class

Summer has arrived in Spain. It’s been pleasantly cool up until now, but yesterday somebody upstairs decided to crank up the thermostat. Two months ago it was finally warm enough to ditch the thermals by night, and now it’s shirt season. Which, for anyone who knows me, suits me just fine.

I haven’t done a random regular update in a while. I guess that with all of the to-and-froing after Semana Santa I’ve hardly had the time: in less than a month I’ve been to El Rocio, Sevilla, Cordoba, Barcelona, Andorra, Calatayud, Monfrague and Jerez de los Caballeros, not to mention taken part in a Romanian art school exchange and worked a weekend at an English immersion event. It’s been pretty non-stop since the 23rd of March. But life goes on, and as I try to make clear on this blog, life is not one massive series of amazing year abroad adventures – unless you count the everyday as an adventure in itself, and I wouldn’t blame you if you did. It’s full of trials and tribulations of its own.

Well, what’s to say? Here I am in the staffroom at my afternoon private school, waiting for my Upper Sixth class to arrive for a catch-up class (I’m still making up for those hours I lost by being in Barcelona, one month later – take note, future me!). It’s hard work but rewarding, teaching Upper Sixth… They don’t all take part as they should, but those that do do so with a spectacularly high level of English. The others are just as good, if only they’d speak more (an eternal problem with teenagers). I look back to the honeymoon period when I’d first arrived and it was a barrage of questions from all sides… but even if they aren’t as proactive with familiarity, at least being settled pays off. And at least I know their names. It hardly needs saying, but that’s crucial to good relations.

Teaching at the public school this morning was uncharacteristically problematic. For the first time this year I forgot to set my alarm, with the result that I only woke up at the sound of my flatmate leaving, some fifteen minutes before my first class. In my haste to leave I startled a recently fledged pigeon that had been sitting on the doorstep of the block of flats which, as Fate would have it, flew straight under the wheels of a car. In that dark mood I went on to teach two Lower Sixth classes about the End of the World, painfully aware that the biggest challenge – trying to teach Shakespeare – was still around the corner. Even so, I’d prepared a nifty presentation for the job, which would do the trick.

Provided the computers were working. Which they weren’t.

For the second week in a row my premier class had to suffer an off-the-cuff lesson where all the visual prompts and gags had to be done manually. I’ve got to say it; if my mother hadn’t gotten me into drawing, I don’t know what I’d do in such situations. Drawing skills are a genuine lifesaver in teaching. No PowerPoint? Whip out the chalk. Trouble explaining a word? Draw it. Need to motivate the kids? Get scribbling. It’s a defibrillator that never runs out of juice. I owe my parents, my friends and my art teachers so very much for encouraging me on that front. I don’t know where I’d be without a pencil in my hand and an image in my head.

It’s 15.30. My Upper Sixth class should be here in a couple of minutes, but if they play their usual ‘I went home for lunch’ card, I’ve got at least another twenty minutes until they turn up. In the meantime, I’ll get prepping their mock exam. Let it never be said that a language assistant is a cushy job. You land a job as good as this, you’d better earn it. BB x

One month down. One month to go.

Life rumbles on in Amman. Compared to the whirlwind adventure of the last three posts, I’m afraid this one is a rambler, but I promised to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so it’s just as important to remind yourself that things truck on in distant lands in much the same way as they do back at home. Eloise mentioned yesterday that it was sometimes hard to imagine that other people – even our own classmates – are already taking their own year abroad in France, Italy, Cuba and the like. If you thought Durham was a bubble, jeez, you should see Amman. It might be a capital city, but the Ali Baba crowd is a select one, to put it lightly. That, too, is divided along the same lines as the kind you might expect to find in college, even amongst so few (uh-oh, Ben’s got his social goggles on again – watch out world).

Whoah, too much introspection. I blame yesterday’s class. We took an hour or two on discussing personalities in Arabic, which turned into a pretty intense therapy session for me (my apologies Andrew). What makes you angry? What makes you sad? If you could change one aspect of your personality, what would it be? Do you even like your own personality? Questions of that sort. It could drive a man crazy, especially one still struggling to pull together all ten aspects of his personality into one tangible construct. Maybe I’m thinking this one through too much. Introspection. I did warn you.

In other news, we decided to do something vaguely cultural the other day and took a trip to the Royal Cultural Centre to watch a Jordanian film, Theeb. All in all, a pretty fancy affair for a cinema outing; guards at the door, a full-body scanner in the entrance hall and men in traditional dress stepping out of chauffeured cars. Not exactly your regular Vue jaunt. The reason became clear as the film drew to a close: it turns out that the entire cast of the film were sat just two rows in front, for whom the organisers had set up some kind of awards ceremony in the most eloquent classical Arabic I’ve heard out here yet. Classy. Almost as classy as Andrew and I sipping from orange mirinda all the way through the film. Theeb itself was a seriously good film. You might have heard of it; that 2014 award-winning film about a Bedouin boy who loses his family in a raid and ends up befriending his brother’s killer. Heavy stuff.

But perhaps I should tell you about the Jordanian cinema routine which, I should point out, is a very different kettle of fish. To kick things off the national anthem play and everyone stands in solemn salute – just about the only moment when nobody is talking in the whole affair. Once the film’s under way, it’s a free-for-all. The hero did something impressive? That’s a round of applause. The villain got his comeuppance? That’s always applause-worthy. A tense moment? Yeah, a bout of hysterics from the audience will stop that right up. Oh, and why not add to the soundtrack with that made-for-frustration smartphone whistle ringtone whilst you’re at it? I don’t get it, Jordan. I don’t get it. Or maybe the British are just too hesitant when it comes to the movies. Haven’t you ever felt the need to applaud midway through a film?

Jamie Woon’s Lady Luck is playing in my ears as the clock hits 11:00 on the dot. Class. I’d better get going. BB x