beginning to look a lot like christmas

i'm so thankful for xander. i really don't know what i'd do without him. it's a pain traveling with him and importing him to the countries i live in, but it's so so worth it. he is so snuggly, no matter what kind of day he's having. he's affectionate and loyal. he rarely barks (except when the doorbell rings or he hears something strange), he lets me move him around however i want, he always comes when i call him, he's very low maintenance, doesn't beg much, and is happy to sleep between my calves all night until i wake HIM up. he's just the best dog i could ever have asked for. he's my closest family/friend. my baby. *sigh*

xander asleep on my chest

in catalonia (the region of spain i live in), there is a christmas tradition involving this little log. it's called "caga tio" or "poo log" and it makes its appearance on december 8 every year. children put a hat on the one in their house and cover it with a blanket. they tend to it until christmas eve, making sure it's "fed" and happy. then on christmas eve they beat it with sticks and it poops out some little christmas presents. 

 

its back legs are usually shorter than its front legs so the presents can fall out easier. 

 there are huge ones (like this) or smaller ones that can fit on end tables.

what a strange and fun tradition!

i'm not usually one to decorate much for christmas, especially since i've been living alone for a few years, but this year i decided to deck the halls a bit. i got some little christmas trees and decorations to spruce up the living room and kitchen. with  an apple cinnamon candle burning, cookies out, and christmas music playing i can almost convince myself i'm at home here. :)

 i could only find a sign in spanish but my neighbors have a "merry christmas" sign on their door... 

they'd be up for a trade, right?

liz is coming in three-ish days! i can't wait, i can't wait! it'll be nice to have someone to talk to who a) knows me! b) has english as their mother tongue c) doesn't want to take me to museums d) who brings me presents from america e) loves me and i love her! really, i'm very excited to chill out with her and explore the city (and maybe other cities) with my favorite, least annoying, most care-free travel partner, my been. <3 p="">

gotta have my pops

one of my favorite cereals (though i haven't eaten it in years) is this:

you may know these delicious sweet and corny cereal bits; they look like this in the states:

so when i saw THIS at the store here in barcelona, i knew 'i gotta have my pops!'

                               what i didn't notice was the enlarged picture of the pieces, but i sure noticed when i poured it into the bowl. instead of the familiar cereal of my early twenties, i was greeted by this:in case you can't see them clearly, they're oblong mealy puffs of not-corn. biting one open and googling led me to discover that they're hollow and have hazelnut flavoring throughout. they're not bad tasting, just pretty disappointing when i was expecting corn pops (the miel pops seemed like an easy translation). i wonder what 'pops' are like in other countries! ;)

this week in barcelona

this week i had to get a coke zero ('cause they didn't have pepsi) and i was surprised to see the word "daniel" printed up one side of it. the barista (is she still called that if it's an over the counter cafe rather than a starbucks? it feels right) pointed out that there are a variety of names. i got home and looked it up online to see if there was some reason behind these. i couldn't find any, but there are pictures, so there's that. 
this week at the grocery store i spent €22.50  and the cashier was trying to tell me something in spanish. i didn't know what, so i tried to walk away. he dealt me 4 pieces of green peel-paper, which i left on the counter, unaware of what was going on. he picked up one and peeled it open to reveal a "P" or something. then he put it down, did the same to the three others. the last one had a different letter (i didn't see what) which sent the cashier jogging to some corner of the store. he came back with a bottle of wine. for me! yay, i won by accident! :) 

i have figured out how to order a pizza here. muahahah! i think that's the fastest i've done this in another country. anyway, if i call the barcelona domino's call center and ask them to take my order, it's much easier than calling the badalona (the suburb i live in) call center because those peeps don't speak enlgish. meanwhile, pepperoni y piña worked out super well for me. bonus: i ordered a large pizza and the total was €17. the lady on the phone said, "if you ordered 2 medium pizzas, the total would be lower"... she said this of her own volition!! wow, spanish customer service at its best, no?

stores and homes

today i ate a spanish version of bagel bites for dinner. they were alright, but i've noticed in my travels that americans put way more sauce on pizza and pasta products than most other nationalities. that's fine for us, as we're used to it, but it means eating 'italian' things in other countries is a bit disappointing to me. i miss the sauce! i remember trying to order extra sauce on pizzas in hungary and china and finally settled on having my own sauce at home and dipping pizza in it. really? oh well, these were good enough that i'd eat 'em again.

at the store i was happy to see pickles! well... what i thought was just pickles turned out to be pickles stuck inside olives all in a vinegar sauce. i did not buy these. 

this is a photo of the WHOLE cereal section of my local grocer. there are like 16 kinds of cereal and they're not that great, mostly sugary or uber healthy. they have more varieties of frozen pizza than cereal. whoa! i guess the spanish don't eat cereal too much. i'll look into it. 

the toilet paper seems the same as everywhere else except there are animal mascots for most brands. most surprising are the THREE brands that use elephants. i mean, they're cute but does that really say 'soft' to consumers? hmm. ok, i know nothing about advertising.

 this is my front door. if someone can explain the doorknob placement, i'd be so appreciative. this particular door also locks with every close, so i have to be careful to ALWAYS have my keys with me, especially when taking xander out. we've been locked out (me in my pajamas) in china before and it was no fun. 

 it seems customary for spanish homes to include a bidet. that's cool, i guess, except i've never used one. well, NOW i have!! haha, but i just washed my feet in there. it's the perfect height for that and the sprayer thing is handy. idk if i'll ever use it for its intended purpose, but as a habitual foot-washer, i'm glad to have it. ;)

time magazine covers in different regions (comparison) in 2013

i've recently seen some comparisons of time magazines in different regions, but they all showed covers that were several years old, so i've compiled the TIME magazine covers that were different in the US just from 2013. there are a handful of covers that are different in other regions, but the majority of differences are seen by the american readers of time. the covers we don't see are usually about international affairs, politics, war, and other countries in general. is this what makes us so ethnocentric??

does american journalism cater to americans' seemingly nonexistent desire to know about foreign affairs? or do we care/know less because of american media? either way, it might be worth checking international news sites once in a while, just to see what's going on in the world. 

inspiration for this post is from: http://www.buzzfeed.com/hunterschwarz/time-magazine-covers-in-the-us-vs-the-rest-of-the-world which shows differing covers over the years. 

(all photos taken from TIME.com)

best things so far

i realize i've been complaining on here since i've been in spain, so here are some things i've liked. 

both in nyiregyhaza and songjiang i had taxi drivers who saved my sanity on regular bases. following suit, i very luckily scored an excellent taxi driver to take me from the airport to a hotel when i arrived in BCN. he gave me his card because he was also trying to rent me an apartment. little did i know, i'd spend the entire day with this guy, Paulo, a few days later when he took me to get xander. this particular taxi driver is handy because he speaks spanish, catalan, and english annnnnnd he's not spanish (he's brazilian), which means, according to him, he's much more patient than his spanish counterparts. at any rate, we're in each other's phones now and i know i'll call on him if i'm in a bind. 

the metro system here is impressive. it's logical, clean, and convenient. there are stairs and escalators at every exit and the escalators all go up (logical!). there are also elevators for old people, moms with strollers, and handicapped people. nice!

the insides are modern and clean. more amazing to me is how crowded they are NOT! :) this girl hated the metros in china because of the wall to wall, door to door, seat to seat, ceiling to floor, handrail to handrail people! here the trains come and go so quickly and frequently that i've never had to elbow my way anywhere or fear for my safety yet. 

there are ticket machines at every stop. they are available in a variety of languages. they're user-friendly and modern. i bought a 10 day pass with no incident on my first day.

the people here so far (minus one teacher) have been so nice, helpful, and easy on the eyes. perhaps i was used to ignoring men in general, as hungarian men never tickeled my fancy, nor did chinese men. these spanish men, however, are so beautiful! wow. i mean, there are some average, and below average spaniards, i'm sure, but i'm noticing many many more pretty guys than not. there are also a lot of tourists here, so who's to say who's who, but on the whole i'm impressed with the beauty. the women, also pretty, are not the extremes i found in hungary and china. there's just an overall beauty to everyone, it seems. maybe it's in the eye of the beholder, but i like what i see in barcelona.

the people i've encountered either speak english well or are patient enough to tolerate a conversation in spanglish until the point is clear. (i've asked a non-english-speaking lady on the street where she got dog poop collection bags and she was able to tell me where to get them without either of us being annoyed or frustrated.) 

i was able to order a domino's pizza on the phone in english yesterday, so that's already head and shoulders above china and hungary (in this respect).

there is a chinese shop just around the corner from my apartment. i've gone in there a couple of times and spoken chinese with the proprietors. they have a mishmash of cheap stuff, so far i've gotten a pillow, scissors, and dog food/water bowls. one guy who works there chased me down the street to give me back 40 euros that fell out of my wallet when i was paying. this isn't what i'd consider typical chinese, but i was so grateful and appreciative. i'll go there more, i'm sure. 

 

spanish tv isn't like hungarian or chinese tv to me. there are a TON of shows in english (even without subtitles). there are more commercials than i've ever seen on tv in any country ... like there were 18 ads between segments of the big bang theory the other day. 18 commercials in a row on tnt!! omg, i'm glad i watch tv on the computer. i do keep the tv on in the background of using the computer (like now) so i am exposed to some spanish every day. maybe i'll learn it subconsciously.

the weather is fantastic. i've walked around, to school, shopping, with xander, and used public transportation all without dying of heatstroke (what, texas?!). the windows and sliding doors in the apartment have been open since i got here. there's a nice chill at night, cool breezes during the day, and it hasn't rained yet. weather: win.

the last thing, not yet pictured, is my apartment. i'll do a post about the place soon, mmk? 

why didn't i take spanish in high school???

so far, i'm not impressed with UPF. this could be because my expectations were too high, i admit. i chose this MLTA program for several reasons:

1. it was cheap (the whole program is about $5000)
2. it was one year (rare and not actually ideal for a master's program, but enticing)
3. it was in barcelona (the #1 tourist destination in europe at the moment, great weather, etc.)
4. the acclaimed linguistics department (in fact, pompeu fabra, UPF's namesake, was a linguist)
5. the website was impressive, informative, and kept up to date
6. the whole master's program is guaranteed in english

1-5 are still true, but that pesky #6 is proving hard to enforce. 


thursday i went to my second ever class (Cognició, comunicació i competència lingüística) with of bunch of other linguistic students. the professor began speaking in spanish. then she noticed some faces lacking the comprehension look and asked whether everyone spoke spanish. a girl from macau (who speaks chinese and english) and i raised our hands to signal that we don't speak spanish. she explained in english that it would be too hard for her to maintain english for the three hour class each week (well, for 5 weeks) so she was just going to speak in spanish. she said not to worry, though, because the powerpoints and handouts would all be in english. 

wtf. 

some girl next to me kindly interpreted a few important things the teacher said during the next couple of hours, but i was just sitting there seething and hardly cared what she said.

that night i went home and wrote an email to the teacher, citing the page of UPF's website that guarantees the possibility of taking the entire linguistics major in english. i told her how i (and the other girl must have) felt isolated, discouraged, frustrated, and angry. i asked for her suggestion about what i should do about this class, as i won't be sitting through spanish classes any more. 

friday i went to the registration office to pay and confirm my schedule. i asked the nice ladies up there (who speak english on a lower intermediate level) what could be done about this lady who speaks english but simply refused to, or if not about her, about my schedule, since hers was a mandatory class for my discipline. they said i should tell the department head. since i'd already written an email to the lady, i decided to wait for her reply before doing anything else. 

after registering and paying, i went to my only friday class, only to find that not only was the professor speaking in spanish, but all the materials and powerpoints would also be in spanish. i walked out of the classroom less than a minute after i walked in and headed back to the nice ladies in the registration office to tell them another class of mine needed to be changed (thankfully, this one was optional at least). while i was telling them, i started to tear up in frustration. they were so sweet and assured me they wanted to make me happy and comfortable at UPF. they said they'd talk to my adviser and get me out of the optional class. then they'll get the department head involved, who will talk to the first teacher, and if she won't switch, then they would help me change my discipline to get out of taking her class.

changing my discipline would mean my mandatory classes change and my classes would be better suited for a professional or research career than an academic career.

my expectations have been lowered a lot now, but so far i'm not impressed with UPF (except the admissions and registration ladies). 

Xander's first day in Spain

liz (and some lady named sandy) did everything to get xander to follow me to spain and today was the day to get him! 'get xander from the airport' sounds easy enough, but as with the other countries i've lived in (USA excluded) the bureaucracy is enough to drive you to drink.

i got some nice taxi driver to take me to the airport (35 min drive) but it was at 8am rush hour, so it took more like 1hr20mins. awesome. i'd put in the only address i had for the pick-up place in my GPS but it wasn't recognized. so i called the two phone numbers i had (and had the taxi driver talk to the people in spanish), and they told us to go to the cargo park (which we already knew, we just didn't know where exactly to go in the huge cargo park surrounded by cargo company offices). so we just asked someone at one of the cargo companies where the office was for the company we wanted. though it was close by, they'd never heard of it and weren't interested in helping. (red)

so we went to terminal 1 to the information desk (orange). they didn't know anything. so we went to the united airlines office upstairs and the lady there called around and found the cargo office we needed. yes!! (this was already 3 hours into our trip)

so we went to the cargo office (yellow) and got some paper which would permit us to get a series of other papers. they made a copy of my driver's license and i had to pay 162 euros to get that paper.

then we took that paper to the vet (green) where we waited while she called some people. i emailed her my flight itinerary to prove i wasn't going to sell xander (idk how that proves that). she made a copy of my driver's license. when she was ready she took us to the agricultural cargo park (light blue) (a giant warehouse filled with farmy stuff and boxes) where we wandered through ceiling high shelves to a heavy refrigerator-looking metal door which she opened with a swipe of a card. inside was my precious baby!!! he was all alone in a locked and pull-tied cage. he wanted out so badly and i wanted to hold him so badly but we didn't have any scissors or knives to cut him free! :( the vet asked a warehouse man who came back with a knife and we finally cut the ties holding his door closed.

blessed reunion!!! :D :D :D we were so happy, even the taxi driver grinned from ear to ear.

the vet checked xander out to make sure he was ok after traveling and had no signs of disease, then we had to put him back in the box and leave him there. neither of us were happy about that, but she assured us we'd have him in 30 minutes (lol). she took his paperwork from the crate, glossed over it (GLOSSED!! after all that work!!!!), and gave us a magic paper.

we walked back to the office (idk why that vet made us walk but since she did we were without our car) where the vet told us we'd get xander (medium blue). wrong. we needed that magic paper stamped first... before they'd even move xander.

(dark blue) we went to the stamp holder's building where they copied our IDs to give us visitor's badges. then into the stamp people's office where they wrote down our DL numbers. the stamper was on a coffee/lunch break. i ran into a cafeteria and got a sandwich and drink since it was 1pm by then. stamp lady came back and stamped the magic paper, but not before making a copy of my DL.

we went back to the office, this time with the stamped magic paper (purple)! we waited like 45 minutes for them to bring xander to the office (we would have gotten him ourselves if we could have).

forever reunion!!! :)

i gave xander some of the meat from my sandwich in the car - he was famished!! we were anxious as we went home, though it was much faster at this point. we walked up the million stairs to the apartment and xandy checked the whole place out. i emptied his crate, cleaned it, him, and all of his things, then we had a little cuddle for a while before i decided to attend class at 5:30 since i'd already missed one (big mistake).

when i came home xander was just where i'd left him: snuggled up on the couch. we went on a walk around the block and settled in for the night. roommate isn't here so it's just us.

just like it was always meant to be.

first day of school

today i started the master of applied and theoretical linguistics program at UPF. the welcome session, meant to start at 10am actually started at 10:30something due to the presenter being MIA. the other teachers present didn't know what she'd planned to say so they voted for us to wait for her to arrive. during this time i started talking to the two chinese girls next to me. they're doing their masters in translation, so we'll only have a few classes in common, but it felt nice to chat in chinese or in english about china with them while we waited. they told me nothing in spain ever starts on time and i should get used to it. (i hope not...)

finally the teachers switched the order of the orientation sessions and the librarian came in to talk about all the resources available to UPF students. i could tell immediately that she wasn't a teacher by the way she talked non-stop without checking for understanding or even looks of understanding. she spoke for nearly 90 minutes (JUST HER!!!) and we all almost died.

then an IT guy named herman (well, german, i think) talked about how to log in to the intranet and access your classes online, etc. which is pretty useful and important information. unfortunately, his accent was so thick and his speaking voice so quiet, no one had a clue what he was saying... but that didn't stop him from rambling on as if we were all following along well. (we had to clarify with the next speaker everything that guy said.) my patience was long gone and that point but then my head started hurting so i had to switch off. the chinese girls tuned out and played candy crush and i could hear others breaking out into hushed conversation.

when we couldn't take any more, some lady rescued us and took us on a tour of the campus. UPF has three campuses (health and medical, humanities, and communication ... or something). ours is the medium sized one with just a few buildings. the classes and library are all geared toward communication, linguistics, translation, and language science. handy that the books we'll need are all in that library (which we didn't see on our tour). the tour, unfortunately, was in spanish. there were a handful of us there who don't speak spanish, so it was a bit pointless. some girl offered to translate but i declined, having been on tours of cities in languages i don't understand and having already used up my pretending-to-care ability for the day. nearly everyone in the university speaks english so if i have questions, i'll just ask.

one more session that vaguely described our disciplines ended up raising more questions than it answered. the teachers mostly said they'd keep us informed as we go. the first trimester is supposed to be pretty light, then the last is super hectic and we should be prepared. mmmk.

we were supposed to have lunch and go to class then. but i didn't know what or where any of my classes were because my adviser didn't send me that pertinent information. several emails to the school went unanswered so i had to stay after and hand-write my schedule off of a master sheet and look up the times, room numbers, and days. i had a quick lunch of salad and pasta in the cafeteria and went off to class.

all the classes are THREE HOURS. i don't know how i'm gonna make it. today's was a class on syntax, though today we just talked about what the class will be like, listened to the teacher a LOT (for 2 hours)... thankfully he was 16 minutes late and hadn't set up anything (or i wouldn't have made it - information overload). at the end of the class he asked us to go around giving introductions and answering questions about our backgrounds. he interrupted 18 of 20 people, so this took like an hour and we still ran over. he gave us an assignment on the class website which we don't yet know how to access.

i haven't paid or finished enrolling or shown my authenticated documents or seen my schedule. so far, i'm less than impressed with spanish school. the people are all friendly and helpful, at least. tomorrow i have two classes but i'm more excited about picking up xander at the airport.

day 1: meh.

update 2013

 I’ll try to maintain a better blog for my own sanity when I’m in Spain. Drop by and check it out whenever you’d like.

Since things are changing pretty fast these days, I thought I’d update you on what’s happening on my end. Hopefully it’ll fetch some replies so I can know what’s up where y’all are, too! (Y’all?! Well, I AM back in Texas, so I thought it fitting. J)

My life and job in China were promising, but things went belly up in just about every way I can think of. The first year was pretty good work-wise. I was grouped with a bunch of English people, plus an Irishman and a Scot, and basically had to learn English all over. I was amused at their vocabulary, intonation, accents, and obscure (to me) cultural references.

                                                                                                   

I learned a lot from them and about myself that year. I developed as a teacher, a member of management, and as a citizen of the world. My roommate and I (friends in America) fell out, so home-life was stressful, but work was alright.

This is my absolute favorite class, whom I taught for all four semesters in China. I’ve given them my contact information so we can keep in touch. I’ll continue to edit, proofread, or make suggestions on anything they send me in English so we can improve their odds of standing out above the competition in China. I’d really love to see them all succeed.

Sadly and predictably, the honeymoon phase at work ended and was replaced by deceit, backstabbing, insane ‘cost-cutting’, and other brands of human indecency. During the second year, I stepped down from my leadership role in protest and distanced myself from everything about the job but my precious students. Unfortunately, I did realize that I could never be truly happy working for or with anyone like the people I was working for and that the world of teaching English is absolutely teeming with them. As it turned out, it was an excellent decision from which both my students and I benefited greatly because my focus was just on them and lessons.

For about six months I was near depression because of my love for teaching and my kaput desire to do it. I barely hung out with anyone, overate and gained weight, and stayed home as much as I could because I was sure my little dog wouldn’t break my heart the way my job had. My sister came to visit me during this time and we traveled some in China during an 8-week long break between semesters while I thought about the next step.

              

Finally, I decided to make a huge career change: quitting teaching. Though I love being in the classroom and am actually pretty good at it, my deep need for a just, honest, integrity-filled workplace is just too impossible in the teaching world and I see myself being entirely miserable if I pursued it any further. Instead, I decided to develop one of my favorite parts of teaching, which is pronunciation. I’ve researched what other jobs I can do teaching/correcting pronunciation and have found accent reduction and modification interesting and doable. This will mean helping non-native English speakers reduce their accents, including pronunciation, intonation, cadence and even gestures! (Ok, that exclamation mark might not have been necessary but that kind of stuff really does excite me.)

Most of you know, then, that I applied to and was accepted to a postgraduate program in Barcelona where I’ll earn a master’s degree in applied and theoretical linguistics. With that, I hope to burst into the world of accent modification and help people sound less foreign, ghetto, regional (like southern, New Yorker, Bostonian, Texan…) or whatever they want to change about their accents. 

I’m home in the USA for about 7 weeks right now, the longest I’ve been home since 2008. I’m hoping to actually rest and recover from China this summer before Spain does whatever it’s gonna do to me. So far, I haven’t really experienced reentry shock (a phenomenon that happens when people live abroad for a while then return to their home countries), possibly because I didn’t really fall in love with China the way I thought I would (and the way I did with Hungary). I was happy to leave China, mostly to get away from my work situation, but living in China wasn’t really my cup of tea either.

I miss a few things about Chinese life – wide, safe bike lanes on every road, recycling opportunities everywhere, cheap/counterfeit things like electronics, perfumes, bags, cheap rent, shower sprayers in addition to stationary shower heads, awesome engineering feats of people balancing a TON of stuff on a moped or bicycle, the fact that people there don’t have know-it-all attitudes, all my 750 students, and a handful of dear friends I met there.

               I’m happy to be back in the States to experience clean, potable tap water, washing machines with hot water, tumble dryers, boneless meat, good and familiar food, driving – automatic transmissions!, swimming, people NOT staring and pointing at me, good customer service, English I understand (versus British/Irish/Scottish-isms), cultural references I understand, JOKES I understand, and most comforting, people I understand. It’s been far too long since I’ve hung out with Americans. I miss my people. I love my country. It’s good to be home.

                   

Right now I’m staying at Liz and Scott’s (my sister and brother-in-law) with our three dogs. It’s a full house, but a good time. We’ve taken a trip to Illinois to visit almost everyone in our extended family, we’ve done some light recreation, and we’ve eaten nearly everything under the American sun. I’m hoping for a trip to Florida to see my immediate family, depending on whether the government drags their feet with my documents, background check, visa, etc. but I think I’ll get to go. If you’d like updates from me (very sparingly, I promise), let me know. Call me, text, or email!

Many blessings and greetings to all the people who are helping make me who I am across the world. Feel free to share this letter with anyone who knows me whom you think would like to know what I’m up to. (Sorry for the American slang, foreigners… but I’m home after all! J)

Christie