Grrrr....

I HATE CARS. AND PEOPLE WHO DRIVE CARS. ANGERRRRRRRRR.

Here's a synopsis of my thoughts this afternoon while walking to work today:

'Hmmm, the bus dropped me off with 15 minutes to walk to Rafa's house [Rafa is my student]. Great, I can take my time [the walk takes 10 minutes, more or less]. Wow, I've had this song by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on my mp3 player for months now, and I'm just now listening to it? Stupid! This song's fucking great! If I were a stripper, this would be my SONG, man. OMG, I'm walking in the outskirts of Granada in only two layers and I don't even need my scarf. Amazing. Look, the weather's so nice, the group of little old men who I used to always see sitting on the bench at the park have returned - and they have a dog with them! Great. That means summer's on its way. I wonder what the old men talk about, all huddled together in their little golfer hats and sweater vests? Hmm, which crossing should I use to get across the motorway? There are about 8 along my way...at the first one on the corner, you have to wait for a green light, which takes like 4 minutes, but then I'd have to run to make it to class on time. I'll keep walking and try one of the other 7 crossings - after all, they've all got BIG BLUE SIGNS which mean that it's MANDATORY for cars to stop and let you cross, so there's no waiting at those...yes, that's what I'll do. Yes.'

Then as I approach one of the PEDESTRIAN HAS THE RIGHT OF WAY crossings, of course I pause and don't just walk into oncoming traffic. There are about 30 cars headed down the motorway, and I lock eyes with the drivers of the first car in each lane approaching the crossing, as I always do for my own safety, to make sure they see me, which today they definitely did - just in time for them to FLY past at warp speed, followed by the other 28 cars, following suit. If I'd stuck my arm out at a 90 degree angle from my body, I'd be an amputee right now.

I generally refrain from flipping the bird EVER, whether it be at home in the States or anywhere, let alone in Spain where I like to be as courteous as possible. I'm rarely brought to such justifiable rage against others that a ridiculous gesture like this seems necessary. But today, oh sweet jesus christ, did I want to pull each of those drivers from their LAZY POLLUTING ASS MOTHERFUCKER automobiles and SMACK them in the face over and over with not ONE but BOTH of my middle fingers.

And THEN, OMG. It happened again, on the way home. TWICE. It seems if one person has a rod up his asshole and just can't be bothered to stop for pedestrians, everyone behind him thinks they shouldn't either. What is UP with that?!? The more I think about it, the more I think every privately owned automobile in the world should be fucking bombed as an environmental and social courtesy. I could blame the drivers, sure, say, "Oh, it's not every driver, just the assholes, and you can't do anything about them...they're everywhere. That's life." But the fact of the matter is EVERYONE has moments like this, where they're just too wrapped up in their own bullshit to realize they're not the only human being on the planet. And as much as we may deny it, everyone's had a moment where they've ignored the poor chicken just trying to cross the damned road. BUT...if we REMOVE the cars, if we REMOVE the road, if EVERYONE is that chicken...perhaps I'd get a bit more empathy, goddammit.

If you read this, please stop for pedestrians, even when you're not required to do so. We ALWAYS notice and appreciate it. Also, just a suggestion: leave your stupid-ass car in the driveway one day and walk to work, or (Gasp!) use public transportation to get there. What a thought?! Amazing!!

Sheesh, I'm angry.

Viva

I think often of this word, of its contextual meaning in conversation, and then also of its underlying root meaning, life. Somehow, this word encapsulates every feeling I have while living in this beautiful, raw country when I'm disciplined enough to fully engage all of my senses. The smells, the images, the sounds, the tastes, and the physical presence of Spain - these are naturally the things most tangible to me here, and each time I am able to focus my attention on one of these specifically, my mind sighs in reverence and utters a simple, undeniable "Viva."

Throughout all the expected ups and downs of living abroad in a country and culture that is foreign, each day of it seems to bring me closer to myself. I grow more confident in who I was before I came here, who I am now, and who I want to be as life takes me on its twists and turns. I have come to believe that this is a natural effect of travel, one I can't imagine myself living without.

What's interesting about this, what I've realized today in fact, is how these mental changes are manifesting themselves physically, on my body and in my face. Yesterday, while shopping in the city center of Granada due to a cancelled class and some unexpected time on my hands, I half-heartedly decided to try on a pair of jeans in a size 8. Once inside the dressing room, I hung the jeans on the wall and glanced in the mirror, giving myself a quick, "Here goes nothing!" half-smile, and then stared for a few moments at the "skinny" style jeans I had chosen to try to squeeze into. I imagined myself in them ideally, how they might look and feel against my curvy frame, hugging all the right parts of me and comfortably clinging to the rest, making me look undeniably chique like all the near-model-beautiful, stylish women of Spain. I realized in that moment how, no matter how much I try to deny it, I desperately want to fit in here - to look Spanish, to have the natural, easy elegance that so many Spanish women emit, to look stunningly casual and modern in a pair of simple, faded blue jeans. (This, perhaps, would explain my sheer joy whenever someone tells me that I look Spanish.) Immediately following these wishful musings, the more typical image of myself came into view: stepping into the jeans, pulling them half-way up to my chunky thighs and realizing that, of course, they weren't going any further up, lest I need someone to come in and surgically remove them from me. Despite the disappointment of this possibility, I laughed to myself and pulled the jeans from the hanger and stepped into them cautiously, one-leg-at-a-time.

"Like a glove" is the only expression, however trite, that comes to mind to describe the private little miracle that occurred in that tiny dressing room. I'm surprised I didn't shout in triumph or call the attendant over to verify my unexpected results. After nearly 10 years of floating from a size 8, then on through to sizes 10, 11, 12, and 13, I find myself today sitting in a pair of size 8 jeans for the very first time since HIGH SCHOOL. The feeling is of course victorious and triumphant, but most of all I am struck by a sense of wonderment.

I don't know how I've done it. Here in Spain, I have a debatably "healthy" breakfast every day of one scrambled egg, two slices of buttered toast, and a strong coffee with milk and (real) sugar, and I eat pasta nearly every night. If I want ice cream, I don't worry about seeing my thighs and stomach turn to creamy, gelatinous folds of skin - I eat ice cream. If my bake-all-day-long housemate offers me a slice of her fresh-from-the-oven pie or chocolate pastry, I sit down and savor it and wash it down with a tall glass of whole milk. After a long week of teaching, if my body is screaming for a bottle of wine and some oil-soaked tapas, I go for it. I can honestly say that I've never been so NON-conscious of the foods I put into my body, since living in Spain.

The only practical explanation that comes to mind is, of course, exercise - or what I prefer to call physical activity, since the word "excercise" to me has become so unpleasanty connotated in the recent years of diet-obsession. I don't own a car, a fact that I am proud of. I have a relatively busy schedule that keeps me sitting down for an hour or two at a time but then promptly up on my feet again to "book it" to the next class, which usually involves no more than a 15-minute, steady-paced walk, albeit sometimes slightly uphill. I live in the old Moorish Quarter of Granada, notorious for its steep, rocky hills which, when I first arrived here, climbing even at a snail's pace made me feel I might go into cardiac arrest. Now, I take these hills in easy stride every evening upon returning home. I do take the bus quite often, when it's necessary to save time and economically practical, but other than that, I'm on foot wherever I go. This is a part of the Spanish way of life - Spaniards love to be out together, walking around in packs and laughing, window-shopping and sharing the ins and outs of their daily lives with one another.

In this way, I think my gradual weight-loss can only be explained by my becoming more and more Spanish as I live here: not so much in the things I eat, but in the way I eat - not caring about what it will do to my figure but what it will do to my spirits, to my enjoyment of life; and not so much in how much time it takes me to get from point A to point B, but what I do in that time, outside of just getting somewhere as soon as possible. When I walk to someplace I need to get to, I have time to listen to my favorite music, to use it as a soundtrack to the images and people I see on my way, to see the world differenty and myself in it - to muse. These are aspects of the Spanish culture that I want to always keep with me as I go where life takes me - these, and my size-8 waistband! Viva!!!

I should be a Creative Writing teacher...

apparently. At least that's what my students told me tonight.

I gave a lesson tonight on short story writing to my FCE (First Cambridge Exam) students, who were unthrilled (did I just invent that?...anti-thrilled? non-thrilled? hm...I don't think any of these exist...my English is truly going to shit as my Spanish improves) to say the least. This class is at 8:30pm every Thursday, and it's hard enough to get a coherent thought in English out of my students at that time, let alone a good writing sample for FCE preparation. I thought that by choosing the short story category (which is a possible topic for the FCE), I'd tap into some of their interests and get them more excited about it. Yeah, uhm...not so much. One student dawdled through the whole class and didn't even decide what he was going to write about, let alone finish.

At any rate, after the obligatory grunts and groans once they realized we'd be writing tonight, we looked at two examples of short stories written for the FCE and compared them, talking about what makes a good short story. They were kindof deer-in-headlights until I asked them to think about their favorite authors and books. I asked them to think about why they like to read them. What is it about these authors or books that's so great? Somehow, inadvertently, this clicked for them - probably because it related what we were doing in class to their personal interests. They were throwing ideas at me left and right, and I couldn't write on the white board fast enough. I then turned the conversation to the art of "copying;" I told the students that good writers learn to be good by "copying" their favorite writers. The students started thinking critically about what their favorite authors do that they find so interesting or enjoyable to read - realistic plots, interesting characters, thrilling twists and turns, unusual problems, vivid images, descriptive language...etc etc. I got the students to do pair work while generating ideas for their stories, giving one another guidance as to what their favorite authors would suggest. It worked like magic!

I came up with all of this completely off-the-cuff - my original intention was just to "milk" this one writing assignment into a full lesson, and lo and behold, my passion for creative writing came out, inspiring the students more than I thought possible - and completely unbeknownced to me! It's wonderful when these 'zen' moments happen. Tonight, when the student told me I should teach Creative Writing, I had a realization in the moment and was able to fully appreciate it while it was happening, and not just after the fact.

Anyway, not that I'm actually thinking of teaching Creative Writing, but it's nice to know that I don't actually have to be good at Creative Writing in order to teach it. It's like the whole "I'm not a writer but I know good writing when I see it" argument. Except that I do in fact write...just not short stories. But anyway anyway....

My job is inspiring. I want to scream it from the rooftops :)

Teaching Lessons

It occurs to me now that I’ve never really talked about my student, “J” (full names are withheld to protect the innocent). But that’s really strange, because J is a really remarkable student. Firstly, J’s level of English is outstanding, probably the closest to fluency that I’ve ever found in a non-native English student. Secondly, the classes that we have together are anything but conventional - this could possibly be due to J’s level of English, which makes our one-to-one lessons together more like those I would have with native speakers, but I attribute most of this to J himself.

To tell you a bit about him, J is a fifteen-year old Granadino, born to relatively wealthy parents (both are doctors) who recently divorced, leaving J and his younger brother (also my student) to live with their father (interesting - that they live with their father). J and his brother are not typical Spaniards - they are well educated, as anyone would expect from privileged children, but instead of accepting what they have been born into with ambivalence, they genuinely appreciate what they have and seem to seize every opportunity to better themselves. One lesson I had with J a few months ago touched on the “nature versus nurture” argument, and as we discussed it, J told me a bit about his upbringing as he attempted to categorize his parents into the “nurturing” or “motivating” categories. [FYI: “nurturing” in this sense meant a parent who supports his/her child no matter what the child chooses to do, while “motivating” meant a parent who is supportive but continuously encouraging a child to try and to excel at as many different things as possible.] J told me that he luckily has one parent of each type - his mother is nurturing, while his father is motivating. As for what results this has yielded in J, he is a self-motivated, outgoing young man who is very interested in philosophy, politics and debate/classical argument, world issues, history, language, sports, music, and videogames (he is fifteen, after all!).

Anyway, J shines above almost all of my other students. He presents me with new challenges as a teacher to come up with lessons that he will find engaging, and once in a while he even catches me off-guard with the questions he asks. This is of course normal with bright students, but I guess I expect it more from native speakers than from TEFL students, which is why it surprises the crap out of me every time. J also has a knack for getting off-topic by engaging me in deep conversations about oh so many random things that, coincidentally, are very interesting topics that I could talk about for hours on end - I think J probably knows this and would rather sit and ‘chat’ for an hour and a half each week than do crummy grammar exercises that he could do in his sleep. Understandable, but still sneaky!

It’s one of these conversations that has me thinking about J tonight, as I just got back from class with him a few hours ago. We were talking about a lot of different things, but what interests me most about my talks with him is how much I learn from him. He tells me about European history, in particular that of Spain; he tells me about Plato and Descartes; and he told me tonight about sexism in the Spanish language and how difficult it is to change people’s minds on the subject, even those of the women who are most affected by it - most Spaniards hold the language as sacred and a part of tradition, like this magical thing that should never be changed or updated. He tells me how “behind the times” Spain is, how they get media (music and movies) months - sometimes years! - after the USA. He tells me how people in Spain tell him he could never be politically “left,” because he doesn’t believe in tradition (to which he vehemently stamps his foot and insists that he certainly believes in tradition, but not to the exclusion of questioning certain aspects of the traditions so that they reflect new understanding and enlightenment). After all, the traditions that we carry on through our lives are a reflection of not only who we were as a society and where we come from, but of who we are now and the image and history of ourselves that we want to portray for the future. J finds bull-fighting horrible, and he equated it tonight with the Roman tradition of putting slave men for the slaughter into a ring with tigers for the entertainment of the upper classes.

We don’t just talk about Spain, though. For every gem that J gives me about Spanish life and culture, I give him one about the English language, sometimes about the differences between American and British varieties and where they stem from - which of course must include some treatment of the respective histories, cultures, and ideologies there. We talked tonight about sexism in English, such as the current feminist arguments against the use of “woman” because it includes or is derived from “man,” and I think it surprised J to consider this for the first time. After he pondered this, he talked about how Spanish doesn’t have a neuter gender - for example, for certain professions which didn’t always include women but now do, the women who now do these jobs must still be referred to by a masculine noun.

Not to get too carried away in recounting all the details of my “lesson” with J tonight, but I just have to say what pure joy it is to have a student like him. It takes me back to my days of tutoring at UNT where I got to go to my Linguistics classes and learn these amazing new things about language and culture, and then just sit down with a student and use that information to help them in their pursuit of the ever-elusive “English.” I personally believe I changed lives in those days with what I taught students - hell, simply explaining the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammar can do that! It’s students like J, though, that remind me why I’m teaching in the first place. I get to learn just as much as I teach; I get to feel like what I have to share with other people is actually going to change the way they think and live their lives. And it’s with these rare students with whom you have a connection that you genuinely feel like it’s not just the fact that you’re the teacher and they’re the student - you are you, and how you say the things you say to your students is only possible because of who you are, not what you do. It’s completely gratifying and self-fulfilling.

I want to make a constant effort to remember this, to be thankful for every lesson I get with students like J, and to use each one to its fullest potential - for both myself and my students.

Ups and downs...mostly downs

I generally try to refrain from being too negative in my blogs, but I just don't have it in me to be positive today. I've been sick since Saturday, and I ignored the impending doom and decided to stay out late drinking that night, which is always a bad idea. Then, I had an allergic reaction to some falafel from my favorite schwarma shop (which always includes a large amount of wheezing and coughing), and now it's like I've got full-on emphysema, complete with fever and chills.

Anyway, it's just like sickness to bring you to a dark place, make you consider things in a different light and examine your life a different way. An update since my last post: the b/f came to visit over New Years and went back to the States on January 7, and then I had to go back to work the following day. We had an amazing time - got to see most of what Granada has to offer, the big sights in Sevilla (and some amazing tapas bars), plus we were able to fit in a museum and a Malasana pub crawl with my favorite friend in Madrid. All in all, good stuff. We had some amazing conversations over good wine and tapas, just got to enjoy being together in its essence. Unfortunately, after he left, I've been a bit reclusive. And I thought I was getting away with it, but people in my house have started to notice. They've been asking me if I'm just really busy with work, and in response I tell them yes, but honestly my work is the same as it's always been. I feel a bit more stressed by it, but that's just because I need to build up the steam I had going last semester, and that's always tough after the holidays.

In all honesty, I've realized how difficult it is for me to connect with other people. And another key to this reclusiveness is really just the fact that since the b/f came, I'm pretty certain that I am not interested in other men. And this is a good thing - it's good to know, to be sure. But then, he's so far away, while the idea of going back to the States at this point is fairly upsetting. But it wasn't always like this, and I think right now it's a matter of my perspective (which, after two days in bed with a deafening cough, is pretty bleak) - during the summer, it seemed like I made these strange and beautiful connections to so many unexpected people. But now, maybe it's the winter, maybe it's that Granada isn't as magical for me anymore and is really a better "summer town," whatever the reason, I'm feeling taxed by the thought of even a casual "chat" with my housemates. And for that, of course I feel guilty. Like I'm purposefully being anti-social, which is so not like me.

In short, I've got to get over this cold and out of the house and back to myself. Pronto.

Venga La Noche Vieja!!!

New Years (la noche vieja, in Spain) will be here tomorrow! I'm equipped with champagne (cava) and grapes (uvas), but fresh out of resolutions. Except maybe to get on top of my finances, which seem to have gotten quite out of hand since my return to Spain.

In case you weren't aware, there is a tradition in Spain to eat one grape every second during the final countdown to midnight. Apparently, this began as a Catalan tradition, so in Barcelona there are paramedics on hand all through the night for the occasional choking "accident." Still, I'm really excited! They don't have seedless grapes in Spain (imagine!), so we'll have to cut out the seeds and prepare the grapes for quick swallowing as the clock strikes 12:00. Fun, fun, fun!

The b/f is also set to arrive in 4 hours and counting - I barely slept a wink last night, I'm so excited. Apparently, neither did he. That's typical for the first night before a big trip, though. I never sleep before I get on the plane, which is better for me b/c then I'm actually able to sleep during the long flight. I'm sure he'll konk out as soon as he gets here, but I doubt I'll be able to sleep. Maybe I'll just lie there and watch him snooze next to me :)

Anyway, we have planned a grand cena (dinner) at the house, and then we'll move the party up to the Mirador de San Nicolas (minutes away from the house) for midnight. There will be fireworks, champagne, a view of the entire city (including the Alhambra), and we'll also be able to see all the parties going on down in the city below. Perfect. Hopefully, there will be parties going on until dawn - I hope the b/f is prepared for going out Spanish-style!

Planning A Gay Yule Tide

Deflation. Absolute and utter decompression. That's what Xmas is about for me this year.

After the longest, most difficult week of my life as a TEFL teacher, I got to sing at the annual IML Teacher's Christmas party. The owner arranged for us to play at a really great jazz bar in Realejo, an awesome barrio of Granada. We rehearsed once last Sunday, and we pulled it off quite well for only one 4-hour rehearsal. It was me and Paul (from Canada) on vocals, Paul and Jack on drums/cajon, Jonathan on bass, Hans and Jack on Guitar, and Joe (female) on violin. When I found out we would be playing, I freaked out about it a bit for two weeks, but then all that nervous tension was eased last night with a few glasses of wine. The crowd was warm and inviting, and I had my very own female cheering section there to support me. It felt great to hear my voice through a PA again. I'd forgotten how much I love it, how much I miss just singing with other musicians. I will try to keep this as a more permanent part of my social life here in Granada - clearly, there is no lack of talented musicians here with which to collaborate!

Anyhow, now that last night is over, I feel a bit despondent, but still sortof euphoric too. Most of the household has left for Christmas to visit their families and won't return until after the New Year. There are about 6 or 7 of us left here who will stay and make the yule tide gay - sugar cookies, spice cake, eggnog, cider, and board games. I want to make a ramshackle tree and arrange a gift exchange too, and just lock ourselves in the salon with two or three heaters and hang out until the sun comes up, really see if Santa Clause stops by :)

I hope I don't die of boredom before then.