Land of the Free, Home of the Brave

“Do you like Obama?”

After an hour of wading through complex manifestations of grammar rules and stating more than a few times that yes, I’m “from” Arizona (but it’s a dry heat), someone in my English classes will inevitably ask me this question. Whether it’s the older woman with the bad teeth trying to keep up with the changing times or the grease ball with the pierced ear trying to impress me into his cama, the whole class turns and stares at me with bated breath. Usually, I avoid this question by asking them, “Well, how do you feel about Zapatero?” which earns me a few laughs (to give you a clue as to the Spanish president’s general popularity, every time he comes on the news my Spanish dad draws a finger across this throat and tells the TV screen to “go away”).

I’m supposed to say, “Yeah, I love him! Way better than that Bush idiot!” But that’s not entirely the truth, and if I don’t love him then I must hate him, which makes me one of those gun-shooting, hotdog-eating lunatics they can’t bear to share the world with--someone I’m supposed to hasten to apologize for. I know what they want me to say. Me, the lone American girl standing in an English language classroom that has room for a Welsh dragon but not an American flag--I’m supposed to apologize for being American. Like it’s some sort of handicap or something.

This past month, eager to make friends and eager to be accepted in the European community, whenever the question of my essential American-ness came up, I’d just turn the appropriate shade of red shuffle my feet saying, “Yeah seriously, Americans can be so ignorant, and fat, and...” mumbling off, letting the other people in the conversation take over with the depreciating comments--insult after insult rolling off of me because well hell, Americans really are ignorant and fat, and who cares as long as these three Spaniards knew I was the exception?

Then I realized something. Listening to my peers make the same excuses started to really bother me. I felt like that recently-cool kid sitting at the jock table listening to his new friends bash all of his old ones, throwing in a lame “Hey, come on you guys, he’s not really that bad,” every once in a while. 

The Obama thing, for example. I was walking through town with two American girls and we were talking about some of the differences between Spain and the US, and one of them says, “Spain is just so much better! American politics are fucked up.” To say that this sweeping generalization rankled...Well, let’s just say that after a fortnight of watching Egyptian riots and countless other examples of actually “fucked up” political situations, yeah. It rankled. Sure, maybe our bipartisan deal isn’t the best system ever, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that it’s a hell of a lot better than a lot of other places I could name.

What happened to sane patriotism? When did we become this bipolar nation of gun-waving crazies and whimpering, self-depreciating pansies? It sort of makes me sick. Yeah, I’m American--I waste a lot of natural resources in my quest for material comfort, but I also like living in a place where smiling at people in the street is a common courtesy and not a sexual advance (that was an interesting lesson). I like living in a place where blatant racism is not an acceptable social mechanism. I like living in a place where ambition is a virtue. Christ, I like living in a place where saying you’ll show up at two means two and not three forty-five. What’s wrong with a little national pride? I mean, I’m not about to start marching around the streets of Spain with an American flag tied around my neck and my nose in the air, but it would be nice not to have to feel like I’ve committed some crime by just being from the United States every time I meet a new person.

So about Obama--do I like him? The last time someone asked me, I told him that yeah, I thought he seemed like a pretty cool guy. He's charismatic and has a soothing presence on air, which is something I thought the American people needed after George Bush, and as to his policies, I couldn’t really say--I agreed with him on some issues and not on others, and anyway, the United States is governed by a careful system of checks and balances, which serve to ensure that not too much power goes to just one man, so to ask if I liked Obama...

Right about there I looked around and noticed that my students were all staring at me in various stages of miscomprehension, some of them nodding politely while their neighbors just frowned, waiting for me to say a simple “yes” or “no.” It was then that I sighed and made another joke about Zapatero. Hey, what can I say? I’m just an American, anyway.

(Here's a picture that came up when I googled "Patriotism." Enjoy it, you "fucking hippie fagot.")

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Alright, guys. This actually has very little to do with Spain, but it’s kind of a big deal for me right now, so I’m going to write about it anyway.

I CUT MY HAIR!!! :D

Before (with my best Dissatisfied-Before Face):                       AFTER! :)

Yes, I’m sort of surprised, too. Ever since the Hair Dye Fiasco of 2010, I’ve fantasized more or less daily about hacking into my treacherous mane with a Pampered Chef butcher’s knife. I could practically feel the liberation from patriarchal society and bad dye jobs just thinking about it--and then I’d think of a million other things that would prevent me from taking the plunge. What if I hated my haircut even more than I hated my bleached ends? What if this blow to my self-confidence caused me to start off on the wrong foot in Spain and I felt like a young eighth grader struggling through the trenches of puberty and algebra again? What if people thought I was a lesbian? What if--gasp--guys didn’t like me anymore?

After coming to Spain and feeling like a young eighth grader struggling through the trenches of puberty and algebra again anyway, I realized something very important. I got in front of my mirror and, putting on my best Rhett Butler face, pointed significantly at my reflection and rumbled, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!” Okay, well, I didn’t actually think about channeling Clark Gable until I sat down to write this blog entry, but it seemed appropriate--in reality, it was more of a slow realization over a series of weeks filled with growing apathy towards my natural inclination to please people. 

I suddenly realized that I just didn’t care if people thought I was a lesbian, because A) whatever, that’s not even an insult, just a false statement, and B) nothing people say about me will change the way I actually am. I can’t wait to use this little gem from Remember the Titans if someone starts mumbling that it’s not important, but... : “If it doesn’t matter, what’s the big deal?”

On the same note, I realized that I really, REALLY  could care less what the male population (especially of Spain) has to think about my hair. I’m at that point where I honestly, truly could care less about being in a relationship with anyone, let alone someone who makes me feel like a Dallas Filet in a pair of high heels. If someone wants to prove me wrong and startle me out of my anti-men rampage, then dammit, he shouldn’t care what my hair looks like anyway. 

As for not knowing if I’d like the end result or not...well, I didn’t like my current curtain of brassy blonde locks either, so even if I hated it, at least it was a change. I finally decided to it the other day when I was talking for the millionth time to a classmate about “thinking about” cutting my hair but how I thought I would miss the feel of my long hair on my back, and he said, “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you with your hair down!”  Somewhat incredulously shocked, I went home an hour later and started flipping through my pictures from Spain. Get this: out of 235 pictures, I only have my hair down in three of them. THREE. All I could think was, what’s the point of having long hair if I’m just going to be throwing it in a stupid bun everyday, anyway?

With the help of my short-haired-maverick friend Kate, I grew the balls to make an appointment at my host-mom’s favorite hair salon: a one-room deal 30 feet away from our house which my host-dad describes as “only being able to fit four people at one time.”

Kate and I walked in five minutes before my appointment time, which startled the perpetually-late Spaniards who apparently hadn’t been expecting me for another hour at least because that’s how long we had to wait for the one-woman act to get done with her other customers. Despite the fact that there were now five people in the small purple room, the women all stuck around to see the end result of my hair after they heard what I was going to do to it. “Qué lástima, qué lástima,” they kept muttering--what a shame! Still, the one getting her roots touched up was on my side, insisting that “anything goes these days” and that it would look better with my face. Mediterranean-style, they all insisted on participating, throwing in their two cents whenever possible:

“What a shame!”

“No, woman; it’s going to be very stylish, look at what the kids are wearing these days!”
“You should braid it first before you cut it if you want to save it.”

“Like this?”

“No, braid it at the bottom of her head!”

“Yeah, but the top might get more strands.”

“But the bottom will be longer!”

[After the first chop] “Oh how stylish! You should just keep it that way.”

“What a shame!”

“No, woman, let her do what she wants!”

“Such healthy hair!”

“What a shame!”

Eventually, though, even the one with the cross-dressing dog (notice how the poor thing even has to wear pants) approved of my choice. Despite the language barrier (which I somehow managed to leap over gracefully several times, remarking how much I resembled a hedgehog with bristly hair) I left the shop feeling more bonded to my hairdresser than I ever had before. 

I still feel like something’s missing when I move my head around, but it really does feel liberating instead of sad--at least for the moment. If anything, I’m feeling a lot less regret than I thought I would at this point. I love it, and I think this is the final step I needed to take to finally, actually realize that I don’t really care what people think.

To conclude, here are a few things I’ve learned:

1. Do what you want and to hell with the rest.
2. Follow your instincts, things usually turn out okay. Even if your instincts tell you to dye your hair red and you spend a year trying to get back to normal, you’ll eventually realize that it’s just your life telling you to let go stop caring so damn much about physical appearances--it might even help you experiment with a new hairstyle you’d always dreamed about but never imagined pulling off!
3. I have a HUGE cowlick on the back of my head that kind of makes me look like a cross between these two gentlemen:

 and

http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lekys0Tj7X1qan0hfo1_500.gif

Basically, though, I needed this life change and I love it. More on Spain in posts to come, I promise!

“...And Those Who Can’t, Teach.”

For those of you who don’t know, this week was my introduction to teaching English as a foreign language. I signed up with the director of my study abroad office to volunteer once a week each at both this elementary school on the outskirts of town and at the Alicante School of Languages, which is about a ten minute walk from my house. 

How did it go? Well. As the the Spaniards say: “¡Madre mía!” which translates in this case as “Christ, I had no idea nine year-olds were so freaking annoying.” I had no idea what to expect when I walked into the classroom, but when I stepped across the threshold I suddenly realized something that should have been very obvious: I had to actually teach  the little monsters, and all I was equipped with was a map of the United States. The kids’ usual teacher had no sympathy. Her battle-hardened eyes grazed over the panicked look in my eyes and she said, “Twelve at a time should be okay, shouldn’t it?” I nodded stupidly and took a dozen of the screaming children to the library with me. I seated them around a table and passed out the maps of the US I had and they immediately launched into a million questions, probing my defenses like I was just some substitute teacher and not an honorary native of the English language come to give them the gift of my inspiring presence. They asked everything in Spanish despite this being their slotted time to practice English:

“Do you like Spain?”

“George, shut up, she probably doesn’t even know Spanish.”

[Giggles]

“How many siblings do you have?”

“How old are you? I bet you’re at least 36.”

[Giggles]

“What is this a map of? Where’s Spain?”

“I can see Texas!”

“Sandy’s from Texas.”

“George, shut up! She doesn’t know what Spongebob is.”

[Giggles]

I seized the brief pause in questioning and cleared my throat authoritatively. “Actually, I love Spongebob! He’s square, has holes all over his body, and he’s--”

“YELLOW!” screamed one small girl in English.

I could have kissed her. “Yes, yellow! Very good. What about Patrick, what color is he?”

And so it went for the next half-hour, the map laying forgotten on the table as we spoke of American cartoons and I astounded them with crazy facts like, “Yes, children--in the United States, Spongebob is on the TV in English!”

The next group was a little more...difficult. I think that their normal teacher saw how much the first group of children learned to appreciate my extensive knowledge of Spongebob and laced the next group’s juice with speed, just to spite me--we are in Europe after all, maybe that sort of thing is accepted here. Anyway, the point is, the next group of children walked in and I could immediately tell that...well. Every class of students at every age is split into the “good, smart, gifted children” and the “accidents of birth who probably get too much sun.” I was now gifted with a half-hour session of trying to teach English to the second half of the class, and they were not so easily won-over by my Spongebob name-dropping. We pulled out flashcards of the vocabulary they were learning, and I’d ask them, “Can you...?” and they’d scream out the activity presented on the card, i.e. “SWEEM! I cahn sweem!” 

It was a good exercise for most of the class. If it weren’t for the special students, the ones who would be stuffed with meds for ADHD in the United States once they learned how to walk--if it weren’t for them, we might have gotten through the activity. This one boy, though, was determined to undermine my authority. He had a little Euro Trash rattail and a devilish look in his eye that I suspect got him everything he wanted at home and made all of his teachers miserable. Every time I’d hold out a flashcard, he would ignore the neat little drawing of the man playing tennis and scream, “I can chorizo,” causing the rest of the class to erupt in cacophonous laughter. It quickly got out of control. I tried reminding them that we were in the library and had to be quiet, but they ignored me so I took a book from the shelf behind me and slammed it down on the table, which produced a stunned silence that lasted for a blissful 3/4 of a second before returning to chaos. 

I tried to remember what my teachers had done to maintain order, all of the things I’d heard about dealing with little snots, and then I had a brilliant idea. I leaned over the table and started whispering: “Now, children, here’s what we’re going to do...”

Interested by my change in tone, they all leaned in and stopped talking so they could hear what I was saying. It worked!...at least until they decided that what I was saying wasn’t interesting and ignored me again. If you’ve got any ideas, please leave them for me in the comments.

Anyway, so on Thursday I went to the Alicante School of Languages, and that was much more successful. It took me FOREVER to find the right classroom, but when I did the class was really excited to have me there. There was a teacher there to kind of help me along and guide me to ask the right questions, it was really nice. Most of them were in the 30-50 age demographic; when one of them asked how old I was and I told them I was 19, they all kind of gasped and twittered amongst themselves until someone bravely ventured, “Well, you seem very mature for your age.” It was a successful class, though; for two hours we just talked about traveling and the difference between American English and British English and the drinking age in the United States.  

My favorite moment was at the end of the class, though. The teacher came up to me and told me that at the end of every class, the students listened to an English song and tried to fill in the lyrics in an accompanying worksheet as they played through it several times. I wasn’t really sure what song I was expecting to follow the quaint British woman’s voice on the CD (“Lesson fifteen point five--Popular Songs in the English Language”) but it sure as hell wasn’t Freddie Mercury. I swear to god I almost died from trying to hold in my laughter--by the fifth refrain of “We Are the Champions,” I was laughing out-loud and singing along dramatically, much to the delight of the class.

Shortly after, I walked back to my house in the chilled Mediterranean air with a smile on my face, thinking that maybe that old saying about those who can’t do things teach them was a bunch of shit, because I’d just had the most fun I’d had all week struggling to remember how to spell the word “affordable” and talking about American culture with a bunch of older people that probably wouldn’t have given me the time of day before. It was all I could do not to skip home.

“And it goes on and on and on and on! We are the Champions, my friends...”

Lessons Learned in Madrid

I just found this list from my time in Madrid, don't know why I never posted it. Anyway, here's my first impression and things I learned my first week in Spain:

1. Getting hit on by greasy Spanish men is just as entertaining/vomit-inducing as getting hit on by greasy American men.
2. My friends in America have lives too and I should probably ask about them.
3. It’s okay to indulge in some American things; country music sounds even better when all that you’ve heard for the last week is remixes of the Numa-Numa song.
4. Not texting all the time actually isn’t that bad.
5. Even if you go somewhere that’s advertised as beach paradise, you should bring sweaters. Lots of them. Because they won’t have heating ANYWHERE and it’s going to be a lot freaking colder than you though it would be.
6. Spanish Spiderman is better than Italian Spiderman. Check it out:

Finally, Pictures!

And here they are!

This is the Plaza de Luceros, which is where we meet often before going on field trips or binge drinking expeditions or whatever (ha, just kidding Papa):

Plaza de Ayuntamiento with awesome view of el Castillo de Santa Barbara:

The now-infamous toilet treats sign:

My beach! With a view of the castle. Fifteen minute walk from my house, no big deal or anything...haha :)

At the beach:

CHOCOLATE CALIENTE!!!!

Studying Abroad: The New Ninth Grade

Okay, so I’m going to be honest right now. I was never a big “sisterhood” girl. Raised with brothers, I tended to make friends with guys more easily than with girls anyway. Because of this, high school for me was actually not the awful pit of hell that it is for most people. Forget about all that dramatic he-said-she-said-OMG crap, because most of it was over my head anyway. I mean, sure, I had my awkward phase (and trust me, it was really awkward), but pretty much every single TV show or book I can remember from my childhood was about loving yourself for who you are and not caring about what other people think so I kind of didn’t really let it get to me after I turned fourteen and realized that my boobs were bigger than theirs anyway (in your face, Danielle whatever-your-name-was!). I grew up confident in who I was and comfortable in my own skin, moving easily among new groups of people and making friends.

Now, fast-forward several long years to studying abroad in Spain, circa two days ago: I realized that I, self-confirmed snickerer at the idea of sisterhood, am now living in a sorority. Out of 75 people participating in this program, 72 of them are girls. These are the people I have class with every day, the people I run into on the street, the people I have to hang out with on field trips--all girls. Whatever, right? No big deal, seeing as I’m one myself. 

Wrong.

I feel like a bad 80s movie about nerds trying to navigate through high school cliques, except I can’t even be played by Molly Ringwald. There is so much gossiping and manipulation and friends and enemies and frenemies and competition and glaring and craziness. As Donalbain would say, where we are, there’s daggers in [wo]men’s smiles.

Luckily, just like in an ABC Family sitcom that would cover this sort of crap, I have my go-to best mates to get me through it. Also (oh yeah!) I’m in Spain, so I should try not to hang out with Americans anyway. Things will start looking up, soon--it’ll get warmer so I won’t have to wear three sweaters in my house, and this weekend (it’s happening!) I’m going to actually make myself talk to real live Spaniards. Also, I’ve now got huge bricks of chocolate hidden in my drawer for special circumstances, like for stuffing my face on a gloomy day. Bonus: they’re so sturdy, I could probably tie threats to them and break peoples windows: “Stop acting like Regina George or next time I’ll throw something at you that isn’t delicious!” In the meantime, I'll just chill on the beach.