I had a good, productive week in Madrid after coming back from Galicia. It was a great week at school; I feel like I'm finally getting to know some of the students personally, which feels really great. I had some particularly good classes this week- the older students were really talkative during our conversation classes; they got really into the debate, which made me feel very proud and accomplished (we were discussing issues of gender equality/inequality).
Also, as it was the week before Halloween, i did a Halloween class with my younger students, which they really enjoyed. I told them about the origins and history of the Holiday, we talked about the current traditions in the US and here in Spain, and then I read them a scary story, which they really enjoyed. Next, they all worked in pairs to write their own scary stories, and I was really proud with how well some of them turned out. They really enjoyed class that day, and used their imaginations a lot, which made me happy, since it sometimes seems like they don't have enough opportunities to be creative at school.
To celebrate our good week at school (and our new paychecks), Noel, Kelly, and I went to a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant on Thursday night...it was definitely a nice change of pace and a fun girls' night. Friday, my day was both productive and relaxing- I finally got my NIE card (which is the national residency/identification card for foreigners), which I'm excited about. Its just much easier now that I have one, because I can use that as identification and proof that I'm a student, instead of having to get strange looks when I show my drivers' license or passport. I also ran some other errands, which is suprisingly hard to do here in Madrid, given that there is a separate store for every specific type of thing (to buy envelopes, you need to go to a paper store, to buy stamps you need to go to an estanco, to make photocopies, you need to go to a locutorio etc), so I felt accomplished when I got some of that stuff done. At night, I ended up staying in and watching Thelma and Louise with Ruth (which I had actually never seen, so that was fun!). We both wanted to go out, but this weekend the weather is really crummy- its cold and rainy, and once we got comfortable on the couch, we just decided not to move ;) Anyway, it was nice to have a more tranquil night for change, especially since I was really tired and have a bit of a cold. It's still really gross out, but I do want to go out tonight for Halloween, so hopefully it won't rain too much!
This morning I went to a really cool cultural/ art exhibit at theis place called La Caixa Forum, which is basically a cultural center that has art exhibits (for free!). There was this really great photography exhbit by a wonderful photographer named Isabel Munoz. The exhibit, called Infancia, was about children from all over the world, and was organized because of the anniversary of the UN Convention for Children's Rights. The exhibition showed how, despite supposedly having all the same rights, children/adolscents from different regions/countries lead dramatically different lives. For example, there was the Japanese boy who was the best in his class at his elite high school, was a virtuoso violinist, and planned to attend Harvard. Then of course, there were the young African mothers whose babies weighed less than one kilo, or orphans in Central America whose parents were killed by gangs (and many more diverse examples). It was a really moving, impressive exhbit. And...what was really weird and very coincidental, was that the ONE kid from the US (at least the only one I could find), was a young boy, a child of Indian immigrants, who lived in Summit, NJ, which is literally 10 mins from my house!
At the center, there was also a cool exhibit on the Italian film director, Federico Fellini, who is most famous for the film, La Dolce Vita. There was also another interesting exhbit on the personal and intellectual/artistic realtionship between Federico Garcia Lorca and Salvador Dali, which I also enjoyed. I was planning to continue my day of cultural and artistic exploration at the Prado Museum, which is right near the Caixa, but I decided that I was too tired for that, and would have to go another day! (or several days, given how big the Prado is!). So, now I'm just back at my apartment relaxing... Tonight, hopefully I'll do something fun for Halloween with friends...and then I still have two more days of the weekend left (no school on Monday becasue its All Saints Day). And of course, eventually, I'll have to do some work to prepare for classes next week...but that will probably come Sunday and Monday :) Anyway, thats it for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment