First day at school

After a few days of being here I had successfully located my school and knew roughly which direction I'd need to go in for the beach, centre, hostel, etc.

I got up, grabbed some breakfast and headed to school for 11am as agreed with Inma. I got there a tad early and thought that I'd just check out the reception area and get a feel for the school. I told the receptionist I was waiting for Inma, that we had an appointment at 11am in my best Spanish. Clearly my best Spanish wasn't quite good enough. A lady stood at reception took me to Inma's lesson, pulled her out of it and showed her that I was there. I smiled. I then got accompanied by this lady from reception (Rossa) to the staff room, showed the coffee machine, the water machine and was asked to wait there. I mooched around the place, saw some announcements on the noticeboard written in Spanish and in the worst handwriting. Interesting... Whilst waiting I met one of the teachers that I'll be working with (there are six English teachers altogether and I'll be working with five) and the IT teacher - the latter doesn't speak any English so that was quite fun. I took advantage of the 'Melillenses' (people that come from Melilla) and asked what 'El Real' was like. I was told that it's not a bad area and the second most expensive, after the beach front.
Inma came and met me when the bell rang and talked me through my timetable with another female English  teacher that I'll be working with (Fuensanta). I have ten lessons a week of 50 minutes each and I have Fridays off. Cushty! She wanted to take advantage of me being there and so has spread me across most classes (15 years up to 18) and I have one timetable for one week and one timetable for another. I'm pretty happy with that.
When I got chatting to Fuentasanta she explained that she lives in 'El Real' and that if we sit down together and look at our timetables she might be able to give me a lift some days. So... things are all falling into place as I was told so many times by you lot!

I went to two classes on Monday. The first was the 17 - 18 year olds. I introduced myself, answered any questions they had for me and then just watched the lesson happen. They staged some phone conversations. The teacher got me and the class to correct them on their mistakes and then they had a debate about whether or not it's a good thing to be 18. One lad spent all lesson quite openly playing with his zippo which was quite distracting but the teacher didn't seem to mind so I didn't rock the applecart.
The second lesson was the 15 - 16 year olds. I went through the same routine; introduced myself, answered the same questions from before but with a new class and then this time the teacher asked me to go around the class and get the pupils to describe themslves as well. There was a hum of noise throughout the class but coming from one kid in particular. He would interrupt other pupils by shouting out to the teacher "How do I say '....'?" or was just generally shouting out above other people. When it came round to his turn he wanted to know my second name (I told him no and said you're not looking me up on Facebook, sneaky!). The class roared with laughter. He asked me if I liked to party (when I said yes he invited me to a party, I gracefully declined). The class roared with laughter. He asked me if I had a mobile phone number (I said no and then asked him to ask me again politely). He asked me again, politely (I said no and gestured brushing dirt off of my shoulder). The kids screamed with laughter. He was relentless! When the kids were done with me the teacher told me I could leave and as I stood up I got a round of applause before leaving. I think I was a hit!

I headed back to the hostel, helped Annalisa try and find somewhere to live in the afternoon and went to a nice Italian restaurant near the beach in the evening. We came back to the hostel and hit the hay.

My first day at school done. That wasn't so hard...!