Where Have I Been?

Where have you been?  Why haven't you been posting?  Are you not doing your blog anymore?

Woah.  Slow down there everybody.

I'm still in Madrid and am still working on this blog, problem is they "why" part.  Why haven't I been posting?  It's a question I sometimes ask myself.  There are so many days I come to my blog and start a post but half way through stall, only to finish eventually or delete it permanently.

Even though I technically work only 20 hours a week (26 with all the travel time and 30 if planning is included), my life here isn't super glamorous here.  I don't travel every weekend, I don't go out every night, I don't buy all the clothes I can (trust me, this is really hard here).

Christmas lights in Plaza Mayor

You want to know what I did this week?  The highlights so far have been enjoying the Christmas lights (oh my they're gorgeous) and buying some yarn to knit a hat.  I know, I'm secretly a grandma.  (Is my youth redeemed if I drink a beer while I knit?  I'm going to pretend it does...)

But really.  Despite what most people may think about me living in Spain, during the week my life is pretty routine: I go to work, have private lessons, come home, eat lunch, run errands, eat dinner, get ready for bed, and repeat.  So what do I have to write about that, it's just like most people I know at home.  Who really wants to know which grocery store I'm going to today or how long it's taking for my clothes to hang dry (forever now that it's cold out if you were wondering) other than my family that is.  Though I do have some posts to come that are a bit more interesting, the main reason I've been absent from blog world is the fact that the past few weeks at school I have been extremely busy.

After Halloween we celebrated the Spanish festival of Castañada, a festival traditionally celebrated on All Saint's Day as a way to remember deceased loved ones but is now more a celebration of Fall and its food (like different fruits and nuts).  After that came Thanksgiving where the auxilars had to explain its history and our American traditions.  And now we are starting that stretch before the holiday break that is full of exams, so there has been a lot of revising the material.  Not to mention planning Christmas activities for the next two weeks!

The extent of yarn you could touch before purchasing...

And to add to the mounting list of planning on my plate, one of the main teachers I work with has been out for the past two and a half weeks so I have been acting as the main English (technically English and science because both are taught in English) teacher for her classes.  Do you know how hard it is to get first graders who speak your own language to listen to you?  Now imagine they are just beginning to learn your language.  Imagine how well that worked out, especially when I'm not allowed to speak Spanish.  This would be your face --> :-s

The effort I put into trying to get one of her classes to not keep falling behind seriously had me dreaming about it.  I'd wake up in the middle of the night thinking about the different joints, body parts, and children screaming: "profe. Profe. PROFE. PROFE! PROFEEE!" (Yes, Spanish children call their teachers by their first name or just "Profesor/Profesora" a.k.a. "Teacher").

Today when she returned we had the nightmare of trying to get the students all on the same page, literally.  How do they end up on three completely different pages?  How did we survive without her?

More lights, because who doesn't love lights!

Thankfully with two full months under my belt here things have been starting to feel more normal.  I don't feel like such an outsider, I can tell my Spanish has improved, I successfully hosted a Thanksgiving celebration, and successfully cooked my first Spanish food.  I've really started to feel more and more sure that moving here was the right decision for my life, no matter if it turns into something long term or not.

I guess it's part of what you feel after the culture shock of moving abroad, but I'm not complaining.  I never thought I would end up working and living in Spain, or a large city, one day but I'm extremely happy that I decided to take this leap of faith.  It may not always be perfect, but surprising Madrid really does feel like home now.

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Where have you all been the past few months?