MICHAEL JORDAN

One of the most important people in my life is Michael Jordan. When I was a child I was a supporter of the Los Angeles Lakers in the nineties. Magic Johnson was my idol but I have to recognize that Michael Jordan had a special talent. There is no doubt that Jordan has been one of the best sportmen in the world. Recently I’ve read one quote about him. He talks about how important it is to never give up. He won a lot of Championships and MVP (most valuable player, not confuse with Messi-Villa-Pedro) in his life. However, he failed in a lot of matches. During the games he always tried to shoot the last ball. Sometimes he scored the shoot and sometimes he failed it.

I’ve tried to compare my life with his life. Yeah, I know, the only thing that I have in common with Michael Jordan is the name. Nevertheless the comparison is between his games (titles) and my exams (degrees).

I have 3 degrees. My first degree was in Administration in 1998. It took me over 4 years. After that I did a sports degree in 2003. Finishing my degree only took me 3 years and the last one was in 2010. It was education and I did it in 1 year.

What I want to tell you is that I’ve done more than 640 exams in my life. I’ve failed almost 110 exams. 3 times, I’ve done the FCE and failed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

What happens if I don’t pass the exam. Nothing. It’s just an exam. One more in my life.  I’ll try again in May or June. Here, in Spain or Mozambique but the most important thing is never stop. Always keep going. As Rafa Nadal says: Vamos!!!

FCE

Last week I've decided to do the FCE (first certificate in English – B2). It’s my fourth time that I’ll do it. I think that every time is different and this time will be different too. At the begining I thought to do the CAE because if you fail the exam (but your score is between 45-59), you would have the FCE. And I don’t believe that there is a big difference between one and the other.

Eventually I changed my mind and I’ve decided to do the FCE because preparing for the CAE could take me more time and I don’t have enough time, I want to have an English certificate before May or June.

So I’m going to do the exam on the 8^th of March. Even though it looks like far away, it isn’t because times goes quickly here. I can’t believe it but in March I’ll have been living in Naas for 5 months. 

MEALS

Meatballs

Everyone asks me what I’m eating in Ireland and who cooks the meals. Everybody wants to know what time I´m having lunch or dinner. Well, I’m going to tell you everything about the meals. I’m the cook. Nobody prepares the meals for me. I don’t think that I’m a bad cook what I mean is that my level isn’t as Chicote or Locote but I’m trying to do my best. I enjoy cooking but I don’t like washing the plates up after preparing the meals. I live with an Irish family. They rent me a room and I can use whatever I want in the kitchen. I have my own room in the fridge and my own shelf where I put anything like milk, vegetables, meat, fresh products, fruit and so on. I’ll usually have lunch at 13.30 pm and I’ll make pasta, rice, meat, beans, carrots... I’ve never made lentils and chickpeas so I decided to made them one day. It was curious because I only put a few bunches of lentils into the pot but later it grew up too much. So, I was eating lentils for three days running. My Irish family has a big ice box but it is full of food consequently it’s impossible to put anything inside so I have to eat all the food before it expires.

I remember one of my first day in Ireland. I went to Tesco and I bought salt but I had bought a light salt by mistake so the next day when I prepared the meal I used it. Consequently, when I ate it the meal was so mild that I had to use all the salt.

I like having dinner at 9.30 as I have in Spain but in my house I have one problem and it’s that my family hates the smell of oil. They have a different schedule than me and they’ll have dinner at 6.30 pm so at 9.00 pm the kitchen is tidy.

The next day after my first day I cooked my dinner but they asked me if I didn’t mind cooking in a different cooker. They have 2 cookers. The biggest is in the kitchen and the other one is in the laundry room. The problem is that in the laundry room is a very cold place. It doesn’t have radiator as a result it’s impossible to cook at night. The only solution for me is to make something in the oven, so everyday I eat pizza or paninis for dinner. I know that it isn’t healthy but I prefer pizza to feeling cold doing something different.

Best wishes,

Chickpeas with chorizo

Spaghettis carbonara

BADMINTON

Last week I played badminton in Naas. Badminton is a sport that I like playing because it's very easy to play and you don’t need to be fit. In addition it's a sport that there isn't contact with your opponent so it's more difficult to be injured. Someone told me that in Naas there's a badminton club and they play at Naas GAA sport centre so I checked on the internet and I saw that they'll play every Monday from 8 to 10 and Thursday from 9 to 11pm. Monday is a bad day for me because I have football training from 6 to 8 and I don't have a car so it is impossible to be on time but yesterday I didn't have work out so I decided to go there. The naas GAA sport centre is a little bit far from my house although I went by foot. It wasn't raining so I didn't mind going. The sport centre has only 3 badminton courts. The ceiling is high and the floor is made of wood so it's perfect for playing badminton although the walls are close to the lines. Not everything could be perfect. I didn't have a racket so I asked for one. Some guy had spare racket and he gave it to me. There were 19 people so what does it mean? It's very simple there were more people than there were courts. In every court only 4 people can play so 7 people had to rest. The rule is: you play one game with any mate and when you finish the game you have to rest. You play around 10-15 minutes and you take a break for 5-7 minutes. I have to tell you that I didn’t like it. I like to play continuously. Another thing that I didn’t like it was that you have to play with any mate. It means that you play with people who are a different level than you are. My level is OK, it isn’t high and it isn’t low. Yesterday I had to play with people who have a very low level. It was very boring. I’m very competitive and I like to win but when I play with people who haven’t enough skill I can’t focus on the game and I can’t stand it. To sum up, the expierence was good. I had the opportunity to look how people play badminton in Naas but I’d change a lot of things about it.

Regards,

NEW YEAR EVE

Made in Spain

I came back to Ireland on 27 of December so I was at New Year Eve in Naas. It was my first time that I spent my New Year Eve in another country. I’ve always been in Spain at that time. At the beginning I didn’t know what I was doing at New Year Eve but I spoke with Daiana and we decided to do something special. We though of the idea to have dinner in some restaurant before going to the party. Daiana knew one restaurant in Naas called “Tenours” because she had been there before. She told me that the restaurant was good and the prices of the meal weren’t too expensive so we finally decided to go there. We talked with Cristina and her polish friend, Jolie and Natty. There were six of us. We met at 8 pm there and we ate salad and prawns for sharing as a starter and everybody ordered different things for the main course. We drank wine and red wine. We talked about our Christmas traditions in Spain and Natty told us what the japanese christmas traditions are. Also we talked about our Christmas holidays. After we finished our meal we went to the Court Hotel. The pub opened at 10.00 pm and we paid 15 euros for enter. We put our coats in the cloakroom and we went inside the pub. We were drinking and dancing until it was 11.55 pm. In that moment we went to the smoking area (also called rulas area) and Cristina tuned the spanish TV on her mobile phone and she shared the grapes with us. Everyone had twelve grapes. When the clock was 12.00 pm it stroke each second and we ate each grape until the last strike. Afterwards we proposed a toast for the New Year. I hope that this year will be better than the last one. We took pictures for memories and we went inside again.I drank some glasses but not to much because I didn’t want to be drunk. People in Ireland drink a lot. I saw a lot of people very drunk and when they drink, they are very agressive and crazy. We danced and laughed until 2.00 am. Then the pub closed and everybody went home. Daiana lives close to me so I went with her and we talked a little bit and we said goodbye each other. New Year, new life.

Having dinner with some of my friends

Proposing a toast for New Year 

Daiana with her mask and I with my bow tie

DAILY ROUTINE

I'll usually get up at 8.10 am immediately I'll have breakfast. My breakfast consists on milk with chocolate and cornflakes although I'll sometimes have some chocolote muffins. I don't like taking breakfast with coffee. After I have breakfast I´ll upstairs to my room and I'll put my clothes on. At 8.50 am I'll go to the English academy. I'll go to the academy everyday except Friday. It takes only me only 10 minutes to go there. The class runs for 4 hours with a break of 20 minutes. We'll do different activities during the morning. When the class is finished I'll go back home.
I arrive at 13.15 pm I'll usually check my accounts in like facebook and hotmail and I surf the net as well. Thirty minutes later I'll make the meal from 2.30-3.00 pm I try to modify the meals every week although when I'll prepare something I make it for two days so the next day I don't need to make anything. Afterwards I'll usually take a rest I don't like the nap as all spanish people love to do because I spend a lot of time. Only during the weekend I'll take one because I have more free time. At 3.00 pm I'll often go to the library. I prefer to study in the library than my room for two reasons: the first that I don't have a table in my room so for me it's impossible to write properly on the bed and second the library is warmer than my room. I'll study until 6.00 pm because I have my training with the football team until 8.00 pm. It's only Monday and Wednesday. The rest of the week I'm in the library until 7.00-7.30pm. 
After I finish my study or my work out I'll go to Tesco to buy something. At the end of the day the price of some products is discounted and you can buy bargain things. At 8.00-8.30 I'll go running or watch TV until I'll have my dinner at 9.00 pm. At 10.00 pm I'll often watch TV in the dining room or I'll watch some serie on the net or I'll do whatever thing until midnight. At that moment I'll go bed.

Studying room in the library

CHRISTMAS IN IRELAND

Christmas in Ireland is a little bit different from Spain. In my Irish house there are a lot of decorations in the house. They have two pines with all kind of decorations like baubles, canes, snowmen, Santa Claus, stars... but they don’t have a crib. Irish people don’t usually put up the crib. They celebrate Christmas day on the 25 of December with a big lunch-dinner. The main course is turkey and the dessert are minced pies. On the 24 of december they don’t do anything special. Some people go the church but nothing more. During the night they give the presents or they leave the presents for the children and they open them the next day. On the 26 of December they´ll celebrate St Stevens day and you might say to me: what’s that? Well, St. Stevens day is the day that people meet with their friends and they go out for drinking and chatting. The pubs that day are crowded with people. At new years eve, they have a special dinner but it isn’t a big dinner and later they go out with the family or with friends.

Irish people don’t celebrate the kings so for them Christmas finishs by New Year day. In fact the winter sales starts on 27-28 of december. One more thing the fool day isn’t on 28 of December like in Spain they celebrate that day on the first day of April. 

Happy New Year and I hope that you have a good one.

Celebrating the last day of the year in the academy

CHRISTMAS PARTY

On 7th of December we celebrated a Christmas party in the academy. It was my first party in the institute and I´d like to tell you that it was very funny. The party started at 7 pm but I was a little bit late arriving at 7.15 pm. There were a lot of people inside when I arrived. Two brazilian guys were singing portuguese songs while we were eating and chatting. During the week our class was rehearsaling a Christmas carol which we had to sing at the party. The song was "Happy Christmas. The war is over" by John Lennon. I’ve never listened this song in Spain but I have to say that I like it. It’s a catchy song. Firstly we rehearsed the song with the original song and the next days we rehearsed without music only with the sound of the guitar. Cathal, our teacher, plays the guitar and he played the song while we were singing it. There are 7-8 people in class but unfortunately that day there were only 3 of us. Daiana, Cristina and I but we didn’t care. We did it. We sang very well. After that the rest of the people sang two more Christmas songs.

During the party, I met different people who come to the academy in the afternoon and at the weekend. When the food finished. We played a game. The game is “musical chairs” I don’t know what the name is exactely in English but it’s the same game in Spain. There are a lot of chairs together in a circle and the music is playing as people are moving in circle. There is one extra person than there are chairs and when the music is stopped everyone has to sit down. The person who is standing up, lost the game. It continues until one person is the winner. I played but I was out very soon. The winner was a girl. She’s from Norway and she won the prize. The prize was money but I don’t know how much money she won.

When the party in the academy was over everybody went to Grace’s pub. We were celebrating Christmas. We drank a few shots. In the smoking area we met two irish guys. One of them spoke very clear and I could understand him but I couldn’t undestand anything the other one said. He’s from the north of Ireland and he had a strong accent that was quite difficult to understand plus he was drunk. In conclusion we had a very good night and we enjoyed it a lot.

Merry Christmas,

With Jolie and Andrés

With some friends

At Grace´s pub

All students from Avanti school

Spanish students

THIS IS IRELAND

There are some different things in Ireland than in Spain. Nowadays the sun sets at 4.05 pm so at 4.30 it is completely dark. It’s curious but in the evening you can see a lot of people in the street walking with yellow bibs or orange bibs. At the beggining I didn’t understand why the people used them but now I can understand it. There isn’t enough light in the street. You can see only properly on main street but on other streets the light is scarce. You must put a bib on because the cars can run you over if they don’t see you. Another thing is that the ambulances sound is very annoying. You can hear the sound from one side of the town to the other. It’s incredible. The drivers must be deaf. At Christmas the council installs speakers on the main street and you can listen to the christmas carols. One thing that catchs my attention is that people in Ireland don't feel the cold like the spanish people do. I've seen children working out without sweatshirts only wearing shirt on cold days. I usually wear a hat, gloves and neckwarmer but they don't wear anything like that. It's strange, isn't it? Also I've seen girls wearing little dresses without putting coats or warm clothes on at the weekend. We are in winter time, you know. I'd like to see these girls in summer in Spain. They would go out completely naked. The teenagers are two faced in Ireland. On one hand, they are very polite. For example when we finish our work out every child says thank you to all the coaches. Every time they say thanks but on the other hand they are very filfthy. In the main street there is a fast food shop where every child goes and you can see the street full of rubbish. They don't use the waste baskets. It's a pity.

I´m going to tell you that in Tesco metro there is a beggar who plays his accordion outside.I always see him at 9.00 am and at 8.00 pm so he spents all day there. He always plays the same Christmas song. Can you imagine listen the same song during 11 hours every day? Sorry, but I couldn’t do it.

Take care yourself.

Any afternoon in Naas

MY HOLIDAYS

I’ve been checking the prices of the flights to Spain during these days but they are very expensive. It’s normal. Everybody wants to go back at Christmas. I didn’t know what to do because I didn’t want to pay 400 euros for going and returning. The prices of the flights are cheaper this week than the next week so I’ve finally decided to go this weekend. Yes, I’ve booked the flight for this weekend and I’m going to return to Ireland on the 27 of December. I’ll stay 2 weeks in Spain. I know that it’s not too much time but the prices after New Year Day are very high and also I didn’t want to stay until 9-10 of January. So I’ll see everybody in a few hours.
Happy Christmas and Happy New Year to everybody.

I´ve just received this present from Naas FC. Thanks a million.