School Daze

Afternoon classes started last week, and I don't remember much since then. Six hours a day with little kids and I think I'm actually losing my mind. 

My beautiful colegio!

Tomorrow will be one month here in Tudela, and I'm starting to lose track of time (I had to do the date in English with the kids this morning and I actually had no idea what day it was. Oops).

So in no real order, a few anecdotes from my life as an auxiliar de conversación:

My roommate and I realized the other day that so far we've taught the other teachers to say “they're driving me up a wall,” “little shits,” and “TGIF.” I think that pretty much sums up life as a teacher. 

I sang "Head Shoulders Knees and Toes" so many times with my infantil kids one day that I was actually sore the next day. Yeah, I didn´t think that was possible either. 

I always have a song stuck in my head. Always. 

Kindergarten classroom or concert hall?
Based on the amount of singing and dancing I do, I'm not sure sometimes.)

I got left alone for maybe two minutes with a first grade class last week because the teacher had to step out into the hallway to talk to another teacher. So we continue the activity, we're listening to a story about a birthday party and putting stickers in their activities. And I'm thinking, this is fine, I got this. Look at me flying solo. Until one of the girls comes up to me to show me the blood on her finger and tell me she got a paper cut. So I send her to the bathroom, and the whole class descends into chaos as half the class runs after her to make sure she doesn't die. Two whole minutes alone and there was actually blood. It was just one of those days.  

I have said "Hello" more times in the past month than in my entire life up to this point combined. I can´t walk down the street or hallway without being bombarded with "Heeelaree" or "Hello" or "Hi". My life is basically just a broken record of "Hello, how are you? I´m fine, thank you!" Again, and again, and again. 

Ditto for the number of times I've listened to Hickory, Dickory, Dock. I don't understand why the kids love this song so much, but it's the only one the 3-year-olds ever want to listen to. They're always begging me to play the elephant song. (Just search Hickory Dickory Dock on Youtube if you're curious, it's the first one that comes up, with a picture of a huge elephant and a clock). 

I got my first "Te quiero, Hilary." from one of my 3-year-olds. It doesn't really matter what else has happened in your day, if a 3-year-old with adorable little blond curls sits down next to you and repeats "Heelaree, te quiero I love you te quiero I love you" over and over again there's no way it can be a bad day. 

My favorite thing ever is when the Spanish lisp (here everyone pronounces their c's and z's like a th, Tharagotha instead of Zaragoza and thervetha instead of cerveza) sneaks through in the kid's English, like when they say thircle instead of circle. The best so far was "faith muscles" instead of face muscles. 

And an unexpectedly disconcerting moment from my 4th grade science class: I was teaching them that the atmosphere extends 1000 km. from the Earth's surface, so I'm staring at this cartoon picture of a globe surrounded by a blueish ring of atmosphere, and I'm trying to mentally convert to miles when I realized that the edge of Earth's atmosphere is closer to me right now than my birthplace. Weird.