Tuesday - Week X

I woke up the the promise of a beautifully sunny day and that promise was fulfilled. It was a bit chilly but I think perfect considering the other alternatives.

I walked into town again this morning and I may have even shaved off a few minutes from yesterday's time. It wasn't as icy so I could walk a bit faster. I of course stopped by the bay to take some pictures. It's hard to resist considering how gorgeous it is around there. I got some great shots of the birds in flight although I'm not sure where they were flying off to. They just seemed to be dashing up in the air and then coming right back to where they originally were. Crazy but beautiful seagulls.

I met with my Spanish group today and although we lost Marisol who thankfully arrived in Barcelona safly on Sunday we gained Jose and Alicia. So today we worked on stories of falling in love. It seemed a good topic for all and I am kind of using my students to help inspire a plot of a new play. There is a competition where the title you must use is "How _____ Fell in Love." If I do enter the competition I have to write a 10 minute play and submit it by December 31. I have not idea if inspiration will strike but one must take advantage of all one's resources so I'm using my students since the current resource at hand.

We only go through a few stories in 3 hours because we always seem to go off-track. Every time someone tells a story new vocabulary comes up and then I spend a great deal of time explaining the new words and having them use the words in a sentence. It's very time consuming but seems to really help them out. We did enjoy Diego's story even though that took us an hour or so off-track. He wasn't telling a story about falling in love but rather about his dislike for men who do the comb-over when they have gone mostly bald. Diego, so you know, is only 33 but already has a receding hairline and is consumed with it. He said he notices all the balding men whenever he is out and about. His wife of course was laughing throughout his whole story and what we understood by the end of his tale, which was very long because because Diego has a problem with being concise, was that he had been at a dinner party and was saying how much he hates the comb-over (and yes, I did have to teach them that term as he was taking 25 words or so to describe it every time it came up in the story) and that is when his friend said "my dad does that with his few remaining hairs." Diego was very embarrassed as you can imagine but according to his wife this is a daily occurrence, putting his foot in his mouth. I just realized I need to teach them that phrase (foot in his mouth) tomorrow. Anyway, after our detour into the world of male-pattern-baldness we managed to squeeze in another story or two.

It was also Martin's last day as he leaves for Dublin tomorrow and then back home to Paris on Thursday. Oh, wouldn't it be nice to be able to say I'm going home to Paris, it sounds so romantic somehow.

After leaving my group and saying my good-byes to Martin I went off to meet Halil who has fully recovered from the flu and ready to learn again. Today we just worked on questions because he has been having trouble distinguishing between how to answer a "why" questions versus a "when" questions" versus" a "who" question. by the end of our 3 hours I'm not sure I knew anymore I was so tired but every new lesson is such a great learning experience for me.

I met Jean Mare, Mom, Ellen and Frank at the 8 Restaurant where we had a lovely dinner.