Alright, the time has come. On February 16, 2010, I started my initial application for the North American Language and Culture Assistant program in Spain. I didn't know where I would be, or what kind of students I'd be teaching. I was completely in the dark.
Throughout the year, I waited for a placement... until May 25 (5 minutes before my orientation for the Master of Education program at Ohio State was slated to begin), when I found out that I'd be teaching in Madrid...MADRID! I was ecstatic. This was so much better than a tiny pueblo in the middle of nowhere, or even another large city. I'd be in the center. Of course, there are a lot of other great places to be, but I was going to be in the middle of it all. This initial euphoria was then curbed with the realization that I might not actually be in Madrid, but I could be placed up to an hour and a half outside of the city. More waiting followed, which was filled with many "what ifs" and metro time calculations to the far reaches of the Comunidad Autonoma de Madrid.
Finally, on July 1, I found out that I would be teaching at Instituto Juana de Castilla, a "high school" which is pretty darn close to the city center... which means that living anywhere in Madrid would be okay, but living near the Parque del Buen Retiro (one of my favorite spots in the city, where you can rent a rowboat on a lake) would be ideal. What did people do before Google and Facebook? Between then and now, I lined up an apartment showing and found someone to share a cab into the city with me.
And now, on September 13, I'll be flying from Cincinnati to Philadelphia to Madrid (much less complicated than last summer's Columbus to Detroit to JFK to Dublin to Madrid 30-hour extravaganza), and I will be in Spain again.
I won't really know what I'll be doing between now and October 1, which is my first day of school (I will try to remember to take a picture), but whatever it is, I'm sure it will involve long walks in the park and probably a lot of bocadillos (little sandwiches), cañas (cheap Spanish beer), and tinto de verano (not too classy, but red wine and lemon Fanta).
Yeah, it's 5 AM, but I guess my feelings right now could be summed up by this kid from an old Disney commercial...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment