November = the beginning of hibernation

Saturday:
Saturday I met Luis at Mezquita for a beer in the evening. We called Fernando too, but he said the night before had been crazy and he was tired. We moved over to Nicols and hung out there for awhile until we saw Edu (Steffi's husband). He invited us over to one of his friend's apartment. We headed that way but when we got there Steffi said that the people weren't really comfortable with random people dropping by and also they had just been talking about a sensitive subject and the woman was really upset...not exactly a party going on...Steffi said she would try to meet up with us in a little while. We went back to Nicols, had another drink, didn't end up hearing from Steffi again and so eventually we just went home.

Sunday:
Almudena showed up at my door around 4:45pm and I was in sweats and hadn't showered all day. I hopped in the shower quickly and met Almudena down at Nicols. There I met some of her other friends. Almudena was able to stay until 6pm but then I stayed and hung out with her friends. We went to Rincon de Maxi (another cafe) for a refresco and a tapa, and then we all went home. I watched a movie, hung out a bit and then went to bed.

Monday, Today:
I had such high hopes for getting things done today.

That didn't happen.

The weather here today has been so gross. It's been really windy. I'm glad I at least made a few friends before everyone went into hibernation!

The dust tends to collect quite rapidly in my apartment, so today was going to be my cleaning day. I got about half done. The mop and broom and dustpan are laying about and the dishes haven't been done. I did manage to get a load of laundry done. I figure if I do small loads of laundry frequently I won't have to worry about running out of clothes while they are drying.

Tomorrow is my trip to Jaén. Ava and Ben have already left, and no one at school can drive this time so I'm going to take the bus. The bus leaves at 6:30 in the morning. Yikes. I just realized that usually I buy my bus tickets online and print them out...but since I don't have a printer I'm not totally sure what to do. Do I go somewhere and try to find a printer? Can I pay when I get on the bus in the morning? I have no clue. I'm going to have to do some research.

I will be arriving in Jaén at 10:15. I will have 2 hours and 15 minutes to find my way to the extranjeria, have my appointment, and get back to the bus station to catch the bus back to Siles at 12:30. Supposedly there is another bus that leaves late in the evening. I could always try to find this bus if I miss the 12:30 one, but I have not found this mystery evening bus anywhere on any of the bus schedules.

It's going to be tight. Inés said, worst case scenario I can call her and tell her I won't be around to teach on Wednesday if I get stuck in Jaén. What craziness. All for a 10 minute appointment in a city 2 1/2 hours away.

This morning I woke up, went to school and taught the 1st and 5th graders. I had the 5th graders first. Sebas is back. He said the trip went really well and that the kids were very well behaved. He took most of the class like usual and I took a group of 4. Two of my kids were good. One was ok. One made me want to pull my hair out. The cabinet on wheels with the laptops on it happened to be in the room we were in and he WOULD NOT stop asking to use the computers. He was a total pain in the butt. He wouldn't do the exercises I told him to do, he would mumble his way through anything I asked him to read and then he tried to cheat off his friend's work so he could get it done faster and have time to use the computers. Grrrrrrr. I was so frustrated.

After that I had a break that I used to try and find free recordings of kids songs and nursery rhymes for the little kids and for Ines to use (specifically the One Two Buckle My Shoe song). If any of you teacher friends of mine have good website ideas about where I can get this kind of stuff let me know please! I had some luck, but eventually it was time to teach the 1st graders. Inés already had an activity planned so I didn't need to prepare anything. She had drawn up a shoe that she photocopied for each of the students, and then I helped glue them to some stronger paper. The kids were each given a shoe to color, then we poked holes where the laces would be and gave them each a string of twine so we could teach them how to tie shoes. We sang the "One Two Buckle My Shoe" song and let them color. Pretty low key day for me in this class.

I headed back to my apartment when school was over and have been tucked under the covers surfing the internet basically all afternoon. I should run down to the ATM to at least get some money for my bus ticket tomorrow but I won't be surprised if that's all I do. I should probably go to bed early anyways since the bus leaves at 6:30aaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmmmmmmm.

The weather is really messing with my go-get-em, meeting people attitude. I can only imagine what it's going to be like when there is snow on the ground.