A Oporto

I have run through this week, with the highlight being my 4 trips and 3 phone calls with my bank to figure out where November's pay might be hiding (I moved from an extranjera - foreigner - account to a residente - resident - account this week, changing my number just in time for the transfer), and armed with very little sleep, a backpack that weighs less than 10 kg, and my favorite Canadian, Rachel, I am off to Porto, Portugal tomorrow night after work! Aside from the obvious excitement I feel at going to a country that's cheaper, has a beautiful language, and potentially men that are as attractive as Cristiano Ronaldo but less whiny, I am also a bit sad to be leaving my beloved city for the first time. In my separation anxiety I ate a dinner of pineapple and gummies (like this egg -  yep, it's a gummy!):

Feliz Día del pavo

In class and in daily life I have spent the week trying to explain to people the reason this is the only week of the year that I feel homesick or nostalgic. The problem is, the description either goes way over their heads in a description of Thanksgiving as a family holiday with travel to be with family, too much food, and watching the only sport in the world that I don't care for OR we get stopped at the part when I say "turkey" or pavo. This seems to be the only detail of our biggest holiday (in my opinion) that has made it to the peninsula here, and with that description I tend to lose all the joy and memories that I want to be able to share with my acquaintances here.


I spent the week teaching my students about Thanksgiving, which included several lessons on root vegetables that only exist in the US and have no translation here and seeking out sweet potatoes in Latin American grocers just to make sure they do exist here. They do! They are called batatas while regular potatoes go by the very-similar patatas... it is understandable that the kiddos get confused. The week with the teachers was difficult because they continued to ask me if I was OK and if I missed home this week. Hard not to when you ask me every other sentence! I also had a tough week with my acceptance of my teaching abilities. It is hard to be thrown into a school with no teacher training and where the principal, teachers, and students all expect that you have some control over the skills required for this. I want to learn, that's a given, but I'm not sure who is going to give me that training. I got through it, though!


My Thanksgiving Day included some lessons for sophomores, juniors, and seniors, and I think I got through to them on the "interest" level, which will hopefully bring them into class more excited to try a bit harder in the future. In the afternoon I went for a bocadillo with one of the teachers who was worried about me being alone, but I don't think she understands that eating a sandwich with a teacher who wants to practice her English is not really going to make me forget the things I am missing... Luckily that afternoon I got to work with my little guys, and we had a good time drawing, fighting about who gets to use the HUGE kitchen scissors to cut out the drawings of the (fairly-racist) Pilgrim and Indian, and playing verb pictionary, which the seven year old really got a kick out of. I need to come up with some more games like that, so send any ideas my way! That night I had a great hour on Skype with Mom, Gram Peg, and the cousins, definitely something I needed, and then attempted to go out with Rachel only to be told that we "can't read" by the woman at the door regarding the fact that we thought we were on time to get in free. I told her I hated her to her face in English, which is always great fun since no one speaks English.


Last night I had the REAL Thanksgiving with Annalisa, complete with an afternoon cooking together! That's what I love most about the holiday, so I was ecstatic to get to share a kitchen with her as I made my apple pie and she her incredible stuffing! We got an intense run in pre-dinner, so we were ready to take down that food! I think I ate at least my weight in the food, not to mention the dessert, but for any of you who have spent Thanksgiving with me in the past, that shouldn't come as a surprise. Some Spaniards tried to make food, which ended up being tortilla española and some really rough "pumpkin pie" that was the densest and least-flavorful dish I've had. I forgive them, but we probably should have just had them bring wine...


Today I am hoping to get out of the house for some sort of adventure, but for now I might just run out for some tomatoes to make a killer recipe I just discovered. 


I am super thankful for all of you, so thank you for being there for me! I made it through the holiday and I am back to absolutely being infatuated with and amazed by my life here and hope you all have had a great Thanksgiving, too!

Más sobre la enseñanza

I was talking to a friend back in the states yesterday who has family in Spain and she reminded me of a conversation we had with her relatives about the security in teaching jobs here. Her cousin lives in Miami but has passed the exam to be a teacher in Spain, an exam that grants you a civil servant position, AKA one that will employ you for life. She can return to Spain at any time and have a job, even if she hasn't been teaching in the past decade or more. 


I had a similar discussion with one of my teachers last week as she drove me to the bus stop at the end of the day. If teachers pass the exam, they can have a job and all the teachers teaching at public schools in this civil servant work are paid the same, no matter their age or experience. She then told me that there is a list from which teachers who have not passed the exam yet are chosen and given positions that are vacated during the year (maternity leave, retirement, etc), but the selection process has nothing to do with how well they actually did on the exam and does not take into account how many times they have taken (and therefore failed) the test. There could be a 50 year old teacher that has taken the exam 25 times and she will get the job over a 23 year old who has taken it once and could be a better teacher.


Bottom line: The US education system is struggling, but so is the rest of the world. We all have a lot to work on and a lot to improve. 

El ritmo del día

The rhythm of the day is very different here than anywhere I've ever lived, and it's something I love too much. I can sleep until noon and no one thinks it's strange, but more importantly, we use meals to determine the time of day, not times.


Morning = Any time before and after breakfast until you eat lunch. This means morning typically ends in the 2-4pm range for most people.


Afternoon = Post-lunch, through the merienda (snack) which happens around 7 or 8, until dinner. Afternoon starts around 2-4pm.


Night = After dinner, which is typically eaten no earlier than 9pm. I have made a rule for myself that dinner cannot even be a thought in my mind until I see my clock saying something after 21:00. Night can last until 7 or 8 in the morning if you go out on the town, and these former "bewitching hour" times (I'm thinking between 3 and 5am) are very normal life-living hours, I even see "older" people out at clubs at 4 in the morning. I'm talking at least 40 years old, I might give some of them 50.


It's a wonderful way of life, and it's been a great way for me to forget the rules about eating, times, etc. that we are taught to follow and abide by in the US. They think we're crazy for eating lunch at 10:45 or 11:30 in our high schools, though I will agree that was a little outrageous, right??

Una discusión de la enseñanza

A discussion on teaching. There have been ample opportunities to discuss education since I arrived in my school and have been thrown into a mix of teacher and students striking, schedules changing, being shown off by our principal to the European teachers, and seeing a range of ages from 12 to 30. I have learned a lot already about their education system, and I won't bore you with the details, but there have been some interesting thoughts that have come up that might be interesting to some of you (at the very least to my 90 year old grandmother who reads the print-outs of these posts and who was an inner city teacher in Cleveland).

The teachers and students are striking every other week currently, on Thursdays, because the region of Madrid is talking of cutting a few thousand teaching jobs. This would mean that current teachers would have to work more hours, bringing them up from the current 20ish hours they work each week. One of the teachers I work with, who has worked in the US and been exposed to our education system, doesn't strike because he can't understand why the teachers would be upset by this. From his point of view Spanish teachers already have it so good: They don't have to come into work until they teach and they can leave whenever they don't have classes. The don't follow the 7-3ish schedule that teachers in the US have and can't understand that US teachers even have to stay at the school later than that some days. The hours would be raised at least 5 hours per week, something teachers are unhappy about. I am under the impression that students are upset because they will have bigger classes, but this is not confirmed yet.

I had another conversation with an English teacher this week about why Spanish students struggle so much with language and don't focus in the classroom. I teach the auto mechanics class with this teacher once a week, so we have the "mature" students between 18 and 30 years of age, and feel lucky to have a class like this. They want to learn and they see the purpose of it. I wondered if it could have to do with classes not being split by ability, and she said that it could be, but that Spanish language classes (like literature) and math classes here are split based on kids that have disabilities and kids that do not. I don't think that is enough of a split, considering my background with honors, college preparatory, and skills level classes at Greely, but she said that even with this split there are kids left behind because the disabilities range from physical to dyslexia. English classes are not split by ability, but she didn't think this caused the lack of focus. According to her the problem is that Spanish students are raised to believe that they don't have to learn another language because Spanish is so dominating. Keep in mind that this is coming from an Argentine here, someone who has probably more of an eye for the imperialism of the Spaniards, but I agreed with her based on my experience in the US. We think we rule the world and that we have no reason to learn another language. Interesting observation, and something that certainly doesn't have an answer, but I will continue to investigate.

Finally I met a woman who teaches Spanish at a community college in Southern California who got me talking about level of English here. My students in their final two years of pre-university education, called bachillerato, have taken English for more than 10 years, but they can't speak it! There isn't an emphasis on speaking, pronunciation, or whatever it takes to be truly awesome at a language. And isn't the purpose of language to speak it? I mean, I love reading, don't get me wrong, I'm the biggest reading nerd around, but it's to speak it. They are ahead of the game because they are exposed to the language at a young, malleable age, but they aren't pushed away from the general copying, grammar, and memorizing and towards speaking. It makes me really feel like I can make a difference in my private lessons now, and I hope that I will...

On another note, I am legally allowed to stay in Spain until September 20, 2012 now!! The picture is blurry for a reason, don't want no one stealing this ginger's identity!

And my roommate went to London last weekend and brought us Christmasy treats! Obviously I already downed mine...

Observaciones - octubre

It's time I give some non-schedule, non-adventure observations from my first seven weeks in Spain. We'll just call it "October" since that makes up the big chunk of those weeks...


Shoe Etiquette - One thing I've noticed, and it's minor but it's certainly a big difference from what I'm used to, is that no one takes off their shoes when they enter a house, no matter what the house is. My roommates and I don't in our piso, the wealthy family I work for with a four-story house in a very rich suburb don't, and none of my friends I have visited do. It's certainly a change from home where kids are always told to "Take off your shoes!" and it is bad manners to not do so. Also very different from when I was in Japan where you HAVE to take your shoes off or the ancestors will shun you or something... or it's just dirty, something like that.


The Neverending Story - I have been taught this one in many ways... I can't count how many people have expressed surprise when I told them I was 23 and already working in the "Real World." Everyone thinks that the fact that I'm working means that I have already achieved full clarity on my life goals and that is just too surprising for someone my age to have completed university. The reason I have gathered is that young people go to university for at least five years, usually six, and achieve a Masters before they are ready for the world. From there they go on to do prácticas in their area, gaining them work experience but also still very much a part of their education. Basically, most people aren't done with university until they are 24 or 25, and that's not considering the people who continue their education from there. 


Clockwork...Mostly - For a country that is very relaxed and not very on-time much of the time, I am in love with the way that the buses run. People don't arrive at appointments when they should and if I arrive late it is always given the "no pasa nada"* treatment, but one thing I can always count on is that every mode of public transportation will run exactly according to schedule. The Metro runs like a dream, buses leave exactly the second they are supposed to (often leaving behind at least one forlorn straggler), and I can count on getting where I need to go in a certain amount of time without fail. That being said, I am not sure why everyone is late or why things don't get done, but I think that has more to do with the scheduling conflicts (like I have seen in my school with the work/class schedule already changing three times this school year) and the relaxed outlook on life. It really is that "no pasa nada" spirit that makes me love this place. That and knowing that even if I oversleep my siesta, I know which bus will be leaving me behind and exactly when I can catch the next one. 


*Basically, "Hakuna Matata"

A Ávila! Err... Alcalá de Henares!

Sometimes the best laid plans...


Thursday night after my final English lessons with the kiddies of the week (and being told I was stupid and kicked by the 3 year old because I asked him to stop hitting his sister), I met up with Rachel for a ladies night around the center of Madrid, which ended early because we were just too tired to continue... Need proof? We went to bed at 3am and didn't wake up until 2:40 on Friday afternoon.


Friday, however short, was very complete by the end of it. I picked up my materials for the race (a Reebok shirt, Reebok socks, and a BBVA [bank] string backpack, all for the 5 euro entry fee!) and went to a talk at the CaixaForum on the economy of Europe and Spain around WWI by a professor at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid. Very good, but also helped hammer home that I might have ADD. I rushed from there to a LOVELY Spanish cena (dinner) with Kate from Cumberland whose PARENTS, GIO AND JIM, were in town for the weekend!! How awesome is that? We talked Cumberland, Rob Hale (high school swim coach), and life in Madrid while eating delicious traditional Spanish foods with all Kate's Madrid friends and roommates. Jamón, queso, aceitunas, pan, pimientos, y tortilla. And people wonder why I say I could live here forever...


Now onto my Saturday, when I had been planning a day trip to Ávila for the day with Rachel... We got to the train station and discovered that the machine said the only train going there for the day was going at 10:30pm... and it was 9:00am. The internet had told me there was one at 9:38, but no such luck apparently. We didn't have enough time to wait in line to talk to someone and since I am happy to go with the Spanish flow, we decided to make a free trip within the larger Metro system to a town in the zone we have passes for (Zone B3). We ended up passing through some pretty sketchy areas on the way, but when we arrived in Alcalá de Henares we found a university town that I would go so far as to call a haven. It was beautiful! We had coffees, went to the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes (author of Don Quijote), checked out the Arqueological Museum, and wandered the old university and town streets. I also saw a dog that wouldn't stop looking and smiling at me, and I think it was the strongest connection I've ever felt with any living creature. C'est la vie, right? My soulmate happens to be a black dog that won't stop looking at me in the Plaza de Cervantes in a small Spanish town. Figures. I'll give you some pictures while you mull over my love problems:

There are HUGE birds, like storks, on the tops of all the buildings. They have huge nests and we noticed there weren't many young people... Could it be that this is where babies come from?!

I'm thinking of making a proposal to live in this place, once they get the fences down...

Or I'd like to live in this one... Could be happy with either.

That evening I laid low, watching Bridesmaids with Rachel and eating pasta to prepare for my race on Sunday!


10k, slower than ideal, but done! Running with 12,000 people? Not all that fun. Kinda crowded. But having pacers was cool, as was finishing in my favorite park in the world (Retiro). And I'm calling it my "first international competition." Unless we can call that swim meet in Canada that I choked at when I was 14 sufficient? I think I did better in the run. Not to mention that cleaning my room and mopping the floor, doing the same to the living room, washing a load of laundry, showering, running 6.2 miles, and eating 2 breakfasts by 12:30 is always a good feeling...


Had a typical Kelsey dinner of chocolate con porras and rediscovered a part of town that I really want to head back to right now to check out the absolutely precious bars... Need to make more Spanish friends who will go with me... All a work in progress, so I am going to go work on that!


Besos!

Un fin de semana largo

The good thing about adjusting to the Spanish way of life has been that where I find a lot of work and a hard week, I am rewarded with a long holiday weekend followed by a week of almost no work. Today teachers and students were striking, so I was sent home after one class (a bit frustrating to trudge the round-trip distance of 1.5 hours in the rain for this to happen, but it could be worse), giving me plenty of time to update you!


Last Friday, after the trip to Toledo, I met up with the group of teachers again for a walk in Retiro park, perhaps my favorite place in the city. And why not? Just look at this place!

 Those are, from left to right: Luis, one of the heads-of-department and a history teacher at my school; Marita, a Norwegian teacher; Kirsti, another Norwegian teacher; Finn, the lone male Norwegian on Friday.

Apologies for the awkward photo...


After the park, we "lost" the ladies (who were tired and selectively lost themselves so they could have a leisurely coffee) and walked toward the Palace, Opera, and older areas of the city. I got the finance teacher to take a picture of me in front of the Catedral de la Almudena. 

That teacher also took my phone number and her 24 year old daughter called me over the weekend so I could get lunch with her and her boyfriend at Lateral on Sunday. They're both business majors and he already works for a Spanish consulting firm while she will be starting at Ernst & Young in Madrid this December. I hope to spend more time with them soon, I love having a new Spanish friend! And Beatriz's younger sister is one of my students... too funny.


Halloween weekend was just a great opportunity for every American I know to throw or co-throw a party or attend at least two, like I did. My upstairs neighbors, from Furman and Denison (Connecticut both) threw a candy/games/costume-a-thon on Sunday night where 5 of us showed a waiter that works at the restaurant downstairs in our building some Halloween traditions and laughed about the translations. Monday my co-auxiliar and his friends dressed up and invited everyone they know... which was a lot of people. I went as a superhero that erred on the side of Leonardo the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and it was supported by everyone, I'd say.


Tuesday was a Spanish holiday, no school or work, and Monday had been what they call a puente or "bridge" to bridge the weekend to the holiday. Tuesday I was up early for an English lesson with my kiddos, and had another Wednesday evening where I snapped a picture of the older one with his drawing of a dragon family so we could work on family vocabulary and the youngest after he asked me to take a picture of him with his finger in his mouth. Anything you say, Jaime!

Today I am preparing for the final English lessons of the week and a night with my favorite Canadian (favorite female, if Jordan happens to be reading this) before the weekend. I have dinner with Kate from Cumberland's parents (Family and Maine are going to be so nice to have around for a few hours!) on Friday, and day trip to Ávila on Saturday, and my 10k on Sunday!