The other side of the desk

After a few weeks of trying to sort things out and understand what is expected of me in class, I have actually started my assistant teaching in the class.

At the meeting we had two weeks ago, they told me I didn't have to work for another week because there was insurance papers still to be made, so I had another week off and another week of seeing lovely Santander and going to the beach. Believe it or not I was actually looking forward to starting work. My tutor on Monday emailed me telling me she wanted a power point presentation about myself and Wales. As I had Monday off I thought I would start it as soon as I got up, just to realize my laptop thanks to Microsoft and it wanting me to pay for Microsoft Office, I decided that I wasn't going to pay a penny for something I can get for free, so I tried to download Open office, but obviously my little laptop and Windows didn't like my decision so in any way did it let me use it.As you all know I am known to panic, A lot. After a long time of thinking how could I fix this, I waited for my friends to be back at home and I went to their house in the evening and used their laptop to do my presentation, but it got to about 11and realized I had to wake up at 6 the next morning.

As I have a lot to tell you I am going to make this very quick, I got up on Tuesday for my first proper day, just to realize the train wasn't arriving. To not be late I got a Taxi, my work is about 30 minutes away, and it cost me more than I can afford. After all this, the day went very smoothly.

The whole experience of teaching has made me go back to my school days, and it is very strange to be at the other side of the desk. Now I know how it feels when a teacher asks the kids if there is any questions and nobody answers. As one of my classes nobody asked me any questions when I said if anyone had questions. Therefore it makes it very awkward and makes you think that nobody is interested in anything you have said.

One of the things that has made me laugh the most, is the different translations or explanations different people have said. For example: someone asked me what music do they play in clubs in the UK,so I said that in my students union, there is a night with cheesey music but told him I couldn't think of a word to translate cheesey into Spanis, but he thought he was very clever to translate it "Musica Queso" for you who might not know, queso its cheese, and it does not translate well. Also in one of my classes they were describing how famous people look, and one of the boys instead of saying "he has a beard" said "he has a bird" and someone tried to correct him by saying "he has a beer". Some people might have laughed at this, but I just thought in my head all the years that I was one of the kids, and probably said worse things in school.

Another thing I forgot to say in my old post is, how do you react when one of you're flat mates (no longer here) thinks that Wales is in Scotland? she is studying to be a nurse, for how much maths and science you might know it is not right when you have been to school and higher education to think that Wales, a country, is in Scotland. I had to explain the difference between England, Wales and Scotland and after that she said "Oh, I thought it was all in England".

I will try and write more blogs, so hopefully something worth writing happens to me soon.

Lots of Love,
Catrin