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I’ve been caught! Tragic. I had to block that puppy right up.
The Day My Students Finally Found Me On Instagram
When I See A Cute Old Spanish Couple Holding Hands
What I Think When My Students Wear A Fanny Pack Around Their Chest Trying To Be “Gangster”
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A Review of the Auxiliar de Conversacion Program from a Bilingual Secondary School Auxiliar in Madrid
I work as an auxiliar in a bilingual secondary school a forty-five minute bus ride away in a wealthy suburb outside Madrid. Here is my looooong post breaking down the different facets of how I found my time on the job.
There she is! IES Jose Saramago, nestled at the foot of Las Sierras in Majadahonda!
I think the concept behind the auxiliar program is great. I truly think we are making a difference with these kids (especially in the bilingual schools) and finding a way for the kids to have regular contact with native speakers without giving all the teaching positions to foreigners seems like the perfect balance between encouraging English learning without displacing citizens from job positions. I think the auxiliar program is a genius investment on Spain’s part and in the next generation I expect to see a totally different standard for English speaking Spaniards. What’s more, I think that the schools and their individual kids who take advantage of having access to a native English speaker will have a substantial advantage their whole lives and that fact alone makes me respect the program.
When A Stranger Calls Me Guapa (Which Is A Totally Standard Greeting)
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When The Textbooks Say Someone Is Going To “The Disco”
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Annie WWOOFing in France
Traveling abroad is all the rage right now, with websites like Elite Daily posting articles what feels like daily about how to take advantage of your twenties and travel abroad. The question is how? Even though as young people now is the time, most of us don’t have much money! Teaching abroad is one great option, and in my opinion WWOOFing (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) offers one of the best opportunities out there by letting young people trade work on organic farms in exchange for room and board and a bit of money in foreign countries. It is even cooler because you can travel around WWOOFing for varying amounts of time. For my friend Annie, who studied Human Nutrition, Food and Exercise and French, it was the perfect choice. She was sweet enough to give some great insight into what its actually like to go WWOOFing and what steps you need to take to do it. So, if WWOOFing may be for you, please read more below to find out about Annie in France!
When It Rains On My Laundry Drying Outside For The Third Time In A Row
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The Truth About Living on an Auxiliar Budget in Madrid
A lot of times people wonder how I can pay for all this. It is a legitimate question. It is written all of the internet so the wage itself is not a mystery, I have a base pay of 1,000 euros a month. But without context, its difficult to know what that “really” means. Let me lay some statistics on you in terms of relative wage and cost of living in Spain. Officially 1/3 of Spaniards make the legal minimum wage, which is 645 euros a month for full time employment. An entire third of the country lives their life and raises their family with this wage. Then, according to the Insituto Nacional de Estatistica, the official median wage is just under 1,7000 euros a month. With this in consideration it is clear that Madrid auxiliars are far from poor, on the contrary, I believe that makes us solid middle class. In fact, there is an official title for people in our wage bracket, mileurista. I highly recommend this article to give some background on what a mileurista is and how it is highly representative of Spain’s deeper economic problems. Translated literally mileurista comes out as “thousand-er” or “one who makes a thousand.” A few years ago, before the crisis hit Spain, it was considered a big social problem because young people were typically paid 1,000 euros, which was enough to live on but made it difficult to raise a family, or buy a car, or pay for a mortgage, or invest, which was bad for the economy and Spain’s declining birth rate. But now, 1,000 euros for a young person is considered a luxury, and in the few times when I’ve told Spanish friends how much I make, they always gasp “pero eso es mucho! But that’s so much!” To be honest, I prefer not to tell Spanish friends my wage because it seems tactless. Most young Spaniards would be extremely lucky to be making that wage.
Left Panel: A Few Years Ago… “I’m a mileurista” ..”Oh, poor thing!”.. “What an embarrassment!”..”So exploitative!”..”What a miserable wage!” Right Panel: Present Day… “I’m a mileurista”..”Wow, how lucky!”.. “I’m so jealous!” ..”But you’re so unqualified!”.. “I wish I got paid that much!” (source)
So socially, being paid what we are is extremely enviable. Our income and cost of living definitely permits small luxuries and travel to be completely feasible, albeit in an unsustainable way. Let me break my budget down for you:
The Social Chafes of Multilingualism
Learning a new language is hard, right? Right! And on top of just that, being (or trying to be) multilingual comes with a whole host of social norms to think about that would never have been an issue for our monoligunal counterparts. As any language assistant knows, half the battle of speaking a different language is growing some cojones about speaking and feeling confident in your language abilities even though they aren’t perfect, meaning your ego and your new language skills are tightly intertwined. The mere act of picking the common language to speak in reveals a lot about how the participants view the situation and has the potential to offend the sensitivities another. For example, it is common sense for two people who do not speak the same native tongue to speak the highest common denominator. I have an Italian friend who speaks no English, so clearly together we have to speak Spanish as I don’t speak Italian. I have a Belgian friend who speaks some English, but has much stronger Spanish, so even though I prefer English as a native speaker, Spanish is still the highest common denominator and that’s what we speak in. With my German friend Sophie we both have equally high Spanish, but she has perfect English so while we can happily speak Spanish it is English that serves as our primary language. See where I am going with this? It’s not rocket science. But believe it or not, people can still be pretty rude about this. One night I went to dinner with four French people, a Swedish guy and an Argentinian. Everyone at the table spoke both Spanish and English to a certain degree. Despite this fact, the four French people refused to speak anything except for French even when they were repeatedly asked to switch to another common tongue. They petulantly ignored our pleas and took it one step further by moving from just speaking in French to singing traditional French songs that the rest of us would have no hopes of knowing as if their lack of interest on the other side of the table wasn’t obvious enough. If this situation would have gone down with all people speaking the same native language, the three odd people out might have felt unwelcome but it would have been impossible to confirm, it would have just been a suspicion or be interpreted in other ways. But when you are dealing with a multilingual group that refuses to speak a common tongue, it serves as a pretty straightforward slight that directly confirms any previous suspicion that the presence of others is unwelcome or unimportant and frankly is a quick way incite irritation or anger from the excluded party.
On the contrary from the rude Frenchies with whom I once dined, I had a much more positive experience in a group comprised of five Germans and me. Even though I was the only odd one out, they steadfastly stuck to English even in their asides to each other, which was an unequivocal demonstration of their efforts to make me feel included throughout the dinner and was a gesture that was wholeheartedly appreciated on my part.
Vivacious Voyager 
