i guess i haven't written in a while because i went through a stage of homesickness/depression/loneliness mixture, and as the adage goes, if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all. i also didn't want to come on here and complain about my life here when i knew that the problems would be temporary and that my view of it on the other side (ie now) is a lot different, and today i find myself in another one of those i-love-madrid-and-want-to-stay-the-year days on the very, extremely cyclical movement of my perspective about spanish life.
anyways, the explication of this all starts a month and a half ago at the beginning of october. i had just finished my second day tutoring this adorable kid named lucas, and instead of taking the metro from nuevos ministerios, i decided to walk. i had no idea how long that walk would be, but feeling adventurous and knowing the general direction in which i had to go, i was excited. the walk will surely turn out to be one of the highlights of my stay here in madrid. i strolled for an hour through the tree-lined paseo de la castellana on one of those amazingly perfect fall nights where the temperature is cool but comfortable. the sun was setting. i was passing gorgeous historical monuments. and i had the conscious thought during at all that right then and there i was falling in love with madrid.
fast forward a couple weeks and all that was completely forgotten. i actually didn't think about that night again until today. i guess depression begets more negative thoughts. you don't really see the big picture in the middle of it. i don't know what really sparked the slump, but some combination of little fights that sprung up with my friends (i have such a low tolerance for drama), missing all you back home, frustrations with spanish (i can express myself in basically any daily situation, but there is something lost in terms of my personality. i feel boring in spanish. my jokes don't usually work out how i want them too, i think because people just take my comments at face value even when they're supposed to be ironic. and so i felt like i was devoid of deep personal connection), normal daily stress (those hated weekly econ papers, working 16 hours a week on top of everything), and the like. more than anything though, i think that i just spent too much time in my room. it's kind of crazy how a little bit of isolation can affect you so much, but i think that might have been the crux of it.
through many long e-mails and good conversations with my family and good friends from home, i started to feel a ton better and feel a lot more connected. spent an amazing weekend with a friend of mine here going to the madrid gay and lesbian film festival and randomly walking around the city. last night i had a good dinner with another spanish friend. and today i had the best run (something about just moving through the city invigorates me). thursday is my long day: i have work from 9-1, class in getafe (which is about a 45 minute trip for me to the south) at 2:30, then i tutor lucas (which has become a nightmare, more on that later) at 5 in republic argentina (near nuevos ministerios in the north of madrid), ballet at 7:15 and after grocery shopping on the way, i get home around 9:30. today, for whatever reason, i felt like i wanted nothing more than to run, so that's exactly what i did. made myself an hour long playlist with my favorite songs and head over to parque retiro. the park is gated so on my way in i checked the sign to make sure it wouldn't close on me, and since it didn't say anything i figured i was good to go. it was great. a bunch of the paths are lighted so i didn't have to worry about footing or creepy stalkers (although the first person i saw in the park was in the shadows with his pants down... i'm hoping he was peeing). just as i was on my way out, i ran by the man-made lake that has this big, victorious statue of a guy on a horse that was all lit up and was struck with awe. the lake during the day is full of touristy but romantic rowboats, but tonight in the de facto runners-only park it was black and empty with just the slightest of ripples. i was inspired, so i decided to go over to the statue and soak in its majesty. it was pretty spectacular. at the foot of a gigantic statue that is surrounded by roman columns at the shore of a lake. the sky was a dark blue with scattered orange-tinted clouds (thank you madrid smog). on the horizon was an enlarged, bright orange crescent moon. really wish i could have captured it all in a picture, but didn't have my camera and i'm sure it wouldn't have turned in. feeling centered, coming close to inner peace and knowing that if i waited any longer my legs were going to stiffen up and starting the run back up would be miserable, i got back into the run, finished up the playlist and headed towards the exit to leave the park. got to my gate, and it, of course, was locked with a gigantic bolt. starting running the parameter. next gate locked. and the next. i was genuinely trying to determine if i could hop the 8-foot spiked fences and then i realized i needed a new plan b now that my emergency action plan (run like hell home) was completely compromised. in search of an exit, i was forced off the central lighted paths onto the very very dark ones, but i will say that there is nothing like a dose of fear to motivate you at the hour mark of your run. kept going and going around the park until, finally, on the other side i found a police man who led me out and i made it home half and hour late.
recent highlights (i'm sure i'll forget a bunch, but we'll see what i come up with):
my former professor and good friend esther came to visit. she's originally from cuba and has a ton of other exiled friends who are here in spain, so i spent the weekend getting to know more cubans than i had ever met in my life, but it was a very fun group. my friend jacob who is teaching english in san sebastian (in the basque country) came down for the weekend as well so it was pretty exciting. lots and lots of eating, moving from one place to another for breakfast/lunch/tapas/coffee/a drink/dinner or whatever excuse we could make for the given time. it was a good deal.
the film festival that i went to with marcela was fun. i'd say i saw 1 great movie, 1 good movie, and one horrible movie. the last one being a french film "homme au bain". after bearing as much of it as i possibly could, i turned over to marcela, asked her if she was enjoying it, responded that i wasn't either and we left. unfortunately, it had a bunch of silent moments where the main character was filming and the viewer sees through his camera, so of course once we got up one of those started. the good one was about the bahamas and the gays who are simply trying to live their life and the religious groups that fight against the supposed destruction of their society and all the horrible things god will do... you know the story i'm sure. it was very poignant and especially interesting to me because i have a friend who is from jamaica and lives that same story. being a low budget indy film though, the acting wasn't superb, but not so bad that the story couldn't come across. my favorite movie was called violet tendencies. from the us. it's about this woman who is "the oldest fag hag" in new york city and her attempts to finally someone who loves her in a romantic way. very funny and cute.
started a new class. it's 2 credits while my other one's are 6, so it only goes for 5 weeks instead of the regular 16. it's international action against terrorism in the law department. i love it. it's really interesting so far. we've been talking about who's a terrorist, why there isn't an internationally accepted definition (mainly because islamic countries want to consider the palestinian forces as legitimate as any military and apply the same international laws instead of terrorist ones where as the west doesn't, although that simplifies it all). we'll see how it goes.
although it's becoming less and less a highlight, i've been tutoring marcela's cousin lucas in english. he can be super cute and provides a bunch of good stories, but really really struggles (or that would imply that he tries) to focus on studying english with me, so it can be really hard. the more comfortable he gets with me, the less he seems to respect me, as formality goes out the window and he just figures he can be more honest. at one point during the lesson, he ran upstairs and i eventually found him behind the curtian in his sister's room. as long as i lower my standards, it can be fun, but since i'm getting paid to teach him english, i get frustrated sometimes because i feel like i'm not fulfilling my duties... but his parent's obviously know how difficult it is. i am probably making him sound like a monster, which he isn't. it's just him being 7. there are definitely adorable moments, like a few weeks ago i came and he was intent that since he knew that his teacher had sent an e-mail to someone, that it must have gone to me, in the small world perception of kids where since i am another adult that lucas knows, i must be receiving the e-mails. he seemed disappointed and perhaps a little confused that i hadn't received an e-mail. sometimes we just give up at the 45 minute mark when he can't stand any more and play legos or with playmobile.
work is going well. feeling really integrated there and overall doing interesting things, but someone has to do the really boring things and that someone turns out to be me. but we just updated the accounting for the 3rd trimester and i ended up doing the majority of the accounts, so that was fun. the boss said that she wanted to hire me to do the accounting, i kind of laughed thinking she was joking because they get me for free, and then she seemed disappointed like i had rejected the offer in one of those unfortunate linguistic exchanges that just don't quite turn out like i hoped they would. i try to pull english day on thursday mornings, which usually turns into them giving me a few phrases and then we discuss the english in spanish, but that's still fun.
registered for classes today. i was somehow gifted senior feb status (for those who don't know, febs at midd start in february, hence the name, and are therefore a half class behind, so i registered with the febs a year up). i will have 26 credits in february, but was placed into the 27-30.99 group. i had figured that all the language schools had gotten it and the group was really 26-30.99 but that apparently wasn't the case. amanda and i concluded that they must know how much registration means to me and let me have it (i obsess about registration and know the catalog with way to much intimacy). ended up getting the 4 i went for. so i'll have religion and american politics (a 2 for 1 on my final general requirements, philosophy and north america), urban economics, sex and gender in france (my french class), and stochastic processes (a really nerdy math class). thinking about doing the unspeakable and adding a fifth (game theory 1), but we'll see if i still feel that way in february.
went to rocky horror picture show over halloween. loved it. those events where everyone is ridiculous together really warm my heart. plus i loved the combination of watching an american movie with subtitles and then yelling things at the screen in spanish. brad is a gilipollas and jane is a puta and you must replace their names with those words every time. it was a blast.
i'm going to leave it here because i know how intimidating extraordinarily long blog posts are, and i fear that i've already past my own personal limit (i don't usually read blog posts that are gigantic. there really isn't a good reason, but i just avoid them), and i can't really expect you to read something that i wouldn't do. i should really stop writing before i get into a discussion about blog post lengths.
big big hugs from spain.
love,
j
