Two down, one to go. And I've improved quite a bit since the first trimester, so I'm really happy about that.
Actually, I was really scared as to how my grades for this trimester were going to turn out, because I had a really bad low point in school throughout January and February. I was just starting to get out of it when all of my tests hit. All at once. Which wasn't fun because all of a sudden I had to study for tests in nine classes, of material that took 3 months to learn, all in two weeks, knowing that the grades on the tests would become my grades in the classes. You gotta love a little stress, right?
And afterwards, I couldn't believe how I actually did, and I only failed one class. Once again, grades are given on a scale from 1-10, 10 being the highest, and 5 and up are all passing grades. So, here we go:
- English: 10 (I love being able to not pay attention a single day, and then just ace the test)
- Technology: 10 (fun and easy, and something I actually enjoy)
- Economics: 9 (by far my favorite class, my goal is a 10 for next trimester)
- Physical Education: 9 (easy enough)
- Sciences of the Contemporary World: 6 (I just realized we haven't done a single experiment all year. What kind of science class is this? Definitely not very contemporary...)
- Contemporary World History: 6 (reached my goal of passing this class this semester!)
- Mathematics: 5 (so.boring. it's a struggle for me to pay attention)
- Spanish Language & Literature: 5 (I actually earned it this time around)
- Philosophy: 1 (haha....whatever.)
I love learning another language. It's not easy, but it's a good challenge, and it has its fun. I especially love the moments of mixups. (Why didn't I start a list of this stuff to keep track and remember?)
Today I finally started volunteering, which I've been wanting to do for a while. As of today, I'm giving English classes to elementary school kids 2 hours a week, which I'm really excited about.
It so happened that my first day was the one day that I had to leave early. I had to leave early because I wanted to be able to go to mass for Ash Wednesday. I could've just said that I had to leave early and left it at that, but no, of course I went on to explain why, and in the process I managed to mix up the words for "ash" and "ashtray" leaving me with the need to go to the "Ashtray Wednesday mass."
I think I've sucessfully invented the newest Catholic holiday. If I do say so myself, it's a pretty good one.
Going on to the mass itself, it had some good moments too.
- I was caught off guard when, instead of drawing a cross on my forehead with ash, the priest sprinkled ash in my hair.
- At communion, when everyone shakes hands, I, out of second nature, put my hand out to the lady next to me. She grabbed my hand, pulled me in to do the kisses on each cheek. Totally forgot I was in Spain at that moment. The next lady put her hand out to me, I shook it and went in for the kisses, and she was caught off guard by that, but did it anyways. The third person just totally backed off. I guess they didn't want them?? All of this left me confused about what you're actually supposed to do. Why can't you just shake everyone's hand, whether man, woman, old, or young, like in the States?
- There was no wine for communion. I'm in Spain. Spain is wine. Wine is Spain. I'm lost for words on this one...
A little while ago, I had an epiphany.
I spend so much of my time listening to music. To and from school, every other time I'm travelling throughout the city walking, on the bus, or subway, while I'm studying, while I'm cooking, doing chores, in the shower...the list goes on.
I remembered that, two of the biggest reasons I'm here are to learn Spanish, and learn the culture, and what I realized was that I've been here 6 months, listening to music during all of these activities and many more, and I've kept to my American music. The music of the culture I already know. The music in English. Sure, a little bit is fine, the American music has definitely made it's way here anyways, and it's a good portion of what they listen to, but I shouldn't have kept to that this whole time.
With that, my iPod has undergone a transformation. In these last two weeks, I've added almost 100 songs. I've also added the lyrics to almost all of them so I can read them and listen to them at the same time and learn from it. I've added songs from Spain, South America, and Mexico. I've added songs of different genres. I'm enjoying all of it, and I'm learning a lot from it too, and I plan to continue discovering new music, and continue to gain knowledge of the Spanish language and culture from it.
Last month, my halfway mark hit. It's scary to think my year's already on the decline. I know at the end it will feel like the shortest year of my life, but then again, I feel like I say that every year...
It's crazy how quickly and dramatically your mindset changes just in a few days. Every month was "Wow it's been a month already?" "It's alright I still have 9." "Two months now?" "8 long months to go."
Those checkpoints were easy to reach. Halfway through was a "Holy shit!" moment.
With that, I reflected a lot on the first half of the year, and thought about what I wanted for the second half, and my exchange got a little bit of a makeover.
Changes in School
After Christmas, I hit a really bad low point in school. I pretty much went through a period of time where I didn't do anything really, and I hated school. I didn't pay attention, take notes, do the activities...nothing. I basically just played games and did a lot of reading (I'm reading the Harry Potter books in Spanish). There were only 3 or 4 classes out of 9 that I actually kept up with (my favorites). I'm slowly getting out of this rut, and the past two weeks of school things have improved a lot. The only thing now though is, is that I don't know what my report card for this trimester is going to look like, given that I've had to study a few months worth of material in less than a week or two for the tests. My last tests are on Monday, so we'll see how this all turns out.
Changes in After School Activities
Before, I didn't really have a consistent after school activity. I was going twice a week to free Spanish classes to help me along a little bit, but those ended with the New Year. And now, in about a week, I went from doing nothing, to my weeks being completely full.
1) I joined a gym with a friend, and we've been going at least 3 days a week together.
2) Once a week for each I go to a math class and a history/literature class because those three are my hardest classes. It's been helping a lot since it's basically one-on-one help.
3) Starting next week, I'm going to start giving the same type of classes of English to elementary schoolers. I'm really excited to start this, and I think it should be fun.
Changes in Scenery
I have officially signed up to go on el viaje del fin de curso (the end of the year trip) which is a tradition here for the kids in my grade. In June, right after school gets out, I'll be going with some of my friends and classmates for 8 days to Prague, Bratislava, and Budapest.
Changes in Departure Date
Originally my departure date with AFS was July 1st. But now, I've decided that I'm not going to go home with the program, but that I'm going to end my program here and stay a little longer. When all of the other Americans go to the airport to fly home to the States, I'll instead just hop over to Portugal, and stay in Lisbon with Rita and her family for the better part of July. Now I won't be going home until July 25th.
Changes in Appearance
Last month I got my ear pierced. I pierced my tragus, which is the flap that you usually use to close your ears. Rita keeps telling me that with that, and some of the clothes I've bought, that I'm "turning into such a Spanish boy!" Maybe I am. But that wouldn't be so bad.
Changes in Dreams
I've never really remembered my dreams very often. It actually used to be a really rare thing for me, but lately, I don't know what happened, but I've been remembering them almost every night. The coolest thing, is that they're almost always in Spanish now, and I think that's actually one of my favorite things. It's the coolest feeling waking up, and realizing that I was dreaming in Spanish. As far as the language goes, it's amazing how far I've come. I understand almost everything now, and can say pretty much everything that I want to. I'm still not fluent, and there's still a lot to learn, but I'm getting there, poco a poco.
I think that with all of this, my exchange has changed for the better, and I'm excited for what's still to come. May part two be even better than the first.
Just because I'm not in the US, doesn't mean I can't keep to its traditions. And there's just no way I could've gone a year without watching the Super Bowl. I mean, come on. It's the Super Bowl.
I watched the same game that everyone else did, but I was surprised at how different it still managed to be.
I went to a friends house to watch it with him, and the first difference was, was that even though we watched it live, it was on Monday. With the time difference, the game started at 1am Monday morning.
It was also different to not have a big party with a bunch of people over laughing over the commercials, and screaming at eachother over the game with food and drinks everywhere. But we still enjoyed ourselves, and had a more relaxing night, and we actually got to pay attention to the game without getting distracted.
It seemed to get weirder and more different as the time went on, though.
First, it was that the commentary was in Spanish. I just had a really hard time trusting the announcers when they commentated on the game, especially when the average Spaniard honestly thinks that rugby and football are the same sport.
Then, the way they pronounced people's names, and the team names, just made them sound even more unbelievable. But luckily after about the first 10 minutes, we were able to switch it to the English commentary.
The difference that I had the biggest problem with, though, was the commercials.
There weren't any. They didn't even show Spanish commercials!
Everytime the game cut out and where the commercials were supposed to be, we just got a steady bird's-eye view of the stadium. Nothing else.
It was frustrating to sit there looking at the stadium from up above, and thinking about how the rest of the world was laughing their heads off in that moment.
After the first half, still frustrated with the lack of commercials, I set up Skype with Leah, and she set up her camera to the TV so we could watch the commercials.
It didn't really work too well, and it was hard to hear with the party in the background, but we tried.
One thing I noticed during that attempt, though, was that we, here in Spain, got the game more than 30 seconds ahead of the US.
How does that work? Why would the game get broadcasted so much later in its OWN COUNTRY?
That one still boggles me...
But, all in all, I still really enjoyed it, and I was glad to see the Packer's win. Especially since my friend's host sister studied abroad in the US the year that the Steeler's beat the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. So I was glad to see her team lose and make fun of her about it.
And thank God for YouTube so I could watch all the commercials the next morning.
I think the Best Buy one with Justin Bieber and Ozzy Osbourne was my favorite.
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| The 10 of us that were there. From left to right: Mary Beth (Minnesota), Catherine (New Zealand), Pinja (Finland), Sarah (Portland), Linda (Iceland), Me, Zeke (St. Louis), Danielle (Houston), Caroline (Boston), & Mackenzie (Phoenix). |
We've been talking for a while about how we need to take the trip up to Segovia one day since they're always coming down, plus we wanted to see the city for ourselves, and Linda's birthday ended up being the perfect opportunity.
And she had no idea.
Thanks to Sarah who had the great idea in the first place, we began to plan it out secretly during weeks. We would all meed up in Madrid and catch a bus together Saturday morning, surprise her when we got to Segovia, and spend the whole day together.
We got into Segovia at about 11am, and the plan was to meet in front of the Aqueduct, the most famous landmark of the city that was built the year Jesus was born to move water around the city.
We still didn't know exactly how we were going to surprise her when we arrived. But someone came up with something last minute. We bought a newspaper and split the pages between us. Then, we spread ourselves out around the plaza that's right in front of the Aqueduct, and hid behind the pages. We didn't know which direction she was going to come from (accompanied by Sarah) so the Aqueduct became 12 o clock, and who ever saw her first had to yell out the number she was coming from according to the clock, and we had to yell it between us.
I was sitting on a bench at about 10 o clock, and I while I was sitting there I overheard a man next to me telling someone on the phone that he was scared because the plaza was full of "American spies". Yeah. We're that good.
What ended up happening was the instant she walked into the square with Sarah, she spotted Danielle standing there with a newspaper. We all witnessed it happening, and Danielle played it off like "woah, what are you doing here? I'm here with my host family" type of thing. Meanwhile the rest of us all ran over to where they were. She was SO surprised, and really excited to see us all.
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| The cathedral |
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| The cathedral from the top of the Alcázar |
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| El Alcázar |
So, Mary Beth, I'd like to wish you good luck with her new family, school, friends, and life in Alicante. Have fun chica! :)
Why does so much of the law revolve around age?
You have to be 12 to sit in the front seat of a car.
16 to drive that car.
18 to vote.
21 to buy/drink alcohol.
35 to be President.
62 to retire.
And apparently, in Spain, you have to be 18 to be able to pick up your Student Card, which is what serves as my visa extension.
But really. What does it matter exactly? Age is a number, and to me, it says nothing about your experience, maturity, or capability.
There are 40-year-olds that have stayed in the same town throughout their entire lives. How much have they experienced?
There are 30-year-olds that still live with their parents. They must be really mature. Not to mention capable of getting a job, paying their own rent, and cooking their own food.
And I would like to thank Jeff Foxworthy for proving that most 5th graders are smarter than adults.
I had already applied for this card, paid for it, proved I was who I said I was, completed the proper documentation, and they still wouldn't give it to me. Do I really have to be 18 just so they can hand me what's basically an ID card?
Well like I said. Age doesn't mean anything. So even though I'm only 17, I think I'm mature, capable, and pretty experienced for my age. Oh, and yeah, I get what I want.
I left my house as 8:45 that morning, and caught the Metro. I was about halfway there (out of the hour-ish trip) when I got out because I realized that I had forgotten to go to a bank to pay the fee. I knew I was heading towards the middle of nowhere of Madrid, so I got out there to go to a bank.
It turns out that you can't just go to any bank, however. There is one specific bank where the fee needed to be paid at. The problem was that I didn't know where this bank was. Let alone what it was called. So I called my friend Mary Beth who had already gone through this process. Thank God this bank is only two Metro stations away from where I was headed anyways. I found the bank, paid the fee, and continued on.
It took another call to Mary Beth for me to find the building I needed to pick up this card, which is impressive considering that there's basically nothing in this zone of Madrid. This place was an interesting sight, though. There were people and people everywhere. Everyone was foreign, there were a lot of police officers, and various lines all over the places, all of them really long.
There was a worker standing in the front directing people to the various lines. I told him what I needed and he pointed me to one, and I joined it. Even the music and games that I have on my phone didn't help pass the time. It took more than an hour, standing the entire time, for me to reach the front of this line.
When I finally got there, I showed them my documents and my passport, and they basically just told me that I wasn't in the right place. They told me where I really needed to go, a different line, and of course this one was much longer than the original. It took closer to two hours to get to the front.
When I got close enough to the front of the line that I could see what was going on, I noticed every person went through the same routine.
Check the passport, go through all of the rest of the documents, check the proof of payment, the worker goes away for a few minutes, comes back with the card, hands it to the person, and that person walks away, happy to be finished.
But when it was finally my turn, that was not at all the case. Of course.
The man took my passport from me, looked at it, and pointed me to a nearby chair to sit down and wait.
Woah, woah, woah. Wait just one second. I saw every single person in front of me receive their card, no questions asked. Why do I have to wait?
"Because you're underage" he told me.
So what am I waiting for? To turn 18?
He told me that I was waiting for his supervisor, and that I would only have to wait for about 15 minutes.
"Fine" I said to him, and sat down.
I watched for the next 15 minutes, and the routine continued.
Check the passport, go through all of the rest of the documents, check the proof of payment, the worker goes away for a few minutes, comes back with the card, hands it to the person, and that person walks away, happy to be finished.
I also noticed that he hadn't talked to a single other worker, nor on the phone. So I walked up to him and said "Look, it's been 15 minutes already. No supervisor has arrived. You haven't talked to anyone, nor called anyone. No one is coming. I'm not going to continue to wait for nothing."
What was his response? "He will arrive in about 15 minutes."
Is that not exactly what he had told me 15 minutes prior to that? But I decided I should be civil for a little while longer.
You see, when you have these types of situations, you have to go through phases.
My personal phases are as follows:
- Try to get the job done normally, nicely, and civilly. Basically, make them want to help you.
- If that doesn't work, try to get them to think that your situation is not normal, and that they can make an exception in the normal routine for you (lies may be included, or sometimes required).
- If you still don't get what you want, the last attempt is to simply make them hate you, and make them hate their job. The point? To make them just give you the damn thing so you can get out of their sight.
Just as I knew would be the case, 15 minutes later (exactly) this "supervisor" still had yet to arrive. Oh, and this idiot still had yet to call someone to come. So I started phase #2.
I walked up to him, and started arguing with him. He told me that by law he couldn't give me the card unless I had someone over 18 with me. So I told him (let the lying begin) that I don't have anyone 18 or older with me, and that I'm here in Spain alone. With that he reminded me that it would be impossible for me to be in Spain in the first place without a guardian that's over 18. So to that I truthfully told him that this year, by law, my guardian is a nonprofit organization, and not an actual person. When he told me that this program should have a representative for these kinds of things, I told him that they don't. And when he told me that I couldn't have even applied for the visa extension if someone over 18 wasn't there, I told him that well, I did that alone too (lie).
I also continued to tell them that a friend of mine from my program was there the day before, and managed to get her card without someone overage. (Partly true, Mary Beth did do it alone, and she's 17 like me, but she did it a few months before, not the day before). And I told him that the 15 other kids in my program have done the same.
At this point, he ran out of things to tell me. So he started making things up. The first thing he said was "well normally, these cards are for some 15-year-old Russian soccer player that needs to enroll in the school in order to legally be here so they can play soccer. And each one has a representative over 18 to deal with this kind of stuff for them."
"First of all," I told him, "I'm 17. I'm American. And I'm not here to play soccer. I don't have anyone over 18 either. So maybe, my case isn't exactly normal."
And then he just started talking in circles. Well normally this. Normally that. He kept on using the word "normally" and I continued to tell him that my case was obviously not normal.
Then, a lady walked up next to me, and asked him if he knew where something was. He yelled at her saying that he wasn't the information desk. I yelled at him for that. I said "just because you're pissed off with me, doesn't mean you can scream at her when she's being all polite to you. The least you could do is tell her where she needs to go."
So he told her "the information desk is upstairs." Well apparently, she had just come from upstairs, and there they had told her that the information desk was downstairs.
I felt really bad for her, too. She had a little tiny baby that was probably just barely born, and she needed papers for him. She was being really polite to everyone, and this guy was basically screaming at her.
She also advised me that maybe they'd be more helpful if I was nicer to them. So I just told her that yeah, I tried that. I need to continue being stern with them.
At that point, someone else came, and the first guy left. Leaving me, and the lady, problems unsolved. As he was leaving, I made extra effort to thank him dearly for helping me. Sarcastically? Yeah, that too. He stormed off swearing at me under his breath. He's lucky I didn't catch his name, or I would've filed a complaint.
After he left, it turned out that this new guy wasn't the supervisor. So I went with the exact same process with him. And he continued the bullshit of "normally."
At one point, he went and found my card, showed it to me so I could see it's mine, and then returned to put it back.
Bad move. Phase #3 started at that point. (Although, you could argue that the first guy hated me, and maybe his job, by the time he left).
I yelled about how every single thing I could think of. About how I've already done the whole process alone. How I was living in Spain alone. So why would I have to pick up this little card accompanied? I asked him what someone over 18 would even do to the situation. They would watch you put a little ID card in my hand, and make sure you handed it over in the right manner? Like seriously?
I just continued yelling, and he continued to tell me to sit down and wait for his supervisor.
"No," I told him, "I am not leaving, and I am not going to shut up until you give me that card."
Finally the supervisor shows up. He gets the exact same speil. And he tells me the exact same things as the two before him.
Then at one point he stopped arguing with me, and asked the second guy if my card was even there in the first place. The guy showed it to him, and then the supervisor came back over to me, grabbed the documents out of my hands, basically threw my card in my face, and yelled at me to leave.
Phase #3 complete, and Jake wins again.
Even though it was a long day, I sure had fun. I would've been pissed if I had to go home, and return at a later date with one of my host parents, to wait in a long line again, just so they could hand me a flimsy little card. So I left content, and with the sweet taste of success.
Like I said. I may be only 17, and underage in the eyes of the law, but I think I proved that that doesn't mean I'm not capable. And, oh yeah, that I get what I want.
But this story probably isn't the best example in the world of maturity. But I could care less. I got my card.
I hope that all of you will get the chance at some point in your lives to deal with Spanish bureaucracy. It's quite the experience, to say the least.
The Metro (subway) is one of my favorite things about Madrid. It's a really easy way to travel around the city independently (especially since we're not allowed to drive), and it's also cheap, fast, and reliable.
My other favorite thing about the Metro, is it seems to be the place where I meet the weirdest people, or where the weirdest things happen to me. I sometimes also meet some cool people, for example I've met quite a few American's on the Metro because you hear people speaking English, or others hear us speaking English, etc.
The American's...yeah, alright. It's nice to speak with them every once and a while. But it's not like talking to an American is something really interesting since I'm an American. I know plenty of Americans that I can talk to. What I really enjoy are the weird people.
So here are three of some of my favorite Metro incidents that have happened in the last couple of months.
1. Borracha y Fea
One Friday night I got on the Metro to go home with Marta after we saw a movie. We were in the very back of the train, and there was a group of four or five girls my age sitting down on the floor of the train against the back wall. They were drinking alcohol (this is not at all rare) and they were completely wasted. None of them were very pretty either. There was one empty seat so I let Marta sit down, and I stood next to her, holding on the pole, with my back to the girls.
A couple stops later (but in between stations) they all stood up to get ready to leave upon arriving at the next station. And the next thing I know, I feel something hit my butt.
The first thing I thought was "oh, they're drunk, one of them must've brushed against it on accident. It happens all the time here because it can be hard to balance on the trains."
But then it happened again. The second was undeniably a deliberate ass-slap. And so I thought "okay, this is awkward. An ugly drunk chick is slapping my ass in public, right next to my host mom. But I'm just going to ignore it because she's getting off in 30 seconds anyways."
And then it happens for the third time. And this time, it actually hurt a little, she hit me hard. This was when I was really starting to get annoyed. I turn around to stare at her, and she just looks at me, laughs, and walks off the train...
2. Hola Chocolate
My liaison lives one Metro station away from me. And so one day, after meeting up with her downtown, we both got on the same train to go home together. Her station is first, and in that station, the exit is at the very front of the train when you get off, so we were standing in the very front of the train. In my station, the exit is at the very end of the train, so after she got off, I started walking towards the back of the train so I'd be closer to the exit when I got off.
I was about halfway down the train, when I was blocked by a couple who were talking up the entire aisle. So I simply said "excuse me." They both looked at me and stared. Without saying a word.
So I asked "will you let me pass?" And still. Blank stares.
So I asked again "will you let me pass please?" At this point, the woman noticed that I had a cup of hot chocolate in my hands, but it only had a sip or so left. She looked at it and said "hola chocolate!" So what did I say? "Yeah, the chocolate says hi to you to, now will you please move so I can pass you?"
More blank stares.
At this point I was so annoyed that I physically pushed through them to get by, and I continued walking down the train.
Stop the Train!
This last story just happened two days ago, and it scared the hell out of me.
Again, I was on my way home (why do they always happen on the way home?), and there weren't any seats left, so I was standing in the middle of the aisle, in between seats, holding on to a pole.
In the four seats that were on my sides sat four friends, all guys, a little bit older than me.
Somewhere along the way, we stopped at the station, people got off, others got on, and all of a sudden I hear yells of "stop the train! Stop the train!"
The next thing I know is that two burly security guards run into the train right next to me and they're both coming towards me. I was trying to figure out what I did, but I had no idea. The whole time they were yelling, and I was just like "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit..."
They then grabbed the four guys sitting down by their arms, pulled them up out of their seats and off the train, leaving me standing there, most likely, white with shock.
Once they were off the train I notice the security guards had found on them a big bag full of empty cans of spray paint. Busted!
Here's a video I made with a few of my friends from AFS around downtown Madrid one night, checking out all of the Christmas decorations.
I've never been so superstitious in my life until this New Year's.
Apparently there's a whole list of things you have to do in order to ensure that the new year will be a prosperous one.
The most important thing is the grapes. The tradition is that everyone has to eat 12 grapes in the last 12 seconds of the year. It's interesting because we always count down "10, 9, 8, 7..." but here, and with the grapes you count up "1, 2, 3...12." It was pretty funny the whole group of people in front of the TV watching the clock count up and shoving grapes down their throats. It's actually pretty hard. Oh, and also you have to say "Feliz Año Nuevo" (Happy New Year) between every grape, just to make it that much harder.
Thankfully I was able to finish the grapes in time, and that I didn't choke. That was my question about this thing: how many little kids are rushed to the hospital every New Year from choking on grapes??
You also have to make sure to wear something red (I rushed out to town at 7:30 that night, when everything closed at 8, to buy red boxers because I didn't have anything red. You have to wear something made of gold, too.
Everyone also had to write a letter about what you want the new year to bring, and a second letter of the things in your life that you want to go away, or stop happening, and then you burn the second letter and keep the first one.
I took the letter thing pretty seriously. Actually I took it all pretty seriously, so I hope all this tradition stuff works, and I have an extra good 2011.
I hope you all had a good New Year's Eve, and I wish you all a good 2011. And good luck with that New Year's Resolution of losing 10 pounds!
