Long time, no see!

Before I start, I'd like to note that Spanish television is absolutely incredible. As I write this, I'm watching Alf. Earlier today I had 2 projects due so I procrastinated until the last minute and eventually cranked them out watching Growing Pains and Hey Arnold! I've missed my Spanish T.V...ever since everything started snowballing before break, the apartment has been crammed (not in a good way) and I spent most of my time in my room or trying to nap whenever possible.

That being said, that's why I haven't written anything in over a month. Things got suuuuuuuuuuuper busy and then I was able to come home over break, and then I got dragged back here unwillingly and I'm stuck here for awhile, haha. I love it here, don't get me wrong...but it's been a rough transition.

For starters, the adventure back sucked even worse than the first time. The Asian guy at the Washington airport was rude & unhelpful and I swear he was HAPPY I was supposed to be stuck overnight in Dulles (properly named, by the way)...like one of those people who watches Maury to feel better about their lives. I missed my connecting flight taking me from Washington D. to Madrid, so I finally convinced him to let me go to London, then to Madrid. On the 7 hour flight to London, I tried to sleep and the guy in front of me insisted on stretching his legs a lot, which usually meant I would fall asleep and wake up to him standing over me, "stretching his legs", which really meant watching me snooze. He was so damned creepy. I caught him standing over me, staring, 4 different times. His hair was really greasy too, which I think is an obvious sign of a mass murderer. Then, after landing in London and discovering the angry Asian man told me he booked me with the wrong company, I finally get on the plane and am excited to just get into Spain. On that 2 hour flight, I sat next to a very rotund man who looked a lot like Santa Claus and was the most annoying passenger that has ever breathed air on this planet. To begin, this flight was delayed because one of the engines was not starting. If you ask me, that's a pretty severe issue that should be corrected by switching planes. Instead the pilot non-chalantly got on the intercom and said (and I quote) "Hey guys, uh, sorry we haven't been in contact with you for awhile, one of our engines appears as though it isn't starting. We've been below with the crews trying to get it started but we're pretty sure if we just restart the system it'll be just fine and we can take off shortly." UH, PRETTY SURE!?!? It's the damned engine!!! It's what makes the magic in airplanes and makes them fly!! That's like saying "uh, I'm pretty sure this car can run with only 4 wheels". Yeah, it'll run, dumbass, just not very well...

I know that's a bit overdramatic but after all of the flying I ended up doing, I found myself having panic attacks and pondering the credibility and saftely of airplanes....think about it, how do 2 engines make a thousand bajillion pounds FLY?! I decided it's against physics. Especially when the tactic to lift off is to simply go faster. It's not like cars do that. When I accelerate faster, I don't fly. I'd probably just get a ticket.

That's not the point. Let's get back to Santa. So we're waiting...2 hours pass for this engine issue to resolve itself (the entire flight I was waiting to fall out of the sky and plummet to my death). While I was waiting for this, though, Santa created many unwanted distractions. The first was him passing out, 5 minutes after boarding, with his head thrown back, mouth gaping open, and snoring like a damned foghorn. No joke. The ENTIRE plane, including the attendants, were staring and judging. Every once in awhile he would snore so hard he would choke a little bit, and wake up...but he would blink twice, lay his head back in his broken-neck position, and immediately fall back asleep. Sometimes he would suck air in so hard it would rattle the uvula in the back of his throat...you could hear it so clearly you could count the amount of times it hit the walls of his throat hole. This was not the worst. I prepared myself for the worst, which was 4 hours of this melodious bullshit. Because we were preparing for take off (for 2 hours) we were not allowed to use electronic devices...i.e. my iPod. So I start reading my 2 Cosmos I brought along and prayed that just maybe God would kill us after all. 120 excruciating minutes later, we take off and are shortly able to use our electronic devices. I throw in my iPod and thank the baby Jesus. I fell asleep for a little bit but woke up half way through and noticed that everybody was staring at me again. I figured it was snoring Santa again, choking on something new. He was awake, though, reading a magazine. I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on so I take off my headphones and discovered what the big deal was. Santa, in all of his annoying glory, had forgotten his headphones (or maybe he is just so annoying he chose not to use them), and was blasting music from his iPhone. Yes, as soon as I remove my music, I am slapped in the face with an acoustic rendition of Alanis Morrisette's Ironic. Blasting from the seat separating me and his obese body. The worst part was that he was totally oblivious to all 12 annoyed passengers surrounding us. So we listened to two more songs from Alanis and eventually he ended the trip with a couple classics from Jewel. Bad things come in three so he of course had to end the trip with a bang. When we were advised to turn off devices, again, because of landing, I look over and see that Santa is blatantly disregarding this rule and instead doing just the opposite...he is texting somebody. WHILE WE WERE LANDING. As soon as he got signal he started texting away and even checking his e-mail. It is truly a miracle that I am able to even type this right now.

Anyways....I made it. I got my luggage. I pissed off some gypsy who put my luggage into the taxi that I didn't tip because I thought he was just being nice and helping and didn't realize he was a gypsy. Usually gypsies have talents. I didn't think his was a very good one...feigning kindness. That was the first slap in the face from Spain. I also had to unpack my bags, sadly realizing I packed WAY TOO MUCH clothes. :( July will have some sad surprises for me.

That was just my first day back. My delays also caused me to miss my two final projects for both of my master's classes, which are also the only grades in the classes. Life reeeeeeeeally hated me that day. That all worked out alright, though. Having returned on the wrong foot, however, has been rough. First of all, I'd like to revisit my complaints about public transportation. I'm pretty sure it's going to kill me. Literally. First of all, the buses are quickly moving death traps. I was riding to my private lessons Monday when I noticed the emergency exits. Do you know what those are? The windows. And as if that's not bad enough, the hammers were stolen from every. single. holster. Who steals an emergency hammer!? So if the bus spontaneously combusts, I'm screwed. Also, the drivers cut corners. Which....whatever. They also text while driving. I wouldn't care but apparently there is no penalty for destructive contact. My bus was flying around a corner to catch a light and we literally hit the curb, bounced back, and busted into the stop light on the corner. We bent the thing down to a 45 degree angle. I was mortified and as my brother says, my toes were hurting. I'm looking frantically at the post we were quickly speeding away from, the pedestrians we came 2 inches from hitting, and the bus driver and passengers that were all witness to the accident as well. NOBODY WAS PHASED. AT ALL. It reminds me of the time before when my host mom hit two pedestrians when she was backing up in Valencia. Her response was "oops, I didn't see them!"...and then she *quickly* threw the car in drive and sped off. I literally waited the entire ride for the bus driver to turn around and go back, or to get pulled over by the S.W.A.T. team, but that didn't happen. Because in Spain, it doesn't matter. No pasa nada.

This adjustment is harder than I ever imagined...but day by day, I'm getting used to it all again. Which is the scary part...

"sex big pink fish shitting in the chi-cken!"

I'm sure that it is obvious by the fact that I haven't written a blog post in over a week (or has it been two weeks?) that life has been very stressful. Some might say unnecessarily stressful. I do.

First of all, I've started compiling a list of things that are apparently "normal" in Spain but that I'm pretty sure are going to kill me.

1. Buses. Okay in Indianapolis the public transportation is shitty, to say the least. Hardly anybody takes it because it's unreliable and whatever. Here, I find above-ground transportation more comforting than underground transportation. If a bomb goes off and I'm in a bus, I can atleast tuck & roll out the window/door/etc. If a bomb goes off in the Metro, I figure I'm royally screwed. Where are you gonna tuck & roll in the Metro? Two choices: into the bomb, or away from the bomb into a dark, damp, shit-smelling black abyss. I think I'd rather take the sparkly bomb. These are things I think about, p.s., while I'm sitting on the Metro. That, and I also sing this song in my head:



Not the whole song, of course, just the chorus. Anyways, I digress. The buses have an easy escape route but what they lack is competent drivers. Spain drivers are crazy as hell. First of all, they know exactly how wide their car is in their minds so when there is a small gap between cars, or a parking spot, instead of advancing with caution, they jam the accelerator and head into the space at full force, Harry Potter style, as if the spot was going to magically gape open and accomodate their vehicle perfectly. That's all fine and dandy if you're in YOUR car. But when I'm on the bus, and the bus is tall, and the bus drivers pedal-to-the-metal at a 2 foot space between 2 teensy European cars...well...it's enough to test my bladder strength. They blast up to the two cars, then stop almost immediately slamming on the breaks. Then, they inch towards the space and use their mirrors to guide through. They will literally come within 3 centimeters of hitting a vehicle, and even use their hydrolics (intended for letting passengers off the bus with ease) to tip the bus back and forth to wedge between obstacles. If that doesn't work, they will sit there and lay on the horn until the owner of the double-parked car comes out and moves their vehicle. This is 23% effective. Luckily, when this makes me late to work, all of the teachers already know the bus sucks or just assumed I was sick. Ain't no thang.

This is just the tip of the iceburg though. 3 times now I have caught bus drivers reading the newspaper while driving. I mean.....okay. You're in the car, by yourself. You check a text message, maybe shoot one back while in traffic. Bad traffic. However while driving a public transportation bus, filled with 20 innocent passengers? Not in traffic? While driving at 35+ mph down the street?? Jesuscristo. The first time I was like, "well...he's at a stoplight. Maybe he'll put it awa...oh, it's green...he's moving....and...he's....still reading. Okay well, awesome..." Then I thought well not all drivers can be perfect. Then I saw 2 other ones (different ones) doing the same thing. I don't care if my bus driver is culturally up to date or relevant. I care about you not killing me in a firey crash involving a moped and 3 geriatric pedestrians. (ok ok that wouldn't make much of a fire, persay...) Whatever. The buses are going to lead to my demise, I'm certain.

2. If the buses don't kill me, the second hand smoke will. I'm cool with it in bars and during recess with the teachers...totally understandable. Here's where it starts interfereing in my life: at home and with the children. First of all, my tuberculosis-inclined neighbor downstairs (the old dude who has the nasty-ass cough) sounds like he is losing a decent percentage of his lungs everytime he coughs (which is approximately every 20 minutes, but every 10 minutes conveniently when the normal hours of sleeping approach. Murphy's law.) Anyways I've inadvertantly discovered why homeboy has his disease: he smokes. How do I know? Well, our clothes line is located directly above his window, and I've noticed that my clothes now smell like stale, nasty smoke. Not a fun bonfire smoke. An annoying, old man, coughing up a lung kind of smoke. Thanks, asshole. I don't have enough HANGERS to dry my crap inside. So now I can only wash like 10 articles of clothing at once.

I'm gonna stop popping Mucinex in his mailbox and just let him go. My clothes & sleep cycle with thank me.

Another surpring source of second hand smoke is 12 year old boys. I got lost going to class the other day (the building had changed last minute) and I turned the corner only to run into two little boys leaning against the brick wall smoking cigarettes. I literally stopped in my tracks and stared at them. Until I realized I was legitmately staring and just walked past them. Not before one of those little brats blew his smoke in my face, though. You know what makes you SUPER COOL? Burning tabacco stuffed paper, inhaling the byproduct, and blowing it at innocent people's faces as if you were breathing fire...just kidding. Hint: Your smoke won't hurt me. But my fist will bust your nose. I'm older, smarter, and ballsier than you are, little 12 year old. I'll be watchin out for you. Who the hell sold that kid cigs anyways??

Going back to my list of "normal" things that might kill me...

3. Victor. Who's victor? Well...first I'd like to admit that I hate all of my 2nd grade classes. Literally, all of them are headaches. There are, collectively, about 10 students that I love because they hug me at recess and are super cute...I mean they're all decently cute...but in general they are rotten as shit and refuse to shut their mouths for 5 consecutive minutes for anybody, including their legitimate teachers. And it's not just me. Their teachers hate them too. They've told me so. I believe it's something about the age. "Terrible 2's"...kinda.

Example of why I hate them: (actually this isn't their fault, it's just funny as hell)

Last Friday, in 2nd grade, I was supposed to teach each class the sound "i"...the short 'i' as found in the words 'sick', 'fish', 'bit', 'stick'...etc. This sound does not exist in Spanish. The 'i' in Spanish sounds like a long 'e'...like 'beat', 'meet', 'ski'...this is why, when you hear a Spanish speaker trying to say the word "fish", they say "feesh" instead. So I did my best to help them learn this sound. In their book, they were supposed to say "Ingrid insect" and "six big pink fish sitting in the kitchen". We started practicing with just Ingrid insect. It went like this:

Me: Repeat! "Ingrid insect!"
Them: Ingrid insex!!
Me: ..........not quite. Inse-c-t. In-sec-t. T. Okay let's try again! Insect!
Them: insex!!
Me: ...........uhh, yeah. Good. Insect. Let's move on to the next sentence.

Now, before starting this sentence I figured one of two things would happen. First, they would probably just mumble the rhythm of the sentence without pronouncing anything. Or, if they were determined, they would try their best to pronounce some words but at best would probably still say one or two of the words with the "ee" sound. No harm, no foul. So we started practicing 4 words at a time, at first, so they didn't get overwhelmed. Here we go:

Me: six big pink fish....
Them : seex big pink feesh...
Me: no no!! remember, there is no feesh. Siiiiiiiiiix. Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiish.
Them : six. fish.
Me: Great!!! Okay, ready? Sitting in the kit-chen.
Them: sitting in the keet-chen.
Me: Close! Kiiiiiitchen.
Them: kitchen!
Me: great!! SO GOOD! Think you can do it all at once?
Them: Yes!! yes!!!
Me: okaaaaaay....let's repeat after the CD. Here we go!
CD: Six big pink fish sitting in the kit-chen!
Them: sex big pink fish shitting in the chick-en!!

Here's an amateur sketch of what I looked like:

Yup. The worst part is they were all looking up at me with those innocent eyes waiting for positive feedback and amazement at their epic English skills. What the hell was I supposed to say?? In the end, after thinking and biting my tongue, I decided that really the textbook set them up for complete failure and just wanted a cheap laugh because it was dumb to have them pronounce fish and sitting together and...just....total failure. I had them try it 3 more times with the exact same outcome. Sex big pink fish, shitting in the chick-en. Sigh. I officially don't care if they pronounce 'i' wrong anymore. At all.

Anyways, sidetracked again. These 2nd graders, though, are clearly a handful. However, in one of the classes is this little boy named Victor. He's borderline albino, with bright bright blonde hair, and I have been told he is a "special boy"...although I have yet to figure out if special means slow, troublesome, or something different. Spain's vague. Anyways Victor is one of those kids in class who usually chews on his crayons, has random outbursts trying to get attention, and somehow always manages to have snot coming out of his nose of awkward and nauseating colors. Because I don't speak Spanish, Victor stays clear of me. Usually. Sometimes he comes up and says hello, stares at me, and then sits down. Sweet kid, really, haha. You won't catch him yelling about taking a crap in poultry like his classmates.

Anyways, at lunch one day, he started talking to me! I was so excited. I said, "hello Victor! How are you?" and he started talking to me in Spanish and then randomly saying "Chelsea! hello!" So we talked back and forth in our odd language combination, and then eventually I told him to eat his soup and tried to walk away. He then said "Chelsea!!" so I turned around and said what? with my hands in the air acting confused so he'd know what I meant. He looks me dead in the eye, holds up his hands in the shape of a gun, pretends to cock his thumb, AIMS, and then "shoots" me. With his hand gun. (See above for an amateur sketch of my reaction.) I said very firmly "Victor, NO. Guns are BAD." He started laughing and said "no, no, no..." so I said "good, no guns. NO." He repeated "no, no, no.................................yes, yes, yes!!" And then held up his hand gun to shoot me again. Twice this time.

I get that kids don't understand the severity of playing with guns, but there's a fine line between a simple, one-handed L-shaped thumb and forefinger gun, and a two-handed bazuka-esque gun that includes cocking a barrel, AIMING, and a strong recoil. Seriously. I hope Victor's parents are pacifists. And I'm glad we're not in Texas.


Phew. I was hoping to blog about all the crazy in my school but it looks like I'll have to wait until next time. And blog more often. Guess this is ta-ta for now!