I'm in a bad mood right now and I think it may have to do with the fact that my bed has a sagging black hole of negative energy into which I am vacuumed up on a nightly basis, and which results in stooped-in-soreness Grandma posture every morning when I wake. I can't ask my landlord to fix it because he will either think a.) use your imagination, or b.) that girl needs to lay off the patatas fritas. I am not okay with either one of these options.
This Puente aka five-day weekend is actually coming at a perfect time. Most of the crew is in Barcelona or other bits and places, but I'm staying home sweet home and reading my book. Starting some work for school. Bitching about my bed. Hanging out with Jessica. Cosas así. I've lately become aware of the fact that it's my third month in Madrid and it feels simultaneously like I just got here and like I've been here forever - seriously, I was looking at pictures the other day of Derek and José from this summer and it seemed like that place didn't exist. This is a good thing because it means that I'm happy here. Bad because oh crap I have that dissertation to write.
I had the discussion with Pilar yesterday. I told her maybe I want to stay in Spain next year. She said they would want me to work with them again. I'm supposed to tell them in JANUARY, though, which hello that's like almost tomorrow. I'm getting slightly stressed out about my options and maybe having more choices than I know what to do with. I haven't even narrowed it down to a continent and it's really difficult to know what my next move is supposed to be. The spoiled brat plight of the native English speaker. Hello? Everyone out there? Do you realize how lucky you are? Do you realize you've been handed this golden privilege just for babbling this ridiculously difficult language that happens to rule the world? There's this weird subculture among English as a Second Language teachers that makes the world seem very small and very manageable and very take-your-pick. Unfortunately if I pick Spain it means giving up Colombia and if I pick Colombia it means giving up Brazil and if I pick Brazil it means . . well let's be honest, Brazil's pretty perfect. Watch me a year from now; I will be living in my parent's basement and spending my lack of tuppence on feeding the birds.
I went to a concert-ish on Wednesday. It was a group called Bloodly Mayor - badass - and was put on by Jack Daniel's meaning free promotional drinks. It was actually really kind of cool because it was sort of a question-answer-lesson session so amateur musicians could ask for insight from the band and a couple volunteered to go on stage and play with them at the end. Super intimate setting - probably less than 30 people there and we sat on beanbags. The bartender did lots of fancy tricks aka made me wait an extra five minutes for my drink while she showed off. Another bartender offered me a cocktail featuring tiny jello cubes and floating white chunks of what appears to have been petrified whiskey. It was covered by a napkin and when I removed it fumes starting floating out so you can imagine my reluctance, but I downed that puppy and I'm here to tell the tale.
Tonight I'm supposed to be reuniending con Jessica y César and a crew of recently arrived North Americans so probably it's time for me to go now. Interesting (to me) sidenote: you are not supposed to say you're American if you're from the United States. Because how selfish is that? Americans are all the way from Canada to Patagonia and every North/Central/South American country in between. When I was in Hungary I told someone I was U.S. American and one of my U.S. American friends joked that we'd lost our ability to speak English since moving to Spain, due to my phrasing of our nationality. U.S. American versus American, get it? Awhile back I was having a conversation with César about learning French and he said he learned the phrase "I am not American," to which I replied butchoo arrre (he's Colombiano). This is the same night I got my head stuck in a strange man's zipper, by the way. In any case he agreed and was surprised that I would see it that way since most gringos do not. In Spanish there's a word for United States-er - Estadounidense - but we gringos don't have any way to say that. American. Unspecific and mildly egotistic and offensive at the same time.
Just thought you should know.
No comments:
Post a Comment