My third week in Toledo has been fantastic! (Albeit a little boring.) I’ve been settling into life here, and learning even more about myself every day. Traveling aside, this week has been a nice way to spend my time in Toledo and take advantage of just being in Spain in the first place.
Unfortunately the little sleep I’ve been getting lately has taken its toll on my health, and specifically my voice. Monday was the first day of my internship at the high school, and while I was definitely excited to be starting my work in a new place, I was a little scared that I wouldn’t be able to talk as loudly as needed. But it definitely ended up going down without a hitch! All of the teachers with whom I will be working are very nice, and I got introduced to almost all of them that day. The only aspect of the whole experience so far that is less than desirable is that I have to walk 25 minutes each way to get to and from my internship from my house, but of course that’s small cookies. Instead of working with classes right away, the day ended up being more of an introduction to the school and what I would be doing, which was fine with me. I got a tour of the different buildings, and we made up a plan for what I would be doing in classes starting on Wednesday, which would be making some sort of presentation about myself to present in English. Later, after finishing my internship for the day, I headed home to start planning and preparing what I would do for the following classes, and before I knew it, it was time to go to bed.
Breakfast was wonderful as usual on Tuesday, and so I had a great start to my day! My host mom even brewed me tea to help with my voice, and I brought my thermos filled with tea to class so that I could enjoy the fruity-honey taste all morning long. Unfortunately I’m already feeling a little bit behind on homework, which is a feeling I did not miss… but I am determined to try to stay on top of things - I don’t want to be caught up in catching up on things when I want to travel. In that spirit, I tried to get some homework done in the afternoon after my classes, and then the most fun part of my day came: flamenco dance class! There was a two-night series on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I enjoyed every minute! I even brought my high-heeled boots to be able to try some taconeo, which is the fancy heel-stomping technique that is just one of the things that makes flamenco so intriguing and exciting. When the class ended, I was very excited, and couldn’t wait for the next day!
Wednesday was the second day of my internship, and I jumped right in by helping one of the teachers grade a speaking exam, in between one theology class in the morning and another after). I also used the Prezi presentation I had made to introduce myself to classes, which worked out very well! I introduced myself to one class completely in English, with some Spanish words thrown in for clarification. It was weird because as it’s my mother tongue, and I usually use English to communicate with other people whose mother tongue is also English, I actually had to think about how I was speaking in English with these students, an experience which was mostly new for me. I also stopped and talked with the main English teacher about what my schedule would look like, and she even set me up to help with a French class! After my two hours of the day were done, I had one more class of theology, and then made sure to get to bed, since I still didn’t have a fully clean bill of health.
On Thursday, my history class was cancelled, and so I ended up only having 2 classes total for the whole day. I still accidentally came in the morning to school, having forgotten that class had been cancelled, and so I just chilled in the computer lab until it was time for my class at 10:20. Around lunchtime, I had a meeting with Miguel and a couple of other students about how our homestays were going, to which I responded an enthusiastic “Wonderfully!” (Or, you know, in Spanish, genial.) We discussed what had been a culture shock for us so far, and that made me reflect a little more on what I had experienced as culture shock since I’ve been in Europe, which honestly really hasn’t been that much. After lunch, I was home free, and so I hung out with some friends and chill for the start of my weekend.
The whole weekend, I didn’t really do much of anything. I was still a little sick, or at least my voice was a little strained still, and so I took the weekend as an opportunity to recuperate. Friday I ended up treating as my real weekend day, a day for complete relaxing, and then I tried to really get something done on Saturday, which ended up being a blog entry rather than homework, oops. I did Skype Amandine and Rob on Saturday and Sunday, which was fun! It’s always great to hear from friends and catch up on the latest in their lives. Sunday lunch was important as always, as the whole family got together and we all had some paella. All in all, although it was not a productive weekend, it was a nice and relaxing one, and I did get to see a lot of my host family (seemingly too much, as they asked me a few times on Friday and Saturday night if I was going out with friends and responded a touch worriedly when I said no).
This week has been a nice week to just settle into my workload and living habits in Toledo. Although I haven’t traveled anywhere much, it’s always good to get to know the city you’re actually studying in, for studying abroad in general, and so it was great to get to know Toledo more, as well as have a chance to just relax and let myself go a little bit. The workload has been getting me a little bit, but I’m still looking forward to staying on top of things and having many more traveling adventures moving forward. For the moment, I’m looking forward to Alex visiting me this coming weekend, and eventually meeting up with Rob, Walker, MichaL and another friend in Poland! For now, ¡hasta pronto!
No comments:
Post a Comment