I finally have roommates so the apartment is not so lonely--3 American girls...not so exotic, but this is the luxury that I am granting myself here in this foreign country--being able to communicate freely at home. Everyone is really nice and gets along well, and the atmosphere in the apartment is relaxed.

Work started on October 1st, and this being the second time that I am an English conversation assistant, I was not nervous...the French and Spanish programs are virtually identical...12 hours of work a week, no real grading, mostly just promoting oral communication and comprehension in classes. The only difference this time was that my job at least, did not grant me 2 weeks of observation as is mandatory at least in the French system...perhaps it was just at my job where I didn´t get it--and perhaps that was owing to all of my previous experience teaching English, but I had only one day to chat with the teachers about what I needed to do and observe a few classes before diving in.

I was pretty nervous because I have mostly first and second year students, which is a lot more difficult than the older students who the other American assistant gets to teach (out of seniority...she was here last year). So going into a class full of students who were just beginning English I knew I was going to have to conquer my own fear--I was going to have to speak in Spanish to them. Some people say that the role of an English assistant is only to speak English, but with students who have only had a few hours of English lessons, speaking in English only frustrates them and makes them afraid of you! Luckily when I got to class on Monday ready to teach the first year students, and after having asked Carlos a lot of words that I would need in class in Spanish ( spell, count etc), I was pleased to discover that most of my students are ¨false beginners,¨ which is to say that they have actually had several years of English class. However, there are still plenty of students who are real beginners so it is pretty necessary for me to speak in Spanish....and I think the students are pretty relieved that I was speaking my albeit imperfect Spanish. Speaking so much to them is making me find some holes in my knowledge of Spanish, such as the vosotros form (plural you), which I never paid much attention to and suddenly need, and the subjunctive form which comes up pretty often when you are a teacher i.e. ¨I want you to...¨

The work with the second year students is a lot easier, and I use Spanish a lot less often, more often when they ask me the definition of a word or something. I am really enjoying the work...the students are there voluntarily so it makes such an enormous difference. It's such a departure from my job at the university last year. Here I don't do any grading, and if I wanted to, I could just go into class unprepared and improvise...as long as I got them to talk and/or listen for an hour. Of course, I am too conscientious for this.

I had a bit of a scary thing happen the other day...when I got off work, and I was heading to a friend's house on the other side of town, and managed to get on the right bus in the wrong direction. Normally this wouldn't have been such an enormous problem, since the bus would have to turn around and go back to the center of town eventually, but since it was late--around 10:30pm, I realized that this might be the last bus left, and I could be stranded at the terminus. I explained my problem to the bus driver, and he told me that there was one last bus to the center, and but I would have to buy a new ticket at the end of the line--a hospital outside of town. When we got to the there, the bus driver walked up to me and said, "You're not from here, are you?" (DUH!) and he didn't make me buy another ticket, and I made it to my friends although very late. I shouldn't exaggerate the gravity of this incident--I mean, worse come to worst, I could have called Carlos (I only had a few cents of phone credit, but luckily we have a special phone plan for each other), and he would have picked me up. Still, it was scary, and I will be more careful in the future. But well, if I ever need to get to the hospital in the future, I will know how to get there.

Carlos and my 2 year anniversary is at the end of the month, and we are going to spend the weekend in a mountain home about an hour from here. We will be close to some beautiful villages that I haven't seen yet (and also Vera where we spent a weekend during the summer). I am very excited!