Well, this time of year is always a bit...nostalgic for me, as it represents my first trip to Spain. The days leading up to Semana Santa are full of memories, my first impressions of Spain and the adventures I had with oh-so-open eyes when I got here. In addition, as I experience the holiday differently each year, I´m confronted with the strange phenomenon that is this traditional, religious Spanish "holiday," if you can call it that.
My first year here, I remember forcing myself out of a hostal bed with Matt, my travel companion, on Easter Sunday of all days, just to get to the main cathedral and see the procession and mass there (once in a lifetime, right? I guess we can make this one exception and go to church on Sunday!). I remember it was the coldest day of the year (people in the crowd told us), and I remember the incense smell so thick it made me almost want to vomit. I remember feeling no spiritual or religious inspiration from any part of the ceremony. I remember being inconvenienced more than once during the week leading up to Holy Sunday, from shops all being closed or ridiculously expensive, and fighting crowds everywhere we went. But it being first time, it was all kinda fun too.
The next year, I remember getting the hell out of Dodge: in anticipation of 9 full days off work, I booked it to the beach and never looked back. There was almost no sign of Semana Santa that year where I was, which I now realize is because the Costa del Sol is full of British retirees who´ve eradicated (intentionally or not?) the Spanish culture all along the coast. I remember sand and sun, and not much else, from my second Semana Santa.
The third Semana Santa, last year, I remember staying put in Granada and trying to save money. I remember the inconvenience of the shops all being closed again, not having food readily available. I remember the hordes and getting to know my new friend, Simone, who lived with me at the time and had just arrived in Spain a few months earlier. I saw Semana Santa through her eyes a little, as we searched for pizza one afternoon and were surprised to find ourselves smack in the middle of a procession. She smiled and played with the people, darting her eyes around and taking it all in. Seeing Simone so entranced by her first procession, I felt a little guilty for wanting to simply escape the crowd. She gave me a bit of patience, just by enjoying it all a little.
And this year, my fourth and perhaps final Semana Santa (I plan on leaving Spain and Europe at the end of this academic year/summer), I notice more the inconvenience and crowds, the prices shooting up, and people becoming just a little bit more uptight. I realize now, reflecting on my previous Semana Santas, that my place and mental perspective at the time plays such a huge part in my emotional response to the memory. At the moment, I´m stuck on a rainy day, the 2nd to last of my 9-day vacation from work, in my apartment which is cosy but bored to tears and without money to do anything about it. The people in my life are mostly out of town, and I´ve got all this time on my hands but no productive ideas to put it to use. I´m cursing Semana Santa, but that´s only a coincidence because I happen to be bored and in dire need of SUN.
Yesterday we got an unexpected surprise when two friends who live super close to my house came over, and we drank and played a game for a few hours while discussing all the Semana Santa mayhem (a procession was going on just outside my window at the time). My friend Pourri, a Spanish girl, told us in some pueblos and even here in the city center, after some processions, there are people who go crawling on hands and knees after the idols, repenting and grovelling before their God. She says they do this for themselves, that it´s not a part of "making a show" of their repentence - hence the reason for not participating in the processions themselves. It made me remember my first Semana Santa with Matt, standing in Tarifa in the freezing cold, watching a procession of only children carrying an idol, barefoot in the streets. I was shocked: what do 10-12-year-olds know of repentence?? Is contracting an infection a worthy price for their spiritual well-being? It would appear so. I´m humbled by the hold that religion, in particular traditional Catholicism, still has on (some) people here in Spain. My Spanish friend, MariMar, told me the other day that when she was young, even a teenager, her parents always forced her and her sister to attend mass - they didn´t have to go with their parents, but they had to show up, and if they didn´t, the neighbors and people from the pueblo would tattle on them to their parents. I wonder if there are still parents who do this, or if that´s something that changed with the last generation - most of the young Spanish students I teach aren´t even remotely religious, something I attributed to perhaps the globalization of Capitalism since most of these students are born of wealthy parents who don´t need God anymore now they´ve got the "dollar." It´s interesting, anyway. The generation gap here, from all the 2nd- and 3rd-person accounts I´ve gathered in my 3 years in Spain, seems much bigger than in the States. It makes sense, given Spain´s relative young "age" in the non-dictatorial world.
Well then, writing a blog was a useful achievement for Semana Santa. Maybe I´ll pick up the guitar here in a bit, maybe take a walk. Holy Week is good for leisure, this I´ve learned above all. Now if only I were a person who knew what to DO with leisure time ;)
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Lessons Not Only Taught
I woke up today with nothing particular to do. P*s at his first day of work in a long while, on a Saturday of all days, the sun is shining, and I´m sat here on my sunny terrace with time to spare. This is a positive take on what´s seeming more and more like a rather lackluster year-and-a-half spent still living in Granada. The days are so simliar sometimes they blend together and I find myself wondering where entire months have gone. Sure, I can look closely and see all the amazing experiences I´ve had and people I´ve met, see the mountains we´ve literally and figuratively climbed, the beaches we´ve camped on and continued to haunt for entire summers. But the bigger picture, the one that comes to me on days of extra free time (too much time to think!), often confuses me - I see many days or even months spent in confusion, time spent lost in foreign languages and trapped inside myself like a child. I see a young woman who´s often so insecure as to push people away by instinct, keeping them at arm´s length, while paradoxically looking for only a little recognition or reward for simply being herself.
Maybe this need for appreciation I´ve got is innate or human; surely it´s got something to do with my mother; but nearing 30 years of age feels like I´m on the edge of a cliff. Do I jump in heart-and-soul to the decision I made 2 (or 3??) years ago, to travel the world and not put my feet down until I feel truly at peace? Doing that would mean that I eventually must invent what I´m lacking now - some sense of permanence in a foreign land, some kind of HOME - but can people really do that? More importanly, could I? I´ve spent my twenties a bit differently than a lot of people, but what are the products of my sacrifices (family and friends, familiarity and my own culture)? What have I been so eager to set aside who I am, in exchange for...what?
The answer to this has to be that I´ve gained things, learned things, on my journey of living abroad. I´m taking my blog in the direction of these "lessons" that I´ve picked up since leaving the States, and today´s blog is about something I´ve learned to do quite recently.
I´ve learned to listen, and I´ve learned to hear. After several months when I first arrived in Granada, I always walked around town, earphones plugged into ipod. Then one day, after reading an internet article on "noticing" and how you can change your luck by being more spontaneous and breaking normal routines, I conducted an experiment. I unplugged. All at once, I was tuned in to the people I pass every day on my way to work. You can hear so many conversations and sounds in any given walkabout in Granada - lost tourists, people arguing in any language, new lovers´whispers and giggles, young, fresh backpackers unashamed to marvel out loud at things they never dreamed they´d see. I wondered that first day how I´d ever made my way to work without this. It literally puts a smile on my face to marvel at the sweet, confusing music that is a foreign (to me) language. my brain activates and engages my ears; I try to decipher first the hand gestures and the body language, then I take in the rising and descending tones - are they joking or ranting, arguing or making small talk? Somehow by putting all this together, I formulate the little life stories that happen ever day in Granada, the things that to me are the color of human civilization itself - relayed through linguistic communication. It´s probably very far from accurate, my interpretation of what the people are saying, but that doesn´t really matter. I feel relief when I´m hearing or listening to another language and there´s no real pressure to understand everything (to the contrary, it´s quite unnerving if you need to understand). Walking to work becomes an escape when you put so much attention on the external.
That´s a lesson I´ve learned that I couldn´t have experienced had I not left the States. What was the point in studying linguistics if my future was only in the U.S. of A, where principally only ONE language is spoken? Recalling these little gems of experience make me feel a whole lot better about my decision to move so far away from home. I´m going to recall them more often :)
Maybe this need for appreciation I´ve got is innate or human; surely it´s got something to do with my mother; but nearing 30 years of age feels like I´m on the edge of a cliff. Do I jump in heart-and-soul to the decision I made 2 (or 3??) years ago, to travel the world and not put my feet down until I feel truly at peace? Doing that would mean that I eventually must invent what I´m lacking now - some sense of permanence in a foreign land, some kind of HOME - but can people really do that? More importanly, could I? I´ve spent my twenties a bit differently than a lot of people, but what are the products of my sacrifices (family and friends, familiarity and my own culture)? What have I been so eager to set aside who I am, in exchange for...what?
The answer to this has to be that I´ve gained things, learned things, on my journey of living abroad. I´m taking my blog in the direction of these "lessons" that I´ve picked up since leaving the States, and today´s blog is about something I´ve learned to do quite recently.
I´ve learned to listen, and I´ve learned to hear. After several months when I first arrived in Granada, I always walked around town, earphones plugged into ipod. Then one day, after reading an internet article on "noticing" and how you can change your luck by being more spontaneous and breaking normal routines, I conducted an experiment. I unplugged. All at once, I was tuned in to the people I pass every day on my way to work. You can hear so many conversations and sounds in any given walkabout in Granada - lost tourists, people arguing in any language, new lovers´whispers and giggles, young, fresh backpackers unashamed to marvel out loud at things they never dreamed they´d see. I wondered that first day how I´d ever made my way to work without this. It literally puts a smile on my face to marvel at the sweet, confusing music that is a foreign (to me) language. my brain activates and engages my ears; I try to decipher first the hand gestures and the body language, then I take in the rising and descending tones - are they joking or ranting, arguing or making small talk? Somehow by putting all this together, I formulate the little life stories that happen ever day in Granada, the things that to me are the color of human civilization itself - relayed through linguistic communication. It´s probably very far from accurate, my interpretation of what the people are saying, but that doesn´t really matter. I feel relief when I´m hearing or listening to another language and there´s no real pressure to understand everything (to the contrary, it´s quite unnerving if you need to understand). Walking to work becomes an escape when you put so much attention on the external.
That´s a lesson I´ve learned that I couldn´t have experienced had I not left the States. What was the point in studying linguistics if my future was only in the U.S. of A, where principally only ONE language is spoken? Recalling these little gems of experience make me feel a whole lot better about my decision to move so far away from home. I´m going to recall them more often :)
Thursday, July 15, 2010
N.O.L.A. or BUST! (as in, my waist line : )
I´m planning my first trip home to the US of A in over 2 years (less than 2 weeks away)! I´ve been on auto-pilot while lots of stuff has been changing and going on (the end of the academic year, the booking of my flight, the finding of summer work, the starting of summer work and a completely different work schedule, two two-week-long visits from out of towners who don´t speak Spanish OR English, the World Cup, etc etc etc...), and I´m just now realizing how soon I´ll be home. (This of course means I´m just now starting to get freaked out about it.) I´m nervous and don´t really know why. I´m worried I´ll get bored, or gain 15 pounds, or there´ll be a hurricane and I´ll have to evacuate for my whole trip. I´m worried everyone´s lives will have changed so much and I´ll feel guilty for not being there. These are somewhat valid although irrational fears, but instead of letting them take over, I´m going into happiness overdrive and focusing on all the great stuff I´m gonna be doing in just 10 days!!
Having been asked many times in the past month what I want to do when I get home, I hadn´t had time to really think about it and I´ve just told people, "Ehhh, relax and see everybody, I guess." Today is the first time in over 3 weeks that I´ve had to myself and I miraculously have the energy to think about and try to plan my upcoming trip. Turns out, come to think of it, I´ve got quite a lot of stuff to accomplish in just two weeks - almost all of it revolving around FOOD (big surprise from a New Orleanian, eh? NOT).
I´ve started creating an official list of what I want to do in the States/at home, and I was thinking it´d be funny to post what I have to far. This list says a lot about what I miss back at home, about food for which there is absolutely no comparison in Spain. It also says a lot about how unhealthy my favorite New Orleans food is, jaja!
Of course included in my food tour is visiting absolutely everyone that I can since who knows when I´ll get to come back. I´ll need to get creative and incorporate visits and food since I´ve only got 2 weeks...omg, I´m gonna gain 20 pounds!!
Anyway, here´s my list of food I want to eat and stuff I want to bring back to Spain, for your viewing pleasure! What I´ve been missing for almost two years:
Eats & Drinks USA:
Eat Out:
Mushroom & Swiss Burger - Cooter Brown´s
Fried Chicken - Popeye´s
Fried Crawfish po-boy - Domilese´s
Boiled crawfish (probably not possible)
Oysters and crawfish etouffe - Acme
Chinese - Fong´s in Metairie
Thai - Sukho Thai on Royal St.
Eat In:
Fried fish and bbq shrimp - Matt´s house
Lasagña - Gramzie´s house
Gumbo - my Mawmaw´s house
Pizza - anywhere (pizza sucks in Spain!)
Drink:
Mochasippi at CC´s Coffee
Snowball at Audubon Park
Pointsettia at Mimi´s in the Marigny
Hand-grenade in the FQ
Hurricane at Pat-O´s
Thai bubble-tea anywhere
Shopping USA:
Stuff:
Vintage clothes
Okra seeds
DVDs from the dollar bin at Wal-Mart
Frisbee
Food:
Dr. Pepper
Kool-Aid watermelon-cherry mix
Abita beer
Tony´s
Liquid smoke
Curry paste
Hand-made tortillas
Mac-n-cheese
Classic Goldfish crackers
Having been asked many times in the past month what I want to do when I get home, I hadn´t had time to really think about it and I´ve just told people, "Ehhh, relax and see everybody, I guess." Today is the first time in over 3 weeks that I´ve had to myself and I miraculously have the energy to think about and try to plan my upcoming trip. Turns out, come to think of it, I´ve got quite a lot of stuff to accomplish in just two weeks - almost all of it revolving around FOOD (big surprise from a New Orleanian, eh? NOT).
I´ve started creating an official list of what I want to do in the States/at home, and I was thinking it´d be funny to post what I have to far. This list says a lot about what I miss back at home, about food for which there is absolutely no comparison in Spain. It also says a lot about how unhealthy my favorite New Orleans food is, jaja!
Of course included in my food tour is visiting absolutely everyone that I can since who knows when I´ll get to come back. I´ll need to get creative and incorporate visits and food since I´ve only got 2 weeks...omg, I´m gonna gain 20 pounds!!
Anyway, here´s my list of food I want to eat and stuff I want to bring back to Spain, for your viewing pleasure! What I´ve been missing for almost two years:
Eats & Drinks USA:
Eat Out:
Mushroom & Swiss Burger - Cooter Brown´s
Fried Chicken - Popeye´s
Fried Crawfish po-boy - Domilese´s
Boiled crawfish (probably not possible)
Oysters and crawfish etouffe - Acme
Chinese - Fong´s in Metairie
Thai - Sukho Thai on Royal St.
Eat In:
Fried fish and bbq shrimp - Matt´s house
Lasagña - Gramzie´s house
Gumbo - my Mawmaw´s house
Pizza - anywhere (pizza sucks in Spain!)
Drink:
Mochasippi at CC´s Coffee
Snowball at Audubon Park
Pointsettia at Mimi´s in the Marigny
Hand-grenade in the FQ
Hurricane at Pat-O´s
Thai bubble-tea anywhere
Shopping USA:
Stuff:
Vintage clothes
Okra seeds
DVDs from the dollar bin at Wal-Mart
Frisbee
Food:
Dr. Pepper
Kool-Aid watermelon-cherry mix
Abita beer
Tony´s
Liquid smoke
Curry paste
Hand-made tortillas
Mac-n-cheese
Classic Goldfish crackers
Monday, April 26, 2010
Keep On the Sunny Side
I feel too much like a whining retard to admit this, but I think I´m getting bored in Spain. Things are humming along this Spring quite nicely, I have nothing to complain about, and yet somehow I´m full of unrest. My mind races at night when I´m trying to sleep, about things I must get done before the summer gets here, about activities I´d like to start up, about what this summer is actually going to be like once I get everything finalized.
Lots of things are up in the air (i.e. my summer work, my summer trip to the U.S., my next academic year...wherever (most likely in Granada)), but that makes this Spring no different from any other since I´ve started teaching EFL. I think the problem is more on the relationship front than I´m willing to admit.
Since moving in together, things with P* have been good...and bad. Ups and Downs, right? Isn´t that what it´s always like? The first few weeks I was in homemaking bliss, happy to discover that my cleanliness and his, though they are thankfully both quite high-standard, are also complementary - I care about where things go, everything in its place, while he actually cares about dust and dirt and streaks on the glass/mirrors. I was happy thinking we were in near-perfect balance with housekeeping, when suddenly one night P* exploded on me without warning. He´d come home from work tired, and because I hadn´t started cooking dinner yet when he arrived, he threw himself into doing it while giving me the cold shoulder. When I got up the guts to ask what was wrong, it came to light that he didn´t think I was cleaning enough! Can you imagine?! ME!!! This was the first time in my life anyone had EVER found fault with me not cleaning enough. (In case you don´t know me very well, I´m quite well-known for being a cleaning control freak and thus a pain in the ass to live with, for most people.) I´ve clearly made too much progress in letting go of my cleanliness control, something I´ve been working on since moving to Spain.
Anyway, after about 2 hrs of struggling to understand one another, I gave up and fled outside to the terrace, where I dropped into a fit of sobbing, gut-wrenching tears more intense that any in a long, long time. I felt like a failure. I felt like all the hopes I´d been building up for my new life here, for this new relationship, this new living situation...all of it is ridiculous and pointless if I keep making mistakes without realizing it. And that´s what this argument was - a list of things that P* had piled up all week long, things that I was doing wrong or simply not doing. I felt like the typical man in the argument, while P* was playing the typical woman - pummelling me with a long list he´d unfairly been storing up. I had to explain to him - I can´t avoid doing something he doesn´t like, or do things that he does like, if he doesn´t TELL ME he wants me to (not) do them! I´m not an effing mind reader! And he was frustrated too, the whole ¨I shouldn´t have to TELL you what I want! I ¨just want you to think about ME and just be considerate!¨And then I´m thinking, ¨Yeah, YOUR idea of what a considerate person is must be different from my idea. That´s why you have to COMMUNICATE!¨ Oh god, and it went on and on like that for another couple of hours, and we didn´t really make any progress.
The whole time I was crying, I kept thinking about the dream I´d had the night before - it was about my ex-b/f, I*. It was the first time in a loooong time I´d dreamt about him, and I wasn´t sure why I had. In the heat of the argument, I realized why: maybe it´s residual guilt feelings from the way that relationship ended, but I´m starting to see myself in this relationship with P*, except I´m seeing me as I*, and P* as me. I feel like all of a sudden I can understand a lot of the things I* used to complain about, the way he used to react when I got upset - he always tried to please me, to do what he thought I wanted, but most of the time I was never very clear about what I wanted and I expected him to somehow just sense, or magically know, what I wanted. Looking back, I wasn´t very fair during these arguments. It was my failure to communicate what I wanted, not his inability to give me what I wanted, that was the problem. I had this epiphany during my crying spell on the terrace, and I wanted to vomit from feeling so guilty. Karma is a bitch, eh? At least the realization of all this helped me to communicate to P*, as if I was talking to myself. I think he learned a bit about me, and maybe I figured some stuff out. It ended well, at least.
Of course there have been lots of other arguments since we moved in together in March, but none so mind-fucking as that one. I think we´ve more or less recovered, but the future will always bring further challenges - many of which to me feel like looming storm clouds which will inevitably burst when I´m not paying attention. But of course that´s only today´s perspective. Tomorrow´s forecast is sunny; gotta hope for the best, eh?
Lots of things are up in the air (i.e. my summer work, my summer trip to the U.S., my next academic year...wherever (most likely in Granada)), but that makes this Spring no different from any other since I´ve started teaching EFL. I think the problem is more on the relationship front than I´m willing to admit.
Since moving in together, things with P* have been good...and bad. Ups and Downs, right? Isn´t that what it´s always like? The first few weeks I was in homemaking bliss, happy to discover that my cleanliness and his, though they are thankfully both quite high-standard, are also complementary - I care about where things go, everything in its place, while he actually cares about dust and dirt and streaks on the glass/mirrors. I was happy thinking we were in near-perfect balance with housekeeping, when suddenly one night P* exploded on me without warning. He´d come home from work tired, and because I hadn´t started cooking dinner yet when he arrived, he threw himself into doing it while giving me the cold shoulder. When I got up the guts to ask what was wrong, it came to light that he didn´t think I was cleaning enough! Can you imagine?! ME!!! This was the first time in my life anyone had EVER found fault with me not cleaning enough. (In case you don´t know me very well, I´m quite well-known for being a cleaning control freak and thus a pain in the ass to live with, for most people.) I´ve clearly made too much progress in letting go of my cleanliness control, something I´ve been working on since moving to Spain.
Anyway, after about 2 hrs of struggling to understand one another, I gave up and fled outside to the terrace, where I dropped into a fit of sobbing, gut-wrenching tears more intense that any in a long, long time. I felt like a failure. I felt like all the hopes I´d been building up for my new life here, for this new relationship, this new living situation...all of it is ridiculous and pointless if I keep making mistakes without realizing it. And that´s what this argument was - a list of things that P* had piled up all week long, things that I was doing wrong or simply not doing. I felt like the typical man in the argument, while P* was playing the typical woman - pummelling me with a long list he´d unfairly been storing up. I had to explain to him - I can´t avoid doing something he doesn´t like, or do things that he does like, if he doesn´t TELL ME he wants me to (not) do them! I´m not an effing mind reader! And he was frustrated too, the whole ¨I shouldn´t have to TELL you what I want! I ¨just want you to think about ME and just be considerate!¨And then I´m thinking, ¨Yeah, YOUR idea of what a considerate person is must be different from my idea. That´s why you have to COMMUNICATE!¨ Oh god, and it went on and on like that for another couple of hours, and we didn´t really make any progress.
The whole time I was crying, I kept thinking about the dream I´d had the night before - it was about my ex-b/f, I*. It was the first time in a loooong time I´d dreamt about him, and I wasn´t sure why I had. In the heat of the argument, I realized why: maybe it´s residual guilt feelings from the way that relationship ended, but I´m starting to see myself in this relationship with P*, except I´m seeing me as I*, and P* as me. I feel like all of a sudden I can understand a lot of the things I* used to complain about, the way he used to react when I got upset - he always tried to please me, to do what he thought I wanted, but most of the time I was never very clear about what I wanted and I expected him to somehow just sense, or magically know, what I wanted. Looking back, I wasn´t very fair during these arguments. It was my failure to communicate what I wanted, not his inability to give me what I wanted, that was the problem. I had this epiphany during my crying spell on the terrace, and I wanted to vomit from feeling so guilty. Karma is a bitch, eh? At least the realization of all this helped me to communicate to P*, as if I was talking to myself. I think he learned a bit about me, and maybe I figured some stuff out. It ended well, at least.
Of course there have been lots of other arguments since we moved in together in March, but none so mind-fucking as that one. I think we´ve more or less recovered, but the future will always bring further challenges - many of which to me feel like looming storm clouds which will inevitably burst when I´m not paying attention. But of course that´s only today´s perspective. Tomorrow´s forecast is sunny; gotta hope for the best, eh?
Sunday, March 7, 2010
The Holy Enchilada
February flew by, and there's little to mention other than my unfortunate laptop incident. We were watching something on P*'s computer while my laptop nearby was downloading something, and in one swift move, wherein I was intending to be slick and romantically ease my boyfriend into a horizontal position, I knocked the laptop off the bed and it landed gently on its side, on the floor. I picked it up and the only thing wrong was that end of the adapter cable was bent where it plugs into the laptop. I straightened it manually and re-booted. Strange flashes appeared on the screen, and I started freaking out. I bought a new adapter on ebay and waited for it to arrive. In the meanwhile, I did what I shouldn't have and tried to find ways to rig the broken adapter cord into working - I stuck it into the power source as firmly as possible and propped it up for as long as it would last. Then the new adapter arrived, and when I plugged it in, everything worked fine. Except...the keyboard wouldn't allow me to type more than one letter without rebooting. So I sent it off to be inspected, and the problem was small, just a lack of power for the screen to function, which the new adapter took care of. Except the guy wasn't able to find the mechanical problem connected with the keyboard malfuntion. And the mouse pad doesn't work either. Great. So now I'll probably buy an external Spanish keyboard and use it until I get enough money scraped together for a new computer. NOT a good thing for my savings plan.
Other than that technical dificulty, this Spring has been good. The weather is absolute shit - rain, hard winds and cold, cold, cold all the time. 2012 is coming. (Since the film, Spanish ppl say this a lot: "Viene el dos-mil-doce!"). But somehow keeping myself so busy with work, and also with my recent move into a new apartment, I don't dwell too much on the lack of sun. The new apartment came as a surprise - P* was looking for single studios when he got notice that he had to move out before March 1st, and he came upon a 2-brm attic apartment just 20 meters from my house. There are two bedrooms, two terraces (one communal, shaded, with a view of the Alhambra and Sierra Nevadas, the other private and uncovered), a big salon, and tiny but functional kitchen and teeny bathroom. We're having a party this weekend to warm the new piso, plus it's my birthday :) It's weird to think of myself as 28, and to think this Wednesday also marks my 2-yr anniversary of living in Spain. Time is a weird thing.
Anyway, not much else to report. I'm cold.
Other than that technical dificulty, this Spring has been good. The weather is absolute shit - rain, hard winds and cold, cold, cold all the time. 2012 is coming. (Since the film, Spanish ppl say this a lot: "Viene el dos-mil-doce!"). But somehow keeping myself so busy with work, and also with my recent move into a new apartment, I don't dwell too much on the lack of sun. The new apartment came as a surprise - P* was looking for single studios when he got notice that he had to move out before March 1st, and he came upon a 2-brm attic apartment just 20 meters from my house. There are two bedrooms, two terraces (one communal, shaded, with a view of the Alhambra and Sierra Nevadas, the other private and uncovered), a big salon, and tiny but functional kitchen and teeny bathroom. We're having a party this weekend to warm the new piso, plus it's my birthday :) It's weird to think of myself as 28, and to think this Wednesday also marks my 2-yr anniversary of living in Spain. Time is a weird thing.
Anyway, not much else to report. I'm cold.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
As the (Personal) World Turns...
Outside of work, the personal life has also brought new challenges. I spent last weekend up in Prado Negro, a pueblo in the mountains above Granada. We went hiking about 8 km up above the house where our friends live - through piles and piles of beautiful, glistening snow. I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that it was the first time I'd seen that much snow EVER in my LIFE (about mid-thigh-deep). I made a snow angel and got bathed in the obligatory "snow virgin snowball fight" before we climbed down a freakishly steep cliff to cross over a waterfall (the only reason we were able to get across is it was covered in snow...which was also what made it very dangerous and difficult).
Walking all that way, on a continuous incline no less, I became emotionally introspective despite the 5 friends happily chattering all around me (mostly in French, which might have contributed a bit too). I had a sort of epiphany about myself and physical challenges: I don't like to be on display at these times. Parts of the climb were...not difficult, but not necessarily things I was prepared to do when we left the warm comfort of the house that morning. In my mind, we were 6 friends out to leisurely explore the snow and breathe a bit of fresh air - not climb tediously over jagged rocks and prickly plants all afternoon for the sake of "sport." Because I didn't have a clear idea of what we would be doing (I probably should have guessed, based on the super professional outdoor/athletic gear our friend Rosa changed into before we left), I was unpleasantly surprised each time Rosa and her b/f Sylvain directed us further away from their house, up, up, and up the mountain over muddy, ice-covered patches of land that were nearly impossible to pass through with my pseudo-sporty New Balances (the only athletic shoe I own here in Spain) [side-note: everyone else in our walking party was wearing Merrill-type hiking shoes or boots, most of them water-proof, while I returned with freezing-cold, sopping-wet feet up to my mid-calves]. Anyway, there were moments of the day when I felt quite on-display about my lack of enthusiasm to get past the mountain's obstacles, and quite singled-out as the misfit in our group, and I worried that these people would see me as unadventurous or non-athletic. So I stayed quiet and focused on my balance when the terrain got slippery, I kept up my breathing instead of talking the whole way, and in doing this, I think I (unavoidably) pissed off my b/f just a bit.
Later, I thought about a story of my American friend M*, whose Spanish b/f is really outdoorsy and likes to go hiking and trampling through the woods and stuff. M* and I come from the same basic city background, where it's just not normal to go out in the nature and hang around (no electricity? then what's there to DO out there??). We have that in common, but we differ in terms of athletic experience: though I never really liked hanging out in the woods, I've always been relatively athletic in terms of extra-curricular activities; however, M* has never gotten into sports, based on her personal interests and tastes, and while that's different from my experience, I can totally get it - my philosophy is basically that physical effort for the sake of physical effort is DUMB (i.e. wasting hours at the gym) - if you incorporate a healthy amount of physical activity into your daily life, or do fun things that are mildly physical, this is a much better way to stay healthy and fit (hello?! dropping 7 pants sizes simply by walking instead of driving!).
Anyway, M* told me once about a day she went "walking" up in Jaen with her b/f and some of his friends. The "walk" turned out to be a hike, and there was a rather treacherous rope-bridge to cross, too. She broke down and cried a lot of the way, and her b/f was disturbed and confused and irritated at this behavior, and they had a big fight in the end. In retrospect, she realized the problem was she wasn't properly informed of what they would be doing, not to mention this type of thing isn't something she's done very often in her life, and most problematic was that her disgraceful reaction to this new experience was being witnessed by others who found the activity easy and fun (including the man whose opinion is most important to her). After the hike this weekend, I identify a lot with M*'s story, and remembering it helped me to cut myself some slack here. I used this story to explain my odd behavior to my b/f afterwards, and I think maybe he gets it now: yes, I like challenges and trying new things, and of course I'm open to different ideas of what's "fun," but I'm still allowed to get a little emotional (read: frustrated, caught off-guard, reluctant…) during new experiences, and it's not exactly easy to go through all that in front of people you barely know.
When we got back to the house, we drank tea and sat in the sun to dry out our feet, and we ate a tasty lunch and chilled out as the sun went down. It wasn’t the perfect snowy mountain climb, but it was my first, and I can rest easy knowing the next time I do it, I’ll know what to expect and be able to enjoy it a lot more. I’ll post pics of my first real snow day when I get them uploaded J
Walking all that way, on a continuous incline no less, I became emotionally introspective despite the 5 friends happily chattering all around me (mostly in French, which might have contributed a bit too). I had a sort of epiphany about myself and physical challenges: I don't like to be on display at these times. Parts of the climb were...not difficult, but not necessarily things I was prepared to do when we left the warm comfort of the house that morning. In my mind, we were 6 friends out to leisurely explore the snow and breathe a bit of fresh air - not climb tediously over jagged rocks and prickly plants all afternoon for the sake of "sport." Because I didn't have a clear idea of what we would be doing (I probably should have guessed, based on the super professional outdoor/athletic gear our friend Rosa changed into before we left), I was unpleasantly surprised each time Rosa and her b/f Sylvain directed us further away from their house, up, up, and up the mountain over muddy, ice-covered patches of land that were nearly impossible to pass through with my pseudo-sporty New Balances (the only athletic shoe I own here in Spain) [side-note: everyone else in our walking party was wearing Merrill-type hiking shoes or boots, most of them water-proof, while I returned with freezing-cold, sopping-wet feet up to my mid-calves]. Anyway, there were moments of the day when I felt quite on-display about my lack of enthusiasm to get past the mountain's obstacles, and quite singled-out as the misfit in our group, and I worried that these people would see me as unadventurous or non-athletic. So I stayed quiet and focused on my balance when the terrain got slippery, I kept up my breathing instead of talking the whole way, and in doing this, I think I (unavoidably) pissed off my b/f just a bit.
Later, I thought about a story of my American friend M*, whose Spanish b/f is really outdoorsy and likes to go hiking and trampling through the woods and stuff. M* and I come from the same basic city background, where it's just not normal to go out in the nature and hang around (no electricity? then what's there to DO out there??). We have that in common, but we differ in terms of athletic experience: though I never really liked hanging out in the woods, I've always been relatively athletic in terms of extra-curricular activities; however, M* has never gotten into sports, based on her personal interests and tastes, and while that's different from my experience, I can totally get it - my philosophy is basically that physical effort for the sake of physical effort is DUMB (i.e. wasting hours at the gym) - if you incorporate a healthy amount of physical activity into your daily life, or do fun things that are mildly physical, this is a much better way to stay healthy and fit (hello?! dropping 7 pants sizes simply by walking instead of driving!).
Anyway, M* told me once about a day she went "walking" up in Jaen with her b/f and some of his friends. The "walk" turned out to be a hike, and there was a rather treacherous rope-bridge to cross, too. She broke down and cried a lot of the way, and her b/f was disturbed and confused and irritated at this behavior, and they had a big fight in the end. In retrospect, she realized the problem was she wasn't properly informed of what they would be doing, not to mention this type of thing isn't something she's done very often in her life, and most problematic was that her disgraceful reaction to this new experience was being witnessed by others who found the activity easy and fun (including the man whose opinion is most important to her). After the hike this weekend, I identify a lot with M*'s story, and remembering it helped me to cut myself some slack here. I used this story to explain my odd behavior to my b/f afterwards, and I think maybe he gets it now: yes, I like challenges and trying new things, and of course I'm open to different ideas of what's "fun," but I'm still allowed to get a little emotional (read: frustrated, caught off-guard, reluctant…) during new experiences, and it's not exactly easy to go through all that in front of people you barely know.
When we got back to the house, we drank tea and sat in the sun to dry out our feet, and we ate a tasty lunch and chilled out as the sun went down. It wasn’t the perfect snowy mountain climb, but it was my first, and I can rest easy knowing the next time I do it, I’ll know what to expect and be able to enjoy it a lot more. I’ll post pics of my first real snow day when I get them uploaded J
As the TEFL World Turns...
Things have been...well, pretty great lately. I'm working an all-time BIG number of hours a week for me (28.5...the average number of hours per week for a TEFL teacher is around 25). And while the busy schedule doesn't leave much time for essential activities (eating lunch, for example), my American nature of "work work work" allows me to cope remarkably well. It's like what everyone says: give me just one important task to complete in a day, and I somehow won't find the energy to get it done; give me twenty, and I'll knock them all out, one-by-one, and still have time to cook and eat a nice dinner. It feels good to be productive, and I'm learning little tricks like preparing an energy-packed lunch to take with me before I leave the house on days when I don't have any breaks between classes [side-note: 3 days a week now, I'm teaching for 7 hours straight, with not even 5 minutes between each class to stop and pee or wolf down an apple]. The plus side is that time flies by on class days, and payday is SWEET :)
The increase in my teaching hours comes from one or two classes that I picked up from a teacher that left our academy last semester, plus two others which represent milestones for me: private classes taught OUTSIDE of established English schools. I was really nervous, for some reason, when one of these students first approached me about classes at his apartment. My mind raced with questions: is it a good idea to have class in the student's home (especially when the student is an adult male)? is there any way I might get screwed here (in terms of getting paid in full and on time)? am I going to burn bridges here with the two academies that I feel unexplainably loyal to? In the end, I went with my gut and arranged these two classes privately with the students, and they're going SO well! Not only do I receive 50% more money for teaching these classes (I don't have to give a "cut" of the profits to an academy), but the students pay me less than they would pay an official English academy - everybody wins, and I think my private students appreciate my time and efforts more than the students I teach in schools.
Around the time that all this was getting started (about a month ago, over the Christmas holidays), I coincidentally talked with a friend and former teacher at my main academy who's now running his own "school" - which basically means he's got his own business cards and teaches all in-house, private classes, exactly what I'm doing with the 2 students now. Apparently, he's got so many students wanting classes, he's outsourcing now and "hiring" other teachers to manage the overflow. A light bulb went off in my head as he passed me his card: this is what good, smart TEFL teachers do - they run their own "mini-business". But don't get me wrong here - I'm glad that these past two years I've spent my time working within the system, "paying my dues" as a relatively inexperienced TEFL teacher. I've learned a lot from putting in my time in the established schools, but next year I think I'll be ready to start downsizing the hours I put in at academies and accepting "independent" teaching ventures as often as possible. Especially when you consider the fact that my salary is 50% less per hour at the academies, PLUS the fact that without an official contract there I'm losing money that would cover my healthcare and citizenship costs, it just doesn't make cents or sense to keep shoveling TEFL manure in the schools.
Professionally, 2010 is looking good ;)
The increase in my teaching hours comes from one or two classes that I picked up from a teacher that left our academy last semester, plus two others which represent milestones for me: private classes taught OUTSIDE of established English schools. I was really nervous, for some reason, when one of these students first approached me about classes at his apartment. My mind raced with questions: is it a good idea to have class in the student's home (especially when the student is an adult male)? is there any way I might get screwed here (in terms of getting paid in full and on time)? am I going to burn bridges here with the two academies that I feel unexplainably loyal to? In the end, I went with my gut and arranged these two classes privately with the students, and they're going SO well! Not only do I receive 50% more money for teaching these classes (I don't have to give a "cut" of the profits to an academy), but the students pay me less than they would pay an official English academy - everybody wins, and I think my private students appreciate my time and efforts more than the students I teach in schools.
Around the time that all this was getting started (about a month ago, over the Christmas holidays), I coincidentally talked with a friend and former teacher at my main academy who's now running his own "school" - which basically means he's got his own business cards and teaches all in-house, private classes, exactly what I'm doing with the 2 students now. Apparently, he's got so many students wanting classes, he's outsourcing now and "hiring" other teachers to manage the overflow. A light bulb went off in my head as he passed me his card: this is what good, smart TEFL teachers do - they run their own "mini-business". But don't get me wrong here - I'm glad that these past two years I've spent my time working within the system, "paying my dues" as a relatively inexperienced TEFL teacher. I've learned a lot from putting in my time in the established schools, but next year I think I'll be ready to start downsizing the hours I put in at academies and accepting "independent" teaching ventures as often as possible. Especially when you consider the fact that my salary is 50% less per hour at the academies, PLUS the fact that without an official contract there I'm losing money that would cover my healthcare and citizenship costs, it just doesn't make cents or sense to keep shoveling TEFL manure in the schools.
Professionally, 2010 is looking good ;)
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