Iceskating, La Ola and Shakespeare

Two Fridays ago, Andres, Millán, Peky and I went ice skating. It was my week of bad mood, brought about by having to relearn how to live with the Canarian again. But after ten minutes with the guys, my grumpiness evaporated and I've been cheerful since. I'd forgotten how much they make me laugh. It did also help that the Canarian had to go home for five days last week, so since Wednesday, I had the flat to myself.

After skating, Millán, Rubén and I went to see La Ola (The Wave). It started at 10:45 pm, which is usually when movies finish in Australia. I really enjoyed it, the kind of film that makes you think afterwards. It's about a German teacher who simulates an autocracy in his class as an experiment and it goes out of control.

Last Friday, Andrés, Beza, Sevi and I went to see El Mercader de Venecia (The Merchant of Venice). I understood most of it, more than I expected, which was a pleasant surprise. The only thing was there were these old people in the audience with really bad wheezing, continuous coughs, who just kept up a chorus of coughing. Honestly, if you're so sick, stay at home. And despite the reminder at the beginning to turn off all mobile phones, there were three or four instances when mobiles went off. Vibrate mode was invented for a purpose people- use it. However, I did really like going to the theatre with the guys (who occasionally whispered inappropriate comments that made me crack up).

Yesterday, I found this photo of myself, taken some time this weekend, in a tractor. I have no idea who took it, where I was or what I was doing in it. Totally bizarre.

There was an old lady...

I thought a nice way to teach the kids animals would be to tell the story of the old lady who swallowed a fly. So I drew this A3 sized old lady, made it into an envelope with a hole where the mouth is and drew and cut out all the animals.

It was hysterical- some of the kids got absolutely devastated when the old lady swallowed the horse. They were screaming 'No! No! Poor horse!' I thought one girl was going to start crying.

On a totally different note, I find this joke about hairy Spanish people inexplicably hilarious. A Spanish boy comes home from school crying 'Mummy, mummy, all the kids laugh at me and call me hairy.' The mother shouts 'Cielo santo! The dog just talked to me!'

The kids were describing animals in class today, and one boy said 'Monkeys are hairy.' I thought of this joke and started giggling uncontrollably. I had to excuse myself and get some water, I was laughing so hard. And everyone was looking at me like I'd gone insane.

I continue to be a nasty bitch in class. There's this one girl I detest in 6th grade because she's always talking or whinging or saying 'What? What?' because she wasn't listening the first time. Anyway, I didn't photocopy enough sheets for an activity, so I didn't give her one and after I handed out the sheets, she said 'Where's mine? I didn't get one.' So I said to her 'Tough luck, mate. You don't deserve one, you never concentrate anyway.'

I ended up getting her to go downstairs to photocopy more, but after everyone had started the activity, so she had to sit there for a few minutes twiddling her thumbs. Last time, she had some trinket she wouldn't stop playing with, after she'd been told several times to put it away. So finally the teacher grabbed it and chucked it in the bin. She got so pissed off and screamed 'I'm going to tell my mummy!'

And the teacher shouted back 'So what? Go tell her then! And I'll tell her how you never do as you're told.' Everyone in class burst out laughing and started applauding. It's times like this I have great admiration for this English teacher.

Children can be morons

Had a massive headache this morning, went to school and had to deal with screaming kids for 4.5 hours. Don't know if it's just that I'm sick and in a bad mood, but I swear children are getting dumber and dumber.

I gave them a cutting and colouring activity to do and repeated MANY MANY times in English AND Spanish that they should first cut, then colour. I showed them my completed craft and explained how it worked so they wouldn't make mistakes. Half of them immediately started colouring and another quarter started cutting the wrong things. So I had to repeat 'No! Cut first!' And then they looked at me blankly and asked 'How?'

What do you mean how??? You grab a pair of bloody scissors and you cut along the bloody dotted lines. If there are no dotted lines, DON'T CUT. These are 9, 10 year old kids. If they were younger, I'd understand that maybe they haven't developed the motor skills or the concentration to listen to instructions for twenty seconds. It's so simple and logical. a) Cut along ALL the dotted lines. b) Colour in. I hate to say it, but some of them are a bit retarded. One of the girls made a mistake, scrunched up her paper and asked me for another one. I was like, 'No. Why should I waste another piece of paper on you just because you're stupid? You'll probably screw it up again anyway.'

Yes, perhaps I was a bit nasty today. Well, I don't care. I'm going to bed.

The weekend has begun

My five days of nothingness has come round again. Which is something, because I'm in a bad mood.

Both my flatmates have returned. Juan Carlos got back on Monday afternoon and the Canarian got back yesterday afternoon. With JC back, it meant I had to be a bit better at washing up because if I don't do my dishes, he does them for me when he washes his own. With Pablo back... It's been so pleasant without him around (even if the flat did get a bit messy) that now I don't know how I'm going to get used to living with him again. Shit.

It's not that he's a bad guy, he's just got these bloody irritating habits.
a) As soon as he stepped into the flat yesterday, I woke up from my siesta because he'd already started his tuneless singing. There are some people who don't understand tone very well. He doesn't seem to understand it at all which must be a skill in itself.
b) But just to make sure he properly woke me up, he came and knocked on my door. When I didn't answer (because I wanted to keep sleeping), he opened my door and looked in. If I don't answer, it's because I'm not there, or I choose not to answer. Either way, LEAVE MY DOOR ALONE.
c) He looked me up and down, touched my stomach and said 'Looks like you've gained some weight over Christmas eh? Is that a belly you've developed?' I was like 'FUCK. First, don't ever touch me again. Second, you never tell a girl she's gained weight whether you're joking or not.' Of course I didn't say that, because it seemed a bit rude after a month of not seeing him. But honestly, was he born under a rock or something?
d) I went to the last ice hockey match and then we went out afterwards and when I came home, the flat had been cleaned and mopped. Well, it's not like he's got anything better to do with his time.
e) I got up this morning at 7 am because I had to see the Chinese team off at the airport in Bilbao, and he was already up, in the living room watching television. Reading/jogging/painting etc. are hobbies. Watching TV is not. It's a brain-numbing, intelligence-destroying, torpescence-creating pastime. Especially with the shit they have on Spanish TV, which is (if possible) worse than Australia.

And I was looking forward to a peaceful weekend with the flat to myself again because JC's gone back home for the weekend. And they're doing some shit renovation work in the flat next door and they start at 9 am so I can't even sleep in. I am thoroughly PISSED OFF, especially since I've had cumulatively about 12 hours sleep in the last four days. Will repeat, I am PISSED OFF.

Sub20 ice hockey world championship

The championship is being held in Logroño this week. They started on Saturday and end on Thursday. Sub20 stands for Under 20s, rather than the temperature in fahrenheit as I'd first thought. (Photo: With one of the Chinese officials and the Chinese flag- treachery! Treachery!)

Back in December, when I went to the gym one day, the woman at the front desk asked me randomly if I could speak Chinese. I said yes, so she told me I should volunteer to help out at the tournament. She explained that there'd be six countries, including China, competing and I'd be able to help out translating if needed. By my calculations, that was over 100 young, buff male hockey players so I was like, sure (with a big grin on my face).

So on Saturday, they asked me to accompany the Chinese team around while they were training and playing their matches and help them out with anything they needed. I turned up at 9:30 am, after 3.5 hours of sleep, still with alcohol in my system and had to switch between Chinese and Spanish for the next four hours. I haven't had to speak Chinese since about 18 months ago and thought my head would explode. Luckily, Millán was also volunteering, along with his hockey teammates and he'd told them I'd be there so a few of them came up to me and were very friendly and helpful. Afterwards, I went home, had a siesta and got a panicked phone call at 6:30 pm from the woman organising the volunteers, saying 'Your team has arrived! Where are you?' No one had told me I was needed in the afternoon as well.

The Chinese team played their first match against Spain on Saturday night and got slaughtered. Still, I got to sit with the players and trainers right next to the rink, which was really cool. Millán told me it was a bit dangerous because there's no protective glass so there's the potential a puck might come flying and knock out your teeth.

I also went in this afternoon while they were training, but they didn't need anything so I went to the gym. One of the volunteers introduced me to one of the chief members of International Ice Hockey Federation, who was working out on a bike, and told him to ask me if he needed anything, since he couldn't speak Spanish. He was from Slovenia, and we had a nice chat about Ljubljana, Sydney and his leg injury.

It's been quite nice speaking in Chinese with the Chinese officials, although with their Beijing accent, I don't always understand what they're saying. And they told me I had a funny accent, ha! I think every language has a different flow, and Chinese is quite soothing.

Snow at last

When it snows or when it's night time and the streets are hazy from the fog and yellow streetlights, it's so silent and peaceful. But when it's just damn cold and grey, I feel like turning off my mobile, unplugging the phone and hiding in my bed till Spring.

It snowed on Friday, and for once, instead of hiding in the teachers' lounge, I went out at recess and threw snowballs at the kids. They threw some back at me but the principal, who was on yard duty told them off, haha hahaha. I had an awesome time. Some of the midgets throw really hard. But I throw harder.

On Thursday night one of the sockets in the flat disconnected from the wall for absolutely no reason and started shooting out sparks for a while. I think some of the cables had come loose and the fridge stopped working as well. So I rang my dad who suggested I kill the power switch in the flat just to be on the safe side and go to bed. The next morning, I got dressed in the dark and when I got to school, realised I'd put on my jumper back to front.

On Friday night, despite the cold, I went to The Pad and played Singstar with my friends and they cruelly made me sing in Spanish to songs I'd never heard. We braved the cold, went to the bars for a few cubatas and then Bola and Carlos took me to a bakery that starts baking at about 4 am and we bought chorizo pan, croissants and snails pastries.

So it was a pretty good week, just the fact I had to go back to work on Thursday and couldn't think of anything to prepare for the classes (so didn't) and the freezing cold that made it a bit gruesome. Also, after a week of going to bed at 8 am and waking up at 5 pm, it was INSANELY difficult to wake up at 8:30 am. (Photo: Entering the school grounds, 15 minutes late)

Penultimate day of holidays

Friday night/Saturday morning: Bukky Leo & The Black Egypt and Tony Allen concert with Beza.

Saturday night/Sunday morning: Vetusta Morla, Magnifico and Joe Bataan y Los Fulanos concert with Rubén, Sergio and Sergio's friends. Then we met up with the guys in Mayor for our usual weekend fun.

Sunday night/Monday morning: Chulito Camacho and Method Man concert with Beza, Millán and Sevi. Chulito Camacho was OK, but all his songs were about marijuana and everyone around us was smoking so much that we were engulfed in this pot smog and I started feeling very hungry. Method Man was IN-SANE.

Monday night/Tuesday morning: Today is a public holiday so we also went out last night. It's the day when the three kings of the Orient bring presents to all the children in Spain. Last night, there was a parade through Logroño which I went to see. I expected it to be more religious, but it was surprisingly secular, and the point of which, admittedly, I didn't get. Some floats came down the street, some guys on horses, the three kings (on horses dressed as camels), throwing candy at the crowd. I was horrified to see a float of High School Musical. Ugh.

And I was surrounded by kids. But it was quite fun. Apparently they throw away about 2 tonnes of candy every year. Afterwards, met up with the guys and had pinchos. Everyone had said that it would be a quiet-ish night, that we'd have dinner, maybe a drink or two, then go home, so I expected to be home by 1 am at the latest. At around 6 am, I finally stumbled home, and went straight to bed. (Photo: Costume from the parade. If you look in the mouth, you can see the guy's head.)

Tomorrow the rest of Spain goes back to work but I still have one more day of holiday. It's depressing how fast the holidays have disappeared.