Year in Review, 2016

Here's my 2016 in review, with pictures. I know I didn't do much blogging this year, and it's been a while since any decent updates. I'm not necessarily trying to make up for it with this post, but it is going to feature she of the pictures from my long-awaited trip to Spain, which ended up changing my life in ways I never even thought were possible. I'm also sharing what was to me the one song that *was* 2016 for me: "Faded" by Alan Walker, at the top of the post.

Homeward Bound!

 Well, I'm doing it.  Six years after my last trip, I'm on my way back to Spain.  It's only for two weeks because I have to work like a normal adult (in the USA...surely if I worked elsewhere I could get a decent amount of time off, but that's neither here nor there at this point...).  Anyway, I'm super excited for obvious reasons.  Because it's been six long years and it's still rather strange that it's already been six years, dammit!  I'll be spending those two weeks in Getxo with my Spanish BFF, and she's already about as excited about it as I am.

She even invited me to the Bruce Springsteen concert in Donosti in May, forgetting that I was going to be there in June, not in May.  It's okay though.  She knows I would have gone with her, even if live shows aren't really my thing, and even though she's going with her parents and her uncle.  It's all good.

Now I just need to find how else I'm going to spend my time, as she's going to be working during the week so I'll only be able to see her late at night and on weekends.  Maybe.  I did get a message from one of our old family friends from Sevilla, and we'll see if I can make it down there for a few days.  A Barcelona trip doesn't look like it's in the cards for me this time due to time restraints, but I'm trying really hard not to complain about it, because I'm going to see my best friend again!  The one I haven't seen in six years but whom I've known since I was thirteen.  Which was well over half my life ago.

Anyway.  I have a little over three months to keep planning this out.  So we'll see how everything goes.  This is definitely a well-earned and I'll even say well-deserved vacation.  Considering everything I've been through in the past year.  What I'm still going through.

Depression and anxiety suck, guys.  Remember that.

B-b-b-broken record

Here I go again, talking about language issues in Spain, particularly dealing with Catalan --Basque is just not as big an issue--, but if you read my blog regularly this is kind of my "thing" and should surprise no one that I'm talking about this.  And I'm actually kind of late with this one, like two weeks, but I've been out of the loop for a while.  Don't mind me.  Anyway, here's the topic.


I just finished reading a blog entry on the Ara.cat webpage (one of my favorite news sources, won't even lie) in the Sports section about the Chinese journalist who asks FC Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola questions in Catalan despite only being in the country since last summer and being able to communicate perfectly well in Spanish, and the Italian journalist who also asks questions in Catalan (by the way, all the links lead to Catalan articles) and was pointed out by Guardiola himself as an example of "linguistic immersion" as he's also been in Catalunya less than a year.

One of the points the author of the blog post makes that I find incredibly relevant is how in Italy, no one even bothered to ask Francesco Canale, the Italian journalist who asks questions in Catalan, to ask Guardiola the same questions again in Italian, which Guardiola does speak.  And yet, in the rest of Spain, players who answer questions in Catalan are often asked to repeat their answers in Spanish.  It's the idea that because the Catalans speak Spanish, they shouldn't need to translate anything in the broadcast.  So besides the fact that there's a state of shock anytime a non-Catalan speaks Catalan, regardless of how much time they've been living in the region, there's also that element of "Why doesn't the rest of Spain get it?"

Honestly, I don't know.  Catalan's not that difficult a language (though the verbs and certain parts of the grammatical structure are kind of a bitch, I give it that) and it's not like anyone's trying to convert anyone to another language.  Speaking Catalan doesn't automatically make someone a Catalan nationalist/separatist (just ask Andrés Iniesta) who brings estelades to every meeting.  If foreigners, many of whom already speak Spanish, and many of whom don't, can get it and learn the language, why does Madrid still treat it like the spoken version of the Spanish flu?

Expatriation at its Worst

Mijas

The problem [of money issues in Costa del Sol cities] is made worse by British and other expatriate residents.  Most cannot be bothered to register as citizens of their new home towns, robbing the area of other funds awarded on the basis of how many people live there. Some 300,000 Britons are estimated to live [on the Costa del Sol].  That makes this Britain's fourteenth-largest "city", larger than, for example, Cardiff, Belfast, Southampton or Bradford.  However, fewer than one in ten British residents are registered.  Costa corruption is as much the result of those who came here, enjoy the Spanish weather and hospitality but refuse to accept any responsibility for the place they live in, as it is of crooked politicians and construction companies.

Ghosts of Spain, Giles Tremlett

Option #1

I always swore to myself I'd never teach English.  The number one reason was because I don't teach.  I can't teach.  I lack the patience and the skills, and people's inability to learn things that I know is frustrating to me (and frustrating to just about everyone else, which probably explains a lot, really, but I am honestly trying to work on that).  The number two reason is that I really don't want that kind of responsibility.  What's funny is that in the US, whenever you explain to people that you're a foreign language major they always (well, almost always) ask "Do you plan to teach with that?"  This is amusing to me because in Europe, studying another language means working in that language, it means studying philology and history and culture and translation.  Not teaching.  Apparently it's an American thing that I will probably never understand, but whatever.  I've always kind of resented the whole "Do you want to teach" mentality though, because no, I don't want to just teach, I want to do so much more with my language skills than explain to people how and when to conjugate the subjunctive.  Which isn't a bad thing, per se, it's just not for me.

But I'm beginning to change my mind.  At least somewhat.  My brother was offered a position as a TA (Teaching Assistant, someone who works directly with a professor at a university) in Korea for an English program via a friend, and it really got me thinking.  Considering my status right now and my complete lack of employment or much else, why not do this.  Or at least look into it.

There's a program that the Spanish Ministry of Education does with students and recent grads from North America with the purpose of working with an already established English teacher in Spain, so that they can explain to Spanish kids what goes on in their country, US or Canada, and help them with their English/French skills.  You can even choose which Comunidad Autónoma you would prefer to be in, though not the city, and earn a monthly stipend.  There's another program that does teaching opportunities in Spain that I'm looking into but it involves teaching to professionals.  It's only in Madrid, but Madrid is central enough that it'd be impossible for it to not work.  To be honest, I'd rather stay in Madrid than somewhere like Andalucía anyway.  I mean, my best friend's boyfriend studies in Madrid so she's out there every couple weekends or so to visit him.

I've actually already started filling out the application for the second program.  There are a few minor bumps in the road but nothing I can't get taken care of soon, aside from the 50€ application fee, but that's not really so bad.  I just haven't even finished with this thing yet and I'm getting excited.  I still have to find some kind of employment, or at least some means of income, until next September when the program begins, but by then I should be out of my little funk anyway.  Any possibility I can find to get my ass back home I'm on board with, really.  And I'd rather deal with adults than kids, and I'd live in Madrid if I had no other choice, especially since my best friend is connected to the city (and I could still go up and visit her too).  This is about the only other way I can think of to find employment in Spain and to be able to get out there and stay there and not have to worry about being there for too long.  Last time I was there for a month and it very nearly broke me.

I may not be a teacher, but hopefully I may not even need to make a career out of it.  I may be able to get another visa to stay doing something else, who knows.  But at least I'll have a definite plan for the nine months of the school year...and then we'll see.

What do you all think of this idea?  I'm always afraid to lay out any plan I have that I get excited about because it almost always ends up badly, but at this point, the worst that can happen is that they tell me I'm overqualified or something or that I can't come up with the money for the application fee or the visa at all (I need everything ready before March).  And then I can still try to find a job for the next nine months until I'm ready to go.  It's just...it's Spain, guys.  It's home.  Where my parents aren't breathing down my neck and criticizing every move I make because I can't get a job.  Where I can actually have good ol' old fashioned fun because I know people.  I'm probably building this up a little more than I should since nothing at all is finalized and I haven't even told my parents yet.

I just...

SPAIN.


I'll sleep on it and come back in the morning with a post for the New Year, since I missed Christmas.  Oops.

Three Languages or One?

An article was just brought to my attention today via Facebook.  In it, the writer (subtly) complains about a proposal by major Spanish conservative party PP (Partido Popular, or Popular Party) that schools in Catalunya will, under their direction should they be elected in the coming months, switch to a trilingual system in which Catalan, Spanish and English will be in the curriculum until the bachillerato, the optional two years after the mandatory eight years of schooling and before university in the Spanish public school system.

What gets me is that people are complaining about this.  Now, I understand that linguistic freedom is a huge issue in Catalunya right now.  Catalan as a language has been under fire by the Spanish government since 1716 (with a brief revival during the Renaixença period of the late 19th century and early 20th century) and even since the Caudillo's death in 1975 Catalan still does not have the respect it once had.  Whereas other multilingual countries such as Canada and Belgium allow people living in certain areas to speak whichever language they will and not speak others, Spain makes sure that Spanish is still the dominant language throughout the state.  Many Catalans believe their language is still being oppressed because of this.  I don't take issue with this.

Two Stories, One Person

I did a thing on Tumblr just now where people would give me a number corresponding to a question they'd like me to ask, and a few of them had to do with childhood memories.  It's funny, because for me, just thinking about my childhood beyond a certain age is a task.  Not because I had some terrible brain injury that made me lose memory past a certain point, but for (arguably) more bizarre reasons.

It's not the remembering that's hard.  I still remember a lot of things about my childhood: teachers I had, friends I made, toys I loved, TV shows I'd watch, places we'd visit...  It's not even that it's hard.  It's just...well...awkward.  That's what's so weird, how can remembering childhood be awkward?  I haven't quite figured this out.  But it's like there's a wall in my brain that was built at a certain point, and everything before then is different.  And it's funny because nearly half of my life is behind that wall, and I don't always like going through it.

That wall was built on October 26th and 27th, 1997.  That's the date my family left JFK International Airport in Queens, NY on an Air Europa flight to Madrid Barajas Airport.  That's the date my life tangibly changed permanently, to the point where everything that occurred before then would become a life that I would never know ever again.  Up until that date, I had never known any country other than the United States, had never known a language other than English, much less known anyone other than my grandfather who spoke a language other than English --and even then, he never spoke Norwegian around us--.  And as soon as we landed in Madrid and were whisked off to sit in the Madrid police station for four hours doing immigration papers and then sit in a dark van for another four hours listening to two men up front jabber on in a language we didn't understand.  We stopped for dinner somewhere on the highway between Madrid and Bilbao and fell asleep in mounds of rice because we were too jet-lagged and exhausted to eat, and were dropped off by the side of the road in Leioa to wait for someone else who didn't speak our language to bring us to our new home.

I don't know how many other people have such a tangibly intangible wall dividing their memories.  I'm sure there are others, most likely a lot of them had traumatic experiences to cause them to build that wall, maybe others with not so traumatic experiences.  I just know I can literally divide my life in two parts: pre-Spain and "post-Spain".  Pre-Spain for the twelve years I spent as a fairly clueless kid who liked reading atlases and encyclopedias, who enjoyed learning about the world but who had never traveled much farther than to the East Coast of the USA and the occasional shortcut through Canada.  "Post-Spain" for everything since then.  Since I first discovered Euskera my first week of school when we had to choose a language to study and I didn't want to take French.  But I wasn't allowed to take Euskera because I needed to speak Spanish first, and then when I first heard it spoken by real-life people by my 6th grade homeroom teacher to our tour guide on a class field trip to Urkiola, a nature reserve about an hour away.  Since I became fluent in Spanish within nine months of landing in Spain.  Since I started public school and soon afterwards met the girl who would become my best friend for the next eleven, twelve years.

It's just so weird to look back on my life before all that happened.  It's like I wasn't even me back then, I was someone else.  Some other kid.  None of the things that happened to me before then made me who I am today, except for maybe that innate curiosity that helped me discover the world and learn about it.  But none of the events, none of the deciding moments in my life before then actually changed me.  Moving to Spain changed me, so looking back on my childhood is like watching a movie.  A movie that I was a part of and had a role in, but little else.  It really is bizarre to think that at one point, I did live that life.  And I think that's what's so unreal about it.  That I can't imagine living that life now, but I know I did.  That's what's strange.

So you want to move to Spain? Read this first

If you'll now permit me (oh what the hell, it's my blog), I'm going to address an issue that seems to be very important for a vast group of people on the internet.  Those people who seem to be convinced that after college (or after high school...) they will be moving to Spain.  And those people who also have it planned to stay in Spain after they finish their study abroad term in the country; they just won't get on the flight back to the US.

I'm here to burst that bubble, poop that party, rain on that parade.  Because guess what.  You want to move to Spain/overstay your visa?  Good luck with that.  Really.  I'm just going to make something clear here: you have no idea what you're planning.

*Note* This post is geared mainly towards North Americans, since Europeans don't have to worry about anything I'm saying here.  And because everyone I've seen saying things like this is from North America, and not Europe.

When Nostalgia Strikes

(c) Majestic Hotel BCN

A year ago today I landed in El Prat airport near Barcelona.  Kind of hard to believe it was already a year ago.  The last couple months, basically since I got back in mid-June, I've been able to say things like "I've been back a week," "I've been back a month," "I've been back five months."  Now, it's "I left a year ago."

Truth is though, even though I'm always nostalgic, and will probably always be nostalgic every single time I come back from a visit to Spain, I haven't been looking back very often and have been looking ahead more.  To the next time I go, whenever that is.  I still don't have a job, I still have bills to pay, but the closer I get to finding a job, the closer I get to being able to go back to Spain.

It's funny how my life has become a countdown of the time it takes to get back to Spain...and the time it's been since I was last there.  The first time I did the countdown was probably early 2007 once I'd submitted my application for the study abroad program with my university for Spring 2008.  Once the last semester before going abroad came, I started counting down the months, then weeks...and then I started counting down till I got my passport, and then...  When I bought my ticket for this last trip, back in September of 2009, it started pretty quickly.  I had two full semesters to get through, two sets of finals, graduation, a week of finals, and then five days in New York before I finally left.

I think the worst part is finally arriving though, because it's like the beginning of the end.  Each day that passes is another day less that I have to spend.  It's like Christmas.  You spend all year waiting for it, and once it arrives, you realize that it's almost over.  Not like it doesn't make the stay any less enjoyable, but you still know that you have to leave soon.  It's obviously less of a problem when you're there for a semester or a year, but once that last month arrives...

I don't know why I'm feeling optimistic right now, it's so unlike me, but in this case, I need it.  I need to be optimistic.  And I hope something good comes out of it, and that by the time 2011 is over I'll already have another trip across the pond all planned out.

"Visca Catalunya Lliure!"

On the way to Ikea yesterday afternoon with my parents, I was listening to an episode of La Competència, my favorite radio program ever which airs on RAC1 in Catalunya (it is in Catalan), which I get through podcasts.  It was from last Tuesday,  and featured a discussion on an article written by Catalan journalist Quim Monzó for La Vanguardia, a Barcelona-based newspaper which publishes in Spanish (it's going to start publishing in Catalan in May).  It's an article about the coach for the Girona football team, Raül Agné, who walked out on a post-match press conference he was giving because he was told to answer a question in Spanish instead of Catalan, when the question had been asked in Catalan (something done all the time by journalists and coaches in press conference; if the coach speaks the language a question is asked in, he responds in that language).

Is it really that hard to do a good job portraying Spain, Hollywood?

Branching off from the poetry theme for a bit here.  This is a scene from CSI: NY which features characters from Barcelona, and the guy here is supposed to be a Mosso d'Esquadra, a member of the Catalan national police.

And no, that is not Catalan he's speaking.  What's worse, it's not even Castilian.  It's a Puerto Rican accent (I believe).  A police officer, in New York, whose police body the woman investigator knows because she worked with them in Madrid after the 2004 terrorist attacks (which the Mossos don't have jurisdiction over).  Who speaks in a Puerto Rican accent, in a language that he probably would not normally speak.

Now, props to CSI for actually naming the Mossos d'Esquadra and the part of the world they're from.  But my complaints far outweigh the positives here.  Such as the fact that the Mossos aren't "the Barcelona police", they're the Catalan national police.  Though at least the general geographic area is correct.  And even if the Catalan language is taken out of the equation (Who knows, he could be someone for whom Catalan isn't his mother tongue and is more likely to speak Castilian to himself!), at least make the accent correct.  Yes, I am going to be a stickler about this because Spain is not a Latin American country.  Even within Latin America there are many different accents, many varying within the countries as well.  Same with Spain.  The Castilian accent is simply different than any Latin American accent, and Spaniards are very indignant about this.  I am indignant about this.

I really wonder why it's so hard for the US film industry to properly portray Spain correctly.  In Spain they love to talk about a MacGuyver episode which featured Basque terrorists, using Mexican imagery and accents to portray the Basques.  There's also the atrocities of Mission: Impossible 2 and Knight and Day, the former featuring a Semana Santa procession in Sevilla which involved burning the saints (I think someone confused Semana Santa with Valencia's Fallas...) and the latter apparently features a running of the bulls Pamplona-style in the Andalusian capital as well.  Really, guys?  That's what you're doing to a country with an incredibly rich culture and history?  You're turning it anecdotal and backwards?  Confusing it with Mexican culture really isn't doing anyone any favors.  Not the Basques, not the Mexicans.  Then there's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which tried so hard and yet failed so very very badly, precisely because it tried too hard.

It's not even fun anymore.  I don't like seeing what Hollywood does to Spain, and Spaniards are sick of it too.  They deserve a decent representation of their country's beauty, regardless of the part of the country is being focused on.  But I guess it is too much to ask of a film industry that portrays high schools in their own country in ways they are definitely not to properly portray a foreign country so misunderstood.  Hollywood definitely isn't helping in that aspect though, for sure.