Tuesday, February 17...Pineapple surprise, your mom jokes, and more!
Tuesday, February 17
What an interesting day! Today I got up at 7:55 and took a shower. Alejandro had once again left his towel on the shower, so I threw it in the Bidet. Then, in the shower, I noticed that the two perpendicular doors don’t exactly line up anymore, leaving a tiny gap, so perhaps doing chinups with the shower wasn’t such a good idea after all…whoops!! Then I had breakfast. Just me, since Alejandro had class earlier than me today, as is the case every Tuesday and Thursday. I opened the fresh box of pineapple juice on the table and it was so full that just grabbing it to pick it up resulted in juice spurting into the air. I was sooo lucky that at that very moment Carmen had turned round to get something near the sink. I almost wanted to laugh out loud it was so comical. Then, when she turned around again a minute later, I tried to quickly pick up the carton and wipe the table with a napkin. But of course, the carton was still too full, so when I picked it up again the juice spurted out again, this time all over the wall behind the table and a little on Alejandro’s side, and a bunch dripped down under the table behind some bags. Of course, I put it down and sat back down just as Carmen turned around to face me, so she didn’t notice what had happened either time. This time I could hardly keep myself from bursting out laughing. When she turned around yet again, I grabbed some napkins and started to wipe off my side of the table. This time Carmen turned around and saw the part that had spilled on my part and helped me wipe it up. “There,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.” She didn’t notice all of the pineapple juice dripping down the wall and under the table and into the little basket of stuff that she keeps on the table and I didn’t bring attention to it. Should be interesting to see how this turns out.
By this point the juice carton was empty enough that I could poor myself a glass without such drama. I finished breakfast and got out of there before I got busted.
I left for class a couple of minutes early so that I could walk at a nice leisurely pace. On the way, one of the Kates walked by without saying hi, which seems to be her style. I’m going to have to adopt that style with her too.
I got to class and settled in and then we spent like the first half of class in pairs of two asking each other yes/no questions about stuff we had done in the past in order to determine whether or not we would make good astronauts. When it was Phil’s turn to present what he had learned from his partner, he tried to explain some concept to the teacher and she didn’t understand. She was asking him what he meant….did he mean (blablah blah) freaky? Blahblahblah= the words that came out of her mouth at that moment that I didn’t understand. Phil didn’t either, so all we knew was that she said “something something freaky.” So I said to Phil loud enough so that my native English speaking peers could understand not but not loud enough for my non-native English speaking teacher to understand “I think she’s saying something about your mom and it’s pretty offensive.” I got an unexpectedly uproarious round of laughter from my classmates, who thought it was hilarious. As a result, my teacher said in Spanish, “Ben, can you repeat that in Spanish?” and I was like “no, I just didn’t understand what you said.” It was my second such funny moment of the day and it wasn’t even 11 o clock.
We spent the second half of class reading our journal entries for the day ( we had been told to write a journal entry from the previous day using different forms of preterite). I hadn’t realized that we were going to read these out loud, so I had put in some clever jokes. Now I read them out loud and got more laughter…I was really running the crowd today! I tend to zone out when other people read long things out loud in a foreign language, so when I mad a joke in the middle of my entry I was surprised when a bunch of people cracked up. What a day.
Then I had Art class, which was normal. My teacher told me that due to the conflict with the EU class, it would be okay with her if I joined the Thursday Spanish group for our conflicting Wenesday visits. Then I found out that Mary, who is in the same boat, had talked to Javier and he had said that she could do just that. Things are looking up! Tomorrow I’m going to talk to the Spanish Art professor to make sure that it is okay with him and if so, then I just have to convince Javier…please let this work!!
After art class we had the Spanish Experience of the Other class. It was boring again- once again we talked about cultural differences. Today we looked at pictures in groups of three and had to explain how the people in the picture appeared to be reacting to colonization. I had hoped this class would present data on problems with integration. Instead, it’s very touchy-feely, providing an in depth look about how people probably felt when confronted with probable problems…as though I couldn’t figure that out on my own. But it least the teacher liked mine and Kenny’s idea of doing our research project on Gypsies, which means that we get to visit cave people, talk to the ladies who paint themselves entirely gray on the street and ask for money, and stuff like that, which is exactly what I wanted to do!
Then I walked most of the way home with Kenny and we discussed our project, and then I walked the last leg by myself and just as I got to my building I saw Julia. We talked for a few minutes and she was really surprised that I live so far away from school. Given my high school experiences, I’m used to being the kid who lives far away from school.
Then I went to the apartment and we had two different kinds of noodles, salad, bread and mango and kiwi. Delicious, and the first day in a week that we haven’t had soup! Finally, some solid food! No mention of any pineapple juice, so either she didn’t notice and the ants will be arriving any day, if they even have ants in Spain, or she cleaned it up and didn’t know who did it, since it was on Alejandro’s side. Either way, I kind of won. I’m still laughing about it.
After lunch I checked my Email and discovered that Fabiolla, my Spanish teacher, invited me to check out her blog online. This is how I KNOW that I am in Granada. Then I typed this up.
At 4:30 Colleen and I left for Spain and the EU class. Class was really good again. He talks really slowly and he explains things really well, he’s good. What’s funny is that this guy, who is a really big deal, is an intercampus with Jess because he wants to get better at English. This is Granada!
After class me, Colleen and Jillian got churros and hot chocolate in Bib de Rambla and just hung out for a while. This would never happen on a Tuesday night at Brandeis. Then we went to the grocery store and grabbed a couple of quick things and then came back. I found a site where I can watch an English version of this movie that we need to watch for Islamic Civilization class, which I am going to do tomorrow.
Then I typed up the rest of this. Tonight I am going to try and go to bed early and hope that Alejandro does not, once again, make a skype phone call at 12 at night, which I shall talk to him about tomorrow since he hasn’t been home much today. Goodnight!
What an interesting day! Today I got up at 7:55 and took a shower. Alejandro had once again left his towel on the shower, so I threw it in the Bidet. Then, in the shower, I noticed that the two perpendicular doors don’t exactly line up anymore, leaving a tiny gap, so perhaps doing chinups with the shower wasn’t such a good idea after all…whoops!! Then I had breakfast. Just me, since Alejandro had class earlier than me today, as is the case every Tuesday and Thursday. I opened the fresh box of pineapple juice on the table and it was so full that just grabbing it to pick it up resulted in juice spurting into the air. I was sooo lucky that at that very moment Carmen had turned round to get something near the sink. I almost wanted to laugh out loud it was so comical. Then, when she turned around again a minute later, I tried to quickly pick up the carton and wipe the table with a napkin. But of course, the carton was still too full, so when I picked it up again the juice spurted out again, this time all over the wall behind the table and a little on Alejandro’s side, and a bunch dripped down under the table behind some bags. Of course, I put it down and sat back down just as Carmen turned around to face me, so she didn’t notice what had happened either time. This time I could hardly keep myself from bursting out laughing. When she turned around yet again, I grabbed some napkins and started to wipe off my side of the table. This time Carmen turned around and saw the part that had spilled on my part and helped me wipe it up. “There,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.” She didn’t notice all of the pineapple juice dripping down the wall and under the table and into the little basket of stuff that she keeps on the table and I didn’t bring attention to it. Should be interesting to see how this turns out.
By this point the juice carton was empty enough that I could poor myself a glass without such drama. I finished breakfast and got out of there before I got busted.
I left for class a couple of minutes early so that I could walk at a nice leisurely pace. On the way, one of the Kates walked by without saying hi, which seems to be her style. I’m going to have to adopt that style with her too.
I got to class and settled in and then we spent like the first half of class in pairs of two asking each other yes/no questions about stuff we had done in the past in order to determine whether or not we would make good astronauts. When it was Phil’s turn to present what he had learned from his partner, he tried to explain some concept to the teacher and she didn’t understand. She was asking him what he meant….did he mean (blablah blah) freaky? Blahblahblah= the words that came out of her mouth at that moment that I didn’t understand. Phil didn’t either, so all we knew was that she said “something something freaky.” So I said to Phil loud enough so that my native English speaking peers could understand not but not loud enough for my non-native English speaking teacher to understand “I think she’s saying something about your mom and it’s pretty offensive.” I got an unexpectedly uproarious round of laughter from my classmates, who thought it was hilarious. As a result, my teacher said in Spanish, “Ben, can you repeat that in Spanish?” and I was like “no, I just didn’t understand what you said.” It was my second such funny moment of the day and it wasn’t even 11 o clock.
We spent the second half of class reading our journal entries for the day ( we had been told to write a journal entry from the previous day using different forms of preterite). I hadn’t realized that we were going to read these out loud, so I had put in some clever jokes. Now I read them out loud and got more laughter…I was really running the crowd today! I tend to zone out when other people read long things out loud in a foreign language, so when I mad a joke in the middle of my entry I was surprised when a bunch of people cracked up. What a day.
Then I had Art class, which was normal. My teacher told me that due to the conflict with the EU class, it would be okay with her if I joined the Thursday Spanish group for our conflicting Wenesday visits. Then I found out that Mary, who is in the same boat, had talked to Javier and he had said that she could do just that. Things are looking up! Tomorrow I’m going to talk to the Spanish Art professor to make sure that it is okay with him and if so, then I just have to convince Javier…please let this work!!
After art class we had the Spanish Experience of the Other class. It was boring again- once again we talked about cultural differences. Today we looked at pictures in groups of three and had to explain how the people in the picture appeared to be reacting to colonization. I had hoped this class would present data on problems with integration. Instead, it’s very touchy-feely, providing an in depth look about how people probably felt when confronted with probable problems…as though I couldn’t figure that out on my own. But it least the teacher liked mine and Kenny’s idea of doing our research project on Gypsies, which means that we get to visit cave people, talk to the ladies who paint themselves entirely gray on the street and ask for money, and stuff like that, which is exactly what I wanted to do!
Then I walked most of the way home with Kenny and we discussed our project, and then I walked the last leg by myself and just as I got to my building I saw Julia. We talked for a few minutes and she was really surprised that I live so far away from school. Given my high school experiences, I’m used to being the kid who lives far away from school.
Then I went to the apartment and we had two different kinds of noodles, salad, bread and mango and kiwi. Delicious, and the first day in a week that we haven’t had soup! Finally, some solid food! No mention of any pineapple juice, so either she didn’t notice and the ants will be arriving any day, if they even have ants in Spain, or she cleaned it up and didn’t know who did it, since it was on Alejandro’s side. Either way, I kind of won. I’m still laughing about it.
After lunch I checked my Email and discovered that Fabiolla, my Spanish teacher, invited me to check out her blog online. This is how I KNOW that I am in Granada. Then I typed this up.
At 4:30 Colleen and I left for Spain and the EU class. Class was really good again. He talks really slowly and he explains things really well, he’s good. What’s funny is that this guy, who is a really big deal, is an intercampus with Jess because he wants to get better at English. This is Granada!
After class me, Colleen and Jillian got churros and hot chocolate in Bib de Rambla and just hung out for a while. This would never happen on a Tuesday night at Brandeis. Then we went to the grocery store and grabbed a couple of quick things and then came back. I found a site where I can watch an English version of this movie that we need to watch for Islamic Civilization class, which I am going to do tomorrow.
Then I typed up the rest of this. Tonight I am going to try and go to bed early and hope that Alejandro does not, once again, make a skype phone call at 12 at night, which I shall talk to him about tomorrow since he hasn’t been home much today. Goodnight!