1816 Woke up several times in night but finally got up a few mins late after abusing snooze. Made it to school a minute or two late but within usual margin of error; other students were getting coffee etc when I arrived, not as if they had all started.
Wasn't exactly ecstatic about going but didn't feel terrible. Teacher not particularly communicative, we had a terribly strained conversation about what little I had done the day before after class. We then went into the "do exercises in text books verbally" routine from yesterday. Hard to say exactly why but about 10am I had this growing ball of tension sort of feeling in my stomach and I simply couldn't concentrate on giving the answers because I had developed a second stream of thought along the lines of "what the fuck are we doing this for?" It had already got to the point where I'd just automatically search for the next exercise in the book to avoid asking the teacher what we were going to do next.
A little bit after 10 I peeked at my watch and decided to go get a coffee (not an unusual thing for either of us to do) to give myself a tiny break as I was feeling shite and wasn't sure I could last til the 10:30 break. I dithered with the coffee urn and basically went back to the courtytard where we were having the lesson and said in bad Spanish "I'm sorry, I can't go on with this, I need to go for a walk, can we have the break early?" and left.
Walked round corner and muttered to myself and dithered. It became evident my plan of extracting what value I could from the rest of the week was not going to work. I was tempted to "complain", but I didn't want a heart-to-heart, I didn't want to give the school a chance to fix things, I had got to the point where I simply resented the teacher's attitude so much I had lost all respect for him.
I *do* think he doesn't like talking to me, although I also feel he should make a fucking effort; it's not like I have been short or rude with him. However, I think he may also be feeling ill and be trying to get through the day with as little effort and involvement as possible. Which sucks, but *it is not my fucking problem*. I'm not paying to do fucking exercises in a book which I could do for free on my own. If he's not well enough to teach me properly he should call in sick.
Maybe the fact he started flicking through a comic book he had lent me to improve my Spanish with while we were doing these verbal exercises tipped me over the edge, but I don't know.
Last week there were ups and downs but this week it has just been shit and I didn't feel I could say anything, as waffled at length yesterday.
So I calmed down a bit on the street and decided that while I might get some short term satisfaction from complaining, I didn't want to be obliged to let them try to fix things, I didn't have enough respect left for the teacher to want to continue with him and I didn't want to feel half an hour later I'd been a stroppy arse - the short term satisfaction of blowing off steam doesn't last and is usually replaced by a feeling of being a twat IME. So although I was pretty sure I was through with the school, I decided I'd say I was ill and cry off for the rest of the day - that left the option open of going back tomorrow.
Luckily (?) it was still the official break when I went back into the school - I'm pissed off but essentially calm at this point - and teacher wasn't there, so I wrote a brief note saying I felt ill and was going home, sorry, have a good day - I think I wrote it in English - and collected my bits of paper (various grammatical book photocopies etc) and left, so I didn't speak to anyone.
I was pretty sure I was going to try to sign up with another school immediately, but I came back to flat and had a shower first to give me a bit of time to think. I then went over to school 6 to see if they could sort me out. I had a bit of trouble getting in, but as it was about midday at this point I could see half a dozen students having lessons in the courtyard and I chatted with the same bloke (presumably owner) I'd seen a couple of weeks ago.
I didn't name names or bitch excessively, but I explained that while I wanted to improve all areas of my Spanish and had no objections to learning grammar, I wanted to avoid spending hours of class time doing exercises I could more efficiently do as homework. I think this is fairly standard, it was only this week for whatever reason my teacher deviated hugely from this (there had been moderate amounts of grammar exercises in class previous weeks and in hindsight perhaps too much, but it felt tolerable at the time - not like the 95% exercises this week) but I wanted to be explicit before signing up. Anyway, I signed up to start there tomorrow at 8 for Q975 a week for the 8-1 schedule. School is essentially same walking time from this flat as old one. I also checked the name of the new teacher so I could be sure I wasn't somehow going to get the old teacher back, without saying "I don't want X". Credit where it's due, I may or may not have been smart to walk out but I haven't been too much of an arse about it, I've avoided badmouthing anyone.
I e-mailed old school tonight to give them a suitably flim-flammy unarguable excuse that I've been feeling stressed and need to stop studying, just to play it straight and not quietly disappear. They replied very briefly basically saying "OK, thanks for letting us know." They haven't mentioned the Saturday trip so I guess they don't expect me to pay; if they do e-mail me out of the blue to demand payment I will go on the trip - I'm allegedly suffering from stress due to studying, exercise is good for me (another advantage of not pretending to have food poisoning or whatever).
Do wonder if I should have complained in order to try to get some money back but I doubt it would have worked. If we assume I did get half this week's lessons, I've wasted about £45 on the half I didn't get. But I don't want to commit the sunk cost fallacy - that money is gone. The question was: would I sit through the classes for free, or would I rather do anything else? And the clear answer was that the classes had negative utility at that point - they made me feel shit and stressed out, so it didn't make sense to attend them even though they were free.
(Also, even if I *did* commit sunk cost fallacy and say I need to get that £45 worth: If someone said to me "Steve, I'll pay you £45 to sit through the next 2.5 days of classes" I would have told them to fuck right off. No way would I put myself through that for £45.)
Maybe I'm a ridiculously sensitive snowflake. I don't know. But fuck it, it's over and done with now and I have a fresh start tomorrow. I do feel I've wasted time but I was only at that school for 11.5 study days (thanks to the no-classes day last Thursday) and all but the last 2.5 were borderline OK; even the last 2.5 will have had some small value in terms of rote repetition learning. After all, I felt fine last Friday when I signed up for another week, so it's only this week which has been a real waste of time.
Went and got some hot dogs by way of celebration after signing up at new school (from the first supermarket I tried on getting the flat, as they had the big sausages - just checked receipt, it's Mas y Mas) and then (I was getting mildly due, and might as well start at new school looking "smart" ) went and got my hair cut (no 1 all over) at little barber's I'd seen round side of old school - Q10 but I made it Q20, handing over a 20 note and scuttling out feeling embarassed (which feels shit, but what the fuck else can I do? I don't want to come all Lord Bountiful handing over a Q10 tip and I don't feel I can get away with tipping less. Meh.)
1853 Just booked another week at this apartment (same price as before). Did wonder about 2 weeks but despite time ticking on I still have vague fantasy of getting something nicer/better. With the shit over school obviously haven't got round to calling any apartments advertised round town (which I should do if only for the practice at Spanish), but I saw (and took a photo) of something advertised on a lamp post - no price mentioned and no idea how good location might be - today and I may well give this a try next week if things settle down. If this place books up I can always consider a hostel - one has been mentioned to me and is in guide book too IIRC as good place to meet people - as an experiment, so no need to lock myself in here for too long.
1906 A certain amount of racuous shouting on stairs (evidently native Spanish speakers) and some music playing loudlyish from some other flat. Not a problem as such, just writing this for atmosphere, but mildly annoying. I think there were 3 flats showing available when I booked just now FWIW.
I will e-mail owner tomorrow to arrange meeting to pay and ask about getting the bed linen changed - I expect to be told I have to pay, but I won't explicitly volunteer to pay. If it's Q50 or less I won't complain too much, this is really a very cheap and pretty decent apartment on the whole.
I also walked past a noticeboard today and one of the flyers was for a tour agency. I note the volcano I think the school trip was to (Santiaguito? from memory) offered either a half day hike to a viewpoint or a one/two (can't remember) day hike. I am not sure this distinction was offered at Adrenalina Tours, but I do wonder if not all tours are the same as a result of this.
1923 Lots more shouting in hall. Not *that* likely to happen but another reason not to make a fuss with school is that I may bump into my teacher or some of the other staff in a bar one night (e.g. not that it's something I'm likely to attend, but I know quite a few of the staff went to the karaoke at K&Q that first Thursday when I went to the pub quiz).
2319 Bed. Not really tired but only reading so might as well increase chances of going to sleep. Feel OK. Maybe a tiny bit nervous about tomorrow, but frankly I mainly feel relief at having got rid of the shit with the old school.
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