whyohwhyohwhydidn'tIbringmycamera?!

I asked myself the other day...I suppose it's so that, at the end of the day, I still have something to write about.

I rode my bike (yes! I have a bike! Bought a small, used "mountain bike" from a girl who was moving) down to a park I'd seen from the highway, but had never been to. I thought I'd investigated every green space in Granada, looking for a place to play frisbee. But NO! Oh, life is always one up on you, eh? Anyway, much to my delight, this park is quite big, and has GRASS! For those of you who have been here, you know its a pretty dry place, and that grass is not a common landscaping element. Anyway, it has enough space to throw a disc around, and if you feel like running some laps or practising hurdles by jumping over fixed metal bars, well, the option is there. *shudder* I digress. My point is that we now have a place (although a bit far away for some...) to practise a bit. whooohoo!

Back to the story...
I followed the river down to this park and when I got there, and was riding around to check it out, when low and behold I see: a herd of sheep; a few goats; an old, limping shepherd with a baby sheep dangling helplessly from one hand; and a scraggly sheep dog, trotting alongside the herd. The goats were stopping to eat leaves along the path, and then they'd get swept along again in the herd. Most of the sheep had bells around their necks which combined with their trotting and baa-ing made quite a racket. They were following a path alongside the park that later went under the highway and eventually out of the city. A cloud of dust followed them and I was impressed by the speed at which they trotted along. I wondered what would happen if the sheep decided to go off the path--the gimping old man didn't seem spry enough to herd them away, and the dog looked pretty ambivilant. But I suppose that looks can be deceiving, and its also possible that the sheep know the route from previous trips.

I assume that the man was bringing the sheep down from the mountain, since the weather is changing, and they have to come down out of the hills when it starts to get cold. Apparently not too long ago they still closed one of the main roads of Granada--which is the old route from the lower lands up to the mountains--to cars during the night sometime in the Spring for all the shepherds to take their animals up into the mountains for the summer. I think that is bad sentence. Oh well. Anyway, it was a fun sight to see in city (albeit the edge of the city) and somehow refreshing. A touch of country-life and a waning lifestyle which, despite modernization, still manages to survive.

[/my picture of 500 words]

same school, different job

Technically my job hasn't change, and my title is still "English Language Assistant," but I no longer have any English classes. I follow around one class of first years (I say more or less equivalent to Freshman, but I think it would be more like seventh graders, since they don't have middle school, but do have a 2 year pre-professional program after secondary school) and help out in the music, math and history classes. So far its been pretty fun. The material, obviously, is much more varied than last year, and I'm enjoying the change. The past two weeks I've been helping to explain the planets ("Uranus" is really hard to pronounce!), the Solar System, basic algebra, factors, prime numbers, whole notes, half notes, etc.

The professors have done a pretty good job so far in their English speaking, but the class is probably not more than 50/50 Spanish/English for now. If it were more, I think the kids would give up trying to understand. I'm sure the amount of material we've covered so far is much less than the professors would like, but its really like giving two classes at once, since the class gets paused on a regular basis for me to explain something in English. Also, since I have the same kids everyday, rather than 3 different classes each day, I have almost all of their names memorized already, which makes me happy. I also still have a few out-of-class hours with the professors to prep for classes, help with their English homework from the Official School of Languages, work on conversation/pronunciation, etc.

I'm looking forward to starting my masters classes in a week or so, but still nervous about how I'm going to manage to be in two places at once when I need to go to class in the morning while I'm at work...heh. But the director at the high school has told me various times that they will be as flexible as possible and that he knows this is a really good opportunity for me. Awesome. So if all goes well, by the end of next September, I'll have a masters in translation and interpreting! And then I need to find a job... :)

Hope all is well in your worlds.