Austen's Emma

I just finished reading Emma by Jane Austen. It was a good read and in truth was not as nearly boring as the only other book I’ve read by Austen, Pride and Prejudice. I would in truth re-title Emma with the subtitle, “the humbling of Miss Woodhouse.” Because in truth the main character starts off as someone you don’t really like and then morphs into a far less conceited and well-adjusted person by the end. What I think makes it superior to Pride in Prejudice (P/P)? Austen uses the omnipresent narrator a lot more effective way in this book. For example in P/P we are cheering for the main characters, since most it's the most stereotypical Austen novel; to get a man. Where as the character of Emma is usually messing something up or really doesn’t seem to be aware of what’s really going on. In fact at points I found myself wishing she was saying and doing the exact opposite of what she does. Not having the author always on the side of chief protagonists really made it a much more enjoyable read because it makes it a much more complex story.

I always take issue with the chief topic of Jane Austen novels; MUST GET A MAN! Maybe some might take issue with me editorializing about Austen’s subject matter, being a man who has voluntarily 'subjected himself' to an Austen novel. But honestly I found the main aim of the books rather tiresome and Emma took me longer to read then most books of the same length simply because it felt like I was reading antiquated cattiness. It forced me to put it down out of boredom more then once, but the quality of the writing always made me come back to it.

Having not read any Austen since high school, I was also struck by how little physical description there is. The scenes of the conversations that are main staple of the book are very rarely given little more than one or two sentence descriptions. Most books want you to know the scene that the characters are currently finding themselves, but Austen’s emphasis is entirely on the conversation and social context. There isn’t even a real lengthy description of what the main characters even look like. I might of missed it but I don’t think it even states what color Emma’s hair is; physical description wasn’t that important the author. I don’t really remember ever reading a book so lopsided toward conversation before, in terms of the narrative it sort of jumpy and almost like a play.

I guess I just don’t understand Austen’s lasting appeal. In the historical forward to the book, my edition stated that Austen’s novels have been in almost continuously published since her death. In truth I guess I just don’t understand why people, seem to enjoy them so much. The writing is great, but the subject matter as I said previously subtracts from the writing. Though I suppose for that very reason I have trouble with them is the reason a lot of people really like them. I don’t see myself scrounging the bookshelves for another round of Austen, but all in all I enjoyed Emma.

Today is Veterans Day in the US, Armistice Day in the UK and absolutely nothing in Spain. According to one of the Spanish teachers at my colegio, Spain wasn’t involved in either of the two world wars, something I find highly suspect, but would explain why they don’t celebrate today. It’s also kind of an awkward holiday since it’s not often on a weekend, I remembering sitting around doing nothing and sleeping in on what seemed like always a random day of the week. I do remember the few times my father dragged me to a veteran’s event, but it seems more like the exception rather the tradition. So now that I’m in a country that doesn’t even acknowledge it, I guess I miss it. It’s been amazing to me what I miss about the states, sometime it comes as a complete surprise.

Something I wrote a few months ago...

It’s odd to me this is a truly public medium of communication, so theoretically anyone who had a mind to look up a Sam would find this one. Though I’ve heard neither news reports nor any other great to-do made about my annuals, analysis, or musings here. In truth it seems like I have a subscription of one, not exactly enough to sell ads at this point. I do hope this isn’t seen as a complaint, I think you have to be far more extrovert then myself to truly be comfortable expressing yourself into the ether. I guess that’s all an excuse of why I have not tended this space better and written here more often. Maybe it would help if I knew some of friends keep them as well so we could blog together, but as yet I’ve not known many. Nor is writing here something I think I could do in a group. Whatever the reason, I’m just not much of a blogger, not to suggest this is the last entry but to explain the infrequency of my past entries and the possible intermittent postings in the future.

Well what is there not to report since, my last post? I’ve crossed a good portion of Western Europe, flew across the North Sea, and crossed the Atlantic Ocean twice, in general not bad.

Sweden was amazingly beautiful. I had to take a bus to the airport I was flying out of so that allowed me to see the countryside outside Stockholm. There was trees everywhere, which coming from Spain was a great shock and when you were out in the countryside there was stereotypical postcard type scenes every where with the red barns and grain fields. Stockholm itself was very beautiful with the old town in the middle of the bay and the new sections to the north and south of it. I had the opportunity to see a few of the museums, most specifically the Vassa Museum which has a ship from the thirty’s years war(circa 1630). It didn’t even make it out of Stockholm’s harbor before being sunk by a big wind. Because it went down in the Baltic sea it was well preserved. Sweden used to be ruled by Denmark until it broke away under the leadership of the first king of Sweden named Gustave. I went to see Sweden because I’d heard it was socialist’s paradise (thank you Econ-professor at Kenyon) what I found was no one living on the street and a city that was amazing clean and pleasant. I was fortunate enough to stay with a woman I knew from Kenyon who is married to a Swedish fellow who were nice enough to let me stay in their house for the duration of my time. Half of the reason I enjoyed Sweden so much was because they were great hosts.

From Sweden I took a flight to Dublin Ireland. It was the first time I’d been in an English speaking country in 7 months, it was weird. I could get over the fact people would pass me on the street and they would be speaking English. It was reverse culture shock and took some getting used to. I only spent one night in Dublin and from there I went to Galway for two nights. It’s a university town on the western side of Ireland. It was a cool town with a lot of bars that play traditional Irish music and plenty of tourists swarming all over the place. I’d never seen so many Americans abroad until I got to Ireland. Unfortunately we’re really easy to spot most of the time.

From Galway I headed back to Dublin where I met up with a boyfriend of a good friend of mine. He’s a native Irishman, so he was able to show me around to a few places. We spent the Thursday night I was there hanging with a few people from his work and talking a lot. He’s a real cool guy even though he and I don’t exactly agree on the whole spiritual nature of life. I stumbled home at about 4 am and had to get up around 9am to eat breakfast and make it to the airport. Man getting to the airport was rough, I felt like crap combined with the lack of sleep, it was not pleasant. I slept a good portion of the way back to the states, all in all it was a pretty uneventful flight.

It was a quiet homecoming, though my Mom true to form was there to collect me from the airport. It was great to see her and find out how she’s been. There is one thing to hear about how life is going over the phone, there is a whole other to have it come into your present reality. My Mom was doing well and it is always great to pontificate with her about whatever’s on my mind. A lot of travels and consequences were still ringing in my ears, so I was a buzz with those.

I spent about an entire week not wanting to do anything. In theory I was looking for a job, but in truth I wasn’t trying very hard. I ultimately was able to get a hold of a friend of the family who owns a painting business and needed help to finish his end of season work. He was in need enough to hire a novice like myself for a month. I worked for about two and half weeks for the four weeks I was home. It was fairly long days by comparison with what I was used to but it was nice to be of use to someone else other then just myself for once. I’ve never been part of a crew that was so focused on a task, I felt like the slacker for wanting to take the occasional break, where I’m usually the one with his nose to the grindstone.

Thomas Crown In Bruges

I feel like writing something now that I’ve been on the road for about a week and half. Though I’m not sure what to report on… Starting at the beginning is always a good place to begin, right?

I got out of Madrid late Thursday night of last week by way of a night bus to the Madrid Airport. Or maybe I should say I thought I was taking a bus the airport. I ended up taking a bus not to the airport but a small little village like place near the airport. It created some confusion on my part because I wasn’t entirely sure where I was other then that I thought we had passed the airport. So I started walking back, which was kind of the a trick because the fastest way there was by expressway. Honestly even at that hour with so few cars, I wasn’t going to walk on the highway just in case there was someone who decided to be stupid or I failed to see them, so I had to shun-pike it and go by a few other side streets. I got lost more then once and walk the wrong direction for quite a while but ended up at the right terminal eventually. The real crux was it was the last day I’d be in Spain for a while and it was the first time since I’d been there, I couldn’t walk somewhere directly; I love last days, blah.

My first RyanAir flight as far as I’m aware was completely uneventful because I spent the entire time passed out. All I really recall is lift off and then landing which worked out nicely seeing how RyanAir charges you for pretty much anything else. We landed at the RyanAir airport outside of Brussels and had to take an hour long bus right into town, which cost about the same as the plane ticket. (Yeah “cheap flights”!!) It was amazing to see Belgium with all the green. I hadn’t realized how used to Spain’s small trees and Spartan foliage I’d become accustomed until I ended up in Bruxelles. Brussels in general was pretty unimpressive. It’s got a lot of cool buildings and parks. It is also the capital of the EU which was something interesting to see, at least in theory. The EU capital building looked like a very boring office building, I have pictures simply because I spent a bunch of time walking to it, but know I’m going to have to explain to people why I took pictures of a completely boring building.

Though the main highlight of Brussels, was I did get to see the museum of Magritte who was a 20th century French speaking Belgian surrealist (in similar vein as Dali) but not quite the same (no melted clocks). He’s most famous for the painting of a man wearing a bowler hat who’s face is obscured by a green apple. It was famously alluded to in the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, I no idea if its in the original. I unfortunately discovered that most of his famous paintings are in US, but it was still cool to see some of his back catalog.

I then went on to a little city in the northwest of Belgium called Bruges. It was a little more chilled out and totally worth the trip. I ran into a lot of Spanish people, which was cool since most of my Spanish knowledge mostly revolves around introductory questions. The place is called Brujas in Spanish, something I learned by talking to them. In truth the main reason I ended up in the small medieval town was a movie released in the last year with Colin Farrell called simply In Bruges. It in truth actually mocks the city and calls it boring and uninteresting. What’s so interesting about it is that the reason it developed into a tourist town in the first place was because of an article around 1905, that criticized it as a poverty stricken, canal strewn waste land. Oddly enough that was enough to get tourist interest in the place and people have been coming ever since. It really is a quaint place and refreshing far away from the rat race. But in truth I was there for 3 nights and that was way too long; Bruges boredom descended in earnest.

I then ended up in Amsterdam, but I’ll save that for another entry…

Ruminations in Spain in the AM

I have had my actual first formal request to post something to this blog a few weeks ago, so I thought I’d throw something up at least for a bit.

I’ve been working as a teacher’s assistant in a small public elementary school in the north of Madrid since January of this year, 2009. Its called Lorenzo Luzuriaga, it took me about as long I’ve worked there to learn how to pronounce the name. I have had to learn how to deal with first graders on a regular basis because the last time I did that, I was one. I’ve really enjoyed my time amongst the kids despite how they can try my patience. I’m left to wonder if I want to keep doing something similar for the rest of my life. Teaching is something that could be really worthwhile and let’s be honest having bunch of weeks off every summer is not entirely unappealing. I can’t say that the subject matter or the age group is something I want to teach again, should I become a teacher but I have enjoyed my time in the land of munchkins.

The thing that is a hang up is that I’ve been thinking about staying in Spain for another year and possibly in Madrid. The problem with that plan is that I missed the deadline to reapply for next year and my school coordinator does not want me back. Not because I’ve done a bad job or failed to show up, but because I’m American. There is also a trumped up charge that I showed up late a few times, which is true but never more then 10 minutes and not more then 3 times in my 4-5 months of working there. As you can see I’m a horrible employee. I just talk to other people I know in my program and some don’t show up for days on end or even do what their schools ask of them. It just sucks because I live in the neighborhood around my school and I really like it. Plus the teachers and the school administration are great compared with some of the horror stories I’ve heard from more seasoned teachers then myself.

Other then work, I’m still trying to find my place in Madrid. It is by far the largest most diverse city I have ever lived in. Boston is great besides it being home, but Madrid is far more international. I’d venture to guess it’s probably the most diverse place in the Spanish-speaking world. Most Spanish speaking countries are represented somewhere in Madrid. I’ve met and hung out with Venezuelans, a few Columbians, and folks from Mexico. There is also people here, including a few of my students, from Ecuador, Argentina, and the Dominican Republic. People from Non-Spanish speaking countries are Asians (predominately Chinese) and Africans. All of the “foreigners” are having trouble finding their place among Spaniards, but the two later groups have the worst of it. It’s a cool town and just last weekend I went out to eat at a Senegalese place which had by far the hottest peppers I’ve ever attempted to put in my mouth.

Since the job I have is finishing toward the end of June, I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to do with my summer. If I want to stay in Spain and sweat it out here (it’s already up to 30C here) or head home or try to live in another part of Europe. One of my coworkers is setting out to possibly head to Germany for the summer and consider how hot its going to be here come July, it doesn’t sound that bad. I also keep wondering about what I would do when I got home, sure there would be my friends and family, but what else would I do other then find a typical summer job. I’d first like to see if I can find something here before I jump the pond, that way I can work on my Spanish over the summer and enjoy Europe. We’ll see how that goes before the money runs out…

Boredom and Transitioning

The way I figure I’m about 22 days late on the schedule I established with my last posting, so I’m not that late…really. Plus, the only people I’ve heard about reading these ramblings are people I keep in touch with on a regular basis anyway. I hope you enjoy this fine piece of English prose…
My last entry was written in a somewhat disheartened tone. I’d been here little less then a month, found an apartment and felt more alone then I have ever had prior to any other point in my entire life. I’m just not sure why that was a surprise to me as I moved to entirely different continent and country then any of my friends and acquaintances inhabit. I now know why more people don’t do it; it’s really hard and rough for a while.

I have since gotten involved with a local ex-pat church and met a few people here and became a regular attendee at a Spanish speaking church that has a large amount of people my age bracket. Prior to being involved in that, I’ve also been going to a Spanish class two nights a week. I have a good teacher that I like, who keeps being frustrated with us, her students, because none of us seem to study past doing the HW, if we even do that.

Both of those are sea changes from the way I spending my time for the first month. I never went anywhere and didn’t spend time with anyone except one of my coworkers on occasion. I’ve also spent a good a few evenings at this English speaking bar downtown just to not come back to these four white walls for a while. I’ve been surprised even with all the excursions I’ve been taking I haven’t been going over budget and seem to be keeping my head above water financially. It’s amazing to me Spain is both a fairly expensive place at points, but then is also really cheap if you know the places to look (this would also be helped if I didn’t live directly in Madrid).

Spain is a cool place and I can tell my language skills are ever so slowly getting better. I just wish it’s instantaneous as it is the movies. People seem to learn a language as if overnight, which unfortunately hasn’t happened to me yet. I’m also not been availing myself of all the opportunities, I have access to practice my Spanish, but if had what would I write about next month? I would also benefit a lot from living with some actually Spanish people because it seems like a whole weekend can go by and I can entirely avoid speaking any Spanish.

I also think I’m beginning to get glimmer of an understanding of what it’s like to be new immigrant in a country I’ve just arrived in. I’m not saying I plan on staying here or that I really know what it’s like to immigrate some place. I have just gotten better sense of that aspect of the American experience then I have before. The main culture and language is not my own. It isn’t my home country and I suppose with time it would feel like it was but I just miss my home a great deal. All of which is like immigrating to a new country. I would say that’s where the parallels end, but hopefully when I get back to the US, it will help me understand more about the new people who keep coming to its shores.

Working with 1st graders

I suppose one entry a month is enough right? My true blog fans I’m sure are dying for another posting of my adventures, I’m sure...
I’ve now been in Spain for little less then a month and I’m beginning to get a small idea of what is going on around me. For example when someone says in Spanish, referring to me, “I would never have come to a country without studying the language first.” I actually got the general idea of what they said where as before, they could have called me a moron to my face and I would probably have said “si.”
I don’t want to suggest I didn’t study the language, but first they talk at regular conversation pace here (oddly enough?) which when I first arrived was way above my head. I have enjoyed drowning in Spanish it’s been a trip. I figure if I’d spent another 6 months studied to come here I probably would never have got on the plane. Sure it made finding an apartment difficult, you never know who you’re going to run into and how you’re going to be challenged, but that’s half of the experience.
I started school at the beginning of January and so far it’s been trying at points though in general it’s a whole lot of fun. I’m helping teach 1st grade, which means I spend my workdays teaching and supervising 6 yr olds. I use the term “workday” rather loosely because I only really work full time two days a week. The other two days are half days unless my lead English instructor is out. I can’t really complain about the job, my kids, or the teacher I’m assisting.
For this first month I’ve gotten a long with all of them. The kids need the occasional reigning in to keep them from entirely bouncing off the walls, but in general they learn pretty quick and are a great group. I do have gym a couple times a week, which unfortunately since I’m there, means they have to do it in English. Memories of boring square dancing units and other things in gym class come to mind when I’m with them doing some of these activities. They push through it though and seem to really enjoy doing the activities. The gym teacher I help does a pretty good job of keeping them engaged. I just wish the funniest games, like for example kickball, involved using English directly. The students have Spanish speaking gym too, so I hope they get to just organizationally goof off there, which is what I remember the best gym classes being when I was that age.
Other then gym I help prep lessons and help sing some of the songs we teach the first graders. They sing a lot of songs and do they love them. The teacher I’m helping has even worked up a lot of motions for the songs we sing and the kids love it. If we don’t sing this one song at the beginning of each English lesson they’ll let you know. My only complaint is that after doing a couple lessons in the course of a day my head is ringing with them and I find myself humming them under my breath. For example here are two like: “I want shoes” or “Hello Mr Yellow” both which I guarantee will be top 40 hits.
Besides going to work 4 times a week, I’ve been trying to work on my Spanish and generally attempting to acclimate to Madrid. It’s taking some time, since the language continues to be slow in getting into my brain and the culture though very similar to the states can be pretty trying. The thing that I’ve run into way more then once is the propensity to have absolutely everything closed on Sundays. Don’t get me wrong day of Sabbath is great…but most people don’t go to church at all. The kicker for me is that you’re liable to starve if you don’t plan to do your shopping before hand. I’d like to say my learning curve has been fast on that one…lets just say I’m not going to entirely disclose it.
That’s my life in Madrid in a nutshell as of now, hopefully in another month or earlier I will have happenings to report.

To Spain, From Spain

After months of looking around for a visa and applying late to the Spanish assistant teacher’s program I’m finally back in Spain. It’s both fulfilling and anticlimactic as I am back in a whole new part of Spain and city, I have to start from scratch to make a new life for myself. Though, that being said, I’m back in a land where everyone speaks a language I really do like and hopefully having been here before traveling two months ago will help make this second transition a little smoother.
I will admit that, it hadn’t prior to this trip anyway known how completely massive Madrid truly is. There is the old quarter which I am fully familiar with now as I have spent a month around here already, but I have only done a few walking trips outside that. Madrid truly stretches for miles (or maybe kilometers is more accurate) in every direction with multi-storey buildings being the normative. So onto how I came to this realization…

Prior to leaving Spain, I had been given a letter by a nice, if not overly busy, Spanish bureaucrat that assigned me a school where I would be an assistant teacher. About midway through December, I got an email from a different Spanish bureaucrat, telling me I’d been reassigned because I hadn’t shown up. It was a catch-22. I wanted to show up, but I was prevented by the very system that had made it impossible to show up in a timely fashion. The original school was in a small Spanish city called Aranjuez, that doesn’t have many foreigners and would have been fun to explore and was close enough to Madrid for me to visit it when I wanted. Abstractly, I suppose the new school isn’t without is advantages because its in Madrid proper and I can walk and take the Metro there. Granted I have only begun to explore the nooks and crannies of Madrid, but I just feel out of my element since the plan has changed so much. Hopefully I can make this work and I am encouraged by the fact that there are not too many people looking for apartments right now and I might be able to find a deal if I look hard enough.

The other difficulty I’m having is that Spain celebrates Epiphany, or as they call is Dia de Reyes, in a big way. They don’t give gifts until today, which means all the bureaucrats I want to talk to are celebrating with their families. I had hope by coming at the beginning of this week I could get a few things squared away early, like securing a letter of my placement to my new school (escuela nueva) or finding an apartment. With the holiday it throws a wrench into the works and slows everything down. I’ve brought plenty of money to survive in a hostel for a while, but right now I’m going nuts with all this uncertainty. So I did the one thing in my power to do today; I found the school I have been most recently assigned. It’s in a section of Madrid that looks entirely devoid of tourists, which is nice on some level. I took the opportunity once I was out there to try to walk back and was only stopped by it starting to sleet. That is how I came to the conclusion that Spaniards don’t really do low lying buildings. Even with their propensity to do high rises, Madrid is truly a massive city and not as walkable as my native Boston.