writing is hard

I've literally been working on my Málaga posts for the last two weeks and haven't made much progress. (This may speak more to my blog-related work ethic than anything else.) In lieu of a substantive post, I offer a GIF recap of some of last week's events:

Community, anyone?

- I'm working with a select group of 3rd ESOs (freshmen) in Global Classrooms, which you may know better as Model U.N. It's an optional class and as you may imagine, is comprised exclusively of baby policy wonks. I love them so much. Last week, I had the students vote on which Millenium Development Goal they find the most important. The top three vote getters were eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; reduce child mortality; and promote gender equality and empower women. Each "U.N. sub-committee" had to quickly write and deliver a presentation to the rest of the class, articulating the critical importance of the goal and offering potential solutions to the crisis. We ended the class with a (barely) moderated debate regarding how our hypothetical funds should be allocated amongst the three issues. You guys, they did such a good job. I think this would've been a challenging exercise for most American adults, much less for a bunch of 14 year old Spaniards whose first language is definitely not English. The kids were thoughtful and intelligent and I was basically like this the whole time:

- In less fortunate news, my sleep patterns are still super wonky, which means that I'm like this on a daily basis:

I

- I thought I was pretty lucky because I was one of the first profesores colaboradores de Washington to get a set class schedule; as it turns out, my schedule has changed every week thus far so oops, not that lucky. (I am completely okay with this arrangement, since I'm still working 12-15 hour weeks.) On Friday, I showed up to the science class I was supposed to be co-teaching and found...well, nothing, because they'd changed the classroom number and forgot to tell me. When I finally found the right classroom, it was like--well, I couldn't find a good gif for this, but remember that massive school-wide fight in Mean Girls? Yeah, picture that. Students were jumping over and under desks, making out in corners, and yelling across the room to each other, all while the teacher was trying to lecture. At one point, three full rows of students all squished themselves into a corner of the room so they could take a selfie. It was, in a word, mayhem. 

After the class, I had a nice chat with the teacher, who's this cute half-Spanish half-Serbian young hipster dude. (We had that chat in Chinese, by the way, because NBD, he speaks it fluently.) He casually asked me whether I spoke Spanish and when I responded "un poquito," he said "great, let's go see la directora and talk about your schedule," and towed me directly to her office. What followed was perhaps the most awkward half hour of my life--I literally sat between the teacher and the school's principal, while they had an increasingly bellicose conversation (in Spanish) regarding whether I should (her) or should not (him) co-teach the science class. I understood approximately 25% of what was going on, but trust me when I say it was so hella awkward.

Oh, Spain. Cheers to you and all your craziness.