My First Day of Teaching

Note about timeline: I'm writing every day as things happen on a word document or journal, but I'm often a few days behind on the blog (because it takes longer to upload pics, and often my internet connection is just so-so, etc.) So, I apologize that your updates are a few days behind, but it is still much faster than a postcard!!

So, today was my first day to teach at the University, and as I was loading up the computer, I realized uh oh . . everything on the computer in the classroom is in Spanish! Ok, I know all of you smarty pants out there are thinking . . .so what? That is because you think you know where all the icons are to start the computer or login or select certain documents, but you should try to do it in a different language! I promise it is not that easy. Even when I logged in, I had to keep trying to remember which button was which. One of the students came to the rescue, and we were able to get the computer started, and get class going. Once we got going, things felt comfortable again. Whew!
That brings me to another topic. Many of you know that one of my favorite things is my Pandora station that I'm always playing in my office or at Psychology Club events (for those of you who don't know Pandora, it is like a radio station that you create for yourself); however, when I tried to logon to Pandora on my laptop here in Spain, guess what happened? It was quite an odd, spooky, big brother moment! I got a message on my computer that said (I'm paraphrasing but not by much), "Hi, We believe that you are in Spain right now. Congratulations, that sounds like fun! However, we apologize, but unfortunately, we cannot offer the Pandora service in Spain at this time . .blah blah blah."
I couldn't believe that Pandora knew where I was, and wanted to congratulate me on my travels, and then tell me sorry, charlie, but no Pandora for you. I know I should realize that this is the modern age with wireless internet and satellites etc. but that still seems weird to me that Pandora knows where I am. Very odd! I'm being tracked by a radio station that I created! Also, Samara, there is no Netflix in Spain either so I couldn't do the trial version to get those documentaries for class (but good idea anyways!) (I guess I should have expected all of these things to happen because when I first logged onto the laptop in Spain, Google was also in Spanish (as was my blog at first). I've really got to get better at this Spanish language thing!

After teaching for 4 hours, the students were exhausted (the room is very very hot). I'm sure my lecture was interesting, right? (It had to be the heat, right?) So, we headed back for lunch, and that early evening, we had an event for students who had been in the Spain program that St. Thomas used to have. It was a 2/2 program where students from Spain spent 2 years going to college in Spain and 2 years at St. Thomas University. Most of these alums were about my age and had graduated from college in about 1995. Dr. Angulo was there, Cristina Lopez (who is from Spain), and Carmen (a wonderful student of mine who also lives in Spain). Cristina and Carmen were both very helpful before I left for Spain . ..giving me tips and pointers, and it was good to see them and tell them that things were going well.  By the way, I was going to actually do my hair this night and wear it down for the first time in Spain, but that is an impossibility! Let me elaborate! In my room, I have a hair dryer. Great! However, the power of this hairdryer is about the equivalent of someone blowing lightly on my hair. Seriously! There is NO WAY that thing could every dry my hair. So, one of the students Margaret had a hairdryer and converter so she let me borrow it, but after about 2 minutes, the converter started smelling like it was going to burst into flames at any second. So, rather than burn down the hotel, I decided to go with putting my hair up. Also, I have no way to get my curling iron to work, and I have yet to even see a curling iron in a store in Spain. So . . .  it looks like I will have my hair up for the remainder of my month in Europe. Here are some pics from the get-together.