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.

A PSA from your friendly neighborhood CSR

So as we move into the Holiday season, that time is upon us when we spend more money than we have all year to give people things we're pretty sure they'll like, in some cases things we know they'll like.  And many times, we'll do it online for some reason or other.  And, because it's the Holiday season, there will be a chance you'll end up calling into a company's Customer Service center to talk with an agent about something.  So, on behalf of CSRs across the country and abroad, I thought I'd compile a list of things to keep in mind before, during, and after you do your online shopping over the next couple weeks.

BEFORE YOU SHOP

1. Figure out where you're going to do your shopping.  This sounds like a no-brainer, but you'd be surprised.  Bear in mind that if you choose a third-party retailer at a place like Amazon.com or eBay.com, you *will* have issues if something goes wrong.  Be especially careful of anything third-party.  What seems like a better deal can cause more hassle than it's worth in the long run due to "restocking fees" and "shipping and handling".  In other words, know where you're buying, and who you're buying from.
2. Don't leave your online shopping for the last minute.  This will become clearer later on in this post, but this is something to keep in mind before you do your shopping.

The End of an Era

"Xavi se despide del Barça por la puerta grande"

I always figured this moment would come sooner than I would hope.  The day my favorite athlete, my favorite footballer, would stop playing for my favorite club.  He's not retiring, but he is pretty close.  He's moving to another country, to another league, but thankfully for all the right reasons.  It's something to be optimistic about, anyway.

I've posted about my feelings before.  And to be honest, it's not something that I feel adequate to talk about right now.  I'm going through a lot right now on a personal level and I've stopped writing like I used to.  My thoughts don't flow as smoothly, my mind is a mess, and nothing makes as much sense.  But I feel like I somehow owe him something in his departure.  I feel like I need to say something about this man, because of so much he's given me.  And it feels so weird to say.  Awkward, even.  I've never met him.  I doubt he even knows I exist.  I'd be shocked if he did, really.  And to be honest, I don't even really care that much.  But none of that matters in the end.  What matters is that this man, this footballer, has given me so much.  He's brought me back to a place I never thought I'd be in, he introduced me to a whole new world, a whole new culture, to the extent that I honestly do feel like I know him.

The sad part is that the last couple years I've been so busy trying to take care of my life, trying to make something of it that I let things fall by the wayside.  I ignored the things I loved thinking that one day I'd come back to them, only to be chewed up and spit out by the very life I thought I wanted to live.

At the end of the day, the story is this: seven-and-a-half years ago I was planning my first trip back to Spain in almost four years.  I was getting back into football, if one could ever say that I was ever into it, and found a name that popped up on a roster for the Spanish National Team during a Eurocup qualifying match.  I recognized it from nearly nine years prior.  "That couldn't be the same guy...could it?"  It was.  What happened next sent me spiraling into a world that I'd only marginally known existed.  And what ended up happening was that I would end up taking a trip to Barcelona with some friends, sitting in the nosebleeds at Camp Nou, watching 90 minutes of beautiful football that would turn out to be a precursor to the legendary season that gave FC Barcelona their first treble.  And who would score the first goal in that match I saw on a May afternoon in Barcelona but the man who essentially forced himself into my life.

From that point on, I found myself immersing myself in Catalan culture.  In the language, history, and culture of a nation I barely knew and understood and would find myself defending.  I found myself within months being able to converse in it, and by the time I would return to Barcelona two years later I was told by native speakers, Barcelona locals, that they had no way of knowing I'd never lived a month in Catalunya.

So here I am, finding myself trying to figure out what's going to happen next.  It sounds trite, and bizarrely dependent on sports to find some kind of meaning in life.  But here's the truth.  And everyone who follows football knows this to be true.  Football is more than just a sport.  It's more than what American football and baseball and basketball and hockey purport to be.  Football is so much more than that.  I'm not even going to bother defining it.  It means something different for everyone, and that's what makes it the Beautiful Game.  But I honestly don't know what's going to happen now that Xavi no longer plays for FC Barcelona.  Oh, I'll still follow Barcelona.  That club has become such a huge part of my life I will never be able to let that go.  And I'll still plan my next trip to Barcelona, and I'll still speak Catalan, and I'll still support Catalan independence.  But it won't be the same.

I know he's off to a better place.  Not Qatar per se, but knowing why he's going there...to play the game at a level that Barça isn't letting him play at anymore.  To play a more managerial role so that he can segue into coaching, so that within the next five years we'll see him coaching at the Miniestadi and subsequently at Camp Nou.  So that, who knows, given the streak Barcelona's been on with 1st-year 1st team coaches winning trebles, he'll go on to win one himself.

So to this I say, in the language of his people:

Gràcies, Xavi.  Gràcies per tot.  Gràcies per tot el que ens has donat i pel que ens tornaràs a donar.  Ets tota la llegenda que mereix aquest club i tota la persona que necessitàvem.  Gràcies per ser la persona que has sigut.  Molta sort al teu futur.  Mai t'oblidarem.

"Football" vs. "Soccer"

This is a topic that, as both a football (soccer) fan and someone who's interested in languages and linguistics, and thus etymology, is near and dear to my heart.  So let me just say, before I go further,

Both words are correct.

Yes, you heard me.  I hope it was loud and clear.  Both the words "football" and "soccer" are equally correct.  And it irks me to no end when the word "soccer" is brought up to be "wrong" or "stupid", and how apparently only Americans (and don't even get me started on the word "Americans", for that is another rant for another time) use it, which makes them, *gasp* stupid.

Now, I'm not one of those "'MURRCA" Americans, because that is stupid, because hell, I didn't have a choice to be born here, I just was.  That's the way it is, that's the way it goes, and I have complaints, I have compliments, but so does anyone.  I'm not going to relinquish my citizenship because I don't like the direction this country is going in, nor am I going to tell everyone to leave.  My ancestors came to this country for a reason, and I can respect that.  I'm here now, I have an American passport that I actually think looks really cool, I really like our national anthem and the story behind it, and you know what?  I'm American and I like it.

All that being said, I think the whole "soccer versus football" as a "United States versus the World" argument is idiotic.  Why?  For one thing, the etymology of the word "soccer".  See, most people seem to think that "football" is the correct term because it's played with the feet.  I'm not here to debate that.  I'm also not here to discuss or complain about how American football is called football even though it's more "handegg" than "football" in terms of method and tool used to play.  I watch American football (GO PACK GO), and I enjoy it.

Here's the thing.  Both words "soccer" and "football" are correct, as the actual term for the sport is called "Association football".  You know, a sport played with a ball using feet that is made up of associations.  And here's the kicker, that's where the word soccer comes from.  I know!  Crazy, right?  Mind-blowing.  I'm going to quote Wikipedia here, because I can:

The word soccer is an abbreviation of association) and first appeared in universities in the 1880s (sometimes using the variant spelling "socker").

For nearly a hundred years after it was coined, soccer was an uncontroversial alternative to football, often in colloquial and juvenile contexts, but also in formal speech and writing.[6] In the late twentieth century some speakers of British English began to deprecate soccer for reasons that remain unclear; it is possible they mistook it for an Americanism

The word "soccer" was used in Britain until the late 20th century, and then stopped becaues they thought that Americans invented the word!  And in case Wikipedia isn't good enough (I feel ya):

soccer (n.) 

1899, socca, later socker (1891), soccer (1895), originally university slang (with jocular formation -er (3)), from a shortened form of Assoc., abbreviation of association in Football Association (as opposed to Rugby football); compare rugger. An unusual method of formation, but those who did it perhaps shied away from making a name out of the first three letters of Assoc.

That's from the Online Etymology Dictionary.

Anyway.  There you go.  Prefer to say "football" over "soccer"?  Say it!  Prefer to say "soccer" over "football" because you don't want people to get it confused with American football?  Okay!  Just don't go around telling everyone that the way they're saying it is wrong.

Now let's just all agree to get along!