Column A, Column B

I’ve been in Spain for 9 months.

Things I have missed:

• Family and friends
• A dryer (but only sometimes)
• Michigan beer
• Spicy food
• Customer service
• Central heating (but only for about two months)
• Fall & Spring foliage
• My gato

Things I haven’t missed:

• Driving
• Crappy weather
• Driving in crappy weather
• Expensive produce
• Expensive food & drink in general
• 2am cutoffs
• Coffee in to-go cups
• Sleep deprivation

Semana Santa

Elaborately braided palms on Domingo de Ramos

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when life in a new place just becomes life. For me the epiphany has occurred when I come back to Spain from trips other countries, and breathe a sigh of relief to be back home – because it feels suspiciously like home. Obviously I am still a guiri, and a thousand little contrasts show it (I haven’t found the unspoken but unanimously adhered to schedule for what date it’s okay to wear short sleeves or a skirt without tights, or just how sunny it can be out before you leave the house without a scarf.) In the streets waiters and strangers speak English at my American face. But the overwhelming feeling of otherness has faded. Routines have normalized. Several months ago I still was a little baffled when Spanish camareros brought a knife and fork with a croissant. Now if I order a croissant with my coffee and it doesn’t come with silverware, I feel a little affronted – what am I, a savage?

All the same, at the back of my mind I am aware of the contrasts, as I begin to pull together details for what my life will look like in the coming year. I already am aching at the thought of going home (although home has begun to waver and shift) and leaving behind little things here: the glint of the sea on my morning commute, the ability to sit down and drink a coffee slowly with coworkers in the middle of the school day.

And just as life in Spain feels normal, Semana Santa happens.

69/365

Construction (of hotels? apartment buildings? vacation homes?) at the base of the crumbling old staircase up to El Castillo de Santa Bárbara.

Today my intercambio and I had an interesting adventure. During our weekly bilingual paseo through Alicante, we passed through the neighborhood behind the cathedral, where we noticed some construction (see above) near what looked like the remains of some ancient stone walls, with what appeared to be tunnels going deep beneath Alicante’s iconic castle. We wondered what the remains were. A bit further on, we went into a ceramic shop that I noticed months ago in the barrio antiguo, which was finally open. Instead of the typical glossy mosaics that I’ve found in other more centrally located shops, it was a workshop crowded with faithful replicas of ancient artifacts, similar to those discovered in Roman ruins in this region, which now reside in Alicante’s fantastic archeological museum. It turns out that the shop is run by the retired restoration director from the museum – an animated old man who described his work at the museum, the tragic popularity of the touristy garbage available in other ceramic shops, and how the city prefers to pay off archeologists and covertly re-bury archeological discoveries, rather than be delayed by the hassles of preserving them.

(Currently several construction projects on main roads in Alicante have ground to a halt due to the discovery of archeological remains. In a town as old as this you can’t break ground for a water main without encountering what I affectionately call “old shit.”)

After lots of stories and approximately 4 cigarettes, our new acquaintance pulled out a photo album from among the dust, tools, and clay busts of the workshop. To our surprise, it was full of a careful documentation of the destruction of an ancient tower right at the spot we were examining earlier in the day, which appeared in old postcards and photos and gradually fell into disrepair, until today when the few remaining walls are crumbling into the hillside and apparently about to be built over by new construction.

After hearing these stories, we left the shop and strolled past the construction projects on the Rambla, which suspiciously enough was still going strong at almost 9pm on a Friday evening. (The Spanish work ethic is far too healthy for that nonsense.) We tried to peer through the barriers to catch a glimpse of something (old artifacts? ancient walls? a unscrupulous archeologist being paid off by shady city officials?) but whatever may have been beneath was already drowned in concrete.

I have mixed feelings about the delicate balance between preserving history and allowing life to flow on… regardless, it was fascinating, and I would love to stroll around town with this guy and hear other stories.

Also, some of you may be receiving very credible yet affordable replicas of foot-shaped pitchers and clay lamps depicting orgy scenes. Just to warn you.

*Note: For anyone nerdy enough to care, I am aware that there are two spellings of arch(a)eology, but I am trying to reign in unnecessary abundances of vowels whenever possible.

Mid-Year

I feel like most things in my life recently are a little retrasado (and I mean that more in the running late sense, and less in the mentally delayed way – but who knows?)

So more than a week after the fact, I am taking time to comment upon the many impressions and inspirations that I was left with after spending several days in Valladolid for Fulbright´s mid-year meeting. This included all the English Teaching Assistants from all over Iberian Peninsula – from Valencia, Cantabria, Madrid, and Andorra – and all the research grantees here in Spain, researching everything from cancer to Antarctica to flamenco.

Hint: this is not a cheap student hostel.

Glimpses & Glimmers

So for the past month I’ve been posting pictures instead of words.

(Spain got your tongue?)

I have been living here for five months. I have put down some roots, tied down my edges, and other roots have curled their way out of the ground to link me here before I realize it.

I recognize people on the street.
The greek waiter knows how I like my coffee, accompanying it with increasingly larger bits of pastry.
I often wake up speaking Spanish in my head.
The number of people who think I am Spanish increases, which I take as a compliment.
When people ask me for directions, I can answer.
My native tongue is disintegrating. In English I speak almost exclusively in Spanish cognates, even to native speakers.

I am accustomed to the dry earth and the waxy leaves the size of my hands, littering slick stone outside my door.
I am accustomed to the clatter of shutters opening in the morning, and to the real bells,
and to the light scattered from bedsheets billowing in sunshine.
I am addicted to tangerines – skin picked off in ragged spirals, citrus glow lighting up between my teeth.

The dramatic shifts and contrasts sometimes fray my connections with time or place or relevance.
Yesterday while walking down a street I had never seen before, I cried about something that happened years and years ago.
(Suddens storms coming in unexpectedly across the sea.)

I’m getting accustomed to beauty – and not just the little pieces of it I have collected for years.
(Sunrise over concrete expanses of highway, clean lines of scissors,
or the bottomless wells of beauty in my students’ eyes.)
Here I am drowning in new textures and scents and colors.

I’m worried I’ll lose track of the beauty in 6am highways or streets shuttered up in plywood, and of other abilities as well:

the ability to work endless days on a few hours of sleep,
the ability to write or even speak legibly in any language,
the ability to live inland,
the ability to shake hands,
the ability to drive a car,
the ability to wear a warm coat,
the ability to tip, to kiss, to dress business casual,
the ability to connect with people who have known me for more than five months.

This year isn’t easy, but I know better.
I know that I will look back at this year through golden light,
candles flickering, the scent of oranges,
far from some midwestern winter.

So for now words fail me and my voice creaks itself silent.
Lick lips, stuck shut.
Lacking stories (or rather, the tongue to tell them) I only have glimpses.

Christmas, Catharsis, and the Anti-Whine

I am here in Madrid by myself for the night, and tomorrow morning I will go back to the airport to meet a dear friend who is coming to visit me (and Spain, for the first time!) I arrived earlier today, and now I am in the cocoon of light and warmth and wifi that is the the bar of my hostel. It is Nochebuena - Christmas Eve in Spain. This is when Spaniards get together with their families to eat a gigantic meal of American Thanksgiving proportions, and later go to la misa del gallo - the rooster´s mass, at Christmas eve (because the rooster was traditionally the first to announce the birth of Christ.) The streets are not as busy as they usually would be at this hour, with most stores and restaurants shuttered up. People on the street are dressed up (with the occasional Santa hat or reindeer antlers) and hurrying to various festive destinations – carrying covered dishes or gifts or children. A few foreigners wander aimlessly, perhaps baffled by the way the bustling Spanish streets can empty themselves up so quickly and completely: shutters pulled down over storefronts, the slamming shut of old doors. My basic Spain Survival Skills have given me enough foresight to find a panadaría and frutería for some rations for later when everyone has retreated to their family meals, and I found a small empty cafe to satiate my ever growing addiction to café con leche. 

It is an easy time to feel orphaned and melancholy (alone! expat! homesick! Christmas!) but I am determined to make it more than that.

Living in a new country always teaches you even more about yourself than about the new culture. And a few months in, the things that have surfaced have not all been very pretty. I have found that especially in new and stressful situations, it is far too easy to let myself feel victimized. After the initial glow fades, you are beaten down by a country whose customs you don’t understand, full of people who don’t understand you. Daily tasks are baffling. Simple objectives become nearly impossible. Small talk during lunch break is terrifyingly trilingual.

Overwhelmed people shut down, or hide, or avoid… or whine. Slog through doggedly and sullenly. This is what I have been doing a bit too much lately. On a conscious level, I want to live outside my comfort zone. I want to be challenged because I want to grow. But not if I can’t whine about it. Not if I don’t get to maintain a steady stream of angst.

Is Catholicism is to blame? (Blaming Catholicism For Things has been another fun hobby, but isn’t always fair.) A steady diet of martyrs in halos and sacrificial lambs raises selfless folk whose sacrifices are repaid by gold halos and eyes cast heavenwards. Longsuffering. I think a lot of people* get lost in the sacrifice part and lose the thread of what really matters – what is worth the sacrifice, worth stepping out of the lines.

(*Obviously, I am just referring to myself)

I have always been one to push forward to new horizons – but then I get bogged down in anxiety, making me whiny and sullen and reclusive. I think this year will be a crash course in Being Joyful and Living In The Moment and Being Happy Alone - because often my alone times traveling are my favorite times. (I relate to Anna here and to the article she mentioned here.) Then the moment comes and it’s Christmas and I feel lonely, but I’m shaking it off. I don’t want to squander the joyfulness of adventure; I don’t want to lose the lightness of walking alone down an unfamiliar street in a beautiful city. I will see loved ones tomorrow (in person and via Skype) but for now I am listening to Villancicos (you can too, here!) and eating a mandarina and soon I am going to wander off to find out what Christmas in Madrid looks and smells and tastes like.

Felíz Navidad a todos. / Molt Bon Nadal a tots. 

(In case you wanted to know what a Mediterranean Christmas Eve looks like.)

(Sneak preview for family back home; due to mailing delays – mostly my fault – these presents will hopefully be brought by Los Reyes in early January… in true Spanish style.)

Abstract Interpretation of a Wednesday

One of many interpretations of Las Meninas by Picasso

In sixth grade plásticas we are looking at Picasso’s works from across the wide swathe of his career – pale blue faces, Guernica’s newsprint cartoon horror, smug mustachioed smiles against a backdrop of sensual curves. The kids worked on their own interpretations, where Picasso went blonde or Las Meninas became Una Menina, with vague features and very detailed shoes. One boy worked on a robot, built of solid geometric shapes, including a little rectangular wang, square balls… and a rectangular tie. (Que profesional – pero, ¿dónde están sus pantalones?)

Blank papers, lips bitten, tapping pencils, ideas waiting to happen. I listen to the teacher’s instructions in Valencian, to kids questions in Spanish, and answer in English. They meticulously outline reproductions, or trace jagged lines across the page.

 

In third grade we learn the meaning of silly along with the parts of the body. We collaborate on very silly drawings using the parts of the body. One small boy doesn’t understand the directions, and almost falls over with laughter when he finds that the torso of his drawing has become part of the (very long) neck. ¡Ese hombre tiene tetas en su cuello! Other kids are concerned because these are not quite careful enough, and how will they take their work home or receive a grade if there have been four (often sloppy) artists involved with each portrait? I remind them of the meaning of silly, and we decide that we have met our objective.

 

 

In fourth grade there are cross-curricular connections – lessons about the parts of a flower and classification of leaves – leaves carried in backpacks, strewn across the table and floor, and finally splayed out onto posterboard in neat categories. I do some quick internet research to brush up on my botanical terms, and explain them English. We find the faint blue lines on our wrists, and the green raised veins on the leaves.

 

Abstract pieces of language litter our mouths. Fingers on throats to find the voice of vowels. Feeling the puff of air of the bilabial stops.

 

At lunch time I sink down inside myself again. Concentrate on peeling an orange into a citrus spiral, submerged in an oasis of silence between loud Valencian and more jokes I can’t understand. I understand only the most simple and physical humor – the principal yelling ¡joder! as he races for the last ice cream, or the cross-culturally unintelligible yelp of surprise as water is tipped across the table. But words are surfacing from the trainwreck of my comprehension.

 

Fulles.

Tardor.

Llapis.

Tot el mon. 

Menjador.

Xiquets i xiquetas.

 

After lunch two other teachers and I intend to find “un poquito de relax.” In the music classroom, with the door locked against the students doing homework in the hallway, we lay out yoga mats, turn on quiet music, and nos tumbamos.

Tumbarse - If you tumbar someone else, this is violent. You knock them down. If you do it yourself, you lie down – generally for a nap. Positive connotations. But inanimate objects can knock you down, too - me tumbaron en matemáticas. (I failed math. Math knocked me down.)

 

So on Wednesday afternoons we knock ourselves down for a while. Slip out of the vertical world of speech and sight. Let the classroom rearrange itself – cool tile, vertical silver of table legs, yellow window frames filled with squares of blue from a Mediterranean November. I am reminded of my three o’clock exhaustions, where I locked the door, hid in an invisible corner, and slept with my face on a table for a while, before beginning the long drive home under a sky spitting snow.

 

 

After school I have a language exchange. We are making our way through the museums of Alicante – free contemporary art galleries. Submissions of comics by local youth. A distressingly extensive history of postage. A room full of silver geometric sculptures that wink and glitter as they are set in motion by an employee – whose job is to sit in the gallery reading a novel, and set the sculptures in motion every few minutes. We talk – in English and in Spanish – but we also stand in silence, looking at broad brush strokes, earth and bricks jumbled onto canvas, and the dizzying movement of stationary canvasses.

Tierra de Campos - Juana Francés (an artist from Alicante)

Oceans Away

Oh boy! Another long pause followed by another long post!

Two months of living in Spain, and I am beginning to find my stride. I have several students for clases particulares (private classes), several intercambios (language exchanges), and have just signed up for a yoga class offered by the community center next to my school. I’ve made a few American friends and a few Spanish friends, so that I have some relationships to neglect now that my schedule is getting busier. I’ve had the opportunity to go on two field trips with various classes: one to a nearby park where the 2nd graders learned about traffic laws (including the chance to practice on a bike course complete with signs and traffic lights), and another to Jijona to visit a turrón factory and some caves up in the mountains.

On the bus with the entire Secundo Ciclo (3rd & 4th grade)

We could see Alicante from the mountain! (The kids were curious... ¿Dónde está tu casa en Michigan?)

Las cuevas...

Field trip finish early? Don't want to go back to school yet? Let your students run around in the park for approximately three hours!

In between, during the normal school day, I think I am finding my place here. (The next step? Learning to be content with that place.) I have four English classes a week with the teacher, with the fifth and sixth graders, and the rest of my sixteen weekly hours are in plásticas (art) classes. The English classes are wonderful – I feel like I am learning a lot about teaching ESL, and even though I only have one hour a week with each class, I can see progress. This week I am starting my Fulbright side project – a pen pal exchange with elementary classrooms in the United States. I’m excited about this project – the Fulbright side projects are meant to be aligned with Fulbright’s goals of intercultural exchange, in a way that is challenging and educational for both the auxiliar (me) and the students, and I think this will be all of those things.

I feel less excited about the plásticas classes. With the older grades, I sometimes am able to plan my own activities that combine art with language – or at least I am given ten or fifteen minutes to teach some vocabulary related to what they are working on. The teachers let me do Halloween activities with the kids, and most have agreed to let me bring in other holiday activities and lessons. The rest of the time I am circulating around the room trying to find things to say in English. Particularly with the first and second graders, whose plásticas activities are primarily coloring, cutting, and occasionally gluing, I am finding it hard to impart more language than “Oh, great job! That looks good! I like his red hat! What a nice blue house! Do you know where your scissors are?” They’re experts at colors, because it’s difficult to talk about much else, when I don’t have time for songs, activities, or more direct lessons… so often when I say anything to them in English, they just start holding up their crayons and saying proudly: “Green! Yellow! Rrrrred!” I think they see me as a weekly visitor whose sole purpose is to check that they know their colors in English. (It’s understandable. That’s a pretty fair assessment of the role I am currently given.)

After spending three years teaching in Detroit, building a language program from scratch, and preparing six or seven lessons a day at different grade levels, and letting my teaching job devour nearly all my free time, it feels foreign and increasingly frustrating to spend so much time hovering around at the back of classrooms. You would think that being this useless would be less tiring – but between the extra strain of speaking two (or three!) languages and the long days, I am just as exhausted by the time I go home.

It might sound like I am whining, but I’m not. (At least, I shouldn’t be.) It is easy to whine. It is easy to compare the current situation to others and to some imaginary ideal in your head, where you have boundless time, materials, support, and the rapt attention of (no more than a reasonable number of) bright, clean little faces. Teaching is never going to occur in an ideal situation, because it is a job working with the most young and chaotic members of our already-unpredictable human race. Especially as a teacher in ESL and/or foreign languages – which are not on the big standardized tests and often less funded or organized – I can expect a career full of unreasonable expectations, meager resources, and creative solutions.

So here I am – teaching English, learning more Spanish, and most importantly, trying to foster intercultural exchange. I think the only thing more eye-opening than teaching itself is teaching in a foreign country. There are so many confusing, revealing, and thought-provoking reminders that I am oceans away from my comfort zone.

Por ejemplo…

• The loud THWACK of a plastic folder on the head of an overly talkative student, when an irritated teacher smacked him with it hard enough to send a bit of plastic flying across the room. Back home this event might have been followed by a lawsuit – here it was followed by a collective gasp, a brief tirade in Valencian, and restored order in the classroom.
• The birthday celebration for some teachers during el recreo last week, where the teacher’s lounge erupted into activity: snacks materializing from somewhere, a few liters of beer circulating in little plastic cups, regional pastries unfolding themselves from paper cartons brought from someone’s pueblo, congratulatory dos besos for the birthday folk, and a loud jumble of laughter/Valencian/Castellano/Spanglish. I sipped beer self-consciously (with the noise of the students on the playground outside) while the primary school teachers tried to refill my cup whenever they noticed it was empty.
• The very, very young students in the building – although I don’t work with infantil, it is bizarre to see the tiny three year olds in the hallways, in their little gingham smocks called babis, hanging onto each other to create very slow-moving and haphazard trains, or occasionally carried by their teachers (also dressed in babis, which is pretty genius if you are going to be hugged by so many grubby little people.)
• A distinctly European level of comfort with the human body, with anatomically correct posters to teach all the bits and pieces, a detailed discussion of childbirth in the kindergarten class, a student changing into his karate uniform in the fourth grade hallway, the discussion about the Birth of Venus (and a student’s commentary: We have that picture in my house – but my dad cut out the face and replaced it with a picture of my mom…) Let’s not even talk about the fair where I stumbled upon a father helping his small son pee on a wall at the side of a crowded street…
• A general lack of anxiety that has been hard for me to assimilate, as approximately a hundred 3rd and 4th graders ran amok on a field trip – wrestling, piling on top of each other, hanging off railings over a very scenic and very high cliff. The other teachers must have noticed the panicky look in my eyes, because they just shrugged and said - “eh… es normal para los niños.” There isn’t the paranoia that I am used to in lawsuit-happy America – the paranoia that manifests itself in safety railings, warning signs, first aid kits, fire escapes. Then again, maybe there is something to be said for a lack of paranoia. I haven’t noticed an inordinate amount of children falling off of castles or down into caves.
• Further nonchalance in the area of sanitation. I am used to certain things in American schools – the vats of hand sanitizer, availability of tissues, and reminders to cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze – that simply are not here. (Terrifyingly enough.)

Niños in high places.

Note the welding that is going on while we are below in the caves. Not only is this very loud during the tour, but there is also a lot of sparks and a half-constructed railing as we all file past on the wet steps...

On the other hand, there are some things that have been comfortingly consistant from one continent to another:

• Students are excited to see me anywhere outside of the classroom: at the store, on the bus, in the city center, in a nearby pueblo at a fair… just like my students in the United States, they are fascinated to discover that teachers do things outside of the school.
• Being a teacher is a like being a rockstar. People are always screaming your name in the hallway or in the street.
• In drawings, if there are people dancing there will always, always be a disco ball present.
• Tattling and whining are both phenomena that easily cross the language barrier.
• First graders will always be a little bit insane.
• No matter how strictly or tightly controlled the lines are, the creativity of children will always, always spill through the cracks in some way.

(I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.)

Halloween Jack-o-Lanterns

We talked about the difference between scary and fun when it comes to Halloween. Most people chose scary. The sweet little third graders were particularly bloodthirsty.

First Impressions

Here in Spain, publicly funded education starts at age 3, although it isn’t compulsory until age 6. Last week I arrived for my first day at my school on the same day that all the 3 year olds were arriving for their first day. When I got off the bus, the streets were clogged with parents and strollers, leading their students to the school and then lingering outside the fence, waving at the little ones waiting in haphazard lines with their teachers. I walked in the gate behind a tiny boy who was clutching a half eaten tostada in one hand and looking around apprehensively, huge eyes full of tears and pieces of a paper napkin stuck to his face.

I could empathize. My first day was a blur of schedules, greetings in Spanish and Valencian and English, and dos besos from every teacher in the building. There are many things to adjust to here in Spain, and even three weeks in it doesn’t quite feel real to me. As soon as I got to school, however, I immediately began to feel a little less estranged from reality. Even with so many unfamiliar elements, being in a building with student art on the wall and kids everywhere felt more homelike than any of the gorgeous scenery that I have felt pasted into.

Now that I am done with my first week, the shape of my work here is getting a little clearer. As a conversation assistant, I am spending most of my hours with the English teacher. I also am going into two kindergarten and two 3rd grade classrooms on my own to assist the classroom teacher (who are tutores or tutoras here) during their time for English lessons. It looks like I will have a fair amount of free reign in these classes, since the teachers are not native speakers and are glad to hand over lessons to me. In addition, I am assisting in two 6th grade clases de plásticas – which confused me at first. Plastic class? As it turns out, these are art classes taught by the classroom teacher (tutor/a). Like in the U.S., there are especialistas who see all the grade levels to teach music, physical education, a foreign language (English, in this case), and – unlike in the U.S.! – religion. Art, however, is left to the classroom teachers. I am in the plásticas classes with the 6th graders, to provide extra English support in addition to their weekly class with the English teacher. For this first week, this just consisted of some relevant vocabulary that I wrote on the board, and practiced the colors, but in the future I am excited to plan some hybrid art/language lessons.

There are some dramatic differences from what I am used to in the U.S.:

• The environment of the school is much more laid back and casual – students call teachers by their first names, and on my first day I felt very overdressed, just because I had on long pants and a shirt with sleeves. I’m sure it’s different in secondary schools, but here in the colegio there are many teachers dressed in shorts, sundresses with spaghetti straps, or strapless shirts. This is necessary since there is no air conditioning, and the temperatures in the classrooms currently range from mildly balmy to nearly unbearable. It also fits with the general attitude I’ve observed in Alicante – fashion is still alive and well here, but in a much more laid back and less covered way than in, say, Madrid.
• Classroom management is very different from what I have observed. I haven’t seen the structured systems of classroom management that I’ve seen (and used) in elementary and primary classes – flipping cards or moving names, three strikes, etc. There are administrative referrals for serious offenses, but in general there is just a lot of shushing, supplemented by occasional guilt tripping in English or Valenciano.
• In September and June, schools only are in session until 1pm. The rest of the year the school day lasts from 9am until 5pm, with a long lunch break in the middle, but for the beginning and end of the school year, everyone goes home at lunch time. As a teacher explained it to me: It’s the beginning and end of the year. The kids are too wild, the teachers are too tired, and the building is too hot to be in school all day. Genius! Can I bring this tradition back home?
• In addition to the long lunch break (once we are in session all day), there is a half hour recreo in the middle of the morning – where students go out to play on the patio (playground), and teachers descend upon a cart full of warm bread and hot coffee in the break room. Once again, genius.
• English is the third language taught in my school. Technically, the entire Valencian region is bilingual, with two official languages: Castellano (that is, Spanish as it is spoken in Spain) and valenciano – which is similar to Catalán, and to me sounds like a mixture between French and Spanish. In Alicante Valencian is used less than it is in other parts of the province, closer to Valencia, and I haven’t encountered it much on the streets, other than some signs. My school, however, has an immersion program for Valenciano – at each grade level there is one classroom taught entirely in castellano, and one entirely in valenciano. In the Valencian classrooms, usually the teacher gives instructions to the class in Valencian, explains them to me in Spanish, and then I explain things – very slowly! – in English. I want to find out more about the immersion program, but it seems to be a great way to teach students both languages. For me, it has been a little confusing, since valenciano sounds familiar enough that it usually makes me think that I am just terrible at understanding Spanish – and then someone switches to castellano and the light bulbs in my brain turn back on!

Of course, there are many things that have been comfortingly familiar. Even though it is all in castellano or valenciano, the teacher talk in the lounge is exactly what I’m used to. There are the same stories about students, chats about the news, laughter and ranting, fussing over the copier or laminator (based on my now-international experience, never has there been a laminator in a school that works for longer than a week or so in September) and worries about jobs and funding. A Fulbright ETA from last year wrote this very helpful post about the educational system here, which is especially interesting in light of the current educational woes in the United States.

Overall, I am very excited about this coming year. It has been somewhat uncomfortable to just sit and observe, and I am looking forward to actually planning and teaching activities this week.

I am also looking forward to not being ill. The night before my first day of school I started to feel a little under the weather, and in the past week I’ve gone through various stages of some kind of allergic, snotty, cough-ridden disaster. I’ve tried everything from medication from home, lying in my dark room through many sunny afternoons, and even (as recommended by native Alicanteans) going to the beach, but it’s still lingering.

Perhaps next time you’ll get to hear the tales of trying to go to the doctor in a foreign country? That should be exciting.

Today I got back from a weekend in Valencia, and I have plenty of things to share, but that will have to wait until later. I know I have been woefully neglectful of this blog. I will do better. I promise.

Días de los Muertos

November came in bleak. Still traces of crumbling colors underfoot, and of modern walls sinking into the woods. Talking about death with my students I am on tiptoe, but then my littlest ones tell me wise things, and talk about skeletons they aren’t afraid of, hidden under their own skin. We sat together on the floor, our palms pressed to our hearts, listening to our blood push its way through our veins, feeling our bones – ribs, teeth, wrist.

I have been surviving insomnia and cold with warm sweaters and perhaps nothing more than stubbornness to keep my head above water.