Updates galore: Frisbee, private English classes, more strikes

Summaries of the second and third week of my ultimate fall league can be found here.  My team (Río Aluche) has yet to win a game, but check out the summary from week two.  Do it!  Just click on the link and scan "Partido 2" for a familiar name...

Maybe we'll have our first win tomorrow night.

In other news, the other week I put up fliers in my neighborhood and an ad online for private English lessons.  I received a handfull of messages from my online post, so I was able to sift through them and follow up with what looked best.  The site I used (and would recommend if you're looking to give or take classes) is tusclasesparticulares.com.

I called the mother of one family before I left for my tournament the other weekend, and on the following Monday night I went to their apartment to meet the kids.  And now I have students!

There are two 13-year-old girls, friends, that I meet with on Tuesdays and Thursdays for one hour of conversation practice.  Then on Monday evenings I meet with the younger brother of one of the girls (he's eight years old) for an hour of conversation as well.

Originally I simply stayed for two hours on Tuesdays, first with the girls, then with the younger brother, but it ended up being too late for him.  And since I have frisbee Wednesday and Thursday nights, we moved it to Monday.

One of the girls is crazy about Justin Bieber and they both spend their free time chatting with friends on tuenti.  Reminds me of the middle school days and how we spent our nights chatting on AIM even though we'd see each other every day at school... ah young teens.

Today the students at IES M told me there's another huelga tomorrow, so we'll see if any students show up at IES P for class in the morning.  After class today, the afternoon English teacher at IES M told me that there are planned strikes every 15 days on Wednesdays and Thursdays for the rest of the school year (or until the Consejería de Educación makes some changes, but this isn't likely).  That's every other week.  My Thursday class at IES P has already missed enough classes, they're a couple days behind our Monday class.  I hope they show up tomorrow...

I love all the time I spend in the classroom, though I never expected all of these strikes.  This is quite a year to be teaching in Madrid.