Insanity

Work (and life) is a bit crazy right now, so just a brief update.

• I started teaching today.  It was good, though I'm completely exhausted.  The class is really hard for me to teach since it's material that most of the students know (in Spanish), but haven't been exposed to in this setting.  It's a big challenge but probably good for me in the long run.

• I really, really love walking across the river on one of the bridges at night here.  It's always very cool to see the flow of the river collide with the waves from the ocean and it always looks completely chaotic and beautiful below.  

• In awesome news, I dropped my iPod in the toilet at my Spanish class today. Not my finest move.  That's what I get for not zipping my jacket pockets. We sanitized it and it seems to be functioning.  Fingers crossed!

• My intercambio partner said today that my Spanish is improving.  Hopefully that's true because I'm working my tail off on learning more every day.  I practice a lot, and it continues to feel really hard.  That said, I think that's because I "know" more grammar, so I'm trying to remember when to use the subjunctive and when to use each of the three past tenses.  It's so much more complicated than English in terms of verbs, I feel like I'm losing my mind sometimes.  I get frustrated because I know how to conjugate the verbs and when to use which.  In writing, I'm usually okay and can write a page or two with only a couple of minor verb mistakes (prepositions and articles are another story all together).  But speaking is still rough.  That said, I'm trying to be braver and just talk.  My daily mix of English and Spanish when socializing is edging toward 50-50, which is great.  I'm still in the B1 level, but I still hope to get to C1 by spring.  I think it's doable since I'm working hard, but we'll see.

• In what is either an insane or genius move, I'm starting a Basque class on Thursday.  It is, as my teacher said "muy light" (apparently that's the Spanish term for not too intense as well ...).  It's one day a week for two hours.  I'm not sure I need another evening eaten up by a language class, but I think it will be a really great experience.  Plus, I think linguistics departments will be happy I know a little bit of an "under-studied language".  Speaking of linguistics departments ...

• It's job search time again.  I will need sustained good thoughts/vibes/prayers between now and the spring that something great will come along for me in the US.  I have my hopes on a couple of ideal jobs, but don't want to jinx anything.  Right now, I would settle for being on the same continent as Chicago.   I don't want to be too picky, but driving distance/same timezone would be incredible.  :) Anyhow, there are plenty of jobs and I'm hoping this is "my year".  If it's not, I'll survive, but I am hoping my hard work over the past 7.5 (11.5?  29?) years will pay off in this cycle. I'm ready to start independent research and I realized today, I'm ready to teach as well.  Anyhow.  Fingers crossed, thoughts, prayers and minor sacrifices to the Bosses of Jobs appreciated.

• Speaking of Jobs ... I was super sad to hear about Steve Jobs.  I grew up on a Mac and have been nothing but a Mac person my whole life.  I truly believe my research is significantly easier due to Macs, and they're so much more fun than PCs.  Pixar has made some of my favorite movies.  On top of being a real visionary and a rare breed person who can blend creativity and science, he also said something that I have printed out that follows my idea notebook for work (every time I finish one, it gets tucked into the next).  It's two sections from his 2005 commencement address to Stanford, which I really took to heart as I was in the early days of grad school "You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle. ... Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." At the time I read this, I had made a big, big jump from music to science.  A jump I'm still not sure I knew how to make.  I wasn't nearly as terrified as I probably should have been.  This is most likely the result of having been too stupid to know what I didn't know.  But I did it, and I've never been happier.  He was right in that I knew what I loved when I found it.  I try to remind myself on days when I'm stressed and crazy that I truly believe that what I'm doing is great work because I love what I do.  I know not everyone in this world is lucky enough to say that, so every time I think of it, I say a little prayer of thanks because I have been really, truly, extraordinarily lucky to do what I do.  Even if I don't get a job doing this forever, it's great, exciting work.  Plus I get to say fancy things like "I am teaching in the Master's program for Cognitive Neuroscience of Language".  And it doesn't get much better than that.

Okay, enough sappiness, but I feel like I needed to have a little eulogy for someone who profoundly affected my life, even if I never knew him.

Pamplona and La Rioja

While Peter was here we spent a lot of time just hanging out in Donostia, eating pintxos, relaxing on the roof terrace, and drinking coffee (decaf) in the plazas.  But we did manage to do some sight seeing while he was here, too.

We took a spontaneous day trip to Pamplona, home of San Fermin (a.k.a. The Running of the Bulls).  We decided at around noon we wanted to go, but if we wanted to go that day, we would have to catch the 12:45 bus.  So, we grabbed some granola bars and made a run for it.  We spent about 7 hours in the town before heading back on the bus.  The town itself is very cute and old.  We got some advice from one of my co-workers who is from there about things to do and see.  It turned out to be great advice.  I'm pretty confident that we got to see the best and most beautiful landmarks.  We also had a great lunch and had coffee and a drink at a beautiful cafe before heading home.  Pete took pictures of a lot parts of the course of the running of the bulls, which were easy to imagine being full of people in the sticky heat of July here.

We also took another spontaneous trip, this time to La Rioja.  We decided the day we went to Pamplona (Tuesday) that we wanted to rent a car and go on either Wednesday or Thursday possibly staying overnight.  To be able to properly plan, we decided to go on Thursday and rented our car and booked a hotel in the small village of Casalarreina.  I contacted a bunch of wineries to try to schedule tastings or tours.  We got one tour on Thursday and another on Friday, as well as a tasting on Thursday.  We also managed to make it to Laguardia, a very cool medieval walled village in the region.  Our trip was particularly exciting because it was harvest time.  Every few miles we would come across a tractor with a trailer laden with grapes.  The vines were all heavy from the fruit, and it was really incredible to see wine country at this time of year.  The scenery in the area is also completely astounding.  One of the coolest parts of our visit was that on our Friday tour (at the winery with a hotel designed by Frank Gehry), we were able to taste the grapes as they sorted them.  It was very cool to taste the tempranillo grape and the cabernet sauvignon grape, as well as a white grape that wouldn't be used for wine.

Overall, Peter's trip here was fantastic.  We got to do some exploring and some relaxing, which was a nice combination.

Today has been weird because it sort of feels like things have reset after Peter left - sort of like he was never here at all and the week he was here was a weird dream or something.  I've had a hard time getting anything done today, but I have a pile of laundry that needs to be ironed as well as some work sitting on my table, so hopefully, I'll be able to motivate myself after a brief nap.

On the roller coaster again

I just spent an amazing week with Peter.  I will write more about it later including our trips to Pamplona and La Rioja and some of my new Spanish breakthroughs.  But, I just got back from taking him to the airport, and I'm feeling pretty sorry for myself and for him.  Leaving and being apart doesn't get any easier with time.  I know that this feeling of despair right now will eventually plateau to a point where I'm sad and lonely, but it doesn't overwhelm me.  Right now, though, it is overwhelming, exhausting and pretty terrible and makes me want to jump on the next plane to Chicago.  At least the time between visits now is the shortest yet.  23 days 'til our Chicago+Seattle visit.  Then I come back for about 5 weeks before Christmas. I don't want to think about the period after Christmas, where I only have one trip planned, and it's in March.  As I learned between mid July and late September October, 2 months is a long, un-fun time to be apart.

In the Netherlands

A quick update:  I made it safely to the Netherlands, where I spent my morning hunkered down in data analysis time.  I've rented a bike here to help get around more easily and had some exciting adventures carrying my duffle bag, my laptop, and my purse on the bike yesterday.  However, I (and my stuff) made to my gracious host's apartment in one piece!  More updates when I get back to SanSe on Saturday!!

Travel

I've decided I'm never going to be a great or stress-free traveler.

If I pack in advance and spend tons of time getting ready, I feel totally overwhelmed, pack and unpack half a dozen times, and still manage to simultaneously over- and under-pack, bringing too much extraneous stuff and not essentials.

If I wait until the day before to get things around, I also feel overwhelmed and rushed.

I leave tomorrow morning for 5 days to the Netherlands and the following things are stressing me out:

• I'm flying on this cheap-y discount airline called Vueling, and similar to a lot of American discount airlines they want to charge for everything from choosing your seat to checking luggage.  To encourage people to check their bags they have this incredibly stingy carry-on policy.  You get one bag at 21X16X8 inches (much smaller than your average carry-on) and then a "briefcase, purse, or camera."  I had planned on packing in this very cute Kate Spade small duffel bag I have.  Unfortunately, the bag is 19.5X14X8.8 inches (almost 1 inch bigger than the depth allowed by the airline ... so now I'm faced with a dilemma.  I'd really rather not check this bag as it is new, soft-sided, and adorable.  Plus, I'd rather be able to carry it on.  Since it is soft-sided, there's a chance I could just not pack it super full and hope that it fits.  I'd also rather not find out at the airport that I need to check it because it costs 20 euro to check at the gate and only 8 or so to check online.  Plus, I'd rather not try to get everything in a tiny bag that goes over my shoulder, if I'm going to end up checking anyhow, and could have a more convenient wheeled bag.  So, do I take the chance that I might be able to carry it on?  Or do I make the call now to just check a bag?
• In a similar, is this risk worth it vein - I have to take the bus from Donostia to Bilbao airport tomorrow.  The buses leave every hour on the hour and arrive in Bilbao at :15 past.  My flight leaves at 10:25, so taking the 8 am bus, and getting in at 9:15 SHOULD be okay, since Bilbao is so small ... but if I have any hassle with security, or need to check my bag, it might be tight.  The problem is my other option is taking the 7 am bus which will get me in at 8:15 (2+ hours before my flight), and requires me to leave my house at 6:20 to get to the bus station to get my tickets.  Which seems pretty awful.  But what would be more awful than leaving my house at 6:20 would be missing my stupid flight because the next flight to Amsterdam?  Thursday morning.  The workshop starts on Thursday morning, so that would not be fantastic.

I'm not much of a risk taker, so I'm tempted to just check my bag and take the earlier bus.  But I'm also not much of a morning person, and I purposely GOT this bag as a little carry-on for these sorts of flights. 

Hopefully, I can decide tonight and have a stress-free morning tomorrow, and a low-stress travel day!!

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!

Traveling

I am at the airport in Paris, waiting for my flight to Biarritz. I got to the airport too early, probably, but it is worth not having to run around like a crazy person in an airport I don't know.

Overall, I had a great time in Paris. The city is great for wandering (which I did yesterday morning by myself and most evenings with my friends). Going back to San Sebastian is sort of bittersweet. I am mostly happy to be going back to my apartment with my bed (sleeping on a couch for 5 nights didn't make my body too happy) and to be cooking for myself (or at least eating pintxos). I'm also feeling reinvigorated for work and am ready to be back in the office tomorrow. I'm also sort of sad though because I'm going "home" but home isn't Chicago, which is where I usually get to go after a conference. It is sort of weird and lonely to go from traveling for a conference to being "home" by myself.

The good thing is I am moving into a time where I will get to see Pete more over the next 3-4 months than I have in the previous 5 or so months. He will be in Spain three weeks from Thursday. Then after he leaves, I will be home (and with him in seattle) less than a month after that. Then it's about 6 weeks til Christmas. So it's all much, much more manageable than the most recent huge break between my trip in July and his upcoming trip here.

I'm still working on not wishing away the time I had here. Upon my return today, I am kicking my Spanish into high gear with several hours of Spanish classes per week and the start of an intercambio or two (where I practice Spanish and English with a native Spanish speaker). Work is also kicking into high gear as subjects start returning for our experiments next week! Very exciting! More when I'm back in Spain!


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Location:Avenue Ouest,Paray-Vieille-Poste,France