It's Friday, I'm in Love

Well, it's almost Friday. It's Thursday, and the song is on my internet radio. Speaking of, did you hear about the kid in England or somewhere whose parents named him "Friday," and the government put a stop to it and forced them to name him "Gregory"? Pretty crazy, eh?? It makes me wonder why the government didn't stop my mother when she named me, all doped up on demerol. Truly, I like my name, but it's a pain in the ass sometimes. Particularly when it comes to my last name. Also speaking of names, I just read a story about a woman whose name is Mary and who married John Christmas, so now her name is "Mary Christmas"! Ha.

I got my first TEFL book in yesterday, and it is a whopper. I'm going to try to call up the old college spirits of attention span so that I can actually not fall asleep every time I try to read the thing. I am betting, though, that the material is going to be more riveting than one might expect. There's a dvd that came with the book, so if all else fails I can try to engage with that. Updates to come on any new language teaching tidbits that interest me! (Boy, aren't you thrilled?!)

Highest Point or State; Culmination

I seem to have reached the zenith of my anticipation, and now I'm experiencing a feeling like the calm before the storm. I feel relatively tranquil and sated with the knowledge that the major pieces of my journey are in place (although I do still have to finish paying my ViaLingua course fees and reserve my room at the hostal). I've stopped really worrying about whether my Spanish will be good enough, whether I will feel ridiculously overwhelmed by homesickness or lack of familiar faces and voices, whether I will be deported (hahaha). I'm banking on an adventure, and using that metaphor helps me in this inexplainable way to anticipate the ups and downs, to keep as objective an outlook on my trip as I possibly can (which of course is easier to do when you're not there yet).

Anyway. I feel a lull in my need to constantly seek out new information about Spain. Don't get me wrong - I'm still reading my Andalucia guide every day, and I've still got a good documentary film coming in every few days. But this is a much-needed lull. It's giving me a sort of confidence that I didn't have before when I was scrambling for every bit of information I could get my hands on. Now I just hope I don't get overwhelmed by all the books and travel gear I asked my parents to get me for Christmas!

On that same note, I've been waiting so long for the "textbook" that I bought for my TEFL course to get here from Amazon that I'm worried now that I've lost my appetite for it. It's a huge book and it cost like $50, so I damned well hope I'm ready to soak it all up by the time Christmas is over.

On a less related note to the Spain trip, I read some poetry yesterday by my old poetry professor at UNT, and it awakened something in me like reading poetry always does. I'd read Bruce Bond's work before, and I had always revered him in this ridiculous way because he studied with Ginsberg, but for some reason yesterday I completely got his writing like I never had before. It made me remember all the critiques and the suggestions he'd provided me for my best work, and it made me hope that perhaps something I had done as one of his students, something I had said might have inspired him or contributed to the work he's put out into the world. I remember once I heard from someone, a friend or fellow student, after finals one semester that Bruce Bond had gone for a beer with another of my professors from the English department, and my friend or fellow student had overheard the profs discussing me and my work/poetry. In general terms, I think what was said was good, but it surprised me how much what they thought mattered to me as a student. It makes me think and hope that my own praise or admiration of my future students will affect them the same way.

I want to write a poem. Several, in fact. I'm going to start cataloging interesting ideas. More on that later.

the backpack

It just arrived today, my very own Women's Deuter Futura 50+10 Vario Trekking Backpack! I bought it on ebay for a steal, brand new with tags and all - and it matches my lavendar luggage set, to boot. I'm totally stoked.

Now if only I could open it up at work and fill it with files and walk around the office with it all day...that wouldn't seem suspicious, would it??

The flight plan

Monday March 10, 2008
British Airways Flight Number: 2026
Depart: George Bush Intercont, TX 8:30 Pm March 10, 2008
Arrive: London Gatwick, United Kingdom 10:25 Am March 11, 2008
Total Flight Time: 8 Hours 55 Minutes Non-Stop
Equipment: Boeing 777
Meal Service: Yes

Tuesday March 11, 2008
British Airways Flight Number: 2466
Class of Service:Coach Class S
Depart: London Gatwick, United Kingdom 2:10 Pm March 11, 2008
Arrive: Madrid, Spain 5:30 Pm March 11, 2008
Total Flight Time: 2 Hours 20 Minutes Non-Stop
Equipment: Boeing 737-400
Meal Service: Snack

Total Cost (in case you're curious): $734.60/Round-trip


What a great birthday present, eh?? I will be crossing the Atlantic on the very eve of my 26th birthday. My friend Matt, whose birthday is also March 10, will be at my side. We will leave NOLA on the Friday (3/7) before the flight, to drive to Houston and spend time with my parents and my bff, Lauren (whose birthday is ALSO March 10 - strange, isn't it?? It's like our own little holiday!), who will hopefully drive down from Denton.

My basic itinerary:
We will land in Madrid and spend 1 day there. I will 1) eat paella, 2) drink a Spanish mojito, and 3) see Guernica at Reina Sofia, and perhaps 4) stroll in the parque de buen retiro. Then, we will head by bus or train to Granada to get acclimated, spend 1 night there and find a place to stash my larger luggage items for a few days before hopping another bus or train south to Malaga, Ronda and then Tarifa. At Tarifa, we will camp on the beach, eat pulpo and calamares and drink sherry, then take a ferry to Tangier, Morocco, where I want to spend just a day and maybe ride a camel, but Matt wants to stay the night (I will see how I feel about this, if we can find a place outside of the tourist danger zone). I also want to do some street shopping for souvenirs, but with only a backpack to carry stuff in, it may be difficult to buy much. After returning from Morocco to Tarifa, we will head back up the southern coast, hopefully seeing some good Flamenco on the way, making our way back to Granada for Semana Santa.

After Semana Santa, I will settle in and meet my ViaLingua peeps, get ready for studies and six full months in SPAIN!!!!

Triple Dragon, Happy Family

Maybe I'm a bit of a natural mystic, or maybe it's a leftover symptom of having dated a turbo hippie (thanks, Hippie Matt), but from time to time I like to read my horoscope (or sometimes a fortune cookie...), and I always find myself taken aback when it rings just a bit true.

Here's the connection: I have been feeling a bit burnt out from all the preparing, Spanish studying, worrying, etc., that lately I haven't felt like doing anything. And of course that scares me because I only have three months until Granada, and you know me - I am a worrier (much as I hate to admit it). Anyway, I feel lazy and burnt out but at the same time guilty for those feelings, like I should be doing something productive at every waking hour.

But I think my horoscope is telling me to call my friends. To have some long-needed conversations and to ask all of my friends who have travelled abroad about their experiences. I want to take those stories with me. I think that will be a happy combination of my burn out with my need to feel prepared. I can relax and just focus on my relationships with the ppl I love and at the same time feel a little less alone in what I'm about to do (see earlier post from today).

Now as for that "Let the kid in you out" part...I don't have an effing clue!

Lacking Inspiration

It's 9:30 in the morning on a Tuesday, and I'm here at work and have gotten absolutely nothing done. I have to be honest about that at this juncture - I really find it difficult to give a damn about the job I am doing here, because it won't really matter once I leave in March. It's tough for me to acknowledge this. I need this job to get me through to March, to allow me to save enough money to get there. So you'd think I could muster up a little bit of determination to get things done around here. Yet it feels so meaningless to be doing a job just for the money, and it's odd that this is a job I once cared a good deal about.

This morning, I read my friend Ann's blog for a little bit, and I read one poingnant story about how she was frustrated and felt isolated and broken there in Granada. And I'm thinking about how all the sad stuff she sometimes writes about her time in Spain will hopefully allow me in some way to pull the determined adventurer out of my heart and to be absolutely sure that I have a thick skin when I leave for Spain in March. But in all honesty, hearing stories like that...albeit good for me in the sense that they prepare me for any false expectations...is very frightening and humbling. Fear and humility being emotions that already come naturally to me, I'm not sure what to think. I've said this to several of my friends already, but lately I'm trying to balance my preparations for Spain with as realistic as possible a view of what I'm preparing myself for.

My fear and anxiety are mixing with my excitement, and I have to assume that's a natural thing at this point. But it's funny how alone I already feel in this whole experience. No one in my life really knows what this is like. Not even those closest to me.

Terms of Venery

I have begun my new quest for grammar nourishment. I am back in my niche and absolutely loving it. I have rediscovered collective nouns - among them, terms of venery - and am learning the ways to teach non-native English speakers the grammar rules behind "the big black curtain" that is the key to understanding the English language.

Did you know there are possessive adjectives?! I personally scoff at this term, but it's interesting that there are ppl out there (a.k.a. my future TEFL instructors and possibly all Brits!) who believe it to be accurate enough to define a certain class of words. Honestly, aren't there enough cross-term definitions floating around out there to confuse us all?! I nearly had a heart attack when I was reviewing the pre-course "grammar tasks" from ViaLingua on the bus today and came across that term: possessive adjectives. What the hell?! Why don't I know what that is?! I thought. Come to find out, Bah! They're frickin' PRONOUNS, you idiots. If you absolutely have to get fancy, call them determiners. End of argument.

Anyway, a lot has happened since my last blog:

I added the international calls option to my Sprint plan for $4/month but have yet to find a convenient time to call ViaLingua in Spain (they are 7 hours ahead). I decided, instead of waking up at the crack of dawn to call, to email my questions about visas and accommodation to Vince, the guy I'd been talking to from ViaLingua. So, the guy responds about a week after I email him to say (and I quote), "You're asking all the right questions. Sorry, I don't know the answers...."

!!!!

Infuriating. I swear to god, every response from these ppl came straight from the website information, which of course, being the nerd that I am, I have read numerous times, cover-to-cover. So, I followed the sparse advice that Vince gave me, which led me nowhere except to an online search engine reservoir of dead-end links and pyramid schemes, and I then decided to email someone else. This time, it was Roberta, and I think my complaining did the trick. I told her it seemed like their email responses were stock answers copy/pasted off of the website, which was paradoxical because the website instructs you to "email someone for more details." Well, I wasn't getting "more details." Roberta apologized for the lack of personal attention and realized, whoops! I hadn't even been sent any of the pre-course information, directions to the school, etcetera that I should have. Way-to-go, Vince. I don't know what that dude does around there, but I'm not exactly thrilled to find out. His title is something like "Director of Operations" or something, and that is a scary thought.

So, a few snags thus far, not to mention the major disappointments about the VISA issue. It looks as if I'll be in Spain illegally, after my 90-days allowed by the tourist visa are up. That means working illegally, as well as eating, sleeping and breathing illegally. Terrifying, in a country I've never been to let alone lived in. So I'm not stoked about that. I have to set up an appointment with the Consulate General of Spain (if I can get one) to see what my options are, if any. This has to be possible, right?! There have to be ppl out there with my situation, right?!? Where are they? And how do I get their phone numbers?!

And on to my daily plane ticket searches. Prices are dropping, as a few ppl informed me they would, so that is good news. It's like riding the stock market, highs and lows, and my emotions rise and fall with each passing dollar sign I see in my inbox every day. "Buy! Buy! Buy!" my heart is screaming. God, I am a bigger nerd than I let on.

So far, the cheapest deal I have come by is this round-trip fare combo:

MSY to JFK - $114.40 on JetBlue

JFK to MAD - $536 on BritishAir

TOTAL: $650.40

Not too shabby, eh? It's going to require some logistics magic, working in time to switch planes, grab my checked bags and go through customs, then re-check my bags and get on the plane, but I think 3 hours oughtta do the trick. To top it all off, my friend, Matt, is flying with me, so I have to coordinate his ticket with mine and arrange for his return flight separate from mine. A bit more trouble than I'd have to deal with if I were flying alone, but WAY WORTH the effort to have someone I know and trust accompany me on my big move. I am eternally grateful that he is doing this for me.

Well, now it's on to discover the three main features of a non-count (a.k.a. mass) noun. Yippee!!

Catching up (despite the huge time difference)

This one has to be brief, as I am completely swamped at work and have no business writing this. Just wanted to make a quick mention of how GOD AWFUL it was just to add the GD international calling function to my GD cell phone plan. It's like they seriously want to make it more DIFFICULT for me to give them MORE money! God I hate cell phone companies.

Anyway, at least that's dealt with and now all I have to do is pay the $4 monthly fee (to be cancelled at any time, by me) plus $.26/minute charges to Granada and the rest of Spain. Not too bad, really. I just have to be speedy about my calls to ViaLingua. Also of note, Granada is SEVEN hours ahead of New Orleans time, so in the future you'll know you have to call between 01:00 and 13:00 to be considered polite. I will have to wake up extra early one day this week to call so I won't be overheard by anyone at work.

In other Spain-related news, I just picked up Living Abroad in Spain by the lovely Nikki Weinstein, a former New Yorker who moved to Spain and wrote this book about the experience for other Americans considering the big move. I heard about the book from my LSMSA school junior, Ann, who's over in Granada now and will be there when I get there in March. I'm on page 13 right now, going through a 4-page synopsis of the history of Spain (can you imagine how someone could cram such a long history into 4 pages?!?), with which I'm already largely familar by now. I will let you know if I find any good tidbits of interest. Between reading an hour or so at night, after my daily bike rides, and reading to and from work on the bus (and on lunch breaks), I should be finished with this baby in a few weeks.

I really hope there's info in there on visa regulations...my mind is completely wrapped up in Spanish red tape at this point.

Oh and also about the book - I was eating lunch and had it lying next to me, ready for me to take outside with me once I was done eating. Another paralegal came into the lunch room and (of course) noticed the book and asked if I was going to Spain. I turned pale (I felt like I did) and sputtered out a random lie about just being interested in travel books and how I got this one at the library because I was bored. I feel so totally sneaky, lying to everyone at work. It sucks, but when it's tough, I repeat my daily mantra: CYA, baby. CYA.

Pregnant Dream

It felt like I was dreaming the entire night, but I bet it was just for an hour or so because not much really happened, action-wise.

I'm hanging out with my friend Matt somewhere, when all of a sudden I get these strange stomach pains and tell him we'd better head to the hospital now. It is at this point that I notice I have a 9-months pregnant belly in front of me, the cause of said "stomach" pain. I call my mother while we are driving to the hospital and ask her, when you start to go into labor, if it's your actual vagina that hurts or just your general stomach area. She assures me it's the vagina, so I stop worrying a little.

We get to the hospital, and I have to wait out in this long corridor on a stretcher until I'm either ready to have the baby or until we realize it's a false alarm. I reach down and touch my big belly and feel a solid hard mass inside of it that is not a part of my own body (this was the weirdest part...very vivid). I think to myself as I touch it that this hard mass is going to become a little person. I try to rouse myself with some semblance of excitement about this fact, but at the time it just makes me feel tired and a bit confused.

I have the understanding this entire time that Matt is not the father of this child, and neither is any other male I know. The father isn't really in question, it is just sortof accepted that I am doing this alone (key word here, m'dears).

So then my girl friends, Laura and Audra, show up to say "hey," and they don't ask how I'm feeling or anything at all about my impending labor and child bearing situation. They talk about shopping and random little stories of things that had happened recently, and then say they have to go meet someone for something. This upsets me greatly and I have this sinking feeling in my stomach that I'm all alone, no one cares about what's going on in my life and I feel completely left out because of this stomach mass that I feel completely unattached to. I try again to feel communion with the mass; no such luck.

So then Ian shows up, and he's got the same lackadaisical attitude about my whole situation, and I cry to him about the girls while he treats me in a patronizing way and keeps looking at the nurses to help him or something.

Then my alarm goes off.

SO, analyzing the above dream brings me to several (possible) conclusions:
1) I am "pregnant" with some sort of emotion and feeling disconnected as a result of it;
2) This emotion is most likely my impending move to Spain and my anxieties and doubts about it;
3) I am having trust issues with my girl friends; and
4) My b/f does not understand me emotionally.

Pretty clean-cut, if you ask me. And I didn't even need a 3rd party to figure it out! I guess I have some issues to work on in the next few months (as if I don't already have TONS to get done by March 2008).

Plan Ahead...

I thought it apropo to launch my first blog experience with the very fortune which necessitated it (and its title, of course). I actually found this baby in a fortune cookie about 3 weeks ago, and it made my heart hurt (in a good way). I hope you all are as ready as I am for the next five months of preparation and the adventures and follies that are sure to follow. I am, after all, officially locked in now with ViaLingua.

I made my down payment on the TEFL course on Friday, October 19, 2007 (for posterity's sake). We are at (officially) five months, and counting!

Welcome to my blog.

*gracious bow*