Orange Sticker Violation

The other night, I'm in my room and think to myself, "Wow, is the barrio louder than usual tonight? No... maybe this is standard. A few more musical instruments than normal, but no big deal."

Then my roommate comes into my room and says, "What the hell is going on? Is there a procession outside or something?"

I open my window and see this: 

I feel like its the scene from Beauty and the Beast with all the angry villagers. 

Another shot, I've been practicing taking night photos with my camera.

As you can see, still terrible. 

Normal.

pre-semana santa

Spain doesn't always do everything right. If you've been reading my blog long enough, you are perfectly aware of this. Let's face it reading about what they do wrong (many things) is a whole hell of a lot more interesting to read, especially from a cynical person such as myself. 

So let's focus on something that Spain is really, really good at:

Throwing a party. 

Fiestas are an incredibly important part of life here. My fellow coworkers who have a solid 30 years on me have told me about family birthday parties lasting til 3-4am. (Hey mis padres- can you make it to the end of the 7pm news?) Every city has a fería, which is a weeklong party and if there's a holidy on Tuesday, might as well take off Monday too. Make it a puente (bridge). 

Here's some pictures of the Malaga Semana Santa preparations:

Someone (someones?) spent hours of their lives taping those red sheets over the balconies. Beautiful.

This isn't even the biggest Semana Santa celebration in Spain. 

Where do all the chairs come from? 

More importantly, where do they go for the other 51 weeks of the year when it is not Easter?

Some pretty serious bleachers. My powers of observation have picked up on a red theme. 

Also, I'm pretty sure that either the Pope or Antonio Banderas sits in that box thing at the top. 

Whoever's the most important to the malaguenos. 

But I think Tony is pretty much in the clear re: sex scandals, so maybe its his seat. 

que es la diferencia entre....

Today, we had a talk about what the precious children were doing for Semana Santa. Semana Santa means Holy Week, otherwise known as the week prior to Easter, otherwise known as that time my parents abandoned me 4 years ago. Thanks Mom & Dad, still working on my own viaje a Irlanda.

Anyways, Easter is a BIG DEAL here. They have the week off school, most importantly. And every discoteca is open every night of the week, for religious reasons, of course. There are long processional marches and they recently put up three huge sets bleachers along the main road (significant because I didn't know they were there until my walk to school- its a small surprise) for people to watch. The city is inundated with tourists, and yes, I can say this derisively, as I have lived here for nearly 7 months.

But today we discussed the differences between the nazarenos and the KKK in class. First let's play "can you see 7 differences in these pictures?":

If the only difference you could see was that the first group of people were pyromaniacs and the bottom picture is more fashion forward with the green and white- you win! 

Religious statement or just overly fond of pointy hats, I won't be trusting these nazarenos for a second. Gonna be sleeping with one eye open next week, that's for sure.  

Well, never mind, the discotecas will be open, so I just won't sleep at all. 

what's next, paparazzi?

Seriously, being an American teacher in Spain is THECLOSEST I will ever come to fame. I know it, I accept it, I'm embracing it.


The other day, I was in the hall heading to teach some science. (Okay, pronouncing words like "photosynthesis" and "chlorophyll". Just some plant kingdom review, no pasa nada.)  A little girl who is not in any of my classes starts screaming at me, "HEY! HELLO! WHAT'S YOUR NAME?!!!!!"


Clearly, she was just showing off her English proficiency for the benefit of her friends. To her surprise, I stopped and said, "My name is Jacqui, and yours?"


She said something in Spanish, I think maybe Maria José. Slight tangent: Why do we not name girls Mary Joseph? I think it's pretty catchy. It's not like the whole using boys names for girls isn't spreading like wildfire anyways, hmmm sister-who-shall-remain-unnamed?


I said, "Okay, well it was nice to meet you. Have a good day."


And the normal response I received: "OKAY I LOVE YOU!!!!"


Thank you, new friend. I expect at the VERY LEAST the same outpouring of enthusiasm upon my return to los estados unidos. If not, what the hell is my incentive?












Oh right.... Buffalo wings from Casey's.

Best thing I've seen in Spain today (Should this become a daily post??):

While driving to school with my co-worker, a car suddenly swerves in front of us. I think to myself, "No big deal, its St. Patrick's Day... he's drunk. Oh wait, I'm in Spain... he's just drunk for fun on a Wednesday morning. Or from Tuesday night."  My driver swears profusely in Spanish, and then, when we pull alongside this hombre, we see that he is in fact reading a magazine. Cue another round of swearing and then, for my benefit, my teacher says, "Fucking bastard."

da igual? nope.

So, since I've been hanging out in Spain for a little over six months, I've realized that no matter how great of a teacher I am (the best), people are always making the same grammatical mistakes. Since learning a little Spanish, I've come to the conclusion that they really, really, really enjoy taking a common Spanish phrase, translating it directly to English and using it as often as humanly possible.

Por ejemplo: Nah, actually that's the first one. Los Españoles attempt to preface every sentence with "for example". Anything that they are talking always, always has an example. Even if its totally not applicable.

Their damn dudas: I never am asked questions about how to speak English or about American culture. Instead they have a "doubt". Hey, why don't you have a doubt about how to correctly ask a question?

What a pity. It's actually kind of hysterical that these punk-ass high school students shake their heads about the current weather situation and say "What a pity." In Spanish, they say "que pena" but no, they rely on antiquated English to convey this emotion. I tried to explain that maybe the closest thing in English was "That's too bad" or something along those lines, but they thought that sounded too negative.

Que mas? What more doubts do they have? Another habit that I just can't get them to quit. Instead of "what else?" its always, siempre "que mas?" For some reason this drives me insane. Its not the worst grammatical error they make or even the one they make the most, but its just fingernails-on-the-blackboard annoying.

Oh wait, that's actually not the worst. The absolute worst, is "si o no?" In Spanish, no can be either no or not. In English, we try and distinguish between the two, unless said person is illiterate. I have been asked in the past, "Jacqui, I always forget- is it no or not?... Okay. Now class, this is the answer, yes or not?" JODER.

Are you not listening to a word I'm saying? I know there's a language barrier or whatever, but come on people. I have some doubts about your learning abilities.

el unico pais que...

So I know that we're Americans. People talk about going to America the same way that I would talk about going to Disney World. Or like, heaven, maybe, someday. If I make some changes in my life, if you know what I mean. The fact is, a lot of people are very amazed by the very idea of the United States. They want to visit, live, just SEE the United States. I'm pretty sure people from Nebraska should visit Europe- sure, they might still have to say they're from Nebraska, but if you add in that that's part of America, well I'm sure it would still be quite the self esteem boost. 'Cause let's face it, people from real states would not be impressed.

Here I am, living in Europe, teaching English. And there are people from ALL over the world that are doing the same- teaching or learning English. Even my ginger haired friend was able to find employment in South Korea as an English teacher (hahahahahhahaha). So I guess we are kind of trendsetters in that regard.

My question is- why the f&@! aren't we using the metric system?

This is a map of the world. The gray represents the people using the metric system. The red is the people who are being different. (What is that little speck on the coast of Africa??? No idea, but let's go there and weigh ourselves in pounds and talk about gallons of milk.)

I mean, we have to learn the metric system in science classes anyways. I'm not all that committed to inches and feet. And its downright inconvenient when someone tells me its 22 degrees out and I put on my Northface ski coat and hat and gloves, then multiply by 5/9 and add 17 and realize that it's 71 degrees fahrenheit. I used to try to pretend that our way makes more sense- just because we're Americans and that's how we do it and everyone should fall in line behind us (like Germany in the 40s- talk about leadership skills!). But I mean, they base their Celsius nonsense on the temperature at which water freezes, 0 degrees, and the temperature at which it boils, 100 degrees.

Now, I am all for Americans being the only superpower in the world. If you come to my country, speak English or at least broken English because that's kind of cute. And this whole bilingual school situation makes a lot of sense. But no, we should not be teaching the world to adapt to 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet per yard, or 5,280 feet in a mile. I checked. That's a lot of feet, but miles aren't actually that long. It's confusing. Because, above all else, I would HATE if I started having to teach the American system of measurement to the kids.

PS: This entire post is a segue from my thought about how Americans are the only people in the world who don't use MSN Messenger. I'm like, "No... gmail chat? AIM? Skype? facebook chat? Wait- you LITERALLY just use Messenger? I don't have that... I'm American." Joder.
Check it outttt... there's no clever little graphic for these stats, sadly. Yeah, I'm a visual person too. Sucks.

me doy cuenta de...

Today, it was struggle city in math class with the third year angelitos (little angels. Sarcasm in Spanish- and my Spanish education is complete.) and I had an epiphany. So there's all that nonsense about right brain people being creative and then the left brain people who are good at math, unless that is entirely backwards. But you know, there are some people more inclined towards history and English, and some that are better at math and science. That's just a fact. I know, I know, I'm an exception, but I'm a quarter Asian, so I am 25% better at math than all other races. Again, that's just science.


Anyways, the bilingual program at school means that the niños learn English - uh, duh - and then have social sciences, science (I think its biology. I know that we, I mean the kids, are learning about the animal kingdom. Pop quiz: What's a cephalopod? O, un cefalopodo?), physics and math in both English and Spanish.


Well, my realization today was that this program is AGAINST NATURE ITSELF for these kids to be learning math or science in a different language. Obviously, kids that are predisposed towards languages, let's say, for example, ENGLISH, to join the program. Therefore, wouldn't it stand to reason that they would be worse off in math and sciences? Why make matters worse by trying to teach them in English?


I suppose that I should mention that I came to this conclusion while sitting through one of the more painful lessons of my oh-so-short teaching career. I mean, the kids had to find a point on a straight line (muy facíl, chicos). There were four questions, all the same concept, but with different lines. We flew through the first three in a record-breaking ten minutes, and then the profesora called on a student for the last one.


I was sitting there the whole time. I can absolutely attest to the fact that he did not leave the room, and even appeared to be conscious and possibly paying attention. However, he HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON! I mean, I know that I am Japanese and biologically engineered to be better at math than him. But STILL. I mean, I definitely think that the bilingual program is a great idea, and it if these kids ever visit los estados unidos, I'm sure that their knowledge of words like "function" and "multiply," will allow them to just fly through customs. But the bottom line is, there is no way in hell that any of them will be passing their exam tomorrow. And there is no amount of help with their pronunciation that I can offer to change that fact... except if I help the profesora out with the concept of "bell curve grading".




Answer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod

ominous sign?

So as I've been going back and forth and back and forth and.... you get the hint, I hope. But anyways, I've been trying to figure out what to do after my year in Europa is over. I have actually been leaning towards a second year, but then today happened.

It rained, it poured, it made me alternately homicidal and suicidal. My umbrella broke, I haven't been paid yet (I know, its only the 2nd... but my rent is due in three days!) and I used my last six euro on a new umbrella. This is also not promising considering my friends and I spent a considerable amount of time googling "2012: the Apocalypse." Well friends, after all the earthquakes, tsunamis and occasional rain on the Costa del Sol, not so sure this place has another two years to go.

Of course, by the time I got home, wrung out my hair, somehow managed to take off my boots that were fully soaked through, and changed out of my socks (ever had your socks and boots so wet for so long that your toes turn into raisins?) and found an email waiting for me saying my application is being reconsidered, or put back in the system or whatever. Well unless Mother Nature puts the SOL back into the Costa del Sol... I'm not sure next year will be working out for me.

back at it

If a "grind" can be considered 12 grueling hours of work per week, then I'm heading back to the daily grind tomorrow. I guess that feeling of dread when you set your alarm clock the night before you go to school never truly dissipates, even when you are a teacher. Or in my case, a "teacher".

Its always nice returning to school though, even after a weekend. The kids are SO HAPPY to see me and talk to me, even though they typically have forgotten all of their English over the break. No pasa nada, I'm looking forward to all the attention again.

In other news, I'm trying to plan some more adventures for before I leave. Its looking like Dublin in April, then maybe a quick stop by Paris, then heading home to Boston. Of course, it also appears that I will be too poor to purchase a plane ticket, so friends, don't get your hopes up too high.

Unless being a stowaway is still cool, plus then I can avoid all those damn luggage fees that I might get hit with after living abroad for a year and having my mom send me a LOT of stuff over the course of the year.