Summer Camp

This post may be a little preliminary, seeing as I don´t officially start teaching until Monday, but I´m preoccupied with a few things and need to just disconnect from my brain a bit.

Today has been awful. I had to wake up at 4:45 to catch a 7am flight to A Coruña after not sleeping much the past few days. When I arrived to the airport, I was informed by the lady at the check-in counter that the information listed on my printed boarding pass regarding luggage was erroneous – I had a limit of 23 kilos (about 50lbs) between both bags, not 23 in each. I was at 39 kilos, so I had to chuck a whole ton of stuff away. Out went some souvenirs (paper stuff, really), two pairs of shoes, some old pictures, a book, half of my markers, two sweaters that I likely won´t wear and half of my shampoo and conditioner. So sad, but the lady was impressed with my esfuerzo and ignored that I only had 25 kilos, so I didn´t have to pay 180€ for the extra weight. To think if I were going home, I wouldn´t even need most of it because it´s all teaching crap!!

I got on the flight and to the site without a problem. 75 degrees was a welcome change from 110 in Sevilla, and I still marvel at the fact that grass exists in some places in Spain. There was another girl there, so we had breakfast together and went to the city center to get snacks for our rooms. We´re staying in a residence high in the hills over the bay in doubles. It´s just like being back in Burge, but with a burner and a bathroom. The bus with most of the others didn´t arrive until 6pm, so it wasn´t until then that I met other people and my roommate for the next three weeks, Jessica. We had a general meeting in which we went over the rules and the campgrounds, found our classrooms and prepared for the exam tomorrow. Our director seems really great, and most people have worked under her before, so it makes me feel better knowing that the camp here runs smoothly and a lot of people return to work again. Tomorrow we do the placement exam and start planning classes with the other teachers assigned to our level. I think it will all work out fine, even with our makeshift classrooms and little chulos running around – I think there´s like 600 kids!!!