I could handle things being this good for a while.

I suspect that my last six or so hours of staring at the computer is completely ruining my eyes, so this’ll be a brief one. After my exciting Spanish eye exam about two weeks ago, I now know that I have a vision deficiency in my formerly perfect right eye to complement the one in the left. This news means I need new glasses. This news is also a thing about which I will do absolutely nothing; though Fulbright rocks in general and our health insurance isn’t so bad, vision care is not part of the package. Guess I’ll have to wait to see well until further notice. Or watch fewer crappy streaming movies, force myself to be less of a gchat whore, and curb my avid icanhascheezburger perusal. Mmm. Or that.

I don’t know what i’ll do when I get home to a land where there are no Saint’s days that render my weekends longer than the work week. Thanks to San Isidro being the rockin’ patron Saint of Madrid, I’ve been off from school (where, SURPRISE, I was the only teacher all week again), since Wednesday at 4 p.m. The time off has been incredibly sweet and spent catching up with friends and doing functional, tax-related, grown up things in both English and Spanish. Wednesday night I cooked shrimp, black bean and sweet corn quesadillas for Talia and Alex, who came over bearing a bottle of wine and the supplies for Alex’s scrumptious guacamole. Later that night, post gorge, Talia oversaw my online tax-doing which resulted in the discovery of a tax return of $14.00. Yep. That’s right. $14.00. That isn’t even a 1/4 tank of gas for The Petrol Beast. (sigh).

Thursday, el día de San Isidro, for which the most castizo of Madrileños dress themselves and their children up like this, I got more hang time with aforementioned lovely ladies, plus the charming Monica and Mike. We hit this criminally hip bar in Lavapiés, which sported not only a gorgeous, top-floor terrace, but a gorgeous, top-notch waiter whose male pulchritude compelled me to rethink my stance on men with light eyes. We then headed to Retiro to watch a pyrotechnic, water spectacular, all in honor of San Isidro. There were lighted, colored fountains strategically placed in Retiro’s lake, gushing to the tune of Handel symphonies. One of the coolest (but barely visible thanks to unbelievable crowds) aspects of the display was the history of San Isidro being projected in full color onto a curtain of mist created by a lake-machine. All of this glory was followed by balls of flame that would put the best of medieval dragons to shame and the most spectacular fireworks display I’ve seen in my nearly 23 years of life. Very cool. Pictures will be on flickr as soon as I feel less lazy.

Yesterday, post sweet run/stairmaster/ass workout at the gym, I met up with Morgan, Talia, and Nicole at the most former’s apartment. Morgan made us fruit salad accompanied by some cookies borne by the other two and we chatted, ate, and washed it all down with two bottles of wine. After that it was time for trivia night and J&Js where we did NOT lose and were only outstripped by the winners by a single point. The night ended with me watching Morgan and Nicole enjoy an octopus pizza in a tiny pizzeria in Malasaña while we talked about the mystery of the human sex drive, and me usurping tiny bites of the dulce de leche infused free dessert the owner gave them.

Today was my lazy day and, aside from working out and cooking a pretty bangin’ stir fry, I’ve done jack shit with myself. Funny–I think my hermit period is coming to a close. I wish I could say that this is a change that’s come better late than never, but it is pretty fucking, well, late.  I thought I’d enjoy my quiet antisocial day today, but I’ve been a little lonely and extremely bored. I’m surprised, and also a little pleased. I was beginning to worry something creepily drastic had shifted inside of me and I’d become a permanent recluse.

Anyhow–aside from grading 3rd graders’ science tests at my favorite café tomorrow, the rest of the weekend is looking to be pretty quiet. I’m going to lay low, hit the gym, sleep as much as I can and prepare myself for next weekend when I’ll be flying to Porto, Portugal to meet up with Courtney for a weekend of relaxation, culture, Portuguese cooking, and port.

Walking home from the gym the other day, high on endorphins, I came to a happy realization. I came to a number of them, actually.

Here, I have had the life experience of…well… a lifetime. I have a future opening before me that’s entirely mine to envision and architect. I know how to take care of myself, but if I didn’t, or if I momentarily needed to cede the reins, I have people who would gladly, lovingly pick up the slack for me. I know how to weigh options, how to make my own choices, and how to make the choice that’s best for me and fair to others, too.

I have recovered my childhood love of and small talent for drawing. I love children and teaching, and children really seem to like me. I’ve got enough money to feed and clothe myself and to put a roof over my head. I have a small culinary repertoire that’s growing by the day. I can usually select a wine that isn’t horrible, bake dessert and then pack it away with gusto along with my guests. I have made wonderful, solid friends with whom I want to share said dinners. And I want to know these people for the rest of my life.

There are two fuzzy cats who will be waiting to curl around me when I get to 84 Whitman, and a mother who loves me waiting with open arms. I have a father who I’m beginning to finally befriend after 22 years of our knowing one another. I have a boyfriend who will drive South to Hartford to welcome me home and hold me and tell me he loves me without hesitation. I have somebody–so many somebodys–to love, and who love me back.

Life is very good to me and I am a lucky, lucky woman.

There Will Be No Recess Today

I’ve been meaning to post this online for a while now, and thanks to a little extra pressure applied by a certain boy, here it is. The best moment in Spanish to English bilingual school translation that I have seen to date. Well…a close second was when my third grader, Sergio, told me that he “just loved the brown balls” when describing to me his affinity for meatballs. True.

And now, without further ado, I give you Peace Day at my old school.

In Spanish, the sign above left says “La paz es el camino.” This translates, in English, to “Peace is the path.” One of my coworkers was asked by a Spanish teacher to translate the sentence. Out of context, on the spot, and in the middle of teaching a class, she translated “Peace is the path” to what you see above: “There is no recess today because of Peace Day.”

This is not *quite* the same thing.
Please note, too, how sincerely unamused the children holding the sign announcing the lack of recess appear. I hate Peace Day. Heh heh heh.

The Life and Times of an Unpromiscuous Urban Streetwalker

I’d like an explanation. I’d like an explanation soon. I’d like a remedy, as well, and perhaps a tube, stick, or compact of industrial strength, Cirque Du Soleil/Christina Aguilera-strength cover up.

I do realize that I just barely finished a glowing paean to Madrid in the spring time, but I have one beef with this city, spring or no. This beef I have has been a-simmering somewhere deep within my non-beef-lover’s gullet for months now, but the frustration I’ve experienced because of it is associated with the most lovely Spanish time of the year–Spring. Why? Well, let’s build a little meterological equation, shall we?

Spring = rain; rain = wet streets; apparently, in Madrid, wet streets = necessity for ice skates or mountaineer’s cleats.

This equation brings us to Urban Street Calamity 1.

Today marks not the first, nor the second, nor even the third time I have spilled undelicately to my knees or ass in the middle of a busy Madrid street due to slick walking. It is the fourth time today–the fourth time–I have fallen and I have two ravishing bruises adorning both of my knees to show for it. Calle Maravillas seems safe enough–lots of pedestrians, people walking their dogs, a florist, for chrissake–but in swift Spring showers such as we sustained this afternoon it turns very lethal, very quickly. I, sweaty and euphoric and monumentally jacked-feeling after a super workout, was no match for the danger of Calle Maravillas.

I don’t understand why, but in the rain, the pavers that comprise Madrid’s sidewalks turn absolutely Vaseline-slick and, no matter what kind of foot gear I’m wearing, I fall. Apparently my sneakers are no match for this stone. One moment I was checking out the crowd outside of Pizza Maravillas and the next I was on the ground, water bottle careening with a thunk into the wet sand of the adjacent playground, staring at said slippery-ass pavers, feeling my knees throb against stone. What the FUCK, I ask, are these streets made of? I have two possible theories:

1) Madrid sidewalks may actually be constructed of soapstone, explaining their slippery nature when Mother Nature just adds water.
2) The vast quantity of olive oil used in Spanish cookery splatters up out of the surrounding apartments in an aerated form to fly out the window, through the air, and settle finally upon the city sidewalks, creating resultingly slick footing.

Number two is far more likely.

The second Urban Sidewalk Calamity I experienced occurred last week when I was playing hookie from the gym and the Gods of Fitness (or so I choose to believe) accordingly punished me.

I was clad in my new Super Skirt, purchased for 5.90 at H&M and sporting a riot of purple, yellow, fuchsia and teal flora. Said skirt is well above the knee and of the type with the wide elastic yoke at the top that abruptly expands into abundant, billowy, little-girl’s-tea-party like dimensions from mid-hip downward, rendering it above reproach despite its short length. It is my new stand in for the shorts which I so love, but cannot wear in Spain without accruing a troubling number of “madre mías!’ and sinister, disgusted looks from old people of all persuasions.

ANYHOW: Clad in said skirt, I ran errands. I grocery shopped a bit, stopped to buy a new watch, and ran by the pharmacy to pick up a box of band aids for my summer shoe blisters. It was extremely hot and I, underslept and dreamy (also quite possibly dehydrated), lazily waited for the walk light to turn green on Fuencarral, my destiny Carrefour for some pita bread. When the light finally turned, I strolled comfortably across the cross walk, veering at the end of my trajectory off of the white and black pathway. Looking up, as I was, at the remarkably pretty way in which the afternoon sun hit the buildings, I didn’t notice that my ramble would take me across a subway grate set into the street. I didn’t notice that’s what had happened, either, until suddenly, thanks to the updraft of air, my skirt was up around my elbows and everyone walking on Fuencarral was witness to my pale white ass clad in pink and gray mesh panties. What made it worse is that, like today when I had my spill onto Calle Maravillas, no one laughed. Instead, the madrileños looked at me with very serious, perplexed faces as if to say, “What a strange creature you are! to do such a thing! here! Perplexing indeed.” Then, I am disappointed to report, they moved on, and I laughed at myself alone. Laughing at yourself post embarrassing deed alone is not relieving in the way laughing at yourself with strangers post embarrassing deed is. In fact, it just makes you feel like a pathetic crazy. Or at least it did me.

Maybe it’s safer for me to just stay in my room? Surely, there’s less pollen. Nevertheless–soon I will venture out for Thai and to meet new people! Whee!

Where the frack am I? Well… now? Here. :)

Instead of making what I believe would be a mostly futile attempt at updating you on the happenings of a good 2 months, I’ll jump in right now.

Summarily: things are wonderful. This country has crawled in and infected my soul with a slow, sunny, golden kind of affection I remember feeling in Andalucía three years ago. I don’t know how I’ll leave so very soon, knowing that I’ll probably never come back again–at least not to live, not to be part of a city in the way that a resident, not a tourist, is. I am afraid that I’ll always yearn for it here, but always have my life in the States. An odd feeling, to be caught between two worlds. Then again, I guess that I never really did like to be comfortable; comfort, to me, is always being crushed by the weight of two different choices. Looks like I’ve fulfilled that desire beautifully by making a temporary-but-beautiful life here. teehee.

Madrid at the first blush of spring is a truly beautiful thing. Trees begin to open their tiny blossoms, birds twitter with a long-buried gusto, and that special Spanish sunshine wakes up at an even earlier hour to drizzle itself lazily over people like myself, walking to work or sitting in a café with a coffee and tostada with tomato. In Madrid in the springtime you can actually feel the energy of a previously sluggish and frigid, nylons-and-wool-coat-clad city pick up and shift—to unserious tee shirts and copas on the terraza, to 2 hour lunch breaks that feel like the majority of the day, to weekends spent outside in the tower of babel that is Retiro park. My springtime in Madrid has been beautiful for all of these reasons, but doubly so because I was able to share it first with my mom and aunt who came to visit in March over Semana Santa, then with my sweet Greg, who made his second journey out here only a day after my family left. I had the pleasure of showing both sets of guests Córdoba and spent a little time in Granada with the momma and auntie, with whom I went to some museums, caught up, went out to eat, and cooked a lot. Greg and I, as usual, passed most of our time rambling around the streets of Madrid and Córdoba, sitting on benches and making out which, naturally, is more than fine with me–and quite possibly preferable to museums.

My life here over the past 9 months has proven to me–and shockingly!–that I love small children and I love teaching. My work life has done a complete turnaround since the last angsty news you had of it in late February because, working with the Fulbright Commission and the Spanish ministiry of Ed, I changed from my old school in the boonies of Madrid to a new one uptown. Since March when I started at the new school, I feel like I can breathe again and like I can smile again and mean it. I arrive there every morning at 8:50 a.m. after a 35 minute walk in the sunshine (and the crappy rain, but we’ll look past that for now), ecstatic to see my kids and ready to work. I’ve been partnered with a wonderful Spanish English teacher who is very much like the Spanish mother I never had, and the rest of the faculty there has been warm, open and kind to me. I feel very fortunate.

The children are by far the best part of my new job. True, the school itself is rather pijo (stuck up, well-moneyed, upper class); you see, the parents of most of these children are scientists who work for the ministry of science and education, reporters for newspapers, novelists, artists, and university professors, but the children themselves are wonderful. Being small ones who have never experienced want the way my kids in the first school must have, they are not greedy with their materials, with their time, or with their attention. They are excited to learn and listen and give me their markers and pencils and chocolate truffles to celebrate THEIR birthdays (no–I’m serious! They give ME candy for THEIR birthdays!). Their level of English is astoundingly good–so good that they pass the Trinity exam (oral, blingual school exams administered by live british examiners in May each year), at one grade level up from whichever they’re in, and I can have full, sensible conversations with them. They have so much verve and so much personality, talent, sparkle. I look forward to seeing them every day. Because of the way I work at that school, each class with a small group of 3-6 students in workshop-type settings with readers or key vocabulary, I also feel like I’m finally actually making a difference. Goddamn, does that feel good.

Switching schools has afforded me a lot of much-needed perspective about my experience at my old school. I alluded to the most important realization up there in the previous paragraph but I’ll rehash it in a broader sense now. At the school in the poor/working-class suburb where previously I taught English people were not very nice. In my opinion, the teachers and staff were not as warm or open. Certainly, they did the right thing by inquiring as to how everyone was, smiling warmly if disingenuously at one another upon passing in the hallway, but at the end of the day, no one really liked or trusted one another and it showed–priority number one was the self. The other? Well, that other could just go to hell–they probably sucked, anyway. No one at that school was a bad person–the problem was that everyone was overwrought and overworked, pulled in too many directions to be extremely good at any one thing, or beyond-the-call-of-duty good to one another. With a few exceptions (oh, Araceli! Encarna! Eli!) I found them to be ungenerous with their time–as when the teachers wouldn’t show up to my classes, but expect me to make lessons for them anyway–ungenerous with their materials–we couldn’t ever print there, and materials we as teaching assistants took to use in class from the supply cabinets were heavily policed–and we were treated more like tools than like partners.

At my new school my experience has been totally disparate from what I knew at the Vic. I’ve found that the teachers I work with want to know me, want to teach me and help me do my best, and want me to have a good experience working with them, too. I am not just a tool–I am a teacher and, also, I am a guest who is to be helped and appreciated and held accountable to her own supposed goodness in a respectful, not suspicious, manner. My new school is generous with computers, poster board, markers and human interest. The teachers are well provided for there, as are the students, and it shows. It struck me within a week at my new school that these people were generous because they could be. They, too, are always in meetings, always running to and fro to see parents and plan lessons, but they have decent checks, they have classroom supplies, they have the support of their administration. Unlike the folks at my old school, they are well enough provided for that they can provide–happily–for others. It’s a beautiful thing that makes me feel lucky to be where I am now and very sad for my old school and the people who are still there, struggling with too little time and resources and far-too-high expectations.

Well–on to happier subjects: yesterday was the beginning of a glorious weekend. I grocery shopped, bought the wherewithal for burritos and, in addition, fresh peaches, strawberries, and good Valencian oranges. I had a tremendously good work out despite the fact that I seem to have lost my pushup prowess (GRR!), and came home to shower, lounge, and read some of Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, one of the most captivating things I’ve picked up in years. Later, I was invited to Morgan and Charles’ beautiful apartment. Once there, these two sweet friends sat me down with a glass of water and a smile and entertained me with colorful stories of their uniquely awful days; Morgan was refused from a flight to Barcelona because she had her Spanish ID card, not her passport; Charles was detained by corrupt Coslada police, probably just for being black, and questioned while he was rushing to class from the metro. As we talked, Morgan made tea while Charles rolled out the dough for a delicious, sweet bread made with whole wheat flour and honey. The bread rose deliciously in the oven as we chatted with their winsome Guatemalan roommate and her boyfriend. Morgan topped the bread with fruit salad and honey-cinnamon sauce and I gorged and basked in the good, good company. Later, Charles and I went to the pub quiz at J&Js (but only after downing a king-sized tortilla bocadillo apiece!), where we came in third to last and spent only a little time with David, but had a great time. All in all, life is good.

Other things: in the next month I’ll finally be traveling to Portugal and Morocco, two trips for which I’m very excited. Apart from those two excursions, though, I’ll be staying in Madrid, soaking up its goodness (and pollution) in the scant days I have remaining. The future looks…well…I guess good, but in a conventional way that can’t help but seem a little less attractive when compared with the adventure I’ve been enjoying for the past one. This summer will begin a year’s worth of an apartment in Hartford with Marisa, working at Fathom as a full employee with benefits and salary and things, applying to graduate school and maintaining what seems like it will always be a long distance relationship with the boy, who will be at grad in Oregon beginning in August. I’ll miss Spain–in fact, I almost made the decision not to leave in the next year–but when I think of spending time with my mother, of decorating a Christmas tree with her, of seeing my Greg more than twice in a year, of petting my cats and eating sushi and edamame whenever I want, of joining a writing group, of living with Marisa and seeing my friends at Fathom every day, of re-learning how to write in the English language (fuck, have I lost a lot), of possibly taking a French class, and of paying student loans and getting my career in academia underway by researching and applying to programs, I think I’ve made the right–if not the most interesting–choice.

Now, below, I’ll leave you with three things from the past two months: the first, me and my sweet, tiny mother on the patio of the zoco in Córdoba. The second and third items are my favorite things I see on my daily walk to school.

This little guy is part of the Merry Go Round outside the Corte Inglés on Serrano.

I enjoy that the National Library of Spain in Madrid has heart spires. It makes me smile every morning.

Oh God! And one more thing…

Check out the last rule on the left, written in red, noted with an asterisk. These are the rules posted in my third grade classroom at the new school. No truer words have been written.

And so I’m back. Expect more updates.