I'm currently sat at home on a Wednesday morning when I should be at school because it's a 'huelga general' today, which means the whole country has gone on strike and everything grinds to a halt. Yesterday I read a poster plastered across the side of a building that read 'paramos todo para ganar el futuro'. This roughly translates at 'we're stopping everything to win the future'. So the logic is that having a day where the entire country comes to a standstill (even hospitals are running a 'limited service') is somehow an investment in its future and will help it recover from the pretty dire economic situation it's currently in. Oh Spain. There's still freedom of choice, of course... there'll still be the odd cafe open or the most conscientious of teachers turning up to class. But I get the feeling that the general attitude is 'well, if they're not working today, neither am I'. In that sense, it somewhat loses its sting as a politically driven power-to-the-people protest. When the students protested a few weeks ago, I asked one or two of the older ones why they'd decided the join the strike. Their response was generally "I don't know... because everyone else is." You'd hope that an answer like that could be put down to their age and their lack of political interest. But I genuinely don't believe that many adults would come up with much of a different answer today! Obviously there is a lot more going on than I could hope to understand and I don't mean to be too judgy, but come on Spain, get your act together. Right, just give me a second to climb down from my high horse...
School has continued to be entertaining and enjoyable. The other day I asked a boy what country was missing from the Union Jack and he replied with the Spanish for Wales, which is 'Gales' (pronounced gah-less). I asked him what the English word was and he confidently replied 'gays'. Haha. Then, in a history lesson I decided to show my 16 year olds the opening credits of Rosie and Jim as a very light-hearted way to introduce them to the topic of canals. I went to youtube, typed in 'Rosie and Jim opening credits' and showed the first video that came up without thinking twice. Everything was going fine, until 0:50. That's when I learnt a very valuable lesson about the dangers of flippant youtube viewing. I think my cheeks may only just have resumed their natural colour. See here for more details (PG viewing advised): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SS5GxBu2oQ
Last week all of the language assistants in the vicinity had to attend a compulsory meeting along with our mentors and any other willing staff members from our respective schools. The meeting was run by the government people to talk to us all about different teaching techniques. It was a bit of shambles, to be honest. Its very existence caused no end of controversy because many assistants had to sacrifice giving private classes and earning money to attend the meeting (which was a casual three hours long). Considering our pay cheques are yet to arrive, this was a big ask. Jean, Laura, Tess and I managed to stroll in 40 minutes late after getting completely lost in the outskirts of the city, which kind of set the tone for the rest of the meeting. It seemed to be going okay - we were sat in groups, discussing teaching techniques and how to improve upon past experiences of other language assistants. But then one of the mentors (okay, it was my mentor) raised her hand and proclaimed that it was all well and good us talking about how perfectly the scheme could work but at the end of the day there's just no time to implement any of it. The government lady came back at her saying that the schools needed to have more of a can-do attitude. Then another male teacher joined in, telling her off for berating their attitude. Then this other government chick said that if the schools didn't want language assistants then they could pretty much piss off and pull out of the scheme altogether. Cue: chaos. I can't claim to have understood much of what was said. But I'm pretty sure that it was all rather pointless.
The weekend just gone was pretty awesome. On Saturday, we kicked off the day at an American style diner with burgers and pink lemonade. Then we took a trip the Gijón aquarium. I flipping love aquariums and this one was no exception. The attention to detail was amazing - bright orange sea cucumbers waving about in the midst of a shipwreck and giant spider crabs crawling around a fake whale skeleton. That sort of thing. We were like little kids, oohing and aahing at everything and getting totally over-excited by the sight of sharks and a giant turtle. At one point Jean spotted a moray eel hidden in a corner that will probably haunt my dreams for evermore. After the excitement of the aquarium, we went for a coffee and a spot of shopping and rounded off the day with a girls evening of pizza, wine, Grease and dancing. On Sunday, we went for an evening of jazz at the Jovellanos Theatre, which was part of a jazz festival that's currently going on in the city. The events are somewhat elusive (classic Spanish organisation) but we'd just about managed to book tickets in the week. The band was great. They managed to fuse classic big band jazz with a hint of Latino and some heavily Asturian influences. It all felt very cultured. Then we went for some food and cider. Because no weekend in Asturias is complete without cider.
Overall, despite feeling a bit frustrated at times by the Spanish way of doing things, it's been a good week. For the food, the drink, the scenery and recreation, I wouldn't have it any other way. But when it comes to politics and organisation, I'd take good old British bureaucracy any day.
Hasta luego!
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