Day Eight - Wednesday

I'M SENSING A THEME HERE

Every morning, I get up as Chelsea is leaving for class. Every morning, Pepita has been up for at least an hour or two and has set up the fixings for us to eat breakfast at our leisure. And every morning, it looks exactly the same. I have no clue why this is so fascinating to me, but it totally is.

Pepita has told us that if we don't feel like cereal, then we can just put the bowl and spoon away and eat fruit, or vice versa – she just lays things out for us so nicely! I comment on it because every single morning, it looks exactly the same.

AMERICANS ARE OBSESSED WITH JUSTIN BIEBER AND FRIED CHICKEN

I got home from class, and Pepita told me that she had made me a snack to take to my conversation tables, and that we would have lunch after I returned because the day before I had looked half-crazy and like I was going to hurt myself from eating too quickly. What a thoughtful madre!

Today, I got a new group of students! Here they are:

Jorge : (14) Intermediate level, friendly, enjoys futbol and tennis (Nadal is his favorite player), wants to improve his pronunciation and grammar

Sandra : (15) Intermediate-Advanced level, very opinionated, social butterfly, wants to improve her pronunciation and cultural awareness

Cristina : (15) Intermediate-Advanced level, spent two months in Canada with a host family (as part of an exchange), wants to improve her pronunciation and cultural awareness

Ana : (14) Beginner level, dyslexic (tested in Spanish), very shy in English but friendly in Spanish, wants to better her listening comprehension and grammar

One of those might look familiar... that's because I have her in two groups! Unfortunately, this group was more advanced than the group from the day before, so guess how much she spoke?

If you guessed “not at all”, you really need to go on the road with those psychic powers. They could make you some good money.

Today I came a bit more prepared: I brought an activity to do with the kids to get them warmed up and to see how the personalities pieced together. I had written down different people or groups of people on notecards, folded them up, and asked the kids to pick one. We would be discussing stereotypes about these people or groups of people, such as “Boys” or “Mothers” or “Spaniards”, et cetera. It turned out pretty well, because they seemed to enjoy getting to express their opinions about things without being told that they were wrong!

Probably the best response out of all of them was “Americans”. I was hoping that they would choose that card so that I could see what they thought of my culture. Here are some responses that I got:

“Obama and his birth certificate. Seriously, what's the big deal?”

“They are fat and work too hard. If you work too hard, and are always on the move, how can you be fat? Americans are confusing.”

“They're fair-weather fans. Like, they don't care about futbol until it's the World Cup, and suddenly everyone's cheering for the winning team.”

“They make some of the best music. And movies.”

And here is my absolute favorite:

“They are obsessed with two things: Justin Bieber and fried chicken.”

Sandra mostly dominated the conversation, with Cristina a close second to back up a point that her friend made, and Jorge seemed content to throw in tidbits every now and then. I tried to pull Ana into the conversation more and more, but she seemed scared to join in. I'm at a loss as to how to include her more: any ideas? I'm open to anything.

CAN'T TOUCH THIS

After class, I headed to the JMU Office to check my e-mail and such, and saw Ramon in his office. I don't think that I've explained this yet, but Ramon is the visiting faculty member that is helping Jesus run the program. He's married and has one daughter, who graduated from James Madison University a few years ago and comes back to Spain from time to time to visit her parents. He's also an incredibly funny man that I love to chat with when I have time.

While I was in the office, we stopped what we were doing and had a lovely conversation. During this, he asked over and over why I wasn't going to Portugal, and couldn't I just pay for it later, et cetera. Once I had thoroughly explained that I just didn't have the money for it, considering I barely had enough to cover the security deposit on the cell phone he had provided everyone in the group with, he let it go... and continued on a joke that should have been old, but was too funny to ever stop laughing.

Ramon: “Well, it's just a shame that you'll miss out on some incredible sights.”

Me: “Yeah, I know. I was really looking forward to it.”

Ramon: “Just make sure that the girls get lots of photos for you. Maybe you can make a poster.”

Me: “Wait, what are we talking about?”

Ramon: “My hot bod. <strikes Adonis pose> I plan to shock you all with my manly beauty.”

There are two things that you have to understand about Ramon to make this the most hilarious that it can be: one, that he is at least in his fifties if not in his sixties, so his body is not exactly drool-worthy; and two, he has an incredibly straight-faced humor that is the perfect opposite to Jesus' constantly-jolly personality. He's not serious at all about his “macho” stance, he's poking fun at himself and making those of us (mainly me) that are missing home laugh at least three times a day. He's also, as I'm sure that most of you are convinced, NOT a creeper. He's just got a hilarious dry sense of humor that likes to tease and poke fun.

Another example of Ramon's humor came out a few minutes later, when I was checking my e-mail:

Ramon: “I did not sleep well at all last night. It was incredibly frustrating, because that's the second night in a row that I've had this problem, and I can't figure out why.”

Me: “Hmm, I'm so sorry. Maybe it's the temperature? Or your pillows were at a bad angle?”

Ramon: “I don't know. How did you sleep? You don't seem as upbeat and energetic as you usually do.”

Me: (working on about four solid hours of sleep) “Yeah, you caught me, I slept badly the last two nights too.”

Before I could tell him that nightmares had kept me up, he continued in this manner:

Ramon: “Aha, well I know the reason for that. You were plagued with thoughts of the love you left behind in Harrisonburg.”

Me: (touched by the truth and deepness of this) “Well, perhaps a little.”

Ramon: “See, we can't have been up for the same reason. I don't have a boyfriend to lie awake and think about at night.”

Me: (trying not to laugh) “Mmhmm, that's it. It must be different.”

Ramon: “So, talking about your lack of sleep, it was either your love that kept you awake, or your lust for the vision of me in my bathing suit.”

I've taken to going along with this line of humor, like when we went to Tapas later and he kept his coat on (because, honestly, it was a little chilly in the restaurant we were in), and I asked him, “Ramon, why don't you relax and take your coat off?” and he replied, “because it would be too much for Jessica (who was sitting on his right) to handle, and I can't make her faint right in the middle of cena.”

Needless to say, I totally love Ramon and his sexy bod <3