I feel like this week sped by in a way, I guess due to doing a bit more than I do on the average week, having realised I need to make the most of opportunities a little more.
I had two intercambios which went well, and have spoken a fair bit of Spanish. Having said this, I've also used the first person when talking about someone else, and forgotten how to conjugate the preterite. Anyway, the main thing is, I'm speaking more Spanish. Also I'm trying to record all the new vocab I come across, as Im generally not very organised with it and I think it will be good to keep looking back over it to remember and to see I'm actually learning something.
This week school generally went well, I basically took a few classes on my own, with the teacher in the room but leaving me to do the talking and they went well and my confidence in teaching is probably improving, which cool. Although I see flaws in my confidence in other ways, which can be frustrating. I feel nervous about the prospect of talking to my teachers about my project, and I also feel unnecessarily nervous talking at church gatherings. Patience being something I've never really had a lot of, I want to improve everything immediately and find it hard when everything is not where I want it to be in life. But life is much more about learning than being perfect, and I like to think I'm learning, whether it be Spanish, or general life, or growing in God.
Sometimes I cannot wait to be back in Southampton, living with my bestest friends and seeing Dave every day and just generally being able to understand everything, rather than grasping the general idea, or having absolutely no clue what is going on. At the same time I don't want to waste my life looking ahead and I'm aware that this semester will probably be over much sooner than I imagine and I'm really glad of the opportunity to be here. Classic year abroad really.
Saturday 19 January 2013
Saturday 12 January 2013
The first week back
So the first week back in Madrid! It seems like an age since I was in England already.
Since 'Los Reyes' (Epiphany) is a big thing here, Monday was a bank holiday, so I only had to work three days this week, which was nice to ease back into things after an awesome two weeks relaxing.
I spent the afternoon of the 'dia festivo' with the church plant people, which was really great. We spent some time worshipping, praying and Kevin talked about some of the things we're doing this year as well as talking about the importance of focusing on who we are as a church, not just what we are going to do. We also had lunch together and I tried some 'Roscon' the traditional Reyes dessert which wasn't too bad for Spanish food lol.
Last Sunday I went for lunch with some people from the Spanish church which was nice and a good opportunity to speak a bit of Spanish. And one girl there told me my accent doesn't sound English when speaking Spanish, winning - although I think I only said about two words to her so I won't feel too confident about that yet!
School went well this week, a couple of the classes I took were all about looking back at last year and making New Years resolutions, which caused me to think about it for myself. Most of 2012 was really good, which I'm really thankful for and looking into 2013, I guess one of my aims at least for now is to improve my Spanish a lot. Also I'm going to try and keep in touch with friends at home more, as I haven't been great at that so far in Spain, and I'll try and blog more often about the goings on of my YA, maybe even weekly, although that might not happen. Having thought about the YA so far and how I haven't improved in Spanish as much as I'd like, I've decided to try and be more proactive to make the most of opportunities and not turn down chances to speak Spanish, and try and have a couple more 'intercambios' - language exchange where you chat in Spanish for a bit and English for a bit, and hopefully that can lead to making friends or at least speaking more Spanish.
In other news this week it was great to see one of my best friends Hanna, going for tapas on Thursday and spending friday trying to sort out various things which included a trip to the British embassy, which wasn't nearly as exciting as it sounds. It was also nice to hang out with my flatmate Jackie; today we went to the botanical gardens, but being January most of the plants were dead which was jokes. Also I sadly had to say goodbye to my other roommate Katie who went back to the States.
All in all I guess its been a fairly eventful week and I'm looking forward to seeing how the next few weeks/months go as I continue to try and improve Spanish and work on my research project...
Since 'Los Reyes' (Epiphany) is a big thing here, Monday was a bank holiday, so I only had to work three days this week, which was nice to ease back into things after an awesome two weeks relaxing.
I spent the afternoon of the 'dia festivo' with the church plant people, which was really great. We spent some time worshipping, praying and Kevin talked about some of the things we're doing this year as well as talking about the importance of focusing on who we are as a church, not just what we are going to do. We also had lunch together and I tried some 'Roscon' the traditional Reyes dessert which wasn't too bad for Spanish food lol.
Last Sunday I went for lunch with some people from the Spanish church which was nice and a good opportunity to speak a bit of Spanish. And one girl there told me my accent doesn't sound English when speaking Spanish, winning - although I think I only said about two words to her so I won't feel too confident about that yet!
School went well this week, a couple of the classes I took were all about looking back at last year and making New Years resolutions, which caused me to think about it for myself. Most of 2012 was really good, which I'm really thankful for and looking into 2013, I guess one of my aims at least for now is to improve my Spanish a lot. Also I'm going to try and keep in touch with friends at home more, as I haven't been great at that so far in Spain, and I'll try and blog more often about the goings on of my YA, maybe even weekly, although that might not happen. Having thought about the YA so far and how I haven't improved in Spanish as much as I'd like, I've decided to try and be more proactive to make the most of opportunities and not turn down chances to speak Spanish, and try and have a couple more 'intercambios' - language exchange where you chat in Spanish for a bit and English for a bit, and hopefully that can lead to making friends or at least speaking more Spanish.
In other news this week it was great to see one of my best friends Hanna, going for tapas on Thursday and spending friday trying to sort out various things which included a trip to the British embassy, which wasn't nearly as exciting as it sounds. It was also nice to hang out with my flatmate Jackie; today we went to the botanical gardens, but being January most of the plants were dead which was jokes. Also I sadly had to say goodbye to my other roommate Katie who went back to the States.
All in all I guess its been a fairly eventful week and I'm looking forward to seeing how the next few weeks/months go as I continue to try and improve Spanish and work on my research project...
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