Bragging Rights

Hello, all.

I thought it was about time for me to do some bragging. Ah, yes, bragging. I almost never brag because, well, it's a bit arrogant and not nice to listen to and I don't enjoy doing it. But, I thought I would. Just this once.

I've had quite a long love affair with the Spanish language. I was lucky enough to have world-concious parents who enrolled my brother and I into a Spanish immersion school as kids, which I just happened to love. I was also quite lucky in the fact that I was skilled at learning Spanish, I never found it especially hard to figure out how to express myself in a different language. Our family had the luck to host two Mexican TA's in our home, so I was practicing Spanish at home, seeing how to cook Mexican food and learning about their culture by seeing it in my home! That was a truly amazing experience for a kid, for me.

And then, here luck has nothing to do with it, I have always been extremely motivated to keep up my language skills, enough to keep chugging and chugging away at studying. I kept up with it throughout high school and decided to major in it in college. I studied abroad in the only program in Spain that was 100% Spanish (which took a lot of digging to find!), and soon after realized my life would never be the same without this absolutely lovely language. I suddenly found that if I didn´t speak Spanish for two weeks I started to feel a bit depressed, a bit sad. I would get headaches and get crabby. Then I'd sit down and speak Spanish, or pick up a book, and I would feel happy and free again. I decided that no matter where I was or what I did in my life, as long as Spanish was a part of it I would be just fine. And that became my new life goal. To keep Spanish in my life every single day, no matter what. And I've accomplished it.

My brother and I during our first trip to Spain, in a campsite in Barcelona.

After my study abroad experience I only did job searches for ones that had something to do with Spanish- and to my luck, once again- companies usually hired me first and paid me more for being a near fluent speaker. I seem to be crisis-proof both in America and in Spain for being biligual, not a bad deal in the end.

My last two years of college I started studying interpreting, a whole new challenge to add to my language skills. In those courses I started to realize that the two languages I spoke had always been very seperate in my mind, and I never had to think of language equivalents and the closest possible meanings of words... What a mess! Of course, this mess turned into a passion... now I love the challenge that comes along with interpreting and translating- it almost seems like a game to me- just a big fat play on words.

Anyway, in order to complete this interpreting certificate program, we had to have our language level assessed. I was given an ''Advanced Fluency'' level, the second best level out of a possible 9 levels. I was shocked. And proud. I got the highest score in my class. And, therefore, I thought I was at my peak and that there wasn't too much more improving to be done. (I can tell you that now I speak maybe twice as well as I spoke then.)

After graduating I applied for a TA job in Spain and got it. One year turned into two and two into three, and here I am.

I've been learning Spanish for almost 20 years. I've been taught by people from all over the world, from Mexico, Spain, Cuba, Columbia, Argentina... I've traveled to numerous Spanish speaking countries, getting an ear for different accents and vocabulary from all these different fabulous places. I worked as a medical interpreter. I interpreted for all different kinds of people from all different places with all different problems. I've had my eyes (and ears) opened throughout my whole life in ways that most people can only dream of... I've lived in Barcelona, Jaén, Gijón and Oviedo, North, South and East.

I can happily say that up til now I have lived.

I've been dating Pelayo for a bit over a year now, and my Spanish skills are now truly peaking. And I'm still learning! Since meeting him I've lived my day to day life in Spanish. I may teach English five days a week, but it's the only time in a week that I 'speak' English. I say 'speak' because I have to sepak slowly, control my vocabulary and constantly explain myself and, well, teach. In the end I don't speak English at all during the week. I don't have any American friends here, therefore I only speak English once a week when I talk with my parents or my friends via the best invention in the last decade: Skype.

Within this last year I have accomplished goals I was absolutely positive I would never accomplish.

1. Reading novels in Spanish without a dictionary and actually enjoying them.
2. Meeting someone, talking with them, and having them leave thinking I was Spanish. (OK this has only happened once, and because it was a really short convo, but it happened!)
3. Sitting at a table with more than three people and being able to follow a conversation- this is so extremely difficult, I can't even begin to explain. Now I can survive with a group of up to ten!
4. I can speak Spanish all day and not have a headache after. 

Goals to go? I still have to learn how to be witty in Spanish. I'm not quite there yet. And I'm not so funny yet, either. Although, I guess I don't know if I'm very funny in English either. And I still feel like I've got a ways to go to be able to express sympathy, gratitude and things like ''Merry Xmas'' and ''Happy Birthday'' and feel like I mean them. For some reason, those things come from the heart and my heart, in the end, speaks in English.

Yesterday my yoga instructor and a couple of people who go to class with me complimented me on my Spanish, ''Wow, it's just, your Spanish is so good! You sound like a Spaniard!'' A few days ago a friend of Pelayo's said, ''Estoy flipando! '' aka ''I'm flipping out! (Your Spanish is so good!)'' A couple of weeks ago, Pelayo's mother told me how much I had improved since she met me. Every time someone expresses their awe at my language skills, I swell up like a peacock. My feathers fly out and I smile for about ten minutes straight. Sometimes I flash back to all of my years of study and all of the time and effort I've put into learning this language, and it's so, so worth it.

I just love it.

Yes, more about littering

So, I hate to be a nagging brat about the whole littering thing, but the story continues. Hard to believe? Well, yes, it does.

I decided to take some advice from a comment an anonymous reader made on my first blog entry about littering ("The Joys of Littering") in which he/she stated that I should bring up the topic with my students and see what they had to say about it. Finding it quite a neat idea, I decided to do it. I took advantage of some extra free time in my classes yesterday after wrapping up a discussion about the American tradition of Arbor Day and the importance of trees in our every day lives...

I casually started off with a story, precisely the story I told you all about my brother's encounter with the strange sensation of littering in Spain, something he normally doesn't do in Minnesota. (You can read the full story in my entry "The Joys of Littering.") Upon finishing up the story I asked the provocative question which was "What's the difference between a twenty year old boy from Minnesota and a twenty year old boy from Spain in this situation?"

Their, surprisingly proud, response? "The Minnesotan boy cares about the environment more than the Spanish boy."

And so the conversation continued.

"Do you litter?" ... "Yes."
"Do you think it's okay?" ... "Yes."
"Do you think littering is a problem in Spain?" ... "No."

"Why do you think it's okay!?" The list of excuses was endless...
-Because the government pays people to clean the streets. If we throw away our garbage they will lose their jobs. (This was the most common thing that they said.)
-Because there are never any trash bins nearby. (An addition from two or three students: If I am on one side of the street with my friends and the bin is on the other side of the street, I am not going to cross the street to throw it away because then my friends will leave and I will have to chase them.)
-Because it's easier.
-Because the street is not my home. I don't have to take care of it.

I was shocked and awed. These comments came from THREE different groups of students aged 11 to 13. In every class, of course, there were a couple of the typical students who are always nice and thoughtful and smart who said they don't litter and think that it's very bad to litter- but the overwhelming response was listed above. They literally argued with me against cleaning up after themselves. And so, I found the problem. These kids have never been educated, neither by their parents nor by the education system, to take care of their town and of their planet.

I have decided on a punishment/lesson for the kids. Near to the school there is a huge field, a typical field that all the kids cross every single day to walk to school, and that is, of course, filled with garbage. (When I told them the street cleaners didn't clean their field, and what would happen to that field being full of garbage for so long, their response was, "It's not a big deal, the plastic will decompose and it won't harm anyone.") I have decided that although Earth Day has passed, we are going to have a belated Earth Day in which we will clean up the field... I don't know if schools are into that here, but I've already spoken with the head English teacher and next up is the headmaster. These kids are going to learn how to pick up garbage... even if it is from their American TA.

And then I'm going to show them this video... just to give them an extra dose of what I like to call "responsibility!"

The Proof of Littering

After posting my thoughts in "The Joys of Littering," I got a few negative responses from natives of Oviedo. They claimed I was being unfair and that I made Spaniards sound like a bunch of pigs living in a rotten pigsty... when I asked them simply, "Did I lie? Did I make something up?" They couldn't tell me otherwise... So I thought that I needed a bit of proof about the real problem of littering in this country.

A couple of weeks ago my mom was here for a week-long visit. I am pretty sure she didn't read my littering entry before her arrival... One day when I was at work and she was left wandering around Oviedo during the day, she ended up taking pictures of the garbage people left behind in a park.

She in fact felt so sickened by it all she had to leave the park and opt to spend her time shopping- the sight of ruined green public spaces was too much...A group of people were sitting around eating McDonald's in the park and just got up and left everything in it's place... then we all wonder why it's prohibited to sit on the grass in this park!

Ah, there's nothing like Pre-Roman architecture surrounded by garbage... Please take note that all of the pictures posted in today's post were taken within a span of a week.

And the last shot of the week, the what could have been more beautiful beach in the Gros neighborhood of San Sebastian, Spain. This sight actually spanned the entire beach line, and I have never seen anything quite like it...