(upbeat music)
- (speaks in foreign language)
from Pamplona, Spain.
I'm Marisa and I will be doing today's IG Takeover.
A little bit about me.
I'm 25.
I'm currently living in Pamplona, Spain,
and I teach at a charter school here as well
as online and in person tutoring, should be in person soon.
It's currently online. (laughs)
That's where we're at right now.
So, I will talk more about myself later
and I will drop a box on the next slide in a minute.
So I know it's kind of early, still.
It's 9:00 AM here.
So I know back home, I'm from North Carolina,
so it's six hours behind there.
So I know no one's probably awake yet.
Okay, so a little more information
before I get started on questions, too.
So I'm actually not really allowed to take,
I can't take any videos or pictures of my kids,
unfortunately, which is a shame
'cause they're really adorable
and I wish you guys see them.
'Cause I absolutely adore my kids.
But I teach from ages four to eight.
My school is a charter school and it is a Basque school.
So all the kids here come and learning Basque
and all of their classes are in Euskera,
Euskera is the Basque language.
So they learn that in tandem with English.
And so like, when we come to teach English,
the teacher that I teach with,
she's an Euskera teacher.
So the kids can also speak to her in Euskera
but the kids aren't allowed to speak in Spanish.
They do.
So if they want to ask anything
and they don't know how to say it in English,
they're allowed to speak to the teacher in Euskera
to get what they need because the oldest stem teaching
is like second grade.
So you know, their English still isn't really that great
but it does make it more difficult
for me to speak with them.
'Cause I'm only allowed to speak with them in English.
So I mean, I know a decent amount of Spanish.
My Spanish is okay.
So most of the time if they end up speaking to me in Spanish
which they're not supposed to do, I know what they need.
So I can ask the correct questions in English
and try and get the English response that I need.
But sometimes you just kind of have to
give it to them a little bit.
But yeah, my kids are great.
The school is really great.
I work with three different teachers.
One teaches first and second grade,
the other teacher's first.
And then the third teaches in infantile,
which is four and five.
She's actually the substitute teacher right now,
'cause the teacher I started working with
for the first week, she had to go out on maternity leave.
So I've actually been working with the substitute
for infantile for pretty much the whole year.
And so each day I get here at about nine o'clock.
They send a charter bus.
So the school uses chartered buses to get me
from my home to here.
And it takes me about 15 minutes from Center City
which is where I live.
And it's really beautiful here.
It's basically like out in the middle of a big,
huge field, surrounded by mountains.
I absolutely love it.
And everybody here is really kind,
but everybody here speaks Euskera for the most part.
They try to speak English with me, but even Spanish
they don't really speak, only Euskera all the time.
So this is difficult.
So I mean, if you at least know some Spanish
it's helpful in you understanding them a little bit,
but you have to speak to them in English
and in small doses they can mostly understand
what you're saying so that helps a lot.
So I work through Up International
and they got me the job here at the school
and it was recommended to me by a fellow ITA alumni.
And so, I mean, I highly recommend them.
They're fantastic.
My roommates actually worked for MIDAS
so if you also have MIDAS questions
I might be able--
So I'll be completely honest.
The pay is not great, but it's a really easy job.
I mean, like they make the PowerPoint slides for you.
You basically just have to show up with a good heart,
nice smile and just enjoy your time
with the kids, it's great.
So I'm going to talk about my schedule.
So Mondays and Tuesdays, I'm with primary the entire day.
So that's the first and second grade for me.
And then on Wednesdays, I only have three classes
and I'm with infantile for the first class.
I have a break and then the break at 11 that everyone has.
And then I'm with the one teacher
for one of the first grade classes.
We have lunch, I have another small break
and then I'm with the other first grade teacher
for that one class.
And I finish at 1:30, but the first bus
doesn't leave until 2:20, so I just kind of
work on planning and stuff like that
for a while before I leave.
(children screaming)
And then Thursdays, I leave at the same time
as I do Monday and Tuesday,
but I'm with infantile all day,
except for one primary class.
And then Fridays I'm with infantile again all day
except for one primary class.
But I leave at 2:20.
Okay, so I got my certification about three years ago
during my first year working full time and I did it online.
So that was probably the best way for me to do it.
And it was through ITA and it was a really great course,
really fast, and I learned lot from it.
This is probably gonna take me a couple of slides
to explain, but the short answer is no.
My friend from high school actually moved here before I did
because she was also trying to become an English teacher.
And while I was waiting through the process,
she had already moved here because her school
started in October and I didn't get placed at my school
until November because the teacher
that was here before me left.
So I actually replaced a teacher here.
So she had already found roommates and found an apartment.
Basically my roommates had already done
all the hard work for me.
They're here with MIDAS, they're all teachers
and they met each other through their forum
because MIDAS has a forum for them to find people
to find housing.
But I know our other friends use a realtor
when they got here, that helped.
I do have my bachelor's degree
in psychology and public health.
Last time I checked, Up does require you to have
a bachelor's degree for the program,
but I'm not entirely sure.
And I'm also not a hundred percent sure
that all the other programs do, too.
Okay, so now I'm gonna do the apartment tour.
Okay, so we're here with our nice big old shoe room.
Okay, and then my room is the first one
that you come across.
Okay, nice, big, spacious.
I have my little teaching corner right here
and then we have the first bathroom.
Also, honestly, a really good size.
And then what could have possibly been another bedroom
but there's no windows or anything.
So it's kind of depressing.
So it's our laundry room instead, our drying room.
And then we have our living room/dining room.
My room used to actually be the dining room,
but then they had to make it a fourth room so I can move in.
But we also have some nice views from our front windows.
Okay, and then to the Ciudadela that way,
which is an old citadel from a long time ago,
which is really cool.
It's got a nice park inside and we go to play badminton
some there some days out there,
when the weather is really nice.
All right, we keep going.
We have the kitchen, which has a dishwasher,
a really nice one.
A nice fridge, microwave, an oven, all very spacious
and our balcony with a beautiful view of the mountains.
This is really great to have a kitchen
this huge for having four people.
And then we have our second bathroom, also very large,
with a nice bidet and a nice big shower.
No, it doesn't close, which is--
Then the second bedroom, so my roommate Mary's bedroom.
And again, all of my roommates are also teachers
and they teach with MIDAS.
Here's one right now, this is Marianna and her lovely room.
And she's going to tell you what her favorite
and least favorite thing about Spain are.
- All right, so I think my favorite thing about Spain,
it's just the lifestyle that they live here.
I think that people are just very relaxed in general.
And I really like living in Pamplona
because it's a really comfortable city,
so it's not too big, but it's not too small either.
So you have everything you need,
but you can also walk everywhere
and we live pretty close to the city center, which is nice.
I think my least favorite thing,
I guess it's nothing about staying in specific,
but I haven't been able to see my family a lot
because of COVID.
And of course we haven't been able to travel
that much either.
- [Marisa] Thanks.
Well said, totally agree with all of those things.
All right, and then our fourth roommate McKayla.
- Hello. This is my room.
- [Marisa] Her beautiful fourth room.
No worries. Favorite and least favorite.
- Okay, so I think my favorite thing
about living in Spain and particularly Pamplona,
is that like, I have been able to create
a home away from home and it's still like,
very amazing to me every time I walk outside my house,
the views are just beautiful.
We're near the mountain and their city,
everything's really easy to get to.
So I really love that aspect of it.
But something that is a bit more complicated
is the language.
I think I have taken Spanish my whole life in school
in the United States, which has been good,
but also it's not as much as you would need,
especially living in a more Northern city.
And you're in a more touristy place, it's different.
But here not a lot--
Afraid to be able to practice your Spanish here
but sometimes when you need to make doctor's appointments
or things like that, it can get a bit stressful.
So, definitely making sure you have a contact
or somebody who is from Spain or in a program
or she's like a tutor, director.
That's definitely helpful if your Spanish is not that great.
- [Marisa] 100% agree.
- Yeah.
- [Marisa] And what ages do you teach?
- I teach all primary.
So ages six to 12.
- [Marisa] Six to 12.
And you work for MIDAS, correct?
- MIDAS, yes.
- [Marisa] Awesome, thanks.
And Marianna, what age group do you teach?
- Okay, so I mainly teach in primary.
So fourth, fifth and sixth grade.
And I also teach a little bit (indistinct)
which is basically the first year of middle school here.
- [Marisa] Awesome, thanks.
- [Marianna] Welcome.
- And they all teach with MIDAS
and as far--
So we're actually on our way to Mircadona right now,
which is the grocery store that we usually go to,
but to get there, we cut through the Ciudadela,
which is super cool park, like I said before.
Here's some more of the park.
Okay, walking through. (laughs)
Just chilling. (laughs)
And then we usually come here to play badminton too,
on somedays, like I said,
but we're probably not gonna see it today.
What did he say?
Cute little sound over there.
Sometimes, sometimes people speak English, it happens.
I know, I feel like they're making fun of us a lot,
but so it's actually really nice park,
and you can go up parts over there
and there's like, little inlets that you can hang out in
and have great views of the sunrise, sunset,
all that good stuff.
We actually did come by where we played badminton, surprise.
Okay, there's actually no net or anything like that.
But down there is where we would usually play badminton.
We imagine the net.
We literally went out of our way to buy badminton rackets
for no apparent reason.
So I'm here on a student visa.
That's really the only way to get here right now
is a student visa, they really don't give out work visas.
So I take a class through Up
and that gives me the hours I needed to apply
for a student visa.
You're now here at Mirka Dona,
everyone's favorite grocery store.
I wish I could show you more
but I'll show you the super cool juice machine in a second.
The place is actually massive.
They have really good prices. (laughs)
It is getting to be that time of night.
So I'm going to wrap up with some last questions
before I say goodbye for the night.
So, my experience with Up,
I applied to them back in February
and then they responded back with a questionnaire
for me to fill out about myself type thing.
I sent that back to them, along with my CV.
And then they had somebody call me
with like a 15 minute information,
get to know me type of thing.
And then they set up the first interview.
It was a Skype interview.
And then the second one and then called me back
for the second interview, which was another Skype interview.
And then I got placed around April
but that school never opened because of COVID.
So I ended up waiting and they were trying to find me
a different placement, so I ended up waiting
until November when something just happened to open up
in both Pamplona and Madrid.
But Madrid, I needed to be there in two days
and I didn't even have my visa yet, came the next day,
so that wasn't going to happen.
And I just happened to already know somebody in Pamplona.
So with everything they've been absolutely wonderful,
their headquarters are in Pamplona.
So there's been somebody here with me like the entire time.
And it's really helpful if you're not that good at Spanish
because they helped me with all the government paperwork
and stuff like that.
You know, someone picked me up at the airport
to help me get my TIEs, set up my health care,
all that stuff.
So they've been really great about everything.
In general, they've been really good with COVID.
You know, everybody has to wear masks everywhere,
sanitizer everywhere, you can't travel anywhere
outside of the Comunidad.
So I've only been able to go around Nevara, but I mean,
that's been really beautiful, but I wish
I could have also gone to other places.
Say goodbye, but I hope I helped
answer your questions for the day.
If you have any more about Up or anything else,
feel free to DM me, follow me, anything like that.
To whoever takes my place in Pamplona next year,
good luck, (speaks in foreign language).
(upbeat music)