CuppaTea

I started writing this post sometime last year, and never got around to finishing it or posting it. So now I have added a bit about who I am here. I do rather enjoy those little quizzes that go around every now and then to determine which fictional character you are most like. I would love to know how people decide on questions, and how the results are calculated - actually, I change my mind, I'm very happy not knowing how it is done! Book Week Scotland have a quiz for 'Who in fiction are you?'. "You are Mma Ramotswe from The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Mma Ramotswe relies on her intuition and understanding of people, rather than attention to the details of the law, to help her solve cases. Her rare insight into how people work is something you share. Your quest for finding meaning in life draws you towards jobs that help you make the world a better place. Although you’re generally calm and laid-back, on bad days you can become introverted, stubborn and infl...

Before I came to Spain I had never seen snow falling, or walked through snow, or experienced freezing point temperatures. I can now say I have experienced all of these things! Neither had I spent much time in mountainous country. The streets can be fairly steep here! The view from the spring where I collect water! The steepest street I have a photo of so far! It seems that the view at the end of every street in this town includes a mountain! Many are capped in snow, and otherwise the dominant colours are the greens and browns of the trees on the slopes. Plus a brilliant blue sky – we have had over a week of beautiful sunshine. I have been informed by a local that they have pretty much had snow and no sunshine since November until after I arrived! At times the snow accumulated to be several feet deep! Sounds like moving around was pretty treacherous here for a while, and I must say I am glad to not have had to experience months of snow. It was pretty but cold, an...

I have had another birthday – and this one in Spain! It is the first time in my life that I have not been in my own home country for my birthday, but not the first time I have been away from my family for my birthday. If you have been reading my blog for the last year, you may remember that I wrote about what I did for my birthday last year. And as this one was so different from any other birthday I’ve had, I thought I’d share about this one too!

I want to backtrack a bit, and talk about what I did for the first two months of the year.   I was back where I had been studying, after spending Christmas with my family and friends at home. This time I was helping to teach the Summer School, in the Language Learning subject, one of the four Summer School subjects. Summer School is the minimum requirement for people in my organisation before they leave the country to work in another context. Language Learning as a subject prepares people to learn another language in a context where there may not be a language school, or a textbook, or indeed even anything written in the language at all! The method involves the learner planning the lessons, working with a native speaker as the expert in the language. The learner requests information in or about the language, and the Language Resource Person (LRP) responds. The class was divided into two groups, one to learn Indonesian and the other to learn Romanian, and I was tutoring...

A lot has happened in the months since I last wrote in this blog, and the end result has been my arrival in Spain for March to May this year. Some of the questions I have been asked a lot in the last week in Spain, as well as in previous months, is why Spain? Why did I decide to learn Spanish to begin with? So I thought I´d share the answers here with all of you, as I´m sure some of you are wondering the same thing.