Back In Kindergarten... But I'm 24!

   In my final year at Swansea, I worked as a... well, my official title was Volunteer. But I consider it work as I did get paid for it. Anyway, I volunteered as a sort of aide to a student with disabilities. I had plenty of time off, so I thought I'd sign up for Spanish classes. I also signed up for Aikido, but never went, even though the enthusiastic instructor e-mailed me updates weekly.

   I did go to the Spanish classes, though. It was Beginner's Spanish, and it was under the Department of Adult Education, so there were loads of adults in the class. Technically, once you hit 21, you're officially and adult, but I have yet to consider myself as one. I joined with a couple of my friends. It was every Wednesday night, and it was loads of fun.

   Our teacher started us off from the basics, you know, with the alphabet and numbers. I really felt like I was back in kindergarten when I recited the alphabet along with the rest of the class [a majority of whom probably had grandchildren in kindergarten]. Here's the real kicker. Sometimes the teacher would recite the numbers and we were meant to write the numbers down in our notebooks, without looking at the information sheet.

   When she was done, she would go around the class and mark our work... with a stamp. Sometimes it was a star with words like "excellent" or "wonderful" or an elephant with "way to go" or something like that. The amazing thing was... I actually felt excited to see that little stamp. Never mind she gave them out to everyone, or that even if you made loads of mistakes, she would still give you one.

   Part of the reason I went to class every week was to collect these different stamps. *lol* And she had the cutest worksheets with pictures and cartoons on them. Seriously. I never did finish the course because I missed a class, then another, and another until I thought there was no way I could catch up. Excuses, excuses. I regret not finishing that class... and I missed out on all the cool stamps.