Student Life

So, it's been a while since I've posted anything again. Not much is new, but things are gradually progressing. There's flowers on the trees and the threat of snow is almost gone. The weather is pretty much exactly like back home--rain and clouds and drizzle, with a few hours or minutes of sun and blue sky that trick you into thinking you don't need to wear a hat and coat when you go outside and then you come home feeling like you fell in the river.

Cherry tree outside my building

Spring break (semana santa) is fast approaching, and all the students have tests between now and then. The teachers are especially worried for the 2nd of Bac. kids (equivalent to grade 12 in high school) who have their college entrance exams soon, and are behind in their material due to the snow. They've missed about 2 weeks so far from snow and ice, but hopefully they won't miss any more.

As for me, I've started taking Castellano/Gallego lessons (clases particulares) from a private teacher in Lugo. The grammar review has been nice and has really made me realize how much trouble I've been going through to avoid certain tiempos verbales as well as some of the differences between the American Spanish (in the most generalist possible meaning of "American") that I learned in college and the variety of Spanish spoken in the north of the peninsula. Here's a video that really demonstrates my sentiments.

We haven't done as much with the Gallego however, and I have the feeling that my teacher is more used to teaching Castellano than Gallego. 

I've also had some less pleasant scholarly interactions with Western. As you may know, the real reason behind me coming to Spain in the first place was to complete my practicum for my TESOL cert. And in order to complete the practicum, I needed to 1) register for the practicum online while, 2) concurrently taking the online seminar. If I had done it in B'ham, there would've been a real sit-down class to attend. But I'm not in Bham, which seemed to be a difficult concept for the people at the registrar's and admissions offices to understand.

Me: I'm in Spain, trying to register for X
Office: Well, just stop by our office and fill out the paperwork during office hours.
Me: I can't, I'm in Spain.
Office: If you can't come in during office hours, you can print it out and drop it in our box. Be sure to stop by the cashier's office to pay.
Me: I am not in Bellingham. A continent, an ocean and nine time zones stand between me and the cashier's office. I can't stop by between 10am and 4pm weekdays.

Anyway, the seminar/practicum duo is offered in the spring and fall, but since I didn't want to have to deal with classes on top of getting settled and acculturated (thanks for that word, TESL 421!) I decided to wait til spring. And didn't think about it again until registration time started a few weeks ago. oops.

It turns out that since I graduated, I'm not really a student at Western anymore. (I'm an alumnus) And therefore I couldn't register for classes. So, I spent a frantic week and a half trying to finagle my way into the course. So many emails. So many. But it all worked out, more or less. Now I just gotta pay for the thing and actually do the work.

On an unrelated note, I just finished the most recent Song of Ice and Fire book. So much boobs and blood, but so good. Like ham-flavored potato chips, it's almost impossible to stop until you've finished the whole bag and feel kind of sick. George RR Martin, please don't die before you finish the series.