Rob Brogana web journal

Hi there.

It’s been such a long time since I’ve written anything here. Since my main audience consists of extended family and some dedicated friends, I guess I don’t feel too guilty. Strangely how that works. For those of you who’ve experienced any sort of following on the internet (or I guess in some other medium), you notice how the countless unknown seem to take more weight than the people you actually know – in terms of getting their attention. They’re strangers, you don’t know what the hell they’re looking for, so you feel obliged to do more and guilty when you don’t do enough. Your friends know you, you know them, and if you don’t post a new podcast episode or some pictures or tweet you’re (mostly) certain they’ll still be your friends.

The unknown completely flips social value upside down. Interesting.

Okay sorry, back to something relevant: what have I been doing all this time?

I’ve been working as much as I can, learning a lot, and thinking and being worried a lot.

Working

• It is tempting to tell everyone “the same ol’ same ol’.”
• It has in fact changed a little bit!
  • In the month of May I worked three solid weeks at the American School (typically it’s once a week).
  • Being there every day made me feel a bit more at home and the kids got to see me a lot more.
  • I substituted a Spanish class, two science classes, two English classes…
  • Fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade, seventh grade…
    • (Fourth grade is secretly the best age level)
• I sometimes substituted at an English academia in Molins de Rei.
  • Recently, one of the teachers left and I was given two of her classes for the remainder of school.
    • (just a month)
  • Now I have a “real” class of my own! Short term, unfortunately.

Although I consistently tell myself that this is not my career path, and I could easily choose this, but I don’t believe I’d be happy in the long term, I do admit I really love teaching. Sure, it’s sometimes frustrating when you have a class of crazy and noisy kids, but when you’re aware of the fact that they’re just kids then it’s not too bad. Explaining something and then watching them apply it is pretty awesome.

• When June ends, so does work. I might have to travel.

Learning

• TED Talks are amazing. I’ve watched hundreds by now. Go learn something random!
• My volunteering at the University of Barcelona VISCA lab has been really good for me.
• I’ve been jumping around a lot of non-fiction books.
• I have a textbook on the visual system in the brain, a book on metaphorical structure in language, an old book that I’m finishing off about the origin of human language, and lots and LOTS of academic research papers.
• It’s starting to wear me down some and I miss a good fiction, but the fascination keeps me going.
• Since I work in research on visual perception at the university I mostly read about vision even though my interest is language.
  • Fortunately I think I’m stumbling across some interesting and new topics I could apply to language!
  • Remember my main curiosity is to discover (in the gritty detail) how people see the world. The avenue (of possible thousands) that I take is to look at the strings connecting the outside world, to thinking and knowing, and where “language” sits on those strings and how it changes them.
  • I might have found something completely new… but I only half understand it at this point and I have to learn so much more to find out if it’s anything special or not.
• I also might look for research opportunities at other universities here if I stick around.

Thinking

• Imagine this. You’re walking along a mysterious dirt path with books thrown about, all over the ground. Apparently you are in pursuit of something. Books contain everything, and you want a certain one. You notice the corner of one sticking out of the ground. A bit of the title is visible, but you don’t know if it’s exactly the one you are looking for. Yet, to dig with your hands, and cast away the grains of dirt is to learn more and more. To uncover more bits of this mystery, you have to learn. So, to ever get a clear look at the book, you have to inform yourself with all the million grains of dirt covering it.
  • Right now I’m doing this. Just kind of poking around. Trying to learn about such and such, unsure where it will lead me.
  • Digging around has always been fun though. I’m exploring.

Worrying

My main worries are:

1. Where do I need to be?
2. How am I going to have any money at all?

1. I keep bouncing back and forth in my mind about staying in Spain, going home to Michigan, going to the USA but somewhere else, going somewhere else in Spain, in Europe, in the world.

• When I lay out some realistic pros and cons it doesn’t make any sense to go to Michigan.
  • It would solve my worrying about money, but I would be socially miserable (and probably not encounter the opportunities for learning like I have here). I’d become stale.
• When I think about the USA I have this dreamy idea about either a long road trip to who-knows-where, or living with my brother in New York.
  • Swiftly return my worries about money. I doubt I could afford a road trip and I certainly wouldn’t be doing much as far as work / getting into school goes.
  • New York, simply put is ridiculously expensive. I’m able to survive here because of the relatively low cost of living. Even with an entry level job (or a teaching job), I don’t imagine being able to pay for NY rent. I just miss seeing my brother. Hopefully he comes here.
• I don’t really know of a place in Spain I’d want to go live in, and it’s too expensive to travel from city to city.
• I could get a job more easily in Germany for example. So I think about going somewhere else in Europe.
  • Despite the fact that I mostly use English in this city, I do enjoy being able to use the language when necessary. Just for asking directions, ordering things, and getting around. Another country means another language and that can be a big barrier.
• For some reason I’d love to go to Australia! That’s just a fancy. I have nothing to do there and it’s far too expensive to get there. I did however find out that flights to India aren’t as expensive as I thought. Since I don’t have summer work, maybe I will go where my money lasts longer: India.

This is just for the short term too. I don’t know where or what I’ll do in September. It’s kind of frustrating and interesting to live in two month spurts.

2. I’m doing pretty well this month and the month previous. I’m making more money than I usually do. I have just been working and living to pay rent, though. Now that summer is here I would like to move around a bit. I’m feeling kind of constrained all this time here abroad and not being able to see a lot. I need to somehow make some EXTRA money so I can see more of the world. Schools close for the summer at the end of June. That’s kind of my deadline of finding something else to do. I think I can either find some private students and keep working here… OR I can take what little money I have and go somewhere else.

So. Anything else to tell the world?

Not really. My social life is still quite small here. Being a relatively shy person, I think most of my friends were accumulated through school, and then when you put me in a new country alone, it’s going to take a while to get that back. I have some good friends here but the dynamics of spending time with them is just different. I also wish I had someone to date, but that’s a step harder than making more friends! That’s kind of frustrating on top of the stuff I already wrote about.

In summary:

I’m pretty happy off and on, but the weight of going to grad school is kind of haunting. I’m trying to do two opposite things here. Enjoy and explore Spain + apply to some good schools. It’s hard to split my interests so far. Once I just take this silly GRE test I think I’ll feel a lot better. Unless, of course, I do horribly.