Spanish Hospitality and Thoughts about Education

I know that it hasn’t even been a week since my last post, but I wanted to write briefly in honor of the compassion that has been shown to me this week by various Spaniards. I love the Spanish people so much, and I want to share a few anecdotes that I think encapsulate their amicability, selflessness, and wonder.

First of all, last weekend there was another enormous street protest, and my school, Carmen Martín Gaite, was granted the privileged position of heading the marchers. I went to support my teachers, and it was a riveting day. I saw some of my students there, one of whom stayed by my side for much of the march and introduced me to his entire family. I also spoke with many members of the staff and faculty of my school, not a few of whom expressed gratitude for my solidarity with them at this time. I walked the majority of the march with Ana, a woman who works in “orientación” (similar to a counseling office), her husband Ángel, and their daughter, Vega. Vega is an adorable three-year-old that I play with in English for a couple hours a week. When the protest was done, I went to get a fried-calamari sandwich with my co-workers. After the sandwich, I went out with Ana, Ángel, and Vega to a really relaxed and wonderful-smelling tea house. There we drank tea and talked about religion, politics, how societies organize themselves, and things of the sort. It was a profound, fascinating conversation, and throughout it I had the constant sense of having found true friends and caretakers here in Madrid, something that I don’t take lightly in a new culture and country.

Earlier this week, Ana made me “cocido madrileño,” a dish that does not really have an equivalent in the United States. It’s a delicious, savory broth that has chick-peas, carrots, and potatoes, and then you add different meats to the recipe, in this case chicken, chorizo (a pig sausage) and morcilla, which is a type of blood sausage whose description didn’t sound like something a former vegetarian would eat with alacrity but whose taste ended up being scrumptious. She also made a delicious salad with olives, tomatoes, capers, and such, and the meal was simply incredible. And of course, she sent me home with extras so that I could re-heat and enjoy leftovers. She and I have also had some really great talks about anthropology (her course of study at university), feminism, whether or not people living in first-world countries like Spain and the United States owe a social or economic debt to those in impoverished countries (especially when the impoverished countries were formerly part of an empire or a territorial property of the first-world country), and how to carry an attitude of wonder and novelty with you everywhere you go. I have felt so blessed to run across her and her family.

Another friend, Jesús from my swim team, is also as loving as can be. He is from Navarra, one of the northernmost regions of Spain, and after returning home from his native town this weekend, he wanted to make me a traditional Navarran dish. We ate “borrajas” (which my dictionary translates as “borage,” which I have never heard of, but which was a vegetable that sort of tasted like a mix of asparagus and celery) and a really nice cod, egg, and potato stew. Wanting to be polite, I had asked my co-workers what a typical Navarran dessert would be so that I could contribute to the meal, so I brought “buñuelos de manzana,” which translates more or less as “apple doughnuts” and which were a strange type of apple cut into large, thin slices, covered in a really good hint-of-lemon batter, fried, and then topped with cinnamon and sugar. Jesús and I ate like kings, and the whole meal was full of great conversation about finding direction in life, what qualities are important to develop in yourself and to look for in a mate, and other things. He is truly a remarkable man—he published a book about the geography and demography of Navarra before he got his PhD at Berkeley, and he is just incredibly warm, relaxed, and helpful. He, too, sent me home with some pickled red peppers that his mom made for him in Navarra and a tomato and green pepper sweet jelly that someone gave him that he is too afraid to try.

Things have also improved with Laura, the difficult roommate. She is just quite lonely and miserable, and when I realize that, I am not offended by her way of being and treating me. We haven’t had any mind-shattering conversations or heart-opening moments, but we’ve caught the metro together a few times, and I think all is well. Regardless, I feel more comfortable living where I do, and that is important.

I will tell you about one last great conversation I had this week and then I will ask for your input on the matter. On Wednesday, I had a free period in my work schedule, so I went with a teacher in another department at Carmen Martín Gaite to get a coffee and chat. He is one of two teachers to whom I give English lessons on Monday and Tuesday, so we know each other and feel comfortable talking deeply. Probably because I have been thinking about the topic so much, the education system and the goals of the entire pedagogical process came up as the subject matter of the conversation. He and I proceeded to have a lively talk about what is working and what is failing in education in Spain, in the United States, and in general. All of which leads me to my own soapbox where I will muse and pontificate…

Working in education is a thrilling and taxing job. I have fallen in love with my students and want nothing more than their well-being, their happiness, and their development into ethical, strong, loving human beings. It’s unbelievable how much you can care for your students. There is one who is occasionally difficult but adorable as a button and sweet as can be—he’s really small, wears glasses, and has awkward 12-year-old teeth with gaps and protrusions that adolescence and braces will probably smooth out. One teacher with whom I work told me that he is pretty socially isolated from the other kids because he doesn’t like soccer (which is truly a sin in Spain) and is small. Hearing things like this break my heart and make me realize how much I already care for these kids. Wanting what is best for them, I always wonder what the role of school is in their lives. They have to be at school six to seven hours a day, and kids in Spain don’t get a lunch or snack break. They move from class to class and are constantly reprimanded for talking in class, for not doing their homework, or for mis-conjugating an obscure English verb. Then they have physical education where they are all tested against a standard benchmark and given either a passing or a failing score. My tall, athletic boys pass with flying colors. My short, chubby boys fail and then feel terrible about themselves. And I hate seeing them go through that self-hatred, that social judgment, without an adult like me to tell them that failing at the horizontal jump doesn’t make them any less of a person.

Call me a progressive hippie, but I don’t think that the system prepares kids for what they need in life. As a soon-to-be 23-year-old, what do I need in life? I’m not 100% positive, but I think the best skills that I have or am trying to acquire or have the aspiration of one day acquiring are these:

1. How to take care of myself physically—how to choose healthy food and prepare it myself; how to find exercise that is both enjoyable and challenging; how to get enough sleep; how to make healthy choices about drugs, alcohol, and other substances
2. How to take care of the rest of myself—how to organize my time wisely; how to relax and enjoy life; how to use art, spirituality, friendships, and love to amplify my being; how to resolve my psychological maladies; how to integrate different parts of my being
3. How to relate to others—how to listen; how to be compassionate; how to understand cultural and personal differences; how to foster friendships and sexual/romantic partnerships

And so on. So while school was absolutely thrilling at times for a nerd like me, I feel like spending six to seven hours a day studying the Civil War, the Spanish subjunctive, how to do vibrato on the cello, and why adding neutrons to a nucleus doesn’t change the element’s atomic number may be a misappropriation of our precious time in life. Is there a way that school could be about learning how to care for yourself and for others? Could there also be a way for kids to identify passions and interests, like science, sports, or Swedish, and then run with those as their heart tells them to? Are we preparing our kids for the world with the education we give them? And are we merely reproducing the existing political and social structure with our education, or are we really considering what is best for each kid with his and her own needs, desires, abilities, and problems?

Let me briefly say that I absolutely believe in excellence and hard work. I also absolutely believe in intellectuality, mental curiosity, and intense study. I realize that probably for the majority of societies throughout the majority of history, children have been used as intensive labor for hours a day or have not even been given names until adulthood since the likelihood of their impending death given the childhood mortality rate meant that they might be a “lost investment.” I realize that school is a privilege, and that is why I want to do it right. So let me say that I find history fascinating and life-changing—just read Howard Zinn to see why history can change the world. I find chemistry astounding and mind-blowing—reading The Elegant Universe (more about physics, but you know what I mean) this summer showed me how science is at the heart of the question of what life is all about. I just don’t know if forcing these kids to do rote memorization for hours a day while they’re hungry and just thinking about the fight they had with their parents, or how they’re going to fit in with their friends, or what they’re going to do about their newly emerging sexual feelings might not be the best system. And I want to know what you all think, if you would like to share. Does the education system work? What do we want out of it—people that are generally smart and well-rounded? People that are happy? People that know how to work hard? Please share if you like. I’m fascinated by this topic.

I’m leaving tomorrow for my first Spanish travel-vacation to Barcelona! I look forward to it and will certainly write about my adventures when I return.

Exploring Madrid's Environs and Personal Growth

Madrid continues to be a city of endless wonders. For someone who is wild about history, language, food, and the arts, there is no better city in the world than Madrid, the vibrant and bustling capital of a fascinating country. (I realize that I am utterly unqualified to make such a bald statement, given that I have really only lived in 3 cities in my whole life, but I still think that Madrid would be hard pressed to find a rival in terms of culture and the arts--maybe London or Paris, but it's hard to say.) The past couple of weeks have been weeks of artistic indulgence, exploration, and general self-expansion. They have been thrilling in every sense of the word. Let me tell you first about some of the excursions that I have undertaken, and then let me describe the internal changes that I have been undergoing, as they have been some of the biggest of my entire life.



Last weekend, I caught a bus to a small town called Manzanares el Real that is still within the autonomous community of Madrid but that is not in Madrid proper. (It's actually quite close to Moralzarzal, the town where I teach.) Manzanares is known for the two castles that adorn its hillsides, a small nature reserve that it has, and a few other cultural and historical landmarks. Because I didn't have loads of time, I limited myself to visiting the "new castle," built originally in the 15th century and elaborated upon later. It is a stunning piece of architecture, and I was just overwhelmed with a sense of how incredible Europe is the whole time I was walking within its stony walls. The castle was almost entirely evacuated, too, since it's off the beaten path, so I took a long time walking slowly through its rooms and chambers, absorbing the vibe and appreciating the centuries upon centuries of European history that means instead of having a Wal-Mart down the street a Spaniard might have a castle that belonged to a duke in the adjacent property.  Can you tell that I'm something of a Europe aficionado? It was a great trip, and I will certainly be returning to the hamlet sometime soon.

I was also fortunate to visit another small town within the community of Madrid, Alcalá de Henares. This town is famous for being the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes, the world-renowned novelist whose magnum opus is indubitably El ingenioso don Quijote de la Mancha. I went to Alcalá with my co-worker, James, a Brit from a city just north of London who is also a teaching assistant at my school. He and I get along really well, so when he invited me to go out there with him to a medieval fair, I accepted. The words "medieval fair" made me think of a nerd-fest galore, where people speak in affected accents and wear gaudy costumes designed to look antiquated. The reality was much less awkward and more enjoyable--the small streets were packed with vendors selling desserts, candies, meats, breads, candles, trinkets, and other such goodies. There were random exhibits in the little plazas and town squares, such as a bird exhibit (I saw a real vulture and touched an adorably small owl!) and a man with a few large snakes wrapped around his body. We had an enjoyable time, and I ended up making friends with a few other people that James invited and going to a karaoke bar with them later that same night.

A couple of new friends--Mathieu and Wes, both from
New Brunswick, Canada

Within the confines of the actual city of Madrid lies an ancient Egyptian temple called the "Templo de Debod." Apparently, sometime in the last 50 years a series of large floods along the Nile threatened to wash away a valley of temples and ancient Egyptian buildings in Egypt and Nubia (northern Sudan). A few governments donated labor and money to help save these buildings from destruction, and to thank these governments, Egypt granted each its own temple. Apparently there is one in New York, one in Amsterdam, and this one, the Debod Temple, in Madrid. The temple is in a beautiful park that overlooks part of the city of Madrid, and the temple itself is fascinating with all of its engravings of the Egyptian pantheon (Osiris, Isis, Hoth, and such) and the various antechambers used for ceremonial religious rituals. As my family can attest, I have long held an interest in ancient Egypt, and it was great to be able to experience a part of it without suffering the political contention of the area today and without having to pay the airfare necessary to get me to Africa!

The Templo de Debod, transplanted from Egypt
to a large, sylvan park in Madrid

My culinary attempts have continued to be successful despite my treading in highly unfamiliar territory. Last weekend I made "cordero con garbanzos," lamb with chick-peas. I have never cooked or eaten lamb before, and I am happy to report that it turned out to be delicious! Because I couldn't find lamb at my local grocery store (called "Carrefour" and somewhat similar to Safeway, though different in some fascinating ways, including the fact that you have to weigh your own fruit and print your own price-tags for it, just as you have to bring your own bag and bag your own groceries once purchased), I had to go to a carnicería, or meat store, to find it. There I purchased a whole leg of lamb which was then sawed into pieces for me, wrapped in paper, and then placed in a plastic bag. Preparing the meal, then, as you can imagine, was a rather gory task--I had to take the cut-up leg out of a bloody bag, cut the meat off of the bones, then cut the fat and skin off of the meat. I thought it would destroy my appetite to see such macabre detail of a slaughtered animal (I pulled the marrow out of the bones and moved the lamb's knee joint!), but the meal ended up being delicious and worth the sanguineous process to get there.

I continue to love my job. Some of my kids, especially the boys, really love me, and it's a really gratifying feeling. I taught them a particular way to do a high-five that Laramie High School swimmers did, and they love doing it with me in the halls and on the playground. I have a few physical education classes with them, and so I teach them the names of bones and muscles, then run with them and stretch with them, and it's a blast. It's also flattering to have a bunch of people tell you how big, strong, and fast you are all the time. These 12 and 13 year-old kids always want me on their team because I'm "el grandón," the very big one. My female students are too shy to say much to me other than "hello teacher," but the guys love to talk to me. My favorite classes are physical education and social sciences. In social sciences, one group of my students is learning about human evolution and really struggled to pronounce the world "australopithecine." (Can you imagine why? I wasn't taught about Homo habilis or Homo erectus until biological anthropology my sophomore year, and these kids are learning it in their second language at age 12!). In another class we're studying the end of the classical period with the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages. The kids have to memorize technical terms used to describe the architecture of the Hagia Sophia as well as the names of the monarchs of the Carolingian Empire, for example. It's really tough, and I always tell them how smart I think they are. Some days are frustrating since some teachers are burnt-out, the students love to get attention and talk, and the bureaucracy slows everything down, but most days I have a deep sense of joy and satisfaction, and it sustains me.

Personally speaking, I had one of the most inspirational, transcendental, and crazy days of my life two weeks ago. In retrospect, the origins of the mental and spiritual change I underwent were probably in the works long before this day, but it all catalyzed in one moment that I think will leave me permanently changed. What change did I undergo, you ask? Essentially, I was overcome all day with the feeling that I don't really know who I am, and I don't really know what I want or where I'm going in life, but that I love myself, and I love my family and friends, and everything is beautiful. It was the strangest and most overwhelming feeling. It felt as thought I were drugged, or as if I had suffered a stroke or undergone brain surgery. On the one hand, I would almost use the words "confused," "lost," or "drifting" to describe what I felt. However, all of these words carry a pejorative connotation that doesn't do justice to the beauty of what I felt. I felt free, liberated, afloat, and optimistic. I went to the Centro de Arte Museo Reina Sofia that day, where many works of Juan Gris and Pablo Picasso are housed, and the beauty of the art added to the sensation to the point where I began to cry. I started crying when I saw "Guernica," Picasso's masterpiece that is a puissant call for pacifism and an end to the atrocities of war as he experienced them during the Spanish Civil War. I studied this astounding canvas in 7th grade with Mrs. Chamberlain, and I always wanted to see it in the original. When I saw it, I was overcome with a feeling of gratitude for the universe for having given me this opportunity and for Picasso for having used his talent to produce such power and pulchritude; with a feeling of pride for having studied hard and gotten myself to Spain; and with a feeling of the beauty of human life and the tragedy of the destruction and sorrow that we so often bring into it. The feeling continued, and I ended up sitting on a bench on an outside terrace of the museum and just crying tears of gratitude for my life, completely adrift though it may be.

I think that the sensation of being adrift is a pretty natural outcome of living in a new culture and living away from home, but even knowing that, the sensation is unlike anything I have ever experienced before. Everything that you are, including all of the ways that you define yourself, get challenged in a new culture, and it is a thrilling, if at times highly uncomfortable, feeling. Professionally, I feel open to many options but also feel as though I don't have the necessary criterion to decide between them. My list of passions continues to expand rather than diminish, which is great for me as a human being but not as ideal in the specialized economies that characterize the first world today. I see the value in many types of work and realize that I am still really lacking the direction that I need to make a decision about graduate school, professional school, and matters of the sort. The other big change that I am undergoing regards sexuality, romance, and love and the role that I want these parts of my being to play in my life. I feel open to everything right now, which is a beautiful feeling but also one that can make you lose your sense of self. I feel like I'm drinking the ocean--there is so much to see, do, and experience in it, but eventually it makes you pop. I popped two weeks ago, and I still think the pieces of my being are scattered about, not yet recomposed as a new person. The good thing about all of this is that, unlike what you would guess from my horrible ocean-drinking-and-popping metaphor, it's actually a glorious experience. I am overcome with waves (pun intended) of gratitude for life and love for humanity and nature almost on a daily basis. I know that I have a myriad of great options ahead of me professionally and romantically, and I was born as a wealthy white male, meaning I have privileges that most of the world can only dream of. I believe, consequently, that I have a responsibility to my fellow humans and to the fragile and magnificent natural environment that sustains us. How to fulfill that responsibility, however, while also filling my own cup and enjoying my own life, remains a mystery. But I honestly wouldn't have it any other way at this point. I'm young, single, and ready to do some tough self-analysis and questioning to find my place in this world. I've been reading and writing voraciously, in addition to talking with trusted people that I love both in Europe and America. I have also been mining TED talks, which are short talks (generally between 5-15 minutes long) in which brilliant, inspired people share ideas about business, politics, the meaning of life, art, and such. Seeing these people talk about their passions and the things they are doing for the world (one man found a way to recycle the plastic that ends up in dumps in developing countries, and one woman designed a burial suit that has toxin-destroying mushrooms in it to help decompose the body in an environmentally-beneficial way) lights my own passion and goads me on to find what I want to do and then to do it damn well and leave this world a better place because of my presence. Keep me in your hearts and prayers, please--I'm changing, maturing, and open to the universe!

Finding a Routine and Making a Life in Madrid

I can't believe that two weeks have passed since my last post. It's amazing how you can go from feeling like a complete tourist-outsider one week and then become fully integrated and even inured to a place the next week. For better or worse, I think that I am undergoing such a process. I am starting to experience what were once new and peculiar phenomena as a part of my quotidian routine, just another thread in the fabric of my daily existence. I am trying to maintain my glasses of "objectivity" (what I would rather term my glasses of American subjectivity), but they seem to be quickly giving way to what is just a new way of seeing things. My life in Spain is really becoming my life and not just a brief stint away from it.

Perhaps more than anything, my mental, internal life has been undergoing significant changes more than the life of my physical surroundings these past two weeks. One profound change has been my sense of what constitutes a language, the concept "bilingualism," and the idea of acquiring a mastery of a foreign language. I am embarrassed to admit it, but I will say that I came to Madrid with lots of unquestioned assumptions about languages. Let me list of few of the ideas about language that I believed.

1. That English, though not a "superior" language to Spanish or any other language, was still somehow particularly "rich" in its ability to express nuance or any different number of linguistic registers because of its enormous lexicon
2. That English was not only more difficult than Spanish to learn but that it was one of the more difficult languages in the world in general
3. That I would "master" Spanish within the year and begin to think in Spanish, dream in Spanish, and speak with the fluency, accent, and words of a native
4. That I would then move on to "master" French and then any other number of world languages--like German, Russian, or Arabic

Yes, to a linguist or anyone who has attempted the enormous feat of learning the language of another culture, all of these assumptions are laughable for being not only culturally-elitist and individually-haughty (I didn't realize how cocky I could be!) but also just flat-out wrong. My growing realization of the error of my thinking has come about primarily from three sources: 1) Being in a school where English is taught as a foreign language, thereby forcing me to examine my language objectively to see how it would be taught to a non-native speaker, 2) Reading two fascinating books by Jon McWhorter, The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language and Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of the English Language, and 3) Simply living in a culture where Spanish, and not English, is the lingua franca. Let me explain, again in bullet points because it helps me organize the still slightly inchoate thoughts in my head, what I am learning to be true:

1.  English is not a superior language to any other. Ever since the introduction of what linguists term the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis into the lay public's imagination, the theory has spread and thrived, despite it sheer wrongness. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis essentially contends that a language is a receptacle of its speakers' culture and that a language's grammar and vocabulary reflect and limit the worldview of that culture. This theory is the idea that the Inuit can see different shades of snow and therefore have 20 different words for it, or that Greeks experienced different types of love than Americans do, since the Greeks had both "agape" and "eros" and we only have "love." I won't disprove this theory here, but if you believe it like I think I did unconsciously, it's worth looking into and supplanting if for no other reason than because this sort of thing, the frontier where language meets culture, is fascinating. Though English is a rich language with an astounding literary history, it is essentially a totally bastardized version of German, stripped of many of its grammatical superfluities, infused with some Celtic, Welsh, and Cornish grammar, and then amplified with the vocabulary of the French Normans and many other cultures. It too was once a "lowly" tongue when Latin was the language of the educated and elite.
2. English has some parts of it that are terribly difficult while others are quite easy. The same is true for Spanish and likely all languages (though all languages are not equally complex, I learned from my two books). My students, for example, don't have to memorize difficult conjugational endings like an Anglophone learning Spanish does. They only have to put an "s" on the end of the third-person singular verb to conjugate a verb in the present tense: "I run," "you run," "she runs," "we run," "you guys run," "they run." Really simple. They also don't have to learn the subjunctive, any of the other difficult verb endings for different tenses, or the totally foreign concept of non-biological gender that applies to every noun (in Spanish all nouns are either "feminine" or "masculine" for what are completely arbitrary reasons in most cases). However, Spaniards encounter an orthographical nightmare when learning English since the spelling of our words does not always correspond with their pronunciation. They also come from a language with fewer vowel sounds than ours and have a difficult time making the words "bird" and "beard" or "ship" and "sheep" sound different, for example.
3. Mastering a language, it turns out, is such an involved process. Languages that have existed for awhile all acquire almost countless odd turns of phrase, idiomatic phrases, and grammatical constructions that would probably take a lifetime to master. I feel the weight of this every day in Spain. I learned that you only really use "guapo" for people, that "bonito" works for a beautiful place or thing, and that "bella" is very literary and lofty sounding. "Hermoso" is hardly used at all, I was informed here in Spain. So while I thought I had four synonyms for the same concept ("beautiful"), I learned that they each have their own register and their own connotation that dictates their use in conversation. The same is literally true for every word. So while I generally have no problems communicating, I am aware with every word that I am not speaking like a native would. I have dreamt in Spanish two or three times, and every time it is a dream in which I am incapable of rendering my thoughts into coherent Spanish. Suffice it to say that these dreams were much less gratifying than I imagined "dreaming in Spanish" would be. :) Fortunately, my public library has books explaining lots of idiomatic phrases and how to use "discourse markers" like "so," "well," "um," and such in Spanish ("pues," "bueno," "entonces," "vaya," et cetera), so I am marching forward with my desire to increase my competence in Spanish. I am still putting forth enormous effort to listen to the Spanish radio, work through my grammar books, read in Spanish and make vocabulary flashcards, and such, but I realize that all of my efforts will likely never give me the native fluency that I so desired before arriving. And that is okay.
4. If my brief time in Spain has taught me anything so far about my life and my professional aspirations, it has disabused me of the notion that I could be an effective multilingual interpreter. I think such a job is better left to someone raised bilingual from childhood who then undertakes to learn their already native languages formally and thereby concretizes their knowledge of their languages. So I have successfully taken "become a UN interpreter" off the list of potential careers! I will still continue to study new languages all of my life because I find them so riveting and rewarding, but I am now no longer under the false assumption that I can master these languages with ease and rapidity.

Alberto with Alfredo, his father, and Catalina, his mother

Getting away from the heavy and the technical matters of life and language, everything has been going really well here. I have been able to be in contact with Alberto, Laura's and my Spanish friend from high school, and that has been great. For about a week we were hanging out every day--I met lots of his friends, I had dinner with his parents (they wanted American food, so we went to TGI Fridays which, I hate to admit, tasted so good and reminded me of home), he showed me a famous soccer stadium, and things of the sort. He is very busy working in a business firm, though, so things have slowed down this week. He and I are planning on visiting Valladolid (his hometown) and Toledo (where his grandparents live) sometime in the future, though.

I purchased a Spanish cooking book and am going to use it to force myself out of my very American eating habits. To the best of my abilities, I have avoided the large-jawed fish in my supermarket and have stuck to turkey sandwiches, cereals, pastas, and lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. However, I don't want to leave Spain having merely reproduced my American life and habits here in this foreign country. So once a week I am going to cook out of this book, be it mussels, shellfish, ham, or squid. I may not come home having found a new favorite dish, but I will always have a repertoire of Spanish recipes and will not feel as though I didn't try my hardest to integrate in all ways into Spain's beautiful culture. Why not open my mind and my palate while abroad, eh? My first experiment was perhaps on the conservative side--"albóndigas en salsa," or meatballs in red sauce. Though it looks simple, the marinara-like sauce is actually a homemade mix of many vegetables that are softened then pureed into a thick and delicious sauce. It turned out marvelously, and I fed it to two of my roommates and a Fulbright friend.

The swim team continues to be incredible. I feel elated and powerful after practice as I catch the metro back home each night while listening to some feel-good music on my iPod. I have made good friends on the team and am particularly close with a 50-something named Jesús. He received his doctorate at Berkeley in sociology and teaches at a university here in Madrid. He is very brilliant but very down-to-earth, and he always helps me when I have a linguistic question since his English is so good. I have also begun to notice that our trainer, a stern and intense man named Daniel, has begun to warm up to me. He's a great coach who absolutely knows his swimming, but he can be a little spartan at times. However, I've gotten more "muy bien, Bob" comments lately, which has been gratifying. He also lent me a swimming technique book of his that I have been reading in order to help me improve my strokes. It's been a thrill.

Kelly at a business party, sipping a drink that has a rose-petal
in it. Also, notice all the peole in suits. I was way
under-dressed.

The roommate situation is still less than ideal. Laura is one of the hardest people to get along with that I've ever met. She got very upset with me for buying a little bucket to put our recycling in. I told her that she never had to take the recycling out, that I would always do it since it's a value of mine that need not cause her more work or stress. She said that she hated having to separate out her trash, so I got rather rude back to her and said that for someone who wants to be an orthodontist it didn't strike me as a very difficult task. Cheeky, I know, and not my most compassionate moment, but I can't believe the nerve of this woman. She is one of the most negative people I know. She drinks at least a liter of beer every night as she smokes in our kitchen. She feels no compunction destroying her roommates' lungs but insists that we deep clean random parts of the apartment every week. Suffice it to say that she's not my favorite person. Kelly, however, is a constant source of joy and relief. She is quite integrated into Spanish society and has let me piggy-back off of her social life, which has reaped great rewards, especially given that one of her friends is a 40-something business man who gets invited to promotional parties for rich people, invitations that he passes to Kelly and me. One of them occurred in a super ritzy hotel with a stunning view of Madrid, and it was an honor to be a guest at such a posh event.

My job is so rewarding, and it has been so pleasurable to discover a love of teaching. I love my students so much. They ask me questions like this all of the time (envision a thick Hispanic accent with all of this--make all of the vowels long and give the r's a slight trill): "Teacher Bob, have you girlfriend?" "Teacher, like you football? Which team is your favorite?" (All of my boys are passionate about football (soccer) and don't understand why I don't religiously follow the Real Madrid's games.) I teach in many different types of classrooms, including a couple of physical education classes, a music class, many English classes, and a few history and geography classes. Depending on the teacher, I am either used mostly to read aloud and to help with pronunciation or, in some cases, I am given much license and help to design and present the lessons. The teachers with whom I work are great people, and I see many budding friendships between the faculty and me. I am pretty tired, though, because I wake up before 7:00 AM to catch the metro and then the bus to my school, and I don't get back from swimming until after 11:00 PM (at which point I always cook an enormous meal after having burned so many calories in the pool!), so I'm still seeking a remedy for my exhaustion other than taking a siesta everyday which, though it sounds fun, just makes me feel groggy and sweaty, to be frank.

A photo of "deceased teachers" that I took while lying
on the ground outside Madrid's central plaza in Sol

Lots of public services in Madrid are undergoing privatization or are facing the threat of such. The public schools, for example, underwent large budget cuts this year, and at my "instituto" (high school, more or less), 8 teachers lost their jobs as a result. My teachers invited me to a protest against these budget cuts, and I attended. At the strike of 12:00 PM, everyone protesting collapsed to the ground while making moribund moans in order to symbolize the "death of public education." Teachers have been striking two days a week for the past couple of weeks, and in my school, this meant that 40 of the 50 teachers were gone on Tuesday and Wednesday! The strikes are very controversial among the teachers and have created schisms and factions. Some teachers refer to others as "esquiroles" (a pejorative term for a strikebreaker), while those who still come to school to teach think of their cohorts as not putting students first. It has been fascinating to observe this process, and though I don't have a sufficiently nuanced understanding of the underlying economics and politics to have a strong opinion about any of it, I merely hope it all works out for the best for Spain's citizens, economy, and general well-being.

All is well. I will try to update you all more regularly in the future. Can you believe I've been in Madrid a month already?