Madrid

Okay, I have a joke. What do you get when you cross a bossy Canadian, a Mexian thespian, a communist Belgian, and a smelly German? Chloe´s roommates!! Haha.

So Martin, the Mexian thespian, had some argument with his girlfriend, so in fact she is not going to come live with us. Therefore this means we remain a party of five for now. It also means that I am the only female in the flat. This also means I am the Alpha Female in the flat. This also means I am happy. Hehe. This way, I get to keep my own bathroom (though there is STILL the occassional incident with the toilet seat...I need to set up a hidden camera or something). No but seriously, this is great. I love being the only girl. I have lived for this opportunity my entire life I think. Boys are just so much fun a way girls are not. I can just relax with them and be a total geek, and they are geeks back. They all flirt with me, and I squeal with delight. Wel, all of them except for Andy the smelly German that is, who I would wager is still a virgin.

There are, however, a few drawbacks to being the only girl. For one, have no one to turn to for fashion advice. The other day I was taking in some pants because they´re too big, and I found myself going up to Simon and Martin and saying, ¨Hey boys..how does my butt look in these pants?¨ and turning around in a cirle for them, modeling my sewing job. Needless to say, they weren´t very helpful and answered with something like, Üh, fine?¨ I really need to get a hand mirror so I won´t have to ask questions like this anymore. Also, I really have to hold onto my bathroom rights with an iron fist. If I give them an inch, they´ll take a mile. True, there are four of them for one bathroom and one of me for mine, but my bathroom is microscopic while theirs is a nice size. Besides, girls have lots of girl stuff that they have to put in the bathroom. We need a lot of space.

Also, Andy the German, I don´t remember if I´ve mentioned this before, but seriously, he wreaks. He has the worste B.O. of any human being I have ever known. I don´t know what it is about him. His room is right by the entrance to the flat, so every time I come home, I am molested by his funk. It´s totally gross. It makes the whole apartment smell. It´s so weird..I mean, I never wear deodorant and I only take a shower like every three days, yet I don´t stink. Andy, I see him leave the bathroom after taking a shower, hair still wet and everything, and he STILL SMELLS. I really don´t understand how that´s possible. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he only has like two shirts and one pair of jeans that he wears every day. I don´t know. But it´s gross. But still, he´s an okay guy, though rather timid and kind of boring. We watch Operacion Triompho together sometimes, which is the Spanish American Idol. Muy bien!

But I do like my boys, every one. They are all weird in ther own sort of way. I´m sure they think the same about me too.

My Spanish is coming along nicely. Todos las dias, entiendo un poco mas. I´m beginning to feel that pretty soon here, in a few months, I´ll really be kind of okay with the language. I´ve had a few interactions with Spanish people in Spanish, which is always very exciting. Last weekend I met this Spanish girl in line for the bathroom at a bar, and the line for the girls´ was really long, so we went in the guys´ bathroom instead. ¨Esta una chica aqui!¨ she said when I was in the stall and somebody would try to come in. It was really funny. And the other evening I was walking to Emily and Cara´s and some dude asked me for a light for his cigarette and I gave it to him. Sweet. It´s all about the little victories.

And the teaching is coming along nicely too. Still need more hours, of course, but I am up to a livable wage now, though on a VERY TIGHT budget. I´ll probably get a few more hours though, which would be better. I like all of my students. They´re all different, but they´re all interesting. I just wish I didn´t have to trave around so freaking much.

Eva and Laura are two eight year old girls from different families who are taking the class together. They are pretty smart, pretty energetic, sometimes TOO energetic. Being eight, their English is very basic, so they often don´t undesrtand what I´m saying, but after my experience in my Spanish class, I really think this is a better way to learn. I´ve been teaching them the parts of the body. The other day I brought in a picture I drew of the body with all the parts labeled. My picture, of course, was very basic and lacked any, shall we say, details. Eva, however, took it upon herself to make the drawing anatomically correct. What are you supposed to do as a teacher in a situation like that? Me, I just kind of ignored it and deftly avoided teaching them those vocabulary words.

I also have a class with Ana, who is twelve, and her little sister Marie Paz (pronounced Path), who is eight. I teach them separately because they are at different levels. I am also teaching Paz the body parts. The other day I was standing in their living room, singing ¨Head Shoulders Knees and Toes¨with Marie Paz, doing the hand motions to go along with it. Suddenly, I had a surreal moment. I had to stop and think to myelf, ¨What the fuck am I doing? I´m singnig Head Shoulders Knees and Toes with an eight year old Spanish girl in her living room...how did I get here?¨ Luckily, the moment passed quickly, and I continued on with the lesson without missing a beat.

Eduardo is an eleven year old boy whom I also have a class with. I´ve had him for a few weeks now, and I still don´t think he has ever looked me in the face. He is very shy, and always turns away from me. He´s very smart though and always understands eveything I´m explaining to him. He knows a lot for only being eleven. I just wish he wasn´t so shy with me. I´m afraid he might be in love with me. I was telling Simon about this, and he said, ¨I think I would have loved to have a nice, twenty something American girl come to my house twice a week to teach me English when I was eleven. Maybe I would speak English better.¨ Perhaps, perhaps.

Paloma and Lucia are two twelve year old girls that I teach. They are kick ass. They remind me of myself when I was twelve, I don´t know why. They aren´t geeks, but they don´t seem like the cool kids either. Somewhere in the middle. They don´t know as much as Eduardo I don´t think, but I can definitely teach them. I enjoy our biweekly pow-wows.

Juan is my oldest student so far, though I´m getting some business people next week. Juan is studying for this English speaking certification test, so he really has a high level. He´s twenty two. He is also rather attractive. Eheeh. Needless to say, I enjoy teaching his classes. Last Wednesday I arrived at his place for class right on time at 7:45. I ring the buzzer, he lets me up, I get to his apartment. Juan comes to the door in his bathrobe. It turns out he is still in the process of showering, and he had to hop out to open the door for me. Was this awkward? Perhaps a tad. I go into his room (where we hold class) and sit down on the bed to wait for him (I sit on the bed because the room is very small and the table work at is covered with stuff.) Of course, wouldn´t you know it, Juan has forgotten to take a clean pair of underwear with him into the shower, so he has to come out again and fumble around in his dresser to get a pair while I pretend to not know what he´s looking for. He was trying to be all discreet, but it was pretty clear what he was getting. ANYWAY, after that, the lesson continued on as usual and everything was fine. It was pretty freaking funny though.

After being a student all my life, it is kind of interesting to be on the other side. I now know the answers to many questions all kids have about their teachers:
Question 1: Do teachers like some students bette than others?
Answer: Yes.
Question 2: Do teachers talk about their students behind their back and bitch about the bad ones to their friends?
Answer: Oh yea.
Question 3: Do teachers make fun of their students?
Answer: Yes.
Question 4: Are teachers ever attracted to their students and/or have sexual fantasies about them?
Answer: Yes, yes they do indeed.

In other words, I´ve discovered that teachers actually ARE people. I suspected this all along I guess, and being friends with Angus definitely increased my suspicions, but now I know first hand that yes, teachers DO have lives apart from their students and they don´t live in the classroom and they don´t disapear and reappear only when you have class. So if you were wondering about that, there you have it. Straight from the horse´s mouth.

Nothing too heart racing has happened since my last message. Last weekend was pretty mellow. Andrea, Cara, Emily, and their friend Richard came over and we drank Fanta Limon with red wine and played Scrabble. My kind of people. On Sunday I went to thepark with Andrea to watch some people playing capoeira, so that was cool. Afterwards there was a big drum circle in the park. It was very Folklife-esque. Just a bunch of people around in a circle, kind of by this roman cathedral type outdoor structure, playing the drums. Pretty cool. I like Andrea´s capoeira friends and I like to hang out with them, but they moslty only speak Spanish. It´s kind of odd that I do actually enjoy being there anyway, but I do. Sometimes it just doesn´t matter that much that you can´t understand if you can tell a person has a good heart. Besides, I hope pretty soon I´ll be able to start understanding them pretty well, and perhaps even speaking to them myself!

I´ve been taking my Spanish class for about a week now, and it´s really been going pretty well. I feel like I have the potential to learn a lot from it. The teacher speaks only in Spanish, which was kind of scary at first, but I´m getting used to it. In the long run, I really think it´ll be better for me, this method. So far I´ve been pretty good keeping up with studying on my own, and as long as I continue, I feel like maybe I can actually learn this language.

I´ve started teaching, though I desperately need more hours. Right now, I only have kids, mostly one on one or two on one. Some of them I like, some of them seem like they could´ve just fallen off the stupid bus. Well, that´s probably a little harsh. It´s just hard to be trying to talk to an eight year old who barely knows the colors and numbers and have her understand me. Ugh. I really want some older people. I will hopefully get more classes next week. The school I´m working for is SUPER disorganized and also understaffed, so they´re having a time assigning people to classes, though the work exists. I´m really hoping within a week or two I´ll be up to 20 or 25 hours. I need some denero, if you know what I mean.

The annoying this is though that yes, I´ll be working 20 or 25 hours of paid time a week, but I´ll actually be spending more like 30 or 35 hours a week travelling to and from classes and teaching. Because I go around to different people´s houses to teach the courses. So I´m spending hours and hours riding around on the metro. Oh well. It gives me time to practice my Spanish. And on top of the 35 hours I´m going to spend working, I´m also going to spend maybe another 5 or 10 hours preparing classes! Plus the ten hours a week I have my Spanish class. So I´m going to be BUSY.

Last Tuesday there was a Canterbury English fieldtrip thing to El Molar. It´s this town about 40 kilometers outside of Madrid. It was some dude´s birthday who the director of the school knows, so we kind of went to his party. Before we headed out for the day we had breakfast in this little restaurant in the town. The menu of course was all in Spanish. I don´t know how I manage to do this time and time again, but I always seem to order the most nasty thing possible when I have only a menu I can´t understand. This time, it wasn´t entirely my fault. I had what I wanted to order all planned out -- stuffed peppers or something. But then the guy said they were out of it. So, I had to quickly decide on something else. All flustered and panicked, I looked down and the menu and ordered the first thing I saw -- heuvos y morcillo. Huevos y morcillo turned out to be eggs with blood sausage. Not a good combination. It looked something like runny yellow liver. I managed to choke some of it down, and then after breakfast went across the street to the grocery store and bought some cookies instead.

After this harrowing breakfast experience, we all went to this grape vineyard to pick grapes. That was kind of fun..It was a really nice day and the jokes about the ¨bushes¨ just never got old. Later we went to the restaurant of the guy whose birthday it was and had lunch, a very carnivorous selection of pork and beef products. They also had an open bar. An open bar all night long. Bueno. So we had lunch, chatted, drank wine. Later they poured all the grapes we had picked on the floor, and we all went stomping around in them in bare feet with our pants rolled up. I felt like I was in that I Love Lucy Episode. I was getting pretty into the stomping, probably aided by the four or five glasses of wine I had already consumed. I´m actually pretty amazed I didn´t fall on my face.

After the grape stomping, the evening continued on much in the same way with live music, an open bar, and lots of dancing. Basically, I was drunk from two o´clock in the afternoon until 12 o´clock at night. Woa billy. Eventually we caught the bus back to Madrid and I went to sleep. I actually made it to Spanish class the next day, though I was kind of groggy.

That was probably the most interesting thing that happened to me all week. There has been some more roommate drama going on in my life though. My Spanish roommate Cristina, you might recall, had been in Toledo for the past month. She came back to Madrid last week, and I thought she was here to stay for the school year. But actually, she´s dropping out of school and going back home to Toledo! I have no idea why...She does have issues, the only visible one being anorexia, and I don´t know what else. Obviously, there´s a lot of stuff going on in her life. So, to replace her in her room, we´re actually getting TWO people, who are going to share the room. A couple from Mexico. I don´t know how I feel about this. I´m a little annoyed because my apartment is really small and having two more people is kind of a squeeze. Also, the whole idea of a ¨couple¨ is potentially annoying. But I met the dude and he actually seems potentially really cool. He speaks English, which is a bonus, but of course also speaks perfect Spanish, so we can all practice our Spanish on him. He´s actually an actor, and he said he´s been in some plays and even some movies back home in Mexico. He´s in Madrid to study his craft. His girlfriend is still in Barcelona and she´ll be coming here in a week or two I guess. He said she has a job making jewelery or something, which is also potentially cool. I´ll have somebody to be crafty with! :-) So..my knee jerk reaction to this new situation is to be annoyed, but it might actually turn out to be cool.

My apartment situation is actually pretty great. I wasn´t so sure about my roommates at first, but now I like them pretty well. Simon and I have come to a quiet understanding. We talk and joke and hang out a lot. He has stopped being quite as bossy with me, and I´ve stopped picking at him so much. The other night, it was so funny -- I was in the living room (which is tiny) sitting on our new couch, watching tv and looking at one of my teaching books when Simon comes home. Apparently he had eaten a bad kebab (not hard to imagine) and his stomach wasn´t feeling well. He tries to go to bed. A few minutes later, Pierre comes home. He wanders into the room, slightly drunk, and we start having a conversation. Simon meanwhile has to throw up because of the bad kebab, and I guess after that he feels better. He too wanders into the room, wearing nothing but his little underpants, and sits down on the couch next to me. ¨Normally, you would have to pay for this!¨ he says, as he lounges, legs casually crossed, with his cigarette in his hand. Ëw! I say. It was just so funny -- it shows how far we´ve come as roommates. Simon used to be embarrassed if I saw him in his underpants and try to hide it from me. But not anymore. We ended up staying up till like 3:30 in the morning talking about relationships and sharing war stories. Good times, good times.

It´s true. Somehow, I manage to make the things most banal seem most interesting. It´s a gift I have I guess. Well, not that those things I´ve been writing about haven´t been fun, but what I don´t talk about are the nights I´ve lied in my bed crying, wanting more than anything just for my mommy to call me. Or SOMEBODY back in the world of reality, anybody. And I don´t talk about the nights I´ve spent sitting alone in my apartment watching Castaway or Wild Wild West dubbed in Spanish by myself and feeling like a total loser. But..these type of things are getting fewer and farther between I guess. I´ve started working, but not full time yet. My savings is rapidly depleting. I am TRYING to be zen about it and not stress about the money thing too much, but it´s the word on everybody´s lips these days..my friends at the school are in the same boat as me basically. The school is REALLY disorganized. They have a lot of classes available but they are taking their sweet old time assigning them to teachers. And it´s annoying..I´ll only be working 20 or 25 hours when I´m full time probably, if I´m lucky, but I´m actually probably going to be spending at least two hours or more in the metro every day, traveling from class to class. Most of my classes are one on one actually, and I go around to different people´s houses, so I´m always in and out of the subway. And right now I only have kids. Some of them I like, some of them are dumb or boring. Plus, I´m going to be spending another 10 or 15 hours a week planning lessons, PLUS I´m taking Spanish 10 hours a week. So I´m freaking BUSY. I already feel pretty busy and I´m only working 9 hours. I had to give up one of my classes because of a fucking scheduling problem that wasn´t my fault. Mother fucker.

So anyway, it´s not all sunshine and roses. In general, I´m happy..well, I don´t know if I´m happy actually. I don´t know what the alternative is..I´m in general having more fun I think than living at home with my mom. But if I weren´t here, I might be living in Portland, and that would probably be super fun too. But it´s not as *exotic* as Spain I guess. I do like the country. The people are pretty nice. My roommates are an eclectic mix but somehow, it works. I wish I could speak the language, but my Spanish class seems to be going pretty well so far. I will feel better once I´m out of the hole though money-wise.

I feel like I´m progressing, I suppose, but the job thing is not so secure. I could advertise myself for private classes around town, but that just seems like such a pain in the ass. I want the school to take care of it. I must be progressing, though I don´t exactly know how. I mean, I must be growing as a person, but I can´t quite tell yet. I don´t think I´ll really be able to tell till I have some distance from it. I still make stupid mistakes with people..I´m still too shy for my own good and miss opportunities because of it. I keep PLANNING to change that and it keeps not happening! So I´m still frustrated, mostly with myself. I still feel pretty lonely, even when I´m with people.

What I´m doing here doesn´t even seem that difficult to me. I mean, whenever I´m the one who´s doing something, it doesn´t seem that hard or unusual, know what I mean? Like, yea, I´m teaching English in Spain, what´s the big deal? If I´m doing it, it doesn´t seem like it can be that hard for anyone else to do it.

So I guess this message is equally positive and equally negative. Perhaps leaning a bit towards the positive side. No matter what happens, what I´m doing will be an experience I´ll remember forever. I still don´t know how long I´m going to do this...at least through the school year. If I decided to do it for another year, which is a distinct possibility at this point, I was thinking I might come home for the summer and work. That would probably work out well actually. But I´d be so freaking bored at home..then I´d REALLY have no friends left in town. I would rather live in Portland I think with my friend Bethany or something, or somewhere else besides with my mom. But who knows..I guess that´s a long way away.

I am feeling very sexually frustrated at the moment. I think my sexual frustration can actually be graphed mathematically as a function of how much chocolate or sweets I consume per hour. I´m afraid it´s reaching critical mass..which means I might be too soon! Ahh! :-) No.. I think more than longing for sex I´m longing for intimacy actually. I mean, I have some friends here and stuff, but I don´t know any of them that well at all yet, you know? So it´s just hard...Ugh. There are so many cute boys around, but I just can´t manage to close the deal. I keep fucking it up somehow. But then again, why should it be all on MY head anyway? They´re the ones who really should be trying to close the deal with me, not the other way around. Where´s the Spanish machismo I´ve heard so much about??

I keep telling myself it´ll come, it´ll come, you´ll find your niche...I´m sure I will. I mean, it HAS only been about a month, though it feels like six. I started taking Spanish classes today and I hope that goes well. I´m starting teaching in earnest next week. So far I´m only working like eight hours a week, but that will go up soon (hopefully!) until it reaches about 20 or 25. I need some money, yo. The way this school works is that they provide a lot of private classes to different people, so I´m going to be going around to different people´s flats or offices to teach them. So with the travel time, my work week will be more like 30-40 hours really, plus class prep time. I think I´ll enjoy it though. MOst of the classes are small, one on one or two on one, etc. I´d kind of like to get some larger ones, actually. I think it´d be more fun. Right now I´m only teaching kids, no adults. That´s kinda weird..I mean, like we´ve talked about before..I´ve never really had any experience with children. NOw´s my chance! I think it could be fun actually, get in touch with my inner child. :-) What am I talking about..I still feel like a kid myself. BUt I´m NOT, and that´s weird. I bet you´re feeling the same way, eh? I actually am starting to feel a little bit more grown up. I mean, I have my own place, soon (hopefully SOON) I will start making some semi-decent money, or at least enough to survive, and I´ll just be out here, working, hanging, doing my thing. Weird! I´ve also been meeting some slightly older people, like in their thirties, and hanging out with them, which still feels kind of odd to me, but less and less so every day.