Friday, September 16, 2011

Breakthrough

Apologies for the silence recently.  I had visitors after my trip to Paris and then have been swamped catching up with work.

Things here are mostly great:

- I feel like my Spanish has made a huge breakthrough since my return from France.  The day I got back I started my new group Spanish class, which has been really good.  I've been in Spain for the least amount of time of anyone in the class and have been studying Spanish for the least amount of time as well, but am not so far behind.  I also started two intercambios (language exchanges), which have been really helpful.  Even though I still make tons and tons of mistakes, I can hold my own in conversations in Spanish for about an hour at a time.  It's still completely exhausting, and I'm sure I'll hit more walls as I continue to learn, but there's been a huge leap.

- One sign of that leap is that people tend not to switch to English as much with me when I'm ordering, etc. It still happens sometimes, particularly if I'm with someone who clearly doesn't understand Spanish, but mostly I can function in Spanish if necessary.

- A second sign of that leap is that I've been asked on several occasions now to order for other Americans or Brits in bars.  Recently, we were at a bar and a guy asked if I spoke English and then asked me for food recommendations.  I told him and as he tried to order, the waiter clearly didn't understand him.  The waiter looked at me as if to say "help?  Please?" So, I rattled off the order.  It was a pretty great feeling because I think even 2 weeks ago I wouldn't have been brave enough to do it!

- At that same bar, I had my first non-service oriented conversation with Spanish strangers.  These two guys thought it was hysterical that the bartender kept calling me "Señora."  To be fair, the guy was probably 18 years old, so I probably did look really old to him.  Anyhow, the guys were asking me (in Spanish) why he was calling me "señora".  We had a nice back and forth about how I might look young but I'm actually an old married lady (a phrase that apparently works in translation).

I am so, so happy about these developments.  I don't know what caused the leap, but I think having to be brave with French, a language that feels easier and more familiar, while I was traveling made me a little braver.

I head to Holland next week for a few days to attend a workshop.  I'm really excited about the workshop and about catching up with some friends there.  I'm hoping to talk to some people about my work to get some ideas for how to spin my work.  Hopefully, it will be great.

In other news, being abroad for the 10th anniversary of September 11th because the news coverage is so detached.  While Spain is more empathetic than a lot of countries due to their train bombings in Madrid in 2004, it was strange to be in a place where it didn't dominate the news coverage.  FC Barcelona had just been here to play Real Sociedad and the game ended in a draw, which was much bigger news than anniversary memorials.  I did take some time to reflect on being in Boston that day, which was the origin of two of the flights - everyone was so worried that those were flights that carried their friends or family - many worried with good reason.  I remember lots of fighter jets flying around the city and a lot of uncertainty, largely because all of the cell phone lines (and many other forms of media) were jammed, so news was slow coming in.  BU continued to have class that day, which a lot of people criticized that day (and continue to criticized), but I appreciated because it gave us SOMETHING to do other than sit, transfixed by the news (there was plenty of that too ...).  Anyhow, I'm sure there's more I could say about that day and the 10 years since... I'm sure that's true for everyone.  In some ways, I was glad to be here where it wasn't the focus of the entire day, but was still glad to take some time to remember how much everything changed that day.

In addition to being pensive about that, I'm sort of tired of living away from Pete.  I cannot wait for him to come here in a couple of weeks, but I'm ready to live in the same place again.  So, fingers crossed for the job market to fall on my side this year.  I have a list of about 20 jobs in the US that I'll apply to this year (which may grow as jobs continue to be posted).  If I don't get anything from the tenure track market, there will be some big decisions to be made in late-winter/early-spring, but I'm trying not to worry about them now.

I'm hoping to enjoy some of the big film festival happening this weekend.  I have tickets to two movies on Saturday, but wasn't able to get tickets to some other shows I was hoping to see.  Hopefully, it will be a lot of fun.  I'm hoping to catch a glimpse of Penelope Cruz (though I work with a woman who looks uncannily like her) or Javier Bardem, who often attend the festival.  Part of me is ready for the weekend ... but another part is worried about a one day work week here next week!  I'm sure I'll feel really behind, but hopefully really invigorated on my return!

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