Christmas break

This year I went back to Germany for the holidays, basically the same trip as last year but just a little shorter. I started at my Uncle’s in little Waldshut-Tiengenfor Christmas, headed to my Grandma’s for a few days, then to my cousin’s for New Year’s in Heidelberg. Not too much to report that wasn’t said last year. I am so blessed to have family close by, especially family that is not only willing to take me in, but actually eager to do so.

When I was little, having a German mother and visiting Germany often was never anything special to me. I didn’t appreciate how cool it was to spend 3 weeks every other summer in my grandma’s 400 year old house, or to have a personal guide to small-town life in another country. As a kid it was just a fun vacation to take during the summer, and I liked playing with my cousins or swimming in the lake in my grandma’s town. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized what a special opportunity I had to be so close to my “roots”, something that many Americans (specifically Caucasian) don’t have the privilege of even finding out, let alone experiencing first-hand.

I hadn’t been back since I was probably 14 or 15 when I visited Nanna (grandma) with my friend Max in the summer of 2007. I had been studying in Salamanca and once I knew Max and I would be traveling Europe the first thing I wanted to do was to go to her town, Stetten, to be able to show someone else “Look! This is really where my grandma lived and where I would come in the summer!” It’s the type of place that is so different, so off the beaten path, that I almost had to prove to someone that it was real, and I did so with pride. I’m not sure where this pride came from, but I realized that in those key formative years between visits that this place was something extremely special and I was SO blessed with the opportunity for those experiences as a child. Having Max along caused me to see it as if I was looking at it for the first time again- from a new set of eyes and with a new appreciation. I am excited to be able to return someday, maybe with my own kids, and recount all the happy memories.

After I got back, there was a good week or so where I had a lot of time on my own, with my roommates and many friends gone for vacation. I had really, really wanted to go home for the holidays this year, but I didn’t really have the money, nor did my family think it was a great idea. However as the holidays approached I felt this crazy yearning to go home that I hadn’t felt ever before in all my time abroad. I missed it a lot and kinda felt like I needed it to recharge and help me push through the remaining 6 months abroad. With those sentiments in hand, plus the loneliness of that first week I was having it a little rough to start 2010, but things have picked up considerably since then.

Now all of a sudden I have a lot on my plate in the coming months, and once again time is gonna fly by! I’m going to Germany to visit my mom when she comes in mid-February which I’m so excited for! She didn’t visit last year so meeting up with her in Germany is going to be a nice treat and hopefully somewhat of the reminder from home that I missed out on over break. Then comes Semana Blanca, a week of vacation at the end of February, which I don’t yet have plans for but I’m thinking about visiting my old host family in Salamanca. Then after a few UCLA friends stop through in March, I just found out my good friend Jon is coming for 2 weeks over my spring break!! I can’t wait for that and I’m actually looking forward to traveling for the first time this year! By the time he leaves it’ll be April already, and I’ll have less than two months of classes. Crazy!

At this point, my flight home (which I purchased already so I’d have a cheaper, round-trip flight) is set for July 1st. I’m currently debating on whether or not I want to change it to be sooner. Originally I had left the month of June for traveling, especially with some friends talking about visiting, but at this point I haven’t heard any solid plans, and it might be nice to come home with some money this year which to this point I have been good about saving. If anyone reading this is thinking about coming in the summer, let me know now so I can try to plan things! Please!

español

One huge advantage I have in Year 2 in Spain is my Spanish speaking abilities. Last year, I arrived expecting to be mediocre in comparison with my American peers, but I was surprised to find I had a higher level than most starting out. Living with international students (where we spoke spanish 95% of the time) and having a lot of free hours at school to speak with fellow teachers improved my Spanish a lot. I had the knowledge all along, but by the end of the year I was able to apply that knowledge and get by without too much struggle.

My bed in my apartment was broken on arrival last year and after a few months of reminding, I finally decided not to pay my rent until they fixed it. Obviously, everyone at the rental agency deflected responsibility from one person to the next until I got fed up and had a good half hour argument about how they are breaking their own contract and I have the right not to pay. I left that day with both a discount on rent and an awesome feeling that I had just entered a new level of ability, having successfully argued my point in another language with a native speaker, frustration and all. This was my first noticeable "platform" in my journey.

By spring I was hanging out with my current roommates, Pablo and Lucia, all the time and really began to perfect a more normal type of Spanish... one you speak with friends where you can cut corners, drop certain words/letters, and make jokes etc. Making a joke, or just being funny it turns out is really hard in a foreign language! It's easy to be laughed at by saying things wrong or what have you, but it's a whole new ballgame trying to crack a joke or make some quip where people laugh with you.

By the end of the year, my Spanish had gotten quite good; good enough to safely put "Spanish" on my resume without feeling like I was stretching the truth. However, everyone would ask me if I was fluent yet and I preferred to stay away from the "F" word because I feel like that brings on a lot of expectations.

Fast forward to this year, and after almost 4 months of living with Pablo and Lucia, I feel like I'm finally ready to declare fluency. My level was pretty high to begin with, but what I have really improved on is sheer fluidity. I can understand just about anyone, at any speed, and just about any accent (but let's be real... there are some pueblos around Andalucia that could make their own dictionary.)

It's made living here so much more tolerable because I am finally able to relate myself as though I were at home. I could always get my point across, but finally I can express deeper feelings and thoughts, feign a sense of humor, and above all: I finally feel like I am able to be myself!! Once I take a step back and notice, it feels amazing. That's one reason why I needed American friends last year- to have someone to talk to where I can relax and say what had been bottled up from days of incarceration. This year however, I don't have that same yearning which I can attribute to my improvements.

This same feeling is reflected at school. Last year there were times when I felt like that one exchange student from France you might have had in high school, who people may have thought was cool/interesting but was more of a spectacle... never truly a peer. This year I actually feel like a real teacher: I can raise my voice when needed, break up fights, and I even get asked to substitute classes frequently. I am able to do the things that I wasn't able to as an "outsider" last year. I have meaningful conversations with other teachers that go beyond the typical and strictly surface chats such as the differences between our countries or languages (basically, the default topic to fall back on when you don't know what to talk about.) I feel like I'm accepted as one of them and most importantly, I feel respected. And I'll let you know, it feels really good.

My Chirrens

Hello to all my fans! (mom)

Most of my friends teaching this year and last have blogs and they always post cute or funny anecdotes from classes that I love reading, and god knows I have plenty, so I'm gonna start trying to throw a couple on here when they happen... actually keeping up with writing here (which I already sense is gonna fail.)

Today for example: Mondays are my worst days. I only have 2 classes but they are BY FAR my least favorite classes. The kids are nuts, really immature, and basically act as though they've never had an authority figure in their lifetime. It's not even like a bad class in America where you have the typical kids who act out, because there they usually at least know what they're doing is wrong and just don't care, and will usually get some sort of punishment for it. Here I honestly think that sometimes they truly just don't know that they shouldn't be wrestling, throwing backpacks, or screaming, and they give me this honest-to-god wide-eyed look of "what??" if I tell them to stop.

The teacher who I work with for these classes (Lola, whom I actually adore) usually shows up late, stays for a while and then leaves again because she's the secretary and has other work to do. So as usual I show up and after the typical 5-10 minutes of getting them to sit down and stop yelling or throwing shit, I had just started something on the board when she arrives. As she walks in the door, another girl shows up at the door from another class, asking if so-and-so can leave for a second... this happens from time to time if they have a project to work on or some other teacher sends for them etc. The second this girl says hey can Sandra come outside? Sandra jumps out of her desk and starts marching towards the door like "I swear to god you better get outta here before I break your head" (literal translation). Luckily Lola had just gotten there and kinda holds the one girl back at the door and gets her outside while some of the students and I get the other girl to go sit back down. She starts crying and the class erupts into gossip-time about what is going on. The fight took place two seconds after school ended, directly outside of the front doors. At least go somewhere else!

Now, know that this class will do anything to not work, or find any excuse to talk about something "dramatic" (ie. the 2 times a year I get a haircut). It was a minor miracle we did anything at all today, but after my usual methods of whip-cracking proved fruitless, I resorted to the "walk around the class and pretend to write down the names of the kids who aren't working" ploy. This worked for a bout 2/3, but as noted before hand, I can be standing over a kid for a good 30 seconds who is talking, fully aware of my presence, but decides finishing their point about why Edward is better than Jacob is more important.

Often I find myself just stopping a lesson and entering into a serious conversation about responsibility and respect, something so much more important for them to learn now than English. Don't get me wrong, English is extremely important for them to learn and I take my job seriously, but there are certain values I feel are essential to just being a conscious, productive member of society that appear to be completely ignored in the majority of Spanish households of this generation. Almost every Spanish adult I am close to has echoed these thoughts at some point, but, unlike the opinion of Spanish construction workers, looking at the tools isn't gonna turn it into a building. Es decir, my role at the school might help a few kids get over a hump here and there in their goal to learn English, but let's be real- most of them are going to forget it like any good American forgets their obligatory years of high school spanish. But maybe if I can kick a few into gear and pop this thick bubble (more like medicine ball) of invincibility and entitlement their head is cased in I can actually pass on something of worth.

Ignorance is an epidemic, and the great thing about teaching a foreign language is that you can teach your material while slipping in the material you truly want to teach. I have taught in depth about Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Native Americans and their genocide, the holocaust, and much more, and I try to exploit the "cool" card I was given by telling them how important these things are to me, hoping they will take it seriously. The first big test was last week with MLK day coming up and reviewing MLK with my classes who I taught the lesson to last year. I'd say before-hand about 5% knew who he was. This year I'll give them about a 80% on at least recognizing the name, maybe a 60% on remembering that he was black and somehow had something important to do with American black people (including a number of remarks about him being a famous slave), and a good 30% who had a general idea of what he did, and why it was important. More than I expected had "I Have a Dream" hidden in storage in their brains which made me pretty happy. Overall, not great numbers, but it was a semi-quantitative way to look at the potential effectiveness of these talks. I don't have any delusions that I'm changing the world or even the high school, but hey... baby steps. If even just the name Martin Luther King takes up the cranial terrain that Hannah Montana once occupied, then in the words of Borat: Great Success!