heat water or milk, they go in a saucepan. It’s been a very steep learning curve! Also, common ingredients differ here, so I’m getting used to what my staples are. And HAM, I can’t tell you how many varieties of ham there are! It is going to take me a lifetime just to be able to tell them all apart. Little by little, though. Today’s dinner turned out pretty good, last week my big experiment failed miserably. Haha. And when all else fails, downtown there is a take-out pizza place that is pretty good and a take-out hamburger place that I’m saving for an emergency.

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