teaching :)

I had such a wonderful day teaching! So I´m breaking my rule of posting blogs in order to write while it´s fresh. It´s funny, after 7 hours of classes, I start to think in my head like my students talk. Haha, it´s like I have a non-native student in my brain!

I also think I learn about Spanish in the classes. A lot of times we talk about their customs, etc. And then I notice mistakes they make commonly, and we figure out that it is because it is structured differently in Spanish. For example (they always say for example instead of for instance), every single one of my students has struggled with the phrase ¨there are 5 of us¨. They all want to say ¨we are 5¨. b-c in Spanish you say - somos cinco.

It´s something I have had to learn, for example, on the phone or when I ring a doorbell. My instinct is to say ¨es Lara!¨, but the correct form is ¨soy Lara¨.

The other thing is people. They all want to say ' the people is, etc. Because for them, ¨gente¨ is singular. But I constantly have to remind them that we´re referring to the group.

I got pictures with my Quilmes class today. I love those guys! We´re all friends now, and I joke around with them. I spent 10 minutes after class ensuring that they all found and added me on Facebook. It was awesome!

I also took a picture with Julian, as we had our last class tonight. He was stressing about his daughter, who is about to graduate high school and wants to go to school to become a kindergarten teacher. I understood exactly what he was saying when he said he tries to talk to her a lot. Apparently he would prefer she study agronomy or something more in his field. He sounded just like my dad.

We talked about my situation a bit, and I again felt like I was talking to my father. Financial stability was the phrase of the hour. I was sad to end our class, but we exchanged emails so I think we´ll stay in touch.

With my morning classes, Florencia is just so cool! I haven´t posted my earlier blogs yet where I explain my substitute classes in Belgrano with Florencia and Hernan. Their teacher had the flu, so I went in last week. This week, they wanted me to come back. 1 - they like me. 2 - they´re freakin´scared of the flu.

Florencia said she would see if we could go out sometime next week. I wanted Hernan to introduce me to the guys who work in the call center, as he is their boss. haha, maybe not, but maybe so.

Point being, I may not have made Argentine friends my age, but I will stay in touch with my students, and that makes me really happy. Tomorrow I observe my first high school class with Paz, and then I have an interview with some Minister of Education peeps! Their email Spanish is scary formal, so I´m REALLY hoping they will be ok with speaking English. I mean, I can fumble through Spanish, but I think that it will be much more efficient in English. Plus, I don´t want to carry my compu downtown, so I´ll be handwriting...bla.

K, dinner, shower, read, sleep. Yes. :)