New Year's Eve Inventions and Discoveries

In roughly chronological order:

-New Tradition: From 11 pm to 12 am on night of New Year's Eve we abandoned use of certain words in order to reflect and remember sufferings of past year. Forbidden words are: "a," "an," "the" and "article". Last word is included because game is too easy if you can easily explain rules. Fun is in challenge.


- New Appetizer combos: Chicken fingers in salsa con queso. Good. Potatoe chip, ranch dip and cherry tomato canape. Better. Champagne with candy cane. Horrible. Just horrible.

- New Bonding Exercise: Land of 1,000 secrets. Step one, each participant builds a separate fort out of blankets and pillows. Step two, serve yourself a drink. Step three, enter your fort with drink and begin confessing. Ali you are a genius.

A Teenybopper Christmas!

I never knew the true meaning of holiday stress until I became an elementary school teacher. Man, the turkey was nothing in comparison with the Christmas mix CD. Last year my private lesson students and their slightly overbearing mothers showered me with gifts for Christmas, and I hadn't thought to so much as bring some candy to our last class. So this year I wanted to think of some cool but cheap gift for the six tweenage girls I teach when it hit me: The. Jonas. Brothers. What does a twelve year old girl want more than Kevin, Joe and Nick crooning, "All I want for Christmas is the girl of my dreams"?  Easy, right? And I would feel no guilt downloading their songs off the internet, because these kids (or their exploitive parents) make ten cents every time one of their adoring fans buy a pocket folder.

But from there, in the true spirit of any holiday project it spiraled quickly out of control. Of course I wanted to maximize the educational value too, so I would need to give them the lyrics. And if I was going to give them the lyrics I would need to make sure they correspond exactly to the version I was giving them and were grammatically correct. No one was "gonna" do anything in my libretto. (Eek! Teaching has also changed me from a descriptivist linguist into a prescreptivist schoolmarm.) And if I'm going to go through all the effort to get the words just right, of course I have to present them in a cute little book. And if I'm going to make a cute little book, I'm going to need craft supplies. And before I knew it quick, easy and cheap, became slow, painstaking and not as cheap. And then there's the fact I don't want to hear another Christmas carol for a year. One of the best parts of Christmas ruined.

Thanksgiving Proselytizing

I think Thanksgiving is pretty much my favorite holiday, and after more or less ignoring it last year this year I went crazy...

Me and my co-auxiliar Darío prepared a fun yet edifying Thanksgiving lesson. After a youtube video of the history of the feast, we had each of the kids write what they were thankful for on the back of a coloring sheet of a piece of fruit. Then each of them came up to the front of the class, shared their thoughts and hung it on a giant construction paper cornucopia. It was fun and really kind of touching. And you know I'm a big sap, but even my tough and serious co-worker Eva was moved. Of course the other teacher I work with was quick to point out the ensuing genocide part, which I had to agree with. But even if the First Thanksgiving is a little legendary, and totally misrepresents greater trend I like the symbolism. So I proudly taught the legend and its values of thankfulness, generosity and tolerance, even knowing that it all went to hell once those pilgrims got the information they needed out of Squanto. After school and three hours of private classes (not only did I have to work I had to work a long day), I crashed Syreeta's program's Thanksgiving potluck empty-handed, called my family, and passed out.

Then Friday and Saturday I scrambled around like a maniac getting ready to roast my first turkey! Friday I found the bird itself an 8 pound little pavita from the Corte Inglés, where I breifly had a panic attack until Molly talked me down. Luckily, Molly had my back on the bird. She had offered to bring stuffing ingredients and help with the prep. Then Saturday I realized I would need a meat thermometer, and ran around looking for that. Serendipitously, I stumbled across a bunch of fresh thyme at a frutería on the way back from buying the thermometer. It was good Molly was helping with prep because my roomies were blissfully unaware of the cultural significance of roasting your first bird and it seemed like they were almost willfully getting in the way. In a kitchen that's barely big enough for two people to work, if they are working together. One roomie was assembling a fish tank and the other making frozen pizza as Molly and I wrestled both physically and emotionally with the raw bird. There was blood and feathers and it was all a bit too much for me. It was quite a comic scene really. We took to referring to the bird as she, and somehow that helped me deal with it. Anyway it turned out great. Just the right number of guests showed up with just the right amount of food and drink and cheer. We feasted and then we zoned out and it was good. One of the Spanish guests was hit with such a Turkey-coma that he was convinced that I had drugged the bird. Eating a Thanksgiving dinner on a Spanish schedule is the perfect recipe for calling it an early night, which we did pretty shortly after the meal.

Postmas

Christmas drags on and on here, and if Christmas day itself went pretty well the remaining 11 were kind of lonely. Luckily, my parents arrived on the night of January 5th the same night as the Three Kings, the traditional Spanish gift givers (though Santa is definitely sneaking in on their turf). It was great to see them, but the ensuing seven day whirlwind of tourism was exhausting especially since I was waking up on my parents' midwestern empty-nester schedule and going to bed on my roommate's crazy young madrileño schedule. I saw a lot of stuff I had wanted to see, ate at lots of great restaurants, and above all got to hang out with my folks.

It's good to get back to routine though. I'm starting to feel more connected to Alberto and Greg the new roomies. Last night they bent over backwards to help me finally get wireless on my computer, even after I got really impatient and almost yelled at them and went in my room and closed but at least didn't slam my door. But then it worked and we jumped and yelled and hugged and it was our first real sober bonding experience. I think Alberto and I are doomed to be perpetually slightly confused by the way one another do things, but luckily we both are willing to laugh at it. He will never understand the thrifty homemaker side of me, and I will never understand how he doesn't like vegetables! Ever! At all! Greg is just an incredibly chill, no worries kind of guy but not in an irresponsible kind of way.


It's already time to start thinking about next year too. How did that happen? I'm seriously considering another year here. I really like the work at school and in my private lessons, but it is starting to feel more and more like a real job. Then again the sooner I come back the sooner I have to get a real real job. The other top contender is Teaching Fellows in St. Paul, but I just realized that application is due in a week! yikes! No transcripts or recommendations yet though, so it's doable. Grad school is on the back burner because I missed the deadlines. This experience was partly intended to help me decide if I want to teach or keep studying linguistics, but really I'm still clueless, not that the two things are really mutually exclusive.

Noche Buena y Navidad

Christmas back in Madrid was not as depressing as I'd thought it would be. Partly because after the marathon of finishing up work at school, getting ready for Christmas, planning Lisbon and then actually travelling there it was good to have some time to chill on my own.

I got back to Madrid late on the 23rd and got some much needed sleep in my own bed. Then the afternoon of Christmas Eve I had to brave the grocery store. The only one that was open was the Corte Ingles, a huge department store cum grocery store that dominates two blocks of my new neighborhood. It was of course frantic as if some strangely decadent doomsday sect was stocking up on bombons and sparkling wine. That's how I felt anyway. Knowing eeeeeverything would be closed the next day I went a little crazy. Of course I need that brie... Oooo look at this giant sack of walnuts. But it wouldn't be Christmas without a little over-consumption.

It seems like Christmas Eve is traditionally the most important time, celebrated with dinner and midnight mass. I ate witha friend of mine from the English group at COGAM, Valdimir, and a couple of his friends. There was an incredible over-abundance of food, which Vladimir tells me is a Russian tradition. It reminded me a little of Christmas with the Polish side of my family where there is always too much food, but not quite that much too much. Maybe it's a Slavic thing. After dinner we skipped the mass in favor of drunken karaoke (is there any other kind?) and tarot card readings (my out look seems good, in case you're wondering).

I woke up late Christmas day. Slowly opened the packages from my family. Talked to them on the phone. Made myself a nice dinner. Watched Snakes on a Plane dubbed in Spanish, and called it an early night. Not the best Christmas ever, but not too shabby either.