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.

Maybe the university system is to blame: a professor is someone who has a Ph.D in the subject, nowhere do you hear about people having to pass a training program for teaching well or holding MAs in Applied Linguistics for that matter. Universities do a good job of imparting the culture and some more of the gritty language details (I loved learning about phonetics and linguistics, etc) but I still believe, if you want to learn a language you best place is to start in grade school (you know, the place where the people working there have been trained for such a job) and take private classes while living in a foreign country, if possible.

I’m trying to keep this gripe a short a post. I leave you with the link to this article I quoted. Good stuff:

Linguistic Isolationism

Wednesdays at the American School:

I’ve been working at ASB (see “video update” post) every Wednesday in a sort of filler capacity. I get there at 9am and during the first period, I help a small group of third graders that need more practice with math. This involves playing quick-answer games and talking about shortcuts to answering some multiplication or addition problems they have had. The nice thing about kids is that anything is easily made into a “game.” In a group, have one kid throw a die and then a second kid across the table gets to throw one and between the two, they have to quickly say the correct answer. They’re so focused on being allowed to throw a die that they don’t realize they’re practicing math!

Then for the second period, I walk down to an adjacent building and walk a K5 class up to art and help the teacher during the class. Telling the kiddos “oh, very pretty!” for colouring in something completely. Things such as walking instead of running, and following a line still elude them however. I escort them back to the ECC building for their recess and I have a half hour break. I usually sit in the never-quiet library and read little bits of Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct.

Then I help the librarian do random things until it’s time to take kindergarteners up from their story time to the cafeteria where I coerce them into eating at least half of their portions, sitting in their seats, and not touching other people’s food. Whew!

I’m known as a jack of all trades there by now because I seem to have been trained in just about everything. I file books, I know the catalogue system, how to check people in/out, and not to mention I’ve worked with almost every grade by now as well as worked in the office. I try to make myself as useful as possible to them. Although I came to teach, I quickly realized I wasn’t going to be doing any real teaching at the school so I’ll just do whatever they want to pay me for.

So, I don’t need to give you a rundown of the entire day. That’s how most of it goes. The remainder is more lunch duty, more library assisting, and an hour of watching the K5 class during snack time until their parents come around. Don’t be deceived. I have learned first hand that such simple tasks can be very tiring. I’m not a napping kind of guy, and I often fall asleep as soon as I get home on Wednesdays. The younger they are, the more of a handful they can be!

Speaking of which, I also get called in for other substitutions aside from my Wednesday assisting. Lately I have had K3 a few times. It’s getting a tad easier, but I admire the people that teach kindergarten as a profession, and couldn’t imagine dedicating myself to that every day of the week.

Substitutions I’ve done so far:

• 6th grade Catalan
• 4th grade Spanish
• Kinder 3 (3/4 year olds)
• Secretary
• MAP (standardized test) proctor for a whole week
• Librarian

Some of these were really fun (Catalan, Librarian), and some of them were hell (Spanish, MAP), but all-in-all I’m stashing it away as good experience.

So then, what do I do with myself outside of ASB?

I’ve been getting into reading again. I used to read a lot, and then I went to college and the last thing I felt like doing was reading (after all my class junk). Now with an abundance of free time and passing several days of doing nothing, I started to delve into books. Some for fun, some for learning, and some for exploring.

Stuff I’ve read since January:

• Generation A by Douglas Coupland
• Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach
• The Fall by Albert Camus
• aaand I’m about two-thirds of the way through The Language Instinct. I tend to pick that up when I run out of books, then put it back down quite easily. It’s interesting yes, but not captivating.
• The Captain’s Verses by Pablo Neruda, a bi-lingual edition, for a second time
• Some short stories by Quim Monzó

In other news!

Actually, all of this stuff is “other news” for the reader, I just enjoy using h2 (heading formats) to keep your interest.

• I learned to make coffee on the stove. Completely foreign to me.
• I made paella and have had some other adventures in cooking with Jenn.
• With this book and those dice I showed you in the previous post, I’ve learned to write in the Japanese script, Hiragana (except I don’t remember the R set very well).
• I bought two new books: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami and The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb! Yay new books!
• I got an email today about a possible teaching slot for two months, three hours, four days a week! Hopefully this plays out well for me.

I’ve included a lot of links this time. So enjoy your surfing if you wanted some book recommendations. Hope this sufficiently updates everybody!

In case you were wondering, I’m planning on being here until the end of June, and then who knows what. I’ve applied to schools in Costa Rica and I might look into Turkey as well. Although I intend to go back to school soon, I’ll need something to do for another year.

Donations welcome!

Pro account! Mine is going to expire in a couple of days. This means that all of my HD videos on here will no longer be available and I won’t be able to post more until I renew. I don’t feel like spending $25 on it right now. So if you want to send me a non-birthday present, this is a good idea!

or of course… more Skype / external number subscription!

What a dork.

Anyway, this is what’s new with me:

The American School is a top-notch private school in Barcelona and I didn’t have any notions of landing a contract with them. I learned on the side that a teacher there must have a teaching certification (the year program you take in the USA) and at least three years of experience. So yeah, there was no way. I could however hope for some sort of point in the right direction or maybe get some students to tutor.

Here is what happened:

I got a phone call before I even arrived asking if I could also substitute a kindergarten class that day. I told the secretary that I haven’t taught kids that young but I would certainly love the experience. When I got there, it turned out they didn’t need me that afternoon but certainly for tomorrow. I met the coordinator of the Early Childhood Center (Kindergarten/pre-school kids from 3 to 5) and she told me that all of the teachers there work with assistants. For the first few times I would come in, I would be working with a full time teacher as an assistant so I could kind of learn the ropes. That made me feel a lot better since I have no clue what to do with three year olds. Maybe this will get me over my fear of raising kids (or make it worse, depending). I would be needed tomorrow from 9am to 4pm and if all goes well, more days after that.

The impression I got was that they have a staff of over a hundred teachers and it is common that the school needs a substitute for someone every day or every other one. If I worked well with the school and the kids then I would become a regular. This means that I could be going there several times a week! That almost sounds like a normal job.

I’ll take that.

In combination with the more sporadic calls to substitute from another school, things could turn out to be okay money-wise. I simply have to do my best to make this go over well.

Screaming little kids? Bring it on.

I took a wonderful trip to Girona about a week ago with Kyle. It was my second time there and I think I like it better in the fall. The word that keeps bubbling up when I think of how to describe the quaint town/city is “enchanting.” It has ancient buildings with beautiful arches as well as skies and mountaintops in the distance. The ancient is balanced with interesting little shops and cafés occupying the side streets. There are some pictures of the trip on flicker, here.

I also went to Montjuic a second time, but to a part that I hadn’t seen before: the castle. I had a picnic sitting next to a cannon with my CELTA friends, and well… not much else to say about that. Some pictures from around there are in another flickr set. I also left out the part about getting lost in the Spanish countryside at night for a couple of hours. I guess you’ll just have to ask me about it if you want the story.

In other news, I had my first real-world teaching experience! I substituted for a school in Molins de Rey, just outside of Barcelona. It was a huge challenge, but I didn’t feel like I was drowning. In fact, by the end of it, I had enjoyed myself so much that I forgot there was money for me at the front desk. I think that’s the sign of a good profession: when you forget that people are paying you for what you’re doing. I haven’t had many jobs, just the one movie theatre job for about 4 or 5 years and the summer camp job for a couple of years, so maybe I can’t say, but from my experience so far I remember waiting anxiously for the paycheck at the movie theatre and with teaching or working at summer camp, I really felt the “flow” of it and didn’t think about doing the job as a means to an end.

Hopefully I get called in again to substitute and I can get more experience which might lead me to an actual job.

————

Well, the only other news I have for you is that I’m flying home in a few days. It’s quite shocking to me how quick this is approaching. I’ll be in Michigan on December 14th. I get to spend the holidays with my parents, and an even more amazing detail, my brother will be there. I had been mentally preparing myself for my first Christmas away from home, a part of being an adult, but with the return ticket already paid for, and encouraging anecdotes about getting back into Spain, I decided to go for it and fly home.

On the morning of December 31st, I’ll be flying to New York City – my return to Barcelona leaves from JFK, so I’m getting there early to enjoy myself. I don’t know why, and I haven’t been there more than a week or so at a time, but I think I like the city in the winter. Walking around all bundled up in scarf and gloves, ducking into shops and book stores is made more cozy, and the snow makes it more romantic.

I’ll have my first NYC New Years celebration. I don’t know how awesome it will actually be, but I’m sure it can easily be better than watching movies at home. (No offense, parental readers.)

One last exciting part of my holiday travels is that I also get to go to Massachusetts for a few days.

So to boil it down for people like me who prefer to skim:

• December 14th (arrive 5:35 pm) – Detroit, MI
  • Christmas at home – yay yay yay
• December 31st (arrive 10:33 am) – New York City, NY
  • New Years in NYC – awesome awesome
  • Massachusetts with Kyle – awesomer
• January 6th (10:10 am) – Barcelona, Spain
  • Resume finding a teaching job – meh.

Hey Mom, I finally found Los Caracoles. Haven’t eaten there, though.

I don’t give myself much credit, so you won’t catch me claiming to be good at Spanish, but yes I think I had an affinity for it. My parents would rarely use it around me as a child in the same way that a monolingual household might encounter two adults s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g things out so the kids won’t comprehend it. I don’t have specific memories of this, but I recall a general urge or desire to speak whatever the heck it was they were using when I was little.

This was all reinforced with cultural items around the house and stories and slideshows from my Dad about living in Paraguay and elsewhere. When you get to the point in school where you can pick a second language if you want to learn one (it’s quite too late to begin, honestly, at thirteen) I obviously picked Spanish just as someone might pick their science fair topic to be on something their engineer parent knows about.

Like piano lessons and reading Steven Hawking to Steinbeck, it was the sort of scholastic thing that I enjoyed more than I thought someone my age really should, but didn’t think of actually devoting myself to it. Never paying much attention to Spanish, I was fascinated by science throughout the majority of my school life. Then came college, and I had to pick something I was good at to actually pay attention to. I suddenly shifted to Spanish.

The more I learned the more I loved.

It was a good choice, and in retrospect, maybe the worst way to go about learning it. At least at Grand Valley State University it was near pointless. The Spanish program seemed to follow a logical skeleton (reading, writing, culture courses, etc) but lacking in coordination and a real focus on fluency of the language. If you want to learn one, don’t waste your time in academics. Yes, it has the value of learning about culture, which I loved, and the grammar is useful if you want to teach it perhaps, but… just immerse yourself, take private (or small) courses with a heavy emphasis on conversation if you want to learn a foreign language.

Oh, here’s a thought:

Learning a language :: heating some food

University :: using a microwave (focused, the design is well engineered, yet in the end, soggy food)

Living off L2 movies, music, podcasts etc. :: boiling (useful to the point that it gets hot in the end, but really wet – or: can’t use it much)

Moving to a country that uses the L2 :: oven (perfect, a little slower, might require preheating, but it’s the best overall)

Apologies if you didn’t get any of that. Sometimes I think an analogy is just great, but poorly executed.

——————————————- ::

That’s why I STUDIED Spanish, but why do I like it, and why stick with it?

I like how it sounds.

I like how it looks.

It’s simple (yet complex); almost elegant.

I think the same can almost be said for me and piano. That’s a kind of interesting self-observation. You might be able to identify if you play an instrument. It’s something that does require practice, but is enjoyable when you reach a good level. I am very critical of learning a foreign language in a university setting, but I must say that the literature of any language you want to learn is a beautiful medium to immerse yourself in. The downside might be when it is used as a principle method for teaching you.

I love Spanish. The end.