A day in the life of...me

8.12: It is 8.12 when the second of the two alarms goes off. It's the 6th of November 2007 and Carmen has already left for French class when I wake up. The radio is – as always – playing songs of Europa FM and today is nothing different. It will be a day like normal.

8.14: I get up and go to the bathroom to prepare myself for the day. My breakfast is like always: an orange juice, three or four Maria biscuits and some yoghurt. If I have time I also have a tea, but this hardly ever happens. I pack all my stuff for the day. This consists of class material, lunch which has been cooked the day before (often by Carmen) and a book to read in the metro. At the moment I am reading a Spanish book ‘El nino con el pyjama de rayas’ about a boy whose farther is sent to Auswitch…as camp commander, nice!

8.35: I leave the house and I take the small walk though Calle de Tribulete of about three minutes towards the closest metro station at Lavapies. Normally I do this walk with Carmen but she is not with me today. The street is occupied but not crowded. Many of our neighbourhood gets up even earlier to work in the more – well – unorthodox sectors.
8.38: When I arrive at Lavapies station I enter fast down the stairs, but I never have to run for the metro. The yellow line – line three – passes every two minutes in the morning so I never have to worry about missing it.

8.40: Well, that’s not completely true. Even though the metro goes very often it always goes totally packed. The next station is Sol – this is one of Madrid’s busiest stations and everybody wants to leave so stands close to the door. Today I am alone, but when I am with Carmen she sometimes politely raises her voice to the passengers to make some more space. She does this great. The people actually move!

8.57: When I enter the metro I only have one stop to make and I change at Sol to the red line – number two – heading towards La Elipa. I only have to wait four stops on this one – which takes about ten minutes before arriving at my destination: Quevedo. In total my journey to work costs me about 20 minutes. 9.00: I enter the building and say good morning to the portero (doorman). He is a grumpy man with whom I don’t think I will ever start a social relationship. The first day I turned up for work he asked me which floor I was going to. I said ‘the third’. He said ‘are you sure?’ and I replied ‘yes’. This is to date still the largest conversation we have ever had.
9.01: So there it is, the door to my new job. After scaling to the third floor – in an elevator – I turn to the left and open the door with my key. I am normally the second to enter the office. If I am the first I have to type in the safety code. I only have had to do that twice. I say hello and my workmate answers back, cheerfully. 9.02: After a small chat with my workmates - we are in total four at the moment - I turn on my computer and do a quick round of my websites: Gmail, Hotmail, AD, BBC, The Independent, Marca and various other blogs. This normally takes about ten minutes and then I click on what has become my addiction: Microsoft Outlook. Some researcher found out that an average worker clicks on the refresh button 40 times per hour and I think I am an above average worker! At the moment I have to do various things. From the moment I started I am learning all there is to the EuropeAid project cycle. From the very beginning - scanning the EU's websites for interesting projcts - to the end: the completion of a projects which can run for years with a budget of often over 3 mln Euros. At the moment I am looking for partners to form a project consortium and contacting International Experts for projects. In a couple of weeks I will start helping to write Technical Offers for projects for which we have been shortlisted.
11.17: I am starting to feel a bit hungry so I attack the bottom of my three drawers where I keep various boxes of energy bars and chocolate to keep me awake. For the moment I prefer the hazelnut bar.
12.35: I am still working on selecting the best international experts for our project in Bulgaria. It works like this: once you have succesfully applied for a project, you are shortlisted (with 8 other companies) and then you have to make a Technical Offer which includes the profiles of the International Experts you are going to contract. They play a crucial role in winning the contract so we need to make sure they are quality. 14.32: Lunchtime. Carmen prepared me a nice spaghetti yesterday. She comes home a bit earlier than me and therefore has time to prepare my lunch. So sweet she is! This one was particularly tasty: chicken, onion, oregano, spices and pesto...mmmh. Often I am joined in our big room by two of my work mates, one of whom you see in the background. I get along well with them and they are very helpful.

14.45: Today, my lunchtime wasn't very long. I had a three o'clock appointment with my boss at Hot English. Luckily, this is just around the corner so I could go during my one hour lunch break without missing any work. Every month, upon receiving my pay-check, I have to go through all my classes and explain what I am doing with them, how they are responding and if I have any difficulties. These conversations normally go rather smoothly as I am lucky with my pupils and don't have any major problems.

15.10: However, the Director of Studies is running late and is not on time for our appointment (the watch is mine and the empty chair is hers). This annoys me a bit because I am on my lunchbreak. 15.11: I make time by preparing some classes in the Teachers Room. My classes usually consist of a fine mix of grammer (preferably Murphy's English Grammar in Use), reading and listening (as supplied by Hot English) and conversation (for which I normally prepare a role play or some topics). I try to give every class some sort of theme. Last week we had celebrities and the role play was a gossip program. It was an instant success. 15.40: I arrive a bit late back to work due to the delay of my Hot English boss. I am trying to make a consortium for a project in Kazakhstan and it looks like I am in luck. Someone responded positively and I am now in talks with them to set up a consortium.17.02: My working day at SICI Dominus has finished. I work between 09.00 and 17.00. I turn of the computer, chat for a while with my boss and then I am off to my English classes. 17.04: Just across the street there is a nice café where I usually give myself some rest. Normally I go there after lunch but today I had no time because of the appointment with Hot English. I am by now a regular and don't have to ask for a café con leche, I am just given it with a nod of the head. I share my coffee with the sports newspaper AS (I prefer Marca, but they don't have that one). Today, the trainer of Real Madrid is in trouble for insisting that the referee of the other day was from Catalonia and that this was the reason of their loss against Sevilla. A rediculous remark by a man who is losing friends in Spanish football very rapidly. 17.26: I head up Calle Bravo Murillo and enter the metro station of Canal with destination a two hour class with a company called Brother. The walk between the café and this station is no more than five minutes. I notice that it is already getting a bit dark and it is certainly fresh. 17.40: There are only three stops between Canal (which is on the orange line) and Avenida de America where I am heading. Very often this man welcomes me as I arrive. He sings country and western songs with a voice which is rather tangled-up but nice to listen to. He delivers with charm and today I gave him a euro because he was signing one of my favorites, a CCR classic: Have you ever seen the rain. We exchange smiles. 17.46: This is the bus 224 that I have to take to get me to the Business Park of San Fernando de Henares which is exactly 19,3 km from Puerta del Sol in the centre of Madrid. It takes me about twenty minutes and I have to take it every Monday and Tuesday because on these days I have classes with this company. 18.05: I arrive with no delays. Normally the bus ride goes without trouble. Only once did I take the 224A (instead of the 224) which took me 10 kms further. The business park lies under the Barajas Airport flightpath and next to the busy A2 highway. Also there are various works going on inside the compound. Amazingly, we don't have any trouble with noise inside. 18.07: As I am a bit early I sit and wait outside, this happens quite often as the class only begins at 18.15. During this little wait I am called by CEAR - the NGO which defends the rights of refugees and asylum seekers in Spain. Sometimes I help them with translations or other small tasks so I assumed this would again be the case. It was. They asked me if I could be interpreter for a CEAR member at a meeting the coming Thursday. I couldn't. BUT the call didn't finish there. My CEAR boss told me that they had been very happy with me (two weeks ago I did a SOS translation of a 5 page document personally for the Secretary General of the UNCHR!) and that I had been selected as one of the four Madrid volunteers to go to the CEAR anual meeting in Las Palmas, everything paid for. Las Palmas...that's is on the Canary Islands!! So, on the weekend of the 13th of December I am off to the Canary Islands for free! It just shows that it pays of working as a volunteer! It will be fun but I'll also learn a lot as the Canary Islands is the place where most refugees arrive. 18.17: With this good news in mind I start the class. Normally we are with three students but one has called off ill. This is a pre-intermediate class which is a lot of fun. We handle the basics like present simple and continuous, past simple, questions, etc. Also we read, discuss about the weekend and have fun with vocabulary. This group is enthusiastic, like most of my students. I enjoy teaching English. 20.10: After the class finishes I have to cross the A2 to catch the bus on the other side and this is the view. As you can see one of the busses is leaving on the right hand side, but a bus stops every two minutes so no problems there. On Tuedays I am normally accompanied by one of my fellow teachers from the Academy on the way back into the centre. 20.35: I arrive back at Avenida de America where I have to take two lines to get to my final destination of Tribunal. 20.55: I arrive at Tribunal in the centre of Madrid for my second class of the day. It's only a short walk to Miguel's house. 21.01: Miguel - my student and I dare say now my friend - has what he calls 'a bachelor pad' in the centre of Madrid. He does not live there but uses it on the weekend and for English classes. Our English classes are mostly spent talking politics. I have troed many times to convince Miguel to do exercises but he refuses. Now he has to present me with a business plan every class. He admits having the memory of a fish, but he is being unfair on himself. 22.10: During the class with Miguel I was called by Eduardo if we wanted to meet him, Fred, Eva (the visiting Austrian girl...see 'this weekend we mainly...' on your left hand side) and Carmen for a drink. Miguel was not feeling too well so he declined but I opted for the five minute walk back up north to a nice bar filled with mirrors. As you can see they were having a lot of fun when I arrived.

22.35: We didn't stay too long because everyone was a bit tired. Edu and Eva had been out doing tourism which can be very tiring. Carmen had had a day at work and a French exam and Fred also had had a long day at work. So we all took the metro at Bilbao just opposite the bar. 22.50: Another short 15 minute trip with only one change in between, at Sol and we arrive back where it all started this morning: Lavapies. We head home and as we opened the door we met the president of the Corrala - our little Melrose Place. Yesterday there had been an incident which had everybody talking. A bottle of Rum had been thrown out of a window onto the central patio and then the front entrance had been kicked in, shattering glass all over. Very mysterious and the president was trying to blame our neighbours! Carmen testified that this couldn't be the case because she had heard them leave before it all happened. We were invited by the President to our first community vote, it will be on bicycles and whether you can leave them in front of your house.

23.01: I sit down for dinner. I prepare myself a salad of cheese and ham, topped with a nice vinegrette which I have to ask Carmen to prepare because I still don't know how to do it. I wash this all down with a glass of water. 23.35: As desert I have a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit which I have in bed. We moved the TV into the bedroom and watch an incredible documentary about the child smuggling affair in Chad. This is big news in Spain because the airplane crew is Spanish.00.35: The 6th of November has already finished when the documentary does. It is time to go to sleep.