Weekly summary..Week 5

Words this week; hijo (son) sobrina (niece) Ver (to see) voy (to go) cadera (hip) gordo (fat).


The weather…. Has remained sunny and warm for the most part of this week and is looking to be sunny for the weekend hurrah!! I have been trying to make the effort to at least walk along the beach most evenings after work which is lovely and watch the fishermen on the beach (as they are there most evenings). I ran a group on the terrace this week which was great but very hot for me let alone the residents…!!

Good things this week;
The challenge by the resident and the ‘entertainment’ by the ‘singer’ who was just mouthing to play back!! As you may have seen from my earlier post on the subject, it was a good experience and well received by the residents but the ‘entertainment’ was cringe worthy (a term I had to explain to my supervisor) to say the least and was initially hard not to laugh.

Continuing to improve my Spanish, although now I feel like I am in a strange twilight world that I am unable to speak Spanish or English at the moment – it is hard to explain but sometimes I know what I want to say but cannot think in either language I just seem to go blank…. Heaven help me when I return and have to write a research proposal….!!!

Finding the cocktail bar on the beach…. - which has helped the unwinding process at the end of the week…Don’t panic I am not turning into an alcoholic it was just nice to enjoy one whilst watching the sun go down on a busy week!!

This week has been very very busy with me running groups in place of other members of the team as they have been off on compassionate leave.

This incident is both frustrating and rewarding, in that I have been trying to teach an 89 year old Spanish resident to use the internet and email. This was really the hardest hour of my placement so far….!! We opened an email account (all instructions in Spanish of course!!) Then proceeded to email his son, it was a very slow process, not just because of the resident being slow but also my Spanish not being very good and having to try and write and understand the Spanish and what the resident was trying to say in the email..!! Anyway after about an hour we had about 3 lines written which we sent. The rewarding bit was the following day he had a reply from his son and now is highly motivated to use the internet, requesting me to work with him to access it and send emails… Very worthwhile…..!

Cooking class – the fish pie…!! It went well and was enjoyed by all the residents and my supervisor even enjoyed it, so finally she doesn’t have quite such a low opinion of English main courses..!!

Local school children coming in to sing to the residents – reminded me of my school days and musical efforts or outings whilst at school…!!

Another group of shildren came in on Friday to entertain us with flamenco dancing they were great, shame I didn’t get any pics of them in their flamenco costumes, only when they got changed to modern equivalent, but they were very good.

Frustrating times…
Trying to do washing and dressing training still which has gone better this week, however my supervisor is always one step ahead of me which is a bit frustrating.

It being very busy with a couple of members of the team off on compassionate leave, this has made it very busy for the rest of us. In a way this is better as it gives me the opportunity to do more things, however it means I have been rushing around more than usual…!!! We also had a fairly sudden death of a resident which was sad and alike many things here it is difficult to get the full story not due to lack of wanting to tell me just opportunity to ask and lack of understanding of Spanish.

Attending meetings in Spanish and understanding some but not all of it, and even when I so understand I am unable to contribute as I cannot think of the right words in time to comment on situations.

Missing the student conference at COT headquarters of which I had, had an input to the planning. Even more frustrating was that the student who was due to attend for Brunel had not read the information correctly and then was unable to attend. Thus I was disappointed for there not to be anyone from our BAOT Group there to represent Brunel.


Things to look forward to…
A fairly quiet weekend… I may go and see Jasbir if she is free but other than that not a great deal planned.

Planning the Easter break and identifying places to go and visit…!