I don't care!

Judy Garland has just seriously improved my life and my coping mechanisms.

The next time I have to deal with an obnoxious co-worker, a whiny student, or anyone who I consider to essentially be an "oxygen thief," this is the song I will sing to them!

5 Reasons Teenagers Are Terrifying | Thought Catalog

I love my kids, and I really empathize with a lot of them because I hated high school when I was their age.  But sometimes, I really feel the age / culture gap.  I view them mostly as animals about whom I can mentally record my field observations on their strange and unpredictable behaviour.

Here I share with you the story of my life....
5 Reasons Teenagers Are Terrifying | Thought Catalog

The best part (in my humble opinion) is:

"How is it that I wasn’t cool when I was one of you — and I’m still not cool now? Ya’ll like hashtags?! YOLO! Do we still say “SWAG” or did Justin Bieber kill that? Is Justin Bieber still a thing? OH GOD SOMEONE KEEP ME FROM THE INEVITABILITY OF DEATH. IT APPROACHES. IT APPROACHES SO FAST."

Working in a secondary school makes photos like
 this one happen...You've been warned.

How to: teach MLK Jr. Day in a Spanish high school

Since I have 16 classes and I only see them once a week each, U.S. holidays last for a long time in my world.  In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I've dedicated all my classes to him.  I've tweaked it for each age level, but for the most part we start off with a worksheet or reading comprehension about his life, talk about who he was, and explain why he was important.  Then, we listen to the last 5 minutes of "I have a dream" to practice listening.  The last part is a bit more complicated.  In a desperate attempt to incorporate all four parts of the holy "reading, writing, listening, and speaking" components, I decided to do a bit on what makes a great orator and how do we write/ form persuasive arguments? 

I've only tried this out with the seniors so far, and I told them they could write a serious composition (about politics, war, animal rights, etc.) or something crazy (like trying to convince me the sky is green.)  The results were great! These are two of my favorites! Click on them to make them larger!

"A TO Z" Travel Blog

Age you made your first international trip – When I was 9 years old, I went to the Dominican Republic with my sister, uncle, aunt, grandma and 2 family friends.

Best foreign beer you’ve had and where – Not a beer drinker. Yuck.

Cuisine (Favourite) – Korean food.  The food is flavorful, spicy, and vegetarian-friendly!!!! Don’t even get me started on the desserts.

Destinations (Favourite, Least Favourite, and Why) – My favourite destination is hands-down Italy because of the culture, the people, and the food.  My least favourite destination is England for the same exact reasons.



Pure vacation happiness in Barcelona
 December 2012

Event you experienced that made you say, “Wow!” – Coming over the hill and getting my first glimpse of Macchu Picchu.  I felt like I was standing in a National Geographic photo.

Favourite mode of transportation – FEET

Greatest feeling while travelling – The hospitality and kindness you experience from the people you meet along the way, whether they’re locals or fellow travelers.

Hottest place I’ve travelled to – Visiting my grandparents in July 2008 in the Philippines.

Incredible service you’ve experienced and where – In the past two and a half years that I’ve lived in Spain, I’ve visited about 19 cities here.  I’m sure this is my Hispanophile bias speaking, but (almost) everyone I’ve met has gone out of their way to help me.

Journey that took you the longest – The total time it took for me to get from Raleigh to my grandparents’ house in Marinduque.  After 20+ hours of plane travel and spending the night in Manila, we still had to drive 3 hours to Lucena City, take a 3 hour boat ride to Marinduque, and drive 1 hour around the island to get to their house in Buenavista.

Keepsake from your travels – My photographs.

Let down sight. Why and where? – I feel like this is blasphemous, but the ruins in Rome were not as awe-inspiring as I thought they would be.

Moment where you fell in love with travel – Definitely when I went to Peru in 2006 with a small group of kids from my high school and our Latin teacher. It was the moment where I fell in love with travel as well as the moment that I realized that I didn’t belong in the U.S.
 

Marrakesh is cat-lover's heaven!
December 2012

Nicest hotel you’ve stayed in – I’m a shoe-string budget traveler, so any hotel I’ve stayed in with my parents could be considered the “nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed in.”

Obsession. What are you obsessed with taking pictures of while travelling? – Cats.

Passport stamps. How many and from where? – I have 24 stamps, but that number is misleading because of the amount of times I’ve repeated countries or gone home to visit family in the U.S. I’ve really only been to 9 countries (the Dominican Republic, Peru, the Philippines, Korea, Spain, France, Italy, England, and Morocco).

Quirkiest attraction you’ve visited and where – For some reason, the first thing that came to mind was “South of the Border” in South Carolina….so, let’s go with that.

Recommended sight, event, or experience – The west coast of Italy, especially NAPLES.  Everyone will tell you horror stories about Naples, but it is an amazing city, with amazing people, and amazing food.  I read somewhere that if you’re travelling through Italy and you get to Rome and it’s “too Italian for you” don’t go any farther south.  If you can handle Rome, keep going, and I promise you will not regret it.  

Splurge. Something you have no problem forking over for while travelling – Desserts.

Touristy thing you’ve done – Swimming with dolphins in the D.R. and riding camels in Morocco….basically anything where you ride an animal while the locals give you “that look.”

Unforgettable travel memory – Riding around Naples on the back of my hostel owner’s BMW motorcycle.

Cinque Terre, Italia
September 2012

Visas. How many of them and for where? – Just one.  My initial 90 day visa to come to Spain in September 2010.

Wine, best glass while travelling and where? – I’m not a big drinker, but I would say France.  I spent Christmas 2010 with one of my best friends in Le Crotoy and we basically ate non-stop for 3 days.  The wine, the cheese, and the conversation (even though I couldn’t understand 50% of it) were perfect. 

eXcellent view and from where – The views along the hiking paths in the Cinque Terre in Italy.

Years spent travelling – If I start counting with my first trip in 1998, then I guess it would be 15 years.

Zealous sports fans and where – Fútbol fans in Spain, as it should be! They have the right to be, considering that the Selección Nacional (the National team) won the EuroCup 2008, World Cup 2010, and the EuroCup 2012.  

Well said, Hemingway

Although I'm not a fan of Ernest Hemingway's obsession with bullfighting, he definitely describes Spain perfectly from an ex-pat's point of view.  This excerpt is from his book "Death in the Afternoon" (1932) and things haven't changed much since then.

Madrid - Feb 2011

"Madrid is a strange place anyway. I do not believe any one likes it much when he first goes there. It has none of the look that you expect of Spain. It is modern rather than picturesque, no costumes, practically no Cordoban hats, except on the heads of phonies, no castanets, and no disgusting fakes likes the gypsy caves at Granada. There is not one local-colored place for tourists in the town. Yet when you get to know it, it is the most Spanish of all cities, the best to live in, the finest people, month in and month out the finest climate and while the other big cities are all very representative of the province they are in, they are either Adalucian, Catalan, Basque, Aragonese, or otherwise provincial. It is in Madrid only that you get the essence. The essence, when it is the essence, can be in a plain glass bottle and you need no fancy labels, nor in Madrid do you need any national costumes; no matter what sort of building they put up, though the building itself may look like Buenos Aires, when you see it against that sky you know it is Madrid. If it had nothing else than the Prado it would be worth spending a month in every spring, if you have money to spend a month in any European capital."

Cynical Island, Population: Me

This week has been one of those weeks where I have to constantly remind myself, “At least you’re not in the U.S.A., at least you’re not in the U.S.A.”  I am fully aware that the following rant is going to come off as ungrateful and close-minded and spoiled, but that’s okay with me because the people who know me best know that every day I’m here (especially this year) I'm thankful for my job and my amazing life in Madrid.  I think most ex-pats are entitled to a rant like this once in a while.  So, here are some things that have been pissing me off lately:   

1. Having to constantly defend a country that I secretly can’t stand.  Spaniards have the most stereotypical and uninformed opinions about the United States.  I’m constantly having to tell them that none of the crap they’re shown in the media is actually real, and I find myself getting legitimately annoyed.  It’s a similar feeling to the one you get when you trash talk and criticize your own family, but the second someone else trashes them you come to their defense.  It’s exactly like that.  Personally, I can’t stand the United States because I don’t have the same cultural fit as everyone else, but I am capable of standing back and realizing that the United States is an amazing place to live.  It’s shocking to me that Spaniards have the balls to describe us as selfish, lazy, gun-toting fatties (no joke, I’ve seriously had this said to me this past week) and yet be completely blind to the flaws in their own culture.

On the other hand, there are those Spaniards who idealize the United States and think life there is an amazing magical wonderland of glamour, fashion, and professional sports. If I hear one more Spaniard say, “Ees my dream go to America”……I might crack.

I feel like American ex-pats have a harder time of disproving stereotypes (both negative and positive) about their home country than other ex-pats because we’re fighting against an image that is so deeply entrenched all over the world.  We’re fighting against a media campaign from Hollywood, travel companies, Washington D.C., and every single American product or celebrity that is sold internationally.  Sometimes I wish I could teach in a school in the middle of the jungle where the people haven't been exposed to MTV, video games, or any communication with the outside world.  Then, I could just be judged for being me and not for being "an American."
   
2. This one gets a little whiny.  When you’re living abroad, everyone wants to take advantage of you and use you as a resource…the locals and the people back home.  Let’s start with the English-speaking folks.  Since September 2010, I’ve gotten everyone and their mother asking me how to get a job in Spain.  Oh, you want to know how to get a job in Spain? You want to know if I can help you?  You want me to tell you how to do every single thing involved in making a life-changing decision? I’ll tell you how.  You google it, like I did.  You spend a month incessantly googling and researching and you make your own informed decision.  Nobody helped me, and I did just fine.  I’m always more than willing to talk to people and tell them how awesome it is in Spain, what the ex-pat experience is like, and all the cool things they can see and do here.  I’m also always more than willing to let people stay at my place for a few nights when they first get here or if they’re passing through Madrid.  What I’m not willing to do is cater to people who are too lazy to do their own research.  It’s their life.  They need to take control of it. 

Now, the Spaniards.  They see me as a free walking English class or proof-reader.  No matter what I do, my co-workers, random people I meet out at night, and even friends will try and speak English to me.  They justify it by saying, “I know your Spanish is better than my English, but I really need to practice.”  Yeah, great.  I get to sit through a painfully slow, badly pronounced, broken English conversation just because you want free English lessons.  If I wanted to speak English, I would hang out with guiris.  I hate English, and any time I’m not in a classroom, I don’t want to be speaking it.  I’m taking the most difficult level of the DELE exam at the end of the year, so maybe I should be just as selfish as they are and reply to every English conversation starter with, “Sorry, you have to help me prepare for the DELE exam!”

3. The level of racism here is unbelievable and overwhelming.  Things will never change if the younger generation continues to validate it with “Así es España / That’s the way Spain is.” Yeah, we get it.  You were completely isolated from the rest of the world and fed ridiculous ideology from a fascist dictator for 36 years.  There are tons of older people (a.k.a. people born pre-1980s) that still believe that close-minded shit, but if you’re not from that generation then behave like a normal human being!  Open your eyes, learn things, and don’t believe everything your parents, political party, and television programs say.  I haven’t given up completely with my students.  Every time one of them says the n-word or anything racist, I stop the class and point it out.  I try to explain to them why it’s wrong or ask them how they would feel if someone made a completely uneducated generalization about all Spaniards…but who knows if they actually care.  They look at me like it’s completely irrational for me to be so angry about their comments, probably because I’m white.  There’s no way for them to understand that cultural difference.  Part of me feels like it's a lost cause with older students because there's a very small window of time to be taught tolerance when you’re a kid, and by the time adolescence rolls around, the foundation has pretty much already been set for your asshole adulthood. 

4. Good manners are almost non-existent here.  I know a lot of foreigners say that Spaniards are rude because they’re very straight-forward and blunt, whether they’re resolving a workplace conflict, giving their opinion in a friendly conversation, or cat-calling on the street.  That kind of stuff doesn’t bother me.  I can see that as a weirdly endearing part of their culture.  The part that gets me is the obliviousness to basic courtesies.  I have seen firsthand the difference in treatment I get when I’m with Spaniards and the treatment I get when I’m with other foreigners.  Waiters and bartenders will blatantly treat us like shit. (Maybe this complaint should go in the racist category).  Then there’s the simple concept of not taking up the entire sidewalk when there are other people walking down the street, helping old ladies with their grocery carts in the metro, etc.  I can count on one hand how many times in the last 2+ years I’ve heard someone say “please,” “thank you,” or “excuse me.”  I have to actually elicit these words from my kids, and I’ve worked with 1^st-5^th grade and 7^th-12^th grade.  The attitude they have is amazing.  They have no respect for each other or their elders. 

I think this might be a worldwide phenomenon though because I see the same things here that I see in the United States: parents who are completely oblivious to their children’s behavior, who never correct them when they do something rude or wrong, or who can’t control them to begin with because the kids know they’ll get their way in the end. 

On Thursday, as I was leaving work to head to my tutoring classes, I had to walk past the public high school in front of the train station.  There was a group of about 50 kids gathered outside starting some kind of fight or orgy or general chaotic mess.  As I pushed my way through them (probably with a disgusted look on my face), I heard one of the kids mockingly go, “Sheesh, the youth these days.  In my time, this didn’t happen.”  So does that make me an old grump now?

5. Lastly, they need to stop inventing words in English like “okay makay” or random noises to go along with English verses in songs. 

 

That’s my way of ending on a light note.

 

Disclaimer: I know tons of people in Spain who don’t fit any of these criteria, and I appreciate the fact that I’ve had an amazingly easy life here being a Caucasian, 20-something, bilingual, female with a steady job.

First day back! - Year 3

Today was FINALLY my first real day back teaching in the classroom.  My new school runs from 3 years old (infantil) all the way to 18+ years old (bachillerato).  I get to work in all of secondary which means 1º ESO - 2º Bachillerato (7th-12th grade in American years). 

All I have to say is the following: