Teeeeechaiiiiirrrrr

It's October 23rd. The air is crisp, yet the sun is shining brightly.

Normally, my Thursdays are jam packed with classes from 9am-1pm, and 3pm-5pm. Today, I got lucky! One of my classes is off doing a religious retreat. Since my students are working on a blog project, how fitting is it that I can sit at Starbucks updating my own blog for them to read! 

Pumpkin spice lattes on cool Autumn days are the best!

The Fulbright program has placed me at lovely private school in the Salamanca neighborhood of Madrid (I will not mention the school by name for privacy reasons). I am the only one teaching at a private school through the Fulbright program. At first glance, my school was quite intimidating. 

Some say it looks a bit like Hogwarts, although you wouldn't be able to tell from the outside since it's surrounded by ten-foot walls. The inside is just as impressive. A staff maintains the premises as prestine as can be. 

I still get lost, even after a month of teaching. According to one of my colleagues, it took him two years to completely know the place. Good luck to meeeeeeee!

So far, teaching here has been an adventure for several reasons. It happens to be my first time teaching high school students... EVER! Although I was a bit fearful at first, I couldn't let it show. Just like bears, high school students can smell fear from a mile away. Luckily, the previous Fulbrighter gave me plenty of pointers to overcome that first week. Since then, things have gone pretty smoothly.

I am fortunate to have some flexibility when it comes to teaching here. A majority of my students are working on a blog project. For Halloween, a handful of my classes are creating short films and working on storytelling. The younger students have been working on their conversation skills. The other day, we had a film screening in our "red room". Girl Rising, follows the stories of nine girls in the developing world and what struggles they have to overcome to get an education.

I won't bore you with more on that, but I will highlight some of my favorite moments so far. 

1) During a game of two truths and a lie, one of my students said, "I have had eight girlfriends. I have two castles. My second name is Pablo." If you're wondering which one was the lie, it was the last one.

2) One of my students has soccer practice after school. When I asked him if he gets tired on Tuesdays since he doesn't get a break all day, he said it isn't too bad. "Last year, I was playing for Athletico de Madrid. That was difficult." When I asked him why he stopped playing for them, he explains, "I don't want to be a professional football player. Every time I see them in an interview, they sound like idiots. I want to be intelligent." 

"What do you want to be instead?" I asked.

"An engineer" he said. 

3) During an improv activity where the students had to come up with excuses on the spot, I asked one student, "May I have your homework, please?"

"No." he replies. 

"And why not?" I asked. 

"Because we can't always get what we want in life" he explained.

Just some of the joyful moments while teaching in Madrid!