Ive been drinking tea like its tequila and this is Mexico

Hola loyal readers (and unloyal but i prefer to great the loyal readers first because I love them more)
     So sorry for the short hiatus... life has been trotting along as it sometimes does in foreign countries... (although I'm sure its hard to believe because lets be honest... isnt every other country dependent on the continued plodding forward of the US, more precisely, the mid-west, to continue its existence?) I'm really getting into the rhythm of school and teaching here. Its been almost a month already since I've been here but it feels like I've been here for months and perhaps a few days.... but like in a good way. Not I've been stuck in Chemistry class for months, but more I've been in bed with Patrick Swazye (cerca dirty dancing) for months kinda deal. Also I've got extra English classes that I'm going to start teaching this week! I've got three clients and doing four classes a week which is some awesome extra income! This makes me feel better about how much I was going out to eat at the beginning of the trip cause now I can earn it back! But I'm alittle nervous cause I dont really know their levels so this whole first weeks its going to be very get there and see sorta thing. (whether it will be like "Hello, my name is Jose and I would like to discuss the merits of nuclear energy with you" or more "Hi, I like very much good the food")  Either way, its money and a good way to be productive. 
     On a slightly more mucas-y note I've been like mad sick going on three days now. I've been hiding in bed waiting for my nasal passages, throat and nose to willingly surrender which seems it will not be happening at least till Tuesday!  So if there are small children reading it would be a good time to ask them to leave cause this next part is graphic.... ok well not really but its gross and for those of you that know me well are all too aware of my love of sharing my gross body stories.  So today I coughed up, into my mouth, a fully formed semi-solid semi-gooey booger. Yep thats right folks, I tasted it! So gross, so green. So much more than you ever wanted to know but you just couldnt stop reading and jump to the next paragraph could you!!!!!!!!!! I almost threw up after that but luckily I had some tea next to me to help redirect my gag-reflex. Although now I've drank so much tea that it also is triggering my gag-reflex. As I so accurately put to my mother, "Ive been drinking tea like its tequila and this is Mexico."
     I started watching the TV show 'United States of Tara' which is about a woman with Dissociative Personality Disorder (aka, multiple personality disorder) and have thus been having some interesting dreams lately. Apparently if I were to develop such a disorder my brain thinks I would have a 16 yr old Japanese exchange student, a 60 yr old male librarian, and a Cher super-fan all waiting to come out from my inner consciousness... and the weirdest thing about that is I dont even like Cher.... Anyways my roommate today gave me some great medicine that I think will allow me to venture out to school tomorrow cause I swear I cant spend another minute in bed.  I know, you can't believe I said that, I can't believe I said that... but I need to get out and about and interact with the people... you know what I'm saying. (I feel like a politician that feels disconnected from their constituents and needs to go shake some hands. Of course in my case shaking hands would be socially reckless for a contagious disease standpoint, at this point so i'll stick to waving tomorrow!)
     So this week with my 4th and 6th graders we are making pumpkins using the exotic art of paper mache! Thats right, I'm imploring the french tenique of glue and paper to make so rocking Halloween take home items! Im kinda concerned that there will be misuse of the materials  (i.e. someone is going to try and make a mask with their friend) but hey, could be fun letting it dry and then watching as they cry in pain as they rip all the hair off their face...  I think life expereince is a better teacher than a book when it comes to horse play of these sorts.  So I'll report back after that adventure to say how many kids will be investing in a eyebrow pencil! 
     So yeah, I don't really have much else for now...  hey heads up anyone can comment on a post! I would to see who is actually reading this and if it is coherent.... (all the side notes and ellipses)... tend to lower the readability but that damn ADD just wont go away... so yeah leave a message! I'm taking requests, like whats your favorite color, or do you how do you feel about destruction of the middle class of America.... yeah...have at-er!!!!!!

The One With the School

       So my dad has made a polite request to hear about the school I'm teaching at... crazy I know, cause its not like the reason I'm actually here. Crazy parents and their delusions. (I came for the beach.... and the Spanish men.... and the crazy cheap wine). But I will humor him and share some information about my place of employment here. Well techincally my place of education because they give you a student visa for this program and call it a stipend, not a salary. Oh bureaucracy, working hard to hardly work... making me proud. 

     Ok so I should start by telling you about Catalan. Everyone here speaks it, and honestly, its a messed up language. It kinda sounds like people speaking Spanish in a French accent and cutting off all their words half way through and choking on them alittle. Also it kinda sounds like an old Russian lady had some influence on the pronuciation of all k's in the language. So anyways, crazy langauge thats only spoken in northern Spain on here in the Baleric Islands. So anyways, everyone speaks Catalan. The teachers all babble on in it in the teachers lounge and I just sit there with my finger up my nose being like.... um, hola? The kids have Catalan classes on top of Spanish and English classes... plus there are a ton of kids at my school that are immigrants from eastern Europe so they are like on their 4th or 5th language by the time they get to English. I'm impressed that they can fit it all in there but I feel like unless you plan on living here, which many are gone after a few months, much less years, so Catalan kinda seems like a waste of brain space for these kids. 

     So where were we, oh school. Ok so these kids are loud. Like set a kid's hair on fire and after giving them four pixie sticks loud. And its totally normal!!!!!! OMG I have never been so annoyed by a classroom of kids.... chatting on in like 4 different languages... its like a mini model UN where the main concern in Hannah Montana. Holy Moley Bagoli..... So yeah, one of the first days one of the teachers acutally told the kids they have to talk quieter cause the new American teacher isnt use to kids talking so loud. I laughed at first and then after a few days was like, heck, remind them again... my ears are bleeding. So I've lead about 5 classes so far and each time I have had to spend half the time telling them to be quiet. Oh, and the teachers here are always yelling to get them to be quiet and they tell them to callate.... aka shut up. I was like, hey you cannot say that!!!!! Well a teacher first asked me how to say callate in English and I was like... well you should say be quiet.... but thats not what you are saying. She gave me a weird look like whats wrong with callate. So so far Ive had to play the bad guy and literally walk up to kids and say, YOU NEED TO STOP TALKING OR YOU WILL HAVE TO LEAVE. And they are like all ok sure... and then 2 minutes later, they are talking again. 

     Good news though is that hugs and physical contact is super normal. Its not like in the USA where we give a firm handshake on special occasions. Here kids give you kisses on the cheek and run to hug you. They are so loving even when I just played the bad guy for an hour. I was suprised that after one of my first classes were I had to come down hard I had a hug line before I left and it was completely legit. I love the hugs cause it reminds me that I'm being the bad guy now so later teaching is easier and we can have fun.  The teachers here can't believe that you can't kiss or even really hug in the US. They gave me this look like I was a Barbarian... and I shrugged like, hey.... see the leg hair, maybe I am. 

     Also I'm teaching half English classes and half art classes. So from what I remember as a kid art class was intense. I had a whole art teacher that just taught that. Here they are like, yeah I think we are going to, like, color a picture, or something for an hour for art class.... what do you think? And I'm like, omg, there is so much to teach! The color wheel, analogous colors and complementary colors and the use of hard and soft lines and different mediums. Perhaps its the art geek in my but I am ready to rock these kids worlds art wise!!!!! Ive done 2 projects so far and the teachers are like, wow this is great, and I was like, dude we did this at home when I was little.... YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW!!!!

     So yeah, thats my school. Loud, loving, and lacking some art. Its intense but I love it so far. I have some good stories about the teachers and their affinity for asking me if Ive starting drinking already and if I went out the night before. Also a teacher announced very loudly one day during break that she was up since 4:30 am cause her husband was sick.... with diarrhea..... Yeah, she like yelled it across the room.... I died laughing..... Oh those Spaniards are some loud people!!!!!! Anyways... yeah, more to come..... Today was national "I'm proud to be Spanish Day" where everyone takes the day off and sit at the beach. I participated and felt throughly Spanish. I could get use to it here!!!!!

    

The rain does not fall mainly on the plains but rather on the islands of Spain

     I have found it astounding how fast life goes back to normal. After only a few days my life has a schedule. It almost seems like I've been here for months and its been not even two weeks....

I go to school, I teach kids, I come home, I am starving and eat wayyyyyyyy to much, I nap, I go for a walk, I eat dinner, I watch tv, and go to bed

     After only one week I'm the same old lady that I was in the United States. I guess no matter the change of location, I still the same ole' me. But I did branch out last night! Woot go me! Generally I happy with a good meal, a nice movie, some red wine  and some coloring books to pass a weekend. Yep, cause I'm that cool...  

          

     But last night I went to this thing in Palma called    Tapalma   ..... where its like a pub crawl but with tapas! So many of you may know I'm a neurotic eater. Somethings I just dont wanna put in my mouth, OK!? Topping the list is of course seafood. I not only would not like it to enter any orafice of my body but I would also rather it not be within a good 50ft-100ft radius of me because that shit stank! (yes mom, I used the shit word, but when it comes to seafood, I'm passionate about how gross it is). Now also a shout out to my mom, I know I shouldn't comment on other peoples food, it's just rude. But unless someone that is reading this happens to be eating a fish sandwich or some shrimp, I think it will be ok. (if you are I'm sorry to have offended your choice of food, but come on, EW!). This intense despise-al ((yeah I made my own word)) tends to shock people and limits my choice of eating companions. Sharing food becomes impossible with most people because my list of non-consumed products is rather lengthy. 

      As stated in other posts, I have made like serious progress in the last couple years. I don't think I really ate when i was little, like maybe macaroni and french bread with butter (cause thats just delicious) but as I got older and started traveling I was like, ok, lets just pop this in here and see what all the fuss is about. Granted I did spit most of it out, (my host mom in Ecuador was not a fan of this particular habit of mine but if the texture is weird I will gag on it.) but I did try it so I'm giving myself props (what does that mean, props? Like are we talking a nice coat stand for a play or what....) Anyways tapas, we went out to the pub crawl of tapas around the city. So almost all the tapas are like 2 euro... (ps for those that dont know what tapas are, cause I didnt till like a year ago... they are  hors d'evoures  size selections that you ususally chose like 4-8 of and share with a a table (p.p.s I had to google hors de'evours to figure out how to spell it))....

     So I went out with a bunch of other Auxilliares to sample to town. (To be honest I just showed up, no planning involved on this end. Usually though I'm not much a group activity planner with friends. I'm more of the tell me where to show up and I'll bring a bottle of wine kinda person.) Anyways, there was a map that showed which restaurants were part of the tour and you just kinda showed up and were like, what are the tapas. Most restaurants had them laid out and you could just point at what you thought looked appetizing. Course the first place we went to I didn't understand the Spanish or the Catalan which described what it was, besides picking up the words mushroom and quail eggs..... so yeah, I skipped that..... But the other places I used my astute powers of observation and picked out some killer choices. 

    Course Spaniards don't even start thinking about eating dinner till like 9 at night, much less going out for Friday night till like midnight so we were like the first ones there.... And then finally at like 12:30 when we were ready to call it a night the Spaniards were just getting out and about. Oh and THEN just as we were about to leave it started to rain. And not like, oh hey, lets of dance out in the rain in a joyous romp around town sorta way.   

     But in the damn it I'm carrying groceries and the paper bags are all wet cause its raining so dang hard and now they're ripping and now my oranges are all other the street and in an attempt to pick them up a car drove by and splashed me right in the face with water that I'm pretty sure was just used to clean off my neighbors porch whose dogs goes to the bathroom on and that water is now in my mouth and right ear and im probs going to get some weird dog poop bacterial infection in my ear.... sorta rain.   

So I had to walk a good 15 mins in the rain and then wait another 10 min to find a taxi cause everyone else was also trying to get a taxi.  So by the time I got home at 1 a.m. I was soaked but also full of yummy food.... So lets call it a draw for the night.....

    Anyways, this is a long post, and I had way more interesting and witty things to say but instead you got this.  So stay tuned... perhaps my more interesting thoughts will make the next post (aka best and most ridiculous things about Spain.... dog poop is defiantly on the list.....)

          So I am horrible at grocery shopping. Now wait, I'm sure you're thinking, how could someone be bad at grocery shopping. Simple, mundane activity... how is there an excelling or a slacking at grocery shopping? Good question inquisitive reader.... So today after orientation (which was totally boring and trying to be overly inspirational) I moved into my permanent apartment. Its like a ten minute walk outside the city center in this really nice neighborhood. The apartment is beautiful... (like nicer than my apartment in the Twin Cities this last semester nice)... its on the eight floor with a giant balcony that overlooks the city.... Emily for the WIN!!! Anyways after moving in and using up most of my cash to pay rent, I decided food was the next best investment after shelter. So I headed down to this cool plaza area like 3 blocks away that has a supermarket (supermercado) and went a little crazy. Ok well I ate first cause that is usually my first problem. I refuse to get my butt outta bed to go to the grocery store until my need is dire and my stomach is screaming for sustenance.... (dramatic yes, me=dramatic). So I ate some really really really good Mexican food and some red wine (my third glass that day cause I had two at 'lunch'.... lunch here starts after two and I started at 3.... so its more like a old people dinner). 

            Eventually I venture into the supermercado and forget that fact that only minutes earlier I carefully constructed a list of the most important and useful foods and beverages. Turns out you have to pay for a cart... we not pay but rent cause apparently they are super hot commodities???? (wow commodities... difficult word to spell....) Anyways, list, out the door, and instead I wander and grab. Not a good strategy for me. For my mom, yes, for me... disaster. I had four different vegetables on the list and one kind of fruit. I left with one fruit, 2 types of cookies and a overly sugared cereal.... of the chocolate variety (hardly counting as anything more than a morning candy bar). I also ended up with a bottle of wine... its been a wine kinda day. And then not thinking I had to carry it home, which granted is only three blocks but damn did those become like some horrible stretching side walks that only end when you have accepted that you will not reach your destination. Oh, and I showered today. My hygiene ( are you kidding, the i in hygiene comes after the g.... I mean really......)  is improving, but that could be temporary. Oh, in the most important news I got a coloring book. My life is complete. Its like an adult one cause I'm all mature now that I'm a college graduate.

Lost, Beer, and Seafood

I'm back.... ready to rock and write.... maybe... So I totally got myself lost for the first time yesterday! I have not been able to get my body to adjust to the time so i've been sleeping till like noon and then going for like really long walks through the city in an attempt to get myself tired to go to bed at a normal time... needless to say, it hasnt been working.  So yesterday I was going to take one of those tourist buses around the city to see all the important tourist sites in one fell swoop but in my infinate ADDness I got distracted and ended up walking around the historic district. There is the really cool street that goes through the center that has all the best shopping and its one of those awesome European streets where its really narrow and the buidlings are really tall so you can barely see the sky and you feel like your in a movie set in like the 1200's or one about the black plague (not that there were rotting dead people in the street) so it was pretty cool to say the least. It started down pouring out of nowhere, like sun still shining but the sky is falling sorta deal, so I took cover in a cafe and chilled for like an hour working in my french workbook (cause im cool like that).  When it stopped I decided I would try to meander back to the apartment i'm staying at but I wasnt really sure where I was cause i legit just ran into a cafe when it started raining so I just started walking hoping to find a landmark. Yeah well that didnt happen, so I just started wondering in what I thought was the direction of my aparment. Needless to say I ended up wayyyy north. But in my stubborness I was like, I'm gonna just keep walking and figure this out. It started to get dark after like and hour of wandering and I was like, crappola, wandering on the streets of Palma after sunset= bad idea. So I grab out my map in a last attempt and realize, crap Im like 4 blocks from my aparment, just facing the wrong way. Of course the realization process was like 15 minutes of comparing street names and looking like the stupidest tourist ever... but hey, I am a stupid tourist at the moment so really it was an accurate portrait.

I had left around 3 and didn't get home until about 8 and then decided to meet up with some other people in my program at Oktoberfest! Yes, the Germans have invaded and brought beer. It was super cool to meet other people in the program and they were all really nice and I felt good that I was one of the most advanced Spanish speakers. I got the small beer which was still freaking huge... and then I got made fun of cause I'm from Wisconsin and could barely finish my beer and am lactose intolerant. WORST WISCONSINITE EVER! Their words.... There were a ton of Germans and they were all singing and drinking and then singing louder and then drinking more and then yelling songs and then spilling beer and then standing on tables yelling and then dropping beer.... yeah good times those Germans.... Being sober and experiencing it was the best cause it was just debauchery that can only be appreciated by the non-compromised individual.

On a slightly different note I was all proud of myself in the last two years in that I have been expanding my food horizons. I eat fruit for gosh sakes... like I can sit down and not only eat but enjoy and orange. Man, that is progress. But last night after Oktoberfest we went to a restaurant for dinner, yeah they eat dinner 9pm or later.... and everyone wanted to share tapas but everything on the menu had either raw tomato or seafood in it. I was all like sad panada cause I really dislike both. I ended up getting a cappuccino and a chocolate crepe which were perfect but everyone ripped on my for my lack of seafood loving. I have learned to like a lot of things... but I will never ever ever EVER EVER like SEAFOOD. In the words of Henry Russo.... 'THAT SHIT GROSS.'