Tranquila
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Saturday, April 1, 2006
Melanie tagged me!
Four jobs you have had in your life:
1. English Tutor at Whatcom Community College
2. Fairhaven Stack 4 RA (that was SO FUN.)
3. Bagel Slave (that was SO UNHEALTHY on SO MANY LEVELS.)
4. English "Profesora" at the Urban Language School in Beautiful Barcelona, Spain.
Four movies you would watch over and over:
1. Clueless
2. Reality Bites
3. Grosse Point Blank
4. This Is Spinal Tap
Four TV shows you love to watch:
1. I'm In Spain!
2. Spanish Television Totally Sucks!
3. And Not Just Because Its In Spanish!
4. Sometimes I Download Greys Anatomy.
Four places you have been on vacation:
1. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
2. Cork, Ireland
3. Tangier, Morrocco (I hated it. I'll tell you why one day.)
4. Loomis, Washington
Four websites you visit daily:
1. Pamie.com
2. thislife.org
3. gofugyourself.com
4. thestranger.com
Four of your favorite foods:
1. breakfast cereal (most brands and flavors, both hot and cold)
2. salmon
3. crunchy peanut butter and blackberry jelly on toasted whole wheat
4. vegetable curry
Four places you would rather be right now:
1. Cadiz, Spain
2. Galicia, Spain
3. Seattle, Washington
4. Somewhere in Greece
Four of your favorite songs:
1. Where Does the Good Go-- Teagan and Sara
2. Whitechocolatespaceegg-- Liz Phair
3. 2 Cool 2 Be Forgotton-- Lucinda Williams
4. Is This Love-- Bob Marley and His Fabulous Wailers
Saturday, March 18, 2006
I go shopping on the weekend afternoons. I am also listening to Mariah Carey right now, and enjoying it, and not ashamed. At all. And, I may have lost my glasses.
The weekend afternoon is probably the worst time in Barcelona to be out in the streets, and the worst time in Spain to be shopping. Somehow the whole world manages to stand in line at both Zara and H&M simultaneously. When I'm waiting in line, holding my nine-euro super-cute shirt that I JUST HAVE TO HAVE, sometimes, I feel like time has stopped. The spanish moms argue with the spanish salesgirls over sale prices and returns. Credit cards are rejected. The blood in my head starts to push against the constraints of my viens. I suppose that it's all the same back home, the business on the weekends and all, but the major difference for me in BCN is that the entire population of Whatcom County women between 18 and 49 could comfortably fit inside one Spanish department store. Especially Sfera. The women of Whatcom County could comfortably have a weiny roast and sing-a-long in Sfera. That shit's some 6 stories high. ONE department store. SIX stories.
But such loverly clothes... oh my. And the shoes. I think I'll miss the shoes the most. In my mind, I have bought around 10 pairs of shoes. I wear them IN MY DREAMS, because in reality I have bought I grand total of three pairs of shoes in the past year that I've been here. But spring's acumin, and that spells "s a n d l e s." Oh my yes.
I do other cultural meaningful things too, museums and walks on the beach and reading Don Quixote in the park. And there are lots, in fact, the majority, of weekend afternoons when I dont shop. There are days, most days, when I abhor the very thought of how time stands still in line with me.
But there are some pretty, pretty buildings here, and I feel a responsibility to keep up with the architecture. Plus, I want to make everyone jealous of how cute I am when I come home.
Bless me father, for I have shopped.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
The other night I dreamt I was wearing asparagus earings, and sitting in a plane that was about to land in Seattle. I've been having really intense dreams about home lately. Almost every night last week. With accompanying soundtracks-- Coldplay, mostly. Not all off them feature vegetable-based jewelery, though. That was just some fucked up one-time shit I felt like sharing with ya'll.
I dream about how green everything is back home. I had a dream in which I was walking the thousand-acre wood stretch of the Interuban Trail, and the air was wet and tree-scented and the gravel made that satisfying crunching sound as I walked. And there were birds and Coldplay singing in the background. You could say that I long for home.
Barcelona is not green air and Coldplay. Barcelona is...imported palmtrees and 80's-era pop. I don't think I could ever long for George Micheal. I listen to Tegan and Sara, and The Postal Service, and Death Cab, and yes, every once in a while I'll even listen to The Pale Pacific, and I just... long for home like I've never longed for anything before. It's not unpleasent. It feels quite nice, to know I have a home out there waiting for me.
At the same time, I feel more comfortable here in Barcelona than I've ever felt before. I have a favorite bus route. I know the places in town with the best deals on yogurt and garbonzo beans. I know the proper Fruteria ettiquet. My favorite spinning teacher, Raquel, knows me by name. My boss thinks I'm rad. My roommates are rad. I've learned 150 Delicious Ways To Cook Lentils. I recognize all the big Spanish hits on the radio and can sing haltingly along with the choruses. I can have a conversation and be charming in Spanish. When I think about eveything I have around me, everything I've got up and going and running smoothly, I realize that I've done what I came here to do.
I'm really, really proud of myself.
And I'm extremely, very, longingly excited to come home.
Sunday, December 4, 2005
I´ve told several people about this already but I suppose I´ll post it on The Internet to make it official: I sprained my neck.
You see, I was skiing in the Pyrenese with Jacques, and there was this bear, actually two bears, actually an entire herd of pissed off mama bears, and then there was this blonde and bedimpled little girl who was seperated from her parents and about to be eaten by the crazy hungry mad mama bears and then I was about to spring into rescue and the first thing I did in response to the impending emergency situation was turn my head VERY VERY QUICKLY and thats how I sprained me neck. But you should she those motherfucking bears now, they don´t even motherfucking have fucking necks. Bears. Fuckers.
But not really I just sat up in bed too quickly yesterday morning because I thought I was late for class and thats a much, much sadder explanation because what it boils down to is that I sprained my own neck. From waking up to fast. But it sent PAIN up through my neck into my brain.... which is where I do the majority of my thinking, by the by.
Of all the possible ways to injure oneself.... I do believe that that is the stupidest.
And then my roommate drove me to the public health clinic near Sagrada Familia (!!!!!) and we couldnt find it and then we couldnt find parking space and so he kept rolling down the window and asking people and jumping out of the (still running) car and running down the street to find more poeple to ask/ look for the clinic/ a parking spot. And then we found a parking space and the clinic and it was closed. And then we had to repeat the same exact thing with another health clinic across town. I was in the euphoric stage of shock, and found it all very funny and kept giggling. And then when we were in the waiting room we made up the story about the bears and Enrique told me about how the last time he had been in the clinic was after he was in a bar fight and then I laughed even more. Because he is really quite exactly not the bar fighting type.
Now I have Super-man strength ibuprofen and muscle relaxers and a hot water bag to drape across my neck/upper back/ head. And a whole lot of time to kill. But I´ll supposedly be better in 2 to 3 days, so at least I haven´t damanged myself beyond repair. But still.... no head banging tonight.
Motherfucking bears.
Saturday, December 3, 2005
so time keeps on slipping slipping slipping into the future, eh?
I got a job. I love my job. I teach in a private language academy, a 5 minute bus ride from my apartment. I have my own classroom. I have my own little cubby. I have a mountain of textbooks to lug back and forth. I have a paycheck at the end of the month. I´m as happy as a golden retriever watching a tennis match.
As soon as I walked into the school for the interview, I knew that I wanted to work there. And after the interview with Ivan (the owner of the school), I knew that I really, really, really wanted to work there. We talked about teaching theories, and barcelona, and spain, and he said all these nice encouraging zen-sounding things, like, "don´t worry, work will come." And then like 3 weeks later I had a job there. I work 5:30 to 10 monday through thrusday.
I got the call that I was hired at Ivan´s Dream School the day after I was fired from this other school I had accepted a job from in the meanwhile. That, my friends, was an absolute nightmare which requires its very own journal entry and several glasses of cava. I´ve experienced few things that made me feel so very, very small and insignificant in such a very crappy way as being fired in spanish.
And not every day is perfect, but in general, I have to say that I really, really like teaching at Ivans Dream Academy.
Last thursday, I was in a bad mood, I felt all tired and irritable, I was kind of dehydrated, I hadn´t done laundry in a while and so my shirt smelled kind of funny, the nine children in my Seven-year-old class wouldn´t stop talking and standing up and diving across the room and dropping books and pens and pointing out that they could see my underwear and then laughing maniacally when i bent over and by the end of the hour I was promising myself never to reproduce, and then they were in line getting all of there jackets on and sorting out whose back pack is whose which let me tell you takes FOREVER and I was thanking god that my time with them was short and my teaching job is only temporary and I was making small talk with the little girl in front of the line (who i had picked out speacially for the honor of being First In Line since she is very quiet, a virture rare and valuable in spanish seven year olds) about Chicken Little, and cartoon characters that she likes, and all the sudden she looked at me and said all shyly, "Eres muy guapa," which means, you are very beautiful, and goddmanit I couldnt help smiling and saying, gracias. Because guapa was what I was least feeling, and she used the form of the verb "to be" that implied that my beauty was a permanent, inherent thing, not just that I happened to look beautiful at the moment.
And so, I fell in love with my job all over again.
Saturday, September 3, 2005
Hot damn, the world freaks me the freak out sometimes.
I had a minor nervous hysteric breakdown a few days ago. I realized at 5:30 pm when my roommate came home from work that I was still wearing my pyjamas and I hadn´t really travelled very far from the living room sofa all day. I also realized that when I stopped to think about it, I felt nauseuos when I made any sudden movements and that I could no longer feel my ass as it had gone numb from intensive lounging.
I couldn´t make myself fry an egg, rinse out my cereal bowl, brush my teeth OR wash my face, pick anything up off my floor. I was even reluctant to get up off the couch to pee. To pee, poeple. One of my favorite passtimes. I was seriously depressing.
So when my roommate came home and I was forced to take a good long look at my glazed over, greasy and crusty self, I became a bit frantic. It was like waking up a sleep walker.
I have discovered that being alone is not all its cracked up to be. I do not like to be alone. I do not like to talk only on the phone. I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam I Am. And so I did the only thing I could think of: I threw myself upon the mercy of the internet. I found an anouncement for an english language writing group and an email to the address in the ad.
That email adress, my friends, looked strangely familiar.
And then this morning, when I was swimming, I realized why. I KNOW THIS GUY! I KNOW HIM! I HAVE A FRIEND IN BARCELONA! He was in my TEFL class with me in madrid last may! So I emailed him again saying holy fucking crap i know you and thats so rad (except not in those exact words)! And then he emailed me back again saying yeah, haha, Im trying to start a writing group and stuff, hey do you like kids? And then I remembered that he has a two year old son and how perfect is that- I have way to much time and no money, and the internet (or the universe or god) has potentially provided me with
1. A job
2. A friend
3. A structured writing environment
I love the internet so much I want to marry it and have like 5 million of its little webpage babies.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
I had my interview yesterday and I think it went well, in that I knew all the right answers to the questions, even though the interviewer lady said that there were no right answers, there totally were, and I think I nailed it. My only worry is that I didn´t look professional enough. People are dressy in Spain, and even dressier in Barcelona, and my light blue slightly wrinkled tshirt with my lacy floaty (slightly wrinkled) black skirt.... I don´t know.... I´m also worried about the overall impact of the frizziness of "le hair." I need a hair cut, desperately, but I´m scared to go in frizzy and come out with a mullet. I think that if I got a mullet I would cry forever.
After my interview I was EXHUASTED. Like I dragged myself into my bed at 2 pm and didn´t get up untill 7. I think it was the combination of waking up before 10 am and navigating the metro and walking, like, the length of the Kobi desert across the metro station each time I had to change trains. And no air conditioning, and sweaty back syndrome, and lots of stairs, and finding the building for my interview and then waiting with the anticipation buidling, building, building for almost an hour (I was early) and then it was all over and I could think about was crawling into bed and reading for the rest of my life.
Today is the last day of august. That means I´ve made it through the summer! I made it through June in Madrid with limited funding and no job, and then July teaching the spawn of the devil in the middle of the Spanish desert, and then August in Barcelona with no money, no job, and no friends. Goddamn. This means that anything I do in the states from now on will be a peice of cake. If I survived this summer, then I can totally digest anything that the US of A has to throw at me.
Whenever I hear english, Its like I´m tuning into my home frequency. Spanish sounds familiar, and definately more comfortable than german or italian or french or god forbid catalan, but following a random conversation in spanish is still impossible for me. I´ve just gotten used to not understanding most of whats going on around me. Its a shock to be walking along all the sudden hear something in english, something that I can understand without trying, and even more of a shock when its english with an american accent. I´m like a little american amoeba floating in a grande multicultural stew.
Monday, August 29, 2005
My alarm went off this morning at 7:20 so I could call Teizeen in Oregon. Yeah, right. I could barely rouse myself into counciousness to turn it off and reset it for 8:00. And then at eight I was extremely annoyed to be roused from my slumber yet again by that insolent taskmaster, the Cell Phone Alarm Clock. So I turned it off. And fell back to sleep. For almost TWO HOURS MORE.
This is what unemployment has done to me. I deplore this kind of behaviour. If you´re going to set an alarm, you might as well get up. But all I can think when my alarm goes off nowadays is.... "why?" It´s not like theres any specific time I have to be awake by. I´m Unemployed. And so I just cant make myself stop sleeping. I´ve become a total sleep whore. I sleep 9, 10 hours a night. After an extremely unstrenuous day of laundry, dish washing, grocery shopping, libarary going, book reading, park loafing, and internet surfing. Okay, most days I try to hit up the gym, but really, thats no excuse for sleeping 10 hours. Back in the day I was only getting about 5 hours max, when I would go to bed at midnight and wake up at 4:45 to be filling up bleach buckets and getting the cream cheese in order at the Baglery at 5:30. Thats exactly half the amount of sleep, and around 5 billion times more stress (I managed to fuck up at job in devistatingly embarassing ways at an extremely consistant basis). How the HELL did I do that? I must have been a zombie. No wonder I consumed mass qauntities of espresso. They kept me from passing out in the bagel baskets.
So anywho: thank the lordy that I woke up at 10, because that meant that at 11 I was coherent enough to sound perky responsible and together when my phone rang and I set up my first INTERVIEW! As in for a job! Teaching english! It´s a miracle! My interview is tomorrow and if I get it I would start next week. I don´t want to think about it too much and get myself all riled up so I´m going to stop writing about it...now.
In spain, apartments come fully furnished, and there´s no contract, expect for the one person that lives there permenantly... its all just month to month for the others. Muy informal. So Ruth and I are the new comers into our apartment; Enrike, the third roommate, is the sticker. Ruth and I were talking this afternoon, and she was saying that she doesn´t have any sheets, and she was wondering if Enrike would buy her some. Now, I bought my own sheets before I moved in, because in America, thats what you do, you buy your own sheets and blankets and hangers and desks and shower curtains and when you move you throw those things away or take them with you, because whoever is moving in next will have their own SUV-loads full of crap to disperse and wont want to deal with anything you´ve left behind. But in spain...people leave thier sheets behind. The sheets are supposed to be part of the package deal, as is the shower curtain, the desk, the lamps, the bed, everything. And Ruth feels a bit cheated out of her sheets. Once she figures out how to politely ask Enrike to buy her sheets, I´m totally gonna chime in and ask for a kitchen table, becuase now there isn´t one and everytime I finish making my food and go to eat it I wander in to the livingroom and circle around for several minutes all confused and sad before settling uncomfortably on the couch or out on the balcony with my food on my lap, which let me tell you, is not nearly as stable as a table.
And we need a new shower curtain.
But I think that the table will be my most immediate mission. I have a vision of myself on the balcony eating breakfast and hot sweet good spanish coffee at 10:30 in the morning seated all civillized-like at a proper table. Maybe if I get a job, I´ll even be able to afford a table cloth. And napkin rings!
I´m becoming more domesticated by the day, I swear.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Spain is fucked up. Thats what my friend Lisa told me, and I think its true. There is absolutely no process for some things, no bus schedules, no restuarant reservations, no capacity restrictions, no advance tickets. But for other things, small, every-day things, its all about the process, its all about taking several steps to complete the action. Laundry. Dishes. Grocery Shopping. I never really thought much about these things. Laundry was done by machines. It went in greasy to the washing machine, it came out crackling warm from the dryer. Dishes were done, sometimes, half-heartedly, sometimes several days after they were first used. Grocery shopping was done whenever someone else was happening to drive to the store, so I could hitch a lift.
Here there is no room to let my crusty dishes take up in the kitchen. They must be immediately washed, dried, put away. Laundry: the washing mashine is strange, small, round, un-american, the dial works only every once in a while, a single cycle takes 2 hours, and horror of horrors, there IS NO DRYER. this is actually my least favorite part about spain. God damn i miss hot clothes right out of the dryer. My clothes in spain are dried on a clothes line. I do like the zen contemplation i slip into as im clothes pinning my t-shirts and underwear out for all of our nieghbors, god and everybody to see. and grocery shopping: I go myself. No rides. I only eat what I can carry.
Sometimes I feel like one of the early pairie settlers, roughing it out in the wilds. Oh, Laura Ingalls. If only you could see me now.
Saturday, August 27, 2005
It rained today. I woke up and looked at the gray sky, all full of forbodding clouds, and got myself all excited to go the beach. Finally! Ocean weather! Wind and rain and waves! A storm to match the turbulence of my soul! I packed a book and a notepad and come colored pencils and walked down to the meditarean sea. There were old people playing dominoes and crazy young people in bikinis and briefs.
I didnt stay long, since as soon as a got there I realized I had forgotten my keys. Some things never change, eh?
Later I got fed up from sitting inside and decided that I was in desperate need for bodywash and a loofah and I announced that I was going out. ¨
"But where are you going, baby?" asked my roommate, Ruth.
"I´m going shopping," I said.
"You go to shop? Today?"
Ruth thinks I´m a bit crazy. It was raining. It was a saturday. And who the hell only goes out in the rain on a saturday when most decent god-fearing people stay in side all day recovering from thier friday night parties or getting ready for thier sunday morning hangovers to buy bodywash?
but let me tell you, it felt so good to be walking around in that rain that I would do it again, if only to buy dental floss.
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