Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in muinteor's LiveJournal:

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Friday, November 27th, 2009
1:59 pm	Guess what I've been doing with my very valuable fre time? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qUYocB1Rxw (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, September 19th, 2009
12:06 am	Yu Ming Is aimn dom Here's a Chinese-Irish short film I saw on Spanish TV a while back, yes, with Spanish subtitles. Quite funny, but also quite sad for me. If Yu Ming were to run into me on the street, my conversation level would be uselessly rudimentary. I understand a lot of the Gaelic, but not everything. Need to get back to Gaelic, something I ignored during my schooling years. It was like Latin to me. I didn't know anyone who spoke it. My friend Tríona was luckier. She grew up in an Irish language environment. Ah, well, I learned to play the accordion. So here's the short film. It's only 10 mins. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA0a62wmd1A Here's something else. It's from Adam and Paul, my favourite Irish film of the last ten years (okay, I haven't seen many, but it's good, believe me, sad and funny). Do you understand the two Irish people speaking in this excerpt? I really like the Bulgarian guy, hehehe, and his description of Dublin is hillarious to me, full of liars, maniacs and Romanians. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c3tg1HZAvA&feature=PlayList&p=A226CED604D6D947&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=98 When he says "You fucking crazy stupid Irish" I giggled out loud and started laughing. Ana had already started laughing almost near the start. Yeah, go watch Adam and Paul. I love it, but it won't make you want to visit Dublin. By the way, when the Bulgarian guy says Dublin is a shithole, he is obviously not talking about all of Dublin, some parts undoubtedlly are, but others are not by a long shot. As a whole, Dublin is not a shithole, but that's just an opinion, just like many other things are, and it's my opinion, it just isn't, no way, not a chance. Dublin: Beautiful. Thanks. Éire go brá. (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 30th, 2009
9:35 am	Well, here we go again. End of July and I'm off again on another summer camp. Don't want to go though. I'd prefer to stay here and enjoy the rest of the summer in some really good company, but back in March I was remembering the joblessness of other summers in past years, and after last year's double camp bonanza which really helped the family economy, I thought it would be best to repeat. Now I'm already dreaming of September. Wish me luck. Have a good month yourselves, or at least the best month possible. Regards (that's a word I've been reading a lot in pre-camp mails, so I thought I'd use it myself). Joe. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, July 10th, 2009
3:55 pm	Quick update. Hey there, Just got a minute. I'm alive and well, but I don't have internet access right now, hopefully that'll change soon. I luff you all!. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
3:10 pm	So I must go away again. So today’s my last full day in Gijón before the long haul of July’s Summer camp. Then there’s August’s, but that’s easier.   Normally I’d have just as much free time before the camp, but this time I’ve been promoted to Director Of Studies, so that means I’ve had to organise the programme. So, sorry for not being around in any tangible way recently, or not so recently. I’ve been preparing this camp, and when I haven’t I’ve just been plain lazy. Sorry.   Today saw the fruit of some of my work. The students’ cuadernillos are done, the placement exams too, and in general, the course is ready, as far as I’m concerned. Everything is ready. Nothing more to be done.   I’m checking stuff, though, and looking at the material, and I think I’ve done the best work possible. Now there’s nothing more to do than go over it again. I’m reminded of a song by King Crimson. This song actually reflects the creative process I’ve gone through, except for repeating myself when under stress.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoVOY9XGDBI   Enjoy the song. I love it. It’s a pity it breaks off at the end. There’s at least 5 minutes of Robert Fripp amazement after the cut. Best Bass player in the world. Check him out if you don’t know him.   See you later.   Grá mór Joe. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, June 12th, 2009
3:01 pm	Leadership again... Creatively, this has been my worst year ever, nothing written, bad or fallen-through RPG campaigns, broken promises, a desert of ideas.   Professionally, this has been my best year ever, and curiously this happens during the 20th anniversary of my new job, teaching English as a foreign language. Yes, it was 20 years ago that I embarked on my great adventure, emigrating from Ireland (just before the economic boom there, that’s just like me) and coming to Spain to start a new life. After many years of struggling, high points and low points, I now feel that professionally, I’m entering a Golden Age.   I work summer camps, as a teacher, as you may well know, and I love it. In fact, I love it more than my regular 9 month regular course teaching job. So earlier this year, my summer camp boss and personal saviour sent me a mail, saying he wanted me to be director of studies at this year’s camp, but he had to talk to people. I was like “Like that’s going to happen,” me director of studies, like, me… I’m a teacher, rank and file.   Well, I had to call my new higher-up boss, for an over-the-phone interview, and I thought it went okay, I mean, I answered all her questions honestly, and after that there was radio silence. I mean nothing for a very long time, and I got to thinking that I’d messed up the interview somehow, and that maybe I wasn’t even in the loop anymore. Yes, I have been called paranoid from time to time.   Then yesterday I got a mail. It said something like “Joe, since you are our director of studies, and there are two weeks to the start of the camp, I think you should tell me your ideas for the camp.”   I couldn’t believe it. I’d almost given up on that job, but it turns out I’m going to be teachers’ leader. I wanted to tell complete strangers this event, but of course, I didn’t.   Luckily I’d been working on this, and I have something to show my new boss.   Yesterday this seemed much more exciting, I’m only sorry Ana wasn’t here to celebrate it with me, but it was probably better that she was care taking in Oviedo, because it took me two hours to respond to a simple mail, careful wording, pencil behind the ear, and the end result was good, I humbly admit, and my new boss got back to me today so now the wheels are turning.   Today I’m more detached, more analytic, more thoughtful. I’ve got less than two weeks to finish the preparation of the study program. Tomorrow is the second weekend of Cambridge exams, and yes, I’m working as invigilator again, which means early-rising, but a very good feeling.   To finish, so much more to say, but right now, better to just to leave it be.   (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, June 6th, 2009
10:22 pm	Writer's Block: It Sounds Better When You Say It No matter what language you speak, you've probably come across words or phrases in another language that sound better than their equivalents in your native tongue. What's your favorite word or phrase in a foreign language? View 507 Answers I speak English and Spanish and I live in that delightful Spanish principality of Asturias, (yes, there's a prince) and my favourite word usage in another language comes from Asturian Spanish. "ón" and "'in" (pronounced on and een) as suffixes, mean big and small respectively. So, the name Miguel can be modified as Miguelón (big John) or Miguelín (little john). That's masculine, for the feminine form, add an "a". So with a feminine name like Clotilda, you can get Clotildona (big Clotilda) and Clotildina" (little Clotilda). The same for things, the word for house is "casa", you can say Casona and casina, or the word for mill is "molino", and you can say molinín or molinón. Dog is "perro" or "perra" and you can say perrín or perrína, never heard perrón or perróna yet, guess there aren't many people here who say their dogs are oversized. (Comment on this)
Friday, May 1st, 2009
3:30 am	There's this show on Spanish TV which I can never watch, because I have to go to work and I always miss it. Well, during the last couple of weeks, some students who are home when the show's on, told me about this Asturian guy who was really amazing. See what happened yesterday. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_AAgSn-WXY&feature=popular (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
1:15 pm	A great film. Two Irish hitmen is an old Belgian town. I love this film. Watch it here, and maybe we can talk about it? Here's the Youtube link. If you have an hour and a half to spare, check it out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ilO75OmtUo&feature=PlayList&p=D3FE4541EA9A6929&index=0 Bruges is not a shithole, by the way. In Spanish the name of the town is Brujas, and I can understand that. Strange town. Anyway, enjoy the film, and if you can understand Colin Farrel, your English is really good. (Comment on this)
Friday, March 27th, 2009
2:10 pm	Confessions of a Repo KId. I’ve done many jobs in my time, I’ve been a shop assistant (maybe the toughest job I’ve ever done), a courier with a travel agency (I once delivered urgent air tickets to the Russian embassy in Dublin on a Summer evening, with a deadline, sprinting across the city on my bike to get there on time, and I made it), a butcher’s apprentice for a day (I became a vegetarian after that), an assistant computer programmer (back in 1983, black screen, green letters, punch card reader, huge disk drives, yes, it’s true, the prehistory computer technology, and I was there), a factory worker (12 hour shifts, 9 pm to 9 am are no fun, and less so if you’ve got an hour’s commute before and after, lowest point in my working life), and would you believe it, repo man? I was a Repo kid really. I was seventeen years old, and it was the Summer of 1982. I’d just completed my basic education, just out of school, and Eddy Grant’s “I don’t wanna dance” spent three weeks at number 1 on the UK top ten. It seemed that was all that was on the radio. The song with a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9de6jeOevi8 It was also when this song by Men at work was popular: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNT7uZf7lew I was kind of a reggae kid? Another song that formed my soundtrack at the time. Those were the days. Dexy’s Midnight Runners, what a band. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXLHUThBib8 So I took a job with a Supermarket, retrieving shopping trolleys that had been taken and not returned. I’d also do shelf packing and other stuff when I wasn’t doing that, but the main part of the job was looking for and getting back shopping trolleys. I was part time, but there was this man who did it full time, and I was his assistant. I can’t remember his name, but I can remember his face and his voice. He was a grizzled unshaven man in a flat cap and tweed jacket, and he reminded me of the Irish actor Milo O’Shea, who I really liked. So, there were 50 trolleys at the supermarket, let’s say, and there were always some missing, sometimes as many as half, which was a worrying thing for the company, hence us. Since I can’t remember his name, I’ll call him Frank, which is a name that would have suited him. So Frank had a beat up van, which we used to pick up the lost trolleys. Sometimes I’d go out alone, and walk them back, but the best times were when “Frank” and I drove around to pick them up. We were so different. I was a seventeen-year-old just breaking into the working life, I couldn’t go to university, I didn’t make the grades, plus my parents wanted me earning cash for the family economy. I didn’t mind, and in fact, at the time I had no idea what I wanted to study, if anything, so it was okay by me. Also there was a mature students’ programme at university, if you were over twenty-five, you could get easier access to courses. I figured I’d work a few years and then go to university. To be or not to be? Not to be. When I was twenty-five I was already here in Asturias, after a devastating 1989, Year of the Snake (but that’s another story) and I’d met Ana, and was busy working still, this time in English language teaching after a hasty TOEFL course (later they would modify that so that non-university-grads couldn’t take that course), so I put off my university education until some later date, I’m 43 now, and I think maybe next Year of the Snake in 2013? 48 seems like a good age to go to university. It’s like trying to read Ulysses by Joyce when you’re twenty, you’re just not ready for it. “Frank” had had many helpers, there was a high turnover in the job, and I was the one he was working with just then. As I was saying, this man and I were so different, you could tell he’d worked hard all his life, I couldn’t tell if he was thirty or sixty, I’ve always been bad at judging people’s ages, but with him, it was extremely hard to tell. Anyhow, the job sometimes involved stealing back trolleys that had been stolen. People kept them for some reason or other, and I have a distinct memory of one evening. There was a house in Edenmore, one of the worst imaginable North Dublin neighbourhoods, worse than Greencastle, and someone had tipped “Frank” off that a troublesome family had three of our trolleys in their back garden. There was a lane behind the house, and “Frank” drove the van to the entrance of the lane, which was too narrow for the van, and he told me the plan. I was to climb the wall and get into the garden, open the back gate and quietly retrieve the trolleys. I did. Despite my fear of heights, when it was dark I climbed into the cluttered back garden, which was full of stuff, and keeping an eye on the house opened the gate to the lane. The first two trolleys, I got without any trouble, wheeled them out into the alley, and “Frank” loaded them onto the van, while I went back for the last one. Of course, that’s when it all went wrong. They’d filled the last trolley with paint cans, and I had to lift them out. At that stage there was someone in the kitchen, just a few metres from me. I managed to empty the trolley, and start to move it out, but it made a squeaking noise, which alerted the people in the kitchen, they came out, and I was already pushing the thing out the gate, into the lane, and towards the van. They were running after me, but I made it to the van, and “Frank” was waiting, we threw the trolley into the van, jumped in, with the angry family banging and kicking the van, and we drove away. We stopped half way back to the supermarket because if we’d arrived sooner we’d have to do more stuff. That was common with “Frank”, so we just sat here, and talked about stuff. Then we went back, got congratulated by the manager, and I went home. I didn’t stay in that job too long... (Comment on this)
Saturday, February 28th, 2009
11:34 am	What a surprise. Me posting something here. I think only about three of the six billion humans on the planet will read this, but I’m writing this as much for myself as I am for you. So I wanted to tell you about some dreams I’ve been having. First, though, a question. Have you ever woken up in the middle of a dream, a not so nice dream, and smiled, knowing that if you stay awake a little, and then go back to sleep, you won’t go back to the same dream? What is it with the human mind? Why can’t we dream what we want to dream? Maybe other people can, but not me. In my dreams I frequently find myself in situations I would not want to be in, but my mind generates these situations for me. For example, last night during a dream I found myself in a bustling street, with no idea what I was doing there, but I had no shoes and no trousers. I know that means something, but I don’t know what. During the dream I remember walking among the crowd, hoping that no one would notice, and no one did. What kind of zombies live in my dreams, where I can walk around a market place, trying to hide the fact that I’m half naked? I used to work in a retail store in Dublin, like twenty years ago. One night this week I dreamt I was working there. Everything was just as I remember it. Of course, there were other things mixed in with the working there, such as the manager speaking Spanish, which he didn’t, but I was working there again, and talking about stuff. My dreams are commonly work related, and the ones I remember sometimes have embarrassing situations for me to overcome. Like last night. Last night I had a dream, and in the dream, I was about to start a class. I opened my satchel, which I carry my class notes and stuff in, and it was empty. No material for the class, and no books either. The students were sitting there looking at me, and I thought I’d go get my notes. Silly idea, one I’d’ve never taken in real life, as I’m a great improviser. In the dream I went on a seemingly endless quest to get back to my room (it seemed to be a Summer camp thing, where teachers live at the school) but I was constantly sidetracked by other things, and I distinctly remember swimming in a river to get to the other side, so that’ll tell you the magnitude of the obstacle course my mind had set up for me. In the end I never made it back to the class, I woke up, and lay there in the dark, remembering the fleeting dream. Ana was asleep at my side, and I lay there, looking at the shadows the orange street lights throw on the bedroom walls, and eventually I went back to sleep. Weird shit, someone might say. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, December 14th, 2008
7:19 pm	A good vampire film? The other day I responded to MIlosflaca in a post of hers about vampire films, and then out of the blue yesterday, Ana's brother Dani showed me a trailer to a Swedish vampire film, the title was in Swedish, of course, and the trailer too, but we worked out that the title was "Let me in", Dani and Ana's mom is German, and well, while they're not all that similar, I think it's like Italian and Spanish, maybe? Anyhow, the correct translation I discovered is "Let the right one in" and on youtube I found this trailer. Not the one Dani showed me, but let me tell you, I want to see this film. I play the White Wolf vampire rpg on a regular basis, and sometimes Ana and I have fun while watching vampire films "Oh, that's a Lasombra" or "That one could be a Gangrel", even though the films in question have nothing to do with the White Wolf ambience, but you know how it is. I'm tired of Toreador vampires, I must say. The angst of it all. The tortured soul searching for redemption in beauty and love. With me, maybe it doesn't cut. Our vampire chronicles (that's what we call a campaign game of vampire) are filled with such likables as Dogface George, the pistol-touting dumster exploring City Gangrel low-life. Granny Crabtree, the Nosferatu who lives in the brook at the bottom of young Jimmy's garden. Her underwater lair contains many secrets. You want weepy? Go for Lambach, who'll share a drunk's blood with you, confess that he betrayed the city twenty years ago, and after listening to the recordings he makes of all his conversations (one can never be too careful when you're a high-profile low-life) he'll have the vampire privee to the information destroyed. What we're seeing in Twilight is vampire romance, and yes, it's a neat idea, but we've seen it before. Anyone seen "Bram Stoker's Dracula" by Coppola? I want real vampires, and maybe this film has them. Check it out. Here's the trailer. NOt the one Dani showed me, but hey, there are lots of trailers per film. Check this one out, hopefully it's good. The trailer certainly looks good. Wait a minute, I said the same about "Independence day" and "Stargate", but well, if the film is showing at a cinema near you, at least think about it. The trailer http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=50aI6zU-FTM It's called "Let the right one in" I hope to see it, but I'm in a small provincial town, so my chances are like... zilch? The rest of you, enjoy. (Comment on this)
Sunday, November 30th, 2008
8:15 pm	Good news. Ana is well. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 9th, 2008
7:11 pm	Happy Birthday, Marge. Many happy returns. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, September 26th, 2008
10:51 pm	I'm getting old... A funny thing happened to me this evening. I’d met Jeremy, who wanted to introduce me to the new teacher at the academy. Her name’s Gemma, and she’s about 20 years old. Jeremy had picked her up at the airport I think, her cases were in the boot of his car, and well, after the brief intro, Jeremy offered to drive us home. Gemma lives on the sea front, which is a coincidence. My first flat was on the sea front too. Well, Jeremy parked the car and we got the cases out of the back. It was a beautiful evening, with a nice pink horizon and a lovely warmth in the air, just right, you know? So I helped Gemma take her stuff up to her flat, and Jeremy waited in the street, he wanted to have a chat, and to have a drink. We went up in the lift. There isn’t a lift where I live, and her lift has music, or is it muzak? It was funny. We got off at the 7th floor, and we went into her flat. One of her flatmates was there, a Rastafarian, I think, maybe from Jamaica, or maybe from somewhere else. English wasn’t his first language, I think, but since Gemma and I were using English, and she introduced me to him in that language, I said “Nice to meet you” in English, right? So Gemma went to take her cases to her room, and I was there with the flatmate, and he looked at me after our handshake and he asked “Is she your daughter?” I explained that we were co-workers, and then Gemma came back, thanked me for the help and I left. I said goodbye to them and took the musical lift down to street level. I almost laughed on the way down. I’m starting to show my age. Yes, I’m old enough to be Gemma’s father, but I didn’t think I looked that old. Oh, well. So I met Jeremy in the street, and we went to a bar on the sea front, but the music was so loud we left without ordering anything, so we went around the corner to a typical Asturian cider restaurant/bar, a sidrería, and while we had a beer, I told him about being confused with our new co-worker’s dad, and we laughed. He told me that he is sometimes confused with people’s grandfather. We laughed about that too, finished our beer, and off we went. Now I’m home, and I told Ana the story. I thought I’d tell you too. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, September 20th, 2008
11:45 am	Irish bus stop story time and the beer machine. There’s so much I could say about my last summer camp, about the people and the places and the things that happened. I thought I’d write a ton of stuff about it, but I’ve written very little. Let me tell you about something that became a secret pleasure among a small group of us, namely Deirdre, Morgan and me. The beer machine had a lot to do with it, and the bus stop too. So the bus stop had this kind of shelter, and you could sit on the bench inside, or another bench outside. The beer machine was outside a pub on the other side of a little park. You could get coke, fanta and beer out of it. I think it was me who found out about the beer machine, but maybe someone else saw it first. I know I was the one who told Dee and Morgan about it. So, there’d been this Sunday, when the group had gone on an excursion, and someone had to stay behind with the sick kids, and there were a few, and I volunteered. When that day was over, and it was a long one, and I could do a whole post about it, but when the group got back from the excursion I got out of the place. I went to the bar across the park and had me a beer at a table outside. Beautiful sunny afternoon. There were a lot of people, and they’d taken the other chairs from my table when Deirdre (Dee) and Morgan turned up, also out for a walk. I don’t remember who suggested sitting at the bus stop just over the way, but it was me who suggested the beers. So we sat there, talking, and I decided to tell one of my stories. The one about Guido Oregano. We laughed about it, and about life’s twists and turns. We finished our beers, and it was just about dinner time, so we went back inside the building. During the meal there was some talk about “Irish bus stop story time” and there was a good laugh. The next day, when classes finished, I ran into Morgan and Dee, and Morgan said “Irish bus stop story time?” and I said “Sure.” I don’t remember who got the beers that time, but we sat there, and well, I told another story, this time my Dubliners story. During dinner Morgan retold my story and Bryan said it was impossible. I have to admit that Bryan is right there, what happened shouldn’t have happened, but it did. J Then Irish bus stop story time began to get a following among the teachers. Dee, Morgan and I were regularly telling our stories, but others started to join our circle, even the director, Itsaso, a.k.a. Itchy. It was late one evening, right at the end of our storytelling session when she turned up. It was already dark, we’d started the session late, we’d been to a local theatre with the kids, and well, it was dark, and we were sitting there, in the streetlamp light, and Itchy asks if she can tell a story. It was late, and it was getting chilly. In summer Spain can be hot by day, but can also be cold by night. Palencia is one of those places. “I have a story to tell.” Says Itchy, and well, beer was paid for at the vending machine outside the bar. Somebody went for blankets. We were just wearing summer wear. So four blankets came and we each snuggled up, a beer can in our hands on the bench in the bus shelter. We looked like homeless people, I’m sure. We sat there, and passers-by passed by, looking at us. They knew we weren’t homeless people. They knew we were the teachers from the ex-orphanage summer camp, but who knows what they thought of us. There we were, telling stories at night, wrapped in blankets and drinking beer. Itchy’s story, while kind of funny, broke one of the circle’s unsaid rules… stories had to be true. The one she told us, she had written, and was fiction. In was thankful her story was fiction because there was violence to a little animal involved. Many stories were listened to in that place last month. We didn’t have TV or anything like that, we just had each other. That’s where stories, accordions, guitars and clarinets come in. (Comment on this)
Thursday, September 11th, 2008
1:10 pm	A story about working with people. So one of my most comfortable friends posted something about sharing tastes with a co-worker and something came to mind. Last month I worked in a very small town in the province of Palencia called Carrion de los condes. Now, obviously I didn’t really want to go to a place called Carrion, because, as you know, the word comes from the latin “caro” which means carcass, like a dead animal. Now, I’m a vegetarian, and to go to this place to work for a month was kind of daunting. There, I met a man from Missouri called Morgan. I also met a dozen other marvellous people, but Morgan and I had some things in common. One of those was age. Another thing was music. He had a clarinet with him. I had an accordion. We played “gypsy music” together to the delight of the kids, and a tune from the Amelie soundtrack. Yann Tierson composed some great music for that film, and one day I heard Morgan practising a theme from the film on his clarinet. He hadn’t quite got it, and I knew the melody, but had never tried to play it. I play by ear. I’m musically illiterate. Let me listen to a song and I’ll beat it out of the box for you, but show me sheet music or ask me for an “E”, and I’m flummoxed. So I knocked on Morgan’s door, my accordion on my shoulder, and I told him that I could help him with that song. So we went down to the basketball court where there were some steps to sit on, and we played for a while, trying to work out the song, and we did it. Kids came when their class finished, and Morgan and I were playing pretty well. When we finished we agreed it needed work, but thought it had a future. I made a joke about “Guitar Hero” making a bet with Morgan about which would be created first “Accordion Hero” or “Clarinet Hero” and we laughed about that. The first thing I noticed about Morgan, though, was a tattoo on his arm, a trumpet with a mute inside. That’s the symbol Thomas Pynchon uses in his novel “The crying of lot 49” and it represents a group that opposes the postal service. I hadn’t mentioned it when we first met, but when one of the monitors asked its meaning I ventured the answer, which, I imagine, impressed Morgan, because he looked at me and smiled. We exchanged books too. I gave him “The third policeman” by Flann O’Brien and he gave me “A civil action” by Jonathan Harr, which I devoured in three days. We used to ask each other stuff, and we’d either know about it, or not. The last time I saw him he took my hand and said “Joe, it’s been real.” Then I got on a bus. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, August 15th, 2008
6:25 pm	So that's the first fortnight over. It's hard to believe that exactly two weeks ago I arrived here in this little town, met a bunch of people, and the following Sunday a hundred Galician kids, but that's how it is. Last weekend a new teacher came after another teacher dropped out. It's been so great having Morgan around. He's got a clarinet and we've been playing together, kind of gypsy-style stuff and it's been wonderful. I haven't played with another musician for over 10 years, so it's been hard. Just as if I hadn't had a conversation with someone in 10 years, the first few attempts would be strange. But it's good to be playing. Jamming, he calls it. I like that. So tomorrow morning I'm going to Galicia with 3 other teachers to accompany the kids on their trip home to Santiago and Ourense. We'll stay over in Santiago and will come back on Sunday with the next group, another hundred kids. Then thirteen nights more, and I'm free. I'll be accompanying the next group back to Galicia too, and that's where my work ends for the Summer. I'll catch a bus east to Asturias, and I'll be home at midnight on Saturday 31st. More updates before then. I'm so looking forward to getting back to my own life again. Love you. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 11th, 2008
6:00 pm	So it's Monday again, and the second week with our camp here in Carrion de los Condes begins. Yesterday we went to Burgos, on Saturday to Aguilar de Campoo, and both were fine. This Saturday will be the departure of the group, and a group of us will have to go to Santiago de Compostella to accompany the kids, then we'll spend the night at a hostal there, then accompany the next group, another 100 kids back to Carrion, for the following two weeks, after which I'll have to make the trip to Santiago again. From there I'll catch a train or coach to Gijón, and that'll be the end of my Summer camp experience for this year. Not much more to say right now. Not so much time. Got another class to teach. More news soon. Miss you, much loved ones. (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 2nd, 2008
1:08 am	In Madrid again. So, I made it to Madrid, and managed to make my way to the Buenos Aires Hostal. Tomorrow I'm off to Palencia for another month's work. There'll be an internet connection, so I'll let you know how I'm getting on, and I'll try to keep up with what's going on round here. A big hug from hot, hot, hot Madrid. (6 Comments |Comment on this)