it's the freakin weekend + some inspiration

I've got my first week back on the grind under my belt and it feels great! Today I woke up around 9, did laundry, cleaned my room, caught up on blogs, and now I'm ready to get of the house and start my weekend. I think this might be one of our last nice weekends in Madrid too, so I plan on taking advantage of every single second! 

plaza espana

My students are all so cool this fall too. In the spring I made the mistake of googling one of my students who worked at El Pais (one of the national newspaper) and found out that he was the deputy director. Ummm talk about intimidation. I knew he was high up in the company but I had no idea how high. He was such a down to earth guy though and our classes were mostly conversation, talking about his trips to the States and his kids and Spain in general. It was like getting free history lessons! Well I made the same mistake last night. Right now I have five classes at the same company, and to be honest I don't really understand what the company does, but it's affiliated with the Ministry of Industry, Energy, and Tourism and they focus on information and communication technology. Anyways, I was on the company's website last night and stumbled across the Board of Directors page....4 of 8 are my students. And one of them is the Director General. OMG! How am I qualified to teach people this important?! But again, you'd never know how high up they are. They don't like talking about what they do at work, but want to talk about me and what I think about Spain and yada yada. All of my students have really good levels of English, so our classes are about 80% conversation/discussion based on an article I bring in or current events, and the other 20% is a mixture of grammar refreshers, phrasal verbs (my favorite!), and idioms/expressions. I can't believe I get paid to spend an hour talking with these funny, intelligent people. I love it! 

Last night my student was asking me about my future career goals and whatnot, and he asked if I'd seen the graduation speech Steve Jobs gave at Stanford. I hadn't, so we watched it online and I wanted to share it here today because it's such a powerful message. He says that ""When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something."" I think this is such a good message. Obviously it's a decision that I made back in August, and not for one second have I regretted quitting my job. 

Enjoy! And happy Friday!