Lola has had a facelift

The internet connection in my flat lasted only a day and a half. I (naively) thought it would be there for good, so took a siesta and when I woke up two hours later, it was gone.

Am currently at The Pad (as I've come to call Javi's and Beza's flat), using their free/pirated internet. It seems so unjust that they have internet without even paying for it, while I, after two months, have had perhaps cumulatively 14 days of internet.

Anyway, last week, I discovered my school here in Logroño has a laminating machine. I've gone insane laminating all the crafty things I've made- all in the name of education of course. Lola has had a facelift. In fact, the only original thing that remains is her mouth. I've remade her nose, ears, eyebrows, eyes, even face. I've given her a new haircut and laminated her. I'd laminate my hand if I could. I love that machine.

Had dinner at The Pad with the flatmates. I made a carrot cake because I had an overabundance of carrots in my fridge. They seemed to like it. We'll see tomorrow, ha! (Photo: Carlos and Beza making dinner. Note the broken window pane patched up with cardboard. It's little things like this that make me love this place)

When I finished work today at 1:30 pm, I nearly cheered. Roberto, the teacher I assist with 1st and 2nd graders, had a meeting, so this teacher-in-training at the school took the class for the 1st graders. MAN, SHE DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO CONTROL THE STUDENTS. The 1st graders are the easiest of all the grades to control, but under her, they turned into wild beasts.

First, she did an exercise with stickers, and told them to all peel off the stickers they'd need and stick them on the table. As soon as she said that, I thought, this is going to end badly. Stickers stuck to table plus six year olds = nightmare. And indeed, within two minutes, we had twenty kids wailing 'Profe, I can't get the stickers off.' Then she ran around like a mad chook trying to peel a hundred stickers of twenty desks while the kids ran rampant. She finally decided to photocopy the stickers and cut them out by hand and stick them with glue.

While she was doing that, I played a game with the kids, to teach them colours. They loved the game, got fully into it and stopped being monsters. But then she decided it was her class, and tried to restart the exercise but the kids didn't want to, and the kids who hadn't had a go at the game yet got pissed off, and naturally it all ended in nightmare again.

I tried to suggest to her that we leave the exercise and stay with the game, because it doesn't matter what they learn as long as they learn, but she was like 'No! This is the exercise we have to do, so we're doing it.' I shrugged and did what she said but the kids ran around whacking each other, throwing things and crying.

At the end of the class she said to me 'Phew! See how well they behave with Roberto, and with us, they're uncontrolable.'

I was like 'Ha, woman! With you they're uncontrolable because you have not bleeding idea how to run a bleeding class. Don't you try pin the blame on us. They behaved perfectly fine with me.' Of course I didn't say that but it's so incredibly frustrating when you see someone doing something that's so obviously wrong and not being able to do anything about it.