Far be it from me to ridicule other people's attempts at learning and speaking another language... But that's basically what I'm gonna do for the next couple of paragraphs, so if you don't like it, look away now.
I have said in the past that I'm getting a bit bored of teaching English, and part of that is definately hearing the same mistakes repeated over and over again by different or the same people. You have to be very patient sometimes. Missing the 's' when using the third person, mispronouncing 'work' and 'walk', 'v's and 'b's, and, worst of all, would ("gould"). These are the bread and butter of the English teacher in Spain, and by god do you get tired of them. The worst thing is when you start doing it yourself. I've said 'do a mistake' a couple of times over the last couple of weeks - its catching!
Sometimes, you do get some good laughs out of it though at least. The number of times someone has sat opposite me and told me with a look of intense concentration on their face that they are "shitting in this chair"... There was also someone who didn't believe in goats (ghosts), someone pondering how long it would take to get to New York by sheep, as well as many unintentionally hilarious uses of the phrasal verbs 'to make out', 'to get off', 'to come out' and 'to turn on'. Their attempts at swearing aren't much better. I once asked a young student how the weather was and he enthusiastically responded "It's fucking!". Better get a brolly then.
Still, at least I'm not teaching as many hours anymore, for the same, if not more, money. In the end, I only got one private class from my ads, but that was more because of my schedule being full than lack of interest, and I actually passed on a few classes to friends. The agency company has given me more hours, so I've now got 28 a week, which at €20 an hour, is plenty. Mind you, I've still got a bit of a way to go before I actually break even on coming here, but I will definately have by the time I go back for summer in June. (I have a budget for the first time in my life).
I had a fun weekend, including going for a good Senegalese meal (I think, it was my first) in Lavapies and going back to Pantera near Plaza de Espana, which is one of the better clubs I've been to here, playing crunchy electro from about 2007 (pretty cutting edge for Spain) and of course going on til about 7am. I've not been too impressed by Madrid's clubs so far actually, but that said I still haven't been to the biggest, Kapital, which is supposed to be pretty impressive, or Sala Heineken about which I hear good things too, although I'm sure they're both quite pricey. (I said I had a budget, I didn't say I was going to stick to it).
I also became an admin for this facebook group called 'I know this great little place in Madrid...' this weekend too, which is well worth having a peep at if you live over here.
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