Teaching and Mama Mia

Last Thursday I had the opportunity to do something I will never forget. I was asked to substitute teach for a college level business communications course. Talk about jumping in headfirst! I do not start teaching until January, so this was quite a jump start. The 3 hour long class was split between myself and an American colleague. I took the first hour and 15. I was offered to take any topic from the list on the syllabus, I chose to speak about argument, negotiations, theory, and influence. With a communications background and the training and classes I took at RBI professional sales school I felt more than prepared to take on this task. The most difficult part was not getting up and presenting in front of the students, it was just to be convincing with what I taught, solely because there were 40 18-22 year olds, probably thinking."What the hell does this guy know?" It didn't help when 8 different people out of the class said  apprehensively, "Are..you.. the professor?" For my first class of teaching, ever, in my life, I thought it went quite well. It took about a days worth of prepping, and I did the best I could with what I had, engaged the students with open dialogue and didn't trip on my words, or shoe laces. I almost feel bad for being such a wise ass in elementary and high school for those teachers who seriously take the time to put together lesson plans for a year long or semester course. Almost.

After I left class I headed to meet up with Pablo across town. One really cool thing I had the chance to experience was the musical Mama Mia here in Pamplona. The theater group, who puts on the show has been travelling throughout Spain for about 5 years, is making a two week stop here and I was able to take advantage. I really want to use my money wisely to experience Spain in an authentic, non touristy way. One way will be through my work which sends me throughout the country, and the other is through nights out doing something like this, seeing a Spanish musical or doing something only accessible to a Spaniard. I went to the show with Pablo and his girlfriend and we had  really good time. Some of the music or dialogue required Pablo to lean over and offer a quick synopsis of the conversation, but in general the language was clear and pronounced well in Spanish which made it much more understandable. What didn't need explaining was the all the Abba songs accompanied by flashy outfits.