Thursday

I have just bought the most delicious chocolate ever! It is milk chocolate with coloured bits like smarties in it. Very yummy!

I am so impressed with the quality of teaching at Málaga ¡Si! The 2 teachers I have are so different, but both are amazing! Whilst Teresa is like a flamboyant actress and carries us along with her enthusiasm and drama, Sergio is calm and patient with a twinkle on his eye. I have learnt some extremely complicated grammatical concepts this week and the lessons are entirely in Spanish. I never imagined that I would be able to learn so much in just 4 days.

Teresa's lesson briefly revised what we have been doing with the subjunctive in present and imperfect. I was thrilled to remember something I had read on a sheet the other day and got something right that no-one else knew: when the word that expresses probability (maybe/perhaps etc) is at the end of the sentence, you do not use the subjunctive, but stick to the indicative. I now know how it feels to be a star student! We then looked at SER and ESTAR (the 2 verbs 'to be' in Spanish). I have taught this, so am quite comfortable with it and was able to relax a little bit!

In Sergio's textbook lesson, we read an excerpt from a book by Gabriel García Márquez (he also wrote 100 Years of Solitude) and answered questions about it. There was a lot of vocabulary that I didn't know, so much frantic dictionary searching took place!

Then it was Sergio's grammar lesson. I really enjoy this because there are only 2 of us in the class and so it feels really special. The other student, a German girl called Laura, is very nice and her Spanish is somewhat weaker than mine. She is only here for 2 weeks, so I wonder if anyone else will join us or if I will be on my own when she goes. Today we looked at when you use the pretérito perfecto (I have eaten) and when you use the pretérito indefinido (I ate). I kind of knew this, but was quite hazy because French doesn't use the indefinite past much and we use it differently in English. The way Sergio explained it was so clear and methodical and now it makes total sense! I find myself using the tenses I have been learning/revising - the first time, I have to think "which tense, what is the stem, what is the ending???) and then the next time it feels natural. It is like my brain has been crying out to learn Spanish properly and now I am letting it do what it so yearned to do - I love learning!

After a quick chat with my parents, I headed to the beach. I even had a little swim in the sea when I got too hot sunbathing! I bought a Telegraph today and was extremely pleased with myself when I completed the cryptic crossword, although am not sure why 28 across is 'dressed'.

I finally got myself a tarjeta bus today which means each bus ride I use costs just €0.70 instead of €1.10. You pay €1.80 for the card and then top up however many trips you want in multiples of 10 at a cost of just €0.70 each. I might even treat myself to a bus ride into school tomorrow instead of walking...

Now I need to go and do my homework!